Hermione decided she would have an early night that day. The past few days had been exhausting and she was in desperate need of the remedy only a good night's sleep could provide.
She lay her head down on the pillow, looking over at her bedside table where she had stored Cedric's undelivered letter. It made her wonder whether Draco had received her patronus. Even if he had, it was unlikely that he would respond to it.
The note she received not five minutes later entirely disproved her initial assumption. It was a note written in that same green ink with that same wax seal.
Divination classroom.
D.M.
Is all it said.
The good night's sleep would have to wait until later, she thought as she hopped out of her bed, slid on her slippers and crept her way out of the dorm. She was wearing only a grey oversized T-shirt, one that she had borrowed from Fred a long time ago and had never returned. She had meant to give it back. She really had.
There were some people in the common room, Harry included, who asked where she was headed, to which she replied simply that she had forgotten her textbook in the library.
She quickly stopped by one of the mirrors and sighed at the sight of her wild mane of hair. Her hands tried to tame it slightly but she soon gave up. Not much she could do about it now.
Had he forgiven her? Is that why he wanted to see her? Or did he simply wish to scream at her for all the trouble she had gotten him into. And for lying - well not necessarily lying - but definitely avoiding telling him certain truths.
It had honestly become rather laughable, by this point, the amount of times she found herself roaming the castle at night. Today was perhaps a little earlier than the other times, she reassured herself but it was a stupid, futile kind of reassurance.
After some minutes travel, she made her way to the North Tower where she began to ascend the stairs, her heart beating faster and faster until she finally reached the circular trap door that was the entrance to the Divination classroom.
She placed her hand against the door, breathing in deeply in attempt to gather up some courage.
Just bloody do it already, she thought to herself, rubbing her temples aggressively. It's embarrassing at this point.
The trap door then swung open before her, taking her entirely by surprise, and a silvery ladder descended at Hermione's feet.
She immediately spun around and met his cruel eye.
"Struggling to open the door, were we?" asked Draco Malfoy with a raised eyebrow.
Once again, she was caught entirely by surprise.
"Oh, no, I mean yes. I think so. I don't know."
Where had all her sense and coherence gone? Had he stolen it from her?
"Get a move on then." His words were tinged with judgement.
He was down the ladder in an instant and Hermione followed quickly after, a little out of breath.
"Are we allowed to be here?" she asked naively on her way down the ladder.
Malfoy let out a snobbish laugh from below her.
"What do you think, Gryffindor?" he sneered.
Hermione's feet landed on the wooden floor of the small, compact little classroom that was overcast by a low ruddy light. It seemed as if it was full of the ruby embers left behind after you burn a piece of wood all the way through.
It felt like a whore's house.
Is this what you want from me? To take my clothes off for you like a woman of the night? Is that why I always meet you at this hour?
Was this his goblin market that she was stepping into and falling victim to?
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked.
"Why the fuck did you lie to me?" he blurted out, his eyes wide as he looked at her from a few metres' distance.
"Lie to you - I didn't lie to you?" Hermione replied, shaking her head in confusion.
"Don't even fucking try to pretend like you didn't. You know you did. Are you trying to fuck with me, with my emotions or something?"
"No - no you know that's not true. No!"
"First you tell me that you're mine, all mine and the next day you're having Cedric fucking Diggory of all people putting a shitty little necklace around your neck. Oh and all of a sudden, you're dates the fucking Yule Ball and he's telling you that he's fucking in love with you!" he bellowed.
Hermione immediately pulled out her wand and cast a muffliato. She couldn't have anyone knowing they were here.
"Tell me that's not a lie. I want to see you try to tell me," he said through gritted teeth.
"I know, I know it sounds bad when you say it like that, but please - you have to know that's what I meant to happen at all. You had been gone over a week and I thought-"
"I was gone for you!" he shouted, his face red with rage and his hands agitated as they lifted from his temple.
"For me," she repeated quietly, gulping and clenching her eyes shut.
