Thirty-Nine
Day: 1522; Hour: 12
Hermione stares at the walls of her temporary room, reaching toward Draco's trunk to set down the knife she had been using to scrape off the mold. She sends an unappreciative glance at the two paint cans in front of her, and decides at least it's better than what's there.
Allison's boyfriend – who she hadn't stopped talking about since rather rudely staring at the two marks on Hermione's neck – returned with purple, yellow, and brown paint. Hermione had blinked at the cans for seven seconds before Allison and Harry, her boyfriend, had left for one of the bedrooms with the purple. Hermione was still calling him Harry, despite the fact that he had been dubbed 'Junior' and 'The-Other-Harry' – pronounced 'toe' – before majority opinion led to 'Harry Twatter' the night before. Hermione wasn't about to call him Twat, or Twatter, no matter the permission from Harry and snort from Toad. Honestly.
"Granger." Hermione jumps, the yellow streaking out of the even line she had been painting down the wall. She looks to her right, her left, and then behind her before he laughs at her. "It's the voice of God, Granger. I came to apologize for your hair."
She glares at him, then the familiar snort of laughter somewhere above her, finding his face at the hole in the corner. She hadn't realized just how big it was until she saw it in comparison...actually. "I hadn't realized how big that hole was until I saw how well your inflated head fit in it."
"Hilarious," he drawls, and a bit of the roof gives away under his hand on the edge of the hole, crumbling down into the rubbish bin below. It plunks into the rain water, and he adjusts his weight as she gives the ceiling another distrusting look. "What is that color?"
"It's called yel-low," she says slowly, her lips twisted up in an encouraging smile. He scowls and she grins.
"I'm not staring at yellow walls."
She grabs the can she had been using and then the brown, holding them up to him. She had thought about asking him in the first place, but it had felt too personal. Like it was their room, in their house, or something weird like that. Like they were staying for a long time, and like he might care. That's why she figured she would just paint it yellow, instead of even waiting for anyone to get back with something different. It wasn't supposed to matter to her, and asking him what he wanted was like...claiming the room was the two of theirs, their own personal space. It made things...solid.
Draco stares at the paint cans, and then looks up at her. "You want me to pick between dirt brown and sun-fuck yellow?"
"It's all Harry brought back."
"There's more coming."
"Yellow is happy."
"Yellow is the color of urine, bees with stingers, stomach bile, puss, kidney problems-"
"Draco," she laughs out, amused and exasperated at the same time. "What do you want, green?"
"Sure, I'll go with that." Like it had been her suggestion, but his face is gone before she can correct him.
Day: 1522; Hour: 13
"They're asking for more."
"Hm?"
"Harry, Malfoy, and Toad. They're still hungry."
She isn't that surprised, considering she had taken water out to them a half hour ago and they had chugged their glasses in seven seconds flat. They were sweat-soaked with their serious faces on, and didn't seem to be suffering from the headache she had got with all the hammering. It reminds her of missions, except what they encountered on missions usually canceled out physical labor's call for sustenance. They all needed to eat more.
"Noodles good for you, Justin?"
He grins easily, accepting the plate of sandwiches to bring outside. "The bread is stale anyway."
Day: 1522; Hour: 14
His hand is all heat when he grabs her hip, pushing her forward to slide past her in the hall. She can feel the warmth coming off of him and through her shirt, the smell of sweat surrounding her. She glances over at him, his shirt wet down the back as he ducks into her room, and there's a small thud before he's back in the hall again. Harry and Toad had stripped their shirts off over an hour ago, but Draco had left his on. He probably burns easy, and at the thought, an image comes to her mind of him frozen on the ground, his skin burnt a hot red, and soaked in his sweat as she tried to force a potion down his throat. She shakes her head once, again, and then narrows her eyes at him in concentration to swap the images.
"Compromise," he tells her, nodding his head over his shoulder as he heads into the bathroom.
Which is good. She had been painting the kitchen when she spotted a stream of yellow through the window. She hadn't been very pleased with Toad's choice, and had made it quite clear that peeing off the roof wasn't tolerated. Not that she could imagine Draco deciding to pee off a roof.
"Compromise?"
He grunts before closing the bathroom door, like he's too overheated to speak. She's hot too, but at least she's out of the sun. She peeks into the room, finding a can of blue paint sitting in front of the patch of yellow on the wall. Compromise. She can't stop looking at the yellow without thinking puss now, and green would have made her feel like she was in the middle of a forest. She's there far too often, no matter how much she loves nature.
She goes back to painting the hall, wiping her own sweat from her forehead. Justin laughs when he looks over at her, staring at her forehead. "Paint?"
"Just a bit." He has kind eyes. The sort that crinkle and almost disappear with a grin. They make a person want to feel at ease and trust him, so she thinks they're the most dangerous sort in the end. "It looks really ridiculous," he says on a laugh, but his eyebrows are drawn down as his shoulders scrunch up, too apologetic to be offensive.
