Hermione
Hogwarts
End of May 1996
Hermione found it quite shocking that no one at Hogwarts seemed to have pieced together that her and Draco were involved to some capacity.
Sure, there was Pansy, who likely knew to the most concrete measure. And Hermione suspected Luna already had her suspicions. But otherwise, the world around them remained clueless.
They were taking precautions, though, because the sheer order of events that had taken place that year was bound to cause suspicion at some point.
After Draco had been released from the Medical Wing, he made a rather public display about breaking up with Astoria. Word traveled amongst the houses, which eventually got back to Hermione that Draco had been rather cruel in how he ended things.
That evening in the Room of Requirement, Hermione scolded Draco for being so mean, which didn't accomplish much because Hermione was rather certain riling her up into a tizzy was one of Draco's favorite things.
In the end, he kissed her, reminded her that he's a cold hearted bastard, and that the public expected nothing less of him.
Hermione kissed him back, then pulled away and tsked him to be nicer, and that he in fact was not a cold hearted bastard and to stop pushing everyone away all the time.
So the fact that Draco Malfoy was newly unattached, and strangely, Hermione Granger and him happened to always disappear around the same times drew very little attention, thankfully.
Harry would normally be a concern, what with his obsession with Malfoy's comings an goings, but Hermione had charmed the Marauders Map to be untrustworthy and jumble all the names on the map when her and Draco were either together, or off the map in the Room of Requirement. Snape would be in the Ravenclaw's common room, Lavender Brown would be in the trees just outside Herbology. Anything to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the Marauders.
Not like Hermione really even needed to take those measures. Ever since Harry and Ginny got together his mind was elsewhere.
It was only really Ron that continued to be a problem.
Draco insisted that Ron get the same public shaming of a breakup that Astoria had, while adding a specific request for Hermione throw in some jargon about how she'll only be with impressive wizards from now on (to which Hermione replied innocently, 'oh you mean like Viktor Krum?' to which Malfoy replied in a slight tizzy, 'no not like that!' but then in realizing she was baiting him, proceeded to promptly make her forget the name Viktor Krum).
As much as she hated it, and by the looks of it, Draco hated it more, the truth was she couldn't publicly call things off with Ron at that very moment. It would be too obvious something was up.
Afterall, it's not like her and Ron were ever actually together. All she needed to do was to put distance between them. Hermione assured Draco that it would all just fade away with lack of attention.
One evening, weeks after Draco had been released from the medical wing, Hermione hovered in a secluded section of the stacks attempting to track down a niche book on transfiguration. Though Draco did not know it yet, she had completed his body double to her satisfaction, and now merely was doing additional research to see if there were improvements she could make before the reveal.
Draco had just left the library and her, taking with him a book on magical transportation devices, specifically on the topic of transporting living things.
Just two nights prior, they had managed to send an apple through the cabinet, and to their surprise it was returned with a bite taken out of it.
Hermione was overjoyed, calling their mission a great success, when Draco rightly noted that they should attempt the same experiment but with a living thing.
Sure enough, when they attempted it with a bird, the poor thing did not end up making the journey.
Despite the somber atmosphere after their failure, Hermione could not help but be a little wooed by her unlikely partner. He was logical about the experiment when she wasn't. His competency and skill (in a wide manner of things) was utterly, reprehensibly irresistible.
Hermione had banished Draco from the library back to the Room of Requirement that night, where she would meet him shortly. He revoked his rights to stay there with her when he refused to give her a moment of peace to find her own book. With anyone else, she could fend off distraction easily, but with him, he needed to be firmly out of her grasps to remain on task.
So that was why when she felt a hand graze her hip, she spun around in bemused frustration at his persistence.
"I thought I told you to leave!" Hermione spoke in a feigned annoyed tone as she turned around.
But it wasn't Draco. It was Ron.
"Ron!" Hermione leapt back, though she was now backed in against a book shelf.
The red head stood before her, his eyes dark and moody, and a bit apprehensive. Only inches separated the two.
