Touch Starved

“Do you think she’s getting sick?”

“Who?” He grunted, still staring at the now vacant spot against the windows when no one else answered Theo’s question. Draco could see his friend's knee bouncing up and down in an anxious rhythm from his peripheral vision. 

Theo threw his hands up and slapped them down on his thighs as if Draco’s question was most daft thing he’d heard in ages. “Professor Sprout.” Draco narrowed his eyes at his friend’s sass earning an eye roll in return before he opened his mouth again. “Granger, Draco.”

“Why do you ask, Theo?” Blaise chimed in while making room for Pansy to sit in between himself and Theo.

“She’s been fine all week, more than fine actually, alive, and then today it was like she was back to being a shell of herself.”

She had been rather vivacious in the days prior. Laughing, becoming active in classes again… and if the flush that had covered her moments ago before she shot out of the room was any indication, she was in fact perfectly healthy. But he had also noticed that she hadn’t eaten much at meals today and seemed to be lost in her mind even when she had been reading moments ago, an act Draco understood.

“Draco?” Theo prodded again.

“Hmm?”

“You’re the one who studies her like a school subject… you’re seriously telling me she didn’t seem off today?”

“I don’t study her.”

Three sets of eyes were on him, all with varying looks of disbelief and exasperation.

“Please don’t insult our intelligence, Draco. Your eyes haven’t left her since we got here.”

He scoffed at Pansy and swung his gaze to Blaise who raised a brow at him, daring him to deny it again.

He had in fact been watching her. But when her lips parted on a silent moan and she began panting, he lost all train of thought and had to anchor himself to the chair he currently occupied in an attempt to not cross room and pin her to her beloved bench. 

Fuck, had he been that obvious? He thought Blaise had been the only one to notice.

“Sometimes people just enjoy quiet and space. You lot have been smothering her with your presence all week.” He accio’d a glass from the bar and filled it with a tap of his wand. “I might just follow her lead and start leaving rooms to escape you myself.”

“You would miss us.” Theo grinned.

“Doubtful.” He returned before tossing the fire whiskey back. Enjoying the burn it left on the way down.

“Perfect timing, Ginevra!” Pansy called when the redhead appeared through the common room door. “We need your opinion.”

“On what?” She snapped.

“Oooo someone’s got her panties in a twist… practice not go well?”

Weasley sent Theo a simmering glare. “I don’t wear panties,” Theo’s smile got wider while Pansy snorted and Blaise’s mouth dropped open, “Now hurry up and ask before I fall asleep right here on this rug and one of you have to carry me to bed.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“If you want to wake up and suddenly find yourself castrated, be my guest.”

“Ginevra, you continue to surprise me.” Pansy cut in gleefully. “We think something is wrong with Hermione, she seemed… distant today.”

Ginny shrugged. “She does that.”

“How often?” Blaise asked. He sounded nonchalant as if the answer bore no significance but Draco knew he would catalog the information as if it was the key to winning a battle.

Draco was suddenly thankful he did not have to be the one asking questions. They would’ve come off a bit harsher, colder, and to be honest he was still lost in the way Hermione had looked before she went to bed. Almost as if she had been turned on. He fought the shivers licking up his spine.

“I don’t know it comes and goes. Usually gets more frequent if she’s worried or around…” Ginny paused and frowned before yanking her fingers through her wind-whiped hair.

“Around what?”

“Her birthday.” She sighed. “Which is tomorrow.”

Draco had known about her birthday already.

He had given her a gift every year since their second year at Hogwarts. He was pretty sure she never figured it out where the gifts came from. And he was positive no one, including his friends, knew that he did.

The ripped page about the basilisk, it was from him. It took her a disgusting amount of time to put two and two together and the wait for her do so had just about killed him… at least she hadn’t been killed like Myrtle. 

