Regret
Hermione gasped as his lips landed on hers with a force that made her stagger back. His closed mouth pressed hard against hers, unyielding. It was an angry kiss, a turbulent kiss. Malfoy kissed her as if he didn’t want to, as if he had something to prove.
Hermione was frozen in place, unable to breathe, unable to think. She could barely register the fact that Draco Malfoy was kissing her—if you could call it that—in an empty locker room on a deserted lacrosse field, long after the stadium lights had gone out.
Then, as suddenly as a storm cloud passes over a sea, his lips softened. He stopped pushing his mouth against hers and started, instead, to gently, softly, move his lips.
It took her frazzled brain a few seconds to realise that Malfoy had begun kissing her in earnest.
She pushed against him and wrenched herself away, as suddenly as he had first crashed his lips against hers.
“What,” she gasped, “was that?”
Malfoy looked down at her hand, at the palm that was pressed on his bare chest. He was slightly breathless, staring at the half-an-arm’s length of distance between them.
“I don’t know” he muttered, then raised his eyes to meet hers. His brows were furrowed, his pupils were wide. As he stared at her, panic began to brew behind his gray eyes.
Blue, she thought in a haze. He’s got some blue in his eyes. She had been engaged in many a staring contest with Malfoy over the past few weeks but had never noticed the streaks of blue running through the gray before.
She was beginning to feel lightheaded.
Malfoy's eyes dropped to her lips and something like resolve hardened behind them. “Fuck it,” he breathed and leaned in again.
She locked her elbow, stopping him mid-motion. Her hand shook and her fingers were slightly clammy on his bare chest, which was rising and falling underneath her palm. She felt like Sisyphus on that eternal mountain, pushing on a weight that she longed to let fall on her.
“We can’t be doing this,” she said quietly, painfully aware of the fact that his lips were only inches away.
She looked at him, at his gray eyes that weren’t really gray, at his full, slightly parted lips, at the light blush that coloured the high points of his cheekbones. He looked almost like he had on the night of Pansy’s 18th – inebriated, tipsy, drunk.
As Hermione stared at him she saw herself reflected in his eyes - she didn’t look so different herself.
Her arm faltered and that was all the signal that he needed.
Before Hermione knew it her back was against a locker, the metal seeping the warmth from her skin. By contrast, Malfoy’s chest was pressed hard against her, hot to the touch.
If the first kiss was unexpected, then this one was urgent. Malfoy kissed her with an intensity that made her skin smoulder, that drew all the air out of her lungs and replaced it with helium. She felt lightheaded, like she was floating.
The first kiss was a wade into the shallows, a test to see how cold the water was; the second was a plunge into the deep end.
Hermione found herself thawing, blooming like a moonflower in the evening. Her body sped ahead of her brain, which still couldn’t comprehend the situation in its entirety, and her eyes fluttered closed as she relaxed into the welcome heat of his body and melted into the kiss.
A small part of her brain, the part that hadn’t yet thrown its hat in, was screaming at her. It told her to push him away again, to stand her ground and tell him what an arsehole he was, once and for all. It told her to stop entertaining whatever this was and make her way back to the safety of her dorm, where Ginny and her books and everything that she knew and loved awaited.
But the other part…that part was quickly surrendering to the feel of Malfoy’s soft lips, his warm skin, his hips pressed hard against hers.
It didn’t matter if this meant nothing, if Malfoy was just experiencing post-game euphoria and she happened to be in the firing-line. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t the first girl that he had kissed that evening. It didn’t even matter that he was the worst kind of person to be doing this with—that she was going to the ball with his supposed best friend, that she still couldn’t figure him out. All that mattered was that his body was pressed against hers, that his hand was on her waist with his other hand cradling her face, his long fingers sliding into her hair.
Hermione sighed and her body slackened against the locker. She raised her hand from where it hung limply on her side and grazed his waist with her fingertips. She hooked a single finger into the waistband of his sweatpants and pulled him closer.