A look of uncertainty flashed across Ron's face. For a moment he may have considered why Hermione had just said what she had, as if she was expecting someone else. But it passed.
"Hermione," his voice was dark, and even sultry. A year ago this would have been her fantasy.
Ron's chin dipped low to look at Hermione. Hesitantly she made eye contact, but could feel how twitchy she was being in their close proximity.
"Ron, actually this is probably a good time to have a more serious discussion," Hermione rambled out, feeling the waver in her voice.
When Ron did not reply, Hermione lifted her chin to see what he was doing.
In an instant, his lips were against hers. A hand graced her chin, doing what it could to bring her face into his. But she was unresponsive to him, with the exception of a muffled squeak.
It lasted no more than a few seconds. With Hermione's lips pressed tight, and her body going rigid, it took little time for Ron to get the message.
Having moved away from her, Ron's head dipped in despair.
"I don't get it," he said, almost to himself. Hermione felt terrible for her friend, but at the same time grateful this moment was happening. Lines needed to be drawn.
"I'm sorry Ron, I can only be your friend right now," Hermione explained to him, relaxing slightly in their close proximity now that it appeared that Ron was understanding their dynamic.
His eyes trailed to hers. "I thought we liked each other."
"We did," she told him gently.
"I still like you," he added, his eyes growing serious again. She shook her head.
"I'm sorry Ron. I don't see it that way anymore."
Because hell had frozen over, and all that mattered to her was a blonde haired Slytherin who could be such a prat sometimes, but also an exceptionally talented wizard, and surprisingly funny, and devastatingly handsome…
"Hermione," Ron spoke. Her eyes focused. "Do you think we could ever be together?"
His voice was so sincere, so hopeful.
All she could see was visions of Draco. In the past, when she'd imagine the future the details of her life, it was all so crisp, so planned out. That all still existed, to some extent. But there was a constant presence of Malfoy that intermingled with every single one of her dreams for what was to come.
It took her by such surprise, she shook.
Ron, having misinterpreted her stunned silence took a step back, giving her space.
"I won't make you answer that. Let's just put this behind us for now."
Hermione did not like the sound 'for now', but nodded all the same, not knowing what she'd really say in response to that.
"Yes, we need to be there for Harry." Hermione clarified.
Ron gave a terse nod, then took a step back, and turned away, walking out of the stacks.
Ten minutes later, Hermione entered the Room of Requirement. In her approach to their clearing, which was doubling as a command center, she did what she could to act natural.
She would need to tell Draco what just happened, and her whole body was tense with nerves.
As she turned the corner, his eyes craned away from the book he was looking at while leaned up against the cabinet. Everything about the wizard before her was effortless. He leaned so casually against the stubborn cabinet, a book open in one hand, his posture as aloof as if he was doing something that didn't involve his own perseverance.
Not a second went by before he slammed the book shut with one hand and marched up to Hermione.
"What happened?" his hands were reaching out for hers, having discarded the book on a table as he passed.
She wasn't sure what her face told him, but apparently her efforts to seem casual about all of this was not working.
"The good news is the Ron situation is taken care of now," Hermione explained to him, but her voice was too tight.
A grip went from his hand to hers.
"What do you mean the Ron situation is taken care of?" Draco asked in a measured tone. "What did he do?"
Hermione took a deep breath.
"He found me in the stacks…"
Another tense grip from his hand. "I'm going to kill him…"
"Draco, now wait. I told him nothing was going to happen between me and him."
"Did he do anything to provoke you telling him that?" Draco bit back, his eyes flickering to the Room of Requirement door.
Frankly, Malfoy was too smart for his own good. Hermione would have easily been able to manage a conversation such as this with Harry and Ron without them figuring it all out before she could explain it.
But that was why she was there alone with him in an unplotted room, helping him escape the Death Eaters. Because he was exceptional.
"He did kiss me…" Hermione finally revealed.
She had to jerk his hand back from moving towards the exit.
"Draco!" she called out, and the special power of using his given name seemed to work only slightly as he stilled.
