Altered states and truths

"Here," he says, offering her a flute of some alcoholic and bubbly beverage.

"No, thank you."

"I insist."

Hermione absolutely detest that alleged male camaraderie, that in the end is nothing more than an deluded sense of knowing what´s better by the magic of owning a pair of testicles and a penis. Normally she would reinforced her negative, but Gary Fritz had been eyeing and circulating around her for three whole months by now. The cause for his unwanted attention was her new project of forbidding all sort of magical creature´s involvement in games, which put his position in the Department of Magical Games and Sports in a thigh spot. His behavior was ambiguous, in such a way that Hermione couldn´t tell if he was trying to seduce her or absolutely terrify her in order to stop her.

It did say a lot about his character that he preferred to focus on her instead of searching for ways to implement cruelty-free sports.

And so she accepts it, letting the weight of the flute rest on her fingers, but not taking any sip. The man eyes the drink smirking just a little, before looking at her face again, expectantly and in complete silence. Then comes a grimace of irritation and he drowns in one gulp all his own.

He´s weird, that´s for sure. Hermione scans the room for someone to rescue her from this uncomfortable situation. Harry, Ron, Ginny or even Fitzsgerald, that judgmental old lady from the office next to hers, would do.

"It´s really tasty." Gary is already on his second flute, having snatched one more for the enchanting trays that were levitating around the Ministry´s Ballroom. She hums in response, already inventing some non-rude excuse in her head, but he insist again. "You should try it."

She furrows her brows: does he expect to make her drunk? And so blatantly?

"You know, I have to-" The witch starts, but interrupts herself when a flash of white-blond presents itself on the entry of the room. That bloody ferret! He hadn´t finish working! What was he doing in the party?

And so Hermione leaves Gary behind, without any excuse or word, to intercept Malfoy on his way to fun, alcohol and girls. She doesn´t even register the man´s hand touching her arm to stop her, she just shoves him away and goes all fury.

Her target sees her coming and insulting her to hell and back tries to escape. Unlucky for him, she sees all his endeavors and so knows behind which column he has disappeared into.

"What´re you doing here?" She accuses once he´s in front of her. "You didn´t finish working."

The man sighs in total exasperation. "I thank Merlin everyday that I don´t work for you. Calm the fuck down, Granger, no one has named you the work-Auror," he says, greeting a couple that stops momentarily to talk to him.

The woman gulps in one go the beverage that it´s still on her hand without a second thought. "I´m sorry for taking my job seriously. A job that has meaning and affects other people. Each hour you procrastinate and avoid working is an hour more of enslavement and suffering for a lot of magical creatures."

He rolls his eyes at her idealism. It were countless the conversations they already had had about it. "I sent the signed report this afternoon."

"You didn´t."

"Yes, I did," he says and then adds, "maybe you were too busy getting all pampered up to get here and put your claws on another man." He narrows his eyes, looking her up and down. Then a false smile appears on his handsome face. "But then, I don´t think this took you any time."

Her hateful glare responds him without any word. He surely spent three times more that what it had taken her to put on the black dress and put a makeup spell on, courtesy of the teachings of Ginny. The horror of having even one hair out of place was unknown to him.

"I did, Granger," he repeats at her stare, dismissing her with his tone. He nods at someone again and for Merlin´s sake how many people does this man know? Hermione could watch the stream of people moving around the room and only recognize two or three.

"Except you didn´t."

He turns his irises on her again. Feed up with the coming and going accusations, his drink disappears down his throat and the flute into a enchanted trail. His facial expression slightly modifies as an idea strikes his mind. Hermione frowns in anticipation as she has his full attention for the first time in the night. Or in the last month, she thinks scoffing.

"What do you want to bet?"

Mimicking the dispose of the bothersome object, and after some thought she answers. "A book of your family´s library." Suddenly there´s a sort of increasing hotness in the air. "Better two." The witch moves her hair away from her shoulders and for a moment she forgets what she´s talking about."You can bet whatever you want, because you didn´t send it."

A light bulb seems to go on inside him at her words and the ends of his lips move up, causing her distraction at the sinuous movement. "Let´s go and take a look."

Hermione sees Malfoy looking behind her and suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder, the sensation a bit too intense; the weight of the cold hand against her dressed skin heavy and electric. She closes her eyes, her mind missing step. "Granger, can I have a word with you?" Turning around she finds Gary Fritz again, his stiff posture perturbing her with its almost marbled rigidity. What´s up with him tonight? "Privately." He adds in a hush with non-well covered need of secrecy.

Why is he touching her? "I´m busy," she responds, yanking her shoulder away from under his yolk with a little bit of difficulty, his grip tightening at her dismissal. She can´t quite place why she thinks so, but the ambient around Gary seems to grow darker, like heavy waters of the ocean with an angry kraken digging people at his heart.

"It´s important," he insists with an underlining pressing tone as one of his hands tries to catch her own. There´s no success in his action because she quickly takes a step back, away from the kraken´s wrathful tentacles.

The witch steals a quick glance at Malfoy, in hopes of a shared assessment of the aquatic situation. The blond is frowning at the man nonplussed, and looks at her sideways in a clear question of what is the deal with him.

