The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Twenty-Four

"You're closest."

"What?" She looks over at him as he pushes himself down the bed, tossing the notebook to the floor. She is distracted when he takes his shirt off, shoving his pants to his ankles and kicking them off. She has never seen him undress without real intentions. She thinks it's kind of sad that the simple things are still new to her.

"You're closest to the light."

Now she remembers saying it to him about things like turning the channel on the television when there was no remote, unlocking and opening the door of a meeting room when someone knocked, getting snacks from the kitchen,

"You never do it when you're closest."

"Point?" He stretches, palms pressed against the wall, muscles contracting and hips moving. She almost rethinks the whole sex thing.

"That is my point."

"Weak. I hope you can sleep with the light on th--"

"I can just fine. It's you who has to board up the windows when it's light out because you need it so dark."

He grabs her then, an odd look on his face like he's trying to be sure about this when he's not. He pulls her up against him and presses his face into her hair and the bed. He exhales against her neck, and she pretends she doesn't press closer at the feeling. "Pitch black."

She doesn't speak, no words within her head, but there is something warm at the pit of her stomach where the hollow pang had been. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and cradles his head like a child, closing her eyes against the light and falling into him to block the thoughts. Perhaps it should have been awkward. It really should have been. It wasn't.

Day: 1448; Hour: 8

Margarete smiles, sweeps her hair behind her shoulder, and brushes her finger across Draco's knuckles. Hermione glares for so long that her cereal overfills the bowl, skittering across the counter and the floor.

Day: 1449: Hour: 13

"Is that necessary?"

"Yes," Hermione snaps, adding tape to the side of the note.

"Someone might find it suspicious."

"No one comes here. I haven't been to this house once before this - hardly anyone has." Hermione knows she's being rather rude to the woman, but Margarete seems to be ignoring it anyway.

"This place was overtaken by rats and all the cabinets were filled with rotten food when we got here. It's why we picked the place." Justin explains more thoroughly.

"But if someone does show up you're going to be letting them know that we're the ones who are here."

"No one will show up," Hermione bites out the words, sending the woman a glare for her continuous need to judge Hermione's choices. Fine, choice, but really.

"I don't know. Did you ask Draco?" Hermione's fingers pause on their journey along the tape, and she can feel her jaw clench. "I'm going to ask him, just to be sure that-"

"There's no need for you to ask Draco, because I'm leaving the note up--" Hermione begins, slowly turning toward Margarete in a way that most know as danger, danger, danger.

"Malfoy doesn't make the decisions here. Hermione wants to leave a note to Harold in case he shows up, and that's what she will do. Period." Seamus, for once, is on her side.

Hermione comes very close to throwing her shoe at the woman when she walks by the open door to Draco's bedroom not five minutes later, finding Margarete sitting beside him on the bed and whispering. Draco looks up at her but she avoids his gaze, walking away quickly and glaring at the air.