"I told you not to touch my quill," she hissed sharply.
Draco gave her a disgruntled look without turning his head to face her, as if he couldn't possibly dain to turn his head toward her. Prat, she thought bitterly.
It was completely unfair. She worked hard, focused on her classes, earned her O's, and this was what she got as a reward. Partnered with Draco Malfoy, of all people, in her potions class.
It truly was only because no one else was as competent as he was, not quite meeting her level of skill in the way that he did, and so he was logically the only choice of partner for her. As was so helpfully pointed out by Professor Slughorn.
It just sucked that he logically was also an annoying prick.
“I already told you, I forgot my quill in the charms room, and I am not walking that great distance in the middle of class simply because you have only child syndrome,” he sniffed haughtily.
She ground her jaw in irritation, setting her eyes again on the textbook page in front of them. The challenge was the early stages of brewing amortentia, and so far, as grating on her nerves as he had proved, he had also proved a… somewhat competent potions partner.
She just didn’t appreciate him getting his grubby paws all over her lovely quill. It was the tail feather of a peregrine falcon, not flashy, but beautiful in the way the light reflected off of the brown stripes, the feather having been treated with some combination of laminations to preserve the delicacy of the feather. It had been a gift from Ginny, a small trading of gifts for the beginning of the school year.
“If you ruin that, I will never forgive you for it, and I will make sure to tank your potions mark.”
“Oh, you wound me so, Granger,” he said, dripping in sarcasm, and he turned to face her as he placed his hand over his heart. His eyebrows even pinched together in mock hurt, and she thought that he might make a decent actor, if his stupid face wasn’t so pompous and arrogant and snobby.
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the textbook, ignoring his smirk of triumph at her clear annoyance, and proceeded to add the rose petals to the steadily brewing mixture. The class had been assigned the brewing of amortentia, which was as difficult as it was rewarding to brew. The potion usually took several months to brew, and so this was the class's next big assignment, to be marked when it was finished. She triple checked her textbook to reassure herself that their potion was the correct colour, a deep burgundy shade. The next step was to add the rose petals and stir counterclockwise 13 times, but the rose petals needed to be cut very precisely, and she didn’t trust Malfoy with something this important. She leaned across him to carefully inspect the petals, a few curls around her temple escaping her messy updo with her wand stuck through the knot, and begrudgingly found that they were exceptionally accurate. She grabbed the cutting board and scraped the roses into the potion, not needing to direct Malfoy to start stirring them in. The potion immediately bubbled and started to take on a glittery sheen, a faint smell of mint and something woody wafting from the cauldron. She took a deep breath and heard Malfoy do the same. Placing the cutting board on the desk and finishing this stage in their potion brewing, they heard Slughorn call attention to the front of the classroom.
“Alright, alright, potioneers, that will be enough for today! You should have reached the fourth step of the potion brewing process at this point, and the brew should have taken on a deep burgundy colour. I will be walking around to inspect each group's cauldron, and you will then place them to the side and clean up before you are dismissed.” And with that, he began to walk around the room, inspecting each group's concoction. As he approached their table, Hermione and Malfoy both stood eerily still, awaiting their mentors' approval.
“My! This looks absolutely perfect, exactly as it should at this stage in the brewing process. And it’s already starting to gain one of its most famous characteristics, its favourable scent. Well done! I made just the right choice, choosing to pair my two star pupils together, really was a stroke of genius…” he continued to mumble braggery to himself as he shuffled to the next table.
Hermione saw Malfoy roll his eyes from the corner of her vision, and secretly agreed. She began to pile their dirty dishes together while Malfoy moved the cauldron to the edge of the table, and she took the dishes to the sink. She walked by Neville and Seamus, who surprisingly hadn’t caused an explosion quite yet, and heard slughorn praising them as well.
“The colour is slightly off, a little bit pinker than it should be, and while it is lacking the shine, you both have made good progress today! Well done, boys.”