She doesn´t know. Well, yes, but this sudden nonstop effort didn´t make much sense. "As I said, I´m- busy," she says moving again her hair away from her shoulders and passing the tongue over her dry lips. The man looks at her strangely and she can see his mouth dangerously opening for more insistence, and so she adds, "maybe later."

Then, old fashioned masculinity seems to come back as Malfoy puts himself between them, and with a movement of his hand, gestures towards the exit to leave. The presence seems to be magnetic for several seconds, the little hairs of her body rising at the sensation.

Her feet can´t carry her quickly enough."You´ll regret this so bad," the blond says with an signing tone of satisfaction. Hermione narrows her eyes at him, not backing away any step. Hell, who put a heat charm on? Her skin feels under the sun on a summer day, she thinks as she stumbles with a chair.

It doesn´t seem to alleviate one bit in the hallway, but at least there´s more air to breathe, and less Fritz and less monoxide carbon from all the dancing and talking bodies inside the ballroom.

The elevator, however, seems more like what must be the inside of a turned on microwave, the temperature rising with each second it passes. At least here there´s no music, even if Hermione is close to pop like a popcorn. And she doesn´t know why it had bothered her, or even if it had. There would be silence if it wasn´t for Malfoy enumerating all the things that he will make her do, going for doing his papers to cleaning all the toilets at Malfoy´s Manor. The witch only rolls her eyes, indulging him in what must be his mental porn as the pattern of the wall beside her seems to start undulating.

The temperature charms must be going drastically awry, she thinks to herself, as a new wave of hotness hits her when the doors open; the chiming sound resonating like an echo. When his arm brushes her side her breath hitches momentarily, her stomach dropping like in a roller coaster. How much did she had to drink?

The woman passes her tongue over her lips, feeling them in every pore of her skin; her mouth dry as sandpaper. Malfoy is walking several passes before her, still all encased in suit and robe. And isn´t this proof enough that he´s a reptile at heart? She would be naked if possible. Then she remembers she´s a witch, and so puts a cold charm on herself, furrowing her brow at the fact that she´s a witch and that how weird it really was to make spells and charms and all that. What if this was all a dream, she thinks, mini-hypervelating for a moment.

"Hurry up, Granger," he says from severe meters in front of her. Whatever he is real or not, he is evidently eager to prove her wrong. "Contrary to what your deluded mind must think, I prefer to be in the company of hot and sexy witches, ready to take advantage of me and my fortune."

The way to her cubicle seems to elongate in a long, solitary black rectangle as Malfoy´s figures grows smaller. She hurries up in case the serpent tries to pull some trick and conjure the signed reports from his desk.

The man is already on her desk, shuffling thought her piles of papers. It´s just momentarily surprising that he can recognize her cubicle among the multiple empty ones, without the people around, but yet he is sort of careful with details. The sound of paper is sharp. It resounds in her ears like a storm, powerful raindrops colliding against grass and ants. Poor ants.

Her feet moves her towards the man, but with each step he seems to be farer and farer away, a train leaving the station with sounds of papers. She thinks she giggles, and he looks momentarily at her frowning like an angry bear. Ah, no, a reptile. An angry emh...

Bear.

She almost giggles again, but a chair blocks her way and she just by little evades meeting the floor with her face. Her body feels light and weak, and long, specially long.

Now he laughs, from somewhere near and far away. "Granger, are you drunk? Didn´t the party just started?"

Moving the offending chair away and walking some more steps, she thinks yes, especially since the tips of her fingers moving her hair away again sends shivers down her spine as another rush of heat comes to eat her up.

It´s like the softest surface in the whole world and she can´t stop doing the movement, her fingers moving in circular motions against her skin.

Hermione seems to arrive just before her desk, because the image that is him opening and closing drawers is in front of her, inserting chaos all around.

The thought of scolding him for his treatment of her property comes and goes as her fingers move absently down. Her eyes move around his figure and focuses on his hands."It must be here somewhere." So hot, her breath hitches. What longs fingers Malfoy has. "Did you hide it?" Wouldn´t it be better if this were his fingers, travelling down and down towards her increasing throbbing center? She thinks, resting her weight against her colleague´s desk, as a new wave of something new hits her. All her senses seems to materialized, take hold and form, warming up from the bottom to the top.

Her knees go weak as her fingers travels down to one of her breast, so she grasp the wood as if it were a life jacket. Momentarily looking at it she finds the searched paper on the top, Malfoy´s signature resting at the bottom like an angry stain. A hybrid of an uh and ah moan escapes her lips and a sudden surge completely awakes inside her panties. Her eyes close, the dark behind her eyelids stained with furious vibrating colors.

"What are you doing?"

His forgotten presence becomes a reality suddenly, the hands she had been fantasizing about connected to a whole person whose intense eyes are fixed on her, a clear sign of confusion and disbelief straining its around. There´s a weird edge on his voice that she can´t quite place and it makes her wonder if he has been looking for a while now.

She swallows, with difficult; her tongue tangles within her mouth.

Clearing her throat she tries to compose herself and take control of her weird body, that feels more like butter than flesh and bones. "I- it- it itches," she answer, falsely scratching her nipple. He rises his eyebrows in surprise. Hermione thinks she´s blushing, but there´s a scalding heat all over her body that makes really difficult to singularize the place. As an afterthought comes the idea that she should feel deeply ashamed that she´s touching her breasts-and, Merlin, how sensitive they were- in front of him.

