A/N: I'm so excited about posting this chapter! There's so much Dramione goodness in it! 😁
Ch. 11 He's More Myself Than I Am
And I don't want the world to see me / 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand / When everything's meant to be broken / I just want you to know who I am / And you can't fight the tears ain't coming / Or the moment of truth in your lies / When everything feels like the movies / Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive.
- Iris, The Goo Goo Dolls.
Hermione arrived at the old Divination classroom at five to seven on Thursday evening. She'd wanted to get there early; for some reason, she felt as if she needed some kind of preparation time. To prepare for what, though, she had no idea.
The room was littered with faded cushions, which sat amongst low stools and tables; all were covered in a thick layer of dust. She settled herself on a window seat. The view normally looked out on the mountains to the east of the school, but that evening it was obscured by a sheet of rain and dark clouds.
At exactly seven o'clock, Malfoy walked in. He closed the door behind him, barely acknowledged her and sauntered across the room towards where she was sitting. He looked down at the worn cushions, not attempting to hide a look of disgust on his face and waved his wand at a low stool, vanishing the dust, before sitting himself down on it. He made a bit of a show of getting settled, lifted his left leg up so his ankle was resting on his right knee, opened his Binding Book and finally looked at her.
"Granger," he said gravely, giving her a curt nod in greeting.
"Malfoy," Hermione mimicked his formal, distant tone. It didn't seem to faze him; his expression didn't change.
"Right, let's get the fuck on with this then."
Hermione, in turn, was unfazed by his impudence; she wouldn't have expected anything more from Malfoy. She opened her own book and wrote 'Start task 1' on the next blank page. It immediately came to life with text:
Welcome to your first task! Here are your questions...
1. What's your favourite colour?
Well, that was simple enough at least. Hermione looked up at Malfoy and noticed that he had a characteristic sneer on his face. He raised his eyes to her, his expression distinctly unimpressed. "I don't have a favourite colour. Because I'm not five years old."
God, he was so petulant. Hermione wondered if he was so ill-tempered with other people, or whether he saved all his churlishness up just for her, because of what she was in his eyes. The thought made a wave of defiance rise in her.
"Fine. Mine's green," she stated, letting her annoyance show in her voice.
Malfoy's eyebrows raised imperceptibly and his expression softened, as if he were holding back amusement.
"Slytherins don't have the patent on green, Malfoy. It's the colour of nature –" she gestured out the window, at the canopy of forest that would have been visible if it wasn't for the relentless rain. "The colours of the hills, the grasses and the woods. I just find it…soothing."
Something flickered across Malfoy's face; for a fleeting moment he looked sombre, before his expression turned sneering once more. "Right. Whatever."
It couldn't be more obvious that he'd rather be somewhere else. Hermione wondered why he'd agreed to the intervention in the first place. He'd probably felt he'd had to, she concluded, it was likely to be a condition of his sentencing that he attend talking therapy.
"So. I assume I'm writing this all down, am I?" she snapped out, before scrawling underneath the first question: DM = none. HG = green.
The next question appeared, and to Hermione's relief it was as harmless as the first one. She read it out aloud: "Two. What would be your last meal, if you could choose?"
Malfoy let out a loud scoff. "Well, that's a bit morbid."
"I'm not coming up with these questions, Malfoy… I suppose it's just asking what our favourite food is… Well...I think I'd like a Thai salad to start...with maybe prawns...then I'd love a roast dinner, roast chicken…that's what my dad would make every Sunday at home." She suddenly remembered the warm smell of roast potatoes and rosemary, and quickly forced the recollections away. "And then I do love a nice chocolate cake...or profiteroles, for pudding."
Malfoy looked bemused. "That's rather...eclectic tastes, you have."
"Whatever," she echoed what seemed to be his favourite word back at him. "Come on, what would be the last thing you'd want to eat if you were going to die the next day?"
He made a face, somewhere between a smirk and a grin. "One of those Morgana underwear models. I'd love to eat one of them out, have them squirming and gasping under me."
"Urgh! You're foul, you know that? And anyway, those Morgana models have an unnatural body size and shape! Not to mention, the underwear is horrendously expensive!" Hermione said contemptuously, twisting her features into a disgusted expression to emphasise her distaste at his words.
She waited for him to answer the second question of the task properly, but he just shrugged and continued to look at her, unabashed.
"That's it? Really? That's your answer?"
"Yep, don't want to be wasting my last night on earth eating, even if it's my favourite food. I'd want to be doing something much more fun."
