Day: 1350; Hour: 17
You do not ever get used to it. She had thought she might after a year, two, three with no doubt. But her body still shakes like her blood is ice water and she still hesitates half the time when the crowd is mixed and she has to fire off something at oncoming targets. She would do much better if she didn't need to think about it after, because was I right, was I right? is now a far more dreadful question than in the short silence of waiting for a teacher to tell her the answer to it. She will always doubt herself here, because she has seen too many people who were wrong. She has been wrong.
She is more advanced than she had been though, by leaps and bounds, and there are less times that the two sides meld into a frenzied jumble of confusion and friendly firing. They were like children in the beginning. It's hard not to think that they still are.
Everyone makes mistakes here. Even the highest ranked Aurors have hung their heads on a battlefield. Her hardest enemy, perhaps, was her own determination to be confident in her own excellence. Sometimes people can be nothing more than instinct, shed of all the layers of civility and society, and she struggled too long in accepting her own raw humanity.
She was better now though, and came down to her humility enough to think, at first, that everyone was getting worse, before she realized she was just improving and they were all shit at war.
Two bodies, clad in black, send vestiges of winter spiraling around them. Draco's feet dig for purchase, turning weak snow into sludge, and both their feet kick up the top layer of mud that the ice left for puddles as they fall. Specks of blood scatter, but are lost in the palette their boots make, turning flawless white into dark brown lines and shapes around them. Fred is screaming himself hoarse, and Draco is a silent fighter trading words for breath.
She thinks to stop them, but remembers the abuse Malfoy and herself bestowed upon one another in the beginning and changes her mind. They need this maybe, in a way none of them really understand. Neville yells about fighting the other side too much to fight with each other, sending quick glances to the battle going on just twenty yards up, but he still doesn't stop them either.
There is so much tension here, in war. A weight, a deep pressure against your chest and heart that feels like it might need to be ripped and broken and pushed until it's gone. And, at times, one needs someone else to tear it out for them.
Day: 1354; Hour: 19
She thinks that, perhaps, she is starting to feel more for Draco Malfoy than she ever wanted to allow herself to. Her time is either filled with him being there, or her waiting for him to be. This is dangerous, and reckless, but she keeps heading down this path as if it is the best thing she could do.
She does not like that she thinks about him constantly, or enjoys spending so much time with him even if they are arguing, or that she has grown to care about if he lives, or dies, or gets hurt. She does not want to care about another person right now, no matter who they are, because the risk of losing anyone now is too great. But she realizes that she can't help but to give a damn about him, no matter what she tells herself, or how much she tries to remember and convince herself of why she should not think of him in a positive light at all. Because then she is back to thinking about how he's funny in a dry, sarcastic way, or how he challenges her in a brilliant way, or how much she likes his mouth and the look on his face when he is moving inside of her. She likes that he is broody and caustic, and that she never knows what she is going to get when she is near him. She likes that he is a remote hog, watches corny infomercials, never willingly shares his snacks, and doesn't take any of her crap without giving his own back.
It is now a sad fact of her life that she likes Draco Malfoy. Her friends would surely flip if they found out, he would probably make a snide comment and laugh in her face, and she doesn't much like it either -- but there it is, and they were all just going to have to deal with it.
Day: 1356; Hour: 17
Sometimes it goes in slow motion, or maybe it is just her thoughts and the fact that she is scared they are not moving fast enough. Billowing black cloaks, the hint of spring in her nostrils as she pulls in deep uneven gasps, the wind that rushes at the treetops and forces the bare branches to bend and claw at the sky.
She deflects and casts, deflects and casts, and the young woman she is dragging across the street is limp in her arm and against her. Witches and wizards and children and squibs, all with no Mark or Phoenix banner, far from the decisions of war, have now found themselves directly in the middle. Some fight, new and unsure, with their wands trained on high hoods and ivory masks, and most run toward a destination they don't know. Moody is screaming something about forming a group to get the citizens out, barking names over the screams, but Hermione does not pay attention. She fights with an army, but sometimes she feels very much alone. The pulsing of her heart tells her to do what she has to to secure her own survival, but the feeling in it tells her to get this woman, and all of them, to somewhere safe and far away. It is somehow easier to see the dead when they knew the possibility was part of their choice, and she wants no responsibility for marking off those who were never given the option.
Her knees crack when she squats down to get a better grip, launching herself and the woman back into the trench, a red burst of light exploding from her wand. The healer acknowledges her but does not move to come, only gestures for her to bring the woman next to the man, who is next to the man, who is next to the woman, who is next to the boy in line.