He remains sculpted in stone, with one hand on a folder and the other on a paper, his eyes opened like seeing a monster face to face. If it wasn´t that hard to think in a coherent way right now, she would find it funny and save it up for future reference for the next time Ron criticizes her for not finding humor in anything.

Instead, of all the possible, viable and rational options, she puts the questionable hand on the paper she should be hiding-she really doesn´t want to clean all the endless toilets on Malfoy´s Manor-, moving it absently off the wood.

"Is that-?" He starts asking, burst out of his dead state and moving closer to her to look at it. His nearing figure looks like a miracle inside her slow mind, his image undulating and his hair white blond shining like diamonds in the night. Isn´t he the answer to her prayers? Isn´t he the something she needs right now against her body? He´s kneeling at her side now, which wakes such images in her mind that her imagination is bursting with possibilities. Once he´s sadly up again, she concentrates on his moving image in front of her. There´s a sound that comes but as after and his lips move. They look like ropes moving as little kids jump up and down, like fishes swimming all around. But they´re the ones who threw the hook, which catches her and tugs her towards their captors.

The most slowest and fastest seconds pass as the image of lips grows more intense; the richest colors emanating from its crevices. One of her hands moves towards the image, taking the side of his jaw in the cup of her palm to still the object and stop the rainbow rain from the skin, as her fingers caress it. It does the trick, they´re frozen, waters unmoved, opened like Moses in a simultaneous question and invitation.

Her teeth bites her lips, lightly thinking about how much she wants to take their tiny hands and accept to establish movement again.

And so she does. Tugging at his flesh and moving towards him as the dancing image becomes blurrier, she meets Malfoy´s mouth slow and fast. Hermione encases his lips with hers, slightly moaning, as her tongue goes out to meet the skin and dance over it in a serpentine map. Then she realizes absently that there had been stillness on the other side when he finally moves. There´s something going up and up inside herself in excitement, so she moans again at the electricity rushing her body, nearing and sharing it with his. The man seems ignited by the movement, like wood to a burning house, coming more passionately and harder down to her.

Hermione´s mid is evaporating through the seams and her skin seems to be made of grains of sand flying all around. Especially when his hands moves on her, one on her hair, other on her waist.

Her fingers close around his robe, attracting him more towards her, wanting to melt down together, to put his forms against her, to make him touch each piece of her body. Her fingertips dance over his back up and down as she eats his mouth vigorously, curing her dry mouth with his one.

There´s an intense, invisible push just under her navel and she feels her hips undulating in search of something, anything. Hermione feels her spine become a feather and she wishes desperately for hands to be touching her in a specified place, where all the waves seems to irradiated off.

He´s too far away and she´s going to die of need. The ferocious desire howling inside her, makes her plead, taking one of his hand and placing it exactly where it needs to be. "Touch me."

There´s a twitch on his fingers and she gasps slightly moving again towards his lips. The match seems to make fire, because now he moans as in wonder, moving her against the hard, stabbing desk, and she whines when his hand moves away sadly after, soon enough coming back again under her dress.

The caress against her panties is wonderful, so wonderful that she feels herself melting away, as her hips rock against the hot hand. She trembles more still when his finger finally touches her naked skin and his mouth moves down, to her neck and then to her chest. The dress is rearranged to show her breasts, and he sucks and nips and bites and she feels going away.

The ceiling looks back like black stains that grow into frantic movement when one of his fingers slip inside her folds.

"Fuck."

The witch moans again, biting her lips as the desire keeps growing and growing and soon enough she will be crawling up the walls. His thumb keeps putting pressure against her clit in intermitted lapses and she´s so so so close that it hurts to exist and sobs are going to come out of her. There´s a piercing hunger inside that it´s going to eat her up. She rocks against his hand to take his finger deeper inside.

"More."

The man moves down at the command, leaving a trail of kisses behind, looking at her momentarily before accommodating himself on his knees before her. He moves completely up and aside her dress and the knickers off one of her legs, before putting his wonderful mouth against her core. The touch of his wet tongue makes her shiver. If she thought before it was completely wonderful, this was completely ineffable.

His tongue moves on her as another finger enters her, going back and forth, looking at her in the eyes. His eyes seems like diamonds against the darkness. The office shins by the shine of his eyes and she thinks this is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life.

The volcano keeps boiling and she feels all her body on the edge, wanting to fall down violently down the cliff. Hermione´s thighs spread as wide as possible, and he holds one of them as the other hand cups her backside, squeezing and rubbing with a tight grip. Jerking against his hot wet tongue, with one hand tangled on his hair she pressures to make him go harder and with the other she pinches her own breast. Her eyes close when he slides another finger forcefully inside and his mouth sucks hard in such a way that everything starts disarming down.

Her body violently trembles with the release as colors explode behind her closed eyelids and a sob escapes her mouth. It seems to go for some blessed seconds and then she thinks this is the most amazing thing she had ever experienced.

Everything goes still after that, from the ceiling to the room to the man kneeling in front of her, who kiss her one last time before moving up. The heat seems to recede and the waves calm down. From shore to middle of the ocean. There´s no so much fog clouding her mind now, and Hermione has the sudden superficial realization that that hadn´t been normal.