She let out an involuntary huff, a sound she hated hearing from herself, and exasperatedly wrote in the book:
HG = Prawn salad, roast chicken, chocolate cake. DM = cunt.
"You've just written 'DM equals cunt'!" Malfoy objected, looking down at his own Binding Book, where her handwriting had no doubt appeared.
"Yes. I did. And my writing's not disappearing, which means the book's recognised it as the truth!" Hermione tried to hide a smile; she was quite amused at herself. It was the first time she felt like genuinely smiling in ages.
"And you're saying I'm foul."
"Oh, I'm sorry, does my language offend your sensibilities? I'll change it," she said with mock concern. She scribbled in her book again. "'DM equals twat'. There. Is that better?"
His lips curled up again on reply, but she could have sworn that he was smiling rather than smirking.
Hermione was rather surprised to see that her writing stayed on the page, proof of Malfoy's honesty. On his last night on earth, he really would prefer to perform oral sex on a Morgana model than eat his favourite food, it seemed.
As the next question appeared in their Binding Books, Malfoy's expression quickly became grave. Hermione looked down and read the new words that had appeared there:
3. What is your home like? Tell your partner about it.
Her stomach twisted at the thought of having to listen to Malfoy tell her about his ancestral pile. She continued to stare down at the words, wishing they would go away, willing her feeling of numbness to thicken so she could muffle out whatever Malfoy might say next. But what he did say was not what she expected.
"Pass." His voice was quiet and subdued, and Hermione felt instant relief at the word he'd uttered.
There was a silence and she realised that he was waiting for her to answer the question. She looked out the window, at the droplets of water slowly creeping down the other side of the pane, and thought of her childhood bedroom stripped of all that had made it uniquely hers. "I don't think I have a home anymore," she found herself saying.
There was another silence. Hermione didn't want to turn back to look at Malfoy; she hadn't meant to share that last sentiment with him and wished she could pluck the words out of the air from where they seemed to be lingering, and back into her mind.
"Well," Malfoy's dry voice reached her. "It seems like we might have one thing in common, at least."
Before she could think through what his words meant, Hermione felt her Book heat momentarily in her hand. She looked down and saw 'Pass' written under the third question in Malfoy's handwriting. To her relief, the next question quickly appeared: 4. What music do you like?
Something lightened in Hermione's chest; this question was so much easier. She listed some of her favourite Muggle bands: Nirvana, Pulp, Green Day, Oasis.
"And you?" Hermione asked once she'd finished.
Malfoy shrugged. "Seven Sirens are probably my favourite band."
Hermione's lips turned up in disgust. "Aren't they the one with the awful, crude lyrics? What was that bit from one of their first singles? 'I know what those lips should be blowing, you've got my cauldron all overflowin...my wand is made from the hardest of wood, I'll let you touch it if you've been good'?"
"That's the one. Seems like you know them quite well."
"PavLav played them on repeat on our dorm gramophone for about two years."
"Who?" His voice was scornful.
"Parvati and Lav – Lavender Brown. They were together all the time, and liked so much of the same things, it was as if they were one person, so we had a joint name for them: PavLav."
Hermione's stomach was twisting nauseatingly again, and as she looked up at Malfoy, she noticed he once again had an unusual solemn expression on his face.
"Right," he said dully.
Hermione tried to write 'DM = Seven Sirens' in her Binding Book but each time she tried, no sooner would the words appear than they disappeared.
"It's not letting me write it. Which can only mean that you're not telling the truth," Hermione said exasperatedly. Why would he lie about something trivial like that?
Malfoy frowned. "That's hippo-shite. How the fuck does the book know what music I like?"
"The magic that's part of this...intervention seems fairly advanced," Hermione offered in explanation.
"Yeah, I heard you've done your research on it," Malfoy's tone was derisive. She wondered if, and how, he knew that she'd thoroughly quizzed Alethea on the task's magic. "Fine. Okay. I like classical music. Michael Nyman's probably one of my favourite composers."
"Oh," was all Hermione could think to say, processing her surprise in Malfoy's taste in music.
This time, when she wrote the answer in the book, the ink stayed on the page, definitive and seemingly impermeable.
As the next question appeared, Hermione's stomach seemed to plummet somewhere near her feet.
5. Tell each other about your family.
"Pass," she snapped out quickly. She shifted her eyes subtly to look at Malfoy, saw him give a curt nod and heard him mumble something like, "Fine. I pass too."
She felt a wave of relief; she wasn't sure what would have been worse – having to listen to Malfoy talk about his family, or being made to talk about her own.