Hermione made a beeline for the nearest sink before anyone else could, not paying the surrounding students any mind. She dutifully washed the dishes they had used, as was her turn, pulling her wand out of her mane of hair to cast some helpful charms. Growing transfixed by the repetitive motions, she nearly missed when the class was dismissed, asked to write a page per group on the effects of rose petals in the potion. She hurriedly charmed the dishes to their proper places, and proceeded to speed-walk to the desk she and Malfoy shared, grabbing her bag and rushing out of the classroom without stopping. Malfoy called after her, but she didn’t slow her step.
“Granger! Fucks sake… Granger! Slow down, will you?”
She sighed and turned around to face him, his unfortunately large legs eating the distance between them, and asked, with no small amount of agitation, “Yes?”
“Would you like to write the page on rose petals, or shall I? I don’t mind, but I do have an essay to write on transfiguration, and McGonagall is really not fond of me at the moment—”
She cut off his rambling. “It’s fine, I’ll do it Malfoy, I don’t have any other homework at the moment. I just need to— Oh, for merlin's sake! Did you leave my quill in the classroom?”
He at least had the decency to look sheepish. She growled under her breath, and started to march off in the direction of the abandoned classroom. She very carefully did not fling the door open, and stomped towards her abandoned quill, weaving through the other tables to reach it.
“Look, Granger, I’m sorry for forgetting your quill,” He had to follow her? Gods, she thought. “I can write the page tonight, to make it up to you.”
It was actually a very nice gesture, from a not very nice man, but she had a hard time seeing that through all of the red. She turned around to face him, still stuck between other students desks, not quite having reached her quill. Why did no one tuck in their stools? She turned and poked a finger into his chest.
“No, I will do it, I don’t need—”
BANG! An explosion sounded from somewhere next to the two of them, effectively cutting off whatever deranged rant she was about to go on. It might have been a blessing, if not for the hot liquid that also splattered the two of them, scorching the skin of both of their faces, necks and hands. She cried out, both of them ducking down, and she almost didn’t notice Malfoy throw the side of his cloak and sleeve over the two of them, huddled together on the ground.
After a moment, her heart stopped pounding enough for her to begin to think, and she realised that in the dive downwards, she had put her arms around his neck, her cheek touching his neck. They were both covered in the hot liquid, so red it almost looked like blood, and it hurt. She pulled away quickly and they both stood up. He looked at the table beside them, where a potion had apparently exploded out of its cauldron. Seamus, she thought, and she cursed him silently. Malfoy grabbed a glass container of pomegranate juice left half open on the table, likely by Neville, and ran over to a sink to empty the contents, filling the bottle with water, and she followed, needing to cool her burning skin. They took turns pouring the water over their hands before he pulled out his wand to cast a cooling charm on her skin, and scourgify the both of them.
“Thank you,” she spoke quietly. He nodded absently, not looking her in the eyes.
She walked over to a nearby cabinet, searching, and grabbed a bottle of essence of dittany out of the wooden thing. Walking over to Malfoy, she applied a small amount to her hands before handing the bottle to him. “Sit,” she said, nodding with her head to the nearest stool.
He obliged without a word, and now that they were about at eye level, she began to apply the dittany to the burnt side of his face and neck. She tried to use gentle hands, but he still winced and air hissed through his teeth when she initially touched his cheek. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“We can’t tell anyone we came back in here, we could get in some serious trouble for being in this classroom alone after we were dismissed.”
“Why would we—? Oh…” she replied, a blush crawling up her neck, which only made the burn more intense. He seemed to notice when she clenched her jaw, taking the bottle from her hands and switching roles with her, gently dabbing the essence on her skin. She felt the effects immediately, the burning turning to a dull throb before subsiding completely. When he was finished, he seemed to pause, simply looking at her. She held his stare before clearing her throat, blushing through her quiet “Thank you.”
He moved away, placing the dittany in the cabinet before summoning both her quill and bookbag, which had somehow fallen to the ground during the small explosion. She took care of making it look as though the potion combustion hadn’t been interrupted by their bodies, leaving an even splatter mark all the way around. When the class returned tomorrow, they would see the aftermath of the poorly made potion and assume it had blown up sometime overnight. When she was finished, she turned around and walked toward the door, Malfoy falling into step next to her. He peeked out of the doorway, and once the coast was clear, they slipped out, locking the door behind them. They began to walk towards the staircase, both heading to the great hall for some much needed food, advancing in silence until he broke the silence with a quiet question.