When she moves from the trench there is a stream of tangling golden hues that blows into her arm and fills it with the feel of fire. She shoots left-handed and crooked the rest of the fight, but it only means she hits them in the shoulders instead of the heart.
"They're getting bold," Lavender says after.
"When haven't they been?" Hermione murmurs back, her attention fixed on Draco and Moody just two arm lengths away.
She thinks of leaning against him, of inhaling the scent of his shoulder, and imagines his arm wrapped around her back, hand rubbing her hip, or her elbow, or his thumb in the palm of her hand. It is the thought of comfort, of rock formations against tired backs, or hot baths on sore bodies. Instead she gets a nod, a lift of the chin, and his eyes passing over hers as Moody tells her to go to a healer.
Voices fade in and out as she seats herself on a blown out wall, some stranger ripping up her sleeve. She thinks of slow strokes over her hair and lullabies drifting on waves of her mother's voice. The man next to her offers her a cigarette, the healer shines a light in her eyes and looks at her funny, She thinks she needs new shoes.
Day: 1360; Hour: 8
Hermione coughs and sniffs miserably, digging her overheated head further into her pillow. She can hear another cough echoed in the room next to her, and then a sneeze somewhere outside her door. The flu sweeps across the Order without pause, making missions sloppy and bad attitudes abound.
Day: 1361; Hour: 22
She reaches a decision to call him Draco. Most people, she figures, would just let the process happen if it was going to, but she has always had the need to decide things. She even made a list in her head for this. She wasn't sure if he would like it, but his first name slipped out of her at strange (or passionate) times anyway, and he hasn't ever said anything about it.
It also has the benefit of making her feel better about sleeping with him. While she has gotten over the wall of having a lover but not a boyfriend, it makes her feel odd to be sleeping with someone and still calling them by their last name. It is too impersonal, she thinks, so she will call him Draco.
Day: 1370; Hour: 18
"Take off your clothes."
She blinks back at him in surprise, at the rough, demanding tone he uses, as he unclasps his mud and water soaked cloak. She had had a good idea what he wanted when she saw his head of hair, but had second guessed it when she saw just how dirty he was. Streaks of mud in his hair, on his face, covering his hands brown.
She fumbles for a moment, her fingers a little numb and useless before pulling her shirt over her head. He is angry, she knows, but not at her. Obviously someone pissed him off, or something happened to. She invited this sort of tension release on herself, really. It was just four days ago that she attacked him herself after a particularly stressful meeting, her mouth on his and her hands pulling his shirt up before he even shut the door behind him. He hadn't complained a bit at the time, and she certainly wasn't going to complain now.
She's down to her underwear by the time he was naked in front of her, but he quickly remedies the situation by ripping the band at her hip as he pulls her closer. His mouth was hard and angry as he shoves her bra up, his hands skimming along her stomach to cup each breast. He bends his head as she pulls it over her head, and then clutches him before she even discards it when he sucks her nipples through the gaps of his fingers.
He stands upright, smacking his lips as he looks down at her, his jaw muscles working with his aggravation. His hands leave prints of them in mud over her breasts before he raised them to her shoulders. He kissed her again, brief and claiming, before pushing her down to the bed behind her. She was very unsure of how to deal with this Draco, but she couldn't say that this didn't excite her in an entirely different way. She wanted him to take her like this, hard and angry, and she got a thrill from the knowledge that he was going to.
He flips her over onto her stomach, his fingers digging into her hips as he pulls her up to her hands and knees, and she falters.
"I... I don't..." She paused; her breath in her chest as the bed dips under his knees.
He waits for her to continue, and she debates on what to say, blushing madly from the new position and his hand roaming and squeezing freely along her bottom. When she doesn't say anything further, he runs the head of his cock along her, collecting moisture before positioning himself at the entrance she had been hoping he was going for.
She releases her breath, relieved, because this she can do. He gives her a pause a moment longer, making sure she isn't going to continue with her disagreement, and then slowly sinks into her.
The slowness surprises her, but she supposed it was because of her initial hesitation, and this gives her time to change her mind. His hands grip her hips like vices, and then his anger is back as he pounds into her.
Hermione breathes out a gasp and lowers her head to the mattress, curling her fingers into the blanket below. The sounds of groaning and skin smacking against skin quickly rides over the strange creaking of the house, and Hermione presses her open mouth against the bed and shuts her eyes. His blunt nails make dents in her skin, his pelvis batters her bum, and the feeling is incredible. She was never sure if she would like it quite this hard, but I do, I do, I do repeated in her head like a blabbering mantra.