Hermione hurriedly read out the next question. "Six. What's your favourite holiday destination? Or a place you have enjoyed travelling to? And why?"
She felt more able to look directly at Malfoy now. She waited for him to speak, thinking that she had initiated enough of these discussions already. He looked beyond her, out the window, as he answered casually. "We went to Aeaea once, the summer before my first year at Hogwarts."
"Circe's island?" Hermione asked, intrigued. It was a purely wizarding island, uninhabited except for a few witches and wizards who managed the tourism there. Only a limited number of people could visit each year and the permits got booked up years in advance.
"I liked it. I think because," – Malfoy's voice suddenly became tight, as if he were forcing out his next words – "My parents – they seemed relaxed. I think it might have been the last time I remember them being genuinely happy."
Hermione knew there were layers to what Malfoy had just said; that his words needed unpeeling and unpacking of some kind, but it took all her energy to focus on what she needed to say next, without letting a volatile cauldron of overwhelming emotion spill over inside herself.
"Mine was a skiing holiday I went on with my parents, in the French Alps, during the Christmas of our first year." She looked down at her book and focused on getting her words out without the bittersweet memories consuming her. "I'd never been very good at skiing, but I felt like I finally got the hang of it that holiday. I could finally see what all the fuss was about – it feels so freeing, powering down the slopes like that – like what I'd imagine flying might be like, if I were better at."
She continued to look out the window, waiting for Malfoy to scorn Muggles' desire to strap long pieces of plastic to their legs and slide down a mountain. But he just made a gruff noise of acknowledgement and after a moment she felt her Binding Book gently heat up, warming her thighs where it lay. She looked down and saw Malfoy's scrawl under question six; he'd written their answers down.
The next question appeared:
7. What's your favourite school subject?
There was a frustrated sigh from Malfoy and Hermione looked over to see him throw his head back, looking up at the ceiling. "These are the lamest questions ever!" he declared bitterly.
Hermione smiled at his exasperation. "Well...I actually find that one quite hard." She'd thought of this question before, of course and in earlier years she would have said Charms. But she was finding it so hard to concentrate on the subject this year. New ideas and information just didn't seem to slot into her brain like it used to. Now, she probably felt the most calm and in control during duelling club, when wielding her wand. "Maybe DADA," she said, surprising herself. "What about you?"
Malfoy looked away, and seemed to study the moth-eaten carpet. "It probably used to be Astronomy, but I'm not taking that this year," he said sullenly.
Hermione remembered her snide remarks at the Lake, about him looking at his namesake, and felt oddly guilty. "Why not?"
Malfoy shrugged, his eyes flitting to her, then quickly away again. "Just didn't think it would go anywhere. Career-wise," he mumbled. "So...after that I suppose it's Potions."
After writing down their answers in the the Binding Books, the final question appeared:
8. What do you hope to do when you leave school?
It was something Hermione would have had a ready answer for in previous years, but now when she thought about her future, her mind was like a window iced up on a winter's day – foggy, frozen and numb.
She looked at Malfoy, who held her gaze for the longest time since they'd been in the room together. He looked defeated somehow, resigned, and Hermione had the oddest sense they were sharing in a mutual grief of some kind.
"Pass," they both said in unison, their voices expressionless.
A strange, delicate silence stretched between them, until Hermione felt a sharp twinge of pain in her back – it was aching from how she'd been leaning on the hard stone of the window ledge. She grimaced and sat forward, arching her back, as she wrote 'Pass' down in her Binding Book. Then she decided to stand up and walk around the room to stretch out her muscles.
She felt Malfoy's eyes follow her as she did so.
"Okay, so do we discuss your chick lit now?" he said, his tone impatient and abrasive, instantly changing the melancholic mood from a few moments ago.
Hermione sighed, and bit back a retort about the incorrect genre he'd yet again categorised Wuthering Heights into.
"I suppose so," she said, retrieving her copy of the novel from her bag and sitting down on a large cushion a metre or so from where Malfoy sat. She eyed him as he took his own copy from his pocket. It looked pristine, new. As if it hadn't been opened. "Have you actually read it?"
"Yes, I've read it," he said defensively, avoiding eye contact with her.
"Hmm…" Hermione wasn't convinced. "Okay. Well, what did you think?"
He tapped the book on his knee as he spoke. "This Heathcliff bloke's an arsehole. I don't get why the Catherine chick is so into him."
"Well, it was his upbringing that made him that way. He wasn't treated very well, especially by Catherine's brother. He was always seen as an outsider in that family and probably didn't have anyone that helped him feel that he was properly loved or that he belonged."
