Parade of the Sun - Dramione

PART TWENTY-ONE.

She thought she got it on there for one blissful second, but when she pulled the stick back it was still top heavy with the cloth. She growled, stings of pain shooting up her arm as she brought it around in front of her, looking at the poultice with a fierce hatred. She wanted to fling it and the stick at least a mile away from her, preferably into a tree, even if it couldn't feel pain. Just to make herself feel better by getting revenge on the stupid thing. Useless, she would yell, and then she would make another one that would somehow work better because it would know what happened to the first one.

She unwrapped the poultice from the stick, pouring the rest of the hot water from the tin over it. She side-glanced at Malfoy, who didn't look like he was doing anything important, or taxing, or sweating at all. He looked up at her from going through his bag, his look expectant. Maybe he had felt her staring at him, or maybe he had been sitting over there comfortably while she nearly broke herself from shoving a stick at her back.

"I, uh..." Maybe she could just stick the dirty side to a tree, and quickly push her back against the clean side, and then just stand there.

He stared at her while she contemplated possibilities, and then returned his attention to the bag. A part of her had been hoping he would offer, and then she could play it off like oh, you don't have to do that, I can manage, while he was already sticking it on there. But no, he had to keep going about his unimportant business and leave her hunched over awkwardly with a wet cloth and a stick. He was going to make her ask. Well, she was not--

Malfoy pulled his bag up from between his legs and dropped it beside him, pushing up to his feet. Hermione acted like she wasn't looking at him while watching him from the corner of her eye. He knew anyway because he stared directly at her corner-eye look, brushing his hands off before walking over to her. He pulled the poultice from her hand and stepped around her, squatting down.

She was completely unprepared for the breath of hot air across her skin, and she rocked forward so hard she nearly banged her forehead off the ground. She opened her eyes really wide, rolling them to the side as if she could see through the back of her skull to his face. Despite her what are you doing expression, he didn't see it or offer an explanation for his hot air blowing, and then did it again.

She didn't jump again, but his action sent a wave of goosebumps up her back, which seemed to cause another spike in the heat of her blood. His cool fingertips touched down next to her spine, brushing down her skin and across to the edge of her wounds. He must have been wiping the dirt from the stick off, and being very - surprisingly - gentle about it. She didn't notice she was holding her breath until she felt the touch of his as he exhaled, and she released her own, shuddering a bit at the end. She didn't know if he had ever touched her gently, except for the moment when she had clasped his hand in hers some time during the fever, but she still didn't know if that had been real.

She didn't think she had ever felt someone else's breath against her back, that gentle caress of air that was doing very strange things to her skin and heartbeat. He rubbed at a spot on her skin with his thumb, judging by the size of the pad, and she could see his hand in her mind. The L shaped scar across sharp knuckles, the shape of his thumb, the ragged tear of his nail. He dropped his hand away, those knuckles skimming down her skin, and another wave of goosebumps rose up in his wake.

He shifted behind her, his breath flitting across her shoulder, and the poultice was pressed carefully against her. "You got the rest?" His voice came out low, which might have been the reason it sounded a little different than it usually did.

She cleared her throat and nodded, listening to him pull away from her as she grabbed the long strip of a sheet from her lap. She threw it over her shoulder and reached down to pull it under her arm, adjusting it so that it was laying over the poultice before bringing the ends together. She tied it tightly and glanced over at Malfoy as he walked back to the bags, her eyes flashing away when he turned towards her to sit down again.