"I was gone all that fucking time so that I could bring back your stupid friend that I could not give two flying fucks about. I was gone all that time to deal with Viktor Krum once and for all. Do you want to know what I did to him because of you, Granger? Do you want to know exactly how I fucking dealt with him?"
Hermione stood still, shaking, struggling to meet his eye.
"Fucking look at me."
Still, she was immobile.
"Look at me, Granger," he shouted as his hand flew out to her jaw, latching onto her face and tugging it up to meet his. "Do you want me to tell you how I tore him into shreds with my bare hands? Do you want me to tell how I annihilated him? Do you want me to tell you how I fucking killed him for you?"
A tear slipped from her eye. Her heart was beating faster and her breaths were becoming increasingly panicked. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was met only by silence.
"And whilst I was doing all this, Granger, what were you doing?" he asked as he paced towards her slowly and torturously.
Hermione backed away from him, stumbling as she moved backwards, arm reaching for the door handle.
"You're scaring me, Draco," she replied quietly. "This isn't you."
"Isn't it?" he snarled back. "How the fuck would you know exactly?"
"I know you. But this version of you - it's breaking my heart, Draco."
Tears were now flooding down her face uncontrollably. This couldn't be him, she knew it. This wasn't him. He'd changed. She knew it. This wasn't right.
He was silent, his breaths growing quieter, his face relaxing. He looked almost ashamed of himself.
"Come back to me, Draco," she whispered. "Show me this isn't real. Show me this isn't you."
"Why should I after how you've treated me?" he asked. It was a low, calm whisper but it was flooded with sadness.
She wanted to hold him, kiss him, cry into him. She wanted him to be the version he had proved he could be back in Wiltshire. She needed that version of him to return to her.
"Because I care about you, Draco," she confessed. "A lot more than perhaps I seem to convey. Certainly a lot more than I ought to."
He turned away from her, his jaw quivering as his hand pressed down on his temples aggressively.
"And so that's why you threw yourself into Diggory's arms is it?" he snarled, turning back to look at her.
"I thought you didn't want me."
"Didn't want you? I swear to Merlin you're so fucking stupid sometimes," he muttered, more to himself than to Hermione.
"I am. I'm sorry."
He looked up to her, eyes wide and searching.
"My father told me of your conversation today," said Draco, his fists beginning to unclench.
"He did?" Hermione could not tell whether that was a good thing or not.
"Every last bit of it."
There was a moment of silence between them.
Hermione broke it.
"I won't apologise for anything I said to him. He was-"
"No, Granger, I don't want you to apologise," he said sharply, cutting her off in mid sentence. "You want a certain version of me, don't you? The one you say I truly am under the surface, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I want that version of you. The one who stood up for me in front of my father. The one that wasn't ashamed of me. The one who referred to me as her equal. The one that was powerful and fearless of the world that tried to contain her."
She could see him place his shield down on the ground. She could sense him coming back to her. She could feel him crawling back into her embrace.
"Can you give that to me, Granger?" he asked, his eyes making unwavering eye contact with hers as he moved closer and closer to her.
His thumb trailed over her lip.
"Watch me," she replied, pulling his face into hers as she pressed her lips against his.
At first, the contact was soft and tentative, but it grew gradually faster and more aggressive as the intensity of their emotions spurred them on.
His tongue was inside her mouth, licking, pressing, massaging as Hermione matched his speed and pressure. She felt herself gasp into his mouth.
"How's that for powerful and fearless?" she asked.
"Good," he whispered into her ear as he kissed her ear lobe, and then all the way down her neck. She moaned at the sensation. "Very good, Hermione."
His kisses trailed down to her collarbones, a divine balance between soft and aggressive. Her fingers wove themselves into his soft hair, gripping on hard as he trailed his way back up her neck.
"Where else do you want me to kiss you, Hermione?" he breathed into the soft, warm flesh underneath her jaw.
