A/N: This is how we endure pandemics. With self-indulgent Dramione fics! Hope everyone is safe and well. Enjoy. 3
Hermione is not a prude.
She is so far from a prude, she's one of those grotesque misogynistic words she's heard like slag or whore. Disgusting. Gross and wanton. Her body thrums, magic singing from her hair down to her toes. Draco's weight upon her, she's hot and sweaty and there's a sticky mess down below. It's sore. It's great. She can breathe and she can't. Her heart is in her head and her stomach is in her throat. It's too much, all too amazing that it can't be real; she can't feel the shame that she should. She doesn't want to. She wants to take, to taste, to feel all the ways again. She wants to be claimed.
I'm not a prude, she thinks. Not anymore. I never was. I just didn't know.
Draco stirs. His hands pull against her, by her curls and her waist. He breathes against her shoulder. His fingers are playing, strumming melodies against her skin, writing dirty limericks of how she came undone. Of how she came.
(Three times.)
Oh gods.
She cried. He told her she was good and it was more than she could take, like a dream she held and did not remember when awake. Is she awake now? Did reality fake or did she lose her virginity to Draco freaking Malfoy?
"You okay?"
She's humming. Nervous song, an annoying tic. Her hands are scratching the cushions when she wants to scratch him. She wants to scratch herself. Wake up, Hermione.
"I…"
Somehow more of his weight sinks down on her. She's crushed now; so is he. "This was a mistake." He braces himself on toned arms she wants to drag her teeth along and he looks down on her. "That's what you were going to say."
"What?"
"That you regret this."
"No!"
"Thank fuck." He smiles. She always thought that he used to smirk and he mostly did but his smiles are there. They always were, she just didn't notice. He's too gorgeous to be real but she doesn't think he'd like if she said that. He leans down. "Granger."
"Hm?"
"This is probably going to ruin your life but you're the best I've ever had."
"Really?"
"Really, truly." He kisses her. Oh. "An Outstanding in shags."
She groans, laughs, lets her hands have free roam of his hair as her mouth opens and she moans her approval. Kissing never felt like this before. Lips and tongue and the catch of teeth. He does something to her bottom lip that has her squirming. His hands are all over her again.
He's looking down and she's watching him look. Those silver-gray eyes that move like mercury are swallowed by black as his pupils dilate. He lifts one hand and his fingers trail from her breasts to her stomach to her pubic hair and further still. They stroke that hot sticky place and lift to show fluids, red and white.
"It didn't hurt?" he says.
She shakes her head as he paints in blood and cum on her torso and leaves the shape of a giant M.
Malfoy, she thinks. There's a bruise on her left tit from where his mouth sucked her soul to the surface. Another mark made by him.
"Mine," he says and licks whatever is left off of his fingers.
Hermione is not a prude, but then what the hell is he?
He strokes himself as she potters (pun most definitely not intended) about the room, searching for discarded clothes.
Hermione Granger in nothing but clunky brown loafers and white knee-high socks is the stuff of untapped fantasies.
This is the time before reality kicks in, the witching hour but it's lunchtime, not midnight. Drag it out like his hand tugging his dick. Make it last longer. He covers his eyes as she presents her peach of an arse before him. Not playing fair, he thinks. The dream will soon be over. Another plan smashed like a cursed mirror and left to burn on a fiendfyre rubbish tip.
"We need to see Minerva," she says, casting whatever spell she requires—contraceptive and/or cleaning charm or a self-inflicted Obliviate. Her wand pauses on her stomach and she leaves his possessive M, debauched monster that he is. Merlin, Granger. He spills into his palm. "Are you listening?"
"No."
Her bra and knickers are on now and she's shrugging into a shirt. Draco stands and cleans himself with rapid wand-work. He tucks himself back into his trousers. He lets her retrieve his robes from the ground.
"Here." She stops before him, staring at his chest again.
"You can touch," he says.
"We'll never leave."
"Sounds like a plan."
She shoves his clothes against him. "Be serious."
I am, he thinks, but he puts his shirt and tie back on as he watches her slip into her skirt.
What have you done to me?
"I'm hungry," he says.
"What?"
"Let's eat lunch. Minerva can wait."
Granger's mouth opens and closes but no sound comes out. It's adorable and that's not a word he tends to use. He's really fucked.
"Trust me, you'll feel better if you eat."
Her arms are folded, one hip jutting out, and he wants to strip her down to her socks again. "You're just delaying."
"So what if I am? Even a hanged man deserves a last meal."
"They can tell you're not a virgin," Draco whispers.
She elbows him in the side as they walk. They are fully dressed and returned to some semblance of normality and yet everything is different. She is different. She's not voiced the fear aloud and yet somehow he can tell.
He can tell because everyone is staring. It's all because of breakfast but there's a giant M for Moron on her chest that they must be able to see. Martyr. Maniac. Mudblood. Even that would be better. M for Mediocrity. It's a sign of the future. She bloody hates divination. There's still science to magic, not quackery over tealeaves. Malfoy hates it too. M for Malfoy. Mine. Oh god, they can all see through her.