“You don’t think we need to go to the infirmary, do we? I mean, a potion did explode on us, and an improperly made one at that.”
She let this rattle around in her head for a moment, before responding, “Do you feel any different?”
“No, not at all.”
“Me either. Plus, if we go to the infirmary, they’ll know we were in the classroom when we weren’t supposed to be.”
He nodded. “That settles it, then.”
“I guess it does,” she said with a shrug.
They reached the great hall and went to their respective tables for dinner, neither looking back.
~~~~~
“How are you feeling?”
The whisper broke through her reverie, bringing her back to the present, where Slughorn was lecturing them all about the importance of keeping integrity during potion making. She was feeling a bit warm that day, if she was being honest, but that was probably just her monthly making itself known a tad early. She turned her head to find Malfoy looking at her intently, surveying her face, eyes dancing from feature to feature. Her stomach swooped oddly at the question.
“I’m feeling normal, how are you?”
“Fine, just a bit itchy, but I may not have washed it off as thoroughly as I thought.”
She nodded as she checked back into Slughorn's lecture, catching the end of his rant as his face was turning a ruddy shade of red from his anger.
“—unacceptable! Seamus, I don’t know how, but your incorrect amount of rose petals combined with the unwarranted addition of pomegranate juice caused this mess!” He shook the empty juice bottle, which had been helpfully left on the table by Malfoy, where he had originally found it, still half empty. “This combination is dangerous! And adding the juice to try to trick me and change the colour of the potion! The pomegranate addition acts as an aphrodisiac, how could you be so careless!? You could have dosed someone with a lust potion, and thank the gods that no one was in the classroom when this exploded!”
A cold washed over Hermione, somehow still not abating that overly warm. She turned her head slightly to look at Malfoy, who had gone white as a sheet, which was impressive, given how pale he already was. He looked at her and they stood like that, dread and apprehension on their faces, sharing in this worry that only they could know of.
The rest of the class passed in a blur of tugging on her collar, Slughorn deciding to have the class read a chapter on the integrity of potion-making and its importance, overseeing Neville and Seamus as they re-brewed their amortentia potion. When Slughorn dismissed the class, he assigned no one homework, except for Neville and Seamus, who were given instructions to write three pages on the potion-making integrity. Hermione fled the class quickly, needing to escape Malfoy and his ever-pressing stare.
~~~
‘The addition of an aphrodisiac, such as oysters, into amortentia, brings a new lust-like quality to the potion. In some cases, it can turn the potion into only a list potion, when the original amortentia brew is not made correctly. Depending on what is done incorrectly, the potion can be fast acting, or a slow burning sensation, building until the lust is satiated. This can be done by anyone, but in rare cases, the potion can cause an imprint of sorts, and only this imprinted person can be the one to satiate this growing lust.’
Hermione slammed the book shut, and then promptly slapped her forehead on the book, cuddled up in her small, cushioned window alcove as she was. She had been in the library for little under an hour, and this was the first and most unhelpful passage she’d found on the potion that she had been splattered with.
“The book giving you a hard time, Granger?”
And somehow her frustration increased tenfold, almost as if by magic. But no, it was just Malfoy. She sat up and slouched in her seat, glaring at him. In this far corner of the library, where even the light seemed wary to travel too far, she was almost surprised he’d been able to find her. Almost.
“Let me guess… is this the first time you’ve not been able to find an answer in a book?” he said, sounding almost teasing as he sat down in her tiny alcove. She handed over the book, opening it up and pointing at the passage she’d just read. The dim candle light from further in the library paired with the tinted blue light coming in through the stained glass window behind him cast an interesting contrast on his person, his hair taking on different hues from the front and back. She watched as his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, his mouth forming a hard line and his jaw ticking the further down the passage he read. She almost thought he looked… handsome, but it must’ve been the dim lighting, the way his hair looked so soft. When he finished, he looked up sharply, startling Hermione out of her strange musing, and she met his intense eyes with widened ones of her own.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” He questioned.
She bit her lip and looked away, down at her lap. “I think so… we made skin to skin contact after we’d been covered in the potion.” She looked up at him to gauge his reaction. He was still looking at her, intensely, and it made her skin start to spark with a foreign, faint feeling. He took a deep, steadying breath.