She waves her paintbrush at him menacingly, and he puts his hands up, taking a few steps back, still grinning. "I'll turn you yellow in two seconds."
Justin opens his mouth to speak, but stops at the scraping sound of the bathroom door opening. He points to Hermione, dropping the grin and widening his eyes in full innocence. "She's vicious."
Draco ignores him, continuing down the hall without even a glance in his direction. Hermione glances between the two as Justin turns back to the wall. She's well aware of how rude Draco can be, but sometimes she forgets how much he really doesn't care about people he doesn't know. He could have at least grunted in acknowledgment.
"Are you going to ask him?" She looks at Justin with his whispered question, and then at Draco as he pauses at the end of the hall.
He turns toward them, looking at her with his eyebrow raised, and like she's taking up a significant portion of his valuable time. "Justin is going to take off the rest of the wallpaper in the kitchen so we can paint, so we wanted to know if you had an extra...scraper thing."
What did her father used to call those things? Putty scraper? Putty knife? Spackle scraper?
Draco's eyebrows draw together, probably from her word choice, and his eyes dart over to the boy currently pretending to ignore them. "Weren't you listening to Potter ramble on and on this morning, or do you just expect people to listen when you do it? He remembered it wrong. Hence the hammering now. I'll throw all the scraper things down to you."
Day: 1522; Hour: 15
"Are you a vegetarian or something?"
The young Aurors had gone into the Muggle world on delivery runs, and it seems they loved them for completely different reasons than Hermione ever had – supplies. Toad, Allison, and Harry had come back with things like paint, nails, and shingles. Adam had different priorities, judging by the meat on the counter, and the beer in the fridge and in his arms as he headed outside.
The meat that is currently bleeding out of the package, and that makes Hermione think of a lot of things she shouldn't ever think about. But she had smelt the blood, and had looked down at it, and then she felt and remembered a lot of things that weren't really distinguished. They just amounted to a lot of screaming in her head, and red-slicked skin, and broken voices, broken bodies, the dark, sulfurgasolinesweatinopenwoundsgreenfi-
"No." The word catches in her throat, and she coughs.
She remembers bodies exploding in front of her, the violent exposure of human mechanics as it ripped into the air and across the grass. Blood had sprayed out, filling the sky it felt like, and there had been a stench of burnt flesh as human insides squished under her boots.
"Are you okay?" The voice is distant, coming through a wall, and the blood runs into a crack in the counter, filling it up. "You look...a little green. I can cook it, you know. No big deal."
"Yeah, I'm fine." Hermione tears her eyes away, and realizes that they are wide and blurred when she looks up at the wall. She blinks, humming in her head. Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?
"-all the time," Hermione looks up at Allison when she realizes that she's talking. "They don't know how to cook. Men, really. I was the only one brought up in the Muggle world, too... I went to Hogwarts, but only until-"
"Yeah, you can cook if you want." It's hard to get the words out, but it's easier to concentrate on them. Words over images. Words over memories.
"Alright, great. Adam and Harry love my cooking, so I'm sure it'll be fine. Though, they are my best friends, Harry is my boyfriend, so they could be lying..."
Allison continues babbling as she searches the cabinets for something. Hermione watches her, the easy smile and the bright glow of red across her cheeks. That could have been her, or the three of them. Allison, Harry, and Adam. If she and Ron turned into something more than what they managed, and Voldemort died the first time, or back before the war really started. She wonders at how the world would have been then. How they would have been, without the weight that had been placed on their shoulders. That had bent their spines, cracked their bones, and threatened to bury them into the mud with every step they took. If they would have been just...whatever. Everything. Nothing. Just people in the world. Just Allison, Harry, and Adam, who laughed at things like silly faces and took advantage of a dark house by running around and screaming 'boo!', cackling as they ran away.
"Granger?" She looks up, pulling at the neck of her shirt, and Harry smiles at her. "Can I talk to you for a second? Out here?"
"Of course." She skirts past him as he gives a saucy look to his girlfriend, but his face is more serious than is necessary when he faces her in the living room.
He hands her an envelope, familiar and routine. "You've been ordered to go to MH19, five tomorrow night."
Hermione blinks at him, at his whisper and the serious look he gives her. "Is that it?"
Harry pulls back, his head cocking to the side and his eyes rolling up like he's trying to yank thoughts of his head or hear something she can't. "Uh...yeah?"
"Is it, or isn't it?"
He straightens up at her tone and nods. "Yes, it is."
"Alright, then."
She suddenly feels very claustrophobic, and the hammering is too loud above her head, and there's a bead of sweat sliding down her nape. She just needs some fresh air, she needs to not think, she needs to get out. She gives a nod to the Auror in front of her and then turns for the front door, dashing out across the grass, the sticks and rocks hurting her bare feet. She doesn't really notice, disappearing into the tree line. She runs until all she can hear is her breath in her ears.