There's a scar on her arm that she likes to hide but she'll show it to everyone now just for the distraction.
"You're no good at this," he says.
"No good at what?"
"Not caring."
"Of course I care."
"Why?"
She's got no answer for that. It's just what she's always done. Given her adolescence to this school. Risked her life in a war for a place that still barely accepts her. She cares because it's all she knows how to do. Caring and winning and fighting for a cause. What cause?
"Welcome to my world," Malfoy says and holds open one of the Great Hall's doors.
Inside the room falls silent like a spell has just been cast and it has been by her presence. She's so magical, she doesn't need her wand or her voice; just her existence is enough to turn the world on its head. Ron looks over from the Gryffindor table, arm in a sling and face in a scowl. Ginny whispers something that's supposed to placate him but his features crumple even further.
Courage. Bravery. Determination, she thinks.
Daring. Nerve.
Chivalry.
Draco's hand nudges at the small of her back. She's not alone.
It's like the aftermath of battle for lunch, except this time she's on the losing side, a side who stands tall and unwavering beside her. She's a Gryffindor ejected from the pride and allied with the world's most venomous snake. A lethal pair. Who would dare? She smiles as she follows the current Head Boy to the Slytherin table.
The benches are already cleared for their arrival. Draco gestures for her to take a seat, her back to Ron and her house's table, then he sits on the other side.
"They can definitely tell," he says, gracefully filling his plate from the steaming dishes before him. "Don't look."
She wants to so badly but doesn't because he says so. Damn that voice. She can't resist him.
"I walk like a whore now," she says with a sigh and Draco spits out a mouthful of water.
Wit.
It should come first in the list of Slytherin qualities. Or at least second to his favorite: self-preservation.
A keen mind means a sharp tongue and, besides a wand, it is a wizard's strongest weapon.
Granger is a warrior of words. She makes him laugh. He finds himself readying for a verbal duel in her presence and he relishes the challenge of whatever she will throw at him. He wants to make her laugh in return like a successfully landed hex.
Before the war, he was weak in body as well as mind. He let himself wither in fear and regret, and he refuses to do that again. Beyond needing to get stronger for his Quidditch-playing ambitions, he won't let any part of who he is fail. He has built up walls in his mind and muscle to his frame. He at last got the growth spurt his parents' stature promised and he ate and he ate. He is hungry now, starved for the chance to escape his ruined childhood and make something better.
Wherever he ends up, he will live up to his tainted name.
Granger's laughing hysterically now as he wipes his face with a napkin and it's one small victory in a war that's ongoing. He laughs too. People are looking as if they've gone mad and they haven't; the rest of these idiots are bloody insane.
"Eat," he tells her and returns to his own food. She quietens down and he feels her gaze on him as he hears her cutlery scrape with the telltale signs of unrefined breeding.
"Thank you," she says.
"For what?"
She shrugs.
"Elbows off the table, Granger."
She flips him her middle finger as she does.
Wit without words. He might be falling in love.
"Mister Malfoy. Miss Granger." Minerva now stands at the head of the table. "A moment of your time, if that's not too much trouble."
Her gaze is withering, one eyebrow raised like a poised guillotine. Hermione shrinks and Draco coughs. He stands before she does and she follows behind, trailing the black billowing robes of Minerva like an ominous cloud.
There is silence until they reach the Headmistress' office. Draco holds out a chair for Hermione and Minerva seems to bristle at the gesture. Chivalry by the lions is dead. The gentleman ex-Death Eater sits down after the women have and elegantly crosses his legs.
"I do not need to explain why you are here." Minerva steeples her fingers with thin and wrinkled but still powerful hands resting on the large desk that lies between them. "What we must discuss is appropriate punishment. However, I find myself in the unusual position of requiring the Head Boy and Head Girl to discipline themselves."
"Minerva—" The look Hermione receives has her shrinking even further; Draco raises an artist's hand to his temple in embarrassment on her behalf. "Headmistress McGonagall, if I may?"
"You may not." The voice this time is Draco's. "I'm the one in trouble, yes? What has Hermione done?"
"I… I absconded from class! And I cursed in front of everyone. I…" She looks at Draco and blushes, remembering, while his incredibly skilled fingers move to squeeze the bridge of his nose.
"Miss Granger, is there something I do not know?" Minerva says.
Draco spares her from the trouble of answering with a question of his own. "Have you interviewed Weasley?"
"Mister Weasley gave his version of events while having his fractured wrist healed and enduring Skele-gro. I am withholding judgment until all versions have been gathered."
"Tell her then, Granger."
"I…" Hermione tugs at the hem of her skirt in her lap. How much is she supposed to reveal? And is it important? Will it save Draco from greater punishment?
She feels a large hand cover her own and looks up. "Say what you want to say and don't try to protect me," he tells her.
