Title: The Feeling's Mutual
Author: the_woods_
Rating: NC-17
Summary: People seek comfort during traumatic times in different ways. Two students at Hogwarts decide to embrace the only familiar thing left in their gloomy days: their passionate hate.
Warnings: Graphic sex, foul language.
Disclaimer: I don't own HP.
A/N: This story was my first attempt at Dramione. I've corrected some grammatical errors since then, but the story remains the same.

x.x.x

Everything is changing.

From bloody Pothead's ridiculous mood swings, to the Dark Lord's rise in power, to all of the professors' badly hidden anxiety—it's all changing.

The school? Shit, the school...it's not a school, anymore. Hollow eyes, burned out souls, dead personalities. Even Potter's hero-act seems to be draining, and the rest of the student's hope, as well.

Not that I'm complaining. This is reality. It's about time the other houses got a whiff of what it means to be in the real world, where we aren't sheltered by an old, psychotic git and a couple defensive spells. We're on the brink of fucking war, and instead of preparation, instead of suspicion and apprehension, there's people sitting on their arses quivering. There's stupidity. There's goddamn hiding, for Merlin's sake.

This place is a prison. One that I'll eventually hex my way out of, according to Father and the rest of those in league with the Dark Lord.

Not that I'm looking forward to it. Change is a fucking bitch, but at least I know I'll be able to handle myself.

Through the din of the Great Hall cuts one particularly annoying voice. I hear it and all other sounds dim. Its tone surrounds me. It's disgusting. It intoxicates me, whispers to me, nurtures my anger. It's revolting and distasteful and downright beneath me. Hell, as of late it's been my most recent obsession; the only thing familiar around here, anymore. It cradles that plain old-fashioned hate, cradles it until it's boiling beneath my skin.

...It's Granger.

While Potter's been periodically shifting from sulking to insanity, and while Weasley's busy playing fucking nursemaid to Potter's every whim, Granger's still the same.

Still infuriating, still an insufferable know-it-all, even on the brink of war. Still an obnoxious, loud-mouth, ignorant Gryffindor.

Still a bloody Mudblood.

I look up from my spot at the Slytherin table and glance in her direction. Always seated next to Potter and the Weaslette and Weasley—who could miss that ketchup infested ball of fur on the top of his head? It seems like Weasley's trying to cheer Scarface up, and Granger's laughing at something, or at least trying to make it look like she's laughing, but he's not responding at all. Weasel gives up. Eventually Granger goes back to her food and—no surprises here—her tombstone of a book.

I blink and before I know it, her head tilts up toward my direction. I don't look away. She won't break, either. I scowl at her, mentally baiting her as my anger rises.

That filthy Mudblood is one of the reasons why everything is changing.

That stupid Mudblood is one of Potter's best friends.

That fucking Mudblood is a fucking Mudblood.

She glares at me in response, as if reading my mind. I wouldn't be surprised—it seems like she thinks she knows everything, lately. Except, of course, how to fix Potter. And how to stop Hogwarts from transforming into a dreary stalemate instead of the usual giddy playground for idiots.

A few people look over at me from my table, somehow intercepting my angry vibes. With a quick 'what-the-fuck-are-you-staring-at' glare from Yours Truly, they turn away to stare intently at their plates.

I shift my attention back to the Mudblood. For once in her pathetic life, a book doesn't hold the answers to this ever-changing sequence of events and she's no better than the rest of us at figuring it out on her own.

Slowly, she turns away from me and back to the rest of her friends. She says something, probably "I'm going to go be a prissy know-it-all in the library" before heading towards the doors of the Great Hall, her book bag slung over her shoulder.

"I'll be back," I growl to no one in particular. No one responds—but it's not because they don't hear me. It's because they know I don't want to be messed with.

The click of her shoes are hallow in comparison to my expensive Italian ones in the empty hallway. She comes to a stop when she hears me and tenses.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she bites out.

"Granger," I say in a false sense of cheeriness, "glad we've gotten to be such great friends. Great enough for you to recognize me by the sound of my heels."

She snorts and whips around to face me, her annoying long brown locks slicing through the air. "The only thing I recognize is the stench of false superiority oozing from your arse."

"Touchy, touchy," I murmur, stepping closer to her. "Such strong words for someone without her bodyguards."

Her eyes blaze, and I find myself loving it. "Look who's talking," she scoffs. "Your slobbering idiots aren't even here to back you up with their grunts of agreement."

I narrow my eyes at her. With one menacing step toward her, I manage to cut off her escape. She backs into the wall but remains proudly defiant, standing her ground.

I revel in her defiance. I want to destroy that stubbornness about her.

I want to crush her completely.

"Are you really that thick, Mudblood?" I sneer. "We're in the middle of an empty corridor—"

She quickly reaches inside her robe for her wand, but my reflexes get there first. I grab her wrist, stopping her, and she looks up at me furiously.

"—and you've got the balls to insult me?"

Granger's demeanor changes almost instantly. She smiles politely before sweetly saying, "no, I don't. But you certainly do."

It takes me a second to register what she means, but even a second is too late. She knees me squarely in the groin and, with a heaving groan, I release her before doubling over.

Merlin, she's a lot stronger than she puts on.

Instead of running back to her knight in shinning armor, Potty, she towers over my pain-inflicted body. I raise my head to find her shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other. She's glaring daggers down at me.

