She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this sick with worry. She wasn’t even sure she ever had been before.
Her hands were wrapped so tightly around his one good one that Madame Pomfrey had come by on several rounds and pried them apart, sure Hermione would end up breaking more bones.
Every time, it would barely take a minute after her departure for her hands to return to him.
His skin against hers was a lifeline; the occasional twitch of his fingers a reassurance that somewhere inside his otherwise cold and motionless form, he was alive. It was all she could do to focus on it, to keep her eyes from roaming the rest of his broken body, recataloging each injury as she had done from the moment he’d landed on the ground.
Just the thought of that moment made a cold spot spread in her chest and down to her stomach, a wave of nausea causing her to tighten her grip and take a deep breath.
He’d been showing off on the Quidditch pitch again, racing against Theo and a few other, younger, Slytherins.
She’d been in the stands, reminiscing on watching matches in their early school years, inhaling the smell of fresh cut grass and enjoying the tickle of her curls across her face, her eyes closing dreamily. It was the first break between exams she’d had all week and she’d just wanted some time alone, where no one would think to look for her. Sure, there were others on their brooms flying around, but none that paid her any mind.
Or so she’d thought.
“Draco, you arse, watch where ya going, yeah? Nearly knocked me off my broom!”
Hermione had opened her eyes slowly at Theo’s outcry, thinking nothing of it until she realized what had seemingly caught Malfoy’s attention.
It was her.
His eyes were focused on her across the pitch as he circled back around Theo, something in his expression looking off from the normal scowling, smirking prat he’d usually portrayed.
With the end of the war, and being one of the few to return for an eighth year at Hogwarts, she and Malfoy had had a…delicate relationship of sorts. As the brightest in their classes they were more often than not paired on projects and schoolwork which required a courteous work relationship at the very least. But over time they’d grown used to each other; enough so that they interacted more than enemies, rivals or acquaintances typically would.
Hermione would dare say it was just shy of friendship level.
But even then, he never looked at her how he had in that moment.
She felt her skin flush with a nervous and uncertain heat, watching him watch her. Both too preoccupied to notice the bludger heading his way, knocking him from his broom and plummeting him to the ground below.
Hermione’s throat still felt raw and sore from the shriek that tore through her as she jumped to her feet and watched.
That was nearly a week ago and she’s spent nearly everyday, and moment, not in class, by his side. Every time she made the trek to the infirmary it was clear everyone knew where she was going, but wondered why.
Malfoy’s hand twitched in hers again, dragging her mind from reliving that moment for the thousandth time.
She sighed, looking over his still form as she slowly massaged his hand between hers.
The other half of his body was wrapped tight in bandages, his leg beneath the blanket tied in a splint and his arm propped against a mountain of pillows, a sling charmed to levitate it occasionally to keep circulation in his body.
Madame Pomfrey had assured her and Theo that the breaks were mostly mended but she was more concerned with any potential brain damage from the fall. “The brain scan showed a concerning dark anomaly, but without extensive health records for the last few years, there’s no way to be certain it isn’t an old war injury,” she’d said delicately. “Based on its location, I’m worried he may suffer violent seizures that could interfere with the mending.”
“If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be at the bedside of Draco Malfoy, worriedly clinging to his hand everyday, I’d’ve hexed them into oblivion,” she muttered to herself out loud, shaking her head with a sad smile. “Yet here I am, doing just that. Guilt does make one do unbelievable things, I suppose.” She sighed, her eyes fixed once more on his pale hand in hers. “Though, the fact I feel any guilt at all is astounding all on its own.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Hermione’s heart thumped hard in her chest, air trapping in her lungs for a moment as her brown eyes moved up to lock on Malfoy’s face. His eyes were still closed, face unmoved and giving no impression he’d spoken at all. Just when she was ready to write herself off as going insane, his lips parted and his voice came out gruff from disuse. “I shoulda paid attention.”
