TWENTY-FOUR
Tuesday, 30 September 1944
Draco had been surprised when Granger had returned to the common room early and alone. He had been waiting up and had not seen Riddle come back; not that he really cared. She had seemed slightly shaken, but he wasn't sure if it was from their earlier encounter, the things she had told him, or if something had happened with Riddle on the tower.
Either way, she seemed to relax when he caught her off guard and presented her with chocolate he had acquired from the kitchens. She had taken it without hesitation and thanked him by sharing it with him as they sat together for a few minutes on the couch before she eventually bid him goodnight and retreated to her room.
The weekend had been abuzz with the announcement of the first Hogsmeade trip the following Saturday. From the moment he heard about it, Draco knew what he wanted to do, but found he was more nervous than he should be. He chided himself each time he felt doubt.
They had spent the weekend in the library working on their assignments. It was late Sunday night when she told him about the New Moon and her theory. That she and Riddle were planning to meet Tuesday night instead of Friday and that they should search for the door again.
When she had mentioned Riddle, he realized he hadn't seen his roommate much. If he had come to bed Friday, it had been after Draco had fallen asleep and he was gone before he woke. He hadn't been in the Great Hall for meals and even the others in his group were asking him if they had seen him.
It made him wonder if something had happened after all between him and Granger, but she seemed fine and he didn't want to push. He was certain she would have told him.
Monday morning Riddle had been in the Great Hall for breakfast, but he left when his group came to sit near him. He was also in their classes, but whenever Draco stole a glance his way, he was simply staring at the desk or the floor. It was the same on Tuesday as the pair of students dueled before them.
Whatever his deal was, he seemed to snap out of it by dinner Tuesday night. He entered the Great Hall shortly after the others and sat with his group. Draco had already sat with Granger and her roommates and had no plans to move, but he kept a weary eye on him anyway. By the time they departed the Great Hall for the Room of Requirement, he had decided that he was going to ask her what he had been putting off all weekend.
"Do you know what time it was when we came here?" she asked as they walked through the halls.
He shook his head. "No. I just remembered it was dark."
She nodded. "If we don't find anything beforehand, will you stay here while I meet Riddle? I can come back after. I don't want to miss out in case it's a combination of the New Moon and the time."
"Sure," he said, pausing as she stepped up to one of the windows with a step-up balcony and pushed up on her tip toes to lean over the railing. "What are you doing?"
She stepped away from the window and smiled. "Just seeing how much longer until the moon is at its peak in the sky," she replied. "By the looks of it, we have an hour to kill before we might see anything."
They continued on their way to the seventh floor, stopping next when they had reached the Room of Requirement. She gestured to the door and stepped back. "What, you can't do it?"
"If I ask, I'm going to think about Gryffindor," she replied.
He rolled his eyes and stepped up to the door to unlock the right iteration. When the door appeared, he held it open for her and then closed it once they were inside. Slowly, they made their way to where they had pinned down the most likely area the door would appear. Not to either of their surprises, no door presented itself.
"It's still early," he muttered, not necessarily directed at her.
She nodded in agreement anyway and then moved to table to her left. He watched her rummage through the junk carefully. He had learned quickly that she wasn't good at sitting idly and since they were just waiting for her to meet Riddle and for the door to hopefully appear, she would do anything to avoid sitting still.
He also knew now was a good a time as any. He cleared his throat and Granger briefly turned her attention to him, doing a double take when she saw the nervous look on his face.
"You alright, Malfoy?"
"I heard you making plans for Hogsmeade with your roommates," he said lamely. Of course he had heard; he had been sitting right next to her.
She narrowed her eyes at him and set down the object she was holding. "The plans you were present to hear a few minutes ago?" she challenged.
"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe spend some time with me there."
He saw her jaw tick as she tried not to smirk at him. He felt his face flush with heat and cursed her for making him feel like a blithering idiot. "What did you have in mind?"
Merlin, he wanted to go back in time and stop himself from initiating this conversation. "How would you feel about Madame Puddifoot's?"
Her eyes widened slightly. She knew exactly what it meant went people went to that particular tea shop. "Are you asking me on a date, Malfoy?"