"I'm going to kill him," he said again, this time with more gruff to it. His eyes were darting about, looking for an outlet for his murderous rage.
Hermione was beginning to grow a bit concerned. He wasn't looking at her and the look behind his eyes could only compare to the lethality of what she saw the night Cormac accosted her.
"Draco I'm sorry," Hermione rasped out, pulling his hand into hers again. His eyes shot open and took her in with shock.
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because… Ron kissed me. I'm sorry I let that happen."
Whatever fury was behind his look softened, but remained serious.
"Granger, you have nothing to be sorry for. You were kissed without permission. He violated your trust."
Hermione's expression turned stunned. She was certain that Draco would be at least to a some extent, not pleased with her for ending up in a situation where someone else could kiss her. At least that's how she figured a wizard would act given the stories she had been told by other classmates of hers.
Seeing her confusion, Draco stepped into her, taking her face firmly in his hand.
"Granger," his voice was velvet as his thumb moved along her jaw. "I am not a man that gets jealous."
"Oh?" was all Hermione could muster out. Her body coiled tightly in on itself.
"For one, you picked me despite me being a Death Eater," Draco reminded her, his lips moving closer to her ear.
"Also you were tasked to kill Dumbledore," she bleated out for whatever reason, her voice wavering with anticipatory nerves.
"Yes, that too," she couldn't see his expression anymore, but was sure there was a smirk.
The heat of his breath against her neck happened first, followed by the soft pressure of his lips just below her ear.
"Even with that aside," he said with steely control, "I know you would still pick me…"
Separately, his left hand trailed down her side until it landed against the button of her pants.
"...is it because of how truly humble you are?" Hermione cracked back, but her wobbly voice gave away that whatever he was doing was working wonders on her.
The button of her pants loosened, followed by the sound of a zipper being lowered.
"Guess again Granger…"
A finger slipped below her panty line, into her folds and she gasped.
Bit by bit, he began to circle her methodically, nipping at her neck as he went along.
"Do…" Hermione tried to speak, but was silenced momentarily by a surge of pleasure. "Do…. you think I'm just some lusty witch who… who can be swayed by such things?"
Hermione was trying so hard to play his game, to make him think that he wasn't absolutely right.
"No Granger," his breath was hot near her ear. "But I do know that you appreciate skill…"
He had angled her jeans down and slipped a finger inside her. She clenched around him, letting a soft moan dance between them.
"...you admire my ability to be so….competent."
The finger that had entered her moved inward and began circling the deep thrumming tension that built inside.
When his thumb came back around and touched the nerve endings just outside her opening, a loud moan echoed mysteriously throughout the Room of Requirement that felt too big for such things as echos.
"...cast…cast a muffliato charm," Hermione gasped out, forgetting where she was and how they couldn't be caught, all while he continued to move within her to the point of no return.
A sultry laugh sounded by hear ear. "You'll need to teach me that later. I'm currently preoccupied."
His free hand gripped at her neck, tipping her jaw back as he let his tongue dance down the soft skin between her ear and collar bone.
Panting feverishly, Hermione hitched her leg against his outer thigh and urged herself into him more, feeling the tenseness of the muscles down below pulling together on his finger.
He took her face with his less occupied hand and made her look at him.
"Are you going to come for me Granger?" he asked, and his eyes were black fire against cool ice.
She nodded, her eyes closing tightly as she got close.
His thumb gripped her chin, sending her eyes back to his.
"Tell me you're going to come for me," he repeated, and a surge of something new coursed through her.
It took a second to find her voice.
"I'm going to…" her voice hitched but their eye contact did not falter, "Draco…I'm…I'm going to come for you"
And as she said it, she magically did. It was as if he had access to a button that he had only hovered over, and then slammed down on it when the time was right.
She clenched her body into his as the aftershocks of her orgasm slowed to something more manageable.
Slowly, very slowly, Draco pulled his fingers from her, adjusted her pants to their previous position, and then dip down to linger a kiss softly across her lips.
"I'm not worried about you picking Weasle," Draco said with an argonance that made her thrill in a way she could not make sense of. She kissed him back.