Day: 1522; Hour: 16
Draco stares at her as she emerges from the trees, his face hard despite the redness of heat, his clothes still sticking to him with sweat, and a hammer dangling from his hand. She nods at him, his body too tense at the edge of the roof. He doesn't relax, and she spots Harry a little further back and to the side, just as tense. It makes her look over her shoulder, clenching her wand as she shoves her hair back from her face. The wind whips it right back, but she doesn't see anything. She glares at them for making her paranoid, and she can feel their eyes until she walks through the front door.
Day: 1522; Hour: 17
She helps Allison cook dinner, and when the men saunter in to make their plates, she feels strangely domesticated. She frowns at the sensation but Allison is laughing, kissing her boyfriend on his sweaty neck and wiping the paint off his cheek. She takes a seat at the small kitchen table, and stares too long at the steak before taking a bite. Draco sits down across from her, shooting a weary look at the other open seat, and rolling his head along his shoulders.
His legs stretch out under the table, invading her foot space like they usually do. He's all sweaty, and shiny, and slick, his shoulders angled in a slump she recognizes as his exhaustion. His wand is tucked behind his ear, and she stares at it a little too long, shaking the memory out of her head. She flicks her eyes to his over the rim of his glass, startled by the heat there, and glaring at the hint of knowing and amusement that comes with it.
"Lavender?" He glances at her plate, lifting his chin toward her.
She pauses and then smiles, Harry giving them a questioning look as he takes the last seat. "No, so far."
"What?" Harry asks, tearing into the potatoes in a way that would make Ron beam in pride.
"Lavender is a horrid cook," Hermione explains. "Even her pancakes aren't for the weak-stomached."
"Ah, yeah. Even her eggs!" Harry exclaims, his eyes wide as his shoulders pull back. "How hard is it to make eggs? How do you botch that? It had this weird aftertaste."
"Hey, Harry! I think the Ministry should give us the house after this, don't you think? We could all live here after the war." Toad grins, and throws his arm around the other Harry, palms up toward the ceiling. "Not a bad idea, right?"
A very bad idea, she figures. Though the house is shaping up remarkably well. It's amazing what some paint and a fixed roof can do. The place had been in ruins, falling apart more with every storm that passed. It's brighter now, more alive, and it no longer makes her want to huddle in on herself.
"Er... I already have a house."
"Oh. Well, that sucks. You're definitely going to be Twatter now, ruining our chances like that."
Harry winces, and then sends a look to Draco when the blond lets out a snort. "You should hear what they call you, Male-toy."
Hermione snorts then, and Draco narrows his eyes at Harry, her, and then the five people shooting betrayed looks at Harry as they try to escape the room. "Wishful thinking? And I'm surprised that didn't wear out the astonishing lack of brain cells enough to never come up with that enchanting little rhyme. How did it go? The one about Granger's hair, the house falling down, and suffocation?"
Hermione glares, but there's a smile that tugs at her, because she's lived long enough with her hair to not be offended anymore. She knows the thing looks horrid today, with the heat and paint, and there might even be a leaf somewhere in there. The insults round the kitchen, until they are yelled through laughter and half-chewed food. When Adam says something about Allison's babbling, Hermione's own laugh makes a break up her throat the moment she is swallowing. It sounds off in an odd choke-gasp-wheeze-snicker that has Harry and Draco both laughing at her. She swallows, coughs, and laughs with them, her face red as she memorizes the lines of their wild grins.
She wonders if it might be like this, after the war. Because she thinks she can fix a hundred houses with them, to have them both with her, and for the feeling that comes over her then. Content, almost. A little content, a little happy, and mostly at peace with the moment, if only for a moment. Yes, a hundred more houses, at least.
Day: 1523; Hour: 8
"You're terrible at painting. Despite its simplicity, I'm not surprised. You're the one who did the bathroom off the kitchen, then?"
She gives a jump at his voice behind her, and then inspects the wall, glaring at the streaks she missed. She had woken up that morning with an almost frantic need to paint the bedroom before she left, and despite that she still has time, the frantic feeling transferred to the quality of her job. The war is coming back at her, despite the curious edge she had been walking the past few days, and it is somehow extremely important to finish the room. She doesn't know why, but she knows she isn't likely to return to this house again, and it has to be done by the time she leaves.
"You're terrible at making false insults, despite the simplicity. And no, I didn't do that bathroom."
"Are you going somewhere?" Because it doesn't take much to see that all her clothes are gone from their scatter across the floor, and her slippers are packed.
"Yes, I have to go to Headquarters tonight." She glances at him as she dips her brush in the paint can. He watches her, another brush in his hand.