She gasped at his words, feeling her whole body flutter. Could he - could he really mean?
"I can kiss you wherever you'd like," he added before pressing his lips against hers once more.
Gulping she tugged at her own shirt, unable quite to bring herself to ask him such a thing, even though she knew how desperately she wanted it.
"Oh, that won't do," he teased. "I need you to tell me with your words. Where's that courage gone, Gryffindor?"
Hermione nodded and brought Draco's hands to the hem of her shirt, guiding him to pull it off her. She cleared her throat.
"You can start here," she said, grabbing hold of her breasts as she stared into his eyes.
Draco's throat bobbed and his eyes went wild, immediately pulling the shirt off her head, basking in the sight of her exposed breasts.
"So fucking perfect," he mumbled as he moved his lips down to her nipples, licking and sucking their firmness. Hermione's head rolled back with pleasure.
"So...' she sighed. "So good."
"Yeah?" he muttered into her flesh, eyes looking up at her. She nodded back, panting hard and eyes fluttering.
His hand squeezed the breast that his mouth wasn't attending to, his thumb flicking over her hard, sensitive nipple, causing her to groan loudly.
"Any other requests?" he asked, smiling and licking his lips.
"Lower."
"What, here?" he asked, kissing just beneath her breast, purposely taunting her.
"Lower," she repeated.
Draco moved his mouth down an inch and smirked up at her, feeling an unparalleled satisfaction in indulging his mirth at Hermione's expense.
"How about here?"
Hermione felt as if she might explode.
"Lower," she almost growled.
"Always so shy when it comes to these things, aren't you, Granger?"
It was only when she felt the tips of his fingers stroke up and down the bare skin of her stomach that she felt her anger residing. He had the touch of Midas, infusing a golden warmth into her veins.
And then he said what she could only dream of out loud.
"Do you want me to kiss your cunt?"
Hermione's eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat. She could hardly speak.
"I'll repeat myself, Granger. Do you want me to kiss your cunt?"
She tried to compose herself.
"Yes."
"And how would you like me to do that, exactly?" he asked, biting down on his lip.
"Oh, I don't know-"
"Would you like me to taste your cunt from behind?"
She seemed reluctant.
"I can stop whenever you'd like," he reassured her.
"No, that's the problem," she confessed breathlessly. "I don't think I would ever want you to stop."
Draco's eyes grew absolutely wild, and Hermione could feel his heart beating faster against her.
He pulled her up into his arms, and Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her over to the nearest desk, bending her over it with a breathtaking force.
"Is this what you want?" he asked, leaning over to murmur the words in her ear, pressing his hardness against the curvature of her body, separated only by the thin cotton of her underwear and his black suit trousers.
She reached out and stroked his cheek. He planted a kiss on her temple.
"Arms out in front, Granger."
She complied. She gripped onto the edge of the table in front of her and turned her face away from him. Did he not want to see her face? Maybe she was just his ballet dancer, his plaything. But perhaps that turned her on.
But when she looked out in front of her, she saw a mirror positioned directly before her. He made eye contact with her through the ruddy reflection of that gilded mirror. She thought he might have winked at her or perhaps it was just a shudder.
No, he definitely winked at her.
"I want to see your face when I fuck you with my tongue," he said. "I want to see your mouth drop, your eyes close, your brows furrow, just like they did the last time I touched you."
Hermione nodded back at him through the reflection of the mirror.
He lowered himself down and fingered the lining of her white cotton briefs, tracing all the way around her hips. He slowly ran one finger up and down the crevice of her sex, not once breaking eye contact with the quivering face he could see in the mirror. It was full of shameful, but also somehow shameless, ecstasy.
"You're torturing me," she panted.
"That's the point, love."
He began to pull her underwear down, all the way off her legs when he stopped at the sight of her fluffy slippers. He chuckled to himself slightly and kicked them off her feet.