"But I'm still going to kill him."
An hour later, with many smug grins from Draco and a few stammered responses from Hermione in between, the two had found their working groove and were well underway with repairs on the vanishing cabinet.
Hermione sat near the cabinet with legs crossed and the book Draco had just brought from the library opened to page 325.
From the ground, she instructed Draco on what incantations to do to the currently out of wack transportation device.
After a final pass, Draco helped Hermione up to her feet as the two stared in apprehensive silence at the wooden heap. For a beat, nothing happened, but then, a deep shudder shook the entire frame of the device. Something that it had never done in their past attempts to repair it.
Now after weeks of work and several breakthroughs and even more failures than they could count, they stood before their work, and placed another bird in it.
With the bird chirping away secured within the cabinet, Draco tapped the door which produced a odd sucking sound, and then the chirping ceased. He opened it up to confirm it was gone.
"And now we wait," Draco said, pulling Hermione into him by the hip.
A few minutes had gone by when the strange sound from the cabinet whirled again, and then a second later, the chirping of a bird.
Hermione broke away from Draco, opening the cabinet door. Without equivocation, the very alive bird took off in flight to the upper expanses of the Room of Requirement.
A few charged moments of silence passed before Draco mumbled, "we did it."
His words broke Hermione's trance and she shouted back, "we did it!" She turned to Draco who looked dumbfounded, but she knew her face was plastered with joy. "We did it!" She yelled again, now running into his arms.
He scooped her up, lifting her body up off the ground and swinging her feet loosely in the air, holding her tightly as he buried his face into her neck.
"We did it!" he laughed into her ear, finally coming through the shock at having accomplished their task.
He set her down as their joy turned somber, each recognizing what their success meant for their time together.
Hermione cleared her throat nervously. " I finished your body double," He watched her as she moved back to her bag and pulled out a small figure that couldn't have been more than a size of a bean. "Would you like to see it?"
He gave her a terse nod.
Placing the bean sized figure down, she pointed her wand at it, growing it to a life sized form.
In a bizarre scene, laying before them was Draco, appearing lifeless in tattered robes.
Hermione surveyed Draco's expression as he inspected his lifeless form. At one point he felt the skin of the doppelganger, but withdrew his hand quickly, reacting to the odd sensation of how it actually felt like flesh.
Hermione knew the replica had to be perfect, but she was confident that there wasn't another person alive who could have done a better job than her.
With her knowledge that he was a Death Eater, Draco no longer hesitated in taking off his shirt while they were together, though he did try to glamor it once or twice for her sake. With unrestricted access, Heremione had found herself analyzing every inch of him while they laid together, committing every detail to memory, using it as a guide to ensure what she made was flawless.
Perhaps the hardest detail to add with the Dark Mark. It would be a dead giveaway if she had tried a transfiguration technique, or even a muggle tattoo. So, she set out to the restricted section one day with a forged note from Flitwick in hand, to find a guide on how to cast a morsmordre spell.
She was surprised to find that morsmordre, while reasonably difficult to cast, was not exceedingly hard to master, and more crude than anything else. In a way, it was a version of a muggle tattoo bound to the skin by dark properties.
Draco rose back to full height and gave Hermione a grim nod of approval. Not wanting to look at his lifeless form any longer, she shrunk the body back down and accioed it to her hand, then stowed it away in her bag.
"So, everything is in place," Hermione said in a hallow voice. "The next time Harry and Dumbledore leave, we can get you out of here."
The two stood facing each other in an edgy silence.
They both knew what this meant.
The minute the time was right, and if all went to plan, Draco would escape to safety (though appear to have died), and Hermione would stay behind to fight.
After that happened, there was no guarantee they would see one another again.
Quiet hot tears slipped down Hermione's cheek. Draco reached out and began wiping them away with his finger.
Silently, Draco guided Hermione to a nearby couch and brought her down with him, taking her into his arms.
Hermione was still hiccuping from soft sobs. She cursed how effective they were as a team. Perhaps they would have more time if they were each slightly less noteworthy.