"Stop being a heroic fool."
"I'm not heroic."
"Ahem." Minerva clears her throat, staring between them. "As gratifying as it is to see the two of you get along in your Head roles, could we please try to maintain focus?"
Hermione takes a deep breath as Draco squeezes her hand. "Ron and I broke up," she says. "We argued at breakfast and he said things that were unfair."
"He lied to protect his non-existent reputation."
"Draco!"
"Go on," he says with a bored gesticulation of his free hand.
"Draco came to help me and Ron got angry; I don't know why exactly. But he reached for his wand and Draco grabbed his wrist to disarm him. It was self-defense or defending me. Either way, it wasn't an act of aggression on Draco's side. He just got caught in the middle."
"I see. And Mister Malfoy, do you back up what Miss Granger has said?"
"Does it matter?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're going to have to do something about this. I broke another student's bones. It doesn't matter why or that I'm Head Boy. It actually makes it worse, since this was all a transparent effort to rehabilitate me. Will the Ministry know? Have I breached my probation?"
"Perhaps you would refrain from making my decisions for me," Minerva says. Hermione is now holding Draco's hand with both her own. "I chose you for a reason, Mister Malfoy, though not the somewhat cynical one you suppose."
"I think you made a mistake," Draco says.
"No, she didn't!"
"You're sweet to me, Granger."
"Pay attention, both of you." Minerva glares then takes a breath to compose herself. "You were the best candidates that I had as individuals as well as based on your joint potential. Compatibility matters too and I see I was correct in my assessment. That being said, another student has been injured. So, it is my decision: Mister Malfoy will be suspended as Head Boy for the rest of term."
"I quit."
"Draco, please! It's only until the New Year."
"I'm not talking about Head Boy. I quit school." He removes his hand from Hermione's and stands. "Headmistress, thank you for the chance you gave me. But I've seen that there's no place left for me here."
"I'm very sorry to here that," Minerva says. "And I urge you to reconsider."
"I've been thinking about this for a while. Am I excused?"
"If you insist."
"I do." Draco bows. "I'll talk to you later, Granger."
"Don't go!" she begs as the door closes behind him.
"What a terrible waste," Minerva says. "Do you have any thoughts on a potential replacement?"
Hermione looks from the door back to her mentor and bursts into inconsolable tears.
For some inexplicable reason, Draco goes to his next class:
Advanced Muggle Studies.
He is feeling nostalgic. That's a bullshit excuse. He's not sentimental and nostalgia implies a significant length of time to have passed for one to feel anything wistful for that period.
Muggle Studies is a means to survival, a way of escape. His fellow classmates all believe he is mandated to be there. There are only seven in total and one other Slytherin, a well-meaning seventh year whose earnestness makes him seem sickeningly incongruous to his house. In reality, Draco is strangely fascinated by the subject. It's like ancient history or illicit literature. He is taken out of his world into one so freakishly foreign, he forgets that he's as out of place just where he is.
That sounds like a sentimental reason. He won't tell Granger if she asks. She never has, although he knows that she knows he takes the subject. She's seen his Muggle books, ones that are not even required reading. Fiction is fiction. And science fiction is Muggle magic, he supposes. Isn't all science a kind of fiction? Technology exists in the wizarding world but for it to work on its own by that electricity power or other fuels? Until he sees it, it can't be real. Magic he feels; he lives and breathes it. But if you tell him that he's made up of tiny things called cells composed of molecules constructed by even smaller parts called atoms, he won't take your word for it.
Honestly, if Granger knew all his views, he would be excruciatingly embarrassed.
He goes straight from class to the library and reads about aeroplanes as a form of transport. It's absolutely terrifying. He could fly his broom one-handed across the Atlantic but to put people in a metal box and sit trapped in the sky for hours? Muggles are barbaric creatures. It's amazing they've survived for as long as they have.
He grabs dinner in the kitchens and goes to his Quidditch training. He runs laps after his last teammate has left and no one questions that he might have yelled at a botched play when he hardly ever speaks, unless to confer with the captain. He wants to exhaust himself. Be drained in his body and his mind when he returns to the dorm and is forced to face her.
"Where the hell have you been?"
She is standing with arms crossed as he enters. He opens his mouth to make his excuses, except her wand is in her hand and she's cast three spells: one to render him silent, one to make him sit and another to keep his arms and legs bound by ropes that emerge from the sofa and the floor.
Hermione Granger is a truly frightening witch.
It's enough to make him semi-hard. When she settles herself astride his thighs, bunching up her skirt in the process, the situation becomes much starker.
"Talk," she says.
He narrows his eyes until she releases the spell and he splutters. "Shit."
"What are you doing?"
"I was aiming for bed after a shower. That okay with you?"
"Don't be smart." She pulls his hair. "Why are you going?"
"Why d'you care?"
He can see that she's been crying and she's about to start again. But her eyes are hard and she's shaking with anger based on the force that she's now exerting on his scalp.