"If you're done by tomorrow, go back to Headquarters. Tell Lupin I want you for the run. Make sure you get an authorized paper from him too, or they won't let you back into my house." My house. She is surprised he still thinks of it like that, though she shouldn't be. He grew up there, the Ministry and Order were likely to give it back after this – of course it is his.
"I'm aware of protocol, Malfoy," she drawls in a way that might mean she's been hanging around him too much. "Run?"
He smirks, probably because she's scowling, and she has to work to stop scrunching her nose up. "You'll see."
"Fantastic," she mutters, though she's partly satisfied in knowing she'll be busy the next few days. She doesn't want to wait around for the war to be over, she wants to see it herself. She wants to stand there, and look at it, and watch it die right in front of her.
"Are you trying to get high on paint fumes?" Draco throws the windows open at the other side of the room, and she can feel the wind against her back three seconds later.
Sometimes it's easy to forget the way the world should smell until you're in fresh air. It suddenly becomes so much easier to breathe.
The house is finally losing the mold stench, thanks in part to the lack of rain last night. After dinner the group of them had gone outside, cooling down from the day. The wind had become cold, and there had been a feel to the air that meant rain. They had watched the clouds gather over the trees, and the shocks of lightning and distant thunder, but the storm never reached them.
"Hermione?" She turns toward Harry in the doorway. "I made breakfast, and everyone refuses to eat it until you do."
"Why?"
"Because they figure I won't kill my best friend."
She huffs a laugh, sending a longing look toward the unfinished wall. "I've never seen you cook before."
"I was like Wolfpack, or whatever his name is. It was brilliant. You would have been in awe."
She pauses, narrowing her eyes at him. "You burnt it, didn't you?"
"It's flavorful."
Day: 1523; Hour: 9
She and Draco paint in silence. It's almost therapeutic, the swishes of their paintbrushes and the repetitive sweeping motion. She's still very much aware of him, though, like she always is when he's near her. She peeks at him, but it's just the back of him, and his fingers wrapped around the brush. She still tracks the length of his shoulders, the fabric of the shirt that moves and sometimes clings, the movements of his wrist. He takes longer than he should whenever he dips the brush into the can in the middle of the room, and she thinks that he might be watching her too.
"I am Captain Twat, and I here declare that there shall be no more purple!" The voice somewhere down the hall is followed by laughter throughout the house.
Even over breakfast, hungover and pleasantly surprised at Harry's cooking, they had laughed like everything they saw in life was the funniest thing ever. She doesn't think she's ever heard so much laughing in a safe house before. If she has, she can't remember. Maybe when Fred and George were running around with their pockets full of tricks, their minds busy plotting, and those devious, playful grins. Maybe when she still thought the war would be over in a year, and there hadn't been more than a handful of deaths. When she had never killed another person, Draco Malfoy was locked up in a cell somewhere, and the worse she knew of the world were still things she read about.
They laughed so easily. Their whole attitude toward life was carefree, like it wasn't hard for them at all. The lights went off and they played a game. Hermione dropped a pot, and they didn't even jump. They didn't look to check who was coming down the hall when the floor squeaked, they didn't close their windows at night, they weren't afraid of anything. They didn't know the war at all. They had gone through their training, and they had been shipped off to a safe house two weeks ago, running deliveries. All they knew of the war were sealed folders, Muggles, a run down house, and a casualty list that didn't make sense.
"You look like you just ate a vomit Bean, Granger."
Her head snaps to her right so fast her neck cracks. He gives it a look, dropping the paint can next to his feet and nudging it an inch in her direction. "I do not. I was just thinking about the Aurors."
"Ah."
"Ah?" He stares at her. "No one says ah without meaning something else. They always mean, 'ah, so I was right', or-"
"You're bitter."
"What?"
He looks at her like she told him they were painting their room orange, making her fingers twitch in threat. "You're bitter because they don't have to face the war. Or, if they do, not much of it."
"No-"
"You're angry, Granger, though I don't think you'll ever admit it. They didn't have anything taken away from them. No friends, no family...their selves. They act like it isn't a big deal, and that pisses you off. They're relatively untouched by the war, and might even remain that way, and-"
"You're wrong. I'm glad they haven't had to be a real part of the war. I'm happy they haven't had to...that they don't have to know it. No one should have to know it."
"Maybe, but you're still jealous. A little angry, Granger, and you'll be angry for a long time. We all will. We're all pissed we had to be the ones to do this. That it was us who had to lose everything, and live with this, or die with this. We have that right. Earned it, even."
"I'm proud of... I'm not proud of everything I've had to do, but I know that in ten years, I'll look back and be proud that I had been a part of bringing peace to this world. I won't ever be happy about the sacrifices, or...or a lot of things. I'm not jealous-"
He curses, and he seems a little too angry with the look he throws her. "Do you stockpile bullshit?"
