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Dear Miss Granger,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to serve as Head Girl for your last year.
Hermione knew that returning to Hogwarts without her best friends by her side would be difficult. She had not known how difficult it could possibly be.
The letter had arrived in late September, and amongst the chaos at the burrow and the lingering memories of the war, it had been a beacon of light. It was the reassurance that her hard work had been appreciated.
She had not even thought about whoever else had been chosen to act as Head Boy until she boarded the Hogwarts express, sitting with Ginny, Neville and Luna, when they asked her who she would be living with this year.
The mystery was solved only after dinner, when all the new students were led away by Prefects and the stuffed and drowsy student body slowly made their ways towards their respective dorms. Professor McGonagall, now Headmaster, approached the Gryffindor table as the youngest ones were clearing and the older students were catching each other up on whatever they’d been up to the last two months, asking Hermione to come to her office right away.
When she entered the large oval office once inhabited by Albus Dumbledore, she found Professor McGonagall leaning forward as she sat in her desk, her head inclined towards whoever was already sat in the towering armchair across from her, speaking in a low, serious tone.
Hermione stopped in the entryway, her gaze fixed on the boy hidden from her view in the armchair, when it swiveled around lightly. It was impossible not tor ecognize him immediately; the striking blonde hair, the bored, light eyes, the permanent hint of a sneer on his lips: Draco bloody Malfoy.
This had to be a bad joke.
Hermione stood rooted, eyes flitting wildly between the Slytherin – who looked her up and down once with a surprisingly blank expression, before turning back towards their Headmaster – and Professor McGonagall, who was giving her an encouraging smile, as if this was a situation that was entirely normal and predictable.
“Miss Granger. Please, sit.”
This was impossible. What the hell was Draco doing here? Where was the head boy?
Hermione approached hesitantly, sitting down in the free armchair, careful not to look towards the boy to her right. She felt stiff and poised, like she had to jump to her own defense any second now. The air had grown increasingly uncomfortable from the quiet talking she had entered to, to the silence near bursting at the seams now.
The headmaster sat straight, clasping her hands together as she rested her arms on the desk and started talking about how special this year was, with wounds being licked, shaken students and the beginning of the better, improved future they were striving towards. As she started counting down their responsibilities, Hermione could focus on nothing but the imminent closeness of the boy to her right.
She had never been in his proximity for so long – or ever at all – without getting insults thrown at her head, dirty laughs and hateful sneers directed at her. From the corner of her eye she watched for his every move, every nod of his head, every drum of his fingers against the armrest.
Had someone told her a year ago, before Dumbledore’s death, that she would be Head students alongside Draco Malfoy, she would have been nothing but perhaps slightly inconvenienced, a bit annoyed at the most. Sure, his insults had bugged her in the past, but growing into consciousness amongst a budding war had hardened her to the attacks of a schoolyard bully. Where a well-aimed “Mudblood” at the age of twelve would have made her cry in the bathrooms for an hour, she merely rolled her eyes at it now.
Draco’s words hadn’t had an effect on her in years.
She wasn’t afraid of him. She had watched his mental decline for the entirety of their Sixth year.
Hermione was afraid of what he reminded her of.
A cold, dark floor, bright pain flashing through her body, her limbs trembling uncontrollably as her screams, disconnected from her body and mind, shook her, tearing through the dark air. The blinding pain of having letters etched through her skin, searing into her flesh, tearing through muscle mass and skin tissue with dark magic pulsing through her veins as her head filled with cotton, and she started wondering who was screaming so terribly.
A flash of white blonde hair, barely recognizable through a blurred vision as she blinked the tears away tiredly, at the other end of the room, frozen in spot and watching.
The memories seemed to fade more and more every day, slipping behind a wall of plush, soft protection against all she had lived through, and Hermione let it happen; she knew they would come back one day, when she was strong enough to face these horrors, but Draco so close in her vicinity jolted the memories awake.
By the time McGonagall explained where their headquarters were, Hermione was squirming in her seat.
Draco moved stiffly when they were released, the chair squeaking loudly as he stood up with robotic motions, as if he had not relaxed for a single second the entire time. Hermione spared him no glance and leaned towards the headmaster.
“Professor, could I talk with you alone before I go?”, she asked, the words she’d been repeating in her head tumbling out of her mouth.
The headmaster nodded with an understanding, yet tired smile, as if she’d expected this question the whole time.
As she hesitantly stepped into the head student’s dorm half an hour later, Hermione sighed with a long-held breath when she realized that it was dark and empty. She could just barely make out a few large armchairs and a couch crowded around a large fireplace, covers and paintings on the walls. On each side were large, round tables and in the far right and left corner were two narrow staircases leading up to what Hermione would believe were their respective dorms.
She immediately steered towards the one on the right, the one closer to the fireplace, and for some reason, she wasn’t surprised that it wasn’t the one Draco had chosen.
Against all expectations, Hermione’s biggest issue during her last year wasn’t Draco Malfoy. It wasn’t even the loads of schoolwork, or organizing Prefect’s schedules, and trying to control a traumatized, scarred student body. Those were all problems, yes, but the biggest of them all was how she chose to deal with them.