"You bastard. Why don't you care about yourself? Does nothing matter to you? Do I—?"
"What? Does this have something to do with you?"
"Stop it! Stop pretending!"
He's good at it. And he's mad and he knows. He's just not going to be the one to say it.
"Do you want me to stay?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You're throwing your life away."
"Wrong! Ten points deducted."
"You're giving up."
"You're a shitty liar and you don't know a thing about it. So get to the fucking truth. Why does it bother you so much? Come on. It's not about me, Granger."
It is all about him and his dumb luck and his tragic heart. He fucks but he doesn't feel so readily. It's an all or nothing process, like putting yourself on a broom and trusting entirely in your magic. Flying is magic at its most elemental. The times he has fell for something even magic can't define might as well be nonexistent.
So she'll have to be the one to take the leap this time. As much as he knows she hates flying, she's the brave one, not him.
"I don't want you to!" she yells at last.
He smiles in satisfaction and relief. "It's nice to hear you say it."
"You avoided me for the rest of the day."
"I knew you'd be mad."
"I still am."
"Are you okay?"
"It's so awful. They all just stared and whispered about me. People I thought were friends never even came to ask how I felt. Only you. Since when did that happen? I don't want to be here without you."
"Then don't."
"You mean—?"
Even a snake can show courage. Or stupidity. In his limited experience, he's found that they are one and the same. "Come with me, Granger," he says.
"No."
Fuck.
"You don't know where, you stubborn Gryffindor." Cunning and resourcefulness; he carries these in spades. "This place will suffocate you," he tells her and he's not even lying. "It's sucking you dry. And I'm done. Not because of your precious Weasel, but snapping his arm gave me the clarity that I'm ready now. Look at me, Hermione." She does. She's so fucking obedient and his erection is straining against her soft weight. "I have a plan. It's sort of changed in the last few hours but it goes like this: at the match against Gryffindor this weekend, I've arranged for an American scout to come see me play. If I get signed, I'm going and if I don't I'm leaving anyway. I know you don't like one jot of confusion or uncertainty, but think of it this way: if I catch the Snitch and crush your shithead house then you are mine and you belong with me. If history chooses to screw me over again then forget it. I don't deserve you anyway."
"You're such a dumb fucking romantic," she says, sniffling. That he may be, but it's not like she's any better. Is it being clever? Intelligence makes you expect too much. He's tried to burn himself of idealism but there are dreams that are like a drug, like the strongest fire-whisky. Disappointment hurts but the world's full of more masochists than sadists.
"Then you'll consider?"
"It's not even been a day."
"But it's been an age, an epoch change." He lifts his pelvis against his restraints, and she shifts so perfectly against him. "Will you come with me, Granger?"
Her hands let go of his hair and take hold of his face. "I never thought that I could hate it here but I would if you left."
"Is that a yes?"
She leans down and lets her lips hover over his. "You better catch that Snitch."
Hermione kisses him and lets the ropes release. His arms crush her to him as she grinds on his crotch. His good but bad Head Girl.
He growls against her throat while she undoes his shirt. "Did they name my replacement?"
"Anthony Goldstein."
No fucking way that she is sharing a dorm with him.
"If I lose, you're coming with me anyway."
"What kind of a deal is—?" but she shuts up when he stands, his hands inside her knickers and her legs wrapped around his hips.
Advanced Muggle Studies has been good for something, he thinks as he walks them to the shower.
He spent most of those non-magic hours imagining something like this.
Draco moves into her room that night, except he replaces her belongings with his.
The modest double bed is morphed into a grand four-poster. Her mixed blend sheets are swapped for elf-spun Egyptian cotton and a thick silk and griffin-down comforter made by dedicated witch-nuns in Nepal. Their combined book collections requires one of her extension charms. Crookshanks is perturbed at first then grows grouchily compliant. She has even seen him brush against Draco's ankles on occasion, which still elicits delightful looks of horror from her handsome Slytherin.
Anthony Goldstein is an awkward lodger to this unorthodox cohabitation. Minerva ignored his protests since Hermione and Draco are of age and there was nowhere else to safely move the former Head Boy or, at least, nowhere worth all the headache when his Hogwarts career ends in less than a week.
The school is in outrage and Hermione is learning not to care. Especially when she has a strong arm draped across her shoulders and the world's most disdainful sneer as her shield. Draco is taking great pleasure in their pariahdom. Sexual pleasure, since he shows his distaste for the rest of the world in the way that he can't get enough of her.
She doesn't know what she is doing. She's ignored desperate letters from Harry and long pleading diatribes from her teachers and the disappointed to hateful stares of her former friends and peers. She's not lonely. She's ready, though she doesn't know just what it is that she is ready for.
Her fear feels like the first time that Draco took her flying. Dead of night and she sat side-saddle at the front of his broom, his arms secure around her as they soared to heart-stopping heights. The earth was a black hollow, the sky an endless blanket of silver-gray clouds, heavy and damp and deep, like the eyes that shone as she stared into them.
