DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated in any way with J.K. Rowling.
Ruling with her heart was going pretty well, Hermione decided a few moments later. After all, it was like she had said, there was no problem here. She was kissing the man (boy? No, that sounded too young, but he wasn't eighteen yet. Young man? Maybe, but…wait, what an odd thing to be thinking right now) whose company she enjoyed, who made her laugh, who, let's face it, was not unblessed in the looks/physique department and who had been on her mind a lot recently. It felt good to want and be wanted in return and as Draco's hands found the small of her back and gently pushed her closer in to him, she found she had no objections. Her own hands, acting by themselves, made their way up until they were fastened around the back of his neck.
Something made a dull thud and her own neck suddenly seemed cold. Frowning, she untangled her hands from Draco's neck and took a step back.
"What's wrong?" Draco all but demanded, looking slightly flushed.
"The necklace," Hermione murmured, her eyes raking the floor until she found where the emerald and crimson pendant lay. "It just…fell off."
"That's good, right?"
"I don't know."
Hermione felt her neck rather forlornly, already missing the necklace that she had once considered a burden. She bent down to pick it up, realizing as she did so just what had happened these last few…hours? Minutes? Seconds? She wasn't sure how long she'd been gone. As she tried to remember, she scooped up the necklace and fastened it back around her neck before standing up straight again.
"You know that's just asking for trouble, don't you?" Draco asked shrewdly.
"Shut up," she murmured, unable to meet his eye.
If Harry and Ron knew what she'd just been doing, and more importantly who she'd just been doing it with, they'd never speak to her again. On the other hand, it wasn't really any of their business. On the other other hand…oh, she'd run out of hands.
"You're regretting it already, aren't you?"
Draco's harsh and slightly hurt voice cut through the silence and made Hermione wince slightly.
"No," she lied, unconvincingly.
"Then why won't you look at me?"
Hermione forced her eyes up to his, surprised at the emotion they held. Anger and frustration, mainly, but there was also something softer.
"I don't regret it," Hermione told him. "I…enjoyed it, actually."
"So did I." The softness in his eyes magnified as he looked at her.
"Well, good. That's, uh, that's good." She looked away again. "But I think we need to talk later."
"Me too," Draco agreed. Suddenly a frown creased his brow. "Did Zella take your wand?"
"I don't think so," Hermione answered, checking her pocket and pulling out her wand. "Ah, here we go."
Nothing more than a flash of robes and platinum hair, Draco shot forward and snatched the wand right from her hand.
"Draco, what the hell?" she scowled. "Give me my wand back!"
"No," he answered simply. "This way you won't be able to hex me when I tell you that we won't talk later, we'll talk now."
Hermione folded her arms, annoyed.
"There's a door over there."
"Good luck getting through when I'm blocking it."
Proving his point, he moved over to the door and stood stoically in front of it.
"I've punched you once, I'm not averse to doing it again," Hermione warned, narrowing her eyes. "And at this moment I'm definitely in a more violent mood."
"Then punch me."
Hermione blinked at him. "Excuse me?"
"Punch me."
"Is this a trick?"
"You're obviously angry with me. I don't know why and I don't think you'll tell me, so you might as well work it off somehow."
Hermione faltered. She'd been bluffing and he'd called on it. Damn.
"I'm not going to punch you," she sighed, before hesitating. It looked like there was only one way out of this room. "But we can talk now if that's what you want."
"If I sit over there," he gestured to the bed in the corner of the room, "do you promise not to make a break for it?"
Hermione had to laugh. "You have my wand, of course I'm not."
Wordlessly, Draco threw her wand back to her. It clattered to the floor nosily as she failed to catch it. She bent to pick it up and, upon straightening, smiled softly at him.
"I'm not going anywhere," she promised, moving to perch on the bed. "Are you?"
His response was to sit next to her. They kept a careful distance, Hermione leaning slightly against the pillows and Draco sitting at the foot of the bed.
"Not to be gross or anything, but I don't think these sheets have been washed for like two hundred years," Draco commented, lightening the mood.
Hermione laughed, relaxing a little.
"So, what do you want to talk about?" she asked.
"What was your favourite subject before coming to Hogwarts?"
Surprised, Hermione frowned.
"How is this supposed to help our relationship?" When Draco smiled, her frown deepened. "What?"
"You just said 'our relationship'," he told her. "And you didn't say it in a mocking way."
"Why would I say it in a mocking way?" Hermione asked, the corners of her mouth turning up. When Draco didn't reply, she shrugged. "Maths was my favourite." Unsure if wizards had muggle lessons, she began to elaborate. "That's with numbers and-"
"I know what maths is, Hermione, I'm not stupid," Draco smirked. "I was tutored at home for quite awhile by some of the greatest minds in the wizarding world."
"Pity all that money went to waste, tutoring obviously hasn't had an effect," Hermione teased.
"You're hilarious."
"I know."
