Dun dun dunnnn...
The corner of Nott's mouth lifted slightly at Hermione's startled expression at finding him so close to her.
"Don't fret," he quietly said. "I'm nothing to be afraid of."
Hermione's mouth snapped closed and she stood her ground and glared defiantly at him. "Why would I be afraid of you?"
"I don't know," Nott replied. "Some people fear my father and his connections to You-Know-Who."
Hermione snorted. "I was at the Department of Mysteries when your father was taken," she pointed out. "It wasn't scary because there was one Death Eater. It was scary because there were many – and we were in their way."
Nott smiled. "That's right," he mumbled as if to himself. "I keep forgetting just who you are and what you've done. You're more brave than anyone here gives you credit for, aren't you?"
She shook her head. "I'm not brave. I was terrified the whole time."
"But you didn't run away."
"Of course I didn't. I had friends there, who needed my help."
He slowly nodded. "That's bravery. Not being scared would probably have been stupid, and you're anything but stupid. Yet, you chose to stay in spite of your fear, didn't you?"
Hermione glanced a little uncertainly at Nott. "Why are you praising me? Your father was sent to Azkaban that night."
Nott shrugged, looking for all the world as if he really didn't care. "My father belongs in Azkaban," he said. "He's not a good man."
"But he's your father," Hermione whispered, unable to comprehend this. Malfoy had been furious that his father had been imprisoned because of them.
"He sired me, yes," Nott agreed. "But it's not something I'm feeling particularly grateful for."
"I am," Hermione shyly said. And she was. Having Nott as a friend really made her life so much easier these days.
Nott sucked in a harsh breath and stared at her for a few seconds. Hermione felt her cheeks grow hot, but she didn't falter, although she didn't dare meet his eyes.
"Hermione…" Nott said, and her head whipped up at his use of her given name.
His eyes searched hers, before his hand went up to caress her cheek. Her heart skipped a beat and then it started pounding fast and hard. She knew what his intention was, she knew that he was giving her time to back out, and she knew that she shouldn't be doing this just two days after kissing Ron.
Yet she had to. She wasn't quite sure why, but she had to see what it would feel like to let Nott kiss her. She felt the attraction and it was an attraction so unlike the one she felt to Ron that it was near impossible for her to compare them.
She wondered why she had never noticed that Nott was quite handsome in his own quiet, understated, bookish sort of way.
Finally, he bent his head to caress her lips. She clung to his shoulders, feeling weak-kneed at the mere contact, and he pinned her against the conference table and quickly deepened the kiss.
The kiss was nothing like Ron's, and it was confusing Hermione. Ron's kiss had been deeply moving, an emotional experience with a boy she had known and cared deeply for for a long time. Kissing Nott was less about knowing and more about getting to know. It was much more physical in a way, yet he wasn't pushing her or demanding anything. Every caress was asking her permission and every kiss was coaxing a response from her.
He made a sound that was a little like a growl in the back of his throat, and Hermione found herself lifted up so she was seated on the edge of the table. She was still clinging to him, but for entirely other reasons, and her head was thrown back, while he was exploring her neck with his lips.
Her heart was still pounding, but no longer with nervous anticipation. The kiss was thrilling her in a way that she had never thought possible. She felt both safe and treasured and dangerously wicked at the same time. It was almost like standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing that falling would be nothing to be afraid of. She was perched to jump.
There was a disturbance and Nott froze before he withdrew with an audible sigh.
"Hell of a timing, Draco," he said.
Hermione's eyes widened and her head whipped around to see Malfoy leaning against the doorframe. She was mortified at the thought of what he'd seen, but as his sardonic gaze fell on her, she was even more mortified to remember that he knew all of her feelings. He knew exactly what she had just felt.
She hid her flaming face in her hands.
"Grand, now you've embarrassed the Head Girl," Nott remarked, not a trace of passion left in his voice.
"Good," Draco said. "She should be embarrassed. As should you. I'm sure that's not what the two of you were supposed to be doing."
"Why are you here?" Nott asked, quite unfazed.
Draco smirked a bit. "I had a feeling…" he said, deliberately drawing out the last word, "that perhaps you two weren't exactly working, so I thought I'd stop by and see."
"Now you've seen," Nott said. "Is it too much to hope that you will simply leave again?"
"Granger," Draco commanded, and Hermione hopped down from the desk, not quite looking at either boy. "Go to the dungeons."
She fled.
Nott sighed. "Did you have to do that?" he asked. "She'll be terrified of doing this again now."
"It's just as well," Draco admonished. "You can't just go around snogging people's slaves. It's… icky."
"I told you before that you can't control me. Granger didn't seem to mind, did she?"
Draco frowned. "No, apparently she usually doesn't," he mumbled. "I'd watch out for that one if I were you."
"What are you on about?"
Draco waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing. But if you want her to come here again, you'll put the snogging on hold until she's not wearing that bracelet. I do still control her, and I don't care if she fulfills her Head Girl duties."
Nott scowled. "You're interfering."
"It's what I do best," Draco returned, before he turned and left.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?"
Hermione's face heated once again as Draco angrily entered his room and slammed the door shut.
"I'm standing where you instructed?" she ventured.
"Don't give me that," he growled. "I thought I told you to cut all that snogging out!"
"No," Hermione said, shaking her head. "You told me not to kiss Ron and I didn't."
"So two days later you go for someone else? Hell of a show of fidelity, Granger."
She winced. She supposed he was sort of right, but it wasn't like that!
"I-I… I needed to see something," she mumbled.
"I don't know what you're up to, but you will stop it immediately. Theo likes you for some unfathomable reason, and I actually don't want to have to tell him how cheap and easy you are."
Hermione glared at him. "I am not cheap and easy and Nott won't believe your lies!"