"Don't look down."
She couldn't.
The broom dropped from below her and she fell for a second at most but her life flashed before her, crushing and violent. With a jerk, she was caught, cradled in his arms as he balanced atop a narrow strip of wood and glided them hundreds of feet to the ground.
"Cool, eh?"
She slapped him. She clung to him so tight. And that was it all: falling and almost dying and waiting to be caught.
It's stupid to believe in but she does: Draco will always catch her.
"Move," he says, entering the dorms and waiting for Anthony to vacate the couch. Hermione doesn't look up from her work but she can smell the sweat and earth radiating off of him. He's training harder than ever and he doesn't sleep so much as eat and fuck. It's all exercise, he tells her. He berates her for still studying but she's bored when he's not with her and she's not quite let go of the safety net that is Hogwarts.
You don't need a safety net; you have him. No worse advice could ever be given and she would look down upon any witch who acted so carelessly.
That witch is she.
Draco throws his arm across the back of the sofa. "Have you told your parents what you're planning?"
Where's this coming from? "Have you told yours?"
He shrugs, waiting and watching for Anthony to disappear inside his room. "Mother's in despair. Father's denied any letters; I doubt he gets the paper."
"You don't care what they think?"
"I don't have the luxury to base my life on what they want for me. I tried that once and it got me nothing good." His right hand is scratching his left forearm. He does that sometimes and she's seen the mark; she's seen him naked enough. "I still want them in my life but it's going to be on my terms. What about yours?"
Oh fuck.
"I've not told them," she says, not a lie but not the truth because she does not want to explain this.
"About me?"
"About any of it."
"Why?"
He's like a small child lots of the time, demanding a reason for everything, as if accepting what he was told in the past burned him too much and only the unadorned truth will suffice. She gets it; she does, but they all have their secrets and their scars. He's respectful of so many boundaries but he wants unfettered access to her mind.
"It no longer concerns them," she says.
He looks at her as if to say one day I will drag the whole sorry story out of you, but he asks no questions further and takes her with him to the bath.
Draco's body at least is a welcome distraction. She soaps his back and wraps herself around his torso and thinks, don't let me fall; don't let me drown.
Please don't let me regret this.
The Saturday game between Gryffindor and Slytherin is only meant to be a friendly. Still, the stands are packed and there are members of the press in attendance. Word has got out that it is one of Hogwarts' most infamous student's final appearance. The scandal involving the former Head Boy and still current Head Girl also made The Daily Prophet and even the latest edition of The Quibbler.
Draco has endured howlers and paparazzi and his fellow students attempting the lamest of tricks. He has endured all of it on the proviso that no one comes for Hermione. If they think his supposed history and reputation is scary, see what happens when they lay a finger on what is his.
He's possessive but he won't apologize for that. And she doesn't complain. She sleeps in his spare Quidditch jersey most nights and she's wearing it today. She hasn't seen him play yet. Given what's at stake, it was tempting to let her maintain a perfect record of complete disinterest in the sport. But his future she cares about. She tells him this in their quiet moments left in the dark, flesh pressed to flesh and warm and sticky in their post-coital shell. He remembers catching her and the dumb risk he took, the precariousness of their existence as his feet kept balance with the earth a distant place. He would never drop her. He would never cause her harm. But she is meant here, in his arms, in this dangerous life he is still fighting for.
She cares about his future and he wants her with him. Selflessness and selfishness. Gryffindor versus Slytherin.
He sits in the Slytherin changing room, tightening the straps on his wrist guards, checking the set up on his broom. His younger teammates are running around with a panic unbecoming for their house. Draco only hears white noise. The world is a blur around him, left in soft focus like an impressionist painting. He has no fear because he has faith in himself. It has been hard won, not bought. His childish arrogance that his father could throw money at everything and all would be his is long gone. He never won a thing that way and winning is not the same as being earned.
This is for her. She doesn't know it yet. He didn't know when he planned it all but he will save himself and the Gryffindor princess from this slow death fate.
He stands, ready now, the speech of the captain shifting into audible words.
"… and it's our last chance to win this for Malfoy."
"Spare me." Draco moves to the center. He's one of the tallest amongst them, despite playing Seeker. His build might have changed but he's still the fastest flier in the school and his team know it. "Fuck this up and I'll come for you all. You'll be begging to be Hufflepuffs when I'm through, believe me." He sees fear permeate the room and smiles. "Don't look so worried, you little shits. I'm going to win this, with or without your help."
He leads the team out into the center of the field, whispering last-minute tactics to the captain. The roar of the ground sounds far away and there's no time to look for Granger. The Gryffindors are already waiting, Weasel fixing his helmet and putting on his gloves, a brace still visible around his right wrist. This game is not a friendly. It's not just sport. Blood will be spilled and his future will be decided. For once Draco is excited for the fight.