“Draco,” she gasped in a surprised whisper. A voice in the back of her head told her she should get Madame Pomfrey right away, but as his eyes opened halfway, lidded, cool silver looking over her like an invisible caress, all she could do was stare back.
“Mmm, that’s nice.”
“What?” she asked, confused and trying to keep him talking.
“You called me Draco, not Malfoy. I quite like the sound of it coming off those swotty lips.” His own lips tipped up lightly in one corner, a softer, uncruel version of his usual smirk. “I’d’ve fallen to my death ages ago if I knew it would gift me so.”
A choked, flustered laugh escaped her throat at his words, her mind spinning with disbelief. Was he…flirting with her? Draco Malfoy, her one time bully, barely current friend who for some godsdamned reason had left her feeling an ache inside herself since his injury was finally awake and the first thing he did was flirt with her?
Impossible. There was no way.
She must’ve fallen asleep herself and would soon wake from the oddest dream she’d experienced in years. Yet, even as she told herself this, she felt her heartbeat stutter in her chest at the slightest possibility that it was real.
How odd.
“You’re staring at me, Granger,” Draco spoke again, his gaze slightly more attentive than it was just a moment ago. Still, his cool eyes stayed locked on her, that soft upwards tick of his mouth firmly in place. “I’d say something about how gorgeous I am, but given I haven’t seen myself since the fall I can only imagine the type of mess I must be.” He winced at the thought, the amusement in his voice slowly draining away by the end of his sentence. “There goes that modeling side gig Nott has been on about.” He rolled his eyes to mask his vain concern, wincing again as a sharp stabbing pain resounded through his skull.
For some reason, Hermione felt compelled to assuage his ego.
“I don’t know, some women find scars quite attractive; men too. Adds character, I think. Not that you need to worry about that. Your face will be as perfectly unmarred as the day you were born, I’d imagine.” She pulled one hand free from his, raising it to lightly brush some hair across the cool skin of his forehead. “At most, you’ll likely need to return to the use of fringe briefly to cover some scrapes. A nostalgic look that by no means will affect your appeal.”
Draco’s eyes fluttered lightly at the feel of her skin grazing his through the strands of hair. Normally, he’d have some snippy comment about someone touching his hair and especially without permission. But the fact that it was Hermione, who he’d never imagined would ever want to touch him let alone actually do it left him speechless.
Blissfully so, if he was honest.
“Careful, Granger,” he replied softly after a minute. “That almost sounded like a compliment.” His lips stretched into a wider smile and Hermione couldn’t help the answering one she gave in return.
“Narcissistic worries aside, how are you feeling, Malfoy?” she pointedly used his surname, accompanying it with a teasing lilt in her voice.
“Malfoy,” he groaned, turning his head slightly away from her. “How you wound me, witch.” She shook his hand forcefully, drawing his attention back to her, noting the playful gleam in his eyes. “I’ve been better, clearly,” he answered, looking away from her long enough to take inventory of his own injuries. “Though I’ve also been worse. I was a Death Eater, remember? Wounds such as these are nothing in comparison to the pains I endured during the war.”
Hermione flinched at the reminder, looking away and beginning to pull her hand away, when his suddenly tightened its hold, forcing her eyes up to meet his once more. She thought she glimpsed panic crossing his features briefly before he’d schooled them into a stiff mockery of his normal arrogance.
The contradictory sight of it with his actions spurred her to speak on what had been bothering her for days.
“You were watching me.”
An indiscernible flicker of emotion passed across his face once more, his hold on her not loosening in the slightest. “It is polite to look at someone when you’re speaking to them, Granger. Proper etiquette and all that.”
“When the bludger hit you,” she clarified, this time catching his infinitesimal flinch. “You were watching me.”
“I wouldn–”
“I saw you. I heard Theodore yelling at you for nearly de-seating him and when I looked over you were staring at me. And you looked…I don’t know how to explain it, actually. I’ve never seen you look that way before. I’ve never seen you look at me that way. Why? What did you see?”
