Chapter 13
The pale winter sun streaming through the over-large windows did little to take the bite out of the air. Hermione – laying atop her bedcovers still in last night’s clothes – was vaguely aware of her teeth chattering.
Much to her horror, she had woken with a crystal-clear memory of the night before. She barely noticed the cold what with the terror that was currently freezing her very bones, paralysing her.
Malfoy’s hands on her waist.
Malfoy looking at her.
Calling her Hermione.
How intensely human she’d felt.
That feeling in her abdom- no no no no no!
She couldn’t go there. She didn’t want to go there. Did she?
The shock of the barriers in her brain snapping back into place was enough to give Hermione the momentum to roll over. She groaned as she buried her face in her pillow. It smelt unfamiliar. The new shampoo Daphne had given her.
Oh God… Daphne. She knew. Hermione’s secret had escaped its well-guarded prison. All it had taken was a bitter tasting drink. Somehow, the liquid had torn all the carefully curated walls in Hermione’s mind down. Some of them she could feel sliding back into place. Others, not so much…
She fancied Draco Malfoy.
Even in her mind, it had to be whispered. Even in her mind, she shied back from the words. A truth she’d known deep-down for months finally settling into consciousness.
What chance did she stand in her extractions after this?
Panic hit her like an avalanche as she realised today was Saturday. An extraction day.
No no no no no.
Hermione sat up now, hands on her knees as she tried to take deep, calming breaths. Except she couldn’t. Air rasped through her throat in intermittent bursts of in, in, in, in, out, in, in, in.
Suddenly, the hangings parted. Hermione jumped as her eyes snapped to her assailant. Daphne.
“Morning, you,” Daphne said softly, climbing onto her bed and depositing a plate of plain toast between them. Hermione struggled to pull herself together, not wanting to be seen like this.
After a few seconds of hovering, Daphne took both of her hands into hers and urged Hermione to breath with her.
In… out. In in in-… out. In… out. In… out.
When the anchor that was Daphne pulled her down, she felt tired, but not meltdown-drained. In the back of her mind, she was grateful that she hadn’t reached that level.
In the rest of her mind, she was embarrassed as all hell.
“S- sorry…” she stuttered out.
“Nonsense!” Daphne waved her off with a soft smile. “You should eat. I left it plain in case you were feeling sick.”
Hermione did a quick scan of her body, finding an abundance of aching muscles but nothing else.
“I… feel fine.” At least physically. Mentally she… didn’t want to think about that.
“Good. It’s pricy but I’d say I’m an inbuilt-hangover-cure convert now.”
Hermione honestly thought that she’d rather deal with the hangover she should rightfully have right now than the memories of what she’d done. She’d just thrown herself at him…
“So,” Daphne interrupted her musings, poking Hermione’s mouth with a slice of toast until she acquiesced and bit some off, “you fancy Draco.”
Hermione winced.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Honestly, I’ve had my suspicions for a while. Feels good to be right,” Daphne grinned.
If Hermione had had the strength, she would have rolled her eyes. Instead, she just stared dumbly at Daphne’s right knee, chewing on what may as well have been cardboard.
“I have a few action plans in mind, of course, but I’ll need to know what yours are first.”
“My plans?”
“Yes. Are you going to tell him? He’ll have to find out eventually right. Or are you gonna try and gaslight him out of…“
Daphne’s voice trailed off as Hermione’s blood drained from her face. Tell him? How could she tell him? She could barely tell herself. This was beyond embarrassing. How could she – a war hero – look Draco Malfoy in the eye and tell him she wanted him? How would she cope when he – a war criminal – laughed in her face and told her that he just didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t right. For her to be rejected by him after fighting a whole war to be seen as his equal was just too much poetic injustice for Hermione to handle.
“I can’t tell him.”
“But-”
“I can’t tell him. I can’t… It’ll go away, eventually. It’s just a stupid crush. I mean… could you imagine us together? It’s ridiculous!” The sound that escaped Hermione’s throat was less laughter and more hysteria.
“Actually, I can. Did you not see how he was looking at you last night? And I know you don’t wanna hear this, but you were just as bad-”
“Shut up shut up shut up!” Hermione almost shouted, hands covering her ears.
“I won’t, actually. We’ll never get anywhere if I do. And I, for one, am interested in where this could go. Now eat your toast and tell me where all this resistance is coming from.”
Hermione gaped at her. “What do you mean where all this resistance is coming from? He’s Draco Malfoy. He bullied me for years! He’s a Death Eater! And a smarmy, arrogant git to boot. Everyone hates him. I hate him!”
Daphne raised a single, perfectly shaped eyebrow at this.
“I hate him…” Hermione said, weakly.