Her only dislike of the position now came with not being able to touch him, or kiss him, or see him. She feels slightly disconnected in this way, but he makes up for it with his angle and speed, and the way he's worked up enough to take to muttering strings of words between his panting. He sets a positively furious pace, and she tries to keep up as she pushes back against him, moaning and holding onto the bedspread.
This was why it shocked her through her haze of lust when he slowed down to an infuriating speed, a hand leaving her hip to push around to her stomach and then down, his fingers finding her nub immediately.
"No," she moaned. "I... I want..."
"What do you want?" His voice was hoarse and deep, and she groaned at the sound of it.
"Draco, just..."
"Saying my first name isn't going to help you, love." His other hand leaves her hip to journey to her breast, and she pushes back against him in response.
She does it again, realizing there's no grip to stop her from doing so, and then again. Pushing back, pulling forward, pushing back. She will blush later when she realizes that he was staying completely still and letting her have at him, but now all she can concentrate on is the feel of him giving her what she wants. Of her taking it from him.
"That's it, Granger," he whispers. "Fuck me."
He removes his fingers from her clit, palming one of her cheeks before sliding his hand up along the sweat of her spine to delve into her hair. She looks over her shoulder at him at the slight pull against her scalp, locking eyes with him over the length of her back. She let out a hard breath, and he seemed just as surprised as her by what sensations can be brought with eye contact alone.
"Fuck," he groans, bringing his hands back to her hips to start pounding into her again.
She watches the tightening and releasing of the muscles in his arms and chest as he moves, before turning her head back around, a crick developing in her neck. He doesn't like this, gripping her hair to tug her head again. She looks back at him, keeping her eyes on his this time, and does not recall a single time in her life where she has ever felt so connected to another person before. There is something extremely intimate about this now that she had not felt before for some reason, though she suspects it is because when he's close, he always drops his head away.
He licks his lips and his mouth falls open as his hips grow erratic. She knew he would come now, and she was caught up in him, burning each image to her memory. From the way his eyes roll back, to the tightening of his muscles and the locking of his bones, to his head falling back and his Adam's apple bobbing over the long, hard groan that rips itself from his throat. He is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, hair matted, face flushed, and dirt-stained. She counts herself lucky that he is allowing her to see him at his most vulnerable, and it is something she will never forget.
He falls forward, dropping his hands from her to catch himself against the bed, and she turns her head back around to relieve the ache. His breath is hot, rushing quickly against her back, and she bites her lip as he pulls out of her. He bends his head to brush his lips against her skin, and she blushes as he pushes up, thinking of just how exposed to him she is.
She makes to move and turn over, but he grabs her legs, stilling her. "Don't move."
His breath puffs against her backside before his mouth is on her, his thumbs pressing and sliding over her thighs and his hair brushing her bum. It doesn't take long before she is crying out her release, having already been close before he came. She collapses onto the bed under the weak support of her shaking limbs, gasping for air, and reeling in the sensations. It takes her awhile to open her eyes, remembering that he's still in the room while she continues to be a human, quivering blob.
They grow wider in surprise when they land on his assets as he stands at the edge of the bed, and she looks up to his face with a blush. He smirks and gestures down at himself.
"Come now, Granger. I believe you're already well acquainted."
She huffs and looks away from him, uncurling her fingers from the blanket, her knuckles cracking. She tried to find a suitable reply, but her brain is still recuperating. She wonders if this is part of the reason he has sex with her to begin with -- it always seems to be a great way to leave her speechless.
"You're filthy." It will be hours later that she will realize with a start that she didn't even second-guess his meaning behind these words.
"How do you think I got this way?" she asked him, weakly raising a dirty streaked arm, wet with her sweat.
He holds out his hand and she completely ruins her suspicious look by taking it before giving in to him. "Yes, that is my fault, isn't it? I suppose I will have to pay for my rudeness by cleaning you myself."
Day: 1373; Hour: 10
"What are you doing?" Hermione calls through the screen door, and Neville looks up at her innocently.
"What do you mean?"
"You're standing out in the rain."
"If you knew what he was doing already..." A voice starts over her shoulder.
"...Why did you ask?" She turns her head to face the Weasley twins, and is immediately suspicious.
"Why is Neville out in the rain?"
"Ah, why she asks, George."
"Which is what she should have asked in the first place, Fred."
"Maybe she's--"
"Uh oh."
"Hands on hips."
"We've got the 'Angry Hermione' now."
"Impatient, really," Hermione replies. "Now answer my question."
"What was the--"
"Fred," she cuts him off.
"George, actually."