The time turner, he’d sent it to McGonagall with an unsigned note telling her to give it to a student who would benefit from having more time to gain more knowledge. In the postscript he mentioned a bright young witch he’d heard about by the name of Granger. He didn’t think she would use it to save a beast and an escaped prisoner, but he should have counted on her to always be doing the noble and righteous thing, even if that meant physically assaulting him when his mouth moved faster than his brain.

Fourth year he given her a peace of mind. Or he had tried to. He had gotten Viktor Krum to escort her to the ball, given her a taste of what normal life could be like without her wanker friends, only to watch her smile and blush at Krum which soured his gut until the oaf was gone. He didn’t sleep for days after she had been hidden in the lake. It had been his fault she ended up as Krum’s token.

Fifth year his gift was delayed. He knew what was coming and waited to see what she would need most. She needed time, so he gave it to her. Always thinking of a broom closet when he and his friends charged after the room of requirement. Distracting Umbridge away from her.

Nothing good came from sixth year. He didn’t remember much. He spent a lot of time in the ice manor that year. But he did remember charming a rose to appear on her pillow.

He had not been able to give her a gift the previous year. He didn’t know where she was. Not until she had been dragged into his parent’s manor one dreary day. He couldn’t actually help her, not in the way he so desperately wanted to, so he did what he could and denied answering his aunt’s questions. Although, that gift was not enough, and neither was the strength of his occluded ice Manor. He could still hear her screams. Could still see the tears falling from her lifeless eyes and the blood oozing out of her arm after his Aunt cut into her.

This year, Draco had absolutely no fucking clue what to give her. She didn’t need anything from him anymore and he hadn’t the faintest idea of what she wanted.

“Why does she get weird on her birthday? Everyone loves birthdays!”

Again, Ginny threw Theo a look.

“Not Hermione.” She shrugged and then she was off, trudging her tired body towards the women’s dorm.

They were quiet for a few moments. Beautifully quiet. And then they all started talking at once and it made Draco’s head spin.

“Not liking your birthday is just not right.” - “I’ve had zero time to prepare! No gift will be adequate with such short notice!” - “I shouldn’t have pushed her so hard in the library today, I should have noticed she was off.”

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose while trying to keep the Manor’s greedy hands at bay. His once safe space threatened to suck him back in to avoid the swirling anxieties permeating the space around him.

“I would say we could throw her a party, but I have a feeling she’ll end up in a corner reading.”

Blaise hummed in agreement. “Perhaps we just ask her what she wants to do?”

“She’ll evade the question and only answer how she thinks we want her to respond.” Pansy countered. “Draco, your input please?”

He opened his eyes and found all three of his friends staring at him expectantly. He did his best not to squirm under their collective gaze.

Draco opened his mouth, to say what? He wasn’t even sure. Her face appeared in his mind. Warming him. He swallowed and tried again.

“She doesn’t like grand gestures or big gifts like the people in our circles. They embarrass her. She would much rather something small and intimate, something that doesn’t draw attention to her or require a large reaction.” He shrugged.

“Yes, yes. She’s humble and shy. We know this.” Pansy responded quickly.

“Then what are you asking me to say, Pansy?” Draco sighed.

“What should we do for her birthday!?” She practically yelled.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” All three of them responded in various tones of anger and surprise.

Draco stood, having grown tired of this line of questioning and fighting the pull to slip away into his mind. “She clearly didn’t mention her birthday to you three for a reason. Let her have her day of solitude. Get her a gift or do something for her that you think will make her happy.”

He had made it two steps towards the boy’s dorm when Blaise’s voice rang out and froze him on spot.

“You said ‘you three’… did you know her birthday was tomorrow, Draco?”

Merlin. He had been so distracted by Granger, the Manor creeping in, and his friend’s chaos that he hadn’t even realized his slip up. He was losing his edge.

Clenching his jaw, he resumed his steps out of the room. His silence answering the question.

He wished he could say sleep came swiftly, but it didn’t. Didn’t come at all in fact. No instead he remained awake fiddling with the family ring on his finger while pacing the foyer of his mind’s jail. Back and forth in front of the fire she had ignited within.

