Purely Physical Chapter 7
Hermione quivered when she realized exactly what she had gotten herself into. She did want to go away—still wanted to, of course—but as she looked at his broomstick with fear and disdain she felt nauseous at the thought. She didn't want to have to fly high above the ground, beautiful as the silvery landscape may be.
"You know," she faltered, swallowing a lump of caution that had risen, quite unwelcome in her throat.
He turned, piercing his eyes in her direction, and Hermione felt a jolt of understanding. Maybe he wasn't going to talk—after all, were they not still far from friendly?—but he'd tell her how he felt regardless. And right now the palpable grey in his eyes seemed to mock her, asking her, was she afraid? Would she back out? Where was the Gryffindor in her?
She wasn't going to back out. By hell's minions and Satan too, she'd do it. She was brave. She was strong. She could do this.
"Okay," she continued, hardening her face and staring at him coldly, "let's go."
He nodded and mounted his broomstick, beckoning to her. "Get on the back. Don't hold me too tight, or I'll choke, and I'm sure you don't want me falling off on the way, do you?"
Hermione shook her head as a bitter grin crossed her features. Holding her head high and making sure that he realized she wasn't afraid, she slid gracefully onto the back of the broomstick, aware at how uncomfortable it was between her legs. She did not hold onto anything at first, but as the broomstick took off smoothly into the sky, she decided with a sudden bout of fear it was better to look silly than it was to have your limbs splattered somewhere in the Forbidden forest.
"Ease up there," he said, and Hermione could trace a note of lightheartedness in his voice. "You shan't fall off, unless I decide you're too heavy for me."
Stricken at his words she immediately loosened her grip and prayed that someone loved her enough for her to survive this journey. What was she thinking, inviting devil's spawn along with her? Had she been wrong in assessing he wasn't really evil, at least not yet? Was she going to be his first target? Was this all a huge scam just to kill her off? Did he even care about her that much to go to such lengthy pains to rid the world of "one less mud blood"?
"You worry too much," he said softly, almost as if he was speaking to the winds.
Hermione breathed slowly, exhaling loudly and with a dark chuckle. "You're right. That's why I'm leaving."
"So where did you want to go?" he asked casually as the Forbidden forest passed behind them. They were far away from Hogwarts now; far enough for a weight to lift off of Hermione's shoulders and fall with a lump to the grounds. Suddenly she felt freer and lighter, ready to do something wild and creative and so… un-Hermione-like. She was sick of being good and wonderful and perfect and strong and…
She was ready to be weak.
She was ready to be stupid.
"Don't be stupid," he continued.
Her ego deflated in front of her and she wondered briefly if he could read minds. But she dismissed the thought and gave him a quirky half-smile. "I wasn't planning on it," she lied. "I just don't want to be perfect anymore."
"I thought you already ruined that when you started the… thing with me," Draco said as he cleverly maneuvered the broom through the air. There was something about having a conversation up in the clouds, when the sky was dark but at the same time brilliantly illuminated by numerous stars, with your ex-arch-enemy and enjoying it. Hermione was sure she wouldn't forget this moment…even if it wasn't particularly happy or romantic or special or sad or anything at all.
It just was.
"Yeah, I guess… but the more I think about it… I didn't really have that attitude when I started to, you know…yeah the thing in detention," she said seriously, her brows furrowing in concentration.
"So then why'd you do it?" It was a genuine question. Suddenly the conversation had turned from passing time to pressing questions, and everything they said was unexpectedly important and quite real. She had to be very careful about how she answered this… if she answered it at all.
"I don't know," she finally said, as honestly as possible. "A number of reasons. And you?"
He shrugged. "Looking for a new scene."
She was hurt. She hadn't meant to be hurt, hadn't meant to care about a word the damn man said, but she was quite displeased with his answer. So all that contemplation, and his only answer was, 'looking for a new scene?' That was all she had been to him? A change from the likes of Millicent Bulstrode or Pansy Parkinson?
Huffily she dropped the conversation, choosing not to answer him.
"You're upset," he finally assessed. "Why?"
"Just fly the damn stick, Malfoy," she said, his name spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it. So this was how it was. When she was particularly pleased with him, he became Draco—actually decent looking, interesting enough, occasionally even friendly (sort of). When she was upset, he became Malfoy—horrid little bugger that teased and tormented them to death. And when she was neutral, he was just he—cold, enigmatic, breathtaking and a real mystery.
