The Gralfoy Affair (or, The Oblivious Ones) - Dramione

Chapter Six

Based on the immense sense of satisfaction Hermione Granger is well-known to find in perfectly packed luggage, it was strange that she didn't leap up from the manor's kitchen table the moment Draco Malfoy told her, "It's time for us to pack."

He waited, approached her quietly, saw that she was asleep, her head propped on her arms at the head of the ancient beech worktable. Even without having had a panic attack that morning himself, Malfoy was exhausted too, and sleep seemed to be radiating from her in warm waves, pressing him with an urgent need to yawn. Maybe she'd be alright here, alone, while he went upstairs to bed for a little while. It had been years since he'd slept in his own bed. As he considered it, the dirty dishes he had just set down on the counter started to rattle themselves toward the sink. No, it was best not to leave her alone and defenseless against the house again.

Instead, he sat on the table, spun his feet off the ground, and lay down. The tabletop wasn't a comfortable bed but it was, in fact, only slightly harder than the mattresses on the forensics side of St. Mungo's psychiatric unit. The length of the table was shorter than he remembered it. He bent his knees and still had to slide his head all the way in Hermione's direction in order to fit. He braced himself for her eyes to open as his face got so near to hers but she didn't stir at all. How could she sleep like that, bent over at her waist right after eating? He yawned again. Her sleep was a beacon, leading him out of consciousness, and he was only half aware that he was falling asleep gazing languidly at Hermione's face. The Future Mrs. Weasley was pretty enough, no longer the insignificant little girl he'd brushed past on the train on his first day at Hogwarts. She was now pretty enough, interesting enough that he wanted to feel the smooth, clear skin of her cheek against his sore thumb.

He rolled onto his other side, facing the cupboards, and went to sleep.

Hermione was the first of them to wake up. It was afternoon by the time she opened her eyes to the back of Malfoy's head. Inches from her face, his hair lay white against his black collar. Maybe he'd ask her to cut it before they left the country, and she could explore it properly, its texture so fine it almost didn't seem human. Ron's hair had that peculiar ginger coarseness, no matter what elixirs she used to treat it. She sat up, stretching her hands into the air above her head, beyond the pull of the urge to test the smoothness of Malfoy's ridiculous baby hair between her fingers.

How could he sleep like that, folded into angles on a hard surface? What was strangest of all about his sleeping arrangement was that he must have brought in a slender crystal vase and set it on the table, tucked it into the crook of his bent knees, before settling down. It hadn't been there while she was eating. She would have remembered its single fresh flower-so out of place in the shuttered, empty house. The flower was shaped much like a daffodil only with pointed white petals, pale yellow only in its central cone. The arrangement was pretty but badly placed. If he moved at all, Malfoy would kick it over.

No more clattering crystal today. Hermione stood up from the table, walked around it, toward the flower in the vase. "Malfoy," she sang as she moved. "Time to wake up, Draco Malfoy."

He murmured his way back. "Hmm? Er-Ow. Granger?"

She was leaning across the table, hand extended, about to take hold of the vase and move it out of his way when his shouting stopped her. "Granger, no!"

"Don't yell at me. You never should have left this here."

"I didn't leave it there. And can't you tell what kind of flower that is?"

She stared back at him, speechless, astounded at his overreaction. He was something like afraid-and angry.

"It's a narcissus," he said, pivoting off the table, standing up to grasp the vase himself, setting it on a shelf too high for Hermione to reach easily. "It's not safe for you. Nothing that rises up to meet you inside this house can be considered safe for you."