Still breathless and with her heart pounding inside her chest like ferocious horses, she puts all her weight against the desk in order to not fall on what feels more like straw than legs. As her dress covers her naked and glistening thighs again, she communicates to no one in particular just that. "This is not normal."

"What?"

Hermione blinks slowly. She tries to rationalize why this is not normal and what that even means, but her mind is fogging again and she can´t quite grasp it. Everything feels like a wet slippery soap sliding off her hands in all eternity, her body and the restarting sensations the only certainty.

"What do you mean?" The witch focuses again on the man, because it´s easier than the things slowly starting to move all around. His eyes are now no so much diamonds and his image is not waving as vigorously as before. "Are you rejecting me now?" He´s frowning again at her, and she thinks he may be able to understand this better than her.

"Everything was—is—a little less now, waving, moving. My skin feels on fire." She passes one finger on her neck again just to taste it again. "It feels weird, like consuming or—something, I—"

"You´re drugged," he says abruptly looking at her in the eyes and she can´t quite tell if it is a question or a statement. Now she is the one frowning and she thinks that yes, she must be. Because this intensity is not normal at all. "You´re drugged."

The words seems to come from the sky up. She closes the eyes when everything starts slowly picking up the pace.

"Fuck, Granger," he continues, taking a step back. "I´m sorry. I mean, you were a bit weird but I thought-." Opening her eyes again, she sees him passing a hand over his hair in a frustrated gesture. "It figures that you would never—", he interrupts himself again, "fuck!"

Malfoy kicks a bin, which goes flying two desks up. The release of energy seems to help him compose himself, because after asking her to cover her chest up, he starts thinking rationally. Or as rationally as can be expected when he has the taste of her on his mouth and a hard on so massive that he can´t just ignore. "What do you want me to do?"

"Well-"

"No," he quickly interrupts her imaging very clearly what her answer is going to be, judging by her biting lips and twitching hands. He adjust his trousers and she eyes the bulge like it is chocolate. "Do you want me to call Potter or Weasley?"

"No!" she sort of yells, twisting in revulsion at the image of insinuating herself to one or the two of her best friends.

"Do you want me to take you to St Mungos?" She ferociously moves her head with a no, no. "Someone drugged you, Granger. You should go get examined."

"And- be on The prophet tomorrow? No." The man goes up and down the room, mumbling incoherencies to himself. Hermione feels, more than commands, her body moving shallowly into the air.

He promptly ignores her. "Do I take you to your home?"

"I live with Harry."

He sighs and hits one of the desks. The sudden sound startles her. "Nothing is ever easy with you, right? Fuck, fuck, fuck." More incoherence. He stops before her, his face the image of anger and suffering, and asks again, "what do I do?"

A million of possible actions crosses her mind in a second, but she´s still sort of above the surface. "Take me to your home."

Visibly biting the inside of his mouth, he eyes her cautiously calculating. "Are you sure? You are not going to kill me tomorrow?"

"I can´t be here," she responds, her voice strained as hotness starts escalating. The man remains still, evidently unsure on what to do. "Can we go? Please, it´s getting- worse again."

Malfoy closes his eyes and puts pressure on them with his hand. "Ok, ok. Nothing is going to happen, do you understand me?" She nods, because what else can she do? But he doesn´t see her because of his closed eyelids. "Fuck, are you sure you don´t want to go to Mungos?"

Now he looks at her. Since she doesn't fancy any healers, but she does the man in front of her, the answer is quite simple. "Yes."

The way down the hallway is awkward to say the least. Malfoy makes her walk in front of him, as afraid she would rebel and throw herself at his feet. The minute in the elevator seems torture to both of them: commanded by her body she desperately wants to touch the man for some friction, commanded by his body he wants to responds, but his mind is yelling several neon no. To disperse the air he keeps mumbling, about this maybe being a joke of the Weasley´s and how maybe everyone by now is fucking everyone, and it´s all a grand, inoffensive and stupid joke. He promptly ignores the fact that he´s not affected. Well, not by a drug, just by nature and by a seven years long suffocating attraction.

As they walk down the hall he implores to all the gods that Potter or Weasley don´t cross their way. He can imagine himself being arrested for supposedly being a mean bad Slytherin drugging their little princes to have his wicked way with her.

Before igniting the floo he can´t help thinking how much he would love to indeed have his way with her. How the fuck is he going to survive the night? Specially taking in consideration that he still can quite taste her on his mouth.

When they arrive at his floor apartment he is still asking himself the same question. He gestures for her to move to the next room as he watches her and thanks the heavens with the same breathe that he curses them. At least she seems pretty coherent.

He takes some moments in the designed Floo room, before joining her in the living room. On his grey sofa she is sitting, evidently perturbed. The witch has her arms around herself, her hands seems to be kneading her arm´s flesh into her bones, as she stares at nothing, biting her lips.

Fuck, he thinks, sitting on the farthest armchair and then moving it even more farther from her. There´s silence for some moments and she´s staring at him fixated, lust dropping like honey, her muscles visibly twitching. He grows nervous under her eyes, because this is hard enough without her tempting him. Malfoy coughs. "How do you feel?"

"Tremendously horn—"

"Granger," he admonishes her, swallowing saliva and looking elsewhere. The diabolical satyr smiling on the painting just behind her mocks his faked and weak resistance. "Is it the same as before?"

