Chapter 6
Pansy had leapt out of the water and transformed back into her human self in midair, earning a flurry of applause from everyone. Well, everyone besides Theo, who stood there gaping at Pansy long after it was over.
Pansy told them that they have about half an hour before a very late dinner is served in case anyone is hungry (or technically a very early breakfast, since it’s past 1 AM). Pansy tells Hermione that her room is down the left stairs and it’s the second door on the left. She thanks her, descending the steps with a bubbly feeling, anticipating everything to come. Stopping at her white door, she’s reaching for the brass handle when more footsteps sound down the stairs.
Blaise is first, who nods at her before stepping into his room, which is the door across from her diagonal to the right.
Theo comes next, sending her a lopsided grin. “Hello, neighbor,” he says as a brief greeting before stepping into the room across from her to the very left.
Finally, Draco emerges into view, seemingly floating down the stairs and sauntering over. His frowns, eyes flicking between Hermione’s door and the one he stops in front of.
When it clicks in her head, Hermione shakes her head, not sparing Draco another glance before going into her room and slamming the door shut.
Of course she would be directly across from him.
Her inner complaints fade when enters her room, a simple square room with a plain white queen bed next to a small desk overlooking the circular window. It exudes a subtle peace, the feeling that it has been well used and well loved.
On the bed she sees the familiar sight of her trunk, faded brown leather and black swirls doodled as a child. She walks over, skimming her fingertips over the scarred rimming. Hermione imagines Ginny’s nagging voice, that high pitch that intrudes the room when she’s hell bent on her task, insistently directing Ron and Harry around and telling them what to pack. She’s almost afraid to open the suitcase, is almost expecting something to explode in her face as a courtesy from Fred and George.
God, she already misses them.
Hermione exhales, pulling the trunk onto the floor and into the corner to unpack later. She shrugs her cloak off and lets it pool on the floor. She shakes her head, curls bouncing in a lively fashion that echoes her innermost emotions. There’s a tall candle and a lighter on the desk and she brings flame to wicker, fingers moving with a tremble so slight it would be unnoticeable to the naked eye. She walks to one end of her small room, then the other, moving back and forth while tugging her fingers against stubborn chestnut knots and tangles, gifts from her flights riding the wind current.
Her breathing is short and labored, the hurricane of thoughts pressing down on her chest. She’s ecstatic, yes: how many times has she dreamed of this, of seeing the world, of setting herself free in adventure and bliss? How many times has she wished the rooftops of Hogsmeade were the churning waves of the ocean?
However large that excited piece of her was, there was another part consumed with guilt and distress, equal in its heft and measure. A furious battle within, two relentlessly warring passions. Concern for this entire ordeal. The crushing fear of failure she knows all too well.
Guilt for leaving her dad behind.
Tears spring behind her eyes and she gulps, shoving them down, deep under her layers and layers of armor, platinum plates of defiance that she herself forged in fire.
The door swings open and Draco appears, eyebrow crooked, crossing his arms and leaning casually against the doorway.
Hermione composes herself in a single blink, mirroring his stance and folding her arms together. “Do you not have the decency to knock?”
“I can hear your damn pacing from my room. Don’t lecture me about decency, love.”
She frowns, sucking on her teeth as she appraises him. “What do you want?”
He steps in now, catching the door with his foot and closing it silently behind him. Shrugs. “Is telling you to stop the ruckus not enough reason?”
Hermione narrows her gaze, jerking her head towards the door. “Get out then, if that’s all.”
A beat, and his quicksilver eyes seem to slam into her with the force of his stare. “No,” Draco finally replies, taking another step toward her. “That’s not all.”
Her pulse quickens, and she tries and fails to ignore how her body is reacting. She fakes a shrug of nonchalance, drumming her fingers against her arm. “Well?”
Draco blinks and suddenly he’s even closer, looking down at her through fair lashes stroked with the luminescence of the moonlight. “We were hired together,” he says in a low voice, not breaking eye contact.
Her neck is craned to look up at him, but she does not feel small. “I’m aware, Malfoy, thank you so much for that reminder.”
He shakes his head, a small noise of frustration coming from low in this throat. His jaw pulses. “This is a joint job, so we need to work together.”
Hermione’s nose wrinkles, equivalent to her reaction if she had smelled a foul odor. “Must we?”
A rigid nod. “Indeed.”
Is there any point in arguing with him? She had realized years ago that the only unwavering determination that rivaled hers is Draco’s. It’s why their rivalry is so prominent, their hatred so fierce and unyielding.
There’s an electric heat moving between them, sucking the air from her lungs, and she’s forgetting how to breathe. It would only take one more step for her to be pressed against him.
She knows that this is not what hatred feels like.
She hates that she knows that.
Hermione sighs in defeat, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, gold vanishing behind a curtain of thick, dark lashes. “You’re right, I suppose,” she grumbles. She can’t think clearly like this, this close, this connected. She moves to the bed, sitting nimbly in the corner and crossing her legs under her. She motions to the other side, the far other side, and he understands, sitting across from her as distant as possible.
Draco shifts, hesitating to speak. “Pans said we’re heading to the Colosseum first, yeah?”
Something in her chest tightens at his nickname for Pansy, but she nods. “Rome.”
His eyes have not left her, almost like they don’t want to. “Have you ever been?”
The memories are blurred, submerged in the murky abandoned waters of what her life used to be. Hermione swallows, keeping her face neutral. “Once, though I don’t remember much.” She remembers little except how she felt: a contentment she has been chasing ever since that fateful night seven years ago. “I’ve always wanted to go back,” she confesses, more of a thought to herself than to Draco.
“Why haven’t you?” Draco asks, cocking his head ever so slightly.
