A/N: Hey guys and gals! Sorry for the late posting, I've just been super busy with school and a bunch of other stuff so this chapter is kinda short and sweet..? Anyhow, I can't tell you how many times this was re-written (due to me struggling with whose point of view to write in). Next chapter will be flashbacks (methinks) and obviously to tie up a few loose ends in this chapter. Anywaay, sorry for the long A/N, enjoy!
Hermione Granger felt like a mess. Her heart was in tatters, her fingernails cracked and bitten down to stubs from the fretting she'd been doing and her hair resembled a bird's-nest with its tousled unkempt state. It had been five days since her argument with Malfoy- no, Draco- and yet she couldn't help but hear his words repeat over and over in her mind like a song set to replay. There was only so much ducking in corridors and spasmodically spent hours of sleep a girl could take without going half-mad. She stared unseeingly down at the book she'd borrowed from one of the many pristinely stacked shelves, and huffs out a weary sigh. She was sure she'd been reading the same line for over three times now, yet not absorbing a thing. This, of course, only amplified her unhappiness and sense of hopelessness. With her wand she closes the book and makes it float back to a shelf across the room. The 'Leviosa.' spell reminds her of the class she took in her first year and how irritated Ron got when she performed the spell perfectly. A smile tugs at her features, before she remembers Draco's harsh words of his "suggestive letters" to Lavender. Could it be true? Was Ron really just stringing me along while he played hooky with Lav-Lav on paper?
A gentle knock taps out on the door. She was currently in the study and between the writing desk and spacious floor stacked with bookshelves and reading ladders, she was alone in the room.
"Go away, Draco." she calls out, dismayed that after five days of hiding and sneaking around like a sleuth, she'd been discovered. The door is pushed open and she spins in her chair and stands to face him.
His hair looks damp and darker in the evening light and the comforting scents of aftershave and green apples cling to him like a familiar robe. He's dressed in dark jeans and a forest-green tee-shirt, which almost makes the witch snort at the fact he's wearing a very Slytherin colour. He hovers awkwardly around the entrance to the room and she finds it bemusing at his hesitancy in approaching her.
"Can I come in?" he asks her, voice unexpectedly timid, for someone usually so cruel. She nods once, crisply, and he steps in, shutting the door and leaning against it once closed.
"You've been avoiding me." he states simply. Hermione knows it's not a question yet nods to affirm it, not once meeting his eyes. "Why?" he blurts out. She stares at the desk with it's grainy oak texture, roughened and stooped by countess weighty books placed upon it. She looks at the ceiling with its chandelier crying droplets of diamond, looking strangely desolate and abandoned, like the rest of the Malfoy palace furnishings. She looks at her clothing, a simple black dress with lace trimmings, one she'd conjured using old spells and had mourned in. She looks and everything and anything except in. His presence is lured closer to her, like a moth to a flame.
"I'm not going to apologize." he admits to her, "Because everything I said was true." Hermione doesn't react, keeping her eyes trained away from his ever-approaching figure. "But I-I am sorry." he adds, reaching her at last, and only a half-metre away. "For how I said it all. I admit I could've handled our dispute a little better." She's touched by the apology,much more than she lets on. And heck, she had been counting windows in boredom theses last few days. She meets his eyes and nearly starts in shock. His eyes are ringed with purple but there's something off about his eyes. The silvery-grey is present but his pupils are widely dilated and she swears a flicker of movement is glimpsed at through the so-called "windows to the soul". Her hands cup his jaw, turning his face to different angles to gain a closer look. He lets her do so, silently observing in curiosity as she bores her own hazel orbs deep within his skull.
"I'm highly adept at Occlumency, Granger." he smirks "So your legilimency won't work on the barriers I've forged."
He feels her body, softened y curves and encased in a glowing warmth, pressed lightly against his. He doesn't understand why she is examining him so thoroughly but concludes it is best to come up with some sort of code to determine the other is who they say they are, in case unwelcome visitors use unfair means to trick them into entry. He voiced this to the analytical witch and they both choose the others code names so that is what they say upon their next meeting. Hermione stops looking in his eyes, and rocks back to her feet, drawing distance between the pair. "Your code name shall be 'Samael'" she says finally, smiling beatifically up at him. And with that one line, Draco knows the broken-hearted witch had forgiven him. He hugs her upon an impulse and she responds with fervor. They cling to one another like long-lost companions and the amiable silence that descends afterwards could've been cut straight from one of those muggle Hallmark cards. Draco steps back first, with pang of regret, which causes doubt to stir across the murky depths of his brain. "Why Samael?" he coughs out, needing the moment to be broken because it was asking him feel a little… Out of control.
Granger tucks a strand of hair behind her eyes and recounts how it is the Jewish name for the devil, and is most commonly known as an archangel who is confusingly both good and evil. At this Draco raises one skeptical eyebrow, smirl unfurling along his impassive sculptured expression. Hermione giggles, and to Draco it reminds him of autumnal leaves falling and the sensation of cinnamon coffee freshly brewed by his best friend Blaise Zabini and the contentment of winning a particularly trying Quidditch match. Her chocolatey eyes gaze into his warmly and the urge to destroy this brave and broken girl, to tear her compassion to shreds, to destroy the drug she's presenting to him readily rises up within him. He quells it, remembering the last time he succumbed to his darker side, and the tear-stricken face she had presented him. He forcibly recalled the hours he'd contemplated it afterwards, hating the way her strong-willed naivety had dulled and how her strong capable hands had trembled. It had caused his stomach to clench- indigestion- he'd sworn to himself and didn't want this same indigestion to recur again. Hence the peace-making.
You're like a drug dealer. He thinks to himself.
Hermione's eyes narrow in suspicion and surprise. Salazar's tongue, did I just say that aloud?
"What in Merlin's beard are you talking about?" Hermione frowned, quizzically. Shit, I did…
He drags in a resigned sigh "I meant that you are like a drug dealer because you offer me the most dangerous and addictive drug of all." For a brief moment, the smartest witch appears dumbfounded, assuming he means love, something Malfoy's tended to not hold the capacity to feel. How could he, being Lucius Malfoy's only son?
"Do you want to know what that drug is?" Draco whispers, his voice rough. Hermione nods dumbly, as if in automatic mode. He opens his mouth to tell her-
BANG! A loud sound from downstairs interrupts the saturated moment like an ice-cold bucket of water chucked over them both. Draco crouches down and yanks on Hermione's arm to keep her close to the ground with him. The sounds of footsteps echo across the hallway and he crawls behind a bookshelf, mouthing a insistent 'FOLLOW ME' over his shoulder. Hermione replicates his actions, heart choked up in her throat and pounding in exhilaration. Both believe the trespassers to be Death Eaters, perhaps vile ones wanting to exact vengeance on the ones who'd got away. Draco stops when they are behind the historical texts section and turns to the musty spines, kneeling calmly before them. She watches him in horror as he stops to page through novel pages from a purple-spined serie.
"Draco." she hisses, furiously "This is not the time to be reading books. In case you haven't realised, there are bloody intruders in the house." Draco glances at her, sending her a curious look before shrugging and turning back to Volume Three. A blush blooms across her face as her impatience towards the arrogant git intensifies. He's now murmuring under his breath and she wonders as to what the hell he's doing. Footsteps near the door, one set light and airy, the other clunky and solid. The sound increases and a cold sweat breaks out down Hermione's spine. Draco, ever-so-calmly, places the book back on the shelf and draws his wand. He utters a soundless spell and then...