The sight of her perfectly spread folds and the gleaming wetness that dripped over them was immobilising. He pulled himself down to it, holding onto her sides to reign him in, unable quite to control the feral, bestial instincts that had overcome him. His tongue ran over his top teeth as he drowned himself in the sight of her perfection.
"No," she said suddenly.
Draco immediately stood up and looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate.
"I want there to be no gap between us. No clothing dividing us. I want your bare skin on mine."
"You want me to see me naked, do you now, Granger?" He smirked.
"If that's alright with you," she replied shyly.
"Oh it's more than alright," he chuckled as he straightened himself up.
He then began to loosen and remove his tie, placing it on the table beside her. Next came off his blazer, then he unbuttoned his shirt and threw both items to the side. Hermione could not lift her gaze off of his perfectly sculpted, pale body that seemed wild in the ruddy light of the classroom. There was a slicing scar across part of his chest. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to kiss it in all its glory.
Just below it hung a silver chain and what seemed like a serpent pendant at the bottom of it.
"Like what you see, Granger?"
"You're beautiful."
She couldn't tell how he reacted to her saying that. She wasn't sure if he rejoiced in her complimenting him or if it didn't make sense to him.
His trousers fell to the floor, quickly followed by his underwear and he was soon just as bare as the girl before him, save only the silver necklace.
Her eyes could not be lifted off his immense cock, hard as granite, that pointed upwards, the perfectly carved tip brushing against the shadow of one of his stomach muscles. His hands began to stroke it, grinning as he saw the astonishment growing in her face.
"Can I touch it?" she asked.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Granger," he teased. "You'll feel it all later. You'll feel it everywhere."
He went back down to where he had left off, spread her legs and flaps apart further with his hands. His tongue began to run up and down her wetness, taking it all in. It ran slow, torturous circles on her clit as he took one finger and began to stir the wetness that gathered around her hole.
He groaned into her as licked more and more ferociously, sucking on her clit, then moving upwards so he could stick his tongue as far as he could inside her, trying to brush it against her walls. He was practically consuming her.
"Fuck, you taste sweeter than hell."
"Hell?" she blurted out, immediately feeling self conscious and concerned.
"Hell is temptation itself. Hell is sin. And you, Hermione, you make me want to commit every sin in the book."
He slid one finger inside of her, pumping it slowly but forcefully as he continued to swirl his tongue on her clit.
Hermione looked at him through the mirror as he devoured her from behind. She kept noticing the glimmer of the strange necklace he wore around his neck. She had never seen it before today. Not that she was surprised; Draco Malfoy tended to keep a lot of things hidden beneath the surface.
"What's that necklace?" she asked.
He stopped all his motion, lifted himself up and looked at her in the mirror once again.
"The key to my inferno," he replied.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want me to show you?"
She nodded at his proposition and watched him curiously as he unscrewed the top of the snake-covered capsule. Out emerged an inch-size silver spoon and she gasped when she realised what it contained.
"It really is your enfer," she muttered.
"Would you like to know what hell feels like, Granger? I can show you."
"Only how it feels to the touch," she replied.
Her filthy words filled his face with a devious joy as her tapped some of the powder onto the very top of her arse, messily arranging it into a thin line. He lowered himself down so that his face was perfectly in line with her arse. He inserted two fingers inside her and they began to pump once again, while he brought his index finger from the other hand to his nostril and pressed down on it. Then, lowering himself down, he snorted the powder that was resting on her skin, throwing his head back euphorically as he felt it shoot all the way up him.
"Fuck," he muttered.
He then proceeded to lick up the scarce remnants, more as an excuse to press his tongue against her skin than anything else. He bit down on it, sucked it, marked it.
"You blur the lines between Heaven and Hell, Hermione."
"What does that mean?"
"Would you like to find out?"
She nodded and bit down once again on her lip.
He pulled her up from her position on the desk, flipped her around and sat her on the edge of the desk.
"Do you want to lie down for this? We can do it however you want," he reassured her, kissing her mouth once again. She could taste herself on his tongue.
