Merry Christmas! And Happy Birthday to meeeee (yeah, on the 25th ^_^)
Hermione was pacing in her room. Since there wasn't a whole lot of room to pace in, she took five steps and turned, five steps, turn, five steps, turn. Crookshanks was sitting on the floor watching her with the kind of condescending patience only he could pull off, his tail swishing. Stupid animal. Five steps, turn, five steps, turn. After a few minutes the monotony began annoying her, so she sat down, only to jump up mere seconds later, feeling like she should do something. She took two steps towards the door, but then remembered there was nothing to do, he wouldn't want to see her right now. She resumed pacing.
Her heart was still pounding and it had been two hours since it had happened.
How could he have been in pain without her feeling it through the ring? Wasn't she supposed to feel everything he was feeling? But he hadn't been acting. She didn't think he was that good an actor. There had been tears and marks. The marks had been horrible. It was almost like… like… his blood had been boiling. And he'd clearly been in agony.
Somehow she had been responsible, but she didn't understand how. She hadn't done anything. She had been mad, yes, and she had wished for retribution, wishing to hurt him like he'd hurt her….
But he had been wearing the ring for weeks, wanting to hurt her, and nothing like this had happened at all back then!
The way he had looked at her after…. She shivered. His eyes had been wide and horrified, pain and confusion and fear evident. For those few moments, he'd actually seemed to be terrified of her, desperate to put distance between them. Had he been afraid that she'd take advantage and torture him while she could? But he must know that she would never do that. He must know! She wasn't like that.
She swallowed and rapidly blinked away tears.
She wasn't like that.
After a night of virtually no sleep, Hermione dragged herself to breakfast and classes with no real enthusiasm.
To her relief, Draco was present and the marks were gone. That was good, right? Except, he was uncharacteristically quiet, even for his moody self. This was a quiet that went beyond silence. It was scary in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. She couldn't approach him, though. It would make people talk, and he clearly sent out a vibe that said he didn't want to be approached. She had to give him space. After all, this wasn't about making her feel better. Nobody had tortured her lately.
At lunch, she was poking at her food, trying to figure out a way to find out what exactly had happened and how and when to apologize to him again. It was true that he had been unpleasant in the past—more than unpleasant even—but that really didn't excuse whatever had happened.
She was also wishing Ginny to the devil. Ginny had finally told her secret to Harry and it hadn't gone over very well. As far as Hermione could tell, it wasn't as bad as Ginny's worst fears, but Harry was more than a little angry and hurt that she'd kept this from him in the first place, questioning her motives for doing so.
This was all bad for them, of course, but now Ginny had decided to semi-permanently attach herself to Hermione's side, labeling her an ally and using her as a way to stay close to Harry. It wasn't that Hermione couldn't understand Ginny's fears and motives, but she really didn't feel like being the best friend sidekick in this matter. They'd get through it soon enough. Harry wasn't big enough a git to just leave things like this. At the very most, he just needed a gentle nudge. Or to be clobbered on the head. Whichever worked first.
"Want to hear some gossip?" Ginny was asking.
"Sure," Hermione muttered, mashing her mashed peas some more. The squishyness was oddly amusing.
"I hear that Astoria Greengrass spent the night in Draco Malfoy's room."
Hermione stopped with the squishing and frowned disapprovingly at Ginny. She didn't really want to know this. "That's the best you can come up with? That Malfoy spent time with his girlfriend?"
Ginny shrugged. "She was there all night. I'm surprised you and Theo let him get away with so much rulebreaking."
Draco had been in no condition to be alone last night. It was good that someone had been there for him. Hermione stared at her sad peas. They were a little bit too squished to be appetizing. At least she didn't feel like eating them anymore. "I'll leave that to Theo, his room is only a few feet away."
"That's another thing."
"What?"
"I hear you visited Malfoy last night."
Hermione shrugged, a bit weary with everyone sticking their noses where they didn't belong. "Business."
"Can I ask you something?"
She sighed. "Sure."
"Have you even been to Nott's room?"
She blinked. That wasn't quite what she had been prepared for. "Uh…" She tried desperately to remember going to Theo's room, but realizing she hadn't, she frowned again. "I've had no reason to."
"Right. Well, if I were you, I'd make sure he knew that last night was just business, you know, especially since you never went by his room to say hello even though it was 'only a few feet away'."
Hermione scowled at Ginny. She didn't need a reminder that she was handling just about everything very badly lately. If things would just stop being so confusing….
"Granger."
Hermione started at the cool voice and stared up at Malfoy. He had sought her out? Here at the library? Today? Why?