She rolls her neck. "Yes and—no." Her muscles twitch again and she kneads harder. "It´s less intense and I can actually sort of think, but—" Muscles twitching again. It looks painful. "It hurts. Can you fuck me now?" She asks, leaning towards him.

In response he leans back in his own armchair and his brief goes tighter again. Blessed, sweet words. It seems a dream come true. Why reality always has to be such a fucking tragedy? The satyr keeps smirking down at him. "No."

"Please." She actually begs, pouting like an innocent nymph.

He takes his head between his hands as if by putting pressure and closing eyes the morality would evaporate away. "Granger, no." He hears movement and between his fingers sees her moving towards him. "No, no, stay the fuck away." Always contradictory, she kneels in front of him, putting her warm hands on his legs and asking again softly why. "You´re drugged."

"I know," she responds and puts her chin on his knee looking at him so adoringly and innocently that he feels his chest is going to burst from all the things that cross his mind. She begins to caress his encased thighs, rolling her shoulders back, but his hand grips her to stop the maddening, escalating movement. "I´m already attracted to you." His heart miss a beat at that, but then how can he believe her? It must be the drugs. "It wouldn´t be the first time I thought of this." He swallows around at what feels a big ball of steel.

Malfoy stares at her for a minute passing a final evaluation of the situation. What if she really fancies him? The nymph biting her lips and rolling her hips against air is visibly in pain. Shouldn´t he help her?

"I will do whatever you want, Draco," she swears breathless. Fuck is the only thing he can think at the first time hearing his name on her lips, and pronounced in such a way. There´s really no coming back from this: from seeing her in such a way, hell, for tasting her like he did, and then encountering her at work and fighting about stupid bills and laws. This feels like a threshold. A before and an after.

Imagine if he also fucks her.

No, the man decides again, taking a mental picture of her before moving her hands away from his body and his legs so her fucking irresistible pleading face is out of his visual field."I thought you were going to help me."

"I´m helping you. Here no one is going to take advantage of you."

"I want you to," she says, rubbing over his legs. "I want your coc-"

He moves his leg back and ignores her comment, continuing, "go take a cold shower. Choose whatever room you want. Just take care of it yourself."

She looks like she´s going to cry and her muscles are twitching even worse. Is he being cruel? No. It wouldn´t be right and she would fucking hate his guts once the drug is out of her system. "Don´t you know a spell?"

"No."

"Get your wand." She takes what he feels it´s like four endless minutes to take it out from the wand holder around her leg. When it´s already on her hands, he puts his on top and ignores her gasp at the contact, showing her the movements and the incantation "Vibratum." Her eyes grow big at sensing the vibrating tip of the wand against her hand. He sighs, wishing to show her how much sex can be improved with magic and how many useful spells he knows. "You can also transfigurate something to—you know."

She finishes the enchantment and looks at him dead in the eyes as she asks one last time, hooded eyes pleading. "You are really not going to fuck me?"

Malfoy stares at her dilated pupils, wishing one last time in the face of all his fantasies come true that his new-found decency would abandon him. It doesn´t. "No." She actually looks sad and he does feel evil. "Go to a room, I will put a silencing charm, so don´t worry. And—" He clenches his jaw. "If you need anything—you´re a witch."

Hermione stays just there for a moment, and he can see the hurt soaking all her cells. Then she stands up on quivering legs and doesn´t look at him again, only disappears though the hallway to find somewhere to find relief again.

Malfoy remains on the armchair for a while, contemplating his life decisions and new born moral values, but most of all, insulting himself and the situation to hell and back. He feels an magnificent idiot for having even though that she would suddenly fancy him enough to throw herself at him, an asshole for not recognizing her altered state and taking advantage of her and, worst of all, a fucking Gryffindor for having morals.

His self-pity is interrupted by moans travelling down the hallway, which makes him quickly stand up, find the room and put a silencing charm on. And then he goes to his own, intending to leave the moral out his dorm´s room to have the wank of his life to the lingering taste on his mouth and the mental pictures that he knows than from now on would always accompany him.

He doesn´t close one eye in all night. It´s impossible for his brain to shut down, especially knowing that the girl of his dreams is masturbating mere meters away from him. He has to wank several times during the night, as if he were a bloody adolescent all over again.

When there´s light coming through the window, he decides to leave his room. There is no sign of Granger´s presence or absence, and he surely isn´t going to knock on her door. Just in case he puts, like a muggle, a kettle with water enough for two, hope like a tiny mouse running havoc inside his insides. Once it sings its completed purposed Draco fills two cups with tea, one with two spoon of sugar, and one with nothing, just as he knows she likes it from all the meetings they had.

He sits down on the same armchair as the night before, the two cups magically descend into the little table and he waits, with his eyes fixed on the hallway.

The idea of working with her as before seems completely impossible. Every time that he sees her, he will get a monstrous hard on recalling her arduous passion. It can´t be expected of him to go to his life like nothing, after putting his mouth on her and his fingers inside. There is no turning back, is there? How can it be, when he already knows this side of her?

He tries desperately not to, but he hopes with a twisting anxiety that she´s still there and that they now would talk, and that she would think just like him. Otherwise he will have to resign and find something else to do with life. This may be his opportunity to confess his feelings at least.