Each player takes position and mounts their broom. The balls are released and his eyes follow the Golden Snitch, his dream on bewitched wings. Blood and magic run hot and fast through his veins. He floats; he rises.
The referee throws up the Quaffle, and Draco flies like he's fleeing his grave.
Hermione knows who the scout is. American wizards look like Muggles. A baseball cap and shades? She pulls Draco's robes tighter over her shoulders. She wears his jersey as well. His smell and his size keep her warm and comforted. There's a book in her lap and a floating flask of tea by her arm.
She needs to keep distracted. She's in the Slytherin stands and might as well be the Golden Snitch. Until the game starts, she is the unsolicited center of everyone's attention. She can't concentrate on the words before her and her tea grew stewed long before. Her heart is palpitating. There's too much at stake, and she hates this stupid sport. People get hurt; deaths have occurred. Why couldn't her lover prefer chess? Bad choice, Hermione! She squeezes her eyes shut and groans.
Next to her, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini are sipping fire-whisky from a shared hip flask and discussing stats. They didn't return to school but they chose to be here. Draco never talks about his friends, though there is no one else they'd be here for. Their conversation is boring, their eyes always half on her. For sneaky Slytherins, they are not subtle in their furtive observing.
"What's Draco wearing?" Zabini says.
Her eyes dart to the playing field. The teams are only just being announced. She hears soft chuckling beside her.
"Eavesdropping is rude," Nott says.
"So is staring." Hermione closes her book and folds her arms. "Shall we stop pretending that we're ignoring each other?"
"A welcome and straightforward approach." Zabini offers Hermione the hip flask, which she accepts. "Potter couldn't make it?"
The alcohol is a much better warmer compared to tea. "I wouldn't know," she says and stands. The players are on the field.
"Girl Weasel sure got fit," he adds. "Lucky Potter."
But Hermione is not looking at the Gryffindors. She is not looking at anyone except the tall and beautiful blond in green. She is such a lost cause but that uniform is made for him. She wishes she could see him close, see his face and touch his hair and wish more than the lame good luck she offered as she kissed him at the dormitory door.
The game starts. She's not sure of all the rules but the balls, Golden Snitch included, are sent into the air and the players soon follow.
Draco flies like he was born to, sleek and sure and moving effortlessly as he dodges a Bludger and acts as decoy while one of his Chasers scores their first goal. Nott and Zabini shout wildly beside her. Draco slaps the younger player on the shoulder and nearly sends her off her broom. Gryffindor respond with a strong attack. Ginny is fast enough to play Seeker as well but her aim is better than anyone's and the lions strike back. The game is mostly back and forth like this. No one has a particularly weak defense but this is going to be won by points and goals and, ultimately, whoever has the better Seeker.
The Snitch is proving elusive and Draco is circling the pitch, keeping watch while having his teammates' backs. The Beaters have their eyes on him, Ron in particular, who diverts one Bludger towards him, falling into his trap and allowing the Slytherins to take the lead.
It barely missed Draco that time and took out a chunk of wood from the post it struck behind him. Draco moves, unfazed, while Ron grows more erratic. She was frightened for this. It's judged a Cobbing foul when Ron flies directly past him and his elbow lands against Draco's ribs. Draco keeps his balance but did nothing to block the hit. You knew he was going to foul you, you loon, she thinks. He doesn't appear hurt but Hermione feels sick. This game is the bloody worst.
Two hours of this torture. Gryffindor's Seeker takes a Bludger to the leg, which is pronounced broken. A Slytherin Chaser is felled after accidentally colliding with the opposing keeper and carried off on a stretcher. Turns out it was the captain. Draco takes over the reins and calls a time out. It's raining as the teams hover, drenched and covered in dirt. She can see him yell but can't hear what he's saying. She's soaked too, cold and frightened and exhilarated. She has yet to give Blaise back the flask, and she's downed what was left.
Oh gods. Who is the Seeker for Gryffindor now?
The commentator makes the announcement, and the crowd goes deafeningly wild.
"Fucking typical!" Nott is drinking whisky directly from a bottle now. He passes it around while Blaise yells obscenities and Hermione feels the floor drop from below her.
The Gryffindor's pinch Seeker is none other than Harry Potter.
Catch me, she thinks. Don't fall. You can do this.
Draco flies past their stand and salutes. The Slytherins cheer likes it's the House Cup final, like it's them versus the world. In a way it is and she understands now. This is where the post-war losers sit, the hated and the hateful. She is amongst those who wanted her dead. But the side she fought on doesn't seem to care that she's alive. It's the loneliest place, like being the Seeker.
You have one job and the rest doesn't matter. Don't worry. Don't think. Just look.
That's what Draco had told her. So Hermione stands, cold and proud and wrapped in her boyfriend's robes, and she looks and she sees him.