His lips pressed tightly together, eyes closing as he breathed out heavily through his nose. He’d seen her look at him that day, of course. Logically he knew she’d caught him eying her across the field. Still, he’d hoped she’d forgotten; that he wouldn’t have to explain. In fact, before he’d heard her voice, felt her hand flush against his, he’d hoped he’d have time to come up with a believable enough lie. Something signature Draco Malfoy, that no one could dispute, not even the infuriatingly arguable witch beside him now.
Instead, he’d foggily woken to what he could only assume was a dream, unabashedly flirting with the golden beauty he’d been dreaming of for nearly every night the last few months. Now that he had a better grasp of his mental barings, he silently cursed himself for anything he’d said.
He was heir to a legacy borne of elitist and old world politics; a former member of the most evil wizard’s army of his time. There was no world in which he deserved someone such as Hermione Granger.
“I saw a swotty witch, with unruly hair, sitting alone in the stands of the one place she literally has never excelled at and thus stood starkly out of place.” He bit back the rest of his words, though he’d allowed them to float across his mind if only to appease their release in some way: By which I mean I saw the most stunning witch awash in the midday sunlight, tendrils of bronze highlighted curls wisping across her infuriatingly delicate features that somehow spoke to my soul across the pitch. Eyes closed against the elements, heart silently calling for me to notice her in all her unknowingly gorgeous glory, stealing the very air from my lungs and the sense from my brain as I distractedly went through the motions of paying mind to my annoying best friend. A witch who didn’t know the power she held to command the attention she deserved, because no one had ever acknowledged it. A witch who deserved every bit of that attention; that I would happily spoil with it. A witch that, until that moment, I hadn’t fully accepted I ached for in ways that terrify me.
Hermione had never been quite as skilled with legilimency as she’d wished, but she found herself giving it a go anyway. She knew Draco wouldn’t tell her the truth and without veritaserum to force down his throat, she was out of options to get it. It was a small gamble she was sure she would lose, given his own gift at occlumency, but she truly had nothing to lose in that moment.
When she managed to hear his true, silent answer, she felt flushed by both it and the guilty happiness she momentarily felt for his slightly debilitating head injury. It’d worked in her favor in the most surprising of ways.
As she stared at him in slight awe, waiting for more, she realized he hadn’t even noticed she’d managed to slip into his mind.
For a moment, she wondered what else she could unknowingly get his confession to, but immediately banished the thought as immoral. Whatever else she was to learn, she wanted it to come up organically.
Even if she was currently and unconsciously beginning to lift off her seat and lean in towards him.
Draco’s breath stuttered in surprise, his head pushing back against the flat pillow beneath it as he stared up at her with rounded eyes.
Now that she knew what she was looking at, Hermione could see the attraction in the way his lips parted slightly, his jawline quivering before tensing abruptly; the way his eyes were beginning to darken with what she could only describe as need.
“Granger, are you ill?” His voice was quiet but she could hear the uncertain strain in it. She was faintly aware of the stream of questions rolling through his mind, but chose to ignore them.
“I’m much better than I have been in days, honestly,” she answered, causing his pale brows to draw down in confusion. She was still inching towards him, making her destination very clear despite her lack of words. Her eyes darted to his lips and he unconsciously licked them.
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s only proper to make eye contact when speaking with someone, Draco,” she repeated his answer with a mocking upturn of her own lips. She watched his adam’s apple bob harshly in reaction to her use of his first name again as he swallowed, the urge to suddenly bury her face in his neck and stay there for hours beginning to take root.
She wondered how his skin smelled that close, with nothing between her and it.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it, witch,” he nearly hissed.
“How would you say I’m looking at you?” The muscle in his jaw ticked as he stared at her in tense silence, unable to bring himself to answer. With the barest pressure of her own mind, she listened intently to his, surprised to find it just as silent but filled with a nervous uncertainty.