“Are you already starting to feel it?”
She hesitated. “I… I think so. Are you?”
He nodded wordlessly, still not breaking eye contact. “What do you feel?”
“I feel… warmth. Like I’m overly warm. But no matter what I do, it’s like it’s under my skin, it won’t go away. And I’m thinking odd things, things that are out of character for me.”
He nodded again. “My skin is… itchy, in a way. That’s the best way to describe it. But I don’t need to scratch my skin, it’s like it’s inside of me, and no amount of scratching it will make it go away. And…” He stopped himself.
“What?” she asked.
“You just smell really good,” he muttered, finally looking away from her. She blushed, muddling over that.
“You do, too.”
And they sat in silence, musing over what they’d said, and what they hadn’t, until the clocktower bell signalled the 11th hour. They both stood, Hermione placing the book back where she found it on the way out, and both turned to head to their respective dorms. As she turned, she almost didn’t hear his quiet, “Goodnight.”
~~~~
She was sweating. She was strained. He just smelled so good.
Slughorn was announcing instructions at the front of the classroom, explaining the class’s next steps in the brewing of their potion. Malfoy sat next to her, bouncing his leg and causing vibrations to move through the table, spiking her annoyance. She tried to take calming breaths, but that just invited his scent in, something woody, mixed with peppermint and something else… but it was just faint enough that subtly breathing through her mouth proved to block it. As the class got up to continue with their potions, Malfoy ran a hand through his hair, and loosened his tie in distracted movements. Ignoring him, she hurried over to the cabinet to grab the crushed pearl powder from the stores, and they got to work prepping and heating and measuring. She swung her hair into a large knot on her head, secured with her wand, and had to remove her outer robes. Malfoy seemed distracted and agitated for the majority of the work period, but even though he was clearly not at his best, he still proved to be an excellent potions partner.
Slughorn called out to the class near the end of the period that he would be walking over to inspect the potions, and that while the colour should be a light mauve, they should also be able to smell the potion at this stage. She was excited, eager to enjoy the pleasant scents from the potion after such an agitating class.
After being inspected and praised for their “outstanding work,” and the classroom was sent into a flurry of motion as students tried to clean up quickly, Hermione leaned in to smell the potion. She got a whiff of wood, and peppermint, and… wait a minute.
“Malfoy!” She hissed over her shoulder, where he stood, seemingly transfixed by an escaped curl. “Get away, I can’t smell the potion over your gods damned cologne. It’s your turn to wash, anyways,” she shooed him away as she turned back to the potion. Once saw him retreating to the sinks, she began her pursuit of the pleasant smells, and she was met with… Malfoy again. Damn it!
“Malfoy, I told you to—” she cut herself off as she turned around and did not see him standing behind her. She spied him at the sinks, dutifully washing the dishes, sleeved rolled up and hair messy in a way that was… her face paled. She quickly tidied their desk, grabbed her bag and fled as soon as she was able, successfully avoiding having to speak with him after her disastrous amortentia scenting.
~~~~
She was in the same alcove as the night before when he wordlessly sat down next to her. She had taken her woollen stockings off, undone her tie, and taken her outer robes off. She felt like she was burning up, her cheeks flushed with a slight tint of red. Malfoy wasn’t in a much better state, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, tie and robes also abandoned, and his hair a mess. He seemed to open and close his mouth several times, both of them facing the bookshelves opposite the private alcove, before he took a deep breath and turned to face her.
“I want to try something small, if you’re okay with it,” he spoke with no small amount of apprehension.
She immediately turned sceptical. “Like what?”
He blushed slightly, running his hand through his hair again. “Like… holding your hand.”
She looked at him, a blank expression on her face. She spoke slowly. “You want to… hold my hand?”
“Yes…?” She continued to look at him blankly.