He was surprised when an owl came for him at breakfast. Dropping a small black velvet wrapped rectangle in his lap with a small note from his mother. He left the dining hall swiftly before anyone could question him, not that there were many people in attendance that early on a Saturday, but he hadn’t had enough sleep to handle Luna’s peculiar comments and Neville's optimism.

He read the note on his short walk back to the common room.

Draco,

I’m not sure whether I should be concerned or encouraged that you are well considering you wrote at 3AM asking for a book from your personal library that you have not touched, nor opened, since receiving it from the private collection.

It is the first edition as requested.

Mother

He had bought it from a collector after he saw her reading it on the train their second year. He had never read a book written by a muggle before and had been intrigued after he watched a tear slip down Hermione’s face while she read it. The smile that followed, the one that accompanied the happy tears, choked him.

Asking one of the house elves to fetch him a copy, he read it in one sitting after returning home. The next day he asked the same elf to find him a collector or dealer who would have a rare edition and that same day he asked his parents for an extension charm to add a library on to his room for his own personal use. That library was now full of books, a combination of untouched first editions and others well used by his own hand, that he had discovered because of her.

It was the only gift he could think of that might make her happy, a small and discrete smile formed on his lips as he crossed through the mirror doorway to their common room while he imagined her reaction to his gift. Imagined how her fingers would delicately trace the lettering scrawled across the near mint condition cover of Pride and Prejudice. Her possible gasp as she opened the cover and found the author’s signature against the bottom corner.

Draco’s pleasantly innocent thoughts died immediately as his eyes took in the scene before him.

Granger sat in the middle of the sofa, sandwiched between Pansy and Weasley, holding up a black lingerie set with doe eyes and a blush that rivaled even the best makeup.

Oh bloody hell.

“Draco, you’re just in time!” Pansy called excitedly. “Hermione agreed to do gifts before Ginevra’s match. Sit.” She finished with a pointed look already anticipating his planned escape to his room.

He strode over to the vacant wingback that had been somehow become “his” chair as he was the only one to ever sit in it. Draco crossed his ankle over his knee, a picture of nonchalance, but really he was wound so tightly it was almost painful.

“It comes in red or green as well, I can send for a different color if you would prefer?” Ginny pinched the dangling lace between her fingers while she spoke.

“No, erm, this, uh, this is fine. Thank you, Ginny.” Hermione avoided eye contact with everyone in the room as she stuffed the garment back in the bag as if she were afraid it would bite her.

Ginny laughed, “I know it’s not quite your normal taste, but new year new you right?”

The question held something more to it than was voiced. Hermione met her friend’s stare and nodded shyly. Draco surveyed everything. Her body language, the minute changes in her facial expressions, the tightness of her breath. She was uncomfortable yet at the same time she seemed to like it. Images of her wearing the scrapes of fabric danced in his mind and he shifted in his seat. Blaise and Theo glanced in his direction. Blaise’s attention fell to the package in his hands while Theo’s eyes twinkled with mischief before throwing him a wink.

“Mine next!” Theo exploded, ignoring the sound of protest from Pansy as he jumped over the coffee table to place an intricate wooden box in Hermione’s lap.

“You all didn’t have to get me anything…” Hermione mumbled. “Really.”

“Hush.” Pansy cooed. “We’re making up for lost time.”

Everyone quieted for a second. That simple sentence held so much weight. All the years they made her life hell. The years she lost being celebrated because she was too busy trying to stay alive.

“Okay.” The word fell quietly from the birthday girl’s lips as she flicked the latch on the box Theo had given her. Inside sat all kinds of soaps and potions one would use to pamper themselves in a bath.

Theo turned and locked eyes with him while he spoke, completely ignoring Hermione opening his gift. "I hear the Prefect's bathroom on the fifth floor is nice. "

Draco was going to kill him.