"Only if you say yes," he replied.
For a moment, she continued to stare at him, but slowly a grin took hold of her lips and she nodded, crossing the distance between them so she could take his hands in hers. "Then I accept." He returned her grin and let out a breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding. "What brought that on?" she asked.
"Honestly? For one, it's rude to snog someone so often and not take them on a proper date. And two, I want to make it clear that this something between us isn't just snogging. I want you to trust me, Granger. And I understand that it's going to take way more for you to trust me than it is for me to trust you. It all stems from how fucking awful I've been to you all those years and I'm trying." He took a deep breath and laced their fingers together. "And I know that won't go away overnight, but I don't want you to run from me like you did the other night. If you're not ready, I want you to be able to tell me."
She wet her lips and he felt her hands go clammy in his as she gave thought to his words. Heat crept up her face and she looked down at their joined hands as she spoke. "Part of it had to do with trust," she admitted. "I'm not sure if it was that I do trust you to some degree or that I just don't trust you completely." She drew in a shaky breath and when she tried to pull her hands from his, he refused and she stole a glance up at him.
"And?"
She stopped trying to pull away, but held his gaze this time. "Most of it was that I've never… done any of this. With anyone." The last few words were barely audible and he went still. He had assumed as much given how much he had come to know about her over the past month, but it still shocked him.
"All jokes and teasing aside, Granger, I don't have all that much experience with this stuff either."
She eyed him wearily and he saw that she wanted to comment, but wasn't sure.
"My first kiss was Pansy in Third Year. She was my first…everything. My only everything. Most of our…relationship if you must, was just snogging. Aside from a few times here and there over the course of Fourth and Fifth Year, all we ever did was snog. Pansy just liked to talk and I let her."
Granger was staring at him strangely from his confession. For a moment he wished he hadn't told her, but then she told him her story.
"My first kiss was Viktor in Fourth Year, but he was older and he wanted more than I was ready to give so I pulled back. Then there was Cormac," she said and he frowned at the memory he had seen from her. "I only asked him to be my date because Ron had gone with Lavender. Even after he had already made plans to go with me. I knew Cormac liked me, but it was clear what he was after and I discovered rather quickly I was not that kind of girl. Even if he hadn't made it clear he wasn't interested in the long term, it wouldn't have lasted long." She looked down again. "And then Ron and I kissed just a few minutes before we went to the Room of Requirement. We hadn't even talked about anything…"
"So him running after us screaming 'that's my girlfriend' was him assuming?"
She nodded and looked up; her chocolate eyes misted with tears. "And had you and I not had this little detour, it would have been a safe assumption."
He recoiled, dropping her hands and stepping back. "So, what, I'm just a distraction for you until you get back to Weasley?"
"I didn't say that," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "I just said, had we not been stuck here, I wouldn't have even thought of you in a romantic way." She shook her head. "And don't you dare try to tell me you would have thought of me twice had I been able to steer a broom properly."
He deflated a little at that. Attraction to her or not over the years, had he not been forced to spend time and get to know her in this capacity, they would have taken their mutual attraction to the grave. He sighed and then smirked. "You know, you really ought to learn how to fly a broom. All of this could have been avoided had you been a proper witch."
Her jaw dropped and she stared, debating on whether to laugh or be furious with him. He decided to use her moment of indecision to cross the distance between them and close his lips over hers. She smacked his chest when her hands rose up, but instead of pushing him away, she fisted his shirt and pulled him closer. Her lips parted when he looped an arm around her waist and let the other sink up into her hair, giving the slightest of tugs. Their tongues clashed together in unison as she surrendered herself to him.
He hadn't been aware that they were moving until he felt his back colliding into one of the large stacks behind him. A few things toppled around them and in order to shield her from getting hurt, he spun them so she was the one in the middle of him and the stack. When the debris had stopped, Draco let his lips trail away from hers, gliding along her jaw to the spot just below her ear. She keened against him and her head tipped back and when his teeth nipped at the column of her throat, she shivered and moaned.