She liked "he" best.
This was odd, because "Draco" was the nicest.
They rode in silence and Hermione shivered as cool air pummeled her grip into his back stronger and stronger. Even though she knew she shouldn't hold on so tight she was really terrified.
They rode silently for most of the night, each reveling in his or her own thoughts. As for Hermione, half of the time she thought about school—the reactions when people discovered that she was indeed missing… what would Dumbledore say? What about Harry and Ron? Lavender and Parvati? Ginny and Neville?
What would they do when they saw that Draco was missing as well? Would Dumbledore automatically assume the two had run off together? It was obviously the easiest judgment; secondly, it was true.
But the other half—the half of Hermione that she hadn't realized was so dominant—wondered instead about the blackness of the sky, the silver of the land, and the softness of her vulnerability. She wondered about what he was thinking. She tried to figure him out.
She laughed inwardly.
She always had to have something to figure out. This time her subject was Draco Malfoy.
They didn't speak very much, but when they did, it was completely dissatisfying. Hermione wanted a long conversation, preferably ferociously controversial, and she somehow felt like arguing right now. But if she brought up anything, he would simply acknowledge her thought, maybe shake his head if he disagreed, or cock an eyebrow at her in that sort of what-drug-are-you-on-now look… and turn away.
This of course led to a new line of the ever-thinking Hermione. She herself did not do any drugs but maybe he did! Maybe that's why he was so crazy all the time… stoners were supposed to be the quiet-type, weren't they? She smiled. What would her parents say if they found out she slept around with a drug addict at least five times a semester?
She almost couldn't believe it. Then she remembered that she was only supposing and hypothesizing; maybe he didn't touch anything illegal.
But that was most certainly not true.
Finally, when she was tired of examining possibilities in her head and sick of thinking about the beautiful ebony of nature, she asked him. "So," she began delicately.
He looked back at her, but only for a moment as at that moment they happened to go straight through a cloud. Hermione sighed. Clouds were light, fluffy, but unbearably, soppingly wet.
She came out absolutely soaked and suddenly frozen as winter forcefully reminded her that she was its victim.
"So what were you going to say?" he asked. Hermione noticed the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. Good. She wasn't the only one in danger of hypothermia (although not at all likely, her practical self reminded her).
She hated that self.
"Oh… I was just… wondering… if you had any, um, stuff."
He turned around fully now and gave her a blank stare. "Could you be any vaguer?" he asked.
She laughed. Sarcasm suited him well; perhaps because he said it so seriously that one would think he was perfectly solemn and honest about the situation. She liked that aspect. Lavender, for example, couldn't pull off sarcastic remarks because of the loud giggle that replaced every other word.
Thank heavens that Draco didn't giggle.
Where had that come from? With a small frown she rephrased her question. "I mean… like, drugs and shit. You got any?"
Hermione could feel him tense up as the nerves sent warning signals to her icy hands. He did not reply for a good thirty seconds, and Hermione wondered if he was even planning on answering the question. Of course since his nature was so suspicious she was positive he had something or the other on him that would classify as a drug.
"Why?" he finally asked. "Why would you ask that?"
She shrugged, and then remembered he couldn't exactly see her shrugging, because she did happen to be sitting behind him. "I don't know," she answered honestly, again. It seemed like she didn't know anything anymore. Then again, was that really a bad thing?
"You had to have some train of thought," he pressed. "Tell me."
His voice had become authoritative and harsh, and he had become commanding. Hermione's heart beat rose and she swallowed, her mouth becoming drier by the second. And then she fumed at herself for being scared of him. He couldn't hurt her; goddamn it, he wasn't going to hurt her. She had to stop thinking that way! She was strong; she had a wand, and she probably knew many more spells than he did.
She didn't make perfect scores for nothing.
Then again… oh, here she was again. Contradicting everything she thought and did. She had to stop that; she had to just go with the flow and let things be. It was the best way to be, after all.
She sighed. "I was just wondering, because sometimes you're open and talkative, sometimes you're closed and rude, and sometimes you're just… enigmatic, you know?" Hermione felt so silly saying the words. It made it sound like she'd been analyzing him in a paper or something; like she'd written an essay on him.
