One Night
By LurisaDisclaimer: I own nothing you recognize from the Harry Potter Series or anywhere else. Draco and Hermione belong to JK Rowling and the it is named after a song by The Corrs. Anything else belongs to its respective owners.
Author's Note: This is a one shot that was originally going to fall into Fire and Ice, a fanfiction I am writing but I couldn't quite make it work. I was really very depressed about the whole thing because I rather like it. For some explanation, Draco and Hermione are Headboy and Headgirl and have their own dorm area. Yes, I do know that it is a very popular and tiring situation but oh well. So, this was going to fall somewhere between the middle and the end of the story so Draco and Hermione have come to the realization that they are attracted to each other but aren't aware of the other's feelings so they insist upon staying just friends. It's loosely based on the song One Night by The Corrs…very, very, very loosely.
As the scene opens, they are curled in respective corners of the sofa facing the fire blazing away in the hearth in the Head Common Room. Please, by all means, read and enjoy.
Draco looked up from the book he was reading. "Granger, can I ask you something?"
I nodded, not looking up from my own book. I hadn't really been reading. It was more like watching him out of the corner of my eye and every so often turning a page to keep up appearances. I just couldn't get over the way the firelight danced across his pale skin, in his silver eyes, and through his white gold tresses. I blinked. "What is it, Draco?"
He gently took the book from my hands and, closing it softly, he set it atop his own where it lay on the low table in front of us. "It's about you and Weasley."
"What about us?" I'd rarely, if ever, seen him like this: so serious and his face absent of his trademark smirk. He was staring into the fire, contemplating something important. I fought the sudden urge to deny him answers to his questions. When he got that look on his face, it meant that he was going to ask me something deep and I wasn't sure I could handle having to give him some profound answer just now.
"Well, you've been going with him for how long now?"
Okay, so maybe not so deep a question. I could handle this one. "About a year."
"I see." He looked down at his feet propped on the table. "And does he remember…things?"
I looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean '…things'?"
"You know, birthdays, anniversaries. The first time you kissed. Where you two went on your first official date." His voice lowered as he studied how his hands stretched and contracted into fists as if noticing them for the first time. "Or how you like to twirl this one particular strand of hair when you're absorbed in a particularly good book or a bout of difficult course work."
There, it was. The one I had to think about before answering. The one that I couldn't just side step around by changing the subject. So, I simply didn't answer him. I didn't want to tell him that Ron never remembered any of that. And he was usually trying so hard to lure me away from my books and homework that I doubt he even noticed whether or not I twirled my hair.
He looked at me, arresting me into his intense eyes. He was going to ask me another one I wasn't going to be comfortable with. I could tell. "You haven't slept with him, have you?"
"NO," I exclaimed. I'm afraid that I sounded a little defensive. But, I mean, really, it wasn't any of his business.
"Good," he replied with a curt nod. He was silent for a moment, just watching me with that look on his face that raised within me the strangest sensations. "He doesn't deserve you."
Much to my dismay, I didn't come to the defense of Ron. I should've leapt off the couch and shouted at him or pummeled him for insulting my boyfriend. But I didn't. I just sat there because, in that moment, I realized that Draco was right. Ron was a great friend—most of the time surpassing them all—but when it came to being a boyfriend, I could do far better.
As I contemplated this newest realization, Draco moved closer to me—so close that I could feel the heat of his body against my bare arms, smell the intoxicating scent that was entirely Draco as it clouded my brain. I could feel my heart fluttering wildly against my breast bone as he leaned close to my ear and whispered in a voice that was entirely seductive, "If he whispers in your ear, does your heart race, your breathing come in quick gasps? Do shivers run rabid over your skin when he enters a room?"
His fingers trailed slowly up my arm and my eyelids fluttered close with the feeling of ecstasy brought on by his painfully light touch. "And when he touches you, does your blood rush? Do you feel a burning passion for him leap to the surface? A passion that can only be extinguished if he satisfies your every need?"
