Blood Bound

Chapter 11 - Vexo

She'd always been rather unassuming in his eyes before, but maybe the blood-supremacy he'd been raised on had been acting as an antithesis to rose-coloured glasses. Now he knew better. Granger was fucking intimidating.

You wouldn't think it by her big brown doe eyes, or by the way her robes were wrinkled and her knee socks were slightly uneven. Nothing about the way she had ink on her lip was even slightly daunting. But sitting across the library table from her, Draco could confidently admit to himself that he was thoroughly intimidated by her.

She wasn't exactly scary, but every single one of the hairs on the back of his neck was standing straight up. His leg was bouncing incessantly under the table as he stared down at the parchment in front of him. Her presence was immensely distracting. He could smell her shampoo from where he sat -fucking vanilla­-and she kept rolling her quill in between her lips like a muggle cigarette in a way that was utterly captivating, he had to actively look away every few minutes or so.

He'd woken up to another one of her notes on his bedroom door, requesting his presence in the library after dinner to work on their project. He'd spent far too long looking at the note considering it was comprised of only six words. He'd read it enough times that he'd been able to note that her handwriting was an atrocious combination of cursive and print that made it nearly illegible. He also noticed that there were slight ink smudges around the edges of the paper, as though she'd had ink on her fingers when she'd written it. Draco had stared at the note long enough that he had decided it worth putting in a drawer in his desk instead of the waste-bin.

"Malfoy?" It was the first thing either of them had said to each other since he found her in the library. More specifically, it was the first thing either of them had said since he'd kissed her. He still didn't know if he wished he could make it so the kiss never happened, or if he wanted to do it again.

"Yes Granger?" his tone was flat, his occlumency walls were heavily layered today in preparation for having to spend time with her, though they were doing him little good with his runaway thoughts.

"Are you okay?"

"Just peachy"

"You sure?" she sounded almost nervous. He just hummed slightly in response, not wanting to interact with her more than necessary lest he do something stupid, again. "It's just" -she never fucking knows when to stop talking- "you seem quite unsettled and if it's about what happened the other day-"

"Go on Granger, wondering if there's a repeat performance in the cards for our little study date?" Why was he provoking her? Not a bloody clue. He knew damn well nothing good could come out of taunting, but it was a familiar defense mechanism for him.

"That's not what I was going to say." Her tone was sharp and her words clipped, she was clearly annoyed with being interrupted. I'm already playing with fire, he thought to himself it won't be worth it if I don't get burned.

That's how he justified to himself that getting up and walking around the table was a sound decision. It's also how he convinced himself that he wasn't being self-destructive when he leaned against the table beside where she was seated.

Self-destructive or not the image of her looking up with that innocent wide-eyed look is well worth it. He had to agree with himself on this one. Granger looked a sight seated in her chair; head tilted up to look at him where he stood lounging beside her.

"Hmm," he hummed as though he was thinking "if that's so, what were you going to say?" He cocked his head slightly as he looked down at her, flashing her a derisive smirk. She blushed, her mouth opening slightly as though to speak. He reached out impulsively and hooked his finger around a lock of her hair.