“I keep forgetting you were in Gryffindor. I suppose if I’d fallen for Weasley I’d be having a similar crisis,” Daphne sighed. “Let’s do this systematically. He did bully you. But I think it was more out of jealousy than anything else. It was wrong of him, but don’t mistake his immaturity for genuine blood-supremacy. He just used whatever he could to get the better of the only person smarter than him in the year.”
Hermione picked at a seam on her jeans, frowning.
“Joining the Death Eaters was stupid of him, but he was a brainwashed kid at the time. Even Potter said so at those hearings. You know he doesn’t actually believe any of that stuff, right?”
“He still…” He’d still worked with them. Done… whatever he’d done for them. He’d admitted they’d used his legilimency skills for interrogations.
“He did what he had to do to stop his family from getting murdered,” Daphne said, as if having read her mind. “Don’t you know how that feels?”
Hermione’s eyes snapped up to Daphne’s, glaring.
“Sorry,” the other girl said, holding up her hands, “That was below the belt. But as for the arrogance thing, believe me when I say he’s not nearly as bad as he was. And let’s not pretend you hate him Hermione. If you really hated him, you wouldn’t come back from those sessions you have with this gross, wistful look in your eyes.”
Wistful? Was it that obvious? If anyone other than Daphne had been telling her this, she would have been bouncing off the walls in panic. But she knew Daphne at this point. She knew no one would be looking closer, or seeing clearer than Daphne Greengrass. Hermione was beyond grateful in that moment that they were on the same side.
Hermione sank her head into her hands. “What am I going to do?” she lamented.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“I… I want it to go away.”
“Do you think it will?”
Hermione paused to consider. An image of Malfoy floated to the front of her mind, standing in font of their room and holding the door open for her. Then he was bickering with her about the definition of some term or another. Then calling her special. Asking for her favourite colour out of nowhere. Smirking at her. Running his hands over the dip of her waist…
When she thought of the open, unguarded way he had looked at her last night she ached – actually physically ached – to see it again. For better or for worse, she wanted to know and understand every part of him. Deep down, she knew that there were parts of her that would never settle until she’d seen him torn apart and put back together again by her own hands.
“No… I don’t think it will.”
“So do you wanna be miserable or do you wanna get it on with Draco?”
“D-Daphne!” Hermione spluttered.
“What? Like I said, I have several action plans. Just say the word and we can get started.”
“I… I can’t right now. I can’t handle any of this. I’m sorry…” She knew Daphne was trying to help, but she could feel a wave of panic just underneath her skin that was threatening to capsize her. She had to keep it together.
“Fine. But when you do decide you need my expertise, I’m only two beds over, ok?”
Hermione smiled weakly as Daphne took the half-eaten plate of toast over to her own bed.
“Daph?” she called, panicked. She’d almost forgotten. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
Hermione spent the rest of her day hiding in her dormitory, nose and mind buried deep in her textbooks. When dinner came around, she made puppy-eyes at Daphne until the girl agreed to bring her up some more food. She couldn’t face the rest of the school. Not yet. Not after last night.
For the first time, she missed one of her sessions with Malfoy. Eight o’clock came and went but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She couldn’t face him. Not today. She spent longer than was healthy rehearsing the lies she would respond to his inevitable questions with.
Sunday was much the same. Except Daphne’s generosity had run out and around lunch time, her hunger pangs forced her back out into the real world.
She stayed close to Padma on her way down to the Great Hall, hoping the quiet girl would sense her mood and act as a sort of social shield. The problem was that wherever Padma went, Sue went. All Ginny had to do was look in their direction before a grinning Sue was waving her over to the Ravenclaw table.
“There you are! How’s the hangover?”
“Better now…” Hermione said, eyes on her plate. The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but better than the truth would have.
“Good,” Ginny said, dipping a roll into her soup, “I never knew you were such a party animal.”
“New house, new me…” she said weakly. She almost winced at Ginny’s bark of laughter.
“Oooh, is there a story here? What did I miss?” asked Sue, leaning closer to Ginny.
Hermione took a sip of orange juice, attempting to hide behind it.
“Oh, just Hermione absolutely burning up the dancefloor for half the night. Everyone was staring.”
“W-what!?” Hermione choked. People had been staring?
“Well, not everyone. But it was quite the marvel. Goody-two-shoes Hermione Granger getting smashed off her face. Honestly, I thought it was brilliant! We need to do that more often.”
“You’re making me sad I missed it... almost,” Sue said, exchanging a glance with Padma.
“I’ll make sure to drag you to the next one, Sue. It really was a sight to behold.”
Hermione found herself growing steadily redder as the girls chatted. Thank God no one’s mentioned anything about Malfoy. Maybe Ginny had left earlier than her. She really hadn’t been paying attention.