I couldn't answer. What could I say? That Ron was failing miserably at all of the above? That Draco Malfoy was the only one that had ever awakened those feelings inside of me?
"I-I've got to go," I managed to stutter, pulling away from him, jumping off the couch and running to my room, the sudden need to get away engulfing my mind until it was almost the only thought my poor addled mind could handle. How could Draco—no, Malfoy—be able to raise such feelings within me, such a burning need, and yet I could barely tolerate Ron's touch anymore? What was wrong with me?
I fell back on my bed and stared at the red canopy. He had described every detail of the reaction I was having to him. Was that even possible? Was he some sort of mind reader that had managed to keep his secret locked away for the last seven years?
"Hermione?" I closed my eyes, mentally scolding myself for forgetting to shut the door. "Are you all right?"
I scoffed. Of course I was all right. I had just been hit by the revelation that I enjoyed the touch of Draco Malfoy, the bane of my existence for the last seven years, compared to that of my boyfriend. I had more of a reaction to the mere nearness of the man I had so passionately hated for years than I had to the most burning kisses I received from the one I was supposed to be in love with, the one everyone said was my perfect match. Oh, my day couldn't have gotten any better. By Merlin, I was just peachy-keen. And yet I couldn't bring myself to lie to him. "No," I mumbled into the pillow I had pushed into my face.
"Hermione?" I pulled the pillow off my face and sat up, looking at him. "Can I come in?"
I nodded, unable to say no. How could I? His voice had something about it, some quality that made me want trust him and allow myself to be completely open with him.
He came in and sat beside me on the edge of the bed. He gazed out the window as he said softly, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I was too dazzled by the way the moon shone through the window, its beams casting a soft light on him. It made him look an angel. My angel. Somehow I liked the moon's effect better than the firelight's.
Turning his gaze to me, he answered, "For down in the common room."
"Don't be," I replied softly. What, a voice in my head raged. Have you lost your damned mind? He had no right to touch you like that.
But I had enjoyed it. I liked the way he touched me, the way my blood raced and the way my heart pounded.
What about Ron, the voice asked angrily, trying to pull me out of the apparent hole in which it seemed to think I was digging myself into.
Ron who?
He met my eyes; his gray orbs like molten silver. They were so deep and told me so much. I could see the fire that ignited within them as I tentatively covered his hand with mine. It grew as I leaned closer, licking my lips in anticipation.
He didn't move as I slowly closed the distance between us. I could see how hard it was for him to wait, for him to hold perfectly still as I lightly placed my lips gently against his.
It wasn't a kiss filled with passion. It only lasted a second. But it was enough to let Draco know that he could kiss me, that he could touch me, that he could have every piece of me he wanted for I could not find it in my heart to say no.
I pulled back and looked into his eyes as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering at the side of my face. "Hermione, I—"
I placed a finger to his lips and snaked my hand behind his head. "Just kiss me," I whispered, watching—and enjoying—how my breathy words affected him.
He pulled me close, leaving no space between our bodies. In one slow fluid motion, he had lowered me back onto the bed and was leaning over me; his lips leaving mine only to explore my cheeks, my jaw, my neck…I had never felt such pleasure before.
Ron had never touched me like this. I hadn't allowed him to touch me like this. But here, now, all I wanted was for Draco to slowly trail his feather light kisses down my neck, lingering where it met with my shoulder, as he was doing at that moment.
I slowly unbuttoned his dark shirt, leaving his perfect chest exposed to the moonlight. His skin seemed to shine, to radiate some strange, angelic light. Carefully, I trailed my fingers over his smooth skin; slipping his shirt off his shoulders, I let it drop into a forgotten pool of black silk beside my bed.
He looked down at me, his eyes dark with desire, as he pushed my hair off my face. "We can't…"
What? There I was, fully ready to give myself to him in a very, very rare moment of spontaneity, not caring about the consequences and "we can't?"
"You're not mine," he whispered, sitting up and looking out the window. "You're Weasley's."