"However I want?"
"However you want," he repeated.
"Conjure me some blankets and pillows by the fireplace," she demanded, pointing over to the flickering fire. "Make it look like a bed."
"I can take you to my bed, if you want."
"No time," she replied, kissing him once again, drawing him closer to her and rolling her hips against him.
"Yeah, you're right," he groaned. "No fucking time."
The blankets and pillows were immediately conjured and he pulled her up into his arms, carrying her swiftly over to the fireplace were he lay her down. He climbed over her, bringing his face against hers. Theirs noses brushed.
"Are you sure?" he asked, brushing her cheek.
"Absolutely."
He quickly cast the contraceptive charm and then spread her legs wider with his knees. He took hold of his prick with one hand and brought it to the opening between her legs where he began to circle the tip around her vulva, brushing it up and down, relishing in the warmth and wetness she provided.
"Inside," she muttered through her groans. "I need you."
"Just warming you up, Granger," he teased.
After having teased her enough, he aligned the tip of his cock with her entrance and pushed inside slowly, not once lifting his eyes from Hermione. She winced and her hips lifted from the pain.
Only the tip was inside of her at this point, how could she possibly take the rest of his eleven inches?
"I can stop," he said immediately, eyes full of concern.
"No, just slow," she muttered. "Slow and gentle."
He nodded and continued to press more of himself inside her. She remembered Ginny telling her that the pain would eventually subside, and she was really hoping that would be true.
"I'll just use my fingers," he said, preparing to pull out. "We can do this another time."
"No," she halted him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him into her. His mouth dropped. "Keep going."
He thrusted slowly into her, pushing his cock in further and further, moaning at the unbearable pleasure of her warm, tight grip.
"You feel so fucking good," he muttered.
And then he was in her entirely. Swallowed by her. Drunk in her.
The pain hadn't entirely subsided but she began to mistake it for pleasure. Part of his pelvis was rubbing against her clit, which helped too.
"You can go a little faster if you want," she said.
He grabbed a handful of her hair as he thrust faster inside of her, the tip of his cock colliding frequently with her cervix. He had filled her entirely, just as he had set out to do.
She could feel him all the way up to her stomach. When he said she would feel his cock everywhere, she didn't think that would actually be true. But it was, and her entire body was responsive to him.
He was pumping, thrusting, grabbing onto her tits, kissing them, kissing her. Crumbling into groans as he felt her nipples rub against his own chest.
Hermione scratched her nails down his back as he thrust inside her, gripping onto him in attempt to pull him in closer. He reciprocated by tugging her hair harder and kissing all over her body. He learned how much she liked her ears kissed and attended to. He made a mental note of that.
She kissed, licked, stroked the scar on his chest, and he felt as though she were healing him of every imperfection. He didn't like people seeing it, let alone touching it, but somehow he didn't want her to ever stop.
"Fuck, Hermione, you'll make me come right now if you keep doing that," he groaned.
Hermione liked the idea of that. She kept going, her hands moving up and down his back, gripping onto him. She clenched her walls tighter against him, causing him to let out a visceral groan. And then all motion stopped.
They came in unison, so loud she thought their sounds might shatter the mirror behind her. Perhaps it did.
"That was amazing," she panted after she recovered, which took her a while and her limbs were still shaking from the orgasm.
"I'm very good at what I do, Granger," he smirked and went to pick up her T-shirt from the floor. He froze as he saw the label on the inside.
"Property of Fred Weasley, huh?" His words were like ice.
"Oh, yeah, he let me borrow it a long time I just never ended up giving it back," Hermione replied as casually as she could. She could sense anger rising within him. Were the good moments between them really that short? Would they always somehow end up fighting after every interaction?
"Never fucking wear it again."
"Why not?" she scoffed, quite in disbelief at his audacity. "It's just a T-shirt."
"You know well enough it's not just a T-shirt. How come he lent it to you, huh?"