“You know what, just forget it, forget I ever said—”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
He turned to her, seemingly surprised and relieved she didn’t run screaming out of the library. He shifted in his seat so that he turned to face her, and she did the same, tucking her legs to the side. He held his left hand out in between them, the back of it lying on the soft cushion. He had long fingers, she noticed, and a silver ring rested on his pinky finger. She moved slowly, placing her right hand in his, her hand looking tan and bronzed in his pale one. The second their skin touched, she gasped, and they both hunched forward as if the wind had been sucked out of them. The relief was instant, the burning beneath her skin ebbing and fading, and the flush that had stained his cheeks seemed to seep away. She straightened a little, as did he, but they remained closer than they had been. The relief she felt was substantial, and she hadn’t realised how warm she was. She shivered with the sheer delight of the feeling, and his shoulders seemed to loosen monumentally, the tension leaving.
They stayed like that for several minutes, both staring at their intertwined hands, until he started to gently move his thumb over her smaller hand in his. They stayed like this for a few minutes more, Hermione feeling a lulled relaxation, before she started to feel something different. It was slow, so slow, that at first she did not realise it. But it was surely there, and it steadily grew. There was a growing heat in her, hotter than before, and in a different place. It wasn’t under her skin this time, but lower, focused. She chanced a glance at him, and found him looking at her in much the same manner she felt, with lowered lids and lips slightly agape. She saw the same heat that she felt, deep in her stomach, reflected in his eyes. And so she didn’t think twice when she leaned in and took his lips between hers. She slotted her mouth gently against his and brushed them, ever so gently, before pausing, realising what she was doing, who she was kissing. She pulled back so that she could see him, her eyes widening.
And then he was leaning in, taking her lips firmly between his own, his hands coming up to tangle in her hair. She gasped when she felt his cold ring against her sensitive neck, and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth. This sparked a frenzy in her, and she reached for him, pulling herself closer until they were knee to knee. Her hands ran up to his hair, one on his neck and cupping his oh-so sharp jaw, the other tangling in his blonde locks.
He was like a man starved, gorging himself on her, and his kisses were not gentle and soft, but hard and passionate. His hands moved down, over her waist and hips, to her thighs, where grabbed them in his big hands and pulled her onto his lap. She squeaked at the sudden tug, and then she was straddling him. She didn’t have a moment to think, though, before his mouth moved from her lips to her jaw to her neck, sucking on that sensitive spot that made her mind go blank. His hands rubbed the sides of her thighs, gripping and squeezing roughly, before they slowly started to inch up. He reached the hem of her skirt, and he whispered roughly in her ear, “Okay?”
She nodded, unable to make her mouth form the words, and his hands moved further up still, pushing her skirt up. She moved her hands to his shoulders to his chest to his biceps, feeling the hard muscle there, and a soft moan escaped her when he grabbed her ass roughly and pulled her firmly against him. She felt him everywhere, the fire in her growing, and she started to shift her hips against him, searching for friction. She felt him big and hard beneath her, and his breath hissed in her ear before he started to mouth and nip at her neck. She snuck one hand under his shirt and used the other to pull his face back to hers. She kissed him as he moved one hand to her blouse, unbuttoning her top expertly, while his other hand kept kneading her behind, still guiding her hips into a rhythm.
She breathed a soft sigh when his hand snuck under her bra, cupping her breast and squeezing, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. His hand moved from her ass to her front, under her skirt and to her underwear. “This okay?” he asked with gravel in his voice. She nodded jerkily, and he licked his fingers before ducking past her underwear. He pulled back to look her in the eye, both of theirs heavy-lidded with desire, as he began to circle her clit, her hips jumping forward as the sensations shocked her core. When his fingers dipped lower still, and pushed into her, she moaned, starting to grind into his hand. He pumped his fingers in and out, and she threw her head back, the feeling too much for her to bear. He continued pumping his fingers as he leaned forward and mouthed at her neck, licking and nipping as he moved down, and when he reached her breast and started sucking on the top, she moaned again. His answering groan went straight to her core. He continued to pump, and when his thumb reached up and began to press on her clit, she felt her orgasm start to build up. “Just like that,” she said in a breathy voice, and her breathing came in harsh pants. He moved her through it, his other hand back on her hip and guiding her to grind into his hand, and she came with a low, deep moan, which he swallowed with a fierce kiss. His fingers were still lazily pumping her through her orgasm when she crumpled forward into his chest, exhausted and still pulsing inside.