I blinked up at him from my back. "I'd rather be yours," I said softly, sitting up behind him and resting my hands on his arms. Feeling him tense, I softly kissed his shoulder.
"Hermione…" He kissed the corner of my mouth…then my cheek, then the shell of my ear.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. "Yes, Draco?"
He pulled away. "Merlin, you're dangerous."
"How's that," I smiled up at him before pulling him back and kissing him. "Tell me." Better yet, a part of me said, show me.
Draco kissed the tip of my nose. "Weasley would kill me if he knew about this."
I smiled shiftily. "I won't tell if you won't." I kissed him again, leaning closer until his was on his back and I was looking down at him.
"You have no idea the trouble we could get into." I kissed him again. "Detentions for months. Cleaning the entire castle…without magic." My lips found a rather sensitive spot just behind his ear. His breath hitched in his chest and it was a moment before he could continue. "We could lose our badges."
Now, in any normal situation, the threat of losing my Headgirl badge would have immediately gotten my attention, put some sense back into my head. But right then and there I simply looked him in the eyes and replied in a husky voice that wasn't known to me, "I don't care. Right now, all I want is you."
I had heard girls using those words in the movies, read them in books, and I knew that they were a helpless cliché, but I had always wanted to see the reaction it had upon the male party when I said them. I must say that it was really quite rewarding. It is something that one simply must experience for one's self for I have no way of describing it that would do justice to something so…spectacular.
"Hermione, think." He held me at an arm's length, forcing me to focus on what he said. "Are you sure? There's no going back."
I smiled craftily and removed his hands from my shoulders, kissing him soundly in answer to his question. I was tired of thinking. I just wanted to act.
I woke the next morning to the sunlight trying to push its way through the heavy drapes defying it entrance. There was a comfortable weight of his arm draped around my middle as I looked across the pillow at him. His eyes were closed but a distinct smirk graced his lips.
I brushed a stray lock of blond hair off his face as I kissed the tip of his nose and whispered, "I know you're awake, Draco."
His smirk grew into a smile and his pulled me closer. "If I open my eyes, this will all disappear."
I smiled, cupping his cheek to reassure him. "I'll be here."
First one eye opened then the other until he was absorbing me intensely with his pools of silver. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear, running his hand slowly over my bare shoulder and down my back. "If I say I love you, are you going to hex me?"
I acted as though I were seriously considering it before I smiled at him. "Try it. We'll see where we go from there."
Draco leaned in and whispered against my ear, "I love you."
My eyes drifted closed, savoring the sound of it. I'd never heard those words roll so beautifully off anyone else's tongue as they did from his. It was the same when he said my name. I became lost in anything he said lately, truth be known. Even his random quips about my friends.
"So," he said softly, breaking through my thoughts. "Are you going to hex me?"
I shook my head. "I love you, too."
If someone had told me yesterday at this time that I would be saying those words to Draco Malfoy while he lay beside me in my bed wrapped only in my sheets, I would've told them that they were out of their bloody minds. But here I was, within the circle of his arms, wondering how I could've ever not loved him. Last night had been, in a word, wonderful. In two, sinfully blissful.
"What are you thinking about," he breathed against my cheek.
I smiled and kiss him. "Nothing."
He pulled back and looked questioningly at me. Putting his hand to my forehead and cheeks he said mockingly, "Are you feeling all right? You're mind is never quiet."
Laughing, I pushed his hand away. "All right, all right. If you must know, I was thinking of you."
He smirked and softly kissed my lips. "I hope they were good thoughts."
I smiled against his mouth. "How could they be anything but."
And for a while, I was able to forget that we would never be accepted as a couple outside the walls of our rooms. That we would soon go back to the world outside these walls and back to our respective lives. It was what we needed to do in order to survive. But here and now, within the privacy of our dorms, we could love each other and pretend that what was out there didn't matter. That the War and the dangers weren't real and that we could waltz around as the pair of lovers we were.