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Hermione’s heart hammered in her chest as she made her way down to the lacrosse field, the sun already setting. Sometimes, the beauty of Godric’s Hollow stopped Hermione in her tracks and forced her to take a second. The green, sloping fields; the distant forest; the way the sunset drenched the landscape in a glowing, amber light – an image mirrored on the hundreds of landscape oil paintings that hung around the school.
It was easy to see where the artists had gotten their inspiration from.
She had skipped dinner last night after finding Pansy and had gone straight to the dorm. She should have been exhausted after a weekend of study, but she tossed and turned until the early hours, her head reeling with all that Pansy had said.
That morning, as she had walked to her first class of the week, she wondered how Malfoy would react to seeing her. Would he go back to glaring and throwing daggers at a distance, or would he…
She wasn’t even sure what the alternative was, whether Friday night had altered their relationship for good or whether it was an intermission of sorts, unrelated to the main play.
However, as she opened the classroom door and skimmed the heads of all the students already seated, she failed to spot him.
In fact, he continued to be absent for the rest of the day, both in class and at mealtimes. Hermione couldn’t help scoping every room that she walked into, her eyes quickly sweeping it for a platinum blonde head sat at a desk. She also couldn’t help the swell of disappointment at the realisation that he was, yet again, missing.
“Are you okay?” Theo had asked that afternoon during Latin, their last class, after the third time that she had turned around at the sound of a door opening. She let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding when someone other than Malfoy walked into the room.
“Of course,” she had said, turning back to Theo and plastering a smile on her face.
“Are you coming to the game tonight? Against Ravenswood?”
It was a big game, the biggest of the season. Although Hermione had no interest in school lacrosse, or the sport in general, she had said that she’d be there.
What she didn’t say was, she wouldn’t be going for Theo.
Her loafers squelched as she walked, the grass turned to mud by all the feet that had trodden their way to the lacrosse field before her.
She made her way to the stand and, as instructed by Theo, walked through the front row until she spotted an empty seat with a little folded piece of paper on it. Hermione, read Theo’s impeccably neat script. She pocketed the note as she sat down but didn’t open it.
The bleachers roared as the Godric’s Hollow and Ravenswood teams spilled out onto the field like different coloured marble – the Godric’s Hollow players wearing green; the Ravenswood players wearing purple.
Hermione leaned forward in her seat, her eyes narrowed as she scanned the players from a distance.
Her heart skipped a beat when she spotted Malfoy.
He was walking across the field with his back turned to the seats, to his position in the centre. He looked, as far as she could tell, entirely normal. The feeling of worry that had been lodged inside Hermione’s gut all day started to dissipate.
She wasn’t even sure why she had been worried in the first place.
~
As lacrosse games go, this one was as eventful as most. Hermione had to keep asking the Ravenswood supporter sitting to her right to explain the rules whenever the referee pulled out a coloured card or something happened that landed outside the scope of her extremely limited lacrosse knowledge. By the fifth time that Hermione had tapped the boy’s shoulder to ask another innocuous question about the game, he looked just about ready to kill her.
Hermione, however, barely noticed his side-eye glare; she was too absorbed in the game or, more accurately, on one player in particular.
Even when the action seemed to be happening on the Ravenswood end of the field, with different players, her eyes were still, like magnets, drawn to Malfoy’s figure. She watched the way he ran, the way he swung at the ball with deadly precision, sending it soaring into the centre of the other team’s net. She watched the way his chest rose and fell, the way he pushed his sweat-slicked hair out of his face. She watched the way he concentrated on the game, ignoring the deafening cheers rising from the stand, unlike some of the other players who periodically stopped and waved to the crowd.
She found herself holding her breath whenever things looked to be getting too physical on the field. The one time a Ravenswood player got too close to Malfoy, his legs looking like they were about to kick the blonde boy’s out from underneath him, she slid to the edge of her seat. She didn’t realise how hard she’d been gripping the steel underneath her until the threat of injury abated and she loosened her grip, her fingers aching.
She didn’t even notice Theo.
~
“Damnit,” the boy sitting next to her hissed, taking off his purple scarf and throwing it to the ground when the final score was announced. The crowd around Hermione erupted in a sea of green as students rose in their seats, cheering. Hats and supporter signs were thrown into the air.