Growing up with two dentists as her parents, against all horror stories and charred lungs she’d been shown since she could remember, one would have thought that Hermione would be sensible enough not to take up the nasty habit of smoking. Yet, it was one secret, shameful vice that she couldn’t shake, no matter what. It was one single release, one assured escape she had every evening; because no matter how awful the day would be, the cigarette would give her a guaranteed moment of absolute, relaxation.
Hermione couldn’t stop chasing hat short high.
Their coursework was harder than ever before, and of the worse parts of it all were her private quarters she came to every evening to relax. Yes, she spent quite a lot of time in the Gryffindor common room still, but when it got down to it, when she had to work and study, the wild atmosphere was rather distracting.
“We have checked him thoroughly. We are absolutely certain that he will not pose any issues, Miss Granger. If he does, alert us at once, and we will take care of it.”
Oh, how ready Hermione had been to report Draco as soon as he threatened or insulted or bullied her in any way.
But he didn’t, and for the first few months, it drove her up the wall.
Who was that person she was living with? It was certainly not the snotty, bratty and mean boy she had known since she was eleven. Draco Malfoy was a shadow of what she once knew; though he wasn’t as apparently depressed as he used to be during Sixth year, he was a recluse, avoiding her, never seeking out her company or conversation and keeping to himself at all times, be it during class, mealtimes, or within the walls of their private quarters.
It was disturbing. Mainly because after a while, Hermione stopped being afraid of him suddenly hexing her when she wasn’t looking – and actually started worrying about whatever he was up to, and why he looked so damn downtrodden all the time. It was as though the protective charms she raised around her bedroom every night were almost completely useless. This was not what she had signed up for. Even Ginny told her regularly, with a twinkle in her eye, how it had to be so difficult to live with him.
As the months passed, every time she looked at him, she saw no more the crazed grimace of his aunt hovering above her as bone-shaking pain seared through her limbs, her disembodied screams filling her head to the brim. She just saw a tired young man who wouldn’t meet her gaze.
It stressed her out, and the only relief she found was a short-lived epiphany in a drug called nicotine, so every evening, she left their living quarters for at least an hour to sit in a small corridor by the entrance stairs to the Astronomy Towers, one she had found using the Marauder’s Map. It led nowhere, was never visited and was thus a perfect spot to shame-smoke.
It was Christmas break, and the castle was largely empty. Hogwarts had lost its reputation as being the safest place on earth, and in the wake of the war’s aftermath seemingly still smoldering around them, many parents had insisted on having their children return. None of Hermione’s friends had decided to stay there, and since she had no parents to return home to, and she didn’t want to spend her holidays in an overfilled, solemn Burrow while avoiding Ron – who she had broken up with days before returning to school – she had chosen to stay behind. A pull in her chest had convinced her to stick around, there, at Hogwarts.
So had Draco. And since she did not have any friends to spend time with anymore, all there was left to do was study, fulfill her duties as Head Girl, and avoid Draco.
The sight of him had started to give her an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. She couldn’t place it, which bugged her to no ends. So naturally, she just didn’t put herself in a situation to be confused about it in the first place, so she spent even more time in her smoking corridor than usual. Her lungs did not appreciate it.
Hermione didn’t care.
One late December evening, she was sat there, on the large windowsill with a pack of cigarettes at her feet, a half-burnt fag between her fingers, staring into the clear, black sky above. It was later than she would have liked to admit; later than a figure of authority like her should be out and about, but she had been in the common room of the Head student quarters for hours, finishing homework assignments while Draco was sat on the couch in front of the fireplace, reading or just staring into the fire or whatever the hell he always did.
Hermione had tried her best not to look towards him. The chummy feeling in her stomach had spread to her chest and it started to make her angry.
Her lips closed around the butt of the cigarette and she inhaled deeply, looking at the rough stone windowsill under her feet as she held her breath to force the smoke to stay in her lungs as long as possible.
“Can I pinch one?”
The voice came out of nowhere and Hermione coughed, flinching violently, the cigarette dropping from her hand. She whipped her head around towards the far end of the corridor and seized up at the dark figure approaching.
Then she recognized the unmistakable pale blonde head, and she relaxed just a bit. His slow steps moved into the moonlight falling through the arched openings in the walls, revealing Draco in his casual evening clothes, hands buried in the pockets of his robe, one eyebrow raised curiously. Harsh shadows fell over the sharp features he’d grown into.
“What are you doing here?”, Hermione breathed, her heart not skipping a single beat. That horrendous feeling was back again.
To her horror, Hermione could only watch as Draco stepped even closer, shrugged off his cloak and threw it onto the opposite end of her windowsill to sit down it.
“Don’t you think I’ve noticed you sneaking off every night for months now?”, he replied with a near mocking tone. Hermione rolled her eyes.
“I could have been doing anything. I could be in the Gryffindor common room.”
“I thought the same, until you came back a week ago smelling like cigarettes. Whatever charms you’ve been using to cover up the smell, you’ve been slipping.”
