don't hold your breath
The first Wednesday of term, Hermione found herself delaying her departure to patrol with Malfoy. They had to cover the first and second floors, as well as half the dungeons, and it was already pushing 9:50—if she didn’t leave soon, she’d either be late or forced to take the stairs at a jog, and risk showing up sweaty and out of breath to their meeting place.
She didn’t give a rat’s arse what he thought of her, but giving a bully more ammunition was almost always unadvisable. She’d know; fourth year, Malfoy heard her complain about her overly large front teeth to a rather disaffected Harry, and the next day she’d been hit by a tooth-growing hex that sent her to the hospital wing for two hours, mostly just waiting for Pomfrey to figure out how to reverse it.
So you’ll forgive her for not wanting to give the stupid inbred ponce any more reason to slag her off.
She made a mental note to never say the phrase slag off in front of him, either, because she could already picture his disbelieving-then-cruel smile as he found some way to deride her for it.
Christ, was it 9:54 already?!
“I’m off,” she said to the two heaps of teenage boy piled on the sofa across from her, “You’d both better at least have attempted your charms homework before I get back, or so help me God, I’ll toss you from the astronomy tower."
Ron snorted and Harry gave an absentminded wave, not breaking his gaze into the enormous iron grate filled with smoldering coals and not much else. His subdued mood was about Sirius, then—losing another father figure had done loads for his adolescent psychological adjustment, just loads.
9:56. If she didn’t go now, she’d certainly show up in a frenzy of hair and sorry, sorry, just got held up. And she was not, under any circumstances, giving him the satisfaction of hearing her apologize right out the gate on their first patrol together. She’d begged, pleaded, and threatened Katie for a change in the schedule, but the Gryffindor Head Girl (fat lot of good, she was) was adamant; this was the only way that every prefect would be able to make rounds and all their classes, as well as quidditch practice and “gobstones club” or whatever rot these ridiculous people had come up with now.
Snagging only her wand and her robes on her way out the portrait hole, she tossed Ron a (hopefully) nonchalant, “Bye!” that was just a bit too high-pitched to be natural. Damn it.
As she traipsed down the frankly abhorrent fourteen flights of stairs from Gryffindor Tower, she considered her plan for maintaining her sanity and her pride while spending four hours a week alone with Draco Malfoy.
- She will not rise to his insults. She will rise above it all, like the adult she very nearly is.
- She will not speak first, because fuck that.
- She will really, truly, not punch him again. This is the only negotiable aspect of her clearly well thought out plan of action.
Hermione rounded the final corner before their predetermined starting-point in front of the Defence classroom on the second floor, and saw him.
His bulk was slumped against the wall, cast halfway in shadow in the dimly-lit interior hallway. His uniform was in a shocking state of disarray, for Malfoy, who had always been the most vain boy she’d ever known—neat in comparison to the travesty that was Harry’s tie on a daily basis, but that wasn’t saying much. His robes were tossed carelessly over one arm, and he was down to just trousers, oxford, and tie. The top button of his shirt was undone and the collar was laying all wrong in the front, as though he’d ripped it open and in his haste forgotten to smooth it back down. This would not be all that odd, for most sixteen-year old-boys, but she’d known him since he was an eleven-year-old daddy’s boy with hair slicked back against his skull like a helmet of gel and pale, limp strands, and she’d never seen him in anything other than a perfectly pressed white button-down with a full windsor around his neck. Now, his green and silver tie was yanked loose and dangled listlessly to the left, a sight so genuinely shocking that she hadn’t taken notice of his face until she was nearly upon him; he was staring at her rather intensely, for some reason, and Hermione wondered if she had something on her face. She swiped at her cheek self consciously as he lazily pushed himself off from the wall, uncrossing his arms from his chest and stuffing his right fist into his trouser pocket. The left, still holding his robes, swept out as if to say, after you.
Well, she thought. Far be it from me to keep the glorious Draco Malfoy waiting. And off they went.
They made their way through the rapidly cooling stone halls in unbroken silence, with only the sounds of their footsteps bouncing off the ceilings and walls to prove that she hadn’t gone completely deaf. Her mind was moving rather slowly for such an unprecedented situation, but she found that she simply hadn’t the energy to bother thinking about him. What did he matter? Just some bigoted, pathetic, rich boy used to getting his way—he was rather contemptible, the longer she pondered. She was contemptuous.