"Kissing two boys in three days is considered easy. At least here in Slytherin it is. Perhaps that's the way you do things up in Gryffindor, which would explain why Weasley doesn't mind sharing you, but down here we don't usually share."
She defiantly raised her chin. "You don't know what you're talking about, obviously."
"And I don't really care to be enlightened, either. I wonder what Weasley would say if I told him I caught you red-handed with Theo."
She blanched. Ron wouldn't believe Malfoy, of course, but, unless she was willing to lie to him, he'd be hurt. "He kissed me," she weakly defended herself.
"And I know exactly how much you didn't mind. In fact, had you minded any less, I'm quite sure you would have been naked when I got there."
"Don't be so crude," she mumbled.
"Then enough with the smooching already!" he fairly shouted. "You will not kiss or date again while you're wearing the bracelet, am I making myself clear? And you will especially stay away from Theo; he doesn't need to get involved with the likes of you!"
"Why are you being so protective of Nott?" she asked, feeling bewildered. "He's a big boy and he's one of your lot, after all. I doubt he's taking this very seriously."
"I told you already that he likes you," Draco snarled. "I don't remember the last time he openly liked someone. Too bad for him that it has to be you. If he had to go and give up his pureblood ideals, he could at least have started liking someone decent."
Hermione pondered this for a second. "If it's true that he doesn't care about those precious ideals of yours, wouldn't that make him a blood traitor in the eyes of you and your house? What are you doing with him, then?"
Draco took two angry steps forward, making Hermione jump back, before he seemingly could control himself enough to stop. His hands were fisted at his sides and he closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm a bit.
"He's Theo," he finally bit off. "He's my friend and I respect his reasons. Call him a blood traitor again and I swear I will forget myself and make you regret that you ever looked at, let alone talked to, a pureblood."
Hermione gaped. She would never have thought she'd see the day when Draco Malfoy defended someone who would technically be classified as a blood traitor by his own kind.
"I'm… sorry?" she hesitantly said.
He didn't look or sound very mollified. "Come to think of it, you've only been going after purebloods, haven't you? Trying to whore your way to some respectability, are you? Well, it won't work. It never does. You'll still be nothing but a Mudblood." He turned his back on her, sitting down at his desk, without waiting for her reaction.
Hermione gasped at the insult. She had never once considered blood status in any of this and she wasn't whoring her way anywhere. She didn't deserve all this derision! And Malfoy hadn't actually called her a Mudblood or been truly mean to her since the incident where he had forced her to lie to her friends four days ago.
Come to think of it, that was sort of odd in itself. It had been four very long days with lots of opportunity for derision. This realization startled her into a state of thoughtfulness.
"Get over it!" Draco none too gently suggested without turning around.
"I am over it," she informed him.
"Good."
"Now it's time for you to get over it."
"What?" he forgot himself enough to turn and stare incredulously at her.
"So I kissed your precious Nott and I'm not sure what it means. Big deal! Nott can take care of himself and he's not naïve enough to think that one kiss is a declaration of my undying devotion. I think you're putting more stock in this than he is, and I'm sure that if he were here right now, he'd tell you to stay out of it."
"Would he, now?" Draco said in a dangerously gentle voice.
"Of course he would," Hermione scoffed. "He doesn't need you to protect him. He can handle one little Muggleborn witch, don't you think?"
"You can't date him," Draco calmly said. "You can't kiss him, touch him, talk to him, or even look at him without there being a very good reason – pre-approved by me. You can in no way let him know that this is my doing and if he manages to corner you about it, you will do your best to convince him that it's simply because you do not want him. Your best, Granger. No half-hearted attempts laced with hints."
Hermione's mouth had slowly been falling open, but at his last words it snapped shut. "How will that help?" she demanded. "Wouldn't that be doing exactly what you claim to want to protect him from? I think it's just because you can't handle the idea of one of your friends actually being with me."
"It will protect him," Draco said. "It will protect him from seriously falling for you just to have you kiss yet another bloke the next time you can't make up your mind. The fact that you won't be dating any of my friends is merely a bonus."
"This is absurd!"
"No, what's absurd is that those boys want to touch you."
She scowled at him but didn't reply. He turned his back on her again and ignored her for the rest of the afternoon.
The next day when Hermione was about to have lunch, she was stopped right inside the Great Hall by Draco. This, in itself, was a very bad omen. He usually stopped her outside in order to be not actually seen with her. Apparently, it was ok for people to think that she was running after him and he was using her in his room on a daily basis as long as they weren't publicly associated with each other.
It was a special brand of Malfoy logic, so she didn't really question it.
He was now scanning the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables, apparently taking in who was present. Hermione followed his gaze and swallowed as she realized that just about everyone was there. What was he going to make her do?
His lips twitched and she was once again reminded that he was aware of her feelings. How she hated this.
"Don't go to your table," he said, and Hermione resigned herself to the fact that she was about to miss lunch. Well, as far as orders went, it was pretty mild.
She was about to turn and leave, when he stopped her again, this time smirking unpleasantly at her.
"Go to the Slytherin table."
Hermione's eyes widened and she blinked. "W-what?"
"You seem to have developed a fondness for Slytherins lately, haven't you? So I think you should eat at our table. Just not near me. Or Theo, of course."
She hadn't quite realized how even eating near Malfoy might afford her some protection until he disabused her of the notion of doing so. She scanned the Slytherin table until her eyes fell on Zabini.
"Yeah, you'll leave Blaise alone as well," Draco added. "And make sure to eat a full meal!"
Then he left her to her gruesome fate.
Until next time...
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she hissed. "Come to enjoy the show, have you?"
"I don't see your friends about," he harshly retorted. "Are they so stupid that they don't realize you might be in trouble, or do they simply not care?"