#arewelonely

“Fucking make all the sounds you want,” Sirius pressed their joined hands to Remus’ ribs. “Fucking talk dirty to me or get shaky and lose control.”

Sirius leaned further over him and Remus’ stomach flipped—Sirius’ hot, wet dick brushed against his hip.

Sirius’ eyes were dark. “Re, lose control, if you want to.”

Remus took a shallow breath in. Fuck.

“I’m not judging you.” Sirius paused. He raised his eyebrows. Questioning.

Remus shuddered his breath out. “Come here.”

Sirius squeezed his knees around Remus’ thighs again. “I’m about as close as I can get.”

Remus gripped Sirius' hands so hard he could see red marks forming. “Firstly, that’s a lie, and get your face closer to mine.”

“And?” Sirius leaned back, sitting on his heels. His dick bobbed in front of him and Remus turned his head into the pillow at the sight, feeling his groin twinge and his own dick jerk almost painfully.

“Fuck,” he groaned. He glanced up to see Sirius biting his lip in hesitation—and quickly pulled hard on Sirius’ hand to offset his weight as he sat up.

He let his face and sweaty hair brush close to Sirius’ and he tried to ignore how his dick now brushed against Sirius’ stomach. “Thank you for forcing me to be a better person, fucker.”

Sirius smirked and Remus saw the relief in it.

“Fucking let go of my legs and my hands so I can…” Remus shook his head.

Sirius’ smile softened. “Tell me,” he whispered.

Remus leaned forward and brushed his tongue along Sirius’ lower lip. He tasted faint sweat and fought against the urge to bite down. “I… I want to hold you.”

He gripped Sirius’ hands tighter and pushed the words past his worries.

“I want to press your ass to me with my heels.” He watched as Sirius’ mouth opened slightly. He knew he was avoiding Sirius’ eyes. “I want to leave hickeys on your waist.” He waited half a breath. “Do you—?”

Sirius sat back and dropped Remus’ hands. Remus glanced up at last and found Sirius’ pupils dilated and irises heady: exhilarating to meet with his own.

Remus’ heartbeat set the pace.

His fingers gripped Sirius' jaw.

He pressed their mouths together and bit down, hard, on Sirius’ bottom lip.

Sirius groaned deeply and his hands scrambled around Remus’ waist.

Remus shifted his weight on to his left side and kicked his right leg out, wrapping it around Sirius' hip—their dicks slid against each other and Sirius pressed down on Remus’ stomach.

The sound he made was inhuman, and he felt a spurt of precum shoot out on his hip. Remus pushed upwards against Sirius’ weight, gripping around the back of Sirius’ head.

His hands tangled in Sirius’ hair. He licked Sirius’ lips and then kissed him, hard, stabilizing their rocking bodies with his bent right leg.

“Fuck,” Sirius breathed into Remus’ mouth, hot and him and somehow a lock of his hair fell between their lips—Sirius brushed it all away, leaving Remus’ shaky fingers grasping at the air.

“Let me—”

Sirius bent back over, placing his hands on either side of Remus’ head. “What?” He grinned, breathless. “Let you do what, Moony?”

“Let me bite your lip again.” Remus took a breath in. “Grind against me, Sirius.”

Sirius’ dick twitched against Remus’ hip. “Okay.” And he bent his head for Remus to grab back at his jaw again—

“That was a really wordy response—shit, Pads—”

Because Sirius had dipped his head to Remus’ neck, scraping his teeth and then sucking, hard. His hips rolled against Remus, again, and again, and Remus’ head arched back with how fucking good it all felt.

“I,” Sirius panted, “don’t really—”

“I like when you can’t say anything ‘cause it’s too hot.” Remus grabbed Sirius’ back, frantically searching for a grip.

Sirius continued to work himself against Remus’ body, and Remus slid his hand along Sirius’ upper back to grip his arm. He was getting close, and he hadn’t touched Sirius’ arse nearly enough yet.

“I—”

Remus got his legs out from under Sirius and pushed them together at last with his heels—

“—like you—”

—and Sirius was breathing heavily into the crook of Remus’ neck and Remus scrambled to hold all he could, and he rocked against Sirius using his heels and hands as leverage.

There was a tongue in his mouth, suddenly, and Remus sucked hard and Sirius groaned and shuddered and Remus shoved up with his right hip, flipping them.

He drew his hands down Sirius’ sides and kissed him. He began grinding against Sirius, and Merlin, he felt like Sirius was so much better at this than he was, but Sirius’ eyes were wild and he cupped Remus’ face in his hands and pulled his face back down—

Sirius squeezed Remus’ waist tight with his knees and came, hot and with kisses to Remus’ jaw and lips. Remus rolled his waist against Sirius’ again and groaned. Sirius held on as he came down from his high and Remus found his own. He shuddered at the release and brushed his lips against Sirius’ jaw and cheek.

He bit Sirius’ lower lip and settled on to his left hip, his right leg still thrown across Sirius’ body. They grinned at each other for a second, covered in each other’s come, and Remus grabbed Sirius’ hand when he moved to reach his wand from the bedside table.

“What?” Sirius asked.

Remus pressed a kiss to Sirius’ fingers. “I like you, too.”

Sirius blushed, and his mouth squirmed with a smile. “Look at you, saying it.”

Remus let go of Sirius’ hand, “I can say the emotional stuff,” he swatted at Sirius’ head, “just have a bit more difficulty instructing you to fuck me.”

“Mhm, but you did, this time,” Sirius leaned up and fully captured Remus’ mouth with his own, pulling him down with a hand behind his neck and a moan. Sirius’ mouth was warm and comfortable and Remus really liked the touch of his lips against his.

“Yep,” Remus agreed, pressing a hard kiss against Sirius’ top lip.

