"So what happened?" Draco asked her the minute the door was slammed shut and locked again.
"What makes you think anything happened?" Hermione asked. She wearily sat down beneath the vent with her back against the wall.
"I heard him say 'shower time'. That's usually not something good, at least for first-timers."
Hermione thought about that and wondered at the kind of experiences he must have had in his long stay there to be able to say something like that. She was willing to bet they weren't good ones.
"Granger?"
"What?"
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Really?"
"Yes, really, Malfoy."
He was silent for a while and she began to doze.
"Are you a cold fish, Granger?"
"Am I a what?"
"A cold fish," he repeated. "You know, frigid."
She sighed. "You're going to have to explain that to me because you cannot possibly be asking me what I think you're asking me."
"For fuck's sake, Granger, don't be dense," he said. "Are you a lousy lay? Do you just kind of, well, lay there, or what?"
"I don't see what that has to do with anything, Malfoy."
"It has to do with shower time, you dumb bint," he snapped.
"Nothing happened in the shower, Malfoy," she said patiently. "And as to your questions; no, I do not usually just lay there. And I have absolutely no idea if I am a 'lousy lay', as I have never quite been able to figure out how one goes about fucking oneself. However, I can say with complete certainty that I have never once had a complaint."
He was quiet again for perhaps half a minute, then asked, "Are you ugly then?"
Hermione growled in irritation.
"Was that a yes, Granger?"
"No, Malfoy, that was not a yes."
"So you're not ugly."
"No."
"You sound pretty sure of yourself there, Granger."
"Malfoy, I swear to God—"
"Are you fat?"
"Bloody hell," she said in exasperation. "No, I am not fat."
"Are you sure?"
"Last time I cared enough to check I weighed about a hundred and ten pounds, though that's probably gone down a bit recently. Yes, I'm sure."
He was quiet again for long enough that she almost began to believe that he had lost interest in the subject. No such luck.
"Do you have some kind of strange growth on your—?"
"Malfoy, I'll make a deal with you," she said abruptly.
"What kind of deal?" he asked, intrigued.
"If you shut up and stop asking me questions about how tall I am, how big my ass is, and what kinds of funny little moles I have between my eyes, I promise that if we ever both get out of here, I'll shag you senseless so you can do your own evaluation from first-hand experience."
He chuckled softly. "Granger, you do know the odds against us ever actually both getting out of here, don't you?"
She grinned despite herself. "Yes. Why else do you think I would make such a stupid promise?"
"Because you've secretly wanted me all these years and been repressing it?" he ventured innocently.
She snorted. "Hardly."
"Alright, fine," he said. "If you somehow manage to get us both out of here, Granger, I swear I'll let you ravage me within an inch of my life."
"That was not the deal," she said.
"Sure it was," he said. "I just said it different."
She rolled her eyes and snuggled down in her new clean clothes. She had just shut her eyes when she heard him breathing heavily in the next cell.
"Malfoy, what are you doing?"
She heard him grunt, then give an aggravated sigh. "Wanking to mental images of you in nothing but your knickers, Granger."
He certainly had an odd fascination with her knickers. She really didn't think he'd find them all that interesting if he knew that they were plain white cotton, faded to grey from repeated use by strangers.
"No, really, what are you doing?"
"Push-ups, Granger," he said. "Relax, why don't you?"
"Oh," she said. That made sense. It also sounded like something she might try herself later. After a nap. "Why?"
"Gives me something to do besides wank to mental images of you in nothing but your knickers," he said, and laughed.
"Whatever," she muttered. "Go back to your wanking then, Malofy. Sorry I disturbed you."
"Anytime, Granger."
"Goodnight, Malfoy," she said pointedly.
"Goodnight, Granger."
Surprisingly, she did go to sleep soon after, despite her own mental images of him wanking to mental images of her in nothing but her knickers.