2
«What did I miss?» sitting down opposite her, Harry asks over the noise of the great hall and takes a sip from the goblet.
Ron is ahead of her.
«The hat urged us to be brave and strong in this difficult time,» without stopping chewing, he answers. Hermione, looking at Weasley, frowns while he sarcastically mimics a magical artifact. «It's easy for her to say, she's just a hat.»
Clucking, Granger, swallowing another remark about the rules of decency, looks around the room. Clinging to Harry's words only as a background. On the first day after the holidays, students, as always, excitedly share their summer adventures with fellow students to the accompaniment of delicious smells of the feast.
Hermione unconsciously twirls her fork with her fingers, noting with mental ticks the tops of her head, which she noticed that vindictive evening in the woods.
An evening that still smells like wet earth in the nose.
There were… Several fifth-year students. A couple of guys from the seventh year. And the prefects with her. Looking at the guys, she realizes that she would never have thought about their second side, unknown to almost no one. The same seventh-year student who, blushing, tells Ginny something, literally spent two days sorting and counting galleons.
When the headmaster's speech begins and Ron, elbowing her, brings her back from heaven to earth from thoughts back to the great hall, where the hum of students is replaced by a clear and piercingly touching speech by the headmaster, the Gryffindor catches someone's sharp look with her shoulder blades.
And he causes a defensive reaction in her.
«…I would like to say a few words…»
But Dumbledore's speech continues, and she doesn't show it. He just stares at the shiny pedestal with the golden owl.
«…and this year you will have protection from dark spells… Snape.»
Stop. What? Who? Snape. What the hell?
Potions — who? Slughorn.
Pretending to straighten her hair, the girl carefully, almost imperceptibly glances at the corner from where her back is burning. And again he returns his attentive gaze to the teachers' table, realizing that this curious one is McLaggen. Cormac and his attention will have to be dealt with later. After all, his interest, which has been pursuing Granger for a couple of days, clearly did not arise because of her charm. We need to talk to him as soon as possible. She has enough of one arrogant blond man, who only by his presence reminds her of her loss.
«Fifty kisses.»
What kind of nonsense is this?
He could have asked for anything. At least I wish I didn't tell Professor McGonagall about their «interest club». Although Hermione is already starting to think that Draco Malfoy knows her better than he should. At first, she definitely won't go with the report… when there's not much to report. She lacks comprehensive information so that this complaint does not look like slander. And the participants themselves can tell that she took a direct part in this «entertainment». Anyway, it's not profitable.
Throughout the feast, the girl deliberately avoided even turning her head towards the Slytherin table. Deliberately carefree talking with friends, listening to their conversations about Quidditch and remembering her promise made at the end of last year.
She confesses to Ron. Hermione Granger promised that this academic year their non-interest, non-relationship would turn into something more. He's her friend. He is the same Ron Weasley, whom they have known since the first year, that boy, a little slow, good-natured, sometimes stubborn as a sheep, but the very man with whom she wants to know her first love.
Hermione had read so much about first love. About the first love.
What are the symptoms? Butterflies in the stomach. There is. The desire to always be around. There is. The desire to be needed by him. There is one too. The need to get his attention. No matter how difficult it is for her to admit it with her character, there is also. And finally, the most important thing! The irresistible attraction and the need to kiss him is also a mental checkmark.
With such a simple, rational approach, Hermione decided that Ron was the perfect candidate for a relationship. She was trying to extinguish her childhood affection for him, and the fact that he did not notice her feelings helped her pay attention to Victor last year. Krum was a wonderful young man, she liked his attention, but they did not go further than walking. Boring. For a few hours, Hermione Granger even believed that love, infatuation and relationships were not for her.
At the end of last year, when they were saying goodbye for the summer holidays, she put aside her doubts and decided to make Ron see her feelings.
«I'll be braver,» Hermione had been telling herself all summer. And with the mindset that everything would work out, I came to Hogwarts.
And here…
Draco Malfoy intervened in the chain of these events.
