When his mother's owl arrived carrying a large package of books, Draco couldn't help but smile to himself. It was breakfast on Monday and while Hermione had been hoping to receive the books Sunday evening, he knew it wouldn't have been possible. She whined the whole day about losing valuable research time, but he was glad she had the day to rest and recover from the horror Amycus had put her through. Just the thought of the man had Draco scowling at the table.
"What's got grindylows in your knickers?" Blaise asked, elbowing him. Draco rolled his eyes, setting the package of books on the floor under him and grabbing a piece of toast.
"None of your business," he replied. Blaise snorted but didn't continue to bother him about it. Instead, he changed the subject to the potions assignment.
Draco tried to tune out the conversation, knowing it would only make him more irritated. Alecto had taken to giving Slytherin students less homework than the others. It shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, but Draco would have preferred she assign the same things to everyone. He only knew the assignments were so different because Hermione had been grumbling about the length of her essay one night after Draco had finished the short reading and response he'd been assigned. They'd spent the rest of the night comparing homework in all other classes, happy to find out Alecto was the only one with such obvious favouritism. Luckily for Draco, he had an easy excuse to leave in hopes of getting the package of books up to the dorm before classes started, knowing very well Hermione would be skipping lunch to do her personal research.
Unsurprisingly to Draco, the usual evening routine he and Hermione had set up the past two weeks changed now that she had new books. He would return from dinner to see her reading at lightning speed on the couch. Each night, she had a new book and he wondered just how late she would stay up before going to bed. Whenever he asked, she seemed to have already finished her homework and left it lying on the table just in case he wanted to compare. No matter how quickly he rushed from dinner to the dorm, she was already done and reading the books his mother sent him.
On Wednesday he realised it meant she was skipping meals and grabbed a plate of food for her on his way from dinner. She barely stopped reading long enough to thank him and take the plate. When he went to bed, she was still reading. After making sure she didn't need anything from him for the rest of the night, he disappeared into his room and found himself falling asleep minutes later.
"Draco!"
He was woken up by a loud voice somewhere to his right. His eyes flew open and he subconsciously called his wand to his wand, flailing to find what had yelled his name. When his eyes landed on Hermione who was perched on the edge of his bed, talking a thousand kilometers an hour, he had to blink to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
"—think I've figured it out!" she was saying.
Her hair was in a ridiculously distracting messy bun and her loose t-shirt was falling off one of her shoulders, drawing Draco's thoughts an entirely different direction. She was still talking excitedly—something about the DA again and protecting the younger students from the Carrows—and Draco knew he really should be listening, but the light from downstairs was shining through his door and onto her so perfectly, lighting her up like a goddess, and he couldn't think straight.
"You're beautiful," he blurted out.
She immediately stopped talking, looking at him in surprise while he wondered if he'd really just said that. Not that it wasn't true; he just hadn't intended to blurt it out like that, especially not when she was clearly in the middle of talking about something else.
"Were you even listening to me?" she asked, a teasing smile on her face.
"To be fair," Draco argued, dragging a hand down his face for emphasis, "You did just wake me up. I haven't reached a fully conscious state of mind."
Hermione just smiled and readjusted herself on the edge of his bed. She watched him, still beaming despite putting a hold on her excitement until he'd woken up a bit more. Sensing this was going to be a big deal and probably keep her awake for the rest of the night, Draco got up from his bed to stretch a little and conjured a drink of water. Just to be safe, he cast a Wake Up charm on himself then returned to the room, sitting on the bed in front of her.
"Alright, I'm ready," he told her.
If possible, Hermione seemed to beam even more and she launched back into what she'd been saying at the same speed. Despite trying incredibly hard, Draco was having a very hard time focusing on her words as she made wild gestures with her hands and the light from downstairs continued to shine on her.
"—and you're still not listening to me!" she exclaimed, stopping her gestures to look pointedly at him. "If you don't care, you can say so."
"No! I do," he replied, trying to figure out a way to explain to her the way she was glowing like a goddess and speaking a thousand words a second was not helping. "Just—try talking slower?"
"Fine," Hermione agreed, starting from the beginning once more.
Draco wasn't sure if the idea of her working on a way to protect the younger students from the Carrows inevitable detention should have surprised him, but he found it didn't. Instead, he smiled at the idea because of course, she would.
"—and first I thought that was the only way, but it's not and your mother is an absolute gem for sending me those books! Ginny is going to be thrilled and I'll be able to tell the DA tomorrow; no, maybe I should wait until Saturday? Should I? Not everyone will be there tomorrow, so I should wait. Oh, but I don't want to!"
