Her lips were just as sweet and enticing as he remembered them being, only this time they weren't nearly so gentle. Something about the way they collided passionately with his sparked a brave sort of recklessness within him. Raw energy pulsed through his veins and he felt in that moment as though he could do anything. His hand drifted gently along her jawline until it nestled seamlessly against the crook of her neck, just below her ear. Her arms inched around his back to pull him firmly into her.
She was utterly perfect, from the overwhelming draw of her lush lips, to the way her body molded flush against his, to the intoxicating scent that fluttered over on the curled wisps of hair to caress his neck in the cool breeze. Through the hazy pervasion of her in his mind, a strange sensation overcame him suddenly. It felt for a moment as if a great shifting of forces had happened all at once. As if a small block had been dropped into place and everything around it had finally become relevant and clear.
Curious hands aimlessly explored landscapes of clothed skin while their lips mingled languidly between sparse, rushed breaths. Time seemed to lose its meaning as they stood entwined in the pale light of the moon. All he knew was her: past, present, and future.
The feeling did not cease it's hold in his mind until long after their physical contact had broken. He lay that night staring up into the green curtains that draped his lone four-poster bed, wholly unable and unwilling to turn his thoughts away from her.
Next morning, Draco awoke after a restful night of sleep feeling the most content he had done in a long time. He walked the entire day with a spring in his step, confidence radiating from the grin he wore proudly. Daphne was quick to pick up on his mood and winked at him knowingly when he strode into the great hall for breakfast.
In the weeks following, he found it increasingly more difficult to focus in his classes with Hermione sitting across the room from him. She caught him several afternoons later in potions, staring over at her, and returned an expression that read "Shouldn't you be focusing on your work?" to which he could only smile and wish that her suggestion was as easy as it sounded.
She later scolded him for it, saying "You really should be focusing on our school work. N.E. are just around the corner after all. They'll be expecting us to be prepared…"
He was used to her telling him off by now, though somehow it hadn't taken a lot of effort to adapt on his part. She had the miraculous, if not slightly infuriating, predisposition to being inerrant nearly a hundred percent of the time. He often thought that he liked getting told off slightly more than he ought to. And whenever she won an argument, which, in all honesty, was at least a solid three-quarters of the time, it gave him a strange sense of pride.
More than anything, he loved it when she used big words, though he really just liked to watch her talk in general. Her expressions were always animated, he could almost see the gears whirring madly about in her brain when she thought really hard about something, and, when she was really worked up, an almost intimidating amount of passion would make itself apparent in her eyes.
In short, she was the antithesis of boring and he couldn't have loved her more for it.
Later that week, they were sitting together at his favorite spot by the lake. It was his first time taking her there. He had snuck her a note in potions class earlier in the day, asking if it were something she were interested in seeing, to which she had responded with an enthusiastic nod in his direction.
As it turned out, he couldn't have picked a more pleasant day to show her. They made their way down across the Hogwarts ground on a particularly lovely spring afternoon. The calm breeze and the copious greenery around them succeeded in making the secluded little area feel even more charming than usual.
"I sure am going to miss this place," she said with a forlorn sigh as they sat looking out over the lake.
"Speaking of which," he started quizzically, plucking a blade of grass, "Have you any idea what you'll do once we're out of here?"
"Actually, yes. It's something I've been wanting to do ever since fourth year." He cocked an eyebrow and looked at her with interest, prodding her to continue. "Fourth year I started a club, or rather like an organization, sort of, named S.P.E.W."
His expression turned to that of a slightly-judgmental, amused smile. "Spew?"
"No," she said exasperatedly. "Why does everyone say that? It's S.P.E.W."
"Maybe because that's what it spells?" he offered. She scowled at him, clearly unamused at his unhelpful suggestion. "Alright, alright, I get it. S.P.E.W it is then." She scowled some more. Draco cleared his throat. "Please… um, continue."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Anyways. As I was saying, S.P.E.W," she stressed each letter, "is an organization. The letters stand for Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. When I started it, I had this sort of persisting delusion that I was going to single handedly free all of the house elves of the wizarding world and get them the things they deserved like, wages, proper treatment, and everything that goes with it. Well, I won't go into detail but it never came to much. The only people I managed to bully into joining up were Harry, Ron, and Neville and eventually it just sort of went by the wayside."