"Excuse-"
"If you feel it, say it. You always give these resp-"
"Just because I don't feel the way you do, or the way that you're trying to say I do, doesn't mean-"
"-than-thou facade! Your never ending justice crusade, and making-"
"-to even say that! Just because you don't like my answer doesn't-"
"-the answer people want to hear, instead of the honest one that you actually feel. You-"
"-whole... You can't tell me how I feel! You-"
"Tell me it doesn't disturb you then. Tell me, swear to God, promise me, that you haven't been disturbed by them, and their ignorance-"
"Oh, seriously, Malfoy, like-"
"Tell me! Tell me, honestly, that you have not once thought about what it would be like if you could have been in their shoes instead. Tell me you didn't imagine how different they would be if they did the things you did. Tell me you never wished you hadn't ever been a part of this war, or that you-"
"Shut up!"
"Because I'm not going to tell you what I think is the right answer, instead of the one I feel? Because I'm right? You-"
She snorts. "That's the same-"
"-I feel it, Potter feels it, anyone who has been a part of this war feels it. There's nothing wrong with that, Granger. We're human beings, no one asks for-"
"It doesn't matter if I've thought it! It doesn't change the fact that I'm glad they haven't had to go through bad things, or that I'm not proud for fighting in this war, regardless of what that fighting has had to-"
"Then just-"
"Beer, anyone?" They both swivel to the yelled question in the doorway, spotting Toad with half his face purple, and grass in his ruffled, black hair.
Hermione's eyes widen, and there's a coldness in her throat with the breath she takes it. She steps forward, her hand waving like it could brush away everything that was said. "It's not like that at-"
"Hey, I get it. I mean...mate. I get it. I read the obituaries. I read the newspapers, and listen to the Wireless, and I see you three. I don't want to be you. But we would have been, willingly, if we could have been. You know? All I'm saying."
Toad puts the two beers down and walks out without another word. Draco has relaxed the rigid lines of his anger when he swaggers past her in his usual gait, shoving the trunk against the door as he closes it. The bottles clink together when he picks them up, twisting off the caps, and he offers her one at an arm's distance.
"Now we offended him." She thought it was better to say we instead of just him.
"I'm brokenhearted."
"Jerk," she mutters, grabbing the offer and taking a sip. She would give...well, she didn't really have much to give, but she could really go for a Butterbeer right now. Or better, the hot chocolate her gran makes.
"You always say that like it's a surprise."
She mutters to herself, sounds that don't form words but that she knows he'll take offensively. She twists the bottle around in her hands, watching the paint come off in the cool sweat on the glass. She picks at the label, and then glances up at him, standing there like he's waiting for something. "I'm not proud of being bitter, you know."
"You'll get used to it."
She huffs. "Comforting." He shrugs the shoulder on the same side of his raised eyebrow as a response. "I meant what I said. I don't wish they had it worse. I only wish that we had it better. Sometimes...well, sometimes I wish none of us were in the war, because there never was one. And sometimes I wish I could go away. But those are the really weak, stupid seconds. Usually I just wish there was never a war, and if there was one, that it could have been better for us. That it could have been...easier. That, even after all these years, it could have been so easy that we could still be...like them."
"If you enjoyed all this, I would think you were more twisted than my a- than a Death Eater. I'm talking the booby hatch..." He trails off at her snort, but she always found that term extremely amusing. She blames it on prolonged exposure to Ron. "Booby ha... Pervert. Do you have the maturity of a-"
"Oh, please!" She gives him an incredulous look, flicking her paintbrush at him. "Pot, kettle."
He blinks at her as she smirks, reaching up a slow hand to brush his fingers over his cheek. He pulls them back, looking down at the blue on his fingertips from the paint she splattered there. All she can see is the twitch back of his shoulder and then his paintbrush is there, sliding down the front of her face. It's too late for a reaction, but she jerks back anyway, tripping over her feet as beer sloshes out over her hand.
She sputters, sticking out her tongue at the taste of paint in her mouth, and he breaks into laughter in front of her. "Tahic!" she exclaims over her tongue, spitting into the beer.
"If you didn't want the beer, you could have just told me."
She glares at him, setting the bottle on the floor as she steps forward. The handle of her brush smacks off his as he blocks her attack, and paint flicks out at them. Attack, block, attack, block, attack, block. Little specks of blue decorate his face and shirt, though it doesn't stop him from smirking at her. She glares harder, inching her foot forward and stepping on his toes when she blocks his attack. He grunts, she grins, and her brush colors his nose blue.
She can't stop the cackle that wells up inside of her, and it throws her off enough for him to grab her wrist. She tugs it back, but his hand slips up to the brush and yanks it from her grasp. She has just a second to be surprised before she registers the purr of triumph in his throat, and the two brushes in his hands. She squeaks and spins, knocking over the beer as she bolts forward. It soaks through her socks and she slips over the wood floor on her dash toward the paint can.
