Drabbles

Hermione didn’t care where he came from, there was a time and place for personal, extracurricular activities and behind a tapestry was not one of them. 

Particularly not at a quarter to two in the morning. She’d almost finished her rounds when she’d heard it. Grunting. A muffled curse. Sounds so universal in their nature, that they superseded all spoken languages.

She tore back the tapestry, fuming at the indecency of it. 

“Excuse me,” she began hotly, startling the blonde where he was hunched over against the wall, hand exactly where she’d predicted it would be. “But you have an entire ship you could be defiling. Please refrain from redecorating the castle.”

His jaw hung loose, shocked at the interruption. She refused to look down, even though she could see the movement hadn’t stopped. 

“Well?” she demanded, pulse thundering. When he didn’t say anything to defend himself, she doubted. “Do you not speak English? Are you Swedish?”

He shook his head. “No…non—“

There was a hint of an accent, or maybe he was just tense. “French?” she tried. 

His head dropped back against the stone wall, chest heaving behind the dark burgundy shirt which matched the cloak he and his peers marched around in. 

“I’m…finish—” he choked out, hand finally pausing as his activity reached its natural conclusion.

“Finnish?” she said, for lack of anything else. 

He was blushing deeply, eyes bright grey behind the gloss of pleasure. 

“I’m British,” he breathed. 

It was the most appalling thing he could have said. 

“British?” she repeated, aghast. “But…but we don’t…” She stammered herself to a stop. Surely no well-bred Englishman would frig himself in broad moonlight like that? It was unheard of.  

But then again, he attended Durmstrang. Merlin knew what sorts of sordid activities they got up to in the dead of winter to stay warm. 

Her circuitous train of thought brought her back to the problem at hand. Namely, his origins and the related vessel upon which he should be rocking to sleep. 

“What are you doing in the castle?” she demanded.

He’d tucked himself away while she’d assessed him, his motions tinged with mortification as he’d done up his trousers and wiped his hand on the inside of a shirttail, all under her watchful eye. 

He cut a glance up to her, head still dipped as he tucked his shirt in. 

“We’re allowed to be,” he said, throat catching on the verb. 

“Not at two in the morning,” she corrected. “No one is allowed in the halls this late.”

He raised his brows. “Then why are you?”

She resisted pressing a hand to her chest in affront at his daring to question her. “I’m Head Girl,” she informed him crisply. “And I’m currently performing my duty as such.”

“Well done.” He leaned back against the wall, hands sliding into his trouser pockets with an insouciance that rankled her. “This’ll be one for the books, I expect.”

She felt disinclined to reward him with a reaction when he seemed so obviously primed for one. She pivoted. “Answer me, why are you being indecorous here and not your ship? Surely if you’re willing to…”

She faltered, having run out of euphemisms and wholly unwilling to even think the word ‘masturbate’, let alone say it in the presence of a boy. She gestured at his groin in lieu of speaking the term.

“…behind a tapestry, you’d be comfortable doing it in your berth.”

“Ship’s cold,” he said. “I don’t like doing it when I’m cold.”

So don’t do it? she wanted to suggest, but she’d been teased for her ignorance about the needs of young men enough times in her matriculation to not welcome a fresh perspective on her naïvety. 

Instead she clicked her tongue disparagingly and said the second thing that came to mind. “I’m sure your turtleneck keeps things plenty warm.”

He frowned, a hand lifting to touch at the open neck of his shirt, fingers brushing skin. “My what?” he said, confused. 

Again, she gestured to his groin. His eyes narrowed, trying to follow, and then widened comically when, evidently, he did. 

“Do you mean—” he spluttered, then barked a laugh. “Sorry, did you just refer to my cock as having a turtleneck?”

She refused to blush at the word. She’d been unable to stop herself from watching as he’d put himself to rights, curious as to the way his appendage had seemed to tuck itself to bed after all the fuss had died down. 

“Yes,” she said simply. 

The edge of his mouth was still curled up in amusement, his eyes doing something she didn’t appreciate for the way it made it hard for her to look away. 

“That’s so cute,” he chuckled, then rolled his lips in, looking as if he instantly regretted using the word. 

She wondered if he’d been teased for it, like she had with her own selective vocabulary. 

“It’s adorable,” she agreed, then half-shook her head. “I mean, the concept. Not the actual…” She wished she’d stop gesturing to his groin. “ That's not cute.”

“No,” he agreed. “Good. Thanks. Not sure I want that to be…cute.”

Her hand twitched on the tapestry, tempted to let it fall back between them so she could remove herself from whatever in Merlin’s name they were discussing. Cocks, her brain purred helpfully. His not-cute cock, specifically. 

She cleared her throat and stepped to the side. “Come on then.”

He blinked. “What?”

Perhaps the act did kill brain cells, like Nana had always warned her. 

“Go back to your ship,” she enunciated clearly. “It’s well past your bedtime.”

He pushed off the wall with his shoulders and she instantly realized her error in spatial awareness as he took two steps closer. She moved as far to the side as she could manage while still holding the tapestry back but even so, his arm brushed her on his way by. Damn the castle and its narrow — and numerous — niches. 

When he didn’t progress further than three steps past her, she turned, finally letting the tapestry sweep back to its usual configuration. She lifted her brows expectantly at him. 

“It’s cold outside,” he said forlornly. “And the ship’s warming charms are horrendously under-cast. Can’t I just…sleep in the library? Or a common room?”