She mentally reviewed her schedule for the next day, and the day after that, ending in another patrol with Malfoy, before turning her thoughts to Ron. He was planning on trying out for the quidditch team, this year, as keeper. This did unfortunately mean that she would be forced to attend both tryouts and the matches themselves. She’d live, but she’d suffer.
The things I do for love, she thought, then amended; the things I do for like.
She couldn’t possibly know if she loved Ronald yet; she hadn’t even kissed him yet. Her mum said that it was possible to know from the first kiss if someone was meant for you, because the first time she’d kissed dad, she’d sworn they’d spend the rest of their lives together. Hermione was skeptical, but her sample size was not yet large enough to come to a decisive conclusion—her only kisses had been with Daniel Pugh, from her primary school, at age ten (eugh) and Viktor Krum, in fourth year. He’d been a proper gentleman, and asked for permission first, in broken English. She’d agreed a bit too enthusiastically, but he had smiled in a relieved sort of way before leaning in. It wasn’t fireworks, or life-altering like her mum always described it, but it was nice. Very, very… nice.
Which wasn’t all that a girl should feel when she’s kissed, if you asked Hermione.
She emerged from her revelry as she followed Malfoy down the stairs into the dungeons, and the temperature dropped another ten degrees, easily. She shivered, and after a moment, Malfoy held his hand out, for some reason. When she paused to squint in the dark, she realized he was trying to hand her his robes.
She gave him a look as though he’d grown a second head, scoffed, and continued into the last section of the castle in which she’d have to tolerate his presence, at least for this evening.
—
Draco attempted to lean surreptitiously around the corner of the bookshelf currently providing him a clear line of sight to one Hermione Granger, Swot Extraordinaire, Bane Of His Existence, Object Of His Every Waking Thought. And some of his sleeping ones, too, but he’d take those to the grave.
Apparently lycanthropy caused one to go insane in addition to the lovely transformation into a sadistic, bloodthirsty beast once a month.
“You know, Malfoy, I actually don’t. I’ll be sure to take that into consideration.”
Those were the only words she’d spoken to him, or even in his general direction, in the week and a half since the start of term. They came after she had plowed around a blind corner without bothering to check for others in her path or even face front and, as a result, careened into his pain-wracked ribcage. He had paused for a moment to lean his weight against the wall in a relatively futile effort to shake off the ache coming from deep within his bones.
It had been getting worse, the closer the moon got.
When he heard her around the corner, he had foolishly assumed that she possessed even an ounce of self-preservation instinct and would easily avoid him—he was wrong. His mistake, he supposed.
What happened next, though. That was unexpected.
He’d taken the hit like a brainless oaf, but what else was he meant to do, when the recently engorged animal part of his brain was yelling at him to do that again.
When she made contact with the center of his chest, every overwhelming sensation accosting his consciousness seemed to cease at once, as though he’d been plunged into a deep pool of cool water on a scorching day. His white oxford was no longer too rough on his fresh scars, the stench of smoke mixed with wet stone was bearable for the first time all day, and the pain radiating from each joint and muscle in his body evaporated as quickly as it had started.
Then, she had stood once more, and the sensory overload from which he’d been so blissfully reprieved was restored tenfold for his trouble. Since that moment, his task from the Dark Lord and the upcoming full moon were meer distractions from his true purpose; figuring out exactly what the fuck had happened, and what the rather disheveled bint seated feet from his hiding spot in the library had to do with it.
So, he’d been—following her. Stalking feels like a crime, an invasion of her privacy (why does he give a flying fuck about her privacy) but ‘following’ allowed him the guise of innocence and assuaged what scraps of a conscience he’d left the summer with.
He followed her to the dungeon for potions. He tailed her on the way to the third floor for Advanced Transfiguration, and waited outside the Charms classroom in what he hoped was a casual manner to make sure she made it back to Gryffindor Tower, or the Library, or wherever the fuck else she decided to go, safely. He felt a bit like he was losing his mind, but also like he didn’t have anything better to do—his attempts to brew desperately-needed wolfsbane were shockingly fruitless, and his godfather and head of house had already set up a safe-enough locale for him to endure the full moon—the Shrieking Shack. Draco didn’t have a fucking clue how Severus had found the cell in the first place, but he was grateful enough for any adult assistance in his life that he didn’t ask too many questions.