"We have a bet for how long he can stand out there before getting soaked."
"That's... Are you really that bored?" Hermione arches an eyebrow, looking back at Neville again.
"Really."
"So what does the winner get?"
"What does the loser get is the question." Fred grins, and George holds up a small purple candy.
"What is that?"
"Oh, just something we cooked up."
"Oh, God,"she whispers.
An hour later she sends Neville to the tub with instructions not to touch anything and set it on fire, and has to throw pillows over her head to muffle out the high whistling noises from the steam shooting out his ears.
Day: 1379; Hour: 14
She never understood what a man's infatuation was with a woman not wearing underwear, because it's not like they don't have clothes on over their naked selves anyway. She can't say it bothers her much anymore however, once she has found out just how much she can use it to her advantage. He had startled her to stuttering when he asked her if she was wearing a bra, his eyes seemingly glued to her breasts as he started in a slow, predatory walk across the kitchen. When she had finally managed a 'no', he had wasted no time devouring her.
She really was seeing the perks to this now.
Day: 1380; Hour: 16
"I just feel very lost. Like... Like I don't know where it is I belong in the world anymore. I've always known, in some obscure way, where -- or who -- I was with. But now it's like... floating. And I don't know what to think or how to feel anymore."
She tries to ignore the fact that she is crying, and to Draco Malfoy of all people, but the emotions are overpowering and she found herself babbling the words as soon as he stepped up beside her in front of the kitchen sink. She can't explain why she is hit by the sudden need to break down, besides that her mind won't stop processing all the things that worry her, and her monthly is approaching rapidly.
She needs Harry, or better, Ron. Ron who is touchy-feely, and gives one of the best hugs possible when he isn't trying. She needs something solid to stabilize her, and something more than just the ground beneath her feet. She needs warmth, and strength, and to just hurry up and pull herself together because it's not the time for this. It never is.
He surprises her when he reaches up to awkwardly wrap his arm around the back of her neck, his body stiff as he nudges her toward him and she tumbles into him. She clenches his shirt, burying her face into his shoulder. And it is not Ron, but it is him, and it is perfect in that. It is what she needs.
He waits until her panicked breathing has evened out and her fingers are less severe on his shirt before shrugging the shoulder her forehead is resting on. She lifts her head and he bends his, kissing her slow and chapped, and giving her comfort the only way he knows how.
Day: 1385; Hour: 18
Hermione treks a kilometer through a forest and a valley, angry the entire time because that is what happens when she has PMS. The physical exertion is wicked when coupled with her tiredness and cramps, and she is very close to setting the entire house on fire when the team arrives to find it empty. No people, no house-elf, not a single sheet of parchment. There's only furniture, and a drop of liquor in a cup on the table, and she is getting very tired of her participation in missions that don't go right.
Day: 1390; Hour: 2
She tries to write a letter to Harry and Ron, but sits for almost an hour before admitting that she doesn't know what to say. The rolled up parchment she hands Lupin the next day consists of only three short paragraphs, but at least it is something.
Day: 1396; Hour: 17
She does a turnabout when she hears the squeak of the front door opening. She has pretended that she did not look several times over the past few days to check if it was him, but she has been hopeful every time she looked at who was entering. She figures it is the laws of her world that she cannot go too long without seeing him, because he has always been around.
It is him this time, as she figured it would be. Seamus just returned a few short hours ago, cursing the blond's name under his breath, so she knew they had both been in the area for something. He unclasps his cloak, shrugging it off his shoulders, and pausing in the movement when his eyes land on something. She follows his gaze to her tattered slippers at the bottom of the couch as he resumes taking off his cloak, slower this time as his attention seems to still be concentrated on her slippers. He tosses the thick garment over the back of a chair, and she wonders if she should start heading back down the hall before he spots her looking at him. He'll know anyway, she figures, because the floor grunts and whines too much under her feet, and he'll hear it.
He spots her a moment later, taking inventory of the room, and bites his lips as they stare at one another. "Hi."
"Hello," she says stupidly, scratching her head and looking blankly at the lamp on the table beside his hip.
"Who else is here?"
"Seamus, Angelina, Ginny, and Tonks. Profess-- McGonagall stopped in earlier to talk to Tonks, but she's gone."
He frowns, rubbing the top of his head in frustration, and she smiles at the mess he makes of it. "I need to ask you for a favor."
"Alright, sure." She shrugs, and pretends she doesn't find it odd and beyond interesting that he is. He doesn't ask anyone for favors, she knows, because he's told her that he hates feeling like he owes anyone anything.