He was going to think she was an absolute idiot.
But he didn't say that. He only laughed. "I can't believe you'd be thinking about that," he muttered. "You must be really bored."
"Oh, no," she felt herself turning pinkish, although that might have been because of the cold, "I just… well you could say that I'm a people-watcher. I like to see what people are doing, and I'm glad to finally step away from the limelight."
He nodded. "Yeah, I'll buy that. It's too weird for you to have made up. But hell, why not, I'll tell you… sure I got 'stuff' as you coined it. Why? You want some?"
Her throat closed up. All throughout her however many years at Hogwarts, she'd always known people who'd had their share of fun and parties—alcohol, drugs, plenty of sex—and she'd always abstained from all of it. She had never let herself see alcohol or drugs; they were only distractions from her studies.
They were only going to seduce her.
But maybe now she was ready to be seduced.
She had made all those little pacts in her Muggle elementary school: I will not do drugs. When she had gone home every summer, all the kids that had pledged were high off of pot, XTC, speed, crack, heroin… whatever it was, they would do it.
And all of them smoked cigarettes.
Not one of them had ever offered anything to Hermione, not that she would have taken the stuff of course. But it was this very thing that they hadn't even bothered to try and incorporate her in the fun that made her want to cry. She just had that persona, that feel that she wasn't cool enough for drugs. She wasn't cool enough to blow her brains getting high or obtain yellow teeth from smoking.
Screw the consequences. She was cool enough and damn it, if the old Hermione wouldn't have done it, irrational-Hermione-on-a-broomstick would.
"Yeah," she said thickly. "What do you have?"
He sighed. "A number of things, but I don't think you should do anything when you're flying."
"Don't drink and fly, huh?" Hermione said, remembering so many slogans from younger years—"don't drink and drive!"
He didn't get it, of course. "Well… yeah…but don't smoke and fly or snort and fly or inject and fly or whatever…"
"Yeah, I know," she eased. "I was just making a reference to a muggle thing."
His nose screwed up at the sentence but he didn't say a word. Hermione decided that whenever something he really had a very strong opinion about or something that was controversial in his world came up, he just closed off and didn't say anything at all. This was completely the opposite of other people's reactions; most people became loud and raucous when it came to instances such as these. They wanted to share. He did not.
Why was he like that?
"I'm tired," he said suddenly. Hermione saw that this was the first revelation about himself that he had made since… since, well, a very long time. "Let's stop."
"Stop? Where are we going?" she asked in wonder.
"I don't know; you're the one who wanted to leave. Had any place in mind?"
"Want to go to London?" she asked. "Maybe Diagon Alley?"
"That's stu—think, Hermione," he pushed gently. "Of course not Diagon Alley. If they think we've run off, which I'm sure they will, they'll check the two biggest wizard communities: Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Can't go to either one. Leaky Cauldron is out as well."
She smiled at the logic. "Well of course, you're right," she said. "I'm being an absolute idiot." She did notice that he had refrained from calling her stupid.
What was up with him? Why was he so weird!
She loved it. It was beyond intriguing.
The black of the night had considerably lightened by this time, and streaks of faintest pink had begun to dot around the horizon. Light purples blended into the sweetest of blues to create a beautiful picture that Hermione drank in with happiness: this was so wonderful, something she could never have seen from her Hogwarts dormitory.
She checked the time. Five a.m.
She realized that she was tired as well. "Where are we now?" she asked, yawning.
"Hmm, somewhere really close to London, actually…" he peered down. "Oh! We're actually right on the outskirts of it; I know a hotel around here!"
She hadn't seen him this excited in a long time either. Why had he agreed to come with her? She'd tackle that one later. "Well, let's stop," she decided, and they began to spiral downwards, Hermione's heart hammering in relief with every ten feet they dropped. Thankfully, her feet soon touched ground, and for a few moments she was wobbly and insecure, but soon regained her normal poise.
The streets were just lightening, but life was still not visible except for the occasional vendor setting up his cart. Hermione marveled at the will power of coming down so early to go to work. She could never do that.
They stopped before the hotel, a big building that was still shiny even from absence of light. "What is this?" she asked him. "Is it a wizard's hotel or a regular one?"
