Hermione tried to keep the wild grin off her face as she walked quickly toward Gryffindor tower. She felt giddy after her afternoon with Malfoy. He'd been charming and thoughtful. She felt captivated by him, when it was just the two of them. Especially his wild passion, for flying, and for her.
Ron loved flying too of course, and she knew he loved her, at least he did before. But there was something different about Malfoy. And she couldn't help but compare them, still. Her logical brain felt like it needed to, to make sure she was making the wisest possible decision, ensuring the best possible outcome.
Whenever she tried to think long term with Malfoy, she would come up empty. Logically, she'd already talked herself out of pursuing anything romantic with him.
But then she'd see him, and he'd smirk at her, and her mind would go blank. She could never remember those reasons when she was with him.
That last kiss on his broom, when she'd been wrapped around him. It felt just like before. And she'd wanted to repeat it. She really wanted to. But it had been cold. And he'd noticed her shivering. She knew it had only partly been because of the cold though, yet she'd pretended that was all. But the passion and desire she felt when she was with him like that made her nervous.
Hermione hated making mistakes. And she knew Malfoy would be a mistake. Deep in her mind she knew it. But he'd crept his way past all the logic and warning and embedded himself somewhere that felt dark and dangerous. And it felt that way because she knew, however much she'd consciously admit or not, she knew that part would win in the end. That both scared her and excited her.
"Hey! I was just on my way to the library to look for you." Ginny interrupted Hermione's thoughts as they ran into each other outside the fat lady's portrait.
"Perfect timing, let me just grab my bag." Hermione said. Ginny looked at her outfit suspiciously, but didn't ask. "Be right back!" Hermione climbed through the portrait hole only and jogged up the girls dorm steps. She was just going to take off her hat and gloves and grab her bag, but then she remembered that Draco had said he would find her later.
She quickly changed into more comfortable clothes, pretending that comfort was the only reason she donned some tight black leggings and an oversized jumper. And not that he liked her arse in them. She used her wand to quickly fix her smushed hat hair and touched up her makeup. When she was satisfied that she didn't look like a windblown rat anymore, she rushed back down the stairs to find Ginny.
"Sorry for making you wait, I tried to hurry." Hermione said as she climbed back through the portrait hole and adjusted her bag on her shoulder.
Ginny stuffed her nail file back in her back and stood up from the wall she'd been leaning against. She looked Hermione over with a smirk. "No problem. Wasn't long."
The two girls began walking towards the library together. Ginny kept talking, "did you have a nice afternoon outing?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. She hadn't told anyone where she was going. But Ginny sounded like she knew already.
"You were dressed for the outdoors. I assume that's where you were..." Ginny raised a brow, waiting.
Hermione looked around to make sure they weren't overheard before she said quietly "Malfoy took me flying."
The giddy excitement that spread across Ginny's face made Hermione laugh out loud. Some younger students rounded the corner so Ginny schooled her reaction and the girls kept walking.
When they were alone again, Ginny said "and...? Tell me more!"
Hermione grinned sheepishly, "it was... great."
"Great?! What does that mean??" Ginny linked her arm through Hermione's so they could talk more quietly in the echoing corridors.
"It was enjoyable. And he might join us in the library at some point this evening after his quidditch practice." Hermione tried to act sufficiently nonchalant about it.
Ginny squeezed her arm almost painfully "oh he might join us? Well I know this great spot near the history of magic section in the back that nobody ever visits, let's sit back there in case he does..."
Hermione laughed "how do you know nobody goes back there?"
"Because that's where Harry and I have fucked a few times and we've never been disturbed." Ginny shrugged.
They entered the library then so Hermione couldn't respond the way she would have liked to. Instead, she glanced wide eyed at Ginny and sucked her lips in to keep silent and squeezing the redheads arm tightly.
Ginny led them back through shelves and stacks. The history of magic section was past the restricted section and around a corner. No main foot traffic at all. The only reason anyone would come back here was if they needed to. And nobody ever needed to enhance their history of magic study. At least not with Binns as the professor.
"Gin, you and Harry do NOT have sex back here. Are you serious??" Hermione whispered as she looked around. She could still hear all the normal library sounds.
"Yup. Right over there. The first time we used the cloak, and a silencing charm of course. But sometimes we don't have the cloak with us and it's exciting trying not to get caught." Ginny winked as she set her stuff on a table.
Hermione tried to imagine doing it in the library. It was practically a sacred place. She cast a muffliato so they could keep talking. "How often do you and Harry actually do it? Not just in here I mean. But like in general?" She was curious. She and Ron had never found the time to.