"I was staying at The Burrow a long time ago and needed something to sleep in. That's all," she gulped.
"Interesting, interesting," he muttered. He reached inside his trouser pocket, pulled out his wand and pointed it at the shirt. He then shouted 'incendio', grinning as the shirt caught in flames.
"What the hell did you just do?" cried Hermione as she tried to put out the fire but it was of no use. It was soon burned to a crisp. "You had absolutely no right to just do that. It wasn't yours."
"It wasn't yours either."
"How on earth am I supposed to get back to my dorm now? I don't have anything I can wear."
"You can wear my shirt," he said.
"What are you going to wear?"
"You needn't worry about that, dear."
"I literally hate you," she said.
"Didn't sound like it before."
She scoffed, unable to find a response. She grabbed hold of his shirt, put it on and began to do up the buttons.
"Let me do that," he said as he finished the rest off for her, kissing her forehead lightly once he had finished.
"You're so confusing," she said.
"And you're not?"
"No," she replied firmly, her hands pressed against her hips.
He rolled his eyes at her, his tongue finding a place between his top teeth and lips.
"After you, Granger," he said, smirking as he indicated towards the ladder.
Her eyes narrowed on him and she folded her arms defensively.
"I'm not stupid," she clipped.
"Whatever do you mean?" he asked slowly, his lips curling slightly.
"Your false obliviousness is not fooling me, Malfoy," Hermione retorted. "You'll look up my shirt."
"My shirt," he corrected, visibly amused.
"And he doesn't even try to deny it!" she exclaimed.
"You didn't say anything when I did it on the way down here."
"You what?" Hermione's mouth was wide open.
"Oh please," he replied dismissively. "Why else would I have gone down the ladder first?"
Hermione crossed her arms tighter and squinted her eyes harder, so aggressively that she was close to squeezing them out of her eye sockets.
"You're a vile creature, Malfoy," she said, although her lips were quivering slightly as if to suppress a smile.
Draco shrugged at her, still grinning devilishly.
Hermione gave up. She exhaled dramatically, shook her head and began to climb the stairs. Draco followed after her like an excitable puppy.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked, looking down at Draco from midway up the stairs.
"You can hardly begin to imagine," he replied.
Once they reached the landing, they were silent for a second, both unsure of what to do next. They both knew it was time for them to return to their separate dorms, but neither of them seemed particularly willing to depart from the other.
"I didn't know you could cast a patronus," Draco said out of the blue, which surprised Hermione a little. Perhaps he had wanted to say anything just to stay with her a little longer. "I was surprised to receive one from you."
"What, like you can't too," she replied, rolling her eyes.
"I can't."
What? He couldn't cast a patronus, not even an incorporeal one? In fairness, the charm wasn't on the school syllabus, but still, she had expected a talented wizard like himself to be the master of something like that.
They were silent once again.
"Goodbye, Granger," said Draco, almost hesitantly.
"Don't leave," she said quickly, grabbing his wrist. "Not yet. Just stay a second longer."
"You want me to stay?"
"Hold me," she pleaded.
He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her waist as she pressed her head against his beating heart.
"You know earlier?" he asked. "How I treated you?"
"Yes."
"It was because-"
She waited for him to continue. She could see the amount of strength it was requiring.
"Because I thought I'd lost you," he finally confessed.
Hermione felt as though the world had opened up.
"How could you ever lose something that's always been there?" she whispered, bringing her hand to his face.
You'd be surprised.
What was she doing to him? Thawing the ice that resided permanently in his heart in attempt to carve some space for herself? He pulled her in by the neck and kissed her, attempting to convey all that he couldn't say aloud through the combined movement of his lips and tongue.
If he cared about her less, he might have been able to talk about it more.
"Would you like me to walk you back to your tower?" he asked.
Hermione knew that he shouldn't, as much as she may have liked it.
"No that's alright," she replied solemnly. "Thank you, though."
They remained in each other's arms a little longer before they went their separate ways.