February 22nd, 1999
They don't deliberate.
They muse and mull and drag their way through it, as if they know each and every second has Hermione grinding away another thin layer of her teeth. Her jaw aches. Her eyes itch and sting. She stares resolutely at the base of Burbage's podium, because glancing to her left is out of the question right now.
And all the while, the same word bounces back and forth off the walls of her head.
Why?
Why - why - why?
She's not a fool. She has no misgivings about the human heart - no silly daydreams about love at first sight. People don't fall that way. Not very often. And she's convinced the ones that do have actually just suffered some sort of synapse malfunction. An ill-timed dopamine release.
Most people - like her - like...like him - take a lot more convincing.
Malfoy didn't love her on that cold marble floor. Those eyes she stared into - through the strain, through tears, with a knife carving into her skin - they weren't the eyes of a lover. There was just fear. Hers and his. Fear and desperation and disbelief and just this silent plea of please - please, you know me - we were classmates - please.
And at the time, she'd thought that plea went unanswered. At the time, everything sort of fit.
Malfoy made her life a living hell in school, so why would he lift a finger now? It fit. It fit.
This doesn't.
Her eyes glaze over, losing focus, and the podium starts to morph into two the longer she stares at it. She doesn't even realize she's tracing the letters of her scar until the ragged edge of one of her fingernails - bitten raw over the past few weeks - snags on the rough skin and sends a jolt of pain up her arm.
She blinks her eyes back into focus and glances down at it, watching a little fresh bead of blood trickle down over the word 'BLOOD' itself.
Poison. How could she not have known? How could she not have felt it, seeping into her? Even amongst all that pain? How could she have missed it leeching through her skin, in and then back out again?
How could she have missed Malfoy's moving lips?
She thought she remembered everything about that day.
Instinctively, her eyes flit left - before she can stop them. He's staring back at her through the bars. Bloodshot, hoarse. Heaving. A single strand of blond dangles between his piercing eyes, sweat-soaked.
She's seen Malfoy in lots of states, she thinks, but never like this. Even half frozen to death - even in a fit of rage - he's never looked quite like this.
"Look what you've done," he says, low and breathless. Quiet enough it's only for her ears.
Hermione's barely conscious of the rest of the room. It seems to fall away when faced with the look in his eyes.
Even as Burbage calls out, "We have reached our verdict," she finds she's only half-listening. Can't tear her gaze away. The words "probation," and "damages," glide across the podium to her, but they're meaningless. Words that don't make sense.
All she can hear is him.
"Look what you've done," he murmurs again. "Now, it was all for nothing."
Harry has to talk her through what happened.
Everything after Malfoy's cage sank back below the ground is a blur in her memory. But apparently there was quite the uproar. Many witches and wizards - not just Dawlish - had crammed their way into that trial to watch Malfoy fall. As Harry explains it, some of them actually tried to throw things at the Wizengamot before being escorted out.
But that part she understands.
What she doesn't understand is why she isn't already in front of the podium again, this time for Theodore Nott.
"They postponed it," Harry says again, clutching her shoulders gently as though to keep her upright. They're still in the Ministry atrium.
"I...I don't understand," she manages.
"Unforeseen circumstances," says Harry. "It's been postponed indefinitely - probably because of all the chaos in there. They said you'll be notified when they're ready to move forward."
It takes her a moment, and then she's nodding numbly. All she can think to ask is, "How's Pansy?"
Harry offers a wry, winded smile. "She's...erm, less than pleased. It wasn't pretty. But I told her it'd just give you more time to prepare his defense."
She nods again. "Thank you."
"'Mione." He gives her shoulders a shake. "You've won. I know it was a lot to take in but - you did it. You won."
Then why doesn't it feel that way?
She just nods a third time. Plasters a false smile on her face.
Malfoy's not allowed to leave with them. The Ministry claims he has to be 'formally discharged,' and it takes Harry a long while and lots of tugging to get Hermione's feet to move.
Part of her doesn't believe they'll really let him go.
When they make it back to the Great Hall, Harry insists she come back with him to Gryffindor for a nap. But he hasn't even finished his sentence, and she's already turning in the direction of the Dungeons - leaves him with a squeeze of his shoulder.
Her feet take her to the false wall instinctively, her infamous knock echoing down the corridor. They all know it by now.
But this time it's...different.
