A/N: Shorty chap.
A/N: I'd like to thank all of those who've left reviews! I love seeing everyone's feelings about what's transpired between these two, and reading what some of you think will happen. I even appreciate the random one about cocaine..? I've never called cocaine 'grey snow' before. Geographically, we call it 'lift tickets'. But if this story was about cocaine, you'd all know by now.
Chapter 20
By the time erermione made it back to her dorm, she was both happy and mortified that Draco had found her.
She was happy because she'd been able to see him one more time that day, and she'd also gotten to harass him a bit. It made him smile, or pull that smirk that made her feel either one of two ways: attracted and intrigued, or annoyed and angry. It had been the former in this case. She was also happy that she hadn't needed to conjure a tent and sleep in the snow.
But she was later mortified that she'd most definitely been drunk, which caused the witch to initially wave her hand at Draco's retreating back in indifference, vowing she was fine with it all. 'It's just Draco sodding Malfoy,' she'd thought, knowing the man had always been a bit of a fence sitter. But the witch was mortified further when she later thought about how the entire trip up the maze of moving and vanishing stairs was spent bopping and shaking her butt while singing, "Blood sugar baby, she's magik, sex magik. Sex magik."
All of this- feeling unfazed, singing one of her favorite songs, and feeling like she'd had a bit of an adventure- to end up walking into her room, dropping her pack and cloak on the floor, which was unlike her, and stiffening before falling face-first onto the crimson red comforter that festooned her queen-sized bed.
It was like the two little bounces from her belly flop reset her brain, because she groaned in humiliation the second she settled, her fuzzy mind playing what it could clearly recall from her encounter with the Slytherin. She seemed to focus most often on the moment when he'd gone from being entranced by her, to when his eyes seemed to sober up, his lips so close to being on her own.
It wasn't that she wasn't at least somehow satisfied by the kiss to her head, but what had happened? Did her breath smell? Worse than whiskey smell? She didn't have to try to smell her own breath, because all she could smell was whiskey, what with lying there face down in her bed. She frowned again and rolled onto her back, staring up at the stone ceiling while having an existential debate. It didn't last too long, though, before she stood up and went to the bathroom to take a quick shower and brush her teeth, only to pass out with wet hair and her towel when she laid down on her bed afterward.
When she awoke in the middle of the night, it was to feel nauseous and dehydrated, forced to cast an Accio to to retrieve her wand from the floor, then conjured two glasses of water. She almost fell right back to sleep after consuming both, only to have to get out of bed to throw the water up. She conjured one more glass of the cool liquid, took a couple of sips, and went back to sleep.
She then awoke before dawn, and spent the day in bed nursing her hangover by drinking water and consuming junk snacks she'd brought with her to school. They'd stayed fresh in her trunk, and she was thrilled when she remembered their existence. The muscles in her legs and hips were sore enough that she had to grab her expanded beaded bag and go looking through it for a pain-relieving draught. There hadn't been a Sober-Up, though, so she didn't trust herself walking all the way down to the dungeon to get her breakfast.
Besides. The likelihood of her seeing Draco wasn't necessarily slim. All she knew was that she wasn't sure if the two should talk right away after last night, because even though he hadn't kissed her lips, he'd kissed her face, and that seemed so much more intimate; it felt like it meant more than most other acts. Sitting on his lap, or holding his hand, or him holding her to his chest while they flew through the blizzard all seemed trivial when it came to the sign of affection, and she found herself covering her face with her hands as she thought about what something like that could mean.
He respected her and admired her, and the kiss had confirmed one thing she'd been wondering about since his admitting his feelings: he fancied her. His respect and admiration had, at one point, turned to fancy, and the witch wasn't sure she could handle that thought at the moment. There was so much weight to that truth; it was heavy, and she was forced to sit in her room and think about what that meant to the near future.
If one were to add on the way she'd been reacting to him, she was sure he was aware that she had begun to fancy him back.
"Oh, bugger," she swore, thinking of the smile she'd given him when he'd flown up to her in the snow.
If that wasn't proof enough that she hadn't minded the idea of him kissing her, she didn't know what was. Then she'd remember the silly things she said to him and roll her eyes once more, resting her face in her palm as she shook her head in shame.
After many hours over-evaluating the facts, as was typical of the witch, she decided to finish her letter to Ginny. She added the new details that had occurred since Madam Puddifoot had paused her train of thought the night before, and even though it had been half past ten at night, she finally felt good enough to walk to the owlry.