Hermione bit her lip and averted her gaze. Now he knew about her dirty little secret. She should have been more careful, dammit-
“So then, can I pinch one?”, his monotone, nearly bored voice interrupted her, and he crossed his legs, nodding towards the packet at Hermione’s feet. She pushed it towards him.
She looked down at the Forbidden Forest, how it stretched far into the horizon, as she listened to him fumbling and igniting a cigarette.
“Since when do you smoke?”, she asked.
“Says you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Fine then. Why did you come looking for me?”, she continued.
“I just said why. Hermione Granger smoking? Now that’s a scandal.”
She summoned the packet and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it with her wand, and she crossed her legs, resting her wrist on her knee as she watched it burn down the tip to nothing but ash.
“Don’t tell anyone about it”, she mumbled. He scoffed, and she looked up.
“Why not? Afraid it might tarnish your spotless reputation?”, he said in a nasal, mocking tone. Hermione furrowed her brows, too annoyed to realize that this was the most emotion he’d shown in months.
“In fact, yes. We’re Head Students, if you haven’t noticed. We should be setting an example”, she bit back, and the churning in her stomach took a tumble. Draco leaned forwards, resting his underarms on his knees, looking straight at her through those steel-like, pale eyes, tilting his head slightly.
“You could literally kick a First Year down the stairs, Granger, and no one would care. You’re a war hero. You shouldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone here thinks of you, and much less hide it like this.”
Hermione leaned back against the cold wall, not breaking away from his daring gaze. Her lips set into a fine line.
“It’s none of your business how I handle mine”, she said snottily, inhaling another bout of polluted air into her lungs and crossing her arms. Draco leaned back and dragged a hand through his late-night messy hair.
“It is my business when I had to look for you for a week.”
Laughter bubbled out of Hermione’s chest unexpectedly, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep it in, but Draco snapped his face towards her, squinting.
“What’s so funny?”, he sneered, and Hermione bit her lip to stop laughing.
“You could have just asked me. Why go to all the trouble to try and catch me in the act? It’s not like we live together”, she said with a benign smile.
He looked at her attentively, holding out for the answer, and just as she thought when he was going to give it to her, he merely raised his hand and took a long drag of the cigarette. Then, he looked back out into the night.
Hermione’s eyes wandered over his side profile, his once so pointy features that he had filled out and grown into. His sharp cheekbones, strong jaw and piercing pale eyes stood out more than ever before; his once so strictly slicked back hair was falling messily. His clothing did not consist of a crisp, all-black suit anymore; he mostly wore their school uniform and even casual, muggle like clothes – only in their quarters though.
And suddenly, Hermione understood all of Ginny’s jabbing comments about how it must be difficult to live with Draco.
He was handsome.
Like a cockroach had crawled over her arm, she shook herself with disgust at the thought.
There was no way she could be attracted to Draco Malfoy of all people. Not Draco Malfoy.
Draco turned towards her at her movement and looked at her questioningly. Hermione shook her head and mumbled something like “felt a spider on my hand” and he shrugged, diverting his attention back to the night.
Hermione stared at the cigarette between her fingers with horror. This could not be happening.
Soon enough, Hermione realized that yes, this was in fact, very much happening.
Talking with Draco was surprisingly enough, much more pleasant than she’d ever thought possible. For starters, he never made a single comment about her blood heritage. The bar was low for him, she knew that, and so it was not a miracle that he managed to pass it; but he passed it much better than she could have possibly expected.
Because conversation with him was unlike anything she knew from Harry and Ron. In the past, when she’d gone on tirades about the things she was interested in, the boys would turn a blind ear, nodding every now and then to make her feel listened to. She had gotten used to this cozy indifference, and so when she started talking about wizarding literature in comparison to muggle literature, she was near shell-shocked to find that Draco was listening to her, taking apart all of her points and arguments, and countered them with even better ones.
But their conversations did not only consist of debates; sometimes they would just talk and joke, and Hermione got to know that Draco was not just capable of expressing joy through heinous laughter and mean sneers.
The first time she made him laugh, it was a loud, juvenile chortle that reverberated through the hallway, and he was smiling so brightly, it split his cheeks and for a short moment, he just looked happy.
It surely did not help the matter that Draco joining her for a smoke or two every evening soon turned into a habit. And while conversation was short and sprinkled in between long stretches of silence at first, soon enough, they managed to uphold a casual talk for at least 20 minutes. And then, he started accompanying her whenever she left at point nine pm, instead of following her after ten minutes or so.
And then he came back with her too, instead of always returning to their quarters earlier than she did, leaving a slight pang in her chest.
And before Hermione even realized, she stopped putting wards around her bedroom. Then, they talked on the way there, the whole time while they smoked, and as they walked past. And then, even as they stayed silent, it was not uncomfortable anymore. It was just silence.
One early evening, right after dinner, Ginny joined Hermione for an extra stress cigarette, looking out onto the February twilight. The redhead was hugging her legs tightly, resting her chin atop her knees, listening to Hermione’s complaints with tired lids.
“So you’re meaning to tell me that every time you see Malfoy, you get a weird feeling in your stomach, and when you first realized that he’s not actually hideous, you literally flinched?”, she counted down Hermione’s plights with a slow, clear voice. Hermione nodded, gesticulating wildly.
