Sliverskin

Draco Malfoy smells like pinewood.

Hermione doesn’t quite know what to do with that information.

His cologne—and it’s a cologne, not his natural smell which is another matter entirely—is a sharp, citrusy scent that cuts her off her track, makes her attention snap and crumble to focus at one single point. She’s instantly aware when he’s near. The loneliest corner of the library, or the back of the class. The astronomy tower or the secluded patio at the back of the castle. It’s blistering, the sudden jolt of electricity up her spine to catch up with all the pent up emotions. It makes her remind, helplessly, of distant memories and half formed conversations and the air is light, suddenly—lighter than it was. Her chest burns with an uncomfortable ache and she’s almost about to lose her mind and chase it—chase him—when it disappears. A quick flutter in the wind. Merely a dissonance. A dash of tangerine. It’s a hide and seek game with her heart on her sleeves and his six feet under. Then it’s the stupidest thought she could ever have.

Draco Malfoy smells like pinewood.

Hermione catches herself wanting to be near it—him—all the time.

She doesn’t like to think about what it means.

It happens in the Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes the first time. Hermione is shuffling through the aisles and looking at empty spots at the mostly covered shelves of ointments and healing balms and perfumes. She flicks at the mismatched shelves dissociatively and the missing potion keeps turning up to settle at their spots from the inventory. She’d promised to help George and Ron with the redecoration of the shop. Mostly because she needed to keep her mind at something. Mostly because there was nothing else to do. Her head burned whenever she tried to read a book, school wouldn’t be open till another six weeks, and the letter of rejection from another healer at the Mungo’s was polluting her mind.

I am sincerely sorry, Ms. Granger. There is nothing I can do.

Hermione purses her lips at the memory. Then blinks up at the emptiness. She’s come across a shelf that is curiously empty. Head still slipping in and out of that damned letter, she snaps her fingers and a neat row of heart-shaped bottles appears in front of her with a curious smell. A sudden shock of citrus makes her shiver. She eyes the bottles. Stares numbly at the conspicuous name plastered in cursive. 

Amortentia. The new batch George was boasting about a few days back.

The citrusy smell is fading into a sweet, soft wisp as she takes a bottle and turns it in her hand. Her fingers quiver at the freshness. Their crystal shine, the jittery, nauseating pink of the potion almost makes her head hurt again. She has half a mind to tuck the potion safely into its place and walk away, maybe run. The smell is different and it’s not comfortable, not like before and she should just walk… 

Yet.

Maybe it’s nerves and the surprise and curiosity, or the raw, intense impulse to smell the potion again, she lifts the bottle close to her nose. She unscrews the lid and the smell intensifies. Now not only citrus. Not the minty, iridescent spark of freshness. Hermione checks the smell again. Juniper berries, she thinks, stunned. Pinecones. And flowers. Wild things that grow in forests, uninhibited and willful. Like a drunkard she lifts the potion closer to her face. Yes. It does smell of beautiful things. Slithers into her veins like memories. Distant and indescribable. It’s… it’s

It’s different.

Intoxicating.

Not like before.

The thought snaps her back into time—from preposterously bright mornings to the unnatural light of the jokeshop. Hermione glances around to see if anyone is watching her as she hastily puts the bottle in its place. It clinks with its neighbours and makes a sharp sound. She’s about to leave the crime scene, hurrying to reality when someone—

“Hello,” someone speaks from behind. Hermione jumps in embarrassment. “How much is it?”

She turns around and his mouth hangs open. His cheeks flush as if he’s just recognised her. The redness spreads to his entire face as she stares back, unable to speak. Something distinctly fresh covers her senses.

“Hello,” Draco Malfoy says after a minute. When Hermione doesn’t answer, he sneaks his hand to his blond hair, smoothing it in one, swift flick of his hand. He is holding a box of Skiving Snackboxes with an expression that he has no idea where he is. “I wanted to buy this.”

Hermione clutches the Amortentia and digs up her voice with an effort that feels ridiculous. 

“Hello,” she says back, voice thick with surprise.

“Hi.” He is dressed in dark jeans and an oxford shirt. His hair is undone, falling in angelic, smooth shreds of silver. He is… somewhat jarring in his simplicity. “I was thinking of buying… this.”