He must have seen something funny in her face, because he snorted a short, largely unamused laugh.
Feeling more than a little confused and unsettled that he was able to laugh at her, she ventured to do what she had wanted to all day. "Look, Malfoy, I'm really, really—"
"Yeah, yeah," he cut her off with a careless movement of his hand, once again leaving her staring. How could he act like he didn't care? "You forgot something in my room last night." He held out his hand, a distinct platinum band in it.
"I didn't forget," she informed him.
"I suspected," he replied. "But we had a deal, yeah?"
Hermione's mouth dropped open. "You can't honestly expect me to—"
"But I do!" he cut her off.
"No!" She shook her head, clenching her jaw. "Find someone else to do it."
He smiled without much humor and leaned towards her. "You will put it on and do as we agreed or I will tell Theo exactly how you decided to meddle in his life. Maybe I'll even tell him what you ended up doing to me."
Hermione opened her mouth to tell him to tell Theo, she didn't care! But of course she cared, and what she ended up saying was, "What if it happens again?" in a voice far too pathetic for her own ears.
"It won't," he quietly responded. "Just put it on. Trust me."
She violently shook her head. "No."
"Want me to be wearing this forever?" he asked, brandishing the bracelet. "I can't get it off without you putting the ring back on, you know."
"If I put it on long enough to take the bracelet off you, will you let me just do that?"
"No."
"Then there's my answer."
"We had a deal," he hissed. "And you will do your damn part!"
She stared at him in disbelief at the anger on his face. "Do you want pain?"
"It won't happen again," he bit out. "You're too bloody contrite to be able to make it happen even if you tried."
So he'd noticed that, had he? And it looked like it annoyed him. Sometimes she really didn't understand how his mind worked.
"How did I make it happen last night?"
"You wanted to hurt me." The statement was delivered without much emotion at all. "Because you hate me that much."
"I do not hate you." She didn't. Hate was much too strong an emotion. She disliked him and sometimes she had certain other negative feelings towards him and, yeah, sometimes they were pretty strong, but it was not really hate.
He sighed wearily. "Of course you do, Granger. It's not like it's surprising news."
She crossed her arms, annoyed with his attitude. "It is to me!"
"Hate is the only way to do what you did, so there really is no other explanation."
"How about anger? You made me really angry!"
"You honestly believe that simple anger promoted torture?"
"Unintentional torture. And yes. I do."
"Believe whatever you will. The fact still stands that you wanted to hurt me and so you did."
"That's another thing. What about all the times you wanted to hurt me? Why didn't it happen then?"
He paused for a second, looking away. "Self-control, I guess," he then said. "I knew what would happen if I lost it. You didn't. I didn't think you needed to know."
"Why didn't I feel your pain?"
"Would be kind of ineffective as a punishment if you did, wouldn't it?"
"I don't understand this jewelry! What is its purpose? You can treat a person like a slave and torture them, but on the other hand you can feel their every emotion and even take their pain and injuries. It makes no sense!"
He shrugged. "Maybe it's so it can be whatever you want or need it to be? Aren't you the one always preaching about embracing differences?"
She ignored that absurd logic. "I can't wear that thing!"
"You can." He suddenly and unexpected grabbed her wrist and forced her hand open, shoving the ring on her finger so roughly that the hard metal scratched her skin and she cried out loud enough for a few people to turn their heads in their direction. He ignored it. "And you will. There. See, nothing happening."
Hermione was shaking and staring down at her hand, hard, so he wouldn't notice the tears in her eyes. It wasn't that he had hurt her. She had gotten hurt worse just from petting a moody Crookshanks or standing too close when Harry and Ron were mock-fighting. And she certainly didn't care that he was angry with her.
She was just terrified of wearing the ring. It wasn't really logical, but there it was. What if she got angry again and didn't know how to control it? She really didn't want to hurt anyone, not even Malfoy.
"It's not going to happen again," he repeated, his voice more gentle.
Why was he reassuring her? She felt her temper rising and then felt her fear double because it was rising. She mutely kept staring at the ring.
He quietly said down across from her, apparently deciding to wait for her to speak.
"I'm not doing this," she insisted.
"Yes, you are," he said. "Because it has to be really important to you that I try to patch things up with Theo again or you would never have approached me. And it's just for a few days. If you lose your temper, you can just take it off until you've calmed down. I have to insist that you keep it on for anything else, though."
She looked at him sharply. "Anything?"
He shrugged. "I can't say what I'll be feeling, but I don't want you hiding from whatever it is. It wouldn't be fair. You can always tell me not to get carried away with something, though. If you do it right, I'll even have to obey."
