A bit of a one-shot that stumbled into me as I attempted to focus on a group project. Hopefully now that it's fleshed out I'll be able to get some work done.
It turned out quite like I'd hoped, which is rare, for me. If you enjoy, review :) It's a simple concept. Thanks!
I hate disclaiming, as it always seems to ruin the pre-fiction anticipation, but even so, I don't own any of this.
Hermione settled into a seat in the far back of the library; the area no one ever really went. The books back here were ancient, and written mostly in Latin; the only people that attempted to decipher them were those doing independent research studies, and those were rare. This was her favourite work space.
Spreading out her arithmancy notes, Hermione brought her quill to her lips absent-mindedly as she read the assignment. Only the first day back for seventh year and Professor Vector had been cross and given them homework. Hermione felt it was deserved; most of the other students hadn't even bothered to read the summer material. She had, of course.
Even so. She sighed happily, looking around at the thick, dusty tomes. It was a thrill to be back at Hogwarts, especially this year, since she'd been made Head Girl. Not that she'd ever really had a doubt, but hadn't wanted to indulge in false hope, just in case. The only downside was that she'd have to spend much of her year working with Draco Malfoy, who had clearly bribed the school to get the position of Head Boy. She couldn't imagine his marks landed him a job of such merit.
Although, she supposed he wasn't stupid. Perhaps there was more than she knew.
No; Draco Malfoy was nothing more than a shell. She knew all there was to know.
She re-read the first question, sucking on her sugar quill, her recent guilty pleasure. To calculate the distance it requires for a spell aimed North at a wall approximately one kilometre away, and to deflect in a south-west direction, at what angle must the wand be positioned...
She looked up sharply, sensing a disturbance. Her heart fell and her stomach jumped, simultaneously.
He was seated at the next table over, in a chair opposite to hers, facing her. His arms crossed, he leaned back in his chair. A vision of nonchalance. His long blond hair fell across his cold, grey eyes. She hadn't even noticed him enter the area.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she murmured, attempting to re-focus on the question.
"Oh, to be that quill," he said, ignoring her question. "Oh please, Granger; suck on me instead?"
"You disgust me." Her tone was dismissive. She hoped he couldn't see the blush that she could feel rising to her cheeks.
"You and I both know that's a lie."
"If it's a lie, it's a bloody good one, since I believed it myself."
"Ah, the witty banter, Granger. I missed this over the summer." He was smirking. "Speaking of which, how was your summer? Chaste and wholesome, I hope? Riding bicycles down by the river and the like?"
"You are immature. My summer was quite fine; unfortunately, now I am back to dealing with you, so it certainly could have been longer."
At what angle must the wand be positioned for the spell to reach a target two metres away if it is an ordinary spell which travels–
"You missed your bloody library too much, I know you. You could put up with me for 24 hours a day as long as you could have this library," he scoffed, eyes dancing with humour.
"Malfoy I'm trying to focus," she replied, not looking up.
"Well, you wouldn't be having an easy time of that, even if my physical presence wasn't so distracting . A statement of fact, Granger. To be honest, I'm shocked to find you here. At that same bloody table. Don't you get to thinking?" He was playing with her now. Because he knew she would eventually react.
She met his eyes. They were cold and grey and bore into hers. She looked away before she could become intoxicated.
"There's nothing out of the ordinary to think about," she replied crisply, attempting once more to read through the question.
"The answer is thirty fucking degrees, Granger. Now would you speak to me?" He had betrayed his position of observer and was leaning forward, his hands on the table.
"Also nothing to talk about." She refused to look up. She felt her blush deepen, her mind overrun with the memories she could never quite eliminate.
She was sitting at her usual table, deep in thought. Scribbling frantically on an essay due the next morning, she had hardly noticed him approach. Sixth year was turning out to be a pain; it seemed she was always behind.
He settled into a seat at her table, directly across from her. She glanced up, shocked as she saw him there.
"You're going to snap your own damn wrist off, Granger," was all he said. "Slow down; you've got time."
"I do not," she replied shortly, back to her essay.
"You're right, I was just trying to help. I was finished two weeks ago." He let out a cold 'ha'.
"Would you mind?" she asked, giving him a pointed look.
"Oh, of course." He settled into the seat, not making any efforts to leave her alone. He fell silent, staring openly at her.