Draco is flying like no one else is watching, only her. Harry is on his tail but he's out of practice; his broom is too slow. The Snitch is arching upwards, ever higher, before it shoots back towards the ground. Draco turns first in a perfect loop, darting like a missile aimed at the earth. A Bludger strikes the tail of his broom as Ron yells and the crowd all intake their breath as one. Draco's broom is swerving and he's still pitching downwards, one hand gripping the handle, the other outstretched as the ground closes in.
He's going to die. He's going to die, she thinks.
Shut up, Granger. Just look.
Draco crashes. He pulls up at the very last moment and takes the impact with his legs, body and broom spinning over and over through mud and grass. He stops on his back. The rain still falls and the world turns silent. Hermione keeps looking.
Don't lie. Don't die. Don't make me regret this, you sodding idiot.
A gloved hand rises into the air, the Golden Snitch secure in its hold.
I said I would always catch you.
Hermione can't stand anymore.
The first thing Draco sees is the face of his nightmares standing above him.
"Not bad, Malfoy." Potter holds out a hand and, since his body is too damaged to obey him anymore, Draco's Snitch-free arm shoots out and accepts it.
He struggles to his feet. The wind is still knocked out of him and the rain is pouring down. It's deafening, an endless roar that reverberates like thunder and he looks up. It's not the noise of the rain; it is the crowd.
"You okay, Malfoy?" the Weasel says and he doesn't have any answer. He is looking through water and clouds and the mud and blood that's falling in his eyes. He's looking for something, like the prize he holds in his left hand. The reason for everything.
He trudges through the mud, grunting as his teammates slap him on the back and yell their congratulations. He trudges through the mud ignoring the flash of cameras and the boring questions of vile journalists that wouldn't know the truth if it came with an exclusive and a giant's kick up the arse. He trudges through the mud and calls his broom back into his hand. There'a fracture close to the tail end but his Nimbus 2001 is still in one piece. The first broom he ever rode here and the last. He's as sentimental as a bloody Hufflepuff. He's going to scream. Fuck this place. Fuck everyone.
He mounts and flies, not quite so steadily, up to edge of the Slytherin stands.
She's there waiting for him, Nott and Zabini on either side, their dumb faces grinning and swearing at him. He ignores the bottle of fire-whisky they offer and goes for something far more potent.
"Talk to me, Granger." He tosses her the Snitch and she almost drops it. "Are you still in?"
"Yes," she says.
He shoves his useless friends aside as he leans in to kiss her. She tastes of booze and blood and mud, a mudblood cocktail and he's never tasted anything better. "Let's get out of here." He lifts her, squealing, from the stands and sits her in front of him.
"Isn't this thing broken?" she says.
Her arms are locked around his neck and his arms are around her. "Damaged but functional," he assures her, steering them clear of the grounds. He nods over her wet frizzy mass of curls at the only person wearing a baseball cap and shades in the entire stadium. He'll have to get used to the terrible fashions, he supposes. He probably should go to the infirmary. He really shouldn't be flying for much longer.
Hermione's eyes are squeezed shut, and she's missing the pandemonium they are leaving behind.
"I'm not going to drop you," he says.
"I know. Just let me enjoy this."
He laughs. "You look fucking petrified."
"I am, you arsehole!"
"Can you get used to this?"
"What?"
"Coming to watch me play?"
"No. But I've made a plan."
"Do tell."
"I'm becoming a healer. It seems like a prerequisite if I'm going to be with you."
"Healing school?"
"I've made enquiries to one of the programs in Massachusetts."
He alights at the main entrance to Hogwarts and sets her on her feet. "You'd decided already?"
"Yes."
"You might need to start your training now." He looks at Hermione and kisses her soundly. "I think I'm going to faint."
Draco doesn't pass out before they reach the infirmary. Hermione helps Madam Pomfrey lay him on a bed and is left to assess his wounds while the Matron returns to tending to the other injured players. Quidditch really is the worst sport ever.
He is quiet as she removes his uniform down to his underwear. His torso is bruised and his face is bloody. Luckily his legs survived the crash-landing with only a few superficial scratches and abrasions. She casts a spell to clean him and herself. She has mud all over from when he kissed her and had his hands in her hair and hauled her bodily onto his broom as if it wasn't the last thing that she wanted to do.
Draco post-Quidditch game, victorious and dirty sat astride his broken broomstick, hair a disheveled mess and blood dripping from his brow, might be the sexiest thing she's ever seen. She is never telling him that, though she suspects that he might know.
His eyes are closed when she applies various balms across his chest and makes him swallow a healing potion.
"You're good at this," he says.
"Hush."
She makes him down a calming draught next. It just so happens to be one of his specials.
"Tastes familiar."
"Go to sleep, Draco."
Soon he does and she settles a blanket over him and a warming charm over that.
She sits by his bedside and looks. She can't believe that he's hers. She can't fathom that this is her future but it feels right, to take care of him. Damaged but functional. "I'll catch you as well," she whispers and presses a kiss to his now unblemished brow.
"Merlin's tits, you guys are worse than a Witch Weekly column," Theodore Nott declares, barging past the cubicle curtain.