He kept his hands firmly on her waist and paused until she arched her neck for more. He obliged and then pulled at her sleeve to expose more of her skin, kissing every inch of her that was available to him. Over her shirt, he kissed his way down. She whimpered when he got to the valley between her breasts and her body twisted as if she was trying to get away. He pulled back and found that her eyes were squeezed shut and she looked as though she were in pain.
"What is it, Granger?"
She relaxed when she noticed he had moved. He saw panic in her eyes and his thumbs stroked the small swatch of skin where the hemline of her jumper had risen. "It's nothing."
"One minute you're enjoying yourself and the next you're-" He stopped short and his gaze dropped to her chest. He realized it wasn't pain he'd seen in her eyes; it was fear. Fear of discovery; something akin to how he felt about his forearm.
"It's awful," she breathed, looking down as if ashamed.
He reached up and grasped her chin in his hand, tilting her face upwards once more. "Is it worse than the Dark Mark?"
She swallowed hard and shook her head as best she could in his hold. "No, but that doesn't make it any better. It's…I can't even stand to look at myself sometimes." Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
"And you think I can stand mine?" he asked her. She blinked at him in disbelief. "And yet, somehow you're able to look past all of that."
He let his hands drop to his side and looked down at the space between them. "You're right," she whispered and he looked up when he noticed her grasp the hem of her jumper.
"You don't have to show me," he said, placing his hands gently over hers.
"I want to," she said softly. "I trust you." He brought his hands away from her and watched as she slowly pulled her jumper up over her head and let it drop to the floor between them.
Her skin prickled with gooseflesh from being exposed. She wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples hardened into taut peaks before his eyes, but they weren't what drew his attention. His jaw clenched as he took in the intricate web of purple and navy scars. There was a knot in the center of her chest, just below her breasts where whatever curse she'd been struck with had landed. The scars stemmed from there and marred the majority of her ribs. There were a few that had traveled upwards towards her sternum, but the concentration was heavily under her bust, between them, and off to the sides of her ribs.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice tight.
She swallowed hard. "The Department of Mysteries two years ago."
His gaze snapped up to hers as his eyes went wide. He took a half step back in terror. "Did… Did my father-"
She shook her head violently. "Dolohov," she replied and his shoulders sagged in relief. "Neville had stumbled and knocked into me, otherwise it would have been a direct hit to my heart. The healers said if it had, I would have died."
"What curse was it?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know. Harry had silenced him moments before so he never said it out loud. The healers said they hadn't seen anything like it. They were able to keep it from spreading, but beyond that, they don't know what kind of damage it did in the long run." She took a deep breath. "It knocked me out, so I didn't get to see most of what happened during the rest of the skirmish and I spent the majority of my summer in St. Mungo's."
He turned away from her and raked a hand through his hair. When he turned back around, she had her arms wrapped around herself and her cheeks were flushed.
"I know, it's hard to look at."
"It's not that," he said as he moved forward and cupped her face between his hands before kissing her soundly. "You're fucking beautiful, Hermione."
He let go of her face and slowly pulled her arms away from her chest. She resisted at first, but eventually caved. When she was bare to him again, he leaned in to retrace his steps from earlier. She stiffened as his lips found her collar bone and then began to travel down again. He took his time in kissing every inch of her scars. Eventually, she began to relax and when she did, he brought his hands up to cup her breasts. She whimpered as his thumbs ran over her nipples. He looked up to ask consent as his lips moved towards one of her taut peaks and she arched into his touch. His lips closed around her puckered skin and she moaned loudly.
His tongue swirled around the peak, tasting her skin. He heard himself groan as his own arousal presented itself. His trousers became uncomfortably tight and he counted himself extremely lucky to have gotten her to trust him thus far; he certainly wasn't going to push it. But he didn't want to stop either.
He pulled his mouth from her breast, an audible pop sounding through the room as he let go. He smiled against her skin as he kissed his way back up her chest, her throat, jaw, and then finally reclaimed her lips. He broke the kiss when he needed air and rested his forehead against hers, his hands on her hips.
"If you want me to stop, you have to tell me," he stated.
She nodded and he felt her trembling. He knew they had definitely crossed a line they really couldn't come back from. "I don't know what I want." Even her voice trembled; half of which he was sure stemmed from desire.