"Oh probably three or four times a week. Sometimes it's hard to find alone time. I would do it everyday if I could. I can't wait to be done with school and move in with him. It sucks that he can't come to my dorm. I never want to sleep with him in his, right next to my brother? Gross."
Hermione nodded "yeah, that's why Ron and I never did it. The timing was never right before, and then once we got here... well there wasn't ever a place to."
Ginny shrugged her shoulders as she opened a text book "just find a nice empty classroom. With locking and silencing charms we've never been caught."
"When though? Like between classes?" Hermione's brain was churning up new possibilities.
"Yeah, anytime we have a break really. We both have a free period on Thursday mornings so we have a meetup spot. Sometimes we've even done it in the quidditch locker rooms after practice. I stay behind in the showers and he pretends he left something behind. I'm sure people have suspected. But we're both of age. As long as we're not letting younger students see or hear us, who gives a shit what we do, right?" Ginny winked across the table at Hermione. Then she flipped a few pages in her textbook. "Ok this is the part I had trouble with..." and she turned the conversation to the essay.
Draco showered off his practice sweat and changed his clothes. He gathered his school work and stuffed it all in his bag. It was really just a prop, though. He had no intention of actually working on anything.
He checked his watch as he climbed the steps from his dormitory to the common room. Practice had run late and dinner had just begun. Should he look for her in the great hall? Or would she still be in the library?
"Draco, just the man we were looking for!" Blaise and Theo flanked him as he walked quickly toward the exit.
"I'm not planning anymore parties." Draco continued walking and pushed the front entrance door open, stepping through without waiting for his friends.
"It's not that." Theo spoke up while trying to match Draco's pace. He was walking faster on purpose. Anytime his friends wanted to talk like this, it meant extra work from Draco. And there was only one thing Draco wanted to spend the rest of his time and energy on today, and she wasn't in the dungeons.
"Are you coming to the villa with us for the holiday?" Blaise clapped his hand on Draco's shoulder, his long legs keeping up easily.
Ah yes, the villa for Christmas. Their small group of slytherin friends whose parents were wasting away in Azkaban, had decided to flit off to Blaise's mother's Italian villa and get mind numbingly drunk for two weeks. It did sound better than sitting in the manor with just his own mother for company. He just didn't like to commit to plans like that.
"Probably. I dunno yet, do I? We've still got time." Draco shrugged indifferently.
"Barely. Break starts in three days. And I want to assign rooms." Blaise continued, unphased.
"Is this really something you need to plan around me? There will be an empty room if I decide to come or not." Draco rolled his eyes at his friend's dramatics.
The trio ascended the steps as they continued chatting. "That's fine I guess, I'll just put you out on the west end, the furthest walk from the pool and the rest of us. Good luck on that journey when you're pissed." Blaise shoved Draco's shoulder in jest and Theo chuckled.
"Fine. I'll probably still have to go to the manor for a day or so. I'll get there when I get there." Draco just now had the thought that maybe he could convince Granger to spend a few of her days in Italy with him. He was eager to find out what her holiday plans were. As an afterthought, he added "who all is going, then?"
"Us three, and Greg, he says he's bringing some witch. Pans and Daph. Daph's bringing Astoria and Astoria is bringing a friend from her year. And that's it." Blaise ticked off the names with his fingers as he said them. "Oh and if you wanted to bring a plus one, of course that's your prerogative." Blaise winked at Draco while elbowing him in the ribs.
The three slytherins had reached the great hall finally, so Draco could tell them to bugger off and he could look for Granger. He wasn't totally used to a friendship like the one he was finding himself in with Blaise and Theo. Usually he was a boss in charge, like with Greg and Vince. His relationship with those two had really started changing back in sixth year. When he was so stressed about Voldemort's task. When he was trying to figure out, as a sixteen year old, how to secretly murder someone. And not just anyone, but the most powerful wizard alive at the time. Voldemort couldn't even do it himself, and he'd tasked Draco with the murder. That stress alone was plenty. But then the thought of his mother in their home with that madman... The dark lord didn't even need to say it out loud. Draco knew what would happen to her if he failed. He couldn't fail, and he couldn't run away. He had to just do it. And that sort of stress obviously caused rifts in childhood friendships.
Or maybe they were all just destined to grow up and grow apart. What would things have looked like, if there hadn't been a dark lord, or a chosen one, or a prophecy? If Draco had just simply been alive, grown up normally, without any of that to interfere? He didn't like to wallow or whine about things he couldn't change. It usually made him angry, and that wasn't something he wanted to waste energy on now. But he still couldn't stop the thought from slipping in every once in a while. Could he have just lived like this? Gone to school, done his work, played quidditch, fancied a girl... people out there still lived like that, didn't they? Just normal, unproblematic lives? What a thought.