He walked behind her at as far a distance as possible, far enough that she wouldn’t be able to pick up on it, but close enough for the knot in his chest to loosen, just for a second. He just wanted to be sure that she was alright, that nothing would hurt her—why he gave a shit all of a sudden was mostly beyond him, aside from the obvious.
Their biweekly patrols had remained frustratingly silent, as though she were daring him to speak first. And, of course, after the first night, he had no idea how to breach the quiet. Seven years of etiquette lessons had done fuck-all, apparently, and his mum should really ask for her money back.
Really, Father should, he mused, but he can’t very well do so from Azkaban.
He leaned his weight against the heavy bookshelf currently concealing his position, and tried not to dwell on that particular line of thinking.
Salazar Slytherin, he’d tried to hand her his robes. Either his brain cells were dying at an alarming rate or something about Granger, specifically, turned him into a bumbling fool. At this point, he was starting to hope the former was true, if for no reason other than to explain why he couldn’t properly brew wolfsbane to save his life. He was good at potions! He got an O on his O.W.L. in the subject, thank you, but this particular recipe simply refused to bend to his will.
Seventeen Aconite leaves, sliced perfectly up their stems with a knife of pure silver;
The juice of seven Sopophorous beans, crushed with the flat side of a steel butcher knife, just like Uncle Severus taught him;
Three drops of dragon’s blood, chilled to exactly zero degrees;
Three Murtlap tentacles, pickled, drained, and perfectly cubed with his cleaned silver knife;
Viscous, silvery-blue syrup of hellebore; two clean drops and no more;
Two fresh mandrake leaves, juiced;
One Occamy egg and its shell, ground to a fine powder; and finally,
One powdered moonstone, hand-milled in his silver mortar, added in increments so precise he had to measure them with magic.
He’d memorized it, including the preparation of each ingredient and the process of actually brewing the blasted thing. And he was entirely shit at it.
Every attempt he’d made had ended spectacularly badly, comparable only to the genuinely impressive inadequacy of Longbottom their first year—each version of the potion, which took several weeks to complete, had some clear issue that Draco couldn’t sort out for his life. The first batch curdled before he’d even gotten to the Murtlap, entirely ruined. His second trial had gone better, until he got to adding the Sopophorous bean juice (eugh, bean juice) and his entire cauldron started on fire. Why? He had no idea. Clearly, because he was a fucking numpty, who couldn’t tell his arse from his broomstick.
He was doing fine, yeah, thanks for asking.
He heard Granger pack up her quills, textbooks, pads of parchment (noteblocks? He didn’t pay much attention in Muggle Studies), and fluorescent markers of some kind. His hearing was overly sensitive, especially this close to the moon, and he could even pick out the rustle of fabric as he shoved her materials back into her canvas bag. She shoved her chair back and exited the sequestered corner of the library, and after the longest three seconds of his life, Draco slipped out from his hiding spot and followed her tangle of curls to the Great Hall for breakfast.
—
“Hermione, kindly put a sock in it. We are going to have fun on your birthday, whether you like it or not.” Ginny was unimpressed with Hermione’s attempts to talk her out of hosting some kind of get-together, and turned back to Harry, Ron, and Seamus. Plotting and scheming, the lot of them.
With a sigh and a purse of her lips, she returned to her toast.
Her birthday was on Friday, and apparently they had heard from some anonymous source (read: Katie Bell) that a blind eye would be turned to any music, dancing, alcohol, and generally prohibited behavior that may occur in the Gryffindor common room that evening.
Just her luck. Her seventeenth birthday, and a party in her name would probably get them all expelled.
But then, if the Head Girl didn’t give a fig, she couldn’t be arsed, either. Maybe it’d be fun, she thought—getting a bit sloshed was her right as a legal wizarding adult, wasn’t it? Maybe, Ron would think she looked good; maybe he’d say something, or do something, or—
She needed to control herself. It was a bloody party in the common room, and barely a party, at that, because it wasn’t like they could get any liquor. What amount of trouble could a group of sober teenagers possibly get into?