He groaned and angled her face, deepening the kiss.
It was only when their mouths parted, when the tip of her tongue met his, that her brain finally caught up to her body and she fully clocked the situation at hand.
Draco Malfoy was kissing her. And she was kissing him back.
CRASH.
The sound of a door banging open threw them apart. Malfoy wrenched himself back and Hermione straightened up, adrenaline now coursing through her body, alongside whatever chemical kissing Malfoy had produced. They both stared at the open door leading out of the locker room and into the entry hallway of the building, where the slam had come from, breathing as if they’d just finished a marathon.
“It’s probably just the janitor,” said Malfoy in a low, slightly raspy voice, his eyes trained on the door while his chest rapidly rose and fell.
Hermione wiped her mouth. Malfoy glanced back at her. Suddenly, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room.
They stared at each other. The silence between them was, in that moment, the loudest thing in the world.
Hermione looked down at her mud stained loafers. She could feel a flush creeping up her neck and into her face. She felt hot all over. What the fuck had just happened?
“Grang–”
“I have to go,” she gasped and pushed her way past Malfoy, unable to look him in the eyes as she hurried out of the room.
~
When Hermione woke up the next morning she could’ve danced. It was Tuesday – the only day on which she didn’t share any classes with Malfoy.
She got ready that morning as she usually did, and tried to not pay attention to her lips, which looked unusually full. She shook her head as unbidden images sprang to her mind – unwelcome, distracting, and stupid, stupid, stupid.
Although she didn’t have any classes with him, mealtimes in the dining hall were still a problem, albeit one that was easily solved by Hermione asking Ginny to sneak something from the dining hall for her, under the guise of being too busy with her final essays to go to the dining hall during breaks. If Ginny was suspicious of anything she didn’t let on, faithfully bringing Hermione sandwiches crumpled inside of dining hall napkins to the library, where Hermione hid during mealtimes.
She kept her head down in the hallways as she moved from class to class, anxious to blend in and become the invisible girl she was when she first started at Godric’s Hollow Grammar. Her heart rate spiked at any sighting of blonde hair and quickly plummeted when she realised that it wasn’t him. She both longed and dreaded to see him, but had no idea what he would do, what he would say if they ran into each other. On the inverse, wasn’t sure how she herself would react. Hermione wondered, vaguely, if it would be possible to avoid him for the rest of the school year.
She went through her day as if stuck in smog, inside of a dream – everything around her seemed to be either sped up or slowed down. Voices seemed distorted and had a hard time reaching her. For the first time since starting at GHG she was told to pay attention in class.
She thought that she had gotten away with it when the end of day neared with not a single Malfoy sighting. She had only just dared to breathe a sigh of relief, walking from the library back to the 8th Year Girls Dorm when she noticed that the castle lamps had already been lit. She paused, checked the time, then rushed to the nearest window.
Her eyes anxiously scanned the sky for a full circle, a slight crescent, anything, but the evening sky was clear and dark.
Hermione groaned out loud at the confirmation of the moon’s absence, earning some indignant looks from passing students.
A new moon meant only one thing: Astronomy, the only other class besides Latin that she shared with the person she had been trying so hard all day to avoid.
~
Astronomy at Godric’s Hollow Grammar was a class that was held once a month on the regular, although surprise lessons were sometimes held to observe rare astrological phenomena or celestial events, if one was scheduled to occur. Due to the class’s infrequency, some students who’d signed up for the class forgot to turn up on the eve of the new moon. Although missing pupils were rare due to GHG’s high calibre of students, Hermione prayed that one person in particular would forget about the lesson that night.
Astronomy required for the sky to be clear and dark, with minimal light pollution, so the lesson was also held at an irregular time. It occurred to Hermione that Astronomy was more of a school club than bona fide class.