Malfoy frowned at her, but didn't say anything, so she continued."He's a complex, flawed character. Kind of like an anti-hero; not very likable but you can still sympathise with him."
Malfoy screwed his face up in distaste. "Not sure I can sympathise with him... Why do girls fall for arseholes? What's that about?"
"Catherine didn't fall in love with him because he's an arsehole. The point is, she loved him despite the fact that he had flaws," Hermione explained patiently. Although she was exasperated by Malfoy's attitude, she was possibly beginning to enjoy herself; she was in her element with this kind of discussion.
"Well, that makes no sense whatsoever."
"It's not – it's not a typical 'falling in love' tale in that regard. The love – the passion, or desire, or whatever you want to call it – is the primary driving force. And the passion they show for each other is echoed in the mood of the moors and the weather that surrounds them. The love is almost obsessive, almost irrational, and binds them together so unconditionally, it's almost as if they're one soul. Listen," Hermione flicked through the book until she found the right page and proceeded to read one of her favourite passages: "'He shall never know I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.'"
Hermione flicked forward a few pages, and continued to quote: "'If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.'"
She breathed in deeply – she'd run out of breath – and raised her eyes to look at Malfoy, waiting in anticipation to hear what he thought of the beautifully written dialogue.
"So, do they ever actually shag?"
She let out an impatient huff. "Probably not." She annoyed herself by how prim she sounded.
"What? After all that, they don't even fuck?" Malfoy sounded entirely unimpressed.
"It was published in 1847! I mean, they never really properly get together before she marries Linton anyway."
"Thought I'd at least get to read a bit of smut," Malfoy grumbled, like a small child disappointed with his present on Christmas day. "Hey, have you heard of fanfiction?" he said more brightly. "Maybe, if this is one of your favourites, you could write a story about this, 'cause then you could add some smut scenes!"
Hermione had learnt during her first year of Hogwarts that writing and reading fanfiction was a pastime enjoyed in the magical as well as Muggle world, after finding out that Ernie MacMillan actually wrote it; his favourite were stories of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Hermione had read some, though, and she really didn't think they were very good...not that she'd say that to Ernie.
"Draco Malfoy, I'm not going to insult Emily Bronte's memory and works by writing smutty Wuthering Heights fanfiction!"
He shrugged nonchalantly. "Was just a suggestion. You could have a plot – it wouldn't have to be just porn, although those are probably the more popular ones… I'd read it!… What kind of smut do you think you'd write?"
"Malfoy, we're going off topic –"
"Come on, what do you like? What turns you on?" Malfoy asked, his mouth curling into a sly grin. He slid off his stool to the floor and moved towards her. "Dark and angsty, if this is anything to go by." He waved his book before discarding it on the floor. "Star-crossed lovers? You went on about Romeo and Juliet enough in Muggle Studies in fifth year," – he'd reached her now and paused in his advance but continued to speak in a low, goading voice – "Where their attraction for each other is so powerful, it tanscends all barriers and they can't help but end up ripping each others clothes off, and fucking so hard it's like they're punishing each other?"
Hermione didn't – couldn't – respond. Because something about the dark flicker of Malfoy's eyes, the way he was so close to her, how the air around her was suddenly filled with his scent, made her forget how to speak.
He leaned towards her, his face inches from hers and his eyes fierce and predatory, and said in a quieter tone, "Tell me Granger, what turns you on? Do you even know? I think you do, I don't think you're the prude everyone else seems to think you are –"
"I -" But again, she couldn't find the words to respond. It was as if his words had reached inside her and were strumming parts of her body in a delicious, intoxicating tune.
"I bet you love this bit too: 'If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave,'" He'd quoted the part from Wuthering Heights from memory, "Do you like a bit of kink, Granger?" His voice was taunting. "Fancy being someone's slave? Obeying demands so that you don't have to think and that busy little brain of yours can have a break?... Being told what to do? Does that make you wet?"
Hermione could feel her cheeks burning, and it was only when she heard herself take a deep intake of breath that she realised she must have momentarily stopped breathing.
There was a pause as the both stared intently at each other. His expression was hard and intense, as if he were defying her to move away. But she had no intention of doing so. She didn't know who moved first, who leaned towards whom, but suddenly their lips were crashing together.
The kiss deepened quickly, their tongues dancing eagerly. She felt the heat of his hand reach out and grasp around her waist; it sent shockwaves of warmth through her body, loosening her muscles.