He grabs her by the back of her shirt, yanking her back with the help of her traitorous slick socks. He lets go of her shirt, his arm snapping around her a second later, and she lunges herself toward the can. Her feet slip back, and both of them lurch forward. She gasps when her journey to the ground is cut off by his arm around her middle, his paintbrush poking her in the ribs. His laugh is deep and evil above her when he moves them forward a step, and her face hovers over the paint can.
"Admit defeat," he orders. Wanker. Like she doesn't have control of her arms or something.
"Never," she breathes, dipping her hand into the pool of sky blue and flinging it back toward his voice, grinning when she smacks against the top of his bent head.
She rubs her hand into his hair, bracing her hand on the floor in preparation of him dropping her, but he yanks them upright instead. She's only slightly aware of him dropping the paintbrushes as his arm leaves her, and he moves around her, his palm on her chest shoving her against the wall. Her breath rushes out, and she thinks her eyes cross for a second before focusing on his face. He's scowling at her, his face freckled in paint, his nose covered, and half his hair blue and in every direction. She presses her lips together at the glint in his eyes, but the laughter comes anyway, shoving itself out from her chest until her shoulders are shaking with it.
The hard edge disappears from his face, replaced by the silky smugness he gets when he feels playful. It comes when it's a good playful and a mean playful, and it's taught her to be cautious. He reaches up to the wall next to them, and then the same hand comes down to her face. She can feel the wetness on his finger against her cheek, and his grin is evil when her laughter fades into comprehension.
"Cheater!" The wall is still wet, which means the entire back of her, pressed against it, was just covered in a layer of paint. She can practically feel it now, sticking to everything, her hair some huge, knotted tangle of blue.
"Hardly. Calling people cheaters just means you're a sore loser, Granger."
"Unless they really did cheat." She huffs at him when she tries to move, but he presses his body tighter against hers, trapping her.
"It's impossible to cheat when there aren't any rules to the game." He grabs her hands from his chest, stopping her undetermined attempt to push him away.
"There were unspoken rules," she tells him stubbornly, flexing her hands in his when he presses the back of them against the wall over her head.
"Yeah?" His nose slides along the line of her jaw, no doubt painting it, and then the rim of her ear.
"Yes. Whatever Draco does to win is automatically against the rules, because I always win." He laughs against her neck, and she grins stupidly at the shaking of his shoulders against hers.
"I can't say I'm surprised," he murmurs, his lips tracking up her throat. "You've always had some twisted logic."
"You wear off on me." She earns a nip of his teeth for that, and at her shaky exhale, he settles his hips more firmly against her.
She nudges her chin into his temple and he lifts his head, his face more smeared, and she can only imagine what her skin looks like. She kisses the side of his mouth, and ducks her head when he moves to kiss her, bringing her lips up to his neck instead. He exhales heavily against her temple as her mouth forms paths along his throat and neck, and she secretly spells out 'cheater' in the swirls of her tongue. He rocks his hips into her, and drops her hands when she sucks the spot between his earlobe and jaw.
She edges into his shirt, pulling it up as her hands push up his chest. He grips the sides of her head, pulling her face toward his, and then exhales in an impatient rush from his nose when she bunches his shirt up around his arms and shoulders. Her stomach clenches, like it always does when he gets like this. Impatient to kiss her, touch her. It makes her feel lightheaded, that she could have that sort of effect on him. He grabs his shirt, jerking it over his head, and she watches gleefully as her palms spread paint over his chest. His shirt doesn't even hit the floor before his hands are back on her, bringing his mouth to hers.
His mouth is warm and tastes like beer and breakfast, which is a weird combination, but she likes it anyway. He breaks an urgency open inside of her with the press of his lips and tongue. Caresses turn into strokes, become squeezes and pulls, their mouths and bodies demanding more, and everything, and all at once. He catches her up in a whirlwind, until she can't breathe. Until her knickers are around her ankle, his pants around his own, and she's too aware of being consumed by him to notice the world of blue on their skin.
He slides out of her, kissing her when she glares in protest, and dropping her on her feet. "Turn around, Granger."
She gives a hesitant pause before doing so, and stiffens when he chuckles behind her, his hands running down her sides. His palms are too slick against her back and her bum, and she catches on when his hands travel up her stomach wetly. She probably looks like an alien from the back, covered in paint. He squeezes her breasts, pinching her nipples between his fingers, and his feet knock against her ankles.
"Hands on the wall."
She braces herself as he grabs her hips, his fingers slick and sliding as he tries to squeeze, spreading her legs more. His bites down into her shoulder at the same moment he plunges back into her, and she can't control the loud, guttural moan or the way her head snaps back against his shoulder. He sets a steady, fervent pace, and her feet slide against the floor, her breathing shuttering out as they both try to keep as quiet as possible. He sucks and kisses his way across her shoulder blades, her neck, and then just breathes hot and wet against her shoulder.