“No you may not,” she gasped. “Sleep in the libr—Godric above, I can’t believe you’d even ask.”

“I sleep in the Durmstrang library all the time,” he said, brow crinkled at her dramatic reaction. “What's the big deal?”

“The big—!” She didn’t have the mental fortitude to even begin to expound on the myriad of rules, school-based and personal, which would deem such an act so reprehensible. She shook her head to convey her bafflement. 

“Just go to your ship,” she said sternly. “I don’t want to have to ask you again.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Nerida’s tit, don’t get yourself into a state over it. Fine. I’ll go.” He lowered a hand to point behind himself. “Fastest way out is this way, yeah?”

It was. But it was also the quickest way to the library. She dithered on what to do. 

She really, really didn’t want to escort him all the way to the lake even though it was probably the correct thing to do, as the current on-staff protector of Hogwarts’ rules and regulations. A glance at her watch indicated that it was already almost half past. 

“No,” she said with a sigh. “No, I’m not sure I trust you roaming the halls unsupervised. Come on. This way.”

She turned on her heel and began striding down the hall toward her room. After a second of silence, she heard his shoes scuffing as he kicked into action and then he was beside her. 

“Are you taking me to see the Headmaster?” he asked nervously. 

She scoffed. As if she couldn’t handle his rule-breaking all on her own. “No,” she said, turning left. “I’m taking you to bed. My room is just up here.”

“Uhh,” he stammered, barely keeping up as she skipped up the stairs with efficient grace. “Sorry, your—?”

“Well I can’t exactly leave you alone, can I?” she said, tone her signature mix of patronizing and sensible. She drew to a stop outside the portrait which concealed the entrance to the Heads dormitory. 

“And anyway, I just watched you…” She waved a hand at him, glad for the excuse of speaking her password so that she didn’t have to articulate a less savory verb. The portrait clicked open and she stepped through, carrying on in an undertone so as not to rouse the Head Boy. “So I assume that means I’m safe from further incidents for at least a day.”

Her door was on the left. She held it for him then followed him inside. He surveyed her tidy room, lit by several candles in sconces and featuring, in order of importance: her bookshelves, her desk, a photograph of her family, and her bed. 

He turned to face her, mouth opening then closing. His jaw clicked as he looked once more at the double bed. 

“Yep.” He nodded, a singular, determined gesture. “A day sounds right. A whole day.”

She narrowed her eyes at his tone but it was too late — more accurately, too early — to be debating the refractory period of eighteen-year-old males.

She stepped around him, tugging off her cloak to hang on the hook then undoing the clasps of her school robes before draping them neatly over the dressing rod. 

When she turned back around, he was still just standing there, staring at her. 

“Do you sleep in that?” she asked, eyes flicking down his Durmstrang uniform of black trousers and burgundy button-up. He looked down at himself as if he’d forgotten what he was wearing, despite having redressed himself only minutes ago.

“...No…” he said slowly.

She snapped her fingers to indicate he get on with it, determined to bustle her way through the awkwardness so she could get under the covers and sleep. She’d been up since half five revising for exams and didn’t do well being awake for over twenty hours. 

She stripped herself efficiently until she was in her camisole and skirt, turning to retrieve her pajama bottoms from her bureau. She slipped them on then unzipped her skirt.

He’d managed to get his shirt off but his hands were frozen at his belt, looking like a cat who’d been caught lapping milk from a glass and fully believed itself invisible as long as it didn’t move.

“Seen it,” she reminded him pointedly, then crawled under the covers. “Get comfortable. Don’t care how.” 

She fluffed her pillow how she liked it, curling up onto her side so there’d be plenty of space for him. It was quiet for a moment, and then she heard him undo his zip. She tucked the covers up to her chin, listening behind closed eyes to the soft sound of well-made fabric being folded and stacked. 

The bed dipped a moment later as he settled down behind her, staying far enough away that not even an errant toe touched her. 

She knew the size of her bed very well and so rolled over to face him. As expected, he was right on the very edge.

“You’ll never get to sleep like that,” she whispered in her bossiest tone. “Not if you’re tense all night trying not to fall off.”

“You are–” he began, then pressed his lips together, exhaling hard through his nose. He shifted closer, and then again when she gave him an expectant look until his head was inches from hers.

“That’s better,” she said. In the candlelight, she could just make out the barest hint of blue in the grey of his irises. “Now go to sleep.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, eyes softening. “Okay,” he whispered back. His voice was deep in the quiet room. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Just being hospitable.” Her eyes felt heavy, the softness of her pillow and the weight of her duvet lulling her to sleep. 

He made a soft sound through his nose, like amusement and incredulity swirled together.

Despite his complaints of being cold, he was a radiator. It drew her like a spider to a dry home, her limbs slowly stretching toward him until she was tucked up against him, hands pressed against the soft cotton of his undershirt and feet pressed to his shins, knees in the space left by the backward curl of hips.

He lifted his arm to allow her in and then settled it hesitantly over her, the weight of it gradually increasing until he’d relaxed it fully, either wary of crushing her or wary of chastisement. But she was altogether too comfortable and far, far too sleepy to even consider protesting.

She sighed happily against his collarbones, close enough that she felt the brush of it against her own skin. He swallowed, then was still.  

His responding sigh was tinged with soft syllables. “Sweet dreams, Granger.”

Her last conscious thought was that she’d never told him her name.