Instead of snapping at him for even asking, she feels inclined to answer. “Life gets in the way,” she responds simply.
Death gets in the way.
Hermione focuses herself again, fingers pulling at each other. “So we have to steal a full, intact cement block from the Colosseum.”
“Right.”
She tries to put herself in that steady mindset, that state in which she works her best and she can do everything with no distraction. “We need to create some type of distraction to diverge attention away from where we’re working.”
“No.”
Hermione flinches, barely so. “What?”
“That won’t work,” Draco clarifies, crossing his arms over his chest again.
Her annoyance returns, her face pinching together. “I think I know what I’m doing, Malfoy—”
“I do know what you’re thinking,” he amends, eyebrow raising, though she’s glaring at him for his interruption. “If we do it in broad daylight, the chances of it being noticed are slimmer and it’s harder to pinpoint the time it occurred.”
“Which is why I said what I did.”
“You’re right, of course, if this was a regular job. But we both know it’s not. It’s the Colosseum,” Draco reminds her, eyes brightening with an undefined emotion. “It’s a wonder of the world. Think about security.”
“I am,” she argues, folding her legs under her and leaning closer to Draco. It’s a subconscious movement, but she doesn’t correct it after. “It’s much easier to blend with the crowds.”
“The security is much lighter at night, and we won’t have to worry about public interference,” he retorts, leaning closer as well.
Hermione huffs, rising onto her knees and slapping her palms on the comforter, her face looming even nearer. “You’re not thinking about time. It’s optimal to finish our task in the day and leave at nightfall.”
Draco’s jaw clicks, eyes darting between hers. “No ships leave at night, not without suspicion. Boat traffic is at its peak during mornings: that will be a good cover for us to escape unscathed the morning after the job is done.”
His argument is a winner. This, Draco winning against her, is something she knows for a fact that she hates. Sighing, she squeezes the bridge of her nose and shuts her eyes. “What would we do all day leading up to it?”
His lips curve minutely. “Are you saying there’s nothing to do in Rome?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I don't know.” She pauses, trying to articulate her thoughts. “I feel weird mixing business and pleasure,” she says after a moment.
Draco snorts. “You just described the plot of every romance novel.”
“Shut up, Malfoy.”
Silence settles between them. His amused expression slides off of his face, and he’s staring again, the weight of his gaze unfathomably intense. “You really don’t, do you?”
Hermione forgets how to speak for a moment. “Don’t what?” She asks after a beat.
“You don’t have fun,” Draco confirms, and he almost sounds sad for her. He tilts his head to the side. A stray curl falls across his forehead. “You don’t let yourself go.”
“I certainly do.”
“Please,” he faces his palms up, “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me when you have fun, love,” Draco says quietly, so soft she almost doesn’t hear.
When does she have fun?
When I’m with you, Hermione thinks. It’s an immediate thought, an unwilling thought.
She almost cries out at the absurdity of these thoughts surfacing in her mind, and she wants to scream because she knows how true they are. After a moment, she says stiffly, “I’m a thief. The thrill is enough ‘fun’ in itself.”
Silver is burning through gold, raging and blazing, moonbeams and candlelight skating across flames. Something flashes through Draco’s face briefly, but it disappears before she can read into it. His lips press into a thin line. He says faintly, “I suppose I cannot argue with you there.”
An air of sincerity has settled, and Hermione chases it away with more banter. “That’s a first.”
His shoulders lifts. “Well, it’s a requirement.”
“What is?”
He blinks at her as if surprised he has to explain himself, fair lashes brushing high cheekbones. “Argument. Competition. Hatred. The core values of the Gryffindor and Slytherin rivalry.” His voice takes on a mocking tone.
“Easy enough to follow,” Hermione lies straight through her teeth, lies as she thinks about how much she doesn’t hate him.
“I didn’t peg you for a follower.”
“I’m not.”
“You are though, aren’t you?” Draco’s face is hovering mere centimeters from Hermione’s, and his fingers grip at her elbow. Up close, his face looks absurdly beautiful— carved in marble, each feature shaped to perfection. Her eyes are wide as she looks at him and looks at him, she can’t stop looking at him. “I am a Slytherin,” he whispers. “The heir, in fact. You loathe me.”
She wants to loathe him, desperately so.
Yet she’s swimming against a rip current. She’s going against the very fiber of her existence.
“I should,” she says hoarsely.
His expression flickers, disbelief stark in his eyes. “Does that mean you don’t?”
She will not tell him the truth. She will not give him the tools to hurt her.
“It means I may have to not hate you so we can work together efficiently,” Hermione sighs, blanketing the truth with this believable cover up. She backs away from him, leaning back. His hand drops from her arm, and she’s suddenly awfully cold. “I have to think about it,” she adds.
Draco hums in understanding, and then he’s laying down on the bed whistling a tune she doesn’t recognize, tapping his fingers on the mattress in sync with the beat. It takes her a second to realize that he’s waiting for her to ‘think about it’. She exhales.
To hell with it, then.
She jabs her outstretched hand into his chest. She stops, in shock that this word is even coming out of her mouth for Draco Malfoy. Her mouth opens, then closes. It comes out in a rush: “Allies?”
He’s looking up at her, sitting up quickly, grey irises focusing on her. “For now?”
“For now,” Hermione confirms.
For now, before she needs to learn how to hate him again.
He nods to himself, his face strictly business and void of emotion. His hand closes around hers and shakes it, and there that warmth is again. His lip twitches, and she wonders if he’ll smile.
A loud and melodic bell sounds from above on deck. Draco stands up, turning towards her and walking backwards to the door. “That’s dinner,” he explains.
Hermione follows, and she steps out into the hall. “After you, best friend,” she sings, grinning widely.
Distaste floods his features, his steps slowing. “I already regret this.”