When she startles awake, she thinks it is just her mind trying to escape her nightmares.
A knock at the door makes her realize someone had woken her.
“Granger, open up,” a voice- Draco’s voice- comes through the wood.
She sits up, trying to find her wand so she can figure out what time it is, maybe cast a silencing charm.
“Come on, I know you are in there. I need to talk to you,” Draco’s voice sounds urgent, slurred.
Standing she pulls at the straps of her nightie, adjusting it.
The floor is cold, but she crosses it anyway, opening the door to a looming Draco.
“What are you doing?” She asks, trying not to be too loud. The last thing she needs right now is someone finding him outside of her room.
“I need to talk to you,” Draco repeats, his arms gesturing wildly.
“I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow,” she says, looking past him down the hall.
Draco catches her and follows her gaze, his face darkening.
“What am I? Your dirty little secret,” he sneers, swaying on his overly large feet. “Making sure there are no witnesses?”
“You’re drunk,“ she said, shaking her head disappointedly.
“You’re mean,” he reaches out, pointing at her accusingly.
“Go to bed, Draco.”
“I love when you say my name, but you’re still mean,” he leans against the door frame.
She sighs, wishing she’d ignored his knocking.
“You aren’t my dirty little secret,” she reassures him, hoping it is enough to send him on his way.
“Is that why we can’t talk outside these walls? Or why no one knows that we are together. Why haven't you told anyone?” He slurs his words, but his eyes are brighter now, as though he finally remembers why he knocked on her door.
She didn’t think they were together.
She didn’t want her friends to know because she was under the impression that they were just sleeping together. That at most, he liked fucking her.
“We’re not together,” she reminds him, reassuring herself now.
“I bet Weasley thinks he’s got a shot with you. Has no idea you’re mine,” Draco leans towards her, his breath foul from whatever barrel he’d worked his way to the bottom of.
“You need to go to bed. Now.” Hermione has no interest in discussing Ron with Draco.
And she’d rather not address any of his drunken assertions of her being his in any sort of capacity.
“Can I come in?”
“No! Draco, please just go to your dormitory. We can talk in the morning.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad,” she huffs, clearly annoyed.
“You are,” he nods his head slowly, lethargic.
“I’m really not.”
She sort of is.
“You looked beautiful tonight,” he sways, resting against the opposite side of the door frame.
“Thank you,” she softens, looking up at him.
Why had he had so much to drink?
“I wanted to dance with you,” he whispers.
“You’re drunk,” she repeats, this time more for her own benefit. He can whisper sweet nothings and then explain them away tomorrow this way.
She hates him.
“Dance with me,” Draco holds a hand out.
She doesn’t want to take it.
Most of her knows that it is a bad idea. Just like most of her had known that kissing him in that corridor had been a bad idea as well. Then there is the part of her that just can’t seem to say no to him. That doesn’t want to say no to him.
Taking his hand, she pulls him into her room and lets him pull her close, his other arm sliding firmly around her waist. Even with his slow movements, it is easy to see that he knows what he is doing.
“Why can’t we be like everyone else?” Draco murmurs into her ear, his breath warm.
She isn’t sure what he means. What he is asking.
Pretending not to have heard him, she lays her cheek on his chest.
They don’t move very much, but he holds her tightly, swaying in the darkness of her room.
“I’m drunk,” Draco says after a few minutes of what Hermione isn’t sure she would call dancing.
“I’m aware,” she replies, still tucked closely into his chest. They’ve stopped swaying, simply standing in each other’s embrace. His body is giving off waves of heat that Hermione never wants to leave.
“Have you got a sober up potion in here?” He asks.
She tilts her head back and tries to see his face in the dark.
“Why would you want one of those?”
Sober up potions effectively kill one’s buzz and they don’t guarantee that you won’t still have a killer hangover in the morning.
“Because I have several things I would like to say to you and I want you to believe every single one of them,” he declares, the slur in his voice almost impossible to hear.
Hermione doesn’t move for the box of potions that she has on her desk. She just presses the pads of her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, hugging him.
“I’m sure it can wait,” she says.
“If you’re sure,” he replies.
Hermione pulls away only enough to pull him towards her bed.
They lie down, her back pressed into his chest and his arm around her waist, holding her in place.
“Can I say one of them now?” Draco whispers as she closes her eyes and enjoys the feel of his firm form behind her.
“I can’t promise to believe you,” she whispers back.
He squirms a bit, adjusting the pillow beneath his head and pulling the blankets over them both.
Then he goes quiet, his even breathing the only thing Hermione can hear.
She thinks that perhaps he’s decided not to speak.
And then he says it.
“You’re too good for me.”
She doesn’t answer, and she certainly doesn't believe him.