*✧･ﾟ:* DEAD TO ME *:･ﾟ✧*
WARNING: mature content towards the end of chap.
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THERE WAS SOMETHING terribly wrong with Indiana Jones. And Harry spotted it quicker than he would have ever imagined. At first, he saw it as a sort of blessing; perhaps his saving of her at the Slytherin party had opened her mind a bit and caused her to dial down on her insults and glares. She was quieter now, and Harry couldn't help but let it get to his head. But then he realized it wasn't just him — it was Hermione too, and it was Woods. Jones was fidgety and Jones was keeping her head down, and Harry didn't like it one bit.
"Hermione, what's up with Jones?" Harry had asked his friend before they left for the library, where Jones had to meet with Hermione another time that week due to her failing, yet again, another Charms quiz. Ron had run up to the dorm, claiming he forgot a quill or something Harry didn't really hear. "She's being weird."
"I dunno, she's been awfully quiet — wait, why're you asking?" Hermione raised an eyebrow curiously, shoving another Charms textbook into her bag. "Since when do you care?"
"I don't," Harry said much too quickly, and followed up with, "She might be plotting something."
Hermione let out a disappointed huff at this, slumping her shoulders and looking up at Harry.
"Is that really why you're asking?" Hermione inquired. "Or is it because you fancy her and you don't want to tell anyone?"
"What?" Harry practically choked. "No! No way! That's — that's not at all what this is!"
"Oh yeah?" Hermione wondered. "Then what is it?"
"Nothing! I'm — I'm just — I've noticed she's quiet and was curious as to why —"
"And what, you're asking me to talk to her?" Hermione furrowed her brunette brows, looking almost angry. "So I can feed into your stupid Death Eater theory?"
"Erm —" This was not at all what this was. "Yes, exactly."
Hermione didn't say anything to this as Ron came jogging down the steps, holding a ratted looking quill. He mentioned something about it being better than the new ones he bought, to which Harry hummed and nodded uninterestedly before the three Gryffindors exited the common room and made their way down to the library. Harry knew Hermione was pondering how to go about the whole Jones situation because she was scrunching up her face every few seconds and glancing at Harry as though he could silently convince her.
Jones came to the library seven minutes late (he only knew because he had counted the seconds on Ron's watch), her exterior looking perfectly normal minus her eyes, which were red and puffy. She sent Hermione a sort of half-smile as she slid into her seat, which just so happened to be across from Harry today. He tried to meet her eyes, hoping to maybe grab some sort of glare or scowl, but she kept her gaze away from him entirely.
She barely said two words throughout the entire hour and a half and kept unconsciously scratching at her left forearm as though there was a newly formed scab lying there. She'd gnaw her lip every few seconds, and he realized there were two red blotches on the inside of her lower lip where he assumed she'd drawn blood by biting it. She looked a right mess.
"Hermione," Harry hissed under his breath as the four of them began to pack up. Hermione glanced up at Harry, then to Jones, and then back to Harry. "Come on!"
"Indiana," Hermione said begrudgingly, turning to said girl with a gentle expression on. "Could I have a word?"
Jones paused for a moment, half leaned over to grab her bag, but as she brought the strap of it over her shoulders, she plastered on a light expression and nodded her head. "Yeah, alright."
Harry waited with Ron at the table while Hermione and Jones went off into a more secluded corner. He stayed watching them closely, watching as Hermione's lips form the words 'Are you okay?' and as Jones' face contorts with confusion before it switches to horror, and then back to normal again. She muttered something Harry couldn't understand, shaking her head 'No, nothing's wrong, m'fine' but when Hermione said something else, he watched Jones' face change entirely.
And then, after perhaps five minutes of them speaking, Jones grabs Hermione by the wrist and begins to drag her out of the library; past the group of Ravenclaw third years, through the aisle they had walked through, and past Harry and a very confused Ron.
"The hell are they doing?" Ron asked Harry as though he knew.