This time, when Blaise finds her at the door, there's no air of disinterest. No mocking smile. No sense of unwelcome as she steps past him into the Slytherin common room.
She recognizes most of the students spread out across the room, now. Ones she never knew the names of before. Probably because she's defended more than half of them.
And this time, as their eyes follow her to the corner of the leather sofa she always takes, she doesn't feel like a target. Her eyes stumble on Adrian Pucey as she takes her seat. At first she thinks it's a trick of the light.
But no. That's a nod she saw. A nod from him.
She blinks back at him for too many seconds, stunned. Finally forces herself to tip her head in return. Adrian looks back down at his book like nothing happened - but her world is tipping on its axis. Keeps tipping as Blaise appears in front of her again, holding out a glass of Firewhiskey.
"T-Thank you," she says, a little dazed as she takes it.
"Acta non verba," is his response.
Her brows bunch together. For a moment, she thinks he's offering a sort of cryptic comment on the situation. Deeds, not words, the Latin means. She knows that much.
But then he says, "It's the password."
And when she blinks stupidly up at him, he juts his head at the door she just came through.
"We had it changed this morning." His lip curves up, just barely on one side. A half-smile. "Don't need to knock anymore."
He leaves her open-mouthed in his wake as he heads up the stairs to the dormitories. And she literally has to sit back - stares at her lap and takes a moment to fully grasp it.
Trust, she finally realizes. It's trust.
The same trust she now has for them. All of them. A trust that allows her to nearly drift off half an hour later - on their couch, in their territory. But her eyes have barely slipped shut when the false wall gives way again.
She jerks up, head whipping to the entryway. And there he is.
Hermione jumps to her feet. The noises of the common room cut off abruptly, all eyes lifting to the two of them.
His clothes are dirty. Torn. Somehow more noticeable now than they were in the cage. His black eye still hasn't fully healed. But he's here. He's here.
She's barely formed a smile when she puts together the expression on his face.
He's furious.
She can see it - not just in his eyes or in the set of his jaw, but in the way his chest heaves up and down with every breath.
A few unwitting Slytherins actually stand up to greet him, only backing off when they see his face. And all the while, he doesn't take his piercing eyes off her.
She doesn't dare move. Doesn't speak.
Not until he grits out, "Can I have a word?" and juts his chin over his shoulder, voice tight.
It's probably unwise to go anywhere with him right now. But she hasn't seen him in weeks without the separation of bars between them, and the concept of being face to face again eventually wins her over.
She follows him out, the silence of the common room dull and hollow in their wake.
Malfoy doesn't look back even once as he leads her through the corridors. A few students still milling about in the late afternoon actually jump upon seeing him, either because of his state or because they never expected him back.
She realizes she should be nervous - perhaps even afraid - as he stalks out into the courtyard, shadow long and thin in the dying light. There are only a handful of reasons they'd need so much seclusion. She doesn't stop though. Not as he continues down the hill and further still to the steps that lead to the boathouse. The memories that flood through her at the sight of it make her breath hitch, but she doesn't say a word. Only follows in silence the whole way down the steep, stone stairs.
This will be their reckoning. She can tell as much from the angle of his shoulders as he walks. From the fists he keeps gathered at his sides, flexing them once as they cross the threshold into the small enclosure.
But even when he stops walking, standing statuesque at the far end of the boathouse, there's still at least a full minute of silence - every second of it spent with his back to her.
Then, at last -
"Are you happy?"
It's a snarl. Low and quiet.
Hermione's surprised how quickly the cold laugh tumbles off her lips. "Am I what?"
"Happy?" he repeats, slowly turning to face her. "Satisfied? Proud of yourself?"
She had a sense he'd try to take this road - even in her daze as she left the Ministry, she'd considered it. Malfoy doesn't take to being helped. Even his mother acknowledges it.
"Yes," she says, taking a few calculated steps toward. The intensity of his breathing seems to kick up a notch with each one. "I'd say so. Actually, I'd say I'm very proud," another few steps, leaving only a meter or so between them, "especially considering I managed it without so much as an ounce of help from you."
And even as she says it - even as his nostrils flare - she feels that it's wrong. It wasn't supposed to go this way. She didn't want it to go this way.
Because no matter how absurd he is, no matter how selfish and pigheaded and stubborn, she can't erase what she saw in that courtroom.
He saved her.