Hermione ignored his presence quite well for the most part. That is, until he leaned forward, so far that his nose nearly touched hers. Hermione recoiled so violently she nearly threw her chair over backward.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"You have something in your hair," he replied, shrugging. He picked something from her hair, tossed it to the floor and leaned back again, crossing his arms. "I guess you should wash more regularly."
She shot him a scathing glare.
"I'll have you know I wash plenty; probably more regularly than you do."
"Oh, I doubt that. I am impeccably clean at all times." He smirked, perhaps at the thought of him being dirty. "And you're welcome, by the way. Most people would ignore something like that, under the assumption that it's impolite to point out one's flaws. I believe it's better to make them known, that way the person knows what to fix about themselves."
"I hardly constitute having something in one's hair as a flaw," she reasoned against her better judgement to ignore him.
"It represents poor health and a deteriorated state of well-being," he replied. "I would hate to see that befall you."
"Don't kid yourself, Malfoy; you and I both know you don't care enough about me for that," she spoke, settling down her quill.
"Au contraire, madame; if I did not care at all I would not be here." She narrowed her eyes, attempting to read between the lines.
"Please leave me alone," she sighed, picking up her quill once more.
"Fine," he replied loftily, pulling a book from his bag and flipping it open to a random page.
"I'm hurt, Granger. I mean that little to you, do I?" his voice snapped Hermione out of her reverie.
"Even less." She didn't have to look at him to see that he was probably pouting like a six-year-old.
"You can't delude yourself. It's not as if you can take it back by pretending nothing happened," he commented, lounging back in his seat again.
"I most certainly can, therefore, I will."
"Oh? And what happens to poor, perfect, virgin Head Girl's rep when people find out?" He snorted aloud at the thought.
"There is nothing to find out," she insisted, her voice with a warning edge to it. He shook his head, clearly enjoying himself.
"You know," he drawled. "Most girls would kill to be you. Wanted for your body by Draco Malfoy."
"Most girls are self-absorbed simpletons whose greatest ambition in life is to be the arm candy of some prestigious wizard," she shot back. "And to be frank, the concept of you anywhere near my body sickens me. Hence, I'm a little sickened just at the moment."
"Your hypocrisy astounds, Granger. And I am difficult to astound, congratulations."
"Must you be such an irritating gnat at all times?" she questioned, sucking once more on the end of her quill.
"Of course not. And in fact, I am never an irritating gnat, you just have a very shallow concept of ordinary human relations. You know what I want, as I am a very straight-forward individual, and if you were to oblige, I would leave you alone. For now." His eyes were no longer cold, and they shone with something Hermione didn't quite recognize.
"Afraid I've no idea what you're on about."
"You're infuriating, you know? Firstly, now, all I want is for you to admit that it happened. And secondly, which was the previous firstly, before you turned into such an obnoxious cow, I wouldn't mind a repeat performance." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Hermione fumed, looking around the library anxiously. They were still alone. He stood up, swaggering over to her table. He took a seat in the chair directly across from her. She swallowed uncomfortably, looking away from his intense stare, which was now on her.
Merlin, she could practically feel the heat rolling off his body in waves.
She sighed angrily, glaring at him, still sitting there, innocently reading his textbook.
"Must you stare?" he asked, looking up, eyebrow raised. "You're going to give me a complex."
"Go away, Malfoy," she stated tiredly. "As much as my life is a joke to you, I need to complete this essay."
"Well let me read it, I'll see if I can think of anything you missed," he offered and Hermione was instantly suspicious.
"Why would I give it over to you?" she questioned, placing a hand over the parchment, as if to protect it.
"Because I want to help," he murmured, holding out a hand. "I told you I already finished, I'm not about to steal your ideas."
"You never want to help. Are you on something?" she asked, staring at him incredulously.
"What am I, a Muggle? Of course I'm not on anything," he laughed.
"Oh right," she murmured, flushing red, "I suppose I take it back."
"Damn right. Drugs. How unhealthy." He scoffed. "I have a wand when I need a good high, you crazy Muggleborn."
Her eyes flashed.
"You are utterly ridiculous," she told him, looking back to her assignment.
"Let me see your essay," he tried again, reaching for it. She swatted his hand away. He leaned back in his seat again, watching her closely, a curious smile playing across his lips.
Hermione tried to ignore him, becoming more flustered as she did so. He stubbornly refused to look anywhere else, and that smile was driving her mad. Driving her insane. She wasn't sure which. Both.
Ignorance turned out to be a bad idea, as she went so out of her way to avoid looking at him that she accidentally knocked over her nearly full ink well, spilling ink all over her newly completed essay parchment.