Hermione grinned and clapped with the rest of the school; it was impossible to remain unaffected by the infectious atmosphere of victory.
She spotted a sweat-soaked Theo running in her direction. He stopped right by the barrier in front of her seat and leaned on it. “What’d you think?” he asked excitedly, out of breath and panting.
“Good,” she said lamely. “I liked it.”
She knew that she had been awkward with him all day, but she couldn’t help the wall of apprehension that had been slowly building between herself and her date to the ball. Malfoy’s warning and Pansy’s confession played in her head as she looked at Theo, who grinning at her, unaware.
Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Malfoy walking leisurely to the stands, his chest rising and falling. Theo was saying something to her—about her plans after the game?—but she hardly heard him.
She held her breath as Malfoy walked towards them. The noise of the crowd, Theo – it all disappeared into the background as she watched him approach the stand. His face looked blank, devoid of all emotion. She watched as he made his way to someone sitting a few seats down from where she sat. As if in slow motion, she watched as he leaned over the barrier…
And kissed Daphne Greengrass on the mouth.
~
Hermione stood with her back to the outside of the changing room, facing the field. The lights that had been lit halfway through the game had been shut off; the crowd had long ago dispersed. She could hear herself breathing in the quiet, the rise and fall of her chest more rapid that it usually was. If anyone asked what she was still doing there, she’d say that she was waiting for Theo.
But Theo had long gone back up to the school.
She closed her eyes, listened to the chirping of the crickets for another minute. She let out the breath that she had been holding, and then turned and stormed into the boys’ locker room before her nerve failed her.
Inside, she was met with the steam coming from a shower that was still going, the condensation seeping into the locker room through the half-open door leading into the bathroom.
She knew who it was – the only other person still lingering. She had carefully kept tabs on everyone who came and went into the building after the game had ended, her vision sharpened to laser precision by what she had witnessed earlier. She didn’t want to admit exactly what feeling the sight had elicited, but it was hard to keep her breathing even, her hands still.
She shook the image out of her head.
“Congrats on your win,” she called out, standing in the middle of locker room. The shower immediately shut off.
A pause, within which Hermione had time to wonder if what she was doing was insane.
“Granger?”
“You played well, Malfoy. Nice end of game display, too.” She tried to keep her voice casual, but it was edged with a malice that she didn’t know she possessed.
She could hear the shower door opening, the rustle of a towel. She shook her head again, this time to get a different image out of her head.
Malfoy emerged from the bathroom, wearing a pair of grey sweatpants. Droplets of water still clung to his alabaster skin, his bare chest.
Her breath froze in her throat. All the witty comebacks, everything that she had planned on saying vanished from her mind, like a blackboard wiped clean by an eraser.
“What,” he said, slowly taking a step towards her, “are you doing here?”
“What were you doing earlier?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t even like her! You said so yourself!” she exploded, giving up on containing her rage. “She’s an awful, horrible, human being. Did you forget what she did to me at Pansy’s?”
“Ahh,” said Malfoy, still walking towards her. “This is about Daphne.”
Hermione shook her head, incredulous. “No shit, Sherlock. Were you locking lips with anyone else after the game?”
“I may have been. It wouldn’t be any of your concern anyhow, Granger.”
“You’re a pathetic little rich boy with no backbone and no ability to think for yourself,” she spat, landing on the first insult that her rattled mind could conjure.
Malfoy leaned down. He was so close now that she could have reached over and touched his chest.
“And you’re an equally pathetic little social climber who will do anything to achieve your goal.”
Hermione spluttered. “What did you just call me?”
“I told you that Theo was bad news but, let me guess, you’re still going to the ball with him?”
“I-I haven’t decided yet,” said Hermione, crossing her arms. “You haven’t given me any evidence.”
“Evidence? Who’s the fucking detective now?”
“Yes, Malfoy, evidence,” she said spitefully. “So that I can figure out for myself whether he’s bad news or not.” She stood on her tiptoes, trying to level her eyes with his. “A concept that you,” she poked him hard in the chest, “may not be familiar with.”
Malfoy leaned down, his nose nearly brushing Hermione’s. They were so close now that they were rapidly exchanging the same air. He held her narrowed eyes, his mouth twisting in rage.
“Fuck…you,” he breathed.
And then he smashed his lips against hers.