He slipped his fingers into his fringe, pushing backward and tousling it a bit. He'd caught her staring at it a few times during classes. He thought about that bit that she had said the first night she had been dosed. When she said she liked his hair when she first saw him. He wondered what way she liked it most. Walking through the library doors, he nearly ran into both Granger and the she-weasel on their way out.
"Well hi." Ginny Weasley grinned stupidly between him and Granger.
Granger blushed a little before clearing her throat and nudging her friend with her elbow. Draco half smirked and raised a brow, she was really cute.
"I'll just... go find Harry. Should i tell him our spot's taken?" Weasley shared a look with Granger which had Draco's imagination running wild.
"Oh god, just go." Granger closed her eyes and shoved her friend out the door. Her cheeks turned a slightly redder shade and she wouldn't make eye contact with Draco until Weasley was long gone.
"Sorry, our practice went so late. Seems I missed the essay club." Draco liked feeling like he influenced her moods, and right now she seemed flustered and nervous.
She cleared her throat again and tucked her hair behind her ear, adjusting the strap of her bag. "Yeah, we got a lot done, probably more than we would have if you were there distracting me." She said. She blushed again. "I mean with your constant smart remarks and penchant for being disagreeable just for the sake of being argumentative." She rolled her eyes at his widening grin and pushed past him into the corridor.
"Plus I don't think you really needed to work on an essay so I didn't feel an obligation to wait for you." She switched to her snippy default mode, the one she usually used with him. The one he loved, because it meant she was paying attention to him.
"Well, now I'm probably going to fail. And right before Christmas, what a vibe killer." Draco kept pace beside her.
Suddenly, she froze in place, just for a moment, before spinning around and jumping behind him. "Shit, please don't call attention this way. Please Malfoy." She tugged him along, shielding her from view of the Weasel and Potter who were at the far end of the corridor. The she-weasel had just thrown her arms around the savior of all wizard kind and her brother hadn't looked this way yet. Granger got to the tapestry on the wall next to them and slipped behind it. He tried to follow but she blocked him "stay there!" She hissed. "Turn around, don't look this way!"
Draco rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, leaning back against the stone wall beside the tapestry. He glanced down the corridor just as Potter and Weasley both looked his direction. He waved and grinned sarcastically at all of them. Weasley scoffed and stomped away. His sister followed, hand in hand with Potter, but she shot Draco a secret grin and a small wave behind her back as she ushered the guys down to dinner. Draco wondered again what the two of them had discussed besides essays in the past hour.
"Alright, they're gone." He said lazily, still leaning comfortably against the wall. Granger peeked out from the tapestry, making sure he was telling the truth before she stepped out again.
"You know, someone with less confidence than me would be offended at your reaction just now, especially after our... afternoon spent together." He meant to tease her more with that statement, but she blushed again and looked at her feet in shame. Which is definitely not the reaction he was going for.
"I know, it was pretty rude, and I'm sorry for that. I just..." she stopped talking as a group of students exited the library and began walking their way.
"Let's go this way." He suggested, gesturing for her to following him down another corridor away from the main dinner traffic. To his surprise, she followed him without protest. Once they were out of sight again, he took her hand and pulled her into an empty classroom.
He shut the door behind them and slipped his hand under her hair at her neck and pulled her to him, swallowing her gasp as he devoured her mouth. She only attempted to speak once as he pulled the bag off her shoulder and dropped it to the floor, but he heard no words. His brain only focused on her taste, her lips, her smell. Her hands clutched the front of his shirt and he slid his other arm around her waist, pulling her even closer to him. She was kissing him back eagerly, passionately. Her hands slid up to his neck and he wrapped both of his arms around her, lifting her feet off the ground. To his surprise, and delight, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist. Fuck, he was hard now.
He walked them a few steps until he could set her on the nearest desk, leaning into her and holding her hips tightly against his. Gods, she tasted divine. He wanted to lay her down and strip her of these taunting leggings. He was pretty sure she only had one layer on, he'd felt nothing else there, he'd definitely checked.
She pushed him back and gasped for air. He simply moved to her neck and continued his ministrations. "Malfoy... I... oh god... " she breathed heavily as he sucked hard on her neck below her ear. She leaned back against one arm, sliding a hand into his hair as he devoured her. Her soft gasps and moans were his motivation. He wouldn't stop until she told him to.
He kissed his way back up her jaw and to her lips, she eagerly continued kissing. Seemingly forgetting what she had just been trying to say, she slid her hands along his shoulders, her nails gently scratching his back. Gods, this felt incredible. He would do anything to do this and more with her forever.