He let his hands slide down her hips, gently running along the outside of her thighs. "I want to touch you," he admitted, reveling in the way she shivered.
"I'm not…s-sure" she stammered and then swallowed hard in frustration.
"Have you ever gotten yourself off, Granger?" he asked, his voice dark with lust. He didn't even need to touch her himself. At this point he just wanted to watch her; hear her moan with pleasure as she came undone.
She nodded, her forehead rubbing against his.
"Show me."
He had meant to phrase it as a question; see if it was something she was willing to do if she wasn't quite ready for him to touch her. He hadn't meant for it to come out as a demand. He sure as hell wasn't expecting her to slide her hand between them and slip beneath the waistband of her skirt.
As her back arched off the stack, she moaned something fierce and Draco forgot how to breathe. She bit her lip and tossed her head back and he groaned right along with her as he heard how slick she was already. When her body bowed again, she started to slip. He slid his arm behind her back to anchor her and she turned her face towards him. He lowered his to kiss her and she moaned into his mouth.
"Together," she breathed.
He placed his forehead against hers again and reached up to undo the belt and fly of his trousers. He didn't expose himself, but he mimicked her by reaching into his boxers to take hold of his cock. He groaned as he began to stroke himself. Her moans were already getting louder and she had picked up the pace of her movements.
She grasped at the back of his shirt and shifted her hips. The move must have given her a better angle because her breath hitched. "Draco, I'm almost there," she panted.
The use of his given name nearly had him coming right then and there. As it was, his own movements began to sputter and he could feel the tension coming to a head.
"I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming," she whispered frantically.
"Fuck, Granger, I'm-"
He grunted as he began to lose control and she cried out hard as her body jerked off the stacks. His release was hot and thick as it spurted through his fingers, soaking the material of his boxers. He had created quite the mess and judging from the sounds he heard from her, she was sure to have the same issue.
They both sagged against the stack of junk as they panted for air. Slowly, she brought her hand out from her skirt and he nearly came again at the amount of slick that coated her fingers. She freed her other hand from behind him and summoned her wand to clean them both up.
After they had had enough time to come down to reality, Draco turned to her to say something, but noticed that her gaze had slid past him and her eyes had gone wide. She tapped his shoulder and gestured for him to look.
The door.
They raced forward, stopping right before it. They exchanged a look before he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the handle tentatively. After a moment of his heart hammering away in his chest, he turned the knob.
Nothing.
He tried again and again before letting her try a few times. When it was clear that it wouldn't open, she dove for her bag and dropped to the floor beside it. She scribbled down more notes than he ever would have imagined one could write and then stopped. She sat there for a moment, lost in thought as she stared at the door.
"At least we know we didn't imagine the damn thing," Draco said.
She smiled and looked up at him. "True. I think we should stay here tonight and keep trying it throughout the night. Maybe it does have to do something with the time." Her eyes widened again. "Speaking of time," she said, scrambling to her feet. "I have to meet Riddle soon."
He watched her as she crammed her notes back into her bag and waited for her to realize she was missing something. When it was clear that she didn't, he bent down for her shirt and held it out for her. "While I'm glad you're comfortable as you are, I think maybe you might want to not flaunt yourself about the castle. Not that I would mind."
She blushed furiously and grabbed for the shirt. He pulled his hand out of reach and raised a brow at her in challenge. "Malfoy-"
He tugged her to him and crushed his lips to hers. She instantly relaxed into him. He dropped the shirt again and pulled his head up so that he could look at her. Her breath hitched and he barely resisted the urge to smirk. She blushed again, but made no move to cover herself. To his relief, she stood on her tip toes and brushed her lips over his again. "Thank you," she breathed against his lips.
"For what?" he asked, a smirk on his lips. "I didn't do anything."
She smirked alongside another blush. "Maybe next time-"
"Yeah?" he interrupted, his cock hardening again at the prospect.
She hummed and gave a nod. Slowly, she pulled herself away from him and bent down for her shirt. He frowned as she put it back on and went to grab her things. She kissed him again and smiled. "I'll be back in a bit," she promised and disappeared towards the entrance, leaving him in a stupor of disbelief and excitement.