"So, let me get this straight," he interrupted with a confused look. "You wanted to free all the house elves," she nodded, "even though that's pretty much the worst thing that you could do to them? You know they really like what they do, right?"
"You see, that's where you're wrong. I mean it's not just you. Almost everyone I've talked to really. But let me clarify first that, no, I don't want to free them all anymore. I can respect that they're attached to their families and proud in their work. However, I've done quite a bit of reading on the matter and I've found out some very curious things about the history of house elves in the many texts I've consulted.
"House elves certainly aren't a recent commodity. As a pureblood I'm sure you're well aware that most house elves nowadays are ones that are basically a familial inheritance that've been passed down generation to generation with limited instances of breeding here and there. There's almost no market for buying and selling house elves anymore. But several hundred years ago there was, and quite a substantial one at that. This was back when wizards had just gotten the idea to domesticize them.
"House elves haven't always been human caretakers, after all. They were natural beings that once used to live in small colonies in wooded areas. For years their relationship with wizards was one marked by benevolence and friendliness. Not many know this, but elves were the ones that taught us a great deal of what we know about healing magic. In any case, the wizards dealing with them started to get greedy. They began demanding more and more from the elves, and because of their generous nature, the elves complied. Though none of the texts I've read marked a clear point at which it occurred, somewhere along the way, people got the idea to harness their subservient nature and have them start working in wizarding households.
"But house elves have never been paid for their work. From the start wizards simply enslaved them, binding them with magic akin to the imperius curse to serve for life without complaint. Their species became a hunted one, forced to live out their lives in secret in the last few places they remained hidden, which is why there are no more elf colonies in the wild anymore. Since then, there have only been more injustices done against their kind. At one point in history, they were even bred selectively, like dogs, in order to produce ones that were more submissive in nature. They've been mistreated and taken advantage of for far too long and I think it's about time that someone took a stand for them since they're evidently too humble to take it for themselves."
When she had finished, they sat quietly for a while. Draco watched as the fire of passion flickered in her eyes.
"Huh," he finally said quietly. His eyebrows were still knit tightly from listening. "I never knew all that about them. That's really… awful."
"Nobody does. And that's because it's simply been swept under the rug for centuries. But it's time for that to change. And that's what S.P.E.W is about really. It's in the name: promotion of elfish welfare."
"Alright," he said suddenly. "How do I sign up?"
"Pardon?" she replied, evidently taken off guard.
"Where do I sign, get my little badge and all that stuff? I'm all for it. I think what you're doing is absolutely brilliant." She stared at him for a few moments, mouth agape, in obvious disbelief.
"Er, I…" Hermione stuttered and shifted uncomfortably. "You want to join S.P.E.W?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Well, nothing. I mean, that's fine, I guess. It's not exactly an official organization or anything… but I suppose I can let you know when I get serious about it again. Truth be told, I'm waiting until I manage to secure a job at the ministry." Out of the corner of his eye he saw her looking curiously at him.
"Ah, so that's what you've got planned for all those N.E.W.T.S you're going to get." He turned a confident smile in her direction.
"I don't know about that," she said humbly.
"Please. Don't insult the rest of us, Granger. If you don't get Outstanding on every one of them, then the rest of us are royally buggered."
They sat in silence, staring off over the still, mirror-like surface of the lake. He relished in the flustered look he'd caused to appear on her face and smiling to himself smugly.
There was simply nothing he loved more than seeing her when she got to a threshold of befuddlement so profound that her ability speak or even form coherent thoughts almost disappeared. Her lips would pout slightly and her eyebrows would tighten over her intense eyes just such that she would look equal parts put-off and confused. Successfully driving her to that point gave him a tremendously rewarding sense of satisfaction akin almost to the rush of catching the snitch in a game of quidditch.
Yet, as they walked back to the castle sometime later, chatting casually, it was he who became befuddled when she surprised him with a question that took him quite off guard.
"Do we class this as our first date, then?"
A slight warmth rose to his cheeks. He hadn't really thought about it. Had she been expecting it to be? His thoughts skipped back over the past hour. He smiled though and said slyly, "I guess it depends… did you enjoy it?"
A promising grin spread over her face. "Very much so." She then began more dubiously, "I don't know… I think I could get used to this whole spending time together thing."
A wide grin spread across his own face. "You know what? I think I could too."
Their eyes met for a brief moment before each laughed at the other and they continued their trek back up to Hogwarts.
A/N: Just tossing in my house elf lore headcanon, don't mind me.