"There's a key in Moody's desk, and it's mine. Moody told me he would return it to me when all this is over, but I need it now. I would ask it from him myself, but he's gone, and I don't know when he'll be back."
"Did you ask Lupin? He has access to Moody's office, for... backup purposes."
"I did. He informed me that I could wait, and when I tried to explain to him that I couldn't, he wasn't hearing it."
"So, you want me to break in?"
He gives a breath of laughter, and looks at her in a strange way that she has seen before but never on his face. "For a girl who hates to break the rules, it's your first thought often enough, isn't it?"
She hadn't exactly survived her childhood without this form of survival instinct. "What else do you suggest then?"
"Asking him? I know you know him on a bit more of a personal level. He's fond of you because of his fondness of Potter, and I was curious to see if you would, perhaps, be willing to use that to your advantage a bit."
She bunches in her cheek, and tilts her head sideways with a shrug, because she doesn't think that will work. "I don't know."
He shuts down on her, like he is prone to do, despite how much it bothers her. "Forget I asked then."
"Calm down. I didn't say no, I just said that I don't know if that will work."
"I'll figure something else out."
"Well maybe we could--"
"I meant, I'll figure something else out."
She glares at him now, angry that he is angry while she is trying to help. "Stop being an ass, Malfoy. I'll help, I just don't know how to go about it yet."
He blows out a breath and palms his forehead, rubbing hard against the wrinkled lines of his frustration. "All you have to do is ask him. Tell him I need it, and that Moody knows it's mine."
"He'll want proof. What is the key to?"
That blank look again, the calculation in his eyes, the rigid posturing. Sometimes she thinks she can never win with him, and most of the time she thinks it is a character fault that she keeps trying to anyway. "That's none of your business."
"Unless it's to a room with all your deep, dark secrets, Malfoy, I fail to see how it matters if you tell me."
"It matters, because you don't need to know, and you're just digging for your fucking answers and to appease your irritating need to be nosy."
"Actually," she bites, "I'm trying to think of a way to do what you asked me to--"
"And again, never. Mind."
"What is the big deal?" She throws up her arms, exasperated.
"Why do you need to know so badly?"
"So if Lupin asks, I can--"
"Lupin knows that the key is mine. He might even know what it's to. So it doesn't matter if you know or not."
"And you couldn't have just explained that in the first place?"
"Like it would have stopped your curiosity."
"It would have, until you made such a big deal of it, so now I can't help but wonder what it is you're hiding!"
"All my Muggle-born torture devices, Granger. Want in? What the fuck does it have to do with anything?"
"I--"
"Forget I asked."
"No. I--"
"I said never mind."
And this is obviously the end of the discussion, because he turns and walks out the front door before she can get out another word. She glares evilly at the door, and then at his cloak before marching back to the kitchen.
Day: 1396; Hour: 1
Her door opens with a long, low creak, and her eyelids fly up with the sound of it. She glues her eyes to the door, her surprise melting into curiosity at the figure she can just make out in the dark.
"Draco?" Though this probably isn't the best thing to say, as it can be anyone, and anyone would wonder why she's asking if it's Malfoy coming into her room at two in the morning.
The figure doesn't respond, the door clicking behind him, and her heart starts to beat harder in fear. She can feel her adrenaline rush up the sides of her neck until her eyes are wider with it, because she thinks it is him, but her overactive imagination has always been her downfall.
She sits up and grabs her wand off the table, aiming it in the general direction of the door and reaches a fumbling hand for the switch on the lamp. The bed sinks beside her knees and next to her hip just as the lamp floods the room with weak light. She has to blink rapidly to adjust her eyes, but she can make out blond, and knows anyway.
"You can't just creep up on people like that," she hisses, and he grabs the tip of her wand to lower it and slide it out of her hand and back onto the table.
He moves a leg, turning slightly to throw it over to the other side of hers, and the hand at her hip slides up along the bed as he leans forward. She is forced to lie back down when he presses against her, and he's glaring at her before kissing her angrily. She replies tentatively at first, but remembers her frustration over his entrance and his attitude earlier that night, and kisses him back just as angry. This seems to be what he wants; nipping her lip as she digs her nails into his shoulders, and she hears him muttering something about wenches (or witches), and she knows it will be a long night.
Day: 1399; Hour: 7
Hermione awakes to the sounds of screaming and stifled laughter, an explosion that causes her bed to rumble, and the sound of water as loud as a giant fountain right below her. It takes her a moment to smile, think, groan, and swell with fear and anticipation as she remembers it's the Official Weasley Twin Holiday: April 1st.