"Granger," I grunt out in agony, slowly straightening up. "You Mudblood bitch—"

She tries to slap me. I see it coming by the angry, insulted flash in her eyes. Even though in pain, I grab her wrist and stop it midair. Gripping her harder this time, I push her up against the wall, effectively pinning her between my body and the cold stone wall.

She curses under her breath and stares up at me, hate shining through her eyes as she pants heavily.

"I'd tell you to let me go," she growls, "but we both know where that will lead us."

"And where is that?"

"Onto another one of your pathetic pure-blood rants, you arrogant git," she spits out.

"You know, Granger," I drawl threateningly, feeling the familiar taste of satisfaction only an enemy can give you, "you just don't get it. I'm the one with the power, here. Now, later, in the future, I'll always be the one with it."

Angrily, she shrugs off my grip. Pushing me away from her, she barks in response, "get off your pedestal, Malfoy."

I stare coldly at her as her cheeks flush and her eyes go wild. Anger really is one of Granger's stronger suits.

"Everything is changing," she rants on. "People are changing. Things aren't going to be the way they once were when this war is over. Things are going to be different."

Grabbing hold of her shoulders, I push her back into the wall. "Not everything will be different," I hiss menacingly.

"Oh, yeah?" Her eyebrow raises in a mockery of skepticism, and her voice becomes low and full of agitation. "Like what, you bloody ferret?"

"Like this, you stupid Mudblood."

Suddenly, my lips have crashed into hers with full force. An invisible tug continues to pull me towards her and I swear to Merlin I have no idea what the hell we're doing. Her small, surprised squeal easily drowns in its place as I engulf her, all of her, drinking the bitch's entire essence. And fuck, she's responding—she's responding—and eventually her hands end up fisted in the fabric of my robes and I'm thinking she's going to try to push me off, she's going to hex me once she gets the chance, but this? This kiss or maybe even this accidental melting of lips is absolutely worth a trip to Madame Pomfrey, and I'm numbed to find that instead of trying to kill me she's kissing me back with just as much passion.

With just as much hate.

It always happens like this. Every single bloody time, somehow, something in the atmosphere snaps and all of the sexual, aggressive tension is released. I pour out all that I've got—all of my anger, my confusion and my frustration—into her and every time, she rivals me by doing the same.

The next thing I know, we're moving towards an empty classroom and we're still embraced in this addictive sensation of pure lustful contempt and I'm slamming the door shut with the back of my heels and she's moaning and oh, Merlin, we're both bathed in this destruction. It's thick in the air, thick enough to choke on, and I want to suffocate her with it, I want to make her cry in despair; and I know, deep down, beyond that morally righteous indignation, she wants to do the same to me.

Her book bag falls to the floor with a deadly thump, and I can't understand how it gets there because we're still tangled up in each other. We're still infected with this...thing we have. We call it hate. Some might call it borderline obsession. Whatever it is, we cling onto it through times of change. It's a drug that sustains us as it empties us out. We'll continue to starve ourselves just to feed off the other's anger, the hate that lives between us.

My hands roughly travel over her arse, her back, her neck, and into the disgusting piece of filth she calls hair. I can feel her start to overpower me. She slams me into the wall, turning the tables in a way I couldn't have predicted but should have seen coming, and her kisses start to hurt so bad it feels so good because she's bruising my lips and her teeth are scraping my skin so ungracefully that I know I must be bleeding.

Somehow, her robes have come undone and so have mine, laying on the floor in rumpled chaos. I don't think about it, I can't think about anything except how much I want to destroy this Mudblood bitch in front of me, how much I want her hands pinned above her head, her legs clutching my hips and my back. I want her in the submissive position she should be in—should always be in when I'm around, because we both know that I am the dominant one, the better one, the one that deserves this power of driving into her over and over again as I fuck her out of existence and into oblivion with my name being the last thing she shouts.

In reality, her hands have undone my tie and somehow my shirt is off and my pants are loose. I stop to look inside of her eyes, and surprisingly enough, it mirrors back my own insides. There's a hint of spite within those deep pools of brown, a tinge of aggression in this calloused dance of control, mixed in with lust and sensuality and sexual desire, but there's also a buried amount of fear. Fear of what comes next, fear of where our lives will lead, fear of the fighting. But no fear of this.

She aggressively latches her fingers in my hair and tightens. Roughly, she bends my head backwards, just enough for me to keep her in eye's view while my neck lay naked before her.

A moment of silence passes as we breathe each other in, as we breathe in this disease called hate. It's painful, this despicable feeling, but it helps. It helps as a distraction, trying to break the other before the world breaks us. Trying to claim the other before war claims our souls. It's become a game of dominance, of who's the master and who's the slave in this unhealthy relationship—it's the pull and tug that keeps us sane when everything around us is crumbling.

I know it. She knows it. It's the reason we stand here right now, in this very moment, undergarments exposed and vulnerabilities open.

Everything is changing. Everything...except for this.

"I fucking hate you, Malfoy," she breathes into me, trickling down the hairs on the back of my neck.

I take her by surprise and lift her from the wall to the table beside us. Climbing on top, I push down into her and she arches her back. Ripping the last piece of clothing on her, she cries out in response—I can't tell if it's in anger or excitement or pain, but I'd wager it's all three.

Our foreheads touch and her eyes are narrowed directly at me. I lick my lips and smirk, whispering before plunging into her, "the feeling's mutual, Granger."