“Skiving Snackboxes,” Hermione says. “They make you sick… enough to miss a class or two.”

“Yes.” He blinks as if it’s the first time he’s heard this. “This. How much?”

“Three galleons,” Ron’s voice perks up quite suddenly. The warmth of his hands as he slides them around her waist is the first thing she feels. The next being the stark smell of pumpkin spice radiating off his skin. “Special discount for students.”

“Oh good.” Malfoy stares down at the box, brows quirked at the product. As if he’s still trying to figure out if he knew what it was. “Good, I’ll buy it.”

“Take it to the register,” Ron says pointedly.

His eyes narrow, so small a movement it was barely there. “There was no one there.”

Ron cranes his neck to check. Hermione wants to stare at anything else but him. “Shit. Well, I’ll take it then. Come.”

Hermione can feel the unease bubble in her stomach like raw alcohol. Malfoy fidgets beside her as Ron packs the box up. Then suddenly, almost like it was an impulse, says to her, “You’re going to school for the final year, right?”

Ron’s mouth hangs open. He blinks at Malfoy in surprise and it takes Hermione a second too long to pick her voice again, “Yeah, I am.”

Ron coughs not too subtly. She quickly adds, “Ron’t not, though. He is doing that training at the Ministry.”

“Yes, yes. That’s good—” he flippantly throws the words at Ron before, turning back, staring back at her. “So are you—”

He’s stopped suddenly, as someone else crashes against him. Malfoy groans at the impact. It’s Pansy Parkinson, shoving herself into the scene. Hermione watches her dully, her heart hitches uncomfortably as the other girl loops her arm around Malfoy. “We need to go now,” she says in blind panic. “Now.”

There’s a clutter of coins. Ron counts them with diligence, his face twisted in confusion. Hermione can’t think what she must look like. Malfoy’s face blanches as he splutters something else about Hogwarts, his pupils are strangely dilated, the black coal almost covering every bit of his silver. And then, before Hermione can splutter something impulsive, something dumb like mentioning their last meeting, Pansy pulls at him again. Draco splutters another hasty apology for his friend’s behaviour as Pansy Parkinson pushes him out of the door. The doorbell keeps chiming haphazardly even after they’re long gone. Her head feels light as the smell of Amortentia sneaks up around her skin. The world is flush with colour and new, titillating sensations. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be high. She wonders if Ron can feel her swaying with the wind?

A minute after the buzz fades, dissipating with the smell of the love potion, Hermione looks around the shop. No one is really here except Harry at another corner, staring at the door as well. She looks down at the bottle of Amortentia in her hand. The pernicious smell still clings to her, like an insect, like something she can’t shake off. It reminds her of—

“He was weird, wasn’t he?” Ron 

Malfoy. The husky drawl and bored undertone with how he talked almost always. But there was something else too. Now and then. Unease. Of course, Hermione thinks. Of course there is unease.

Ron coughs. “Is that Amortentia in your hand?”

Hermione snaps up. “I was just taking it back…”

Her words drop as if she’s been caught. She doesn’t know what to say. She wasn’t the type of girl who’d buy a love potion… who would have to buy a potion to figure out if there’s something wrong inside her. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her. Can’t he see that?

“Maybe you should keep it,” Ron says, smiling sweetly at her. His blue eyes are bright and simple. Oblivious to a fault. “Something to remember me by.”

She chuckles, a little hysteric. Slightly worried. Her heart pounds and he slides out of the counter and reaches his long arms to pull her closer. She lets him, melts right into the center of his chest and breathes in willfully. He smells like pumpkin pies and cinnamon rolls. Sweet and deep and warm. familiar. She keeps trying to calm her nerves, even as Harry comes up to them and coughs surreptitiously to break them up. Hermione closes her eyes and tries to forget what just happened. The blatant betrayal of her in every sense. In sight, in smell, in the bone deep, crackling realisation of something remarkable. She is not thinking about him, no. It’s Ron who’s clouding her head incessantly. Ron is familiar and sweet and her boyfriend. Ron…

Ron smells nothing like the love potion clinging to her senses like another skin.