Maybe.

Or maybe not, he thinks in a rush as he hears a door softly opening, followed by even more softer steps against the marble floor. He counts each steps with pleadings to the spirits above that this will go well. But judging by her horrifying expression when she finds him sitting and looking at her, she had hoped to escape without a sign.

Hermione, encased with the wrinkled dress and with the shoes on her hands, remains frozen on the spot for some seconds. Her face goes violently red and as he opens his mouth with full bravery to tell her to sit and drink some tea, she says quickly, "I will talk to you later."

And she leaves.

She fucking leaves!

On Monday she´s absent from work. Narrowing his eyes at her solitary desk, he wonders if this is a product of the Sorting Hat´s bad judgment. There´s no owl, message or smoke signal from her, and so he passes the day just like the day before and the day before: anxiety moving inside as his fingers play compulsively with the sleeve of his fleece black sweater.

Malfoy´s just a little afraid she will act like nothing happened, but then also that she takes it too seriously and never speaks to him again for abusing her or something along those lines. Nor that it had been his fault, but then Granger wasn´t always the most rational person, if her custom of acting like a jury and official all at once is anything to go by. Then he thinks of who may the real culprit be and rages kills all the butterflies on full fly down. They resuscitate once he´s lying down on his bed, the image of her coming to his mind in all glory.

On Tuesday the same history repeats: absence and silence. He feels scammed with her supposedly Gryffindorness and his new born senseless hopes. She had clearly been heavily drugged. Why would her words mean anything?

The man thinks of owling her. Was it Gary Fritz? Do you really and irrevocably hate me now? Did you lie when you say you´re attracted to me? Do you have any idea how fucking cruel you are being to me now?

Are you ok?

All sprouts of hope and happiness are crushed when on Wednesday´s morning, he encounters her walking down a hallway. Malfoy´s stupidly quivers for a second by the unexpected nature of the apparition -he had already figured her transferred to the Unspeakables, with their offices hidden away-, and he feels inadequate, lame and stupid, but she doesn´t seem to register anything. The witch almost imperceptibly nods at him, looking at the floor, and quickens her pace.

Fuck her. A population of butterflies over nothing. Just in case they insist in existence, he drowns them in alcohol that same night and the next.

Only a week later she dignifies him with her continued presence for more than three consecutive seconds. There are folders on her hands, in all different colors and he catches a sign of nervousness by the way two of her fingers caress the ends compulsively.

"Malfoy," she begins, her voice hushed in a way that he has to strained his ear in order to hear. There´re in a busy hallway and Merlin´s forbid she´s going to ask for something work related because he´s going to strangle her.

At his lifted eyebrow, which appears just after greeting Geoffrey and congratulating him for his not so recent promotion, she continues frowning.

"I think I never said thank-"

She´s interrupted by Violet, from Improper Use of Magic, who smiles at him and asks after his mother. Malfoy answer her, giving several details he would normally give, just because he can see clear as water the irritation crisping Grasper´s hair nest. Just after he finishes, he asks her as she puts his hands on his pocket.

"You were saying?"

She clears her throat. "Thank you-". He nods at Stephen from the Office of Misinformation. "Can you stop interacting with others for just a second?"

The corners of his lips go up by her shrilled tone. Let her suffer. A week! A week without nothing more than bits of bones to bite. His kidney is on bloody torture because of her silence.

"You´re the one who decided to talk in the middle of a hallway at 3 p.m."

Another person interrupts them, but now to talk to her and give her another fat folder, blue this time.

"Agh, ok," she concedes, rearranging the mountain of papers. "When are you free?"

Butterflies. Hadn´t they die already? "Whenever I want."

She rolls her eyes at his lack of responsibility. "I can be free in one hour. The bar at the corner?"

"Is that a date?" With red cheeks, she narrows her eyes at his amused tone and leaves him to the reclaiming public. He stares at her receding image, deciding on strategies and imagining all different possible outcomes.

One hour and eleven minutes twenty seconds later, with each second she doesn´t appear on the entry of the dark and old bar, one newborn butterfly is agonizing and rushing down to crash into the floor. There´s a little funeral for each of them. Will she show up?

He feels stupid, and nervous most of all. He composes a whirlpool on his coffee cup and why didn´t he ordered tea? His hands feel frantic.

There she is, at last. Coming through the door and scanning the room for him, her cheeks flushed in an evident hurry. As she moves closer, Malfoy recalls that pink color with such an intensity that he has to loudly clear his throat to dissimulate where his mind has go to.

"Sorry," Hermione says, sitting down in front of him. "I was held down with work. You already ordered?"

"Excuse the rudeness," she rolls her eyes at his fake polite tone, "but I wasn´t completely sure you would turn up. I have been developing this theory, about the Sorting Hat and his premature judgments of characters."

Hermione decides to not respond and bite her tongue. When the waitress is near, she calls her attention and orders tea and a scones.

There´s silence. She takes off her cardigan and he sips at his coffee. It tastes bloody awful. It´s possibly the worst coffee he has ever had. Malfoy wants to tell her this, but she should be the one talking so he swallows and hopes it doesn´t produce a hole in his stomach.

Luckily for her the waitress comes back and now she has something to busy herself with. When the situation becomes extremely ridiculous she speaks.