Instead, she pressed on aloud. “Would you say I’m looking at you like I’ve never seen you before? Like I’m silently calling out for you to notice me in a way that only you could? That I’m looking at you like I’m ready to fall?”
His pale brows scrunched in confusion before she watched them straighten out, his mouth falling slightly open as he breathed in in surprise. “You were in my head.”
“Was I?” she asked teasingly, unable to keep the small smile from her own lips. “What makes you say that?”
Draco stared at her searchingly, the silver of his eyes nearly entirely devoured by his dark pupils the longer he looked. He stayed silent so long Hermione worried she might’ve crossed a line or misread his thoughts for what they were.
She opened her mouth to speak again, a sound between a gasp and a squeal bursting from her throat as his one good hand suddenly broke free to wrap around the back of her neck, through her tangled curls to pull her close. Just a few inches separated them now, Hermione able to feel his warm breath on her lips and the stutter of her chest moving against his.
Even with almost no space between them, Draco’s eyes continued to scour her face for some response, always finding their way back to her lips. “Since you saw fit to invade my space, I figured turnabout is fair play, yeah?”
“I-I don’t know what you mean, Mal—“
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek. “Use my name. Please.”
“Dr-Draco?” she stuttered, watching his eyes flutter against his own cheekbones, making him seem in utter bliss despite the circumstances.
“Why are you here, Granger?” he asked slowly, keeping his eyes low like he was afraid to meet hers in case the answer wasn’t what he wanted. “Why did I wake up to find you? You hate me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” he laughed bitterly and she fought to pull back and glare at him but his hand was surprisingly strong, keeping her in place.
“No, it isn’t,” she insisted firmly. “I’d like to think we’ve become friends of sorts. Unless you don’t agree.”
His thumb stopped from where it was rubbing shivers across her skin, disappointment instantly filling her chest. “So you’re here as…my friend? Because you care for me…as a friend.” His grip on her neck began to slacken, jolting regret through body.
Her hand latched on to his wrist, keeping the hand pinned in place and meeting his eyes again as he opened them to her. “I thought so, at first, but…I don’t really know how to explain it. You fell and I just…I was terrified. For you. That you would…”
“Die?” he supplied and she winced. “Funny enough, I was worried about that too. Though it wasn’t so much that I would’ve died as it was that—“ he paused, licking his lips again as his eyes flicked to hers. “That I would’ve died without ever having done this.”
And then he yanked her to him, their lips crashing together, a surprised gasp coming from Hermione as she all but fell against him in the bed. Draco winced as she jostled against his injuries, but he refused to let her go.
He was finally kissing Hermione Granger, feeling her pressed into him, and if it meant feeling all of the pain of falling off his broom again he would agree to it in a heartbeat just for a repeat of this moment.
For someone caught off guard by his action, Draco noticed Hermione relax into him almost immediately, her hands scrambling just to hold her up enough not to put too much weight on him. But he wasn’t having it; he wanted to feel all of her, no matter what.
So his hand slid down her shoulder and back, pressing to the curve of her spine until she crashed against him more fully, his fingers pressing into her hungrily as he groaned contently into her mouth.
When Hermione finally moved to break their mouths apart, Draco was reluctant but let her put the space between them. His disappointment only tempered by the way she kept said space very minimal, propping herself on one elbow beside his ribs and looking at him with wide, wrecked eyes and beautifully swollen lips.
A smirk tugged at Draco’s face as he fought to hold it back.
“That was—you can’t just— Godric!” Hermione gasped and this time Draco did let the smirk spread.
“Actually, I’m Draco, love. I know my kiss can be mind altering but really—“
Hermione shot him a glare and he laughed, pressing his lips together to stifle it. She took a few, staggering breaths as she worked to calm herself, finally able to get her thoughts together a minute later. She eyed him warily and a nervous cold began to form in Draco’s gut.
“Well, now that you’ve done…that. I suppose that’s it, then.”
Draco stared at her, dumbfounded. “What?”