“Exactly! And sometimes he looks at me in that really weird way and it makes me feel so horrible, and when he laughs it’s even worse, and for the life of me I can’t figure out what it means and I-“
“Oh for Godric’s sake Hermione, are you seriously that dull?”, Ginny interrupted her heartlessly and Hermione’s mouth fell open. Ginny was looking at her like she couldn’t believe what she was saying, shaking her head with a twinkling in her eyes.
“What do you mean?”, Hermione stuttered, her hands dropping into her lap.
“You get nervous around him, you get even more nervous when he looks at you and smiles, and you think he’s hot- “
“-I never called him hot Ginny, that’s ridiculous- “
“-Hermione, didn’t you feel the same way about Ron two years ago?”
The words struck Hermione like lighting and for a moment, she was speechless. Her mind blanked.
Ginny was right. Whatever juvenile crush Hermione had once had on her brother, had returned, in much bigger dimensions.
“It’s okay. Take your time.”
The redhead patted Hermione’s arm as she stared at the treetops beneath them, slack-jawed. All the inconsistencies of their budding friendship now slotted into place and it presented her with an absolutely horrendous reality.
She could not have a crush on Draco Malfoy. Absolutely not.
“Yes you can, and you have a big fat one, too. Much bigger than with Ron, at least.”
Hermione had seemingly spoken aloud, and she met Ginny’s warm, chocolate eyes. A sense of pulsing panic settled behind her chest, where there was usually a ball of crazed electricity tossing and turning whenever she was with Draco. She realized now that it was right by her heart.
“Ginny, this can’t be happening. I can’t do this. I can’t have- No, no, this can’t- No!”
She was rambling wildly, fiddling with her pack to pull out another cigarette, chasing air through her lungs as she panted with panic, pressure building behind her temples because this couldn’t be happening, no, not Draco, not her, not Draco, not-
“Hermione, calm down!”
Ginny slapped her hand down onto Hermione’s, whisking the packet out of her grip and grabbing the cigarette she had shakily pulled out. Hermione lunged at her to get it back and Ginny threw it out, onto the grounds.
“Ginny! Accio cigarette! ”, Hermione cried, scrambling for her wand, and the crumpled-up cigarette came whirring up again, into her open palm. It was broken in half; unusable.
“Hermione, will you stop freaking out for a minute?”, Ginny said sternly, putting her hands on Hermione’s shoulders and shaking her slightly. Hermione looked up from the broken cigarette in her hand.
“Why are you so insane over this? Are you gonna hex little birds at him, too?”, Ginny continued, and Hermione shook her head desperately, burying her face in her hands.
“No, but- It’s Draco! He- I’m- I can’t like him! Just because he can be funny and has a nice laugh and always makes me smile doesn’t mean that he likes me too or something! He’s Draco! I’m supposed to hate him!”
Ginny slowly leaned back, picking up the cigarette pack and passing it back and forth between her hands.
“It’s not like you’re in love, Hermione. It’s just a crush. Nobody blames you, I mean, have you looked at him? You obviously have, I mean- I barely think you’re the only one, even if he acts all broody and mean all the time.”
Hermione shook her head. She was sifting through memories of the past two months; the realization had hit her like the Hogwarts express, and she saw all of their interactions differently now. It all made sense.
“Even so. What am I gonna do? Why did I not realize for so long?”
Ginny shrugged and pulled out a cigarette, throwing the packet back at Hermione.
“Well, you literally flinched at the thought of being attracted to him at first, and it took you a good two months to realize. We call it denial here.”
Hermione ignited a new cigarette with her wand and laid her head back after the first drag, relishing in the numbing feeling spreading through her brain for just a moment. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.
“I’m just not gonna do anything about it”, she mumbled after a good while, deeply lost in her strands of thought. Ginny made a confused noise.
Hermione straightened up and looked at her friend, who was hesitating as she took a drag of her own cigarette.
“There’s obviously a reason why I was in denial for so long. It would be a horrible idea to pursue this. Think about it; he was raised to hate me. There’s no way he could actually like me now. And even then, we would be judged. His parents would never allow it. There are a million reasons not to pursue this.”
She held out her hand and a new finger shot up for every reason she listed. Ginny shook her head in disbelief.
“Hermione, you can’t be serious!”, she said, almost angry.
“What?”
“All of that is absolutely ridiculous. Sure, maybe he was raised to hate Muggleborns, and he obviously still hates you; that’s why he spends so much time with you, right? And who fucking cares what anyone thinks, whether its students or his parents?”
Ginny sat up, flicking away the cigarette, crawling closer towards Hermione, until she was sat in front of her, and placed her hands on her shoulders, looking in her eyes sternly with a determined, rigid line between her eyebrows.
“The only thing that’s keeping you apart is not your denial or what he used to think of you. You light up when you talk about him, you have been for weeks. Frankly, it’s disgusting.”
Hermione opened her mouth to protest but Ginny shushed her.
“The only thing keeping you from going to him right now and telling him how you feel is not that you’re supposed to hate him, but that he’s supposed to hate you and the thought that he might not is terrifying you.”
