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“Ouch, hey!” Draco turned to see what imbecile just hit him in the back of the head with something. Couldn’t they see he was brooding here? Everyone had stayed away from him all year for a reason and he really didn’t want that to change now.
“The fuck?” he says as he spots the bright yellow canary fluttering at his eye level. “Where, for the love of Salazar, have you come from?”
He lifts a finger to hesitantly stroke the bird’s soft plumage, only for it to fly into his forehead, beak first.
“Shit!” he lifts his hand instead to cover his face, but the bird just keeps flying into his outwards facing palm.
“Alright, alright, I’m going. Just leave me alone would you?” Surprisingly, the bird actually turned around and began flying away from him, flitting along the corridor until it came to a halt outside a closed classroom door.
“Bloody hell,” Draco muttered to himself as he set off following the bird. “I’m a slave to the canaries now.”
He turns the handle of the door the bird had stopped outside of, and praises Merlin that it is unlocked.
“This where you want to be, is it? Can’t see why, personally. I’d rather be outside if I were you.”
He was about to close the door again when he spotted the small figure in the corner that the bird had flown over to. Her mane of bushy hair surrounded by a dozen fluttering canaries.
“Ah, shit,” he mutters again. Then louder, “Sorry, Granger. I was just returning one of your little birds to you.”
Again, he went to close the door, already mentally kicking himself for saying anything in the first place, when she spoke up, her usually sure voice trembling and quiet.
“Malfoy?”
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes screwed shut, letting out a long sigh before he finally gets the door shut. Except, he’d shut it from the inside and was now facing the prospect of a conversation with an upset Hermione Granger.
He’d barely said a word to her so far that year, the task he had been given taking precedence over his usual teasing of her, not wanting to give the Dark Lord any reason to doubt him or to focus on her. But, even without the memory of Slughorn’s amortentia class, he hates that she is upset because of someone or something that isn’t him.
“This isn’t like you, Granger,” he drawls as he moved to sit at a desk near to where she sat on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest. He was trying his best to keep up the act he’d perfected around her, but seeing her like that, so withdrawn…
“What happened to Hermione the insufferable know-it-all, eh?” He winked at her. He actually winked at her. What the bloody hell, Draco, he admonished himself.
He heard her snort with derision. “She stopped being listened to. No one cares about what she has to say anymore.”
“Oh, come on. What about Potter and Weaselby?” Her red eyes narrowed at that, but he just sneered right back at her. “Surely they hang on your every word.”
“Not since Ron started sticking his tongue down Lavender’s throat. And I try to help Harry, but if he’s not daydreaming about Ginny, he’s stalking you. So, no, they don’t. They’ve stopped listening to me.”
His brow furrowed. Potter was stalking him? He’d have to keep an eye on that development, but it wouldn’t do for Granger to realise she’d let slip that bit of information.
“You’ve just got to look at this another way, Granger. If they’re idiotic enough to forget how much of a friend you’ve been to them, just because their heads have been turned by some tits and arse, you should take the opportunity to do something for yourself. Screw them!”
She sniffled a bit, wiping the remaining tears from her face with the cuff of her sleeve, turning the grey wool of her jumper black where the salty substance absorbed into the material.
“What are you getting at, Malfoy?”
“Firstly, stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself. There are worse things you know.” Granger opened her mouth to snap back at him, but he quickly carried on to prevent her from speaking.
“You’re a bloody brilliant witch, even I’ll admit that. A pain in the arse but nevertheless,” he smirked at her. “I mean, you’ve conjured a dozen perfect canaries. That’s not nothing.”
“They just happen when I’m angry or upset.”
“What, like accidental magic?” His eyes widen because she must have a lot of powerful, pent up magic if she was still producing it accidentally.
“Kind of, but I can control them when they appear. Hence the angry because they’re used to attacking Ron.”
“That explains a few things,” he mutters, rubbing his forehead.
“Ah,” she has the good sense to look sheepish. “Sorry about that.”
Draco waved her apology off. “My point is, Granger, that you have always been the best of them, yet Potter always gets the credit. If he’s stopped listening, maybe it’s time to branch out on your own. Show everyone what we already know you’re capable of.”
“What? Alone?”
“It’s not a bad thing. Be proud of your own abilities, start letting people know that you’re still here, that you’re not hiding behind Potter. You’re in Gryffindor, right?” she nodded at the hypothetical, distracted, he could tell, from thinking through what he was saying. “Then use some of that damn bravery you’re all known for.”
When she didn’t say anything immediately, still nodding as she processed her thoughts and his words, he stood to leave, knowing that he had already stayed with her much longer than he should have done. It had just been so strange to see her like that. He couldn’t just ignore her.
He heard a dozen pops in quick succession as the canaries disappeared and it must have masked the shuffling of Granger rising to her feet because he’d only taken a few steps towards the door before he felt her small hand press against his left shoulder blade. Not knowing whether she wanted him to stop or was pushing him towards the door, Draco halted anyway, frozen by the contact.
“You said I should do something for myself,” he turned to look down at her when she spoke, but she didn’t remove her delicate fingers as he did, trailing them over his bicep and along his chest until they were hovering over his suddenly thundering heart. “You said I should make use of my bravery.”
Draco gulped and saw her eyes following the motion of his Adams apple. “Yes,” he breathed.
“Yes?” she raised an eyebrow slightly, searching for confirmation, even as her eyes latched onto his lips.
“Yes,” he hardly finished the single syllable before her lips were pressing heavily against his. His eyes drifting shut as his hands came up to tangle in her hair which drew a heady moan from her throat. The hand on his chest was now clutching at his robes pulling him as close as she possibly could. He trailed one hand down from her hair to her lower back, assisting her in pressing their bodies together.
She gasped at the contact and he ran his tongue along her lower lip as she did so before pulling at it with his teeth, letting out a low groan as he did so. She must use something on her lips that tasted like cherry, the taste flooding his mouth as he breathed in the vanilla scent of her hair though his nose.
Their urgent kisses eventually slowed and grew more tender, Draco moving his hands to cup her face, placing two final, chaste kisses against her lips before leaning his forehead against hers. The two of them were breathing unsteadily and he noticed that she still had her eyes closed, the expression on her face completely transformed from when he had found her.
“You smell like peppermint and parchment,” he heard her mutter, eliciting a deep chuckle from him.
“And you of cherry and vanilla.” He bumped his nose lightly against hers, just before she pulled back, meeting his gaze with wide, surprised eyes.