She forces her face to soften, taking another more timid step toward him. Makes herself say it out loud. "You saved me-"
"And what good is it now?" he hisses, so sharply and so abruptly she's tempted to take a step back. "After what you did? I told you - I warned you - I made you swear not to -"
"To what?" she splutters, spreading her arms wide. "Return the favor? Why can you save me, but I can't save you?" Two more steps, and they're nearly chest to chest. Again, she tries to soften, "Malfoy...it's - it's over, now. Once I go back for Theo, it's ov-"
"If you're stupid enough to think this is over, then I guess you're not the brightest witch of your age."
She blinks at him for a moment, at a loss.
"They're killing anyone who defends us. And you've made yourself a prime target. You -you've gone and fucked everything." He huffs an unfriendly laugh in her face. "How could you be so selfish?"
The slap is hard and unforgiving - so fast, she barely even realizes she's done it. But she sees the color bloom in his cheek. Feels the sting spreading across her palm. Shock and fury flashes through his gaze. She opens her mouth to defend herself-
Malfoy's hand finds her throat in an instant, taking hold and twisting to force her back against the stone wall. Her gasp is choked, shoved out of her chest by the impact. Her hands fly up to pry at his fingers as he squeezes tight and draws in close. Puts them nose to nose. "Is this what you want from me?" It's only a murmur, but his tone is as deadly as his grip. "You want me like this?" He flexes his fingers once, allowing a single breath to trickle in before squeezing again. "Why? Why? Why do you always make me do this?"
Hermione manages to dig her nails in enough to slip a few fingers under his, sucking down gulps of air. But she can't bring herself to surrender. Can't bring herself to back down, even as the blood in her head starts to rush.
"You're the selfish one," she wheezes, almost enjoying the way his eyes spark and narrow. Whatever the reason, though, he lets his hand drop lower on her throat - no longer crushing her windpipe, just holding her in place. Almost like he's daring her to continue.
Her head is spinning. But she will. Damn him, she will.
"Spoiled, little rich boy," she pants, sneering at him. She bares her teeth, even as alarm bells blare in her head. This isn't you. This isn't you, they cry, but it feels so good - too good - going for the kill. "Can't stand to be disobeyed. Can't stand the thought of someone other than Daddy coming to his rescue."
Malfoy's searing eyes flash, and he yanks her head away from the wall enough to fist his free hand in her hair - yanks hard, dragging on her scalp.
She just feels encouraged. "Doesn't know how to behave," she hisses, eyes watering. "Doesn't know how to say thank you."
"Thank you?" he seethes, pulling harder until she can't help a little, pained squeak. "Oh, I'm not going to thank you."
He's so close, his nose is slotted against hers. So close her eyes have the treacherous urge to flutter shut - because normally when he's this close she gets to taste him. And she shouldn't want to taste him.
"Make no mistake," he growls, and he has the nerve to nuzzle her cheek as he says it - a threat wrapped in affection. "If you get yourself taken away from me, I will kill you. Do you understand?"
She swallows a heaving breath by mistake.
"I will bring you back from the brink of death if I have to, and then I will fucking kill you. Just so I can do it myself."
There's a gap of rigid silence, with only their ragged breaths to fill the space.
And she has no explanation. No excuse.
But it's her head that tilts back. Her lips that seek out his - slot against and seize them like a lost possession. It forces a strangled sound out of his throat, and it sends a chill through her as his grip on her neck goes slack.
His mouth parts against hers like it doesn't want to. Like the very concept of a kiss infuriates him in this moment. But then his teeth sink into her lower lip, dragging it out and releasing it with a wet, filthy sort of sound that makes her thighs quiver. And for a moment he just lets his forehead rest against hers. Pants into her face as his hand slides down to her collarbone, hesitating over her thudding pulse.
The scent of peppermint clouds around them.
"You're going to ruin my fucking life," Malfoy breathes, finger tracing absent circles on the skin of her chest. The other hand, still buried in her curls, spreads its fingers to scrape its nails along her scalp. She hisses through her teeth, eyes falling shut. Gooseflesh spreads across her like a wildfire.
"You - you're-" she stutters, tongue tripping over itself as his hand drags a slow path down between her breasts, over her stomach, landing low - too low - on her hip. "You're the one doing the ruining. It's like - ah-" She gasps as his head dips suddenly, teeth grazing the spot just below her jaw. "It's like you want it ruined."