"Have you tried it?" Draco interrupted. She blinked at him, confused for a second so he clarified. "Have you tried it to make sure it really does work?"
"Well, no," Hermione said, deflating a little. Draco immediately felt bad, not having intended to ruin her good mood. "But how can I? I'm not going to ask kids to send the cruciatus curse at each other and hope it works. If it doesn't, I'd probably die on the spot!"
"You could try it with me," he suggested. Hermione's eyes flew wide open and she shook her head, stumbling over her words as she told him no. "Hermione, just do it. I've been through worse and I won't tell anyone if you do hurt me."
"I'm not going to crucio you, Draco," she said firmly. She shook her head again, clearly thinking about something before looking up at him again. "You could do it to me."
"What? No!" Draco yelled. He may be a certified Death Eater, but the last thing he wanted was to send an Unforgivable curse at Hermione. He doubted he'd send the stupid curse at anyone, really. Well, maybe the Dark Lord, but that was a different story.
"Why not? I've already experienced it, so I can compare it to see if it helps at all," Hermione told him. Draco glared at the reminder of what Amycus had done to her only a few days ago. He still worried about her at night and found himself waking up just to check on her.
"Hermione, I'm not going to set an Unforgivable curse at you no matter how you ask," he said.
She sighed and his room fell into silence for a little bit. He thought about trying it on a bird or some other little animal, but he knew she wouldn't like the idea. Even he didn't want to subject a small creature to such torture if her charm didn't work.
"I could just make sure I got more detention," Hermione said, breaking the silence.
Draco knew she'd only said it to convince him to cast the curse at her and he hated how it was almost working. The odds of a spell not working that Hermione herself had researched and put time into were incredibly low, but Draco still didn't like the idea of risking it.
"Absolutely not," Draco growled. Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you're so determined to make sure this thing works, try it on me and I'll tell you."
Hermione still looked uncomfortable at the idea, shifting so her legs were no longer folded under her but crossed. He could almost see her thought process: comparing the pros and cons of her options before she grimaced and looked up at him.
"Are you sure?" she asked. Draco nodded, telling her he had full confidence in the spell she'd found. She still seemed uncertain. "No, I can't do it," she muttered.
Draco rolled his eyes and summoned his wand from his nightstand. Before he could open his mouth to cast the curse on himself, Hermione snatched his wand from him and gave him a fierce glare.
"You need to test the spell, Hermione," he reminded her, reaching for his wand.
She held it out of his reach as he grabbed for it. He pushed himself closer, lunging forward to grab his wand as she held it out over the bed. The force of his movement sent him toppling on top of her and they both fell off the edge of the bed.
They landed on the floor in a tangle of limbs as Draco's wand went skittering across the floor. Draco's hand shot out on either side of Hermione, stopping himself from hitting her when he landed. He grunted as his knees hit the ground, but he successfully kept himself from dropping his full weight on top of her and crushing her. Hermione looked dazed for a second before she returned to glaring at him.
"Why won't you just curse me and get it over with?" she demanded. Draco half expected her to scramble out from under him, but she didn't.
"It's none of your business why," he snapped back.
Honestly, why couldn't she just get the hint that it wasn't going to happen? He didn't need to explain to her that just the thought of sending a curse her way had guilt coursing through him. She didn't need to know that several of his usual nightmares had been replaced with her writhing in the sitting room or watching as Amycus sent curse after curse at her.
"It's clearly not that hard," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "After all, Amycus Carrow managed to do it more than three times in a row."
"Don't you dare compare me to Amycus Carrow," he growled. He may be marked and branded like a Death Eater and he may have chatted with the Carrows over dinner, but that did not make him like them. The other Death Eaters had chosen their own path; he'd nearly been forced to take the Mark by his aunt.
"Why not?" she bit back, taunting him.
He could tell she was annoyed and possibly angry that he wasn't complying to her research, but those stupid thoughts of how beautiful she looked with her hair framing her face on the ground and the little ink smudges across her cheek he hadn't noticed before kept popping up. If they didn't move apart, Draco might not be able to stop himself from blurting out something stupid again.
He couldn't even bring himself to look away from her lips as she said, "I've annoyed you just like I did him. Why haven't you crucio'd me three times?"
Draco fumed. She wanted to know why he was different? Fine, he'd show her why he wasn't like that git Amycus and why he absolutely refused to risk the pain of the cruciatus curse even if it could help the younger students. However, words failed him and the only thing his body seemed to find was a reasonable explanation was pressing his lips to hers and hoping this wasn't a dream.