"Dunno," Harry said, wondering the exact same thing. "She'll be around. Let's just go back."
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WHEN HERMIONE RETURNED to the Common Room that evening, she was crying. Not a sobbing sort of cry, but the kind of cry when you'd get stressed about something and didn't want to make a big deal about it, so you just sort of let a few tears slip out for the time being until you could let it all out. There were many tears littered on Hermione's flushed face, and as she walked through the portrait entrance, she hastily wiped them away as though to hide them from him and Ron.
Ron, however, like always, noticed her tears and got to his feet, knocking over a few chess pieces as he did so and not bothering to pick them up. Harry pursed his lips and bent over to pluck them off the floor, eyes flickering up to where Ron wrapped an arm around his girlfriend and led her over to the couch, where she sat down and sort of stared blankly out in front of her for a moment.
"What happened?" Ron asked her tenderly, his hand rubbing up and down her upper arm as though to sooth her. She blinked and shook her head.
"S'nothing," She muttered, wiping at her face again. "Just talking to Indiana, s'all..."
"What'd she do?" Ron said very quickly, his face lighting up and looking almost gleeful towards the idea of Hermione and Jones' newly formed friendship being torn. Ron never liked Jones very much. "I swear to god, if she —"
"No, no, she didn't do anything," Hermione shook her head again, tucking her hair behind both her ears. She did that quite often. "Just had a... a heart to heart, I suppose."
"A heart to heart?" Ron repeated, confused. Hermione then met Harry's expectant eyes.
"Well?" Harry asked, getting up and moving to sit down in front of them, criss-crossing his legs and leaning forward like she was about to tell him the most exciting news he'd ever heard. "What's her deal?"
"I — I —" Hermione let out a squeak and slapped her hands over her face, leaning down onto her elbows as she shook her head. "I can't say! I'm sorry!"
"Oh, come on," Ron said. "Can't be that bad, can it?"
"I promised I wouldn't say!" Hermione took her hands off of her face and Harry saw that she was crying again, pearly tears slipping down her cheeks and onto her legs. She hastily wiped at her face again, her head shaking left and right fervently. "Oh, it's awful, positively awful!"
Ron and Harry traded a look, and whether it was of concern or confusion, Harry couldn't quite tell. His curiosity only grew as he watched Hermione blabber incoherent words about the terribleness of whatever Jones had told her. But last time his curiosity grew, he had been practically stalking Draco Malfoy, and Harry wasn't sure if he'd be able to do the same with Jones so seamlessly. Or if he'd be able to control himself. He'd just have to find out on his own, he supposed.
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"MATE, HAVE YOU seen my notebook?" Harry's voice was muffled as he stuck his head underneath his bed, his eyes flickering across the hard-wood floor for the book that held all his plans and plays for Quidditch. "I can't find it."
"Have you looked under Neville's bed?" Ron asked. He was sitting on top of his own bed, looking bored. He had made a game of summoning random objects toward him before levitating them back to somewhere random in the room, although Ron's summoning charm was iffy and neither of them knew where the notebook was. "You want me to try and Summon it? I reckon I've gotten the hang of it, really —"
"No, s'fine," Harry paused, leaning against his bed post to think. Where would it be if not for the dorm? It couldn't be in the Common Room, he didn't think, but were there other options?
"Quidditch Commons, maybe?" Ron suggested, grabbing an unopened box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from Neville's nightstand and tearing the cardboard open. "Maybe you left it there?"
The Quidditch Commons was a room in between the girls and boys locker rooms, usually for teams to gather before and after the games, or sometimes in the middle of them. It was relatively small, with two couches and a tiny fire, and most people only went in there to hang out or go over plays. Harry had spent the majority of a few of his evenings there trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do with Ritchie Coote, who would often slow down near the stands to wave hello to his girlfriend rather than doing his job.