As the small group filed into GHG’s tallest turret at a quarter to 10 that evening, Hermione had the strangest sensation that the entire day had not occurred. It was as if she had just woken up and now had to start all over again, with the stress of not knowing whether she might see Malfoy, the anxiety of being face-to-face with him after last night.
The only consolation was that instead of having to endure the whole day again, she would simply have to endure the next 60 minutes.
The Astronomy room was less of a classroom and more of a circular lookout, with its rows of chairs and tables placed under an open sky, and surrounded by thick, brick parapets built at regular intervals on the outer wall of the lookout.
Hermione sat in a seat closest to the front, the desk furthest away from the door. The sky was pitch black by the time that Professor Sinistra began the lesson. Only their small oil desk lamps and the light given by the stars overhead allowed them to see their notebooks.
Hermione kept her head down in the dark, like an ostrich burying its beak in the sand at any sign of danger. Ten, fifteen minutes passed and the lesson went by without interruption. No one sat next to Hermione, and she began to relax, to slowly draw her head out of the ground.
Then – “Ahh, Mr Malfoy, nice of you to join us,” said Professor Sinistra, turning away from the notes that she was writing on the board to welcome the latest student. Her sarcastic expression was lit up by the oil lamp which she was holding.
Hermione thought her heart might stop. She shrank into her seat as Sinistra scanned the room.
“You can sit next to Ms. Granger, here at the front.”
Hermione’s heart started back up, skipped a beat, and then shot straight to the back of her throat.
She remembered reading somewhere that when one loses a sense, the other senses pick up the slack to compensate. Like how a blind man might hear better, or a deaf woman might develop razor-sharp eyesight.
Hermione could now verify the phenomenon.
As Malfoy took his seat next to hers, she felt as if all her senses were alive, mapping out his proximity, his nearness, since her eyes could not. She heard him draw back the chair to her right, heard its harsh scrape against the stone floor. She smelt his cologne, a mix of sandalwood and smoke and something fresh and slightly sharp, like citrus or green apples – a scent that she hadn’t quite noticed before.
She felt his elbow graze against her as he settled into his seat. It was a warm evening, but all the hairs on her arms stood up and goosebumps spread across her flesh.
She drew her arms close to her sides and shuddered. Malfoy remained where he was, his face stony in the warm glow of the oil lamp, staring with unparalleled concentration at the board in front of them.
For 15 minutes, Hermione sat frozen in her seat, doing her best to focus on Professor Sinistra’s lecture.
“Scorpius is one of the oldest constellations recognised by humans. It depicts a dragon, or a scorpion, and is located in the Southern celestial hemisphere, between Libra and Sagittarius. According to some astronomers, Scorpius is the constellation most faithfully rendered in the sky, meaning that there is a good chance that you will be able to spot it tonight, especially given that it’s summer.”
Hermione jotted down Scorpius in her notebook.
“Some non-Astronomical trivia for you: in Greek mythology, Scorpius was the scorpion that stung Orion the Hunter to death. We haven’t learnt about Orion yet, as it’s a constellation most visible in winter, but know that it’s bordered by Taurus to the northwest and Eridanus to the southwest. Now,” Sinistra clapped her hands together, “I want you, with your desk partners, to have a go at spotting Scorpius in the sky.”
The class erupted into talk and chairs scraped all around them as students got out of their seats and made their way to the telescopes placed in between the parapets on the lookout. After a second’s delay, Hermione and Malfoy, too, got out of their seats, both doing their best to avoid looking or acknowledging the other.
Hermione got to a telescope first and started setting it up, fiddling with the adjustments so as to not look at him. “There’s a couple missing people today,” she said, trying hard to keep her tone neutral, “you might be able to find a spare.”
“It’s a partnered activity, Granger.”
Hermione pressed her lips together, already pissed. The feeling of not knowing where they stood was giving her vertigo. It was a confusing, disorienting feeling, made worse by her reluctance to admit her own feelings to herself.
So she kept on adjusting the telescope, ignoring the blonde boy standing to her right.