She poked one straight digit into Hermione’s chest, punctuating every word. Hermione was lost for words when Ginny sat back and crossed her arms, pursing her lips.
“I just- I need to think about this. I’m not going to do anything yet”, Hermione mumbled after a while. Ginny nodded.
“Well, you know where to find me when you decide to.”
They smoked in silence, and the topic was not to be broached for a while.
Once Hermione found herself fully understanding her body’s reactions when Draco was around, it was somehow even harder to ignore them. Where earlier, there was a sort of unwilling compliance with her unspeakable pull towards him, it had now grown into a full fight with herself not to seek out his presence whenever she could.
And seeing as school was becoming harder and harder, the need to study late into the night in their quarters and her nicotine addiction grew into unhealthy dimensions, outside of eating times and classes, they spent nearly every passing second together or at least in the same room. And Hermione was going insane.
At some point, she thought, he was doing it on purpose. Sure, they were growing increasingly comfortable around each other, sometimes snuggling up in front of the fireplace – in separate armchairs, thank you very much – to read for hours, sometimes exchanging thoughts and opinions, sometimes just talking.
But then, Draco would walk around in nothing but shorts and a light T-shirt. And sometimes he would come back from Quidditch practice – he wasn’t on the team anymore but did it for pleasure on his own – completely sweaty, out of breath, flushed and stinking up the entire common room for at least ten minutes with his musk and Hermione was absolutely horrified to notice that she liked his natural smell.
And sometimes on early weekend mornings when Hermione found herself in front of the fire, nursing a hot cup of tea while trying to read herself awake, he would come down from his quarters with his hair sticking in up in all directions, his sleeping shirt shifting to reveal a slip of collar- or hipbone, yawning and stretching. Hermione watched over the brim of her cup like it was a show put on only for her, one he didn’t even know he was giving.
It was hell. She had not signed up to live with the Draco Malfoy she knew, but also not with the Draco Malfoy he had turned into. A sarcastic, snarky, charming bastard with a smile that could light up her world.
Because at one point, he had let down his guard; he’d stopped pretending to be the old, brooding Malfoy she knew and piece by piece, revealed himself to her. He was comfortable around her. There was no need for sneers and insults and fancy clothes to keep up the façade of the rich Malfoy heir.
He dared to show who he was around her now; nothing but a boy trying to graduate with the best grades possible. The thought sent her heart flying.
Maybe he really trusted her.
Naturally, Hermione needed to ignore all of her feelings and so she did what she did best; throw herself into her schoolwork. Every now and then, Ginny would come knocking at the wall she had tastefully dubbed “The Draco Denial” and Hermione gave up little information as to how her feelings were changing, because she had more important issues than boys and crushes. She had a school year to pass and a student body to take care of.
Her vice grew stronger every week, and as always, Draco still accompanied her, even though his consume had been steadily declining. The last time, he hadn’t even smoked more than one.
Her excuses grew slim. At first, she was convinced that no matter how well they got along privately, Draco wouldn’t be friendly with her in public too, until he grew a habit of sitting next to her in classes – even though they’d exchange notes later anyway – and even coming up to the Gryffindor table during eating times to ask about upcoming Head Student duties. Then, they started pairing up for team assignments in potions and runes classes. And some mornings when they got up earlier than the rest of the school, they’d eat breakfast together, despite the weird looks he got for sitting at the Gryffindor table.
Draco didn’t care what others thought. Hermione realized that one April morning when he sauntered into the Great Hall ten minutes after her, with the tables moderately filled up, to plop down across from her at the table, asking for the plate of scones next to her and immediately whipping out their Transfiguration assignment they’d worked on last night to point out a detail they’d missed.
He didn’t care. And slowly, Hermione stopped caring, too.
Soon enough, the jittery, excited feeling in her stomach made space for a warm wave of home whenever she saw him. She had not felt anything like it since she’d sent off her parents to Australia.
Somehow, Draco’s friendship managed to fill the hole her parents had left. It was not quite the same as before. Not like the love one got from their parents. It was something she could hold onto, something she didn’t want to let go, something she secretly hoped would stay for as long as it could because like everything in her life, Hermione started to feel like Draco could slip through her fingers anytime and leave her behind.
One late Saturday evening while they were sat in the corridor, carefully broaching certain sensitive topics (“Weasley?” – “Not a chance in hell”), Draco wrapped his lips around his cigarette and laid his head back, blowing the white smoke straight into the air above them. Hermione watched his adam's apple bob as he breathed slowly.
“What are you planning for when exams are done?”
“You mean my work? You know I want to go to the Ministry”, Hermione replied between two puffs. Draco rolled his eyes and stretched one leg to tap her foot.
“No, I mean, literally the day after. I’ve heard plans of secret parties everywhere in the castle. Since it’s the first year after the war and all.”
Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew about the rumors floating around the Seventh and Eighth year students; Ginny had relayed them with immaculate details.
“Are you planning on joining them? We’re still- “
“-Head students, I know, setting an example. But honestly, Granger-“, he sat up leaning towards her and tilting his head with that playful smile that always made her heart skip a beat, “-You don’t wanna let loose for one single night? We’ve earned it.”