"I just wanted to say thank you."

"For?"

She fulminates him with her eyes, visibly biting the inside of her mouth.

"I mean it," he states, putting the cup back on its plate and then his hands on the table. "Thank you for not saying anything? For taking you into my home, for not taking advantage of you or for teaching you how-"

Hermione puts her palm up, interrupting him and wishing for his tongue to disappear. Well, maybe just his voice... Heat invades her face. "I get it, shut up. This is why I preferred talking in a hallway."

Draco leans back on the chair, pursing his lips. "You don´t really mean your thanks, if you wish to give them so rudely."

"I do." The affirmation comes with a sip of her tea. A grimaces burst into her face and she puts the cup down. "I just wanted to save myself the headache that comes with this never-ending discussions and your neurotic obsession on cornering me up to a metaphorical wall."

And not so metaphorical, he thinks. "Because you don´t do exactly the same."

"I do, of course, but now I am ashamed and you´re making it ten times worse." She says, her voice invaded with an almost hysterical shrill. "Can you please have a tiny bit of mercy?" He sips at his coffee, glaring at her from over the rim before remembering that the liquid is more poison than a beverage. A sigh leaves her mouth as she seems to count to three. "Again, thank you, really, for everything, I guess. And I´m sorry that I put you on that-" Hermione swallows. "Situation."

"There´s no need."

She scoffs in an unbelievable gesture. "I thought you were going to ask for reparations based on all the nightmares it must have caused."

"Nightmares?" he asks surprised. The cup clutters against its plate. Is she dumb? "It wasn´t exactly nightmare´s material, Granger." His heart is pounding.

"Torture then?" She continues offhanded, cutting the scone absently into two pieces.

Malfoy realizes that what he had interpreted as rejection is starting to look like zero awareness of her part and, judging by her tone, maybe a bit of self doubt. Or is it only embarrassment? How can a person so intelligent not be able to read a situation? The man seems to take too long to meditate about it, because Granger looks up at him.

"What?" She asks at his penetrating gaze and taking a piece of scone into her mouth.

He makes a decision then. The Gryffindor in him seems to be having a fucking party. Putting the cup and plate away as if to make room for his action, he jumps into the pool. He frowns at the contorted face of the woman, whose hand is searching a napkin to spit the food. He promptly ignores the scene.

"Granger, you were the one drugged."

"I know, Malfoy," she says taking a sip of her tea to take the bad taste away. It doesn´t seem to work. "The statement of the year-"

"I wasn´t drugged," he starts moving his hands in the air. Maybe the visual movement would help things go into her head. "You kissed me and I kissed you. You asked me to touched you and I did. You asked for more and I got down on my knees and lick you off."

"Malfoy!" She says in a panic hushed tone looking around. Granger waves her wand casting Muffliato. Malfoy rolls his eyes. The bar is empty: there´s only the waitress reading a magazine on the other side of the room. The coffee, the scones, the bloody tea is fucking awful. Only she would come to this place. She surely comes because of its nearness to the Ministry and so the short time away from her desk. "Can we just don´t talk about it at all?"

"Why?"

"Because I have never been more mortified in my entire life!" Hermione hisses, pulverizing the other piece of scone under her hand.

"Isn´t that a bit much?"

"Malfoy, for God´s sake- I rubbed myself all over you!"

He puts his palms up, completely exasperated by now. "Don´t you get it? I would have done anything you ask or let me do."

"But you didn´t," comes the hurt voice. "You rejected me." She eats a tiny piece of the crushed scone to dissimulate the transparent tone of her voice.

"I didn´t reject you, I reject taking advantage of you."

She huffs and he gives her a hard glance. "I thank you for it- really. But you can´t say it wasn´t a rejection!" A hand passes over her face to rub at her eyes. "Why are we even talking about this? I just wanted to say thank you."

Malfoy leans on the table, takes her hand off her eyes, and looks her dead in the eyes. "Ask me again now."

"What?"

"Ask me to fuck you."

"Malfoy!" Hermione takes her hands away and glances scandalized around, as if the inexistent people would hear anything over the spell.

"For fuck´s sake, I am ten times more Gryffindor than you are," Malfoy snaps, frustration ready to blow up inside.

The words fill the woman with anger. "I ask you and what? You laugh on my face?"

"Oh, for Merlin´s sake-"

"What are you trying to say then? That if I ask you to- have sex with me you would? Well, ok. Whatever. You would have sex with every women possible if you could. I had thought I wasn´t in that group. Now I am, because I was easy?" The rant makes the table waver and drops of her tea fall to the sides. She moves the cup away. "Your democratic approach to sex doesn´t make me any less embarrassed, it only makes it worse!"

Malfoy feels offended at her words and makes the table waver back. "Who do you take me for?" His snap makes her look up sharply. "Do you think I go in my life fingering and sucking any woman that goes into my way?"

There´s a grimace on her face along with a new blush. "Do you really have to talk that way?"

He can´t help the retort. "You talked far worse the other night."

"Go to hell," Hermione answers moving to leave. A hand on her arm stops her.

"I´m sorry." The muscles move on her jaw as she clenches it. "Don´t go. At least let me finish my coffee and pay the check." His hands put the coffee in front of him again, even if he didn´t have any intention of drinking that awful thing. "Finish your tea."