Blaise Zabini follows behind him, taking a long drink of fire-whisky from the rapidly emptying bottle. "Granger, I've become sick too. Please take care of me."
"Flirt with her again and I'll have your balls shrunk down to pixie dust." Draco is still awake. Hermione wants to disappear down into pixie dust as well.
She snatches the bottle from Blaise. "He's all yours," she says and runs from the room.
Back in the corridors, she drinks the last dregs and wills the heat to leave her cheeks and move down her throat. Let it settle in her stomach and digest. She is an embarrassment. Draco heard her whisper and so did his friends. She didn't say I love you, hasn't yet, but she might've done and she might've meant it as well.
Her walk back to her dorms leads her past the Great Hall. The doors are open and the Quidditch crowds are rammed inside in celebration since the weather has only gotten worse. She hears chants for Harry and looks in to see him surrounded by friends at her old table. She remembers happier memories sitting there, but there's no hole in her heart or imagined gap where she should be. Time moves forth and she is moving forward, a new chapter to be written. Hogwarts: A History will need to be updated.
"You going in?"
She turns and finds Ron stood behind her.
"No." She shakes her head. They haven't talked since their awful breakfast altercation. He looks recalcitrant now, if he should know what it means. Still in his Quidditch jersey and with helmet hair that does not become him, she feels a warmth that goes older and deeper than the fire-whiskey she has imbibed. "You go."
"You sure?"
"I'll be fine, Ron. It's for the best."
"If you say so." He rubs the back of his neck. "He treat you well?"
"Yes."
"And where is he now?"
"The infirmary. Two cracked ribs and multiple bruises. You did a cracking job."
"Sorry."
"You don't have to apologize to me. I suppose now you're both even."
"Yeah."
"Take care of yourself, Ron."
"You're not going to see Harry?"
"Not now. Not here." She hands him her contraband bottle of fire-whisky; there's maybe one shot left. "Have a drink on me."
She knows her place and she needs no liquid courage to go back the way she came. Draco is truly asleep and his so-called friends have drawn graffiti all over his body, including a crude ejaculating penis on his forehead and PROPERTY OF GRANGER across his abs.
"Get away from him," she snaps and they scarper, but not before taking her hands and placing a kiss on the back of each. "Bloody Slytherins. You're all a bunch of slimy snakes." But there's no real venom as she magics all the ridiculous marks away (though PROPERTY OF GRANGER stays) and climbs onto the bed beside him.
"You might still be able to hear me," she whispers, "but I don't care anymore. I love you, Draco." No arm comes up around her and no sarcastic retort can be heard. "Oh well."
Hermione loves him.
He might have dreamt it, but her name is written across his stomach (okay, so he still recognizes the author's script) and it appears that he belongs to her.
It fades after he showers the next morning. He packs up his things and shrinks his trunks down to fit in his pockets. He foregoes breakfast and sneaks away at lunch to take one last flight over the Quidditch field.
She is standing in the center waiting for him when he comes back down.
"Thought I'd find you here," she says.
"Just relishing the taste of victory."
"It's okay if a part of you is going to miss this place."
He holds his broomstick in one hand and takes Hermione's in the other. "Anything I could miss is coming with me. It's a moot point. Stop trying to project your grief."
"Don't be such an insensitive prick!"
"You don't love that about me?"
"I…"
Ha! That shut her up. They walk back to the school in silence (awkward for her, relishable for him).
"I'm leaving tonight," he says as they reach the entrance.
"I'm not ready yet."
"I know. Just I have to go. They want to me in America."
"Where?"
"Massachusetts. The Fitchburg Finches made me an offer than I couldn't refuse."
"What was that?"
"Being in Massachusetts."
She throws herself into his arms and his broomstick clatters to the stone ground. Maybe he only needs one thing. Maybe his plan led to her all along.
"I do bloody love you," she says.
"I know."
"You're supposed to say it back."
"Why?"
"Oh my god!"
"It should be apparent, Granger." He lowers her onto her feet and takes a step back. "You were never once part of my calculations but now you're like the missing ingredient, indelible, as crucial as crushed salamander tooth."
"You're going to remind me of that potions assignment now?"
"That is how I say I love you."
"It needs work."
"I'm a hard worker."
"Hard work."
"I love you, okay?" And he does. It comes easy. Like flying. Like leaving Hogwarts behind him. Magic and the indefinable, the things he cannot see. There's a right way down and a wrong way up. He's not clamoring to be let back into this world when there's one he can make and fill with what's important to him.
"You're like an atom, Granger," he says.
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Advanced Muggle Studies."
"Do I really want to know?"
"I was hoping you'd never ask."
He'll reveal all he doesn't know to his shame and her schadenfreude one day. And she'll tell him about her parents. And he'll introduce her to his. And if they stay together and it becomes something more, they can share the strange and dumb fucking romantic story of Hogwarts' first post-war Head Boy and Head Girl.