They watched each other, his grey eyes twinkling with schemes, and Hermione bit her lip to keep from smiling. His foot still resting atop hers squeezed down teasingly.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
Draco leaned back just a bit, resting his arm on his knees, taking another drag.
“Since it’ll be the last week, and we’ve spent most of our time in this stupid corridor anyway, I thought we could meet up and watch the sun rise.”
Hermione stared at his side profile, her jaw dropping slightly, her lips pursed into a small O. Her heart picked up a pace.
“I’ve been here a few times to watch the sun go up. It’s nice.”
He seemed so unbothered, like he hadn’t even thought about what he was proposing, like the thought of watching the sun go up with Draco Malfoy wasn’t sending her stupid heart soaring.
Merlin help her.
“Sure”, she stammered after a worrisome amount of silence, but he hadn’t even noticed. He was looking out onto the vast forest. Hermione in turn, couldn’t stop looking at him.
By the time early June rolled around, the students of Hogwarts had turned into a mass of sleep-deprived, stressed out zombies. When Hermione brought up the comparison to Draco one late night while they hunched over their Arithmancy coursework, he was utterly confused and tired, demanding an explanation for what in Salazar’s name a zombie was. Soon after, they’d forgotten their homework and held a two-hour debate on the properties and mythology of the muggle zombie and wizarding equivalents.
They fell asleep at three am in their designated armchairs in front of the fireplace, waking up to a low glow, back pains and the seven am sun harassing them through the charmed windows above. The ensuing panic and scrambling to get to breakfast on time was only one of many escapades they survived during exam weeks.
And when they finally handed in their last rolls of parchment for History of Magic on the second last Friday of their school year, Hermione barely felt like a person anymore. Her past weeks had consisted of nothing but studying, smoking, studying, sipping tea from am to pm and coffee from pm to am, more studying, smoking, studying with Draco, falling asleep on the floor amidst towers of parchments and essays and open books and the imminent doom of their NEWT’s hanging overhead.
The afternoon of the last exam was eerily quiet. All the utterly exhausted students had retreated into their quarters to sleep the stress away, and to prepare for what was to come, because despite Hermione’s insistence that they should set an example – there was no point in preventing the parties that had been planned for months now. As long as Draco and her weren’t directly involved in the planning of what was going on, they could feign ignorance, and the cunning schemes of her student body wasn’t Hermione’s biggest worry anyway.
Ginny had made her promise to finally tell Draco about her feelings before they left Hogwarts for good, and Hermione had chosen tonight – when they’d watch the sun go up – to do it.
It was perfect. She would hopefully be drunk enough not to chicken out at the last minute, and he would may even be drunk enough to forget she ever said anything.
Everyone who knew Hermione would be confident to say that if she were to confess her love to someone, she would plan it out, into every single detail, and usually, Hermione would have agreed with them. But this wasn’t Ron, or Viktor; four months since that early February evening with Ginny had passed, and she knew now that whatever she felt for Draco was more than she’d ever had even with Ron.
The thought petrified her whenever she let it get close enough to her. Some nights she had laid awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what exactly would happen if she walked across their quarters right now, up his stairs, knocked at his door and just kissed him.
But she never did it, so she never found out either. All she had were late night thoughts and what ifs. Plenty enough to drive her wild.
Hermione had never been so clueless in her life before. It was merely fitting then, that in the wake of paralyzing terror of what his reaction would be to her confession, she decided to just not plan anything, lest it would drive her insane.
It was the most non-Hermione thing she’d probably ever done, she thought, matching the insanity of being in love with Draco Malfoy. She entirely put her trust into the alcohol and how it would let the truth speak.
That Friday evening after the last exams, the castle and its students awoke slowly, crawling out of their crevices and meeting up in secret spots to celebrate one full school year after the biggest war in recent memory, and Hermione wasn’t sure where Draco had disappeared to after they groggily each sipped a cup of coffee at seven pm, nursing themselves back awake.
Hermione had stared into the fire as Draco moved around, up and down the stairs to his bedroom as he got dressed, and before he left, he had stepped next to her, placing his boots on the coffee table with a smirk, pointing his wand at them to tie the laces. He knew she’d scold him for putting his feet on there if she weren’t so tired.
“You’ll remember tonight, right? Watching the sun go up?”
Hermione nodded, yawning. The blanket was pulled up to her nose, and she was holding the mug of coffee through the fabric of the duvet.
“The sun will go up at four point thirty-eight am. Let’s meet at four thirty, then.”
Hermione nodded again, watching blearily as he dusted off an inexistent smudge of dirt off of his black dragon leather shoe.
“Alright. See you then.”
And with a pat to her head that seemed to jolt her awake, he disappeared, and Hermione stared at the clock as the seconds ticked by, listening to her heartbeat.
The night passed in a blur. It started in the Gryffindor common room, after all the younger students had gone to bed; soon, she retreated into her old quarters with all the other girls to drink shots and reminisce about old memories. She even talked with Lavender for a bit, who she could not help but have ignored a bit since Sixth year.