"So, why maths?" Draco asked and, before waiting for an answer, continued. "I hated it. Completely pointless after learning how to count."
"Because it makes sense," was all Hermione could reply. "There's one answer for everything. Not like English."
"You got taught English at school?" Draco asked, amazed. "You didn't just pick it up naturally?"
Hermione frowned for a moment, confused, before starting to laugh.
"No, not the actual language. English as in reading books and writing about them," she explained before erupting into giggles again. "What you said was just stupid."
"Then why's it called English?" Draco sulked, the way boys do when they're wrong about something and don't want to admit it.
"I…" Hermione paused. "I don't know. We also did a little bit of French."
"Is that where you read French books and write about them?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"No, that was learning the language," Hermione told him. "I enjoyed it, but I've forgotten everything now."
"I wanted to learn another language, but my father told me that I became important enough, everyone would just learn my language instead," Draco shrugged.
"What a charmingly English point of view," Hermione murmured.
"He has a point," Draco shrugged. "But who knows, I may try and pick up a language."
"You should, you'll enjoy it."
Their conversation fizzled out into awkward silence.
"What happened tonight?" Hermione asked finally, her voice quiet. "With Trayton and Zella?"
"I don't know," Draco admitted, turning his head to look in the still-burning fire. "But maybe that's for the best. They deserve their privacy."
"Do they?" Hermione asked with a slight frown. "They've been such a big part of our lives for the past few weeks and I kind of wanted to know how it ended."
"It's over then?"
Hermione shrugged. "The necklace came undone, didn't it? So Zella's not in there anymore. I think that maybe she and Trayton…" she trailed off.
"She and Trayton…?" Draco prompted.
"I don't know," Hermione murmured. I suppose they went wherever spirits go after they've been stuck on earth or in a necklace for over two hundred years."
"The bathroom?"
Hermione laughed, the serious mood lifting. Her eyes met Draco's and she held them there for a moment, her laughter dying. Then she looked away and cleared her throat.
"It's only awkward if you make it awkward," Draco told her softly. "Just forget everything you used to know about me and talk to the person you've gotten to know over the last few weeks. Can you do that?"
Hermione nodded and smiled. As they continued to talk about everything from pets to tastes in music, she found it astonishingly easy to lose herself in the moment. She didn't know what had happened to Zella and at that moment it didn't matter. She and Draco had until morning. Then they would have to go back to the real world, a world where they couldn't talk intimately on a bed beside a crackling fire, where they couldn't share a conversation without having to add insults to fulfil expectations, where a shared, lingering glance would seem unnatural.
When Draco shifted up the bed to sit on the pillows next to her, Hermione settled her head on his should almost without thinking.
"I don't want to leave here," she murmured, staring ahead of her. "It's too safe."
"I won't let anyone hurt you," Draco promised. "And you don't have to tell anyone about me."
Hermione smiled faintly. That would be the easy way out. The coward's way out. But she wasn't a coward and she'd learnt that the easiest way out of something was rarely the right way.
"I'm not ashamed of you," she told him. "Not the you I've gotten to know anyway. The old you was kind of a prick."
Draco scoffed lightly.
"It's true," Hermione protested weakly. "Anyway, I know that if you can show Harry and Ron who you've become then they'll accept you."
"It amazes me that the rest of the school can hate you and you only care about those two," Draco commented.
"And Ginny," Hermione added with a smile. "Although that's more because she'd kill me for going out with someone she didn't approve of."
"She has high standards?"
"Like you wouldn't believe."
"I don't suppose they've all suffered memory loss and I can start from scratch?" Draco sighed.
"Nope," Hermione said cheerfully. "But that's part of the fun!"
"And I don't suppose you'll let me cast a memory spell on them?"
"Not a chance."
Hermione, comfortably warm and suddenly realizing how tired she was, murmured these words sleepily and found her eyes drifting shut.
"I can walk you back to the Gryffindor tower if you want," Draco offered uncomfortably.
"I want to stay here, with you," Hermione answered, her eyelids too heavy to open.
"I hoped you'd say that." Although she couldn't see him, she could hear the smile in his voice.
Falling asleep was nowhere near as difficult as Hermione thought it would've been. She was warm, comfortable, and being this close to Draco (on a bed, no less) felt impossibly familiar. Never mind that tomorrow they'd have to face up to everything that had happened tonight…that was tomorrow's problem.
Hermione awoke a few hours later, confused and disorientated. Light was streaming in from somewhere right onto her face, preventing her from opening her eyes lest she suffer the wrath of the rare English sun. It was winter sun as well, the worst kind if there were no clouds around. It usually came straight after a frosty night, which meant that the grounds would be fun to walk on today.
Today. What time was it? Where was she? Someone was on the bed with her, someone who smelled pleasantly familiar and someone who was a little too close for comfort, despite being asleep.
Hermione's eyes flew open, widening in shock as she remembered where she was…and who she was with.