"Oh fuck me," she murmured angrily, drawing her wand to attempt to remove the offending medium.
"Gladly," he spoke in reply, and before Hermione could even raise her wand, he had leaned forward, crushing his lips hard to hers, digging a hand deep into her wild head of curls.
Hermione swallowed once more, clearing her head of the memories.
"Your closeness grows directly in proportion with the unease in my stomach," she spoke quietly, writing down her arithmancy situation on a sheet of parchment.
"I already told you the answer was thirty," he reminded her.
"Am I to believe you are telling the truth? And besides, even if you are, Professor Vector wants us to show how we achieve the answer," she scolded.
"And the unease in my stomach grows in direct proportion with your eagerness to perform in the classroom, how coincidental," he mocked, smirking.
"At least I care more about my performance in the classroom than in the bedroom, unlike someone seated at this table. This is a school, not a brothel, Malfoy, in case you missed the memo," she shot back.
"You've got such a case of denial over that swollen head of yours it's hilarious. You speak so fondly of my performance in the bedroom," he teased. Hermione wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"I try not to think about you like that," she said, convulsing exaggeratedly to prove her point.
"Oh I know, it was hard making it through the summer. For me, too. If it helps, I pictured every girl I was with as having your hair," he murmured, leaning in. "And your book sense. But I'm here, you don't need to hold back anymore."
"Oh, I won't," she lifted a hand, preparing to slap him and he just laughed.
"Merlin you're hot when you're about to inflict physical damage upon me," he let out a low whistle. "I am so turned on."
"I guess you'll need to find one of your hybrid Whore-mione's to help you out with that," she said, smiling.
"That was clever, I like it," he stated. "But I think rather, now that you're here I won't need to make do with any second rate females. Of course, that is when you finally admit how much you want me."
"Oh good, then it'll never happen."
He just looked at her, his grey eyes burning into hers. She glared back, recognizing the challenge for what it was. Slowly, he ran his tongue over his lower lip. He smirked as she instantly blushed red.
"That's what I thought."
Hermione let out a muffled shriek as she immediately hopped up to push him away. She pried his fingers out of her hair, looking around the library awkwardly.
He stood, leaning forward over the table, resting his hands on the wood. The bastard had the nerve to smirk at her.
"What are you doing?" she asked furiously, her voice an octave higher than usual.
"You told me to fuck you," he shrugged.
"It was an expression!"
"I've always been big into literal meanings," he reasoned, licking his lips.
"You are such a filthy prat," she fumed.
"I'll show you how filthy I am."
"Thought you were impeccably clean at all times?"
"Completely different sorts of dirty."
They stared at one another, in some bizarre standoff, for what felt like years to Hermione. Finally she jerked away from his intense gaze, packing her things into her bag, preparing to leave. When she looked back up he was there, next to her, too close.
She froze, suddenly terrified of him and his eyes.
"Granger, I've been watching you," he murmured, quietly. "You're walking such a narrow rope that it's bound to just snap one of these days. You need some serious stress relief."
"What do you want from me?" she asked. Her voice faltered and she hated it.
He evaluated her for a moment. He lifted one hand, trailing it lightly across her hip, around to the small of her back. Suddenly he pulled forward and Hermione felt herself pressed against his body.
She mentally screamed at her legs to run, to carry her as far from this madman as she could. She couldn't look away.
"I want," he whispered, leaning in toward her ear, "to help you relieve some stress." His syllables were so crisp, his behaviour so unexpected, that Hermione didn't know what to think. Suddenly she found her senses.
"This is ridiculous," she stated calmly, attempting to untangle herself from him.
"Oh come off it," he scoffed. "You think it's nothing for me to admit how badly I crave you? To watch you in classes, wishing I could make you forget how badly you hate me? Wondering why the fuck I even want you at all?"
She stared at him, aghast, mouth slightly open.
"Surely you must be lying," she stated, unsure if it was to herself or to him.
"Surely you know I'm not."
And then he kissed her again, the same urgent passion behind it. His free hand trailed up her back, her neck, pulling her closer still. Hermione stood, hopelessly unresponsive, as she wasn't entirely sure what had just happened. Was currently happening.
Draco pulled back, biting almost painfully on her lower lip, before he sighed.
"Look Granger, just because you aren't the snogging expert that I am, doesn't mean–"
He was cut off to find Hermione's lips back on his, and she was suddenly kissing him like it meant her life, and he kissed her back like it meant his, and then it was a desperate battle that went beyond words.