“Oi,” Ginny grabbed her attention by waving a spoon in front of her nose. Sue and Padma were having one of their whispered best-friend conversations. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, much better than yesterday.”
“I mean like… in general. Friday was pretty wild. Is everything alright?”
Hermione would like to say she felt the urge to just spill everything to Ginny in that moment. If she was a good friend, that was how she’d feel. But apparently, she wasn’t. She knew exactly how that conversation would go. She could see the look of abject horror on Ginny’s face just thinking about it. She couldn’t handle that right now.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
Ginny’s eyes bore into her, and Hermione shifted anxiously under her scrutiny, focusing her own gaze on a single ginger eyebrow.
“Good,” she said. Hermione tried valiantly not to sag in relief. “Looking forward to Christmas?”
“Yeah!” Hermione lied. She’d almost forgotten about the impending threat of the holiday in the midst of her other troubles. Her first Christmas after losing… she couldn’t think about it.
Ginny hummed in acknowledgment before getting drawn back into conversation with Sue. Hermione picked at her roll and tried not to cry.
The rest of the meal passed without preamble. Hermione was glad she didn’t seem to be the laughingstock of the castle as she had feared. You can’t see the people pointing and snickering if your eyes are glued to your plate, said a traitorous voice in her head. She ignored it.
The next of Hermione’s troubles didn’t find her until she was back in the common room. She was keeping her focus firmly on the starry carpet as she walked towards her dormitory when she heard a “Granger!” ring out from ahead and froze.
She reluctantly peeled her eyes from the floor to face her assailant. Malfoy was leaning casually against a bookcase, impeccably presented and holding a book Hermione recognised from their sessions.
“What?” she asked, sounding more aggressive than she’d meant to. It was too late to pretend she hadn’t heard.
Malfoy walked towards her, steps tapping out a slow, even rhythm.
“Firstly, are you alright?”
No. Go away go away go away.
“Better than yesterday,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why are you talking to me in public?” The last thing she needed was someone who’d seen them together last night making connections.
Malfoy ignored her question. “Is that why you missed the session? You were hungover? You could have owled me.”
“I’m sorry I forgot about you while in the throws of violent illness.” It sounded forced even to her own ears and her traitorous cheeks burned.
After a long pause, Malfoy said, “I’m going to require your assistance over the holiday.”
“What?”
“Miller told me after class on Friday that there’s going to be a field trip in January. To muggle London. We’re going to the war museum.”
“What does that have to do with the holiday?”
“I’ve been to muggle London exactly once before. I don’t think I did the money right at that café. And then I tried to get on one of those underground trains but some muggle aurors tried to arrest me and I had to con-”
“Tried to what!?”
“They tried to arrest me! I’ve no idea why! But the point is I’d really rather not embarrass myself on that field trip and the only chance I’ll get to practice is over the holidays so you’d better be free.”
Oh God. Spending any part of the holidays with Malfoy was exactly what she didn’t need right now. She could feel her face heating up at the thought of it.
“Well, sorry, but I’m not. I’m very busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Spending time with the Weasleys.”
“They can’t spare you for a day?”
“Absolutely not. There’s a lot of… decorating to do. And baking.” And cleaning. And quidditch-avoiding.
“Hmm,” he hummed, scrutinising her. “You wouldn’t mind if I confirmed that with the Weaslette, then?”
Hermione paled. “Why would you talk to Ginny?”
“Because I know you’re bullshitting me and I don’t appreciate it. If you insist you’re too busy to hold up your end of the bargain I’ll simply have to confirm it. Or would you rather just accept?”
Hermione was torn between irritation at his tone and general entitlement, and fear that he would see beyond her aggressive façade and recognise her blush for what it was. It was both of these things that drew a sigh and an acquiescence from her mouth.
“Fine! Owl me the itinerary,” Hermione snapped, stomping off.
Great, she was trapped now. A day in muggle London with Malfoy. Almost like a date – no. No, definitely not a date. What was coming over her? She had to be strong. She would have the next few days to compose herself. And at least a week before her next extraction. She had time. She could do this. She could handle this.
Dinner, thankfully, was uneventful. Except for Theo Nott winking at her. But she was very deliberately ignoring that.
Her last-minute packing, however, was interrupted by a large eagle-owl tapping on her dormitory window. She reluctantly let it in with the cold winter air and – already feeling a headache coming on – untied the letter from its leg. It flew back into the clear, crisp night immediately.
Malfoy had scheduled their trip for the twenty-third. Right. Five days. She had five days of peace.
As Hermione quietly acknowledged the way her heart fluttered whenever she looked at the letter, she thought that peace might be too strong a word.