Suddenly, there was only him, only Malfoy – the touch and the feel of him. Everything else faded away – the constant urge she had to be on the alert all the time, making her tense up like a tightly coiled spring, the blank look in her parents' eyes, her awareness that it was recently taking her three times as long as usual to complete a Runes translation. Even the numbness fell away because her mind was suddenly how it used to be – keen and clear – but without the usual terror that came with the sharpening of her senses.
It all melted and faded away, there was just the feel of his lips, and she wanted more of it – she wanted to keep forgetting – so she kissed him more eagerly and he moaned into her mouth in response, causing a bolt of pleasure to spark through her.
She reached out, placing a hand on his chest, and pushed him so he fell back against a cushion behind him that was leaning against a wall. Without parting her lips from his, she straddled him, her skirt riding halfway up her thighs in the process.
He adjusted himself so she was sitting comfortably in his lap, his hands resting on each of her thighs. He suddenly bit down hard on her lower lip, causing her to breathe out a moan which was muffled by his mouth. Each of his ministrations made a wet need grow between her legs; she ached to be touched there, and couldn't help but ever-so-slightly rotate her hips, so she was rubbing against him. The feeling of the friction, and of his hardness growing against her, caused another moan to escape her lips.
She slowly pulled away from the kiss and tilted her head to the side, shaking her hair away to give him unhindered access to the bare skin of her neck. She glanced at him through half-lidded eyes and saw that his own gaze drifted from her shoulders to her jawline, his expression lust-filled and hungry. He leaned up towards her as her eyelids fluttered shut, his teeth initially grazing gently over the skin just below her ear before biting down uncompromisingly – sucking hard and making a stifled yelp escape her throat. But he didn't stop, only bit harder. It hurt, but it hurt in a delicious way which sent ripples of desire through her. She knew he would be marking her with a rainbow of bruises, but she didn't care. Because it seemed the more it hurt, the more she could forget.
Finally, he pulled back from her neck, peppering kisses up to her jaw, mumbling as he did so: "Fuck, you're so responsive...I love how responsive you are…"
She let out a keening noise she didn't know she could make, and kept her eyes closed, afraid that opening them and seeing him – seeing what they were doing together – would destroy the spell that seemed to have fallen upon her.
His right hand travelled up her thigh, under her skirt, his palm coming to a tantalising rest just below her pelvic bone. So near...the thought of him touching her between her legs sent a bolt of heat straight to her cunt. As if in a tactile reply, she blindly stroked her hands down his torso, feeling the hard heat of him through his shirt, and rested them just at the top of his thighs.
"Look at me," she heard him say.
She opened her eyes, but rather than looking him in the face, she looked down at her hands, absently running her finger over the cool metal of his belt buckle, then leant forward to kiss him again, but he pulled back in a short, abrupt movement.
"Look at me" he repeated, his voice firm and commanding. He reached up to cradle her head between his hands and angled it so she had no choice but to meet his eyes. She looked into the storms of his irises, and was surprised to feel a peaceful, quiet calm descend on her.
His eyes were challenging and penetrative, as if looking right through her, as if he knew all of her. She grew still under his gaze.
"Good girl," he murmured with a quiet conviction, causing her to let out a whimper at his words.
He moved his left hand to stroke a stray strand of hair back from her face. It was the most gentle gesture she'd ever seen from him. His gaze travelled down her face to her chest with such intensity her skin burned in its wake.
He took her left hand in his, entwining his fingers in hers, and gently pulled her arm towards him, as if he wanted to look closer at her hand, as if he wanted to study every inch of her and he was just starting with that one small part. She yielded to his touch; she felt she would willingly bend her whole body to his will if that's what he wanted.
But then his brow creased into a frown. She followed his gaze and saw that her shirt sleeve had ridden up slightly and her bandage was poking out, just shy of where the blood often seeped through.
She instantly froze, her muscles automatically tensing as she watched Malfoy eye the bandage, slowly rub the frayed edge of it with his thumb, and shift his eyes back to her, his expression one of subtle questioning and curiosity.
Her senses were suddenly assaulted with a rush of clarity: edges appeared offensively sharp, colours nauseatingly vibrant, and the dim light in the room hurt her eyes.
Her heart ratcheted in alarm at the realisation of what she'd just been doing. She yanked her arm from his grip, awkwardly and inelegantly extricated herself from him, stood up and scrambled for her books, her breath coming in short gasps.
Thankfully, he remained still and silent, watching her as she stuffed her things into her bag and pulled it onto her shoulder.
She didn't look back at him as she hurried from the room.
A/N: As always, huge, huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazing alphabetas.
Your comments and thoughts are, as ever, cherished and treasured.