“You wanted to have done that before you died and now you have.”
“So, what? Are you telling me to drop dead?”
“Of course not!” Hermione screeched, appalled by the accusation.
“Then what do you mean, Granger? You aren’t making any sense.”
“I mean you got what you wanted from me and now that’s probably it! You’ll go on with recovery and school, acting as if it never happened. We’ll return to that odd, pseudo friendship—“
“Granger.”
“Or maybe you’ll realize you made a huge mistake.”
“Granger—“
“That for some gods awful reason you allowed yourself to taint yourself with the lips of a mudblood—“
“Hermione, enough!” His tone was off, his face turning red with a swarm of emotions she couldn’t decipher. But, for some reason, all she could focus on was that he’d called her Hermione. “You sound utterly ridiculous right now! And they call you the brightest witch of our age. I demand a re-poll on that.”
“I—“
“Shut. Up.” He curved his neck so his head raised up from the pillow, bringing his face just the barest brush away from hers as he spoke. Each word was deliberate, enunciated like he wanted to be sure to leave no doubt behind to them. “First off, don’t you ever call yourself that again, do you understand me? I fucking hate myself for all the times I used it and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lay here and let you do it. If anyone is tainting anyone here, it’s me tainting you. You’re too good for me, always have been and if all of this were to be done it would be because of that; because you realized what I’ve always known. Because make no mistake here, Granger, kissing you the once, is the least of all I want to do.”
“H-Hermione,” she stammered out.
“What?”
“Hermione,” she repeated. “You said Granger, but I’m pretty sure you meant to say Hermione again.”
“Again?” Draco gave her a slightly lost look before it dawned on him. He laughed. “I borderline admitted I want to spend the rest of my time exploring your body and the thing that caught your attention was my use—or lack there of—of your given name?”
“What can I say? I rather like the sound of it coming from your pratty lips.” She smiled cheekily at him, Draco sighing with a wave of relief as he pressed her down further, their foreheads resting against one another.
“Merlin, witch, you drive me absolutely mad, d’you know that?” He looked into her eyes, brushing his mouth softly against hers in warning. “In all the best ways.”
“Draco…”
“I’m going to kiss you again, Hermione,” he whispered against her mouth, sending delicious shivers across her skin. “I’m going to keep doing it until neither of us can breathe, passing out with you flush on top of me like this. And then when we wake up I’m going to do it all again and again until I can get out of this bloody infirmary and do all the other things with you I’ve wanted to do for gods knows how long. How does that sound coming from my ‘pratty lips,’ love?”
“Rather presumptuous, actually,” she breathed. “I’m a refined young lady, Draco, you can’t just have your way when and wherever you please.”
“I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” he chuckled, the vibrations rocking through his chest to her. “Allow me to make my first argument against you now.”
Finally, he pressed his lips against hers again, his tongue tracing against the curve of her bottom lip causing her to gasp open, allowing him in completely. The hand that had been clinging to his wrist slid down to his shoulder and rested on the pillow beneath his head, her fingertips brushing against the sensitive skin beneath his jaw and drawing another content sound from him.
She pulled back from him suddenly, finding amusement in the look of pained disappointment on his face. “I hope you don’t think this just makes me your girlfriend now,” she spoke tauntingly. “Falling to one’s near death does not a courting make, you know.”
“Of course not,” Draco replied flippantly, rolling his eyes as if she were delusional. “I have every intention of doing things properly. I plan on emptying my family’s vaults buying you book bouquets everyday for however long it takes.”
Hermione laughed, shaking her head and her rampant curls falling around them. “Great, so it isn’t my fault you’re in here but it will be my fault when your family is poor?”
“You win some, you lose some, Granger,” he smiled up brilliantly at her, curling a tendril of hair with his fingers. “Lucky for me, I get to win either way.”
With another firm tug, Draco brought her mouth back to his, working his hardest to keep it too busy to interrupt their moment again.