He didn't bother to grab his Invisibility Cloak on his way down towards the pitch; it was nearing curfew, but he had reached the point in his Hogwarts career where getting a detention was the least of his worries, and house points didn't really matter in the slightest. Five or ten points, in the end, didn't mean anything.
The pitch was incredibly dark, and Harry had forgotten that the sun had set earlier due to it being winter. The lights in the Quidditch Commons were on like candles snuffing out the darkness, and he could just barely smell the smoky aroma from the fire that was lit within it. The door was unlocked and slightly opened, and he silently prayed that it was Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff Captain inside.
It was Jones. Of course it was Jones, who else would be doing something Quidditch related at this hour? Her back was facing him, and she was still dressed in her Quidditch gear from her practice earlier. Just as he stepped in, one of her hands flew up to the back of her head to pull out the tie that held her hair in a tight ponytail, letting it tumble down sloppily across her back and shoulders.
And then — on the coffee table — was his notebook. It was closed, just how he had left it, but he noticed it was on a different spot of the table, as though someone had picked it up and moved it. Oh, god, did Jones look through it? He supposed it was only fair, considering he had tried to look at Slytherins plays. Would she notice his presence if he just stepped over and took it before bolting out of the room?
"Potter," Oh no, she had turned around already. How long had he just been standing there looking at her? Her face was flushed, presumably from practice, and he couldn't help but be hyper aware of the tightness of her uniform. "The hell are you doin' in here?"
"I forgot something — Christ," Harry exclaimed exasperatedly, immediately furrowing his brows as he swiped the handheld notebook off of the table. He had been so preoccupied by dealing with her attractiveness that he had forgotten how insufferable she was in the first place. "You didn't open it, did you?"
"Why? Hiding something?" She drawled, turning around and leaning against the wall right beside one of the cabinets. Harry peered inside of it and noticed there were two packs of cigarettes in there, one of which was partially open, along with one green lighter. "No, I didn't look in your precious diary."
"It's not a diary," Harry fired, to her evident amusement. Her plump lips twitched upwards a little bit, and Harry averted his eyes from her. "It's for Quidditch."
"As if I'd want to look at your plays, anyways," Jones scoffed. "We'll beat your team just fine, Potter, I assure you."
"What makes you so sure?" Harry narrowed his eyes, standing on the opposite side of the table and holding the journal at his side, the muscles of his hand flexing in frustration. "Bold coming from someone who has Goyle playing Beater."
Jones' eyebrow twitched upwards and he watched run her tongue over her top row of teeth in annoyance. Brushing her hair behind her shoulder, she retorted, "Fine, you wanna play that? You've got Jimmy fuckin' Peakes as a Beater. Kid can't aim for shit. Not to mention you've got Weasley flyin' on a fuckin' Cleansweep — "
"He's a good flier," Harry said defensively. "Besides, he's Keeper, he's not doing much flying around —"
"And you've got Coote on a Comet," Jones went on, closing the cabinet and leisurely walking around the table as though she had the intention to intimidate him. Another detail about Jones that Harry had noticed was that no matter where she was walking, she strutted; a real strut, a runway strut. "And the bloke can't go a single game without flirting with some bird in the stands —!"
Harry would have agreed that Coote was a pain in the ass if he were speaking with anyone other than Jones.
"Look, Coote's got good aim, alright?" Harry pointed out, taking a step forward. "Not like I had a good lot to choose from. Either way, we're a team. All you care about is winning for yourself. You drill them like they're your — your Quidditch slaves."
Jones' lips twitched downwards at this, her eyebrows furrowing just a smidge. And then, he watched her face turn into that melancholically angry expression he had seen during their detention. And along with it, that weird, unfamiliar churning in his chest.
"You don't know anything about me," She fired in a low voice, advancing closer and making such intense eye contact that he had to refrain from glancing away. "Or what I care about. And I'm afraid the way I train my players is none of your concern, Potter. I drill them hard because I care about them —"
"Is that why?" Harry blurted before he could stop himself. "Or is it because you haven't the slightest idea on how to lighten up? How to be a decent human being?"
