Moonlight spilled in through the tall windows, streaking across the corridors and guiding Draco's path as he crept along. It was so late that all the torches had been extinguished and the castle would have been in pitch darkness if not for the shafts of silvery light. Draco knew the sensible thing was to cast a Disillusionment charm on himself, but he had been working in the Room of Requirement for hours and was so exhausted that he didn't think he could face using more magic.

He had made excuses for himself and skipped the day's Quidditch match against Gryffindor, knowing that the deserted castle would provide an excellent opportunity to progress with his task unnoticed. He had watched out of a window from the seventh floor as the school flooded down to the pitch and the players took off, feeling a sudden, intense pang of sadness. What he would give to be out there, soaring high above the stands, his biggest concern in life whether he could get to the Snitch before Potter. Idly, he now wondered who had won, and found that he couldn't even bring himself to care.

He had discovered a new a new incarnation, Harmonia Nectere Passus, a variation of a Mending charm he had previously attempted to use on the vanishing cabinet. Over and over again, he had spoken the words, whispered them, shouted them, varied his cadence and tone, but to no avail. The green apple that he had placed within the cabinet stayed resolutely in place.

As he walked, he turned all that he knew of the spell over in his mind for what must have been the thousandth time. Surely there must be something he had missed.

Suddenly, he paused, head tiled to one side. Somebody was crying. Creeping forward, Draco realised that the sound was coming from a nearby classroom. The door was slightly ajar, and Draco peered around it, spotting a lone figure sat on a desk with their back to him. He took a step forward, and the hinges of the door creaked gently.

The figure leapt from the desk and spun round, wand drawn. A Stunning spell shot towards him, so quickly that he almost didn't have time to duck. When he looked up, he saw that the spell had left a vivid burn mark on the wood of the door, and Granger's shocked tear-stained face was staring back at him.

Of course.

"Fucking hell, Granger! Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to use that thing properly?"

"Sorry, sorry." She mumbled, much to his surprise, lowering her wand and bringing her hand to wipe roughly at the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I was… you made me jump, that's all."

Draco stepped into the room, noticing that the floor seemed to be covered in small yellow feathers.

"What's been going on in here, exactly?" He kicked at a feather with the tip of his shoe.

"Um… it's a long story. Bad day." She let out a rather high-pitched laugh.

Draco raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't know you cared so much about the Quidditch score, Granger. Gryffindor lose that badly, huh?"

"Gryffindor won, thank you very much." She snapped back. Then, she sunk back onto the desk and buried her face in her hands. "It's… it's… Ron kissed Lavender right in front of the whole bloody common room and he's been so unpleasant recently because he's jealous that I kissed Viktor and I had invited him to Slughorn's Christmas party and I thought that perhaps things were getting better between us but now obviously we can't go together and it's like he didn't even think of me at all and I didn't even know that he liked Lavender, let alone wanted to kiss her, not that I really care, it was just a shock, and anyway I've been feeling so guilty all the time because I only really asked him to the party in the first place to distract myself from YOU."

She said all of this without taking a single breath. When she looked up at him, more tears were streaming down her face. Draco stood there, watching her, not knowing what to say. That was certainly a lot of information to process.

"And then I came in here with Harry to, you know, calm down a bit, but Ron followed me and I…" She pressed a hand to her mouth. "I attacked him with a flock of birds."

She looked so horrified, and the image of Weasley being mauled by a handful of small yellow birds was so gloriously hilarious, that Draco couldn't help but laugh. Granger shot him a glare.

"Sorry!" He held up his hands, moving further into the room to close the gap between them a little more. "Sorry. That explains all the feathers, then."

She nodded with a small sniff. "I've been practicing for Charms."

"Look," Draco leaned against the desk opposite her, "unfortunately, I'm certain that Weasley won't be gravely injured. And everything is always better in the morning."

She shook her head.

"It won't be. And it's all so complicated now. I mean, is Lavender going to be his girlfriend?" Fresh tears threatened to spill forth from her eyes, but she blinked them back.

A twinge of annoyance surged through Draco.

"Why do you care about that anyway?"

"I don't... I don't know if I do. I hate not being able to figure out my own feelings!" She slammed a fist down on the desk in annoyance. "Sorry. It's just that, well, he was coming to the party with me… and there have been… moments… between us, but now it just seems like all that meant nothing to him."

"Do you want them to mean something?" Draco found that he had slipped off the desk and moved towards her. His voice sounded a little strangled and his heart was beating very fast. An image of Weasley's face flashed before him and he had the intense desire to punch it.

"I don't… I don't know." Granger whispered, eyes locked on him. "I think… maybe I did… but then…"

"But then?" The front of his thighs hit her knees where she sat atop the desk. Her mouth moved wordlessly for a second.

"I don't trust you, Malfoy," she said eventually, before murmuring so quietly that he almost didn't hear, "Ron would absolutely hate this – "

A flash of annoyance had him stepping back from her angrily.