He mouthes at the spot for a moment. Huffs a laugh, then puts his lips at her ear. "Maybe," he whispers, breath hot against the too-sensitive skin. She clenches her thighs together. "But only by you."
She squirms as his hand glides past her hip and down her leg, fingers curling under the hem of her Ministry-approved pencil skirt. And then she starts to shake as he traces the bare skin of her inner thigh, walking those fingers up the last few inches towards the apex.
"Going to let me in?" he murmurs, tongue lashing at her earlobe.
She spreads her legs instantly, head falling back into his hand. And Malfoy just laughs, low and dark into her ear, even as his hand slides home between her thighs. "Look at you. You don't even fight back anymore."
Her breaths are coming in desperate little puffs, a tremor riding up her spine as he applies just the faintest pressure over her underwear - but she still feels the pulse of indignation. With the hand not hopelessly tangled into his hair, she reaches out and gropes him hard. Harder than she knows she should, earning a cut grunt out of him. "Want me to?" she sneers.
"Bitch," he hisses, but she can feel him growing harder against her palm.
She lets loose a breathy sigh as he adds more pressure to the lace between her legs, dropping her head forward onto his shoulder. Losing focus. "You smell like prison," she mumbles against his shirt collar.
He responds by yanking her underwear to the side, rough pads of his fingers finding her clit like they're magnetized. She jerks violently against him.
"And you smell wet," he says. It's meant to be snide, but it's more a groan than anything as he gathers up the moisture and uses it to push two fingers inside.
"Yes," she gasps, forgetting it's not a question. She shifts to loop both her arms around the back of his neck, not even shy as she starts to grind her hips into his hand, rising and falling with each slow pump of his fingers.
He groans again as she does it, picking up the pace and licking a stripe up her neck. "God, I hate you."
It just slips out. Forever, she'll blame it on the way his fingers curl up - find that spot that makes her eyes roll back into her head. But she knows that's not why she says it.
"And I love you."
She thinks she has for a while.
His reaction's not what she's expecting. To his credit, Malfoy - Draco. He's inside of you. Draco - always manages to surprise her.
He tears his fingers out, and the loss is unbelievably painful for a moment. Leaves her wanton and desolate until he takes her jaw in his hand - wet with her essence and pressing hard into her skin - and forces her to meet his suddenly burning gaze. "Look at me - look at me."
She stares, wide-eyed. Doesn't dare blink.
"Don't you fucking say it unless you mean it."
The urge to correct him is surprisingly immediate. She has to stop the words halfway up her throat, just to get the chance to think. And it's admittedly hard to think right now, throbbing the way she is.
But he's giving her an out. Not even hiding it. The one-time-only opportunity to take it back, which is more than she can say she did for him.
No, she backed down. Backed away. Ran. Like a coward.
But here he is, pressing bruises into her skin and daring her to step on his heart. Throwing himself on the grenade.
And they probably both know she should take the offer. It'd be best for everyone. Might even save some lives.
She shuts her eyes. Breathes deeply, channeling every last drop of fearlessness she possesses before she opens them again. His gaze hasn't moved an inch - unwavering - but she meets it head on.
She's done saving lives.
"I mean it."
And god, the way he bares his teeth - like he plans on making her regret it.
"Then say it again," he demands. A threat.
"I mean it."
"No." Abruptly, he shoves her skirt up over her hips, rough enough to punish - to hurt. She can hear the fabric tear. "Don't play games with me."
She only notices his hands are shaking when he goes for the fasten on his trousers, and her pulse starts to hammer in anticipation. Her mouth runs dry.
"Say it again," he growls, just before he performs a rather impressive bit of wandless magic. One moment her stomach glows pink, and the next she's up in his arms, legs spread. Hitched up over his hips as he lines her up, hands carving into her backside as he presses her back against the wall. The friction is unbearable. She tries so hard - it's humiliating how hard she tries to grind against him, wanting him inside. Wanting to fill the void.
But he's got her pinned too tightly to allow it.
"Hermione." His voice has dropped to a whisper. Full of malice. Full of hatred that doesn't match, doesn't coexist with the way her heart swells at the sound of her name on his lips. She's realizing it doesn't matter how he says it. As long as it's him. "Say it. Again."