Whom she plans to avoid until he forgets about his idiotic desire. But Hermione does not rely on this and hopes that Draco will not disturb her until her first kiss belongs to the one to whom it should belong. You can also rely on workarounds. A kiss on the cheek? Or head-on, according to muggle tradition, because after he attacks her himself, only Avada will be waiting for him, and nothing more.
Her plan to «avoid» partially begins with the fact that after the feast in the great hall, she will hide in the library, where from eight to ten in the evening there are only nerds and excellent students. She finds a table in the distance and begins to read some hitherto unknown treatise on the history of potions. He's really good at distracting her from this romantic nonsense and the guilt that came from nowhere.
It's slowly starting to corrode her lungs when she's around Harry and Ron.
A self-writing pen scribbles notes, which she occasionally dictates.
And the feeling of familiar calm stability covers her head… until someone breaks into this idyll, from whom you want to escape. Preferably to the other side of the country.
Her hope that he, like most of the students in his circle, will hang out at the party in honor of the beginning of the school year, melts as quickly as, probably, the ice in the eyes of Malfoy, standing at the shelf.
She swallows, not knowing what to expect.
And he taps his chin with his index finger and sarcastically stretches out:
«How do you run away from me, Granger?»
He's mocking.
He's incite.
«I rarely run from problems.»
«At least I'm making a beautiful problem out of it,» he laughs at her short.
«And narcissistic.»
Granger, getting up from his seat, puts down the book and instead, in order to calm his excitement a little, begins to twist his wand in his hands.
His eyes seem to forge a golden cage around her, and the lazy smile on his lips ignites rage in his chest.
Draco Malfoy is really handsome.
This is the kind of devilishly murderous beauty that can easily get burned.
«Why do you need a wand, Granger?» pushing off from the shelf, the Slytherin took a couple of steps towards her, «You've already…» he doesn't finish «lost» and instead lets out a mocking one. «Do you want to repeat it?»
Not at all.
Is he kidding?
The magic wand falls out of the trembling palms, and the ringing clap from the collision of the vine with the marble makes the girl swallow dumbfounded. There's no one else in this corner of the library but them. And as Malfoy advances, her heart gets lost in a confused rhythm. Step two. He stops a couple of meters away, burning with mockery. With a look of defiance.
She realizes that he is waiting for steps from her next.
Steps to fulfill his wishes. Which she owed him.
«Granger herself,» he mockingly freezes a couple of steps away. Waiting. And by the look of it, the Slytherin in his mind is betting on whether she will chicken out. The corners of his lips, raised in a grin, betray him. «You have to kiss me yourself.»
The thought flashes through that she didn't want to give her first kiss to him, and the guilt flickering in her subconscious fills her lungs with burning sparks that make it impossible to breathe.
Fifty kisses.
She takes a step forward.
More.
Well.
The countdown starts today. Now.
Shaking off the tremors from the tips of his fingers, Granger timidly touches the sharp cheekbone of a bored looking Malfoy. He draws it warily. She looks at his compressed lips and, trying to think through her further actions, gets lost. For a split second. Dozens of others have kissed those lips, and now hers will be added to the damn list.
The pause that had been given to her was already beginning to end.
And finally having made up her mind, she mixes their breath with a lightning movement. Leaving his confusion on Draco Malfoy's lips with the first careful movements.
She's true to her word. Not on the cheek, but not French either. Not ardent, not passionate… but a simple touch of the lips for less than a minute. But it's enough to catch his breath. Remember. To scroll through this moment and remember. What was her first kiss like.
«You…» her voice is shaking from overexertion. «Are you drunk?»
His dilated pupils and rapid breathing speak for him.
Pulling away, she reproaches herself for not being able to look away.
It seems as if his pupils have already completed that golden cage. An offering to her.
The words melt away without leaving the tongue.
«Weakly, Granger.»
He just speaks and leaves the library, leaving it with a burden of loneliness and guilt.