Perhaps this was too far, Harry thought, as he watched her eyes darken to such an extent that the sight of them sent a chill up his spine. She took two very slow and very decisive steps towards him now, and he watched her tongue run over her bottom lip.
"You know nothing, Potter," She said in a violently calm manner, raising a finger to point harshly on his sternum. The stab of it stung just a tad, but all he could pay attention to was the way it lingered.
"Nothing about me —" She stabbed him with it again, stepping forward. He stepped unconsciously stepped back, praying he didn't trip and stumble over the coffee table. "About my life —" Again. "Or about my ability to be a decent human being. I'm fuckin' tired of you assuming I'm Satan's fuckin' Baby."
"It's cause you are," Harry found himself saying, matching her tone and manner so his voice was just as much of a violent whisper as hers was. She was standing much too close to him than he thought he could handle, less than a foot away to be exact, and although she seemed to have mastered the art of prolonged eye contact, he was having a difficult time not looking down at her lips. And it wasn't until he did, that she did too.
"Tosser," She muttered, her voice a firm whisper, and now her eyes were flickering about his face; carefully, intently. Harry's was in more of a panic — like he knew every time he'd stare at her lips that he'd lose a life and he was forced to glance at her eyes again. She was still wearing her uniform, he was reminded again, and the aroma of her perfume was flooding his senses, stuffing in his head like a hard drug. "You are insufferable."
"Say that again," He challenged, tilting his head to the side just barely so it was more noticeable that he was, in fact, looking down at her. Jones may have been a bit taller than the average girl, but Harry still had her beat by quite a few inches. He was grateful for it — he wasn't sure if he could handle her towering over him. He was sure he'd combust.
"Did I stutter?" She annunciated quietly, and her eyes raked over him just as they had in the start of the year at their combined Quidditch practice, searching for a flaw, an insecurity, something to strike. The only part of him that moved was his hand, gripping the notebook tightly, his fingers twitching and itching to fly up to the side of her face and pull her lips onto his.
"Sure would ruin six years of progress," Harry retorted, and by the look on her face, he knew this had gotten her. Her mouth opened slightly, taken aback, and she then let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head.
"Unbelievable," She muttered, and to his dismay, she stepped away from him and turned to leave. Not thinking straight (not thinking at all, really), Harry lunged forward and grabbed ahold of her wrist, making a move to pull her back; Jones, however, was much stronger than any other girl Harry had had relations with, and she didn't move an inch. She only ripped her arm away from him with a scowl. "Get the fuck off me."
And she turned and left. Harry didn't move for a moment, his fingers twitching around the pages of his notebook, and then — knowing full well he'd probably regret it — he stuffed his Quidditch notebook into his back pocket and strode right out after her.
To his evident surprise, she was right outside the door, turned to face him as though she was going to walk back into the Quidditch Commons. He realized the makeup she wore was slightly smeared under her eyes, the black mascara smudged just enough for him to notice. The night breeze made the hairs framing her face float upwards, and her cheeks were flushed red with what he assumed was anger.
They stood there for a very long while. It was her that had made the move to kiss him in the Prefects Bathroom, and it seemed she was awfully hesitant on doing it again. And Harry was more than sure of his desire to be that close to her again, but unfortunately he had never been good at dealing with pretty girls; especially ones like Jones. Ones who hated him. Ones who he was supposed to hate back.
But maybe he had to do it, this time — the idea of him going for it and being rejected made him slightly sick to his stomach, but he was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? He had defeated a fucking Basilisk at age twelve, kissing some girl was nothing. Except, it definitely wasn't nothing because Jones was Jones and she was a Slytherin and they were against one another in Quidditch and he hated her and now she was standing a foot away from him and somehow now she made his stomach flip and his knees weak and —
He kissed her. Hard. He stepped forward, placing a hand lightly onto the side of her arm and connecting their mouths with a blithe regard of her apparent shock of the action. Taken aback, her arms contracted so her hands were resting on his chest; if it weren't for the feeling of her kissing him back, he would have pulled away.