Soon after, she found herself somewhere in the dungeons with Seamus, Dean, Terry Boot, Michael Corner and some other nameless Hufflepuff boys, smoking some unknown substance that made her feel prickly and warm all over, and slowed her thoughts down to a comfortable trickle.
Between one and three am, Hermione would later only remember falling into wet grass and rolling around in it, laughing wildly with Ginny and Luna at her side.
It was only at four am, through a wild blur of drugs, alcohol and partying, that she managed to focus her eyes on the large clock above the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room where they had somehow ended up. With an uncomfortably sudden jolt, she realized that she had to meet with Draco soon – and the Astronomy tower was at least 25 minutes from the Gryffindor tower.
“I need to go”, Hermione slurred. The numb, weightless effect from whatever plant she had smoked with the boys down in the dungeons had long disappeared and left nothing but a taste of stale alcohol with a slight hint of bile on her tongue. She smacked her dry lips together, raising her head from where it was lain on Ginny’s stomach, blinking against the dim light. The room was filled with alcohol corpses all sleeping or moaning and groaning as they tried to fall asleep.
“Go where?”, Ginny mumbled from somewhere buried within the cushions. Hermione sat up, rubbing her head where her hair was plastered to her face, a gurgle from deep in her stomach surfacing, and she suppressed a burp that smelled and tasted like fire whiskey.
“Meet Draco”, she replied and stood up on wobbly legs. Ginny punched a fist into the air.
“Get’em! Whoo!”, she shrieked, and several people around them groaned, coming to life at the disturbance. Hermione followed her muscle memory, stumbling towards the direction she knew the entry to the common room to be.
“Go get’em, ‘Mione!”, someone from the far corner near the dead fireplace called. Someone else near them whooped. Soon enough, as Hermione stumbled over the bodies strewn on furniture and the floors, groggy teenagers woke up one after the other, joining in the drunken chanting.
“Get’em! Get’em! Get’em!”, their collective voices called, definitely not in unison. The moment the Fat Lady closed behind her with an offended yawn, the yelling was cut off, and Hermione found herself in the cold, dark corridors of her home, dressed in only jeans and a shirt.
Wherever her bloody sweater had gone, she could not go to the Astronomy tower without one.
She stopped by their quarters (luckily on the way), grabbing one of her sweaters thrown over the back of an armchair and shrugging it on along with a coat, before arriving in their corridor at exactly four twenty-five, just enough time for a last cigarette to calm the nervous thrashing that had awoken in her stomach. She could barely feel her feet and the second she was sat on the windowsill, she felt paralyzed.
She was going to tell him now. Merlin, why had she not had another shot before leaving? She could barely feel her body with how fast her heart was pumping hot, hot blood, rushing it through her veins, pounding in her ears and numbing her limbs.
She sat there paralyzed, the cigarette burning down between her fingers as she stared out into the early morning, hearing nothing but her beating heart, feeling nothing but the detached tingling in her legs and arms.
Draco Draco Draco Draco Draco-
It was the single thought on her mind. He was the only thing her brain could procure. Draco, his smile, his jokes, his hair in the morning, his eyes when they were discussing a book, his laughter at her bad jokes, his jabs at her ridiculous perfectionism, his large sweaters he slept in that Hermione dreamed of wearing, his atrocious jokes late at night, his lips wrapping around the butt of a cigarette to take a drag, his fingers rubbing across a ridge in his wand when he was practicing a charm-
“I’m here! Did I miss it?! I’m here, hold up!”, a voice called and a moment later, a disheveled, flushed Draco stumbled into the entry of the corridor half covered by a large armoire. Hermione’s body came to life with a flinch, her mind soaring with his sudden appearance.
“Did you just tell the sunrise to hold up?”, she stammered, swinging her legs to the right, stumbling to her feet.
“Did it help? Did I miss it?”, he repeated, and just then, Hermione heard how heavy his words were. She looked at him closer now; his hair was plastered to his head at one side of his face like hers mere minutes ago, and his neck was flushed a bright pink. He was heaving. His words were slurred.
He’d been running to get to her in time.
The thought nearly made Hermione’s knees buckle.
“You didn’t miss it”, she whispered, nodding towards the forest, where the sun had not yet started to rise over the top of the trees.
“Good”, he panted, stumbling closer until he fell onto the windowsill ungracefully, fumbling with Hermione’s packet lain there.
“Draco, how drunk are you?”, Hermione forced out, trying her hardest to speak the words clearly. Her thoughts were swirling around her head confusingly, like a maze she had to find her way through. The only clear thing there was that she wanted to be near him, and so she sat back down.
Draco didn’t reply right away, rather taking a few deep drags as he stared at the sky intently, breathing heavily.
“A lot. I don’t know. I heard you smoked something with Thomas and Finnigan?”
“Something says it well. I’m not quite sure what it was, but it felt…”, Hermione hesitated. “…Exceptionally tranquilizing”, she finished, putting most of her emphasis on ‘exceptionally”, and Draco huffed with laughter.