She reaches behind her, wrapping her hand around the nape of his neck, and her palm slides up, down, up on the wet wall with every snap of his hips. Sweat builds up along their skin, until everything is so slick she's afraid they'll fall away from one another with nothing steady to hold onto. Draco seems to have the same idea, or is just cramped from the position, and pulls out of her again. He smacks her hard on her backside, and she knows he's smirking before he even turns her back around. He kisses her, leading her across the room, their hands frantic.
His tongue is demanding for the three seconds it takes them to give back into panting, and he rests his forehead against hers as he walks her backwards. His eyes are an icy blue on hers, and she isn't sure if she somehow never noticed the shade before or if it was from the paint all around them. He looks good in their room, she decides. He fits perfectly, all white, blue, and grey, and perfect.
He bites her lip before pushing her backwards, and she looks at him in shock before her back hits the mattress. He huffs a laugh, or exhales really hard, and crawls up her body as she crawls back. "I think this might be a win-win situation."
He pauses at her statement, maybe because of what she said or because she isn't one to form complete sentences in the middle of sex. He grins wickedly then, his hand burning up her thigh before he pulls her leg over his hip and buries himself inside her again. She arches under him, clamping her legs around him, and fists the sheets on a gurgle of noise from both of them. Thrust, thrust, grind, thrust, grind, thrust, thrust, and she's gasping for oxygen in the heat of him.
"Fuck. I could shag you for hours...but you already know that, don't you?" he pants out against her ear, and she only catches muttered words as he bends his head for her chest. Something about 'skin', 'tits', and 'glove', before she grabs the back of his head and pushes his mouth against her chest, shutting him up.
He laughs, but obliges, and she digs her fingertips over the contracted muscles in his back and shoulders. Sometimes, she has moments where the world around her makes sense. When she looks at him against her body, and how well they blend into the world around them, like everything is meant to be exactly the way it is. The tempo of her heart matches his, the speed of his hips, the squeak of the mattress, his tongue, her breath, the wave of pressure building inside of her. Sometimes, for just a moment, it all clicks.
He rolls them over, so her knees are digging into the mattress instead of her heels in his skin, and he grins up at her. His moods ranged in sex, though he is always intense and passionate. Sometimes he will be demanding, rough, dark, and almost scare her with the way he looks at her. Other times, he's slow, soft, and he'll hardly look her in the eye at all. She enjoys both, everything between, but there's certain things she loves. Like this, the boyish grin that she's only ever saw here.
She braces herself on his chest, and he meets the wild bounce of her hips, his hands everywhere, like they aren't satisfied with being too small to reach every inch of her. She holds his eyes, watching them turn darker the closer she gets, until her breath is all gasps and grunts. He grabs her hips, pounding her harder onto him as her head falls back, the room dissolving around her until there is only sensation as the pressure breaks, explodes. She clenches the air into her throat and chest, but she groans through clenched teeth at the feelings that threatens her control of silence.
When she was thirteen, she had been swept under in the ocean, caught between the cresting of the wave and the undertow. It had thrown her and spun her, until she knew no sense of direction or anything besides the endlessness of water and the burning in her lungs. She feels like that now, but without the desperate hunt for oxygen, or the struggle to break free. She lets it take her, lets the force of it own her. It should probably scare her, how easily she gives in, but it's so much better when a part of her mind isn't worrying about the face she makes, or what he's thinking, or the dangers outside the door, or anything that tries to keep her floating instead of drowning.
She gasps for air as Draco rolls them over again, and her eyes open to his. He kisses her, hard and quick, before he pulls to the side, his cheek sliding against hers. She wraps her legs around him again, raising trembling fingers to sink through his hair. The force of his hips is so strong that he moves them across the bed, her head dangling off the edge and her hands grasping his head before he tightens up above her, and the wave takes him too.
She drifts a hand down his back with a kiss to his ear as he finally lets out a shuddering breath. He crumbles from the statue, melting against her with a tremble as she closes her eyes and fingers his hair.
"I like the blue," she says with a rasp to her voice and a nod of her head. He pants out a laugh, squeezing his arm tighter around her.
Day: 1523; Hour: 11
She paints what's left of the last wall in the room, wrapped in a white sheet stained blue, while Draco lies naked, watching her from the bed. Their bodies had left some caveman painting on the wall: a big blob of smeared paint, a streak where her head had rubbed the paint away, and then their hand prints, his larger ones above hers. She doesn't paint over it. She doesn't know why, but he doesn't say anything. Wait until it dries, she offers, and he shrugs.
Day: 1523; Hour: 13
"You're leaving me alone with them?" Harry whispers, and a chorus of hurt feelings break out around them.