He moved his fingers from her, pulling her skirt over her backside and holding her to him, letting her come down while he stroked her hair and peppered light kisses to her neck, not saying a word. They stayed like this for a few minutes as her legs stopped feeling like jelly and her heart rate lowered.
She sat up and looked him in the eye, searching. His hands were on her hips now, she was still straddling him, and he looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever she was going to say. Instead of saying a word, she leaned forward slowly, and kissed him again. He immediately deepened the kiss, and she moved her hands all over his torso, massaging the muscles there. His hands moved back to her ass, under her skirt, and her hands started to move lower, lower still. She cupped him from the outside of his trousers, massaging, and he let out a harsh breath, kissing her more fiercely. She moved to unbutton his trousers, and took him in her hand, pulling his cock out. She pulled away to spit on it, and when she started to stroke him, he groaned and dropped his head onto her shoulder. She continued to pump him while his breathing grew heavier, kissing and mouthing his neck, before she tugged on his earlobe with her teeth. “Do you want to fuck me?” She whispered huskily in his ear.
He sat up straight, looked her in the eyes for a moment, before nodding and kissing her. He grabbed her wrist, still stroking him, and pulled her hand away, before he started to push her backwards on the cushion, until she was lying on her back and he was above her. He made quick work of the rest of the buttons on her shirt, pulling it wide open and yanking her bra down to her belly button, her nipples hardening at the cooler air. He pulled her skirt up higher as he leaned down and licked her nipples, scraping his teeth on them in a way that made her shiver. He kissed his way up her chest and throat, until he was above her face, looking her in the eyes. He cast a quick contraception charm on her stomach before tossing his wand somewhere behind him, rubbing himself along her folds and lining himself up at her entrance. He looked at her questioningly, pausing, waiting for permission. She groaned and shifted her hips, trying to pull him into her, and he chuckled. “So eager,” he said in a low voice.
He started to push in, using one hand to keep himself lined up and the other to push her left leg higher, stretching her open. He slowly moved in and out, pushing in a little more each time, a slow process before she shifted forward and took him all in. He bottomed out in her, and she moaned at the stretch while he groaned at the sensation. His hand stayed on her leg while the other moved beneath her to cup her ass, and he started to move inside her. It was a slow rhythm at first, but he quickly set a fast, punishing pace. The slapping sounds made between them were crude, at best. He leaned down to kiss her, and she moaned at the change in angle. When he pulled back, he watched her breasts bounce as he fucked her, hard and fast, his pace becoming sloppier the more he continued. He moved her leg so that her legs were locked behind his back, and he moved his hand down to her clit, pressing in firm, fast circles. She moaned and arched, the sensation too much, and still building. She felt her orgasm growing again, quick and sudden, and cried out loudly before he covered her mouth with his hand and fucked her through her orgasms. After a couple more thrusts, as she pulsed around him, he bottomed out in her and came with a low groan, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.
They stayed like that for a long moment, both coming down from their highs, before he pulled out of her, helped her sit up gingerly, and grabbed his robe to cover her exposed body. He pulled her to him on the alcove cushion, placing her in his lap, and they stayed like that, in the afterglow of their orgasms, until the bell chimed 1 in the morning. They gathered their things, and walked to the big library doors, albeit slowly when Draco slowed his pace to match hers.
She was sore, in a good way, but she would not be running at all that night. Draco peaked out the large library doors, wincing when they creaked as they slipped through, and started to walk towards where they would part ways. Hermione felt increasingly awkward as she realised she didn’t know what to say to him, or how she was supposed to treat him. When they stopped and turned to face each other, she opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t really sure what, but he interrupted her quite rudely with a kiss. It was softer, no less passionate, but gentler, and it made her head spin. When he pulled away, leaving her breathless, he said, “Maybe I’ll find you in the library again sometime.”
She couldn’t help the small smile that came to her face. “Maybe.”
He smirked, tucking her hair behind her ear, and said, “We’ll see how many times I can make you come next time.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock, and her cheeks flamed as he laughed at her reaction.
“Goodnight, Granger.”
She rolled her eyes, but she smiled. “Goodnight, Malfoy.”