Her heart was pounding, pounding, pounding in her ears, rushing blood and she could hear nothing but her own breath as her eyes wandered over the features of his side profile.
Now.
“Draco, I wanted to tell you something.”
The bile in her throat was back, even though she had charmed it away with a handy mint charm. Oh Merlin. She felt a bucking in her stomach, like she was going to throw up.
Draco averted his gaze from the treetops, towards her. Waiting.
“What?”
The heat rising from her chest to her neck and cheeks was overwhelming, and Hermione felt almost out of breath as she shrugged off the over cloak she had thrown over earlier.
“I am kind of-“
“Is that my sweater?”, Draco interrupted her then, and Hermione looked down at herself after her brain relayed the information to her with a few seconds of delay. Then, the warmth all over her tingling body turned into a shameful blaze, igniting her cheeks with pure fire.
In her haste, she had put on one of his old Slytherin sweaters. It was one of his sleeping shirts, she was sure; more specifically, the one he had napped in earlier, which was why it had been thrown over his armchair.
“Oh, bugger, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking- Draco, I’m sorry- “, she stammered, pawing at the hem like she was going to pull it off just like that. He was silent, and when she looked up, she found him staring at his clothing on her with round, glassy eyes.
He was swaying lightly from side to side, his pupils blown large, jack-slawed, his drunken stupor seemingly making it impossible to look away from the sweater. For a moment, she was worried he’d just fall over, until his eyes crawled up her body to meet hers. She shivered.
“I’m- Does it look bad? Should I take it off?”, she stammered, the heat in her cheeks persistently making it more and more difficult to force out words.
“No, the opposite”, he breathed, and suddenly he lunged forward, grabbing her wrist to tug her towards him, and then his lips were pressed against hers.
The kiss didn’t last long, yet long enough to make Hermione’s heart jerk violently, her fingers shivering to grasp at his palm, leaning into his other hand that was cupping her cheek. Draco tasted like whiskey, something minty and a hint of smoke.
Just as Hermione started to relax into his hold, against the pounding and rushing in her ears, his lips were suddenly gone, and she opened her eyes blearily.
Draco had not gone far; he had just barely pulled back to stare at her, wide-eyed; not in awe anymore, she realized, but with a mix of terror. He was out of breath, panting like her, she suddenly realized, his cheeks flushed pink like he’d just run a marathon.
Why did he pull away?, her mind yelled and thrashed.
His grey, stormy eyes were scanning her face wildly, searching for any indication of… what?
“Was that bad? Should I not have done that?”, he whispered then, and Hermione shook her head immediately.
“No”, she sighed, and like an iron grip on her mind, a wave of courage swarmed over her, and she leaned forwards to connect their lips again.
If the first kiss was an accident, their second was an explosion. As if all restraints had been cut loose, they immediately started pawing at the other to pull closer. Hermione could barely feel herself move; nothing was more important than Draco’s lips on hers, kissing her over and over, catching her bottom lip between his and fisting his hands through her messy morning hair.
Her body was on fire, everywhere he touched her, tiny flames bursting underneath her skin and making her shiver and tingle at the lightest graze of his finger.
Hermione couldn’t quite remember when or how, but after some awkward crawling and maneuvering, with Draco’s arm wrapped around her waist, she was suddenly straddling his lap, grounding her hips and lapping at his mouth hungrily, when she heard a low moan rumbling from his chest, and she just made Draco Malfoy moan oh God her heart was racing-
All thoughts died when her head tilted to kiss him deeper, his hand pinched her thigh making her yelp, and he used the opportunity to push his tongue past her lips into her mouth.
It was her turn to sigh now; she practically melted into him, letting the tide take her, her mind swiped blank; there was nothing but Draco, Draco’s hands on her face, Draco’s lips on hers, Draco’s tongue dominating her mouth, Draco’s soft hair gliding between her fingers-
They could have at it for hours, pecking at each other and exploring, when they suddenly pulled apart. Hermione could barely breathe, what with Draco’s arm around her waist, squeezing her in his arms making it difficult to remind her body of its crucial functions.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was met with a flushed, panting Draco, his hair sticking up where her hand was still combing through the strands, with red, swollen lips and the rays of the morning sun ghosting across his features from where the sun shone to their left.
For just a few moments, they looked at each other, still trying to catch their breath. Then her eyes wandered to the glowing sun rising over the endless treetops of the forest. Morning mildew glittered in the sun and for once, the forest did not seem as dark and threatening as it always did, with the sun illuminating the lush, green woodland.
“This was a really good idea”, Hermione breathed, her eyes darting back and forth over the beautiful picture in front of them. Her body was sore from a night of partying, tingling from the effect Draco had on her, and so she barely noticed how close they still were.
When she turned to face him again, he was smiling. She immediately reciprocated it.
“I hope you’re not just talking of the sunrise”, he said, his light eyes laughing, and Hermione granted him no answer before she leaned in again, dropping a firm kiss on his lips, her stomach doing a flip-flop. His arm around her waist tightened almost unnoticeably.
There were more important things to be preoccupied with, better than a glowing, picturesque sunrise.
Things like a pink-cheeked boy biting down on her lip and smiling into their kiss.