"Admit it, Granger," he was saying, "you can't stop hoping it'll happen again. That's why you chose to work in this same place."
"I happen to like the silence," she murmured, shooting him a glare.
"To be honest with you, I had initially thought that if I just got you out of my system I could move on. After all, you aren't my usual type." It was as if he'd completely ignored what she had just said. He probably had.
"Your usual type being ridiculously stupid, big-breasted, blonde, Slytherin bimbos, preferably at least two years older than you," she listed off flippantly. She tossed her hair as if to emphasize its brunette shade.
"That's mostly true," he agreed without hesitation. "I sometimes go for girls outside of my own house of Slytherin. And then, of course, you don't fit the bill on any of those counts. Well, your rack isn't bad."
She couldn't figure out if he was insulting or complimenting her.
"But hey, if my instinct says, 'shag Hermione Granger,' I should probably listen to it, no?" He raised his eyebrows, looking to her for her opinion.
"You should probably ignore it. May you have better luck than I have ignoring you."
"You're painfully stubborn. I would hate that about you if it weren't for the fact that it makes me into putty. Mold me into something of your creation, please?" He was being overly dramatic; Hermione rolled her eyes.
"You don't want that, I'd make you into a hunchbacked cyclops with poor fashion sense," she advised. By now she had all but given up attempting her arithmancy until he was gone.
"Or worse," he agreed. "At least I would be yours."
"Only until I disown you. Drop you into Goyle's dinner plate or something."
He visibly shuddered, shaking his head.
"Honestly, Granger. I want you, I know you want me, much as you deny it; why shouldn't we go off and shag one another gratuitously into the Russian literature section?"
She was a little taken aback by his new, more forward tactical method of persuasion. She didn't respond, unintentionally biting the end off of her sugar quill.
"See, you have no reason not to," he exclaimed, taking her silence as an admittance of defeat. Hermione bit her lip, making the mistake of looking into his eyes. Now he had her trapped, and he knew it.
He'd had her trapped, her back against the sturdy bookcase. With each kiss, each feverish touch of his hands on her, Hermione felt herself spin out into delirium. The best way to reason what she was doing was to ignore all reason, she had decided.
He had peeled off her robes at some point between the table and the bookcase, and was sucking at the delicate skin just above the curve of her breast. He'd loosened enough buttons of her shirt to expose her modest, but attractive bra.
She bit her lip, for fear she may start speaking in tongues or something similarly embarrassing. She'd had no idea a boy could make her feel like this. At least, no other boy she'd ever kissed had been quite as talented as Draco Malfoy.
He was back at her lips, and the side of herself that she had surrendered her conscious thought to was loosening his tie, loving the feel of the silver and green silk, unbuttoning his shirt.
She felt his fingers between her legs, moaning in anticipation; he had pushed her skirt up out of the way and was allowing himself free reign of her thighs.
It sort of tickled, just a little, and then ... oh, Merlin. What was he...
Hermione bucked against his fingers. She let out a cry and Draco silenced her with his lips. Some vague part of her consciousness still noticing detail could tell he was smirking. She felt her hands undoing his belt buckle, trembling.
Her legs were around his waist... there was a spot of discomfort...
He was kissing her, working her into a rhythm, touching her everywhere... Hermione couldn't remember where she was... and who was he?...
Oh yes, he was Malfoy... no he wasn't – he was – he was... was not – he –
"Draco!" The scream wrenched from her own throat brought her back down.
The last time he'd had her trapped she had lost her virginity to Draco Malfoy, up against a bookshelf. She'd had the bruises for weeks. The memories were so vivid she hadn't trusted herself to speak.
He'd kissed her one last time, dressed and walked away with a smirk at her expression.
When she'd seen him the next day in class, he was completely unaffected. She'd assumed he still was.
She'd assumed wrong, if the current look in his eye said anything.
"Think about it, Granger," he murmured then. He leaned his chair back, resting his shoes on the table. "Think about me, at night, when you try to sleep. You'll touch yourself, and you'll breathe my name, and then you'll come to me."
"I'm leaving," she said quickly. She felt the blood rising in her cheeks. Felt what his words were doing to her mind, to her body, and she hated it. Hated him for it. She threw her things into her bag hastily, standing, about to walk away.
"If that's what you want. I'll be here."
She paused. She looked back at him.
His eyes were devouring her.
It would be a long year.