The witch doesn´t go well with orders, but in name of civility chooses to stay. Having Draco Malfoy saying sorry isn´t an everyday event after all. Silence reigns again as his mind search for a plan. He has to calm her enough to make her stop being so bloody defensive. Merlin, why does she have to be so difficult?

The witch takes another sip and grimaces again.

"I have three questions." Hermione throws a warning look at him. "Who drugged you?"

The cup shakes under her violent grasp. "Gary bloody Fritz."

"Why?"

The question has the potency to cross her, but it doesn´t: there is no doubt in his voice, only the wish to know. "I didn´t ask him," the tea almost splashes when she puts it violently into the plate. "I´m a threat to his job: he works in magical games with creatures." Her lips pursue in thought and disgust. "Most probably he was going to blackmail me."

"As if you would stop caring for magical creatures."

"Exactly, thank you. He doesn´t know me at all." It´s truth. Draco can´t see a situation in which the public opinion of her would weight more than the welfare of innocent others. "Even more, blackmail me with proof of his own crime? He doesn´t have the minimum of two neurons to make a connection." The witch shivers. "He´s stupid, but dangerous stupid. If it wasn´t for you-"

She shivers again as her stare drafts off into the back of the bar. Among the anger and indignation there´s fear and sadness, which makes him feel bad about still talking about the incident. There´s also a rabid ire at that fucking man and he wants to cut his head off. He doesn´t doubt, however, that she already took revenge.

He puts a hand over hers to call her attention. When her eyes are on him again, he asks, "What did you do to him?"

The answer comes quickly. "I didn´t do-," she pauses, surveying him. Hermione seems to find something because she decides to not lie. "I was going to denounce him, but this kind of cases never prosper, especially if it´s a pureblood male accused by a muggleborn female with no proof." Malfoy shifts in the chair uncomfortable remembering all his old insults at her. She doesn´t seem to take notice. "It would hurt me more than him. The bill wouldn´t pass and he would remain in his bloody job."

He puts more pressure on her hand and she looks surprised, having forgotten his hold. The woman frowns at him taking her hand off. "I´m a Slytherin, I don´t need your justification."

Hermione utters a half-laugh and sips at her awful tea again. "In two months I´m going to throw him out of the Ministry. I told his wife. I spell his chest to say that he´s a potential rapist. Then I curse him: he won´t be able to get a hard on for the next month. I already put an x on my calendar to renovate it." He nods in approval. Others may think the actions too harsh, but what was the ideal punishment for a potential rapist? "I was going to cut his cock off, but, well," she shrugs, "he didn´t rape me. Even if it may have been only because of you."

The tea on her cup disappears completely. "If you don´t drink, the coffee won´t disappear on its own. I have to go back to work."

"It´s fucking disgusting," he complains looking at the black liquid with a grimace. "Why did you choose this place? No one comes here."

"Yes, the tea is bad too. I don´t know how they manage to mess that up." She eyes the waitress as if saying sorry. "Is this", she says gesturing in the air, "done then? Can we pretend nothing happened?"

He leans over the table again. "I have one last question."

"Merlin, Malfoy!" Hermione complains but stays put. He decides to take it as a good sign.

"You said you were attracted to me and that you have already imagined the situation. Is that true?"

Her blush grows more violent. She glances at the empty cup as if thinking what to say. Malfoy takes her silence and delay as a yes, as warm and hope fills his inside.

"I won our bet." Her eyes snap in panic to his and he smiles mischievously. "I want to claim my reward."

Her head moves frantically in a no movement. "Malfoy, I don´t want to go to that house and clean the toilets where your father-"

He grimaces at the image. "Have dinner with me."

The woman stares at him in silence for a moment, frowning her pretty face. "As in a date?"

"No, Granger, as in a working dinner," he rolls his eyes. "When are you free?"

His heart is running inside his chest and he´s praying that she can´t hear it. Her face is pensive as her eyes examine him. A philosophical discussions seems to be taking place inside her brain.

Hermione bites her lips. A decision is made. "Whenever I want." She gives him a little smile when one appears on his face and his heart now misses a step. "Wasn´t this a date?"

He sees then than he may be able to take her into his apartment and finish what they started, but what about tomorrow? Better to establish an intention, a custom, a way to repeat everything again and not leave it as a causal event.

He smiles back. "I require a second date, then. I´m not an easy man."

"Indeed you are not."

He doesn´t want to sound desperate. He wants to say today: even thinking about the hours to come suppose torture, imagine to wait until Friday or a more traditional datable day!

"Tonight?" She asks timidly, biting her lips as a hand grasp her own arm and kneads, like that night.

Malfoy tilts his head. "Are you still under the potion´s effects?"

A pretty pink settles on her face. "Kind of."

Now he´s the one biting his lips at that piece of information. "I take you are completely rational and conscious?"

"Do you want me to recite the Polyjuice potion to you?"

"If you promise not to leave without a word, then I could take this as a date."

"Would you make that sacrifice?" She asks, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

His eyes drop to her lips. His clothes feel tighter and he has to move the robe to hide away the new member of the conversation as memories go by and fantasies wake up. "I think so."

Her fingers fidgets around the napkin.

"I live nearby."

"Good."

"Good," he says, rearranging his clothes. He waves at the waitress to pay the check. "Good."