"I'll see you in a couple days, I'm sure."
"I'm in more fear for myself," he whispers again, and the Aurors laugh, but she knows it's a lie.
"I'll be fine. I'm always fine." Draco snorts and she shoots a glare at him.
"Are you coming back here?" Allison asks, looking hesitantly at the room full of men.
"You know you can always girl talk with Adam." Toad tries to be comforting, and receives a punch in the arm for gratitude.
Hermione had apologized to him after her long, scrubbing shower, but he had brushed her off with a laugh. That was until she followed him and drove her point in about how much she appreciated his effort, and his service, and...that was about the point he told her to calm down, it was 'aces', and escaped out the back door. She is assuming 'aces' meant fine, by context.
"I doubt I'll be back. And, in case I don't see you guys again, it was a pleasure to meet you. Allison, Adam, Harry, Justin," she only gives a slight grimace before, "Toad."
"Hey, you too."
"It was nice to-"
"-and all."
"-had fun."
"-we'll see you again."
"His name is Sam."
Hermione's polite smile falters when her eyes flash back to Harry. "What?"
The room turns silent, and she can see Draco straighten up in his observation of the contents of the fridge. "That's not Justin. His name is Sam."
"Oh." Her heart drops, an icy, prickly feeling taking up home where it had once been. She can feel the heat flash into her face, and her fingers tangle together in front of her as she looks over at J- Sam. "I am so sorry."
She can't believe she has been calling him Justin this entire time. He had never corrected her. Neither had Allison, or Toad, or Draco. She might have even said it in front of someone else too. They probably thought she was crazy or something. Why else wouldn't they bother correcting her?
"It's not a big deal." Sam shrugs, grinning at her. "I like Justin way more than Sam anyway."
Harry gives her a faint smile, pulling her into a hug. "He reminds me of Justin, too," he whispers. "Be safe."
She doesn't mean to inhale so hard at these words, but she does, coughing over Harry's shoulder. It was the smile. It was the easy feeling, and the kind eyes, and maybe she is losing her mind. Just a little. Maybe it is the constant unknowing of what tomorrow will have for her that makes her search for the familiar and name them as things she knows. Maybe she just misses him, and it can't be an active thought to realize you're calling a man the name of your dead friend. Maybe that's okay.
Except it's not, because everyone is staring at her, and coming to conclusions, and she's angry on top of the embarrassment. No one corrected her, and she unknowingly exposed part of that weakness inside of her. The place where she keeps the things that hurt, and tries to hide them from the eye of war. A place all human beings have, because there is always a pain we keep to ourselves - an enemy who knows our soul but not our name, and you can't let something like that free or it will destroy you unless you destroy it first.
She blinks furiously at the blur in her vision, and gives three pats to Harry's back before pulling away. "Well, I'll see you soon."
He looks confused, and then something else that she looks away from too soon to register. She gives a nod to the room and walks back to her and Draco's room, her feet clunky and the strange burning in her chest slow to fade. Let the birds sing, dilly dilly, and the lambs play, she hums. She's probably leaving for a mission tonight or in the morning. It isn't time to think about anything but that.
She pulls her holster on, sliding her wand into its spot, and runs her hands down the wrinkles in her dark attire. Black cloak, and she secures it around her, flipping up her hood at the sound of the rain outside. It might be raining in Wiltshire as well, and the Portkey will be taking her outside the gates. Black boots, and she pulls the laces tight and ties them, and they remind her, like they always do.
She double checks her pockets, feeling the outline of the coin in her left and her letters in her back pocket. The official order for her presence is tucked inside her cloak, for the sake of the Aurors outside the gates. She grabs her trunk and pulls it into the middle of the room, digging a ball of cloth out of her pocket.
"Forgetting something?"
She looks up at Draco, her orange Phoenix band hanging from his finger as he walks toward her. She can't read his expression, but his eyes don't waver from hers. "That's weird. It's never fallen off before."
"It has." She gives him a questioning look as she takes it, tying it tightly around her arm. In the beginning she used to tie it so tight her arm would go numb. "I remember you running after it before we infiltrated some building."
"I don't remember." She frowns, holding the cloth in her hand and pulling away the corners to reveal the bridge token serving as a Portkey. "Oh, wait... You almost got into a fight with Seamus. I think you guys pounded into one another in Moody's office after that."
He shrugs a shoulder as she rubs the cloth around the Portkey, and before any awkward silence happens or he steps away, she kisses him. It's a little sloppy, a lot rushed, but it's nice and warm and him. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She's pretty sure this is the first time she's ever kissed him goodbye when they weren't naked and one of them was leaving for a different bedroom. Except for the mission she went on to rescue Ron, but that had been a very different situation. She fumbles for the Portkey, and is gone before he says anything or she can even contemplate it.