She had a feeling she’d live to regret ever putting that thought out into the universe, but it was too early in the morning for her to dwell on it.
“Ta, see you in Defence,” she called over her shoulder, as she left the group of agitators to their rule breaking.
Only Harry bothered to respond, saying “Seeya, buddy,” before blowing her a kiss and winking. Wanker.
She pulled a face at him and very nearly ran face first into Katie Bell for her trouble, Merlin, she thought, maybe I could try looking where I’m going. The older girl had dyed her long blonde hair a shocking shade of neon pink the night before, apparently, and it was such a surprise that all she could think to say was, “Bugger!”
“Wotcher, Hermione, good morning to you too,” Katie grinned, showing off her relatively crooked teeth that could’ve been corrected with just a few months of braces—my God, I’ve become my father—and caught Hermione’s right arm to avoid either of them taking a spill.
Her hair really was a travesty, especially against her red-and-gold tie and robes. The Head Girl badge on her lapel was the same shade of gold as her nose ring, and Hermione felt a surge of love for her unflappable if unconventional leadership style.
“Hiya, Katie, I was just looking for you, actually—”
“Lemme guess, Granger, you want Friday off,” Katie cut her off mid-sentence in a serious tone, face turning solemn. “Well, I suppose your incredibly amazing and hard-working Head Girl could be convinced to free you from your duties, for one night, and one night only…”
The older girl smirked, gave her a conspiratorial wink, and looked over Hermione’s shoulder to address someone behind her. “Malfoy, how can I be of service?”
What the hell does the little shite want now, she thought, but her mental whinging was abruptly interrupted when she turned enough to see Draco Malfoy standing much too close, thank you—
Close enough that she could smell his stupid cologne, something woody that reminded her a bit of her favorite bergamot candle at home. Close enough to get a whiff of… cigarette smoke?
And, annoyingly, close enough to see that he looked absolutely awful. His bluish-grey eyes were ringed in purple, as though he had two half-healed black eyes—his lips were dry and cracked, the lower being split down the middle and slightly crusted over with blood. His annoying, poncy blond hair was (for once) relatively untamed and fell in dull clumps over his forehead and ears.
The overall effect was, well. Not good.
—
Draco Malfoy’s morning was already going to shit, and it was barely half eight.
He’d woken up too late this morning to accompany (follow, the little arsehole in his head said) Granger to the Great Hall, only rising in time to make it to breakfast by the virtue of Gregory Goyle, Occasionally Useful Mate, who dumped a cup of cold water on his head when yelling didn’t rouse him.
His roommates had, unfortunately, already figured out not to touch him while he was sleeping, if they wished to keep their limbs intact and attached to their bodies.
By the time he stumbled into the overlarge, overstimulating, over… everything room, he’d barely had enough time to grab toast and about a half kilo of bacon, shove them into his bag, before he had to limp over to the Gryffindor table. If he didn’t catch Bell now, chances were low that he would at all—bugger, her offensively pink head was bobbing next to Granger’s. He didn’t particularly fancy having this conversation with an audience (particularly that audience), but needs must, and all that.
He needed more sleep, a shot of firewhiskey, and a cigarette, in no particular order. But first, this blasted—
“Malfoy, how can I be of service?” Bell was too fucking chipper for this hour, Merlin, and he opened his mouth to answer her. Instead, he realized that he’d accidentally gotten himself much too close to Miss Granger (as the firsties called her, little twats) and could now see her piercing, dark-brown eyes, fixed on his face; the weight of her attention made him open his mouth and blink like an idiot, like he was Longbottom, or something, but he managed to pull it together.
“Bell. I wanted to let you know that I can’t patrol on Friday night.” He kept his eyes determinedly fixed on Bell and her heinous dye job, pointedly ignoring the scent of figs, vanilla, and cedarwood (fuck his new senses, by the way) that must have been some combination of her perfume and shampoo.
Oh, he’s fucked. He’s so fucked.
Bell’s eyebrows shot into her fuschia hairline. “‘Letting me know,’ are you, Malfoy?” she said, with a not-small amount of incredulity. “Well, how big of you. Too bad.”
He opened and closed his mouth, like dull-witted fish held out of water.