After a long moment, Harry took a step backwards, far enough to disconnect them but still close enough that he could kiss her again. Her big, brown eyes were wide, wider than ever, and her mouth was slightly agape. Breathing heavily, they blinked at one another once, twice, three times.
But, as always, Jones came back at him with equal if not more energy; as soon as he saw her move forward, he did the same, and they kissed once more; he felt her hand fly up to the side of his face, her calloused hand cold against his flushed skin. When his hand met her cheek, he realized her face was cold as well, her almond skin tainted by the cold air.
"I hate you," He heard her mumble against his lips as the pair moved back inside the Quidditch Commons, the side of her ankle effortlessly kicking the door closed behind them. This was so very different from the kiss in the Prefect Bathroom, Harry thought. That one was slow and sensual, testing each other's waters. This was truly like nothing he had ever experienced before. "I hate you."
"Starting to doubt that," He managed to find time to say before pressing his mouth to hers again, an involuntary hum leaving him as he felt her fingers twisting and tugging at the hair at the back of his head. His hands tentatively swept down towards her waist, feeling the bunched up material of her green quidditch uniform underneath his fingers.
And then, he felt the cold wall behind his back, pressing against his shoulder blades as she went to deepen the kiss, the tip of her tongue sweeping across his bottom lip. He parted his lips and allowed her tongue inside; he had never kissed anyone like this before — not Cho, nor Ginny, and he had the fleeting worry that Jones would think him to be bad at it.
When she finally broke away from him, her mouth kissed along his jawline in a gentle way he would have never expected from her. He had never pictured himself to be the one up against the wall, but he found himself internally admitting that it was quite nice to have someone else do the work for a bit.
At the feeling of her hands moving down to the hem of his shirt, he panicked just a bit; after the war, he had more scars than just the one on his forehead. What would she say when she saw the pale marking the locket Horcrux had left on the center of his chest? Or the small burn on his rib from the Dragon in Gringotts?
Perhaps she had noticed his apprehensiveness, because he felt her stop kissing him and her breath hit the skin of his neck as she said quietly, "Do you want me to stop?"
"No," He said almost immediately. He thought he'd collapse at her feet if she stopped.
To his luck, she continued with a smirk, soft lips delicately nipping at the side of his neck; he had never truly understood the appeal of kissing one's neck before, but just then he had never found anything more desirable than letting her mark him.
"You've never had someone do this to you, huh, Potter?" He heard her purr. Embarrassment built up in the upper region of his chest.
"No," He murmured honestly, shivering at the cold touch of her hand gliding up his tensed abdominal muscles.
"Hm," She hummed, standing up straight and kissing the corner of his lips; he felt her hand graze the material of his waistband before moving back up to the back of his arm. Her lips were ghosting over his and every time he inched his head forward to kiss her again, her face inched just barely away, teasing him. "Do you like it?"
"Yes," Harry breathed, his eyes staring inwardly down at her lips and flickering between her mouth and the imprint of her collarbone from under her quidditch shirt. She was smirking now, like she had only needed his stamp of approval for her to be satisfied.
And then — the brief flash of a memory in his mind's eye of her stumbling into the library with a hickey on her neck from someone else, her cheeks scarlet and her hair a right mess. He could feel his anger from the memory wash over him again, wondering who she had fucked, when, where, how, why?
And so, grabbing ahold of Jones' hips tightly, he pushed himself off of the wall and roughly turned so they were flipped; he saw her eyes promptly widen and assumed she hadn't expected him to make such a move. Ignoring the rather large possibility that he was doing it wrong, he pressed a line of kisses down her jawline and up towards her ear. Underneath his thumb, he could feel the goosebumps on the small bit of exposed skin on her hip.