"Granger," Draco said tenderly as he brought her face up to his. She immediately began scanning the contours of his face like they were about to disappear.
"I don't want to say goodbye to you," she choked out before he could say anything more.
Draco's face looked tortured as he gripped onto her tighter. His head shook slightly and his eyes narrowed, looking as if he had similar feelings but couldn't vocalize them.
Her eyes were desperate. Not knowing how else to be closer to him in that moment, she frantically brought his mouth to hers with impatiences.
Tears continued down her cheeks, breathing him in as she found his tongue with hers, slowly delving into one another, savoring the moments they had left.
Hermione pressed her curled up body against his. Draco found her thighs and moved her on top of him to a straddle.
She pressed her chest against his, so determined to absorb every last ounce of this wizard.
His hands were meticulously exploring her body, giving her the impression that he was doing the same; taking his time to commit her to memory.
She rolled her core over his and felt him buck. She did it again.
"Draco…" she whispered into his mouth, slowing their kiss.
He let out a ragged sigh, knowing what she wanted.
"We can't," he rasped back, his words sounding like they were an utter betrayal to his body.
"I only want you Draco, I wouldn't want it to ever be someone else," she pleaded with him, leaving off the part that she worried that he may be it for her.
His fingers clawed at her waist. "You know if the plan doesn't work what we'll have to do. You're just not where you need to be with your occlumency to risk your safety like that," he listed out, sounding hoarse and frantic as if trying to convince himself of the facts.
"I can be good enough at it when the time comes" she retorted, her eyes asking him to consider.
He took out his wand, giving her more than enough fair warning that he was about to cast a legilimens on her. After arching a brow as if to ask for permission to proceed, then a brief nod by her, he spoke the incantation.
Instantly, she felt Draco riffle through every personal file she had tried to organize away of the two of them together, easily replaying the most scandalous moments they had shared.
As he effortlessly glided around her mind while she expended every ounce of effort to cast him out, he found a section that seemed to indicate self doubt. It shown an insecurity that Draco did not want to go any further with her, that she would be too inexperienced to be of any interest to him.
Shaking his head within her mind, he moved on.
He paused at a box that looked too private; one that he did not want to betray her trust in accessing, but could tell all the same it had everything to do with him.
He pulled back. His eyes were glassy and tinted hazy from some of the more lurid memories he replayed.
"I could have gone further," he told her.
"I'm distracted right now," she tried to argue but his expression remained serious.
"They would torture you before they tried," he explained, his look thick with concern.
She knew he was right. If their plan did not work, they would need to go to their back up plan. And in that scenario, having sex now would be a complicated line to cross.
Draco started kissing her again, but she pushed away, wanting a fight.
"And your occlumency is better?" she feebly protested. He gave her a sad smile and nodded.
"I have been studying occlumency since third year," He explained. "I was able to keep Snape out during an unprovoked attempt earlier this year."
"I know I can be good enough when the time comes," Hermione tried to negotiate, desperately wanting to redraw the rules for the backup plan. He kissed her softly.
"We can't risk it. I know you, and knowing will impair your judgment. And if you were caught, they would find the truth if we don't take action," his voice flattered for a moment. "I won't be able to save you if they know. The things they'll do to you just to punish me. And there wouldn't be anything I could do about it."
The grip around Hermione's body tightened and she could feel a slight quiver from his hand to her lower back.
As much as she wanted to test the limits, she knew leaving any loose ends would only put him in danger as well.
"Granger," he spoke softly, his face now inches from hers. She looked up. "Cast legimmens on me"
Only having studied the spell in theory, Hermione had no clue what to expect. Her hands were already trembling with how intimate the act of entering another person's mind was.
She reached down to her wand, pointed it at his head, and whispered the incantation.
Her surroundings were replaced by total darkness as wispy visions of reality began forming in front of her.
First, she saw herself through Draco's eyes at their first detention. She saw his evasive stares in her general direction, and felt the debate that raged within him at what was forming.