“Hermione’s already asked for the time off, and someone has to patrol.” The Head Girl saw something in his face that made her pause, and add, “I could do something if there was a legitimate reason you needed the night off, Malfoy, but otherwise the schedule really isn’t adjustable…”
The entire interaction, Granger had been staring at him as though he had something in his teeth, and it made him unreasonably self-conscious; he knew he wasn’t exactly winning any awards for his beauty this near to the moon, but surely, he didn’t look that awful.
He really, truly hadn’t considered that Granger might have already skived off. What could she possibly have to do that was so important, on the night of the full moon—
And he remembered. Granger was older than him, older than most of his year; she had a September birthday. Must be a party, or something. Something dark and bitter bloomed in his throat, and he thought he might vomit. He couldn’t—it was impossible, there was no way he could be in two places at once, much less three—
His train of thought must have been playing out on his face, or something, because Bell coughed politely to try and get his attention. “Malfoy? Why can’t you patrol on Friday?”
“I—I, um, it’s—” Spluttering like this was beneath him, he supposed, but at this point, there were very, very few things he considered himself too good for. One of which, though, did happen to be maiming children, which is exactly what would happen if he, an unregistered lycanthrope without access to wolfsbane, was not locked in the cell under the shrieking shack by five p.m., absolute latest, Friday evening. He definitely didn’t have time to patrol the fucking corridors, which didn’t matter, fire him from prefect, or whatever, but—
His brain was doing something dangerous and feral at the thought of Hermione at a party, with alcohol and strangers and unsecured points of entrance and egress, when he would be unable to keep track of her—or, he amended, the others, because they sure as shite couldn’t be trusted. Merlin’s balls, he’d been following the witch around for two weeks, and none of them batted a bloody eye. What if a real threat made itself known in the one situation that he couldn’t at least monitor?
Well, he thought. I need to kill myself.
This did force him to pause, and take a step back from whatever the fuck just made him act like a territorial dog. He shouldn’t care, because she was essentially a stranger, not even an acquaintance—if anything, they were enemies. His breath was quickening, and he once again had nothing to say in response.
After about ten excruciating seconds of awkward silence, Granger turned resolutely from her position facing him and addressed Bell herself.
“I know where he’ll be, Katie,” she said, in her I am the lead swot and you will all fall in line with my brilliance voice, before tacking on a second sentence that left him gobsmacked, which was his state much too often these days.
“He’ll be with me. At the party.”
—
Hermione wasn’t sure what combination of idiocy and desire for self-flagellation led to her piping in for Malfoy’s benefit, but Katie clearly didn’t particularly care.
“Well, I think inter-house unity is more important than keeping the first-floor clear, anyways—but I’ll see what I can do. You’re both off the hook.” She checked her watch, and whatever time it was made her suck air through her teeth. “Well, I’m off then. Cheers, you lot!” With this parting sentiment, she ruffled Ron’s hair with confidence learned only from an older brother (or two) and clomped out of the hall in her barely-regulation platform combat boots.
Hermione turned very slowly to her left, where Malfoy was hovering with a stunned look on his face. She let him twist, just for a second, because, well. She could.
“Well? If I’m covering for you, I’d better at least get to know what you’re doing.” She didn’t know if she expected an answer, or if she was truly just twisting the knife to see how far she could push him before he broke. Either way, she was dissatisfied with his response.
“It’s not your problem, Granger,” He looked down at her (tall arsehole) for the first time since he walked up a few minutes prior. “Thanks.” Something like genuine emotion was warming his face, and Hermione felt like she was being laughed at. So, instead of saying anything acceptable in return, she huffed before grabbing her bag from the Gryffindor table behind her.
“Naff off, Malfoy,” The group of Gryffindors that had been aggressively whispering out of her earshot about her birthday stopped dead when she started speaking, and a thick silence settled over their little corner of the Great Hall. “Just because you haven’t called me a mudblood yet this term doesn’t mean I wouldn’t drown you in the lake if I had the chance.” Not giving him a chance to rebut, she started to stride off, until he called out a second or so later.
“I’ll see you tonight, Granger. For patrol.”
She stopped dead, and took a deep, centering breath. For a beat, then two, she considered. Then she walked away, without bothering to look back.