"Crap," she muttered softly, trying to get off the bed without waking the sleeping Draco.
It proved to be easier than expected, despite his head resting mere inches above where her own had just been. She slid off the bed deftly, silently thanking Merlin when it didn't creak. She exhaled as quietly as she could, only to wince when it seemed to reverberate off the walls. She really should cast some sort of silencing spell, only of course that required something other than silence. How ironic. How annoyingly, ridiculously ironic.
Wondering how gently she could open the door, Hermione paused to look back at Draco. He looked adorable when he was sleeping. She wished she had a camera. Maybe when Harry and Ron saw the image, they'd realise that there was nothing wrong with Hermione liking him.
Shaking her head, she turned back and softly tread across the floor to the exit. She vaguely remembered how to get into the room, but nothing had been said about how to get out.
Swiftly taking out her wand and cursing whatever higher being had come up with this situation, she raised her wand to tap on the door when Draco cleared his throat behind her.
"Leaving before I've woken up? Why, I feel so used."
"Now isn't the time for a one night stand joke," Hermione muttered, before turning around and smiling brightly. "Morning."
"Don't give me that, I heard what you just said," he scoffed, rubbing his eyes. "And if you're so desperate to leave, why don't you try the doorknob?"
"Because-"
Hermione cut herself off as she heard voices on the other side of the door. Passing voices, carefree voices. But voices nonetheless. Her stomach dropped considerably as she realized what this meant. She couldn't leave now, not with so many people on the corridor outside. They'd want to know what she was doing inside a secret room they'd never seen before, why she had spent the night there and who she had spent the night there with. There would be no reasoning with them, no insisting that nothing happened. The word would spread like wildfire. Harry and Ron would hate her, Gryffindor would disown her for sleeping with the enemy and she'd have to leave school and live out the rest of her days in the muggle world. Oh God.
"Hermione, why are you hyperventilating?" Draco asked, not even a hint of concern touching his tone.
"I'm not," she answered, taking a deep breath to compose herself. "I'm just breathing a lot. You're in a bad mood."
"It's morning," Draco said in way of explanation. "Why haven't you gone yet?"
Hermione rose her eyebrows at him.
"What I meant was that you were all set for leaving about twenty seconds ago," he explained, almost carelessly. "What changed?"
"There are people outside," she answered, throwing a nervous glance at the door.
"And people are…bad?"
"When it's half of Hogwarts and we're together in a secret room and have obviously been here overnight, yes, they're bad."
"I hardly think it's half of Hogwarts," Draco said with a roll of his eyes as he sat upright. "And so what? We just stay here until they've gone."
Hermione threw another worried look at the door before nodding.
"Come on, come back to bed," Draco said with a smirk.
"Just for that comment, I'm going to stand right here," Hermione replied, folding her arms crossly.
"Hermione, it was a joke," Draco told her resignedly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'm fine."
"If you sit next to me and tell me what's wrong, I promise I'll stop with the suggestive comments," Draco offered, smiling in an impossibly innocent way.
Hermione considered this for a moment. It was a good offer. With a slight smile she joined him on the bed, squinting as the light struck her again. She perched on the edge, lifting her legs off the floor and resting them beside her.
"So, you were saying?" Draco asked.
He was unsure of boundaries after the previous night, that much was evident. He wanted to get closer but hung back just in case. Part of Hermione wished he wouldn't. The other half didn't even know if she should still be here.
"I don't know if I want to get close to someone," she started, very carefully, "only to push them away later."
"Your friends?"
"Don't ask me to choose. You won't like the outcome."
"I would never," Draco promised, and the conviction in his voice told Hermione he was telling her the truth.
She turned around with a small yet grateful smile and all of a sudden a thought struck her. It was a little late to be worrying about growing nearer to Draco. Maybe it was the way the sunlight shone on his features, maybe it was the way he covered his hand with hers reassuringly, but in that moment she had never felt closer to anyone.
A/N:
Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Despite it taking over two weeks to write, I'm still not happy with it.
Really sorry about not replying to your reviews, hope that things were cleared up in this chapter. If not just drop me a review or PM (:
My head's all over the place…when I'm not doing revision, I'm doing coursework or filming my Film Studies project, and trying to fit writing in is difficult right now, which is sad because writing is a big part of my life.
The main part of this fic, the Zella/Trayton plot, is over, and I don't want to write about eighteen chapters about Draco's quest for acceptance. I was thinking about doing a couple more chapters here and then posting an epilogue or a oneshot about Draco's attempts to get Harry and Ron to like him. For those that read 'Sanctuary' you'll know that I wrote about the entire relationship of the two main characters, from hate to marriage to a baby, and I don't want to do that here because I can't do it justice with my exams coming up. What do you guys think?
Anyway, I'll stop my cyber-rant now and leave. Hope that you enjoyed the chapter, thank you for all of your reviews!
I don't actually know what day it is right now, but have a great rest of week!
- Momo