"It's a regular one," he told her, "but my father knows a wizard who works here. He'll get us free rooms, I know he will."
"Won't he tell your father?" she asked worriedly.
"He could, but even if he did, Lucius wouldn't care."
"Really?" she breathed. "Your dad doesn't care?"
"Well, he's got this… let-him-learn-for-himself philosophy. And this would just be another lesson. I used to think it was a really smart parenting decision, but look at all the shit I can get away with. I think Lucius is just lazy."
"You call your dad Lucius?" she asked incredulously.
He shrugged. "Why not? Never was that close to him, anyway."
She was entranced by the laid-back attitude towards his father and his parenting methods. Maybe Draco did just as much thinking as she did. Perhaps even more so.
They entered the building and were greeted by a sleepy look. No one was there except for an old man sitting on the desk looking rather tired and clutching a cup of coffee. "Warbleu," Draco called out. The man sat up, his attention span suddenly revived.
"Why… is that you, Master Malfoy? Draco?" he asked, rubbing his temples. Hermione noticed his hair was greasy.
"Yes, it's me. Listen, I've run away from school. Could I have a room please?"
Warbleu rubbed his eyes and Hermione was amazed at how forthright Draco was about the whole thing. She'd never have been able to do that; she'd have stumbled around the fact until she had painfully embarrassed herself. Not Draco… he just cut right to the chase, so to speak.
"You've run away, you claim?" the man, probably called Warbleu, asked, struggling to comprehend the situation. "With this lovely young lass?"
"Well, not exactly with her," Draco continued amiably. "But we both decided we'd had enough of it and just happened to leave 'round the same time. Make it two rooms, please."
"Can't give away two free rooms, Mr. Malfoy," Warbleu chided. "But I'll give you one with two single beds. Is that all right?"
"Yes, could you hurry up a bit, we're exhausted," Draco snapped. Warbleu actually trembled a bit as he dropped a key into Draco's hands. He turned to Hermione with an apologizing look.
"I'd give you one too, Miss, but I really can't. Sorry you'll have to share a room with this little excuse for a boy," he teased. "Do come chat with me when I'm fully awake, Draco. Now go rest and make sure the lass is all right."
Draco nodded. "Chivalry isn't dead yet," he agreed, and motioned for Hermione to follow him. They trudged up the stairs to find mahogany colored doors with nice brass knockers. "Is this a good hotel?" she asked sleepily.
"If you're talking about how it's rated, it's a four-star hotel. Lucius and Narcissa stay in it only a few times; only if they have to visit one of their lower-class friends and don't want to seem condescending about it."
"I didn't know Lucius was courteous enough for that," she said.
He shrugged. "I don't really care." He shoved the key into the lock and opened the door, and they were greeted by a warm sight: two welcoming beds.
Hermione did not even bother to examine the room. She headed straight for the nearest bed, looked at Draco one last time, and crashed.
She dreamt of many things… sex, Draco, school, Harry, drugs, broomsticks, the moon, Warbleu.
But most of all, she dreamt of seduction.
A/N: Well, hope everyone knows there's more than one meaning to the word 'seduction'. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It took me a while to write it and its still not as long as I would've liked, but it'll have to do, because I simply can't think of anything else that won't lead into a very long tangent and add 2000 words to the story (which I don't have time to write right now). If you're all panicky about beloved, good Hermione thinking about drugs, I say, remember that before things get better, they always get worse. And I know she's at a point of complete vulnerability; thoughts like these are bound to arise.
Question is, will her integrity let her do it? And what about Draco's weird personality? What about the people back home? And this is where I'm confronted with a problem: I want to explore about the people left at Hogwarts, but if you notice this whole fic is Hermione's POV. I want to keep it that way, so it's going to be rather difficult to say what Ron is feeling right now. Tell me what you think of that.
I just want to thank you all so much for your amazing, amazing reviews. They make my day. When I started this fic I planned on maybe eight chapters max; I know it's going to be much longer now. I also thought that I'd get maybe a hundred reviews max, and thank you all for giving me so much more! Reviews are amazing motivation and some give fantastic ideas. They really make an author want to write. So please, keep them coming, and thank you so much. Whew, this author's note is so long, I'm sorry… I'll stop now!