Hermione looked mournfully at the ring. "This is another way of tormenting me, isn't it?" she finally said, her voice slightly hoarse. "You force me to wear this… this… thing… knowing that it terrifies me."
"If that were true, then what would I be feeling?" he asked.
Hermione mulled that over. Triumph, maybe? Glee? Smugness? She tried to discern what he was feeling, not quite sure how she was supposed to know, when suddenly a few things inside of her stood out. He was still angry, but it seemed to mostly come from some sort of frustration and… hurt? She frowned at her hand. Yes, he was hurting.
Or maybe she just wasn't that good at deciphering feelings.
"Can you keep it all separated?" he asked in a low voice, probably realizing how hard she was concentrating. "I'll try not to overwhelm you with anything, but you really should make the effort just the same. You don't want to be controlled by someone else's moods."
"Were you ever controlled by my moods?"
He smiled at that. "I don't know if I can say I was controlled, but heavily influenced, yes."
"When?"
He shot her a don't-tell-me-you-don't-know look and she flushed crimson. "Oh." Well, she couldn't be blamed for not thinking about that when she was trying so hard to forget about it. "Well, that certainly won't happen again."
He smiled again, but this time it was a bit strained. "Is that a challenge?"
"What are you going to do?" she asked. "I'm the one wearing the ring, remember?" She wriggled her fingers, wincing at her own reminder.
"It is a challenge, then," he calmly said. "It's not my fault if you don't realize the power of the bracelet…"
"It's not a challenge!" she insisted, but he didn't deign to answer.
Instead, he was just staring at her in the most unsettling manner, his eyes moving to her lips and then to her neck and down to the soft folds of her robes covering her chest.
Hermione suddenly found it a bit harder to breathe and her pulse began to pick up speed. Feeling her cheeks heat, she realized what he was doing… and then felt her cheeks heat even more. "Stop that!" she said as sharply as she could, still sounding rather breathless. "That's just… creepy."
"I think you feel it even more than I do," he said in a very soft voice. "At least it's my impression that pleasure and pain gets magnified. It makes me wonder… if I go to the edge, will you go to the edge with me… or over?"
She trembled at the implications and she was loath to find that it wasn't with disgust. No wonder he'd had such a hard time wearing the ring. "None of that," she hoarsely said. "No getting near any edges, understand?"
"I may not be able to help it," he said, looking too innocent to be believed. "You know how us blokes are…" He looked at an attractive Hufflepuff girl sitting not too far away, and let his eyes slide down her form, causing a fresh wave of unadulterated lust to shoot through Hermione.
"Oh, God," she moaned, immediately causing the sensations to grow even stronger. She glanced up at Draco, whose eyes were now taking her in with a fevered intensity.
"I never meant to go too far," he murmured. "But you should probably not be… Merlin, don't look at me like that!"
She wasn't sure exactly how she'd looked at him, although she had suddenly remembered how soft his lips could be… Another jolt of lust shot through her. "This is bad…" she groaned.
"Tell me about it," he whispered. "I'd leave but I really can't without attracting attention… I only meant to tease you a bit."
Oh, she felt teased. And extremely frustrated. She was tingling in places she most definitely shouldn't be tingling and the urges she was currently having were not suited for an open library and not with a certain blond instigator.
"I guess I'd better…" she muttered.
"Yeah."
"Bye."
She quickly gathered her books and fled.
Draco rested his head on the table and groaned. So, yeah, he'd deliberately gotten both of them worked up to prove a point. But he hadn't meant to get this worked up. He'd just wanted to cause a bit of a flutter, not a raging hormone fest.
He'd clearly underestimated how her flushed cheeks, parted lips, gasping breath and lust-darkened eyes would affect him and how that in turn would affect her and…. He groaned again. It wasn't new that he wanted her, but the mere thought that he could affect her like this was a pretty powerful aphrodisiac and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it except try to keep it down and spend the next few days taking very cold showers.
How he would love to take himself over the edge, though, knowing that she would be joining him, imagining how she'd look and sound….
He groaned again and began beating his head against the desk, hoping to reinsert some sanity that way, and earning quite a few annoyed looks from other students.
"Oh." She was feeling really eloquent today, but she just didn't know what to say to this.
"But I'm thinking that with you hogging all the males in Slytherin, they must have some really lonely girls by now."
Now it was Hermione's turn to be startled. For just a second her mind was blank, but then she began sputtering objections to that outrageous statement.
It took her a minute to notice the twitching of Ron's lips.