“My father wanted to name me Scorpius when I was born,” said Malfoy after a few minutes of silence. Hermione looked away from the eyepiece of the telescope. Malfoy was gazing out across the school grounds in thought, his eyes trained on something in the distance. “Mother insisted on Draco, though. She said that Scorpius could be my middle name, but father had already decided on Lucius for that, after himself.” His eyes glazed over. “I guess both mean ‘dragon’, in a sense,” he said quietly.
Not really, thought Hermione.
He shook his head and his eyes snapped back to her. “Are you going to say anything?” he asked.
“I’ve found Saggitarius but I’m having trouble spotting Scorpius.”
“You’re fucking insufferable,” snapped Malfoy. “You’re like that one kid at a sleepover who insists on calling it ‘the morning’ once it goes past midnight.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been invited to one.”
An awkward silence fell between them and Hermione wished that she’d kept her mouth shut. She sheepishly pointed the eyepiece of the telescope towards Malfoy. He took it but hesitated, as if he wanted to say something.
“About last night–”
“Hermione!”
Hermione jumped as Theo appeared seemingly out of nowhere, emerging from the dim darkness of the lookout to stand at her side.
Malfoy could barely stifle his groan. Theo glanced at him. “Malfoy mate, I didn’t know you took this class.”
Malfoy simply glared, not even attempting to hide his annoyance at the interruption.
“Anyway, Hermione, I wanted to catch you before the end of the lesson. I’m leaving for home tomorrow, so I won’t be able to see you for the rest of the week. I just wanted to ask: have you got any plans for the holidays?”
“Not really. I’m just going to spend some time with my parents, back in London.” She wasn’t sure where this was going, whether to say that she was busy or to be fully honest about her plans. When the next sentence came out of Theo’s mouth, however, she almost wished that she hadn’t been so candid.
“Perfect! Why don’t you come over to our place in London for dinner sometime? My dad is dying to meet you.”
Hermione almost choked.
“I-yeah, okay. Sure. I’d love to,” she stammered, completely taken aback by the proposal. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see that Malfoy’s jaw had locked.
“Great, well I’ll catch you soon then,” he grinned at Hermione. “Draco,” he nodded as he left to go back to his partner, tapping Malfoy on the shoulder.
Malfoy stood straight and pushed his shoulders back as he watched Theo’s retreating form. Hermione wasn’t sure how it was possible, but the silence between them had become even more awkward.
“You were going to say…” she prompted, lightly.
“I’m worth quite a fair bit of money, and there isn’t an amount that I wouldn’t pay to take back kissing you last night.”
Hermione recoiled as if he’d slapped her.
She closed her eyes, her face warm with anger, embarrassment, indignation. All the emotions that Malfoy never failed to elicit from her.
“Twice,” she said quietly, in a brittle voice.
“What?”
“You kissed me twice. It was so bad the first time that you decided to go back for seconds, did you, Malfoy?” She hoped that he couldn’t hear the slight shake in her voice.
He paused for a second, before sneering. “Don’t pretend you don’t love seconds, Granger.” His mouth twisted. “Tell me, did you like the taste of Daphne’s lip gloss? Strawberry, if I recall correctly.”
His voice was laced with such malice that, despite herself, tears welled in her eyes.
“Have a great holiday, Malfoy,” she said and turned to go back to her desk to pick up her things. The summer term didn’t end for another 3 days, but she really wasn’t sure how she’d get through another few days like the one that she’d had today.
She exited the lookout and went down the spiral staircase that led up to the turret, making her way back to the 8th Year Girls Dorm.
As she lay awake in bed that night she pictured Malfoy, the way his eyes narrowed and his lips curled as he threw that line in her face. She eventually drifted off to sleep, her mind still ruminating. Her last thought before unconsciousness overtook her was that, as she was turning away, she could’ve sworn that she’d seen a hint of regret in his eyes.