Swallowing her fear - swallowing her pride - she meets his eyes again the way one meets an enemy on the battlefield. "I love you."
Draco lets the words hang in the air for a fraction of a second. Enough time for her to smirk in his face. A challenge.
Something feral rips out of his throat, and the next instant he's inside of her.
She chokes on something halfway between a moan and a shriek. Her body's forgotten him - has to familiarize itself with the way they interlock all over again. Stretches. Accommodates. But she hasn't forgotten the way he presses himself in close, nestling into the crook of her neck. Blasting hot breaths against her flesh as he pulls out and drives back in - slow, so torturously slow - the first time.
"I thought you were smart," he groans. It's muffled by her skin, and he follows it up with an impossibly delicious, desperate kind of sound. Like he's wounded. Like he's losing control. He bites and sucks at her neck as he starts to thrust in hard. The type of hard that sees their hipbones colliding - bruising.
"Ah! So did - god, there, right there - so did I."
The need to kiss him is suddenly overwhelming. She struggles to unlock her wrists from around his neck, gasping as the shift invites him in deeper. Her hands scramble for purchase, skating across his chest and up along the smooth cords of muscle lining his throat, finally finding the cool planes of his face and dragging him away from her neck.
"Please - please, I-" She cuts herself off when her mouth finds his, and she doesn't care that their teeth clash, too eager. Doesn't care that she tastes the blood of his split lip. She only cares about the warmth of his tongue as it curls around hers. The exquisite pressure as he sucks and licks and bites.
It makes the muscles in her lower abdomen clench around him, and he rewards her with another strangled groan, this one into her mouth. "Fuck." The rhythm of his hips stutters, then picks back up again faster - harder - sending little shockwaves down her legs and up her spine.
And she must short-circuit somehow, because the oddest thought pops into her head. "Draco, I - oh - I just realiz - oh, god-"
He doesn't cut the rhythm. Not even a fraction, even as he grinds out, "What?" in a breathless, irritated tone.
"I - we've - we've never done it in a bed."
This does make him pause, halfway sheathed inside her. And it's both a breather and a unique sensation all its own, making her swirl her hips a bit to get a feel for it.
He hisses and grips her waist hard to make her stop, panting against her mouth. Then, quietly, "Do you want me to fuck you in a bed?"
The thought floods her with a gelatinous wave of pleasure. "Yes."
"Fine," he says. But panic rips through her when he starts to pull out.
"No. No!" She probably scratches him, grabbing at him the way she does, hands fisting in his shirt. Any other day, she'd hate herself for begging. But right now she can't bring herself to care. "Don't stop. Please. Don't stop - don't stop." And she's actually rather impressed with herself when she manages to shift her hips upward, even at the strange angle, taking him in hungrily - as deep as she can. "Not now," she pants, one hand freeing his shirt to card through his sweat-damp hair. "Later. Later. Please."
He punishes her by hesitating. Waits until she actually whimpers before starting up the rhythm again and then buries his face in her curls. "Make up your fucking mind," he huffs. But she can hear the smirk in his voice.
"Ah - there! Right there. Harder. Please. Please. Harder." She's been reduced to single-word sentences.
He starts to drive into her at a pace that aches, and she lets her nails scrape down from his scalp to his lower back. The hitch in his breath is enough to tell her to do it again.
And that throb starts to build. Reaching, crawling, trying to crest that hill.
"I'm close. I'm close. Draco. Please - I'm so close." She's a broken record, now.
His lips find her ear, and between hushed whispers of, "Come. Come for me," he sucks and bites at her earlobe. It undoes her.
With a sharp cry, she tenses up against him - feels the pressure explode, hips gyrating out of control. Spasming. Pulsing as she shakes and clutches at him to keep from falling.
He doesn't let her fall.
Not even when she feels his muscles coil and lock - when he suddenly drives in deeper than she thought he could, coming with a pained sort of yelp that's so vulnerable it's almost heartbreaking.
Her heart slams in her chest as they sink down from the high together, her cheeks flushed, sweat dripping down the back of her neck.
For a moment it's just the silence. The silence and their staggered breathing and the quiet laps of waves against the boathouse dock.
Then Draco pulls his face from the crook of her neck, eyes closed as he drags his nose gently against hers. Again, he says words that don't match up. Quietly. Lovingly.
"I don't forgive you."
She releases a shuddering breath against his lips.
"I didn't apologize."