His hands found their way under her jumper, and he skimmed his fingers along her bare skin, up her spine. He felt along the bottom of her bra strap and she curled into him. Her tongue sliding teasingly along his bottom lip before she sucked and nibbled on it. She started sliding her own hands under the hem of his shirt, tickling his sides, tracing his waistband. This fucking witch.
Alarm bells flared up in his mind as her touch sent even more blood rushing to his throbbing member. He shoved away intrusive thoughts of Blaise's voice telling him to fill up on future wanking material as he sat unhappily in the manor next to his assigned pure blood wife. He was disturbed by the vision of a faceless and elegant blonde witch who bored him eternally while he remembered the wild passion of this moment in his youth.
He slowed down and paused, letting them both catch their breath. He still held her close. She breathed heavily and stared at his mouth for a moment before meeting his eyes. Her huge brown eyes staring widely into his. He felt something burning in his chest and it bothered him. He stepped back, letting her go, and fixed his hair. He needed to break this moment, it felt too heavy all of a sudden. He turned and cleared his throat, then pasted on his sideways smirk. "So, you were on your way to dinner, I think." He turned and picked up her bag. She wordlessly stood up from the desk and adjusted her hair. "It's ok, Granger. I'll sneak around with you. And I'm only slightly offended." He playfully winked as he handed her the bag.
She took it, slipping it over her shoulder. He walked back to the door and opened it, holding it for her to exit first.
She stopped in front of him. She still hadn't said anything. She looked up into his eyes again, they made the smirk fall off his face. Her lips parted and slightly swollen. She gazed at his mouth and sighed, shaking her head. "I don't know what this is, Draco." She lifted her hand and set it lightly on his chest, he was embarrassed at how wildly his heart was beating. But he didn't want her to stop.
"It frightens me." She whispered. For once, he couldn't think of anything to say. That uncomfortable burning was spreading in his chest.
"But, I don't think I can stop it." She continued. "I don't think I want to." She clarified. She stepped back and took a breath, dropping her hand from his chest. " But I can't be with you in front of Ron. I just can't. I'm sorry if that's unfair to you."
Now he needed to stop her, he wasn't interested in pity or feelings like this, especially when weasley's name was brought up. "Granger, please. I don't give a shit about anyone seeing us together or not. Just don't stop wearing these tights. I'll be your dirty little secret, if that's the way you want it." He let go of the door and wrapped his arms around her waist again. "But I get to do this whenever it's just the two of us." He kissed her again, ignoring the burning feeling. Or at least he tried to ignore it. Without his consent, the feeling rushed up his spine and washed over him while they kissed and he felt dazed when she pulled away. Why was he ending their snog session? He shouldn't be. They should stay here, like this. And it was getting hot. They should probably take some clothing off.
"Let's go to dinner." She grinned up at him, pushing him slightly away because he was leaning in again. "I haven't had a proper meal in days."
He chuckled, "alright, granger, but keep your hands to yourself. If you're good, I'll let you show me Potter and his girlfriend's 'spot'" later on."
She scoffed and swatted him as he opened the door again and let her walk out first.
He fully enjoyed their sneaky walk down to dinner. He would grab her hand when he was sure no one was around, sometimes he was able to tug her backward and kiss her breathless against a wall for just a moment before letting her go again. He loved to watch her right herself after he would snog her passionately, just until she started to get into it again, and then he'd jump back and continue walking. When they neared the great hall he made her hide and kiss him again one last time, before he let her go inside, promising to wait a full five minutes before entering after her.
He only waited two, once he saw her settled at the table between Longbottom and the she-weasel he strode in smugly and took a seat directly across from her, with the two other house tables in between, of course. He smirked as she froze momentarily, with wide eyes and an annoyed flare of her nostrils before looking away quickly and pretending not to care. He imagined that she whispered "idiot" or "fucking wanker" under her breath to the redhead on her left because the she-weasel glanced up at him directly before raising an amused brow and taking a sip from her glass.
He smugly filled a plate and enjoyed watching her from across the room. He definitely didn't mind being the dirty little secret. But he wanted more dirty and less of the weird guilt he felt in the classroom with her earlier. He was pissed at Blaise for planting that idea in his head and for it intrusively interrupting him moments ago. He wanted her. There was nothing more to it than that. Draco gets what he wants. And this new, former death eater version of himself won't be controlled by anyone, ever again. Unless it's her telling him to take his clothes off, and then of course, Draco would be incredibly obedient.
He chewed his food and grinned at her across the room. She seemed to try not to look in his direction for the duration of the meal but failed quite a few number of times. Maybe they really could go check out Potters spot after this. He still hadn't made sure that those tights were the only layer down there.