"You're the death of me," He told her in a low voice, trying to mimic her actions from before as best he could; Harry's question was answered almost immediately when his mouth latched onto her pulse point — oh fuck she was whimpering oh my god —
"Liar," Jones breathed, her head falling backwards onto the wall, her dark eyelashes touching her brow bone from the way her eyes were rolling. "You said you — you've never done this be-before —"
"I haven't," He mumbled against her collarbone, his thumbs pressing on her ribs and the rest of his fingers splayed along where he could feel the fabric of her bra from over her shirt. She was stuttering, he thought smugly; he supposed she was too overwhelmed to focus not doing it. The fact that it was because of him only boosted his confidence.
"Bullshit," Jones' voice was wavering and higher-pitched. "There's no way that Harry Potter's never — oh —"
He had chosen to make a bold move and slip his hands underneath her shirt, feeling the light lace decals of her bra with the pads of his fingers. He angled it so her breast was sitting in the space between his thumb and pointer finger; gently pushing his hand up to cup it, he took his mouth away from her neck so he could look at her.
She truly was something else, he thought. Soft whimpers were escaping her partially opened mouth, and it seemed she hadn't noticed he had stopped kissing her neck until then, because she angled her head back down to lock eyes with him. The front of their hips were touching and his palms were now resting flat against her breasts, squeezing them tenderly and massaging them upwards with the ball of his hands.
"Hell of a — ah — a first time, huh? —" She breathed out, unable to form normal sentences. Something about him having this kind of affect on her was overwhelmingly arousing.
"Suppose," Harry said, hesitant to make her aware of just how much he was enjoying it. It seemed he had forgotten that it was noticeable, because he could feel his face turn crimson when her eyes trailed down to where their hips were pressed together and his erection was pressing hard against the soft skin of her thigh. Through her heavy breathing, he heard her laugh.
"You 'suppose,'" She repeated, mimicking him. "Tell that to your — oh —"
Her retort was breathy and short-lived due to the way his thumbs ran across her nipples that had hardened from the cold, eliciting an airy moan to fall from her lips. Harry wondered how past him had been so stupid; perhaps, if he had accepted Jones' offer of friendship, this could have happened sooner. Not so tough, now, was she?
And then he felt her hand on the waist line of his trousers again; perhaps he wasn't so tough either. Her fingers dipped underneath the waistband, running along the line between the fabric and the skin of his hips, but what caught him off guard the most was that she glanced up to lock eyes with him. And that seemed to make him ten times more nervous.
Eyes glued to his, she moved her hands up to grip his wrists, pulling them out from under her shirt. She was so elegant with the way she moved, her moves smooth like water and her fingers not stumbling or twitching at anything; when her hands moved to grasp the bottom of her green quidditch top, as though to pull it up and off, he darted his hands out to grab her wrists.
"No," He said, his already burning face on fire. "Leave it on."
"Oh?" Jones hummed, her lips twitching up in amusement, moving her hands away from the bottom of her top and back towards his waistline. He felt a shiver go up his spine, her fingers cold against his flushed skin. "What, you like it?"
Harry didn't respond. His eyes darted towards the floor, and at his awkward silence, she moved forward to kiss him again, whilst one of her hands just barely tracing over the outline of the bulge in his trousers. Her other hand went towards where the button and zipper were, her fingers fiddling with the metal.
"D'you want me to...?" She muttered against his lips, her one finger ghosting along the outline of him. This truly was the furthest he had gone with anyone; he knew she was experienced and that she'd been with many blokes before. Would she laugh at him? Would he come undone so quickly that she left without a word? He supposed he had taken too long to answer, because she locked eyes with him again, dark lashes fluttering, as she said carefully, "Potter?"
"Yes," He said quickly. "I — yeah."
"Just checkin'," She muttered, glancing down at his waist once before grabbing on his hands. "C'mere."
SHE SPEAKS!
don't get too excited... next chapter there's a lot of spice but... drama awaits!!!
thank you for 10k :)
- s <3