"Look Granger, I'm not going to kiss you if you think I'm just some pity shag that you can use to make the Witless Wonder jealous – "

"Fine!" She leapt up off the desk, wheeling away from him and throwing her hands into the air, voice shrill. "Don't kiss me! See if I care! Although, by the way, I had no plans to shag you – and might I remind you that I'm not the one who's been leering at every opportunity – "

"Leering?! Might I remind you of the library – "

"Oh, give it a rest Malfoy – "

She was properly shouting now, but before she could say another word, Draco crossed the distance between them, grabbed her waist and pulled her to him, crashing their lips together.

His blood was rushing in his ears. This was pure ecstasy, he thought breathlessly, pleasure and pain mixed together. Pain in that every fibre of his being was screaming at him that this was wrong, that he was betraying everything he had ever been taught, betraying his very bloodline; pleasure in that he could feel her body moving under him as though the tips of his fingers were electrified, that the scene of vanilla enveloped him completely as she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer.

He slid one hand further around her waist, while the other snaked up to wind into her hair, catching it at the nape of her neck and pulling slightly, so that her head tilted back and he could deepen the kiss. He let his tongue run along her lower lip and felt her moan quietly against his mouth. His knees grew weak in return, and he pushed backwards until she hit the wall of the classroom. He lifted her up and heard a moan fall from his own lips as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling their bodies impossibly closer. Her hands were on his shoulders, in his hair, sliding down the shell of his ear. He could hear Granger's ragged breaths, feel her chest heaving against his own.

Their lips broke apart, but he barely paused before he tiled her chin to the left, kissing up her jaw and running his tongue over the sensitive spot behind her ear. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent, letting her curls splay over his face. Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, and he greedily drunk in her features, taking pleasure in the blush that had spread across the bridge of her nose and up her neck.

He ran a hand up her side, letting his thumb graze the underside of her breast through her shirt. Her mouth fell open and a small breathy moan escaped her lips. He didn't want to move his eyes away from her face, keen to see what other expressions he could elicit from her, but she was pulling his face back to hers and sliding her tongue into his mouth before he knew what was happening, and the sensation of it caused him to let out a small hiss as his eyes fluttered closed.

A thought drifted lazily across his mind; she's done this before. It took root, and he found his initial surprise being forced out of the way by jealousy, low in the pit of his stomach. Who else had she kissed this way? Weasley? Surely fucking not.

In response, he pressed himself more insistently against her and he felt her gasp into his mouth. He knew she could feel how much he wanted her and his own head spun with the forcefulness of it. He would have been certain she had somehow bewitched him if not for the look on her face when they eventually pulled apart – eyes wild and searching, cheeks flushed, lips swollen – and somehow he knew that she felt just the same as he did.

"What have you done to me, Granger?" He whispered, running his thumb over her bottom lip.

Slowly, he lowered her to the ground, but did not pull back. He dipped his head, letting his forehead come to rest gently against hers. There was no other sound, aside from their heavy breathing. For what felt like an age, they stared hungrily at one another, until eventually her eyes fluttered downwards, and he gave a small smile at the sight of her embarrassment.

He could hardly believe that this was the same Hermione Granger who had hexed him in the corridor, who constantly made smart-arse comments and undermined him in classes at every available opportunity. The Golden Girl. He felt a swoop of power as he watched her cheeks grow red under his gaze, but then she looked up again and bit her lip, a small frown line appearing between her eyebrows, and he knew that she had him by a hook.

"I don't understand." The frown line deepened. "Do you… do you like me… or something?"

It was a childish question – Draco watched her face turn even more red as the words left her mouth – but one he didn't have an answer to. He took time to sort unsuccessfully through his thoughts, twirling a lock of her hair in his fingers. He still hadn't stepped backwards, so her body was pressed firmly between his and the wall, and he could feel her trembling slightly. How could he respond when he didn't have the first idea what was going on in his head?

"I… I don't know how to answer that, Granger." He tucked the strand of hair behind her ear and fixed her with a piercing look. "Do you?"

This time, she didn't look away. Slowly, she shook her head, taking her bottom lip in her teeth again. Draco swallowed back an involuntary growl; she was really going to have to stop doing that if she ever wanted him to string another sentence together.

"But, like I said before, you have… intrigued me, Granger. I don't like it any more than you do, but I can't… I don't think I can ignore it any longer. And now that I've kissed you, I want to do it again." He leaned forward, letting his teeth drag gently along the shell of hear ear before whispering, "Do you want to do this again, Granger?"

He felt her body shiver, and she let out a small "Mhm."

"Is that a yes?" He pulled back to look at her, and she nodded, tilting her head back a little. He smiled, dipping his head downwards so that their lips brushed. He felt her breath fan over his face. "I'm looking forward to patrolling with you on Monday already."

And with that, he pulled away from her, giving her a small wink and spinning on his heel before she had a chance to draw breath. If he hadn't, he was quite certain he would have needed to push her back up against the wall and…

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind as he paced through the corridors back to the Slytherin common room. He needed a cold fucking shower.