Then, she was looking at herself in a darkened library. It was the night of the Gryffindor win. She could feel something dangerously strong ripple through her as the vision showed her the moment she kissed him. A voice in the memory tried to talk reason into Draco that he needed to let her go, that he could not have her.
She had no control of what she saw, he was that skilled at the practice that it was no more than a guided tour of his mind. But he took her through several moments of their budding romance, all culminating to the moment where she told him he knew everything, and that she still wanted him.
Then, the wisps of reality began to swirl, shifting to something else.
The scene began to take form, revealing a place that was unfamiliar to Hermoine; a darkened room draped with lush fabrics, and a large bed at the center. On the bed, Hermione was barely clothed, and next to her was Draco, equally undressed and doing things to her that she had also secretly imagined in the confines of her own imagination.
It wasn't a memory, Hermione noted, rather a vision Draco constructed for her to see.
Hermione was pulled back from the scene until she was back in reality, straddled over Draco, feeling against her leg how the visions effected him.
His cheeks were flushed, both from arousal and the energy needed to accomplish such a feat.
"I don't want you to even for a second, think that I don't want what you want" he spoke heatedly. He pulled in in a shallow breath, attempting to calm himself. "But you needed to see how advanced one needs to be to stave off a Death Eater intrusion," he paused. "I can make them see whatever I need them to see."
Hermione watched Draco from where she sat, her own body reeling from what he had shown her. Draco sat, easing his breathing, staring back at Hermione.
"That vision at the end," Hermione began, letting her eyes flick away at the last minute out of nerves. "Do you think about that, often?"
Hermione wasn't looking at him, and began to feel nervous when he didn't said anything for a few seconds. When she looked back up, his eyes were blazing.
"It is a shock that I can get anything done, honestly." he gave her a coy grin. "It's all I think about."
Hermione let her chin drop with a knowing grin. The feeling was mutual.
She leaned her face down to his, and once again, let his lips give her life.
Her fingers meandered through his hair, feeling the slick smooth fibers dance through her hands as they continued their embrace. As she would move her hips against his, he would let appreciative moans trespass between their lips into her mouth, making her smile.
"Let's stay here tonight," Draco asked,his lips only parting for the second needed to speak the words.
"People may notice," Hermione replied, also only taking the minimal necessary time away from kissing him to respond.
"I don't care anymore," Draco rebutted, this time speaking against her lips, bucking his hips up into hers, making Hermione giggle.
She smiled against his lips. "OK," she replied, muffled from his lips on hers.
"OK?" he replied, his voice sounding on the edge of being giddy, an adjective she would have never previously used to describe the surly Slytherin.
But that was before she really knew him. Before her mind and body fell helplessly for the arrogant arse.
He pulled her body tightly into his and swooped her from a seated position to firmly under him. Throaty, peels of laughter burst out from Hermione as he settled over her, his face coming down to meet hers.
"What if we never left here?" he rhetorically asked, his eyes watching hers intently as he adjusted one arm away to move away a stray hair. His hand then lingered and tenderly brushed her temple.
She let herself consider the proposal for a second, her eyes looking up in thought. An involuntary grin spread across her face.
Draco's eyes suddenly became serious on hers. He continued to hold her face, his thumb moving in slow circles against her cheek.
"Whatever happens," he started, his eyes becoming steely, making Hermione's chest thrum. "We have to find each other on the other side of all of this."
A burning sensation behind her eyes began to threaten Hermione's disposition. The thought of not being with him felt hallow, like a regression into a dark past. She could never come back from this feeling of being with Draco Malfoy.
"I promise we will find each other on the other side of this," her voice sounded brassy and demanding.
Draco lowered himself down onto her, her arms snaking around his back, pulling him in so she could feel nothing else but his body on hers.
They fought sleep for as long as they could that night, not wanting to waste a minute of their stolen time with something as unimportant as sleep.
After some time though, exhaustion took them, and in a way that only happened when they were with each other, they drifted off into a deep rest, blissfully unaware that the next day, everything they had been preparing would be put to the test.