“Brilliant brain,” Sirius murmured, and swiped his tongue against Remus’.

“Says you. I don’t think my brain connects to my body like yours does.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

“I,” Remus attempted to body roll against Sirius again, “I can’t grind like you can.”

Sirius blinked. “Fuck, Re, yes, you can.”

“Yeah?” Remus felt a smile creep across his face.

“Yeah, yes,” Sirius shook his head, “and you need to do that next time, like, a lot more.” Sirius grinned and ran his hands up and down Remus’ chest.

“Alright,” Remus smiled.

Sirius sat up, pushing Remus back to sit on his heels. “And what do you want me to do more next time?”

Remus rolled his eyes, but couldn’t deny the twitch in his groin again. Sirius bumped their noses, his smile far too wide and self-satisfied.

“Suck my dick,” Remus said. “If you want to.”

Sirius let out a whoop! and fell back on the bed. “Yes!” he shouted. “I get to suck Remus’—”

“Fucking Pads!” Remus clapped a hand over his mouth and glared when Sirius began licking it. “We’re in the fucking dorm, there’s not a bloody Silencing Charm because you were too goddamn horny to wait—”

Sirius flipped them and kissed Remus squarely on the mouth. “I’m gonna get you shouting one day,” he said, pulling off and walking to the bathroom.

“Not while we’re at Hogwarts,” Remus shook his head. He felt a jolt in his stomach when he realized what he had said, and he watched Sirius look over his shoulder.

Sirius smirked. “You think we’re gonna last?”

Remus felt the side of his mouth quirk up. “You’re a shit,” he said, and he knew it came out lovingly.

Sirius blushed slightly again and Remus laughed out loud. This boy.

And logic was easier. Harry said “play” and Padfoot spun in circles. Harry said “uh oh” and Padfoot pretended to trot around aimlessly before tumbling into the block tower Harry had built. Harry laughed and Padfoot thumped his tail for Harry to grab.

Remus said “Sirius, really?” and Padfoot panted with his tongue out and Remus fought against a smile. And Sirius would make a mess of their living room all day just to see Re’s mouth twitch.

He liked changing into Padfoot, too, and watching the awe on Harry’s face as he realized who had suddenly appeared in front of him—“Padfoo!”

And he liked how Remus, as the weeks went on, would drag a hand along his backside if he passed him leaving or entering the room.

“How concerned should we be, do you think?” Remus said, one night, after having stared off into the distance for quite some time, Harry asleep in their bed, Padfoot on the couch so he didn’t have to be in his bed next to Harry without Re.

Padfoot let out a snort and lifted his head to look up at Re next to him.

Remus rolled his eyes. “The not walking thing,” he clarified.

Padfoot breathed out and nudged closer. He put his head on Remus’ leg and tried to control his breathing when Remus began to scratch his head.

“He’s doing better than we are,” Sirius mentioned later, hovering by their bedroom door after Remus had yawned one too many times for comfort.

Remus frowned and rubbed at his sleeves and Sirius was hit with the overwhelming want to pick his boy up and hold him until he settled. But he stayed by the always-open door and watched Remus’ face and felt the back of his teeth with his tongue.

Remus shrugged, and folded his arms and hesitated. “We’re getting there,” he said at last, and he offered a half-smile before pulling his wand out of his back pocket and shutting the lights.

Sirius went into their room and heard Remus settling on the couch and put his hands to his face that his boy might be falling in love with him again.

“Hey, Harry?” Remus called later on, when the sun was up again and Sirius was drinking tea and trying to think of what in Merlin’s name James and Lily did to occupy themselves all those months. “Where’d ya go, bub?”

Sirius frowned and turned from the window. “He’s not with you?”

“Nah, he just walked out—”

Sirius’ heart beat. “He—”

“Padfoo?”

Sirius grinned, absurdly large, he could tell, and felt his gut twitch as he shook his head out and became Padfoot. He walked forward, slowly, waiting to see how far Harry might go—

And there the baby was, no nerves on his face at not having anyone in grabbing distance, just looking around and toddling into the middle of the room.

“Padfoo?”

And Padfoot ran forward and barked. He jumped in excitement, his paws bouncing gently off of Harry’s chest.

“Padfoo!” Harry squealed, his butt falling to the carpet with the impact of Padfoot’s push.

“Sirius!” Remus shouted. “What do you think you’re—”

But Padfoot had snuck a paw around just in case Harry’s head had fallen backward, and Harry just giggled with his dog above him. “Padfoo!”

Remus sighed. “Sirius…”

“Moony?” Harry said suddenly, his uncle and dog in the middle of a faint eye conversation, and Remus knelt down to the carpet.

“Yeah, Harry, I just thought that—”

Harry twisted around and stuck his chubby hands out, hitting Remus in the chest. “Moony!”

Remus blinked. “Yeah, what?”

Harry tapped on his chest again. “Moony!”

Remus stared, and then quirked up the corner of his mouth and fell dramatically to the ground. “Oh, so strong!”

Harry giggled and Padfoot couldn’t hold his joy back anymore and he barked and became Sirius again.

Harry spun around in amazement. He gasped when he saw who had reappeared, and Sirius laughed, and watched as his godson used his hands to lift his diapered bottom off the ground and then teeter to a standing position. Harry took one step, then another, and hit Sirius in the chest, cackling up to the ceiling when Sirius rolled on to his back with a whoop!

She picked up Dark Beasts and Their Homes to hide behind and crossed a leg, watching him in her periphery.

Time passed, or it didn’t (all Hermione understood was the quick heartbeat flutters and the way the words she read momentarily ceased to imprint in her brain when Draco lifted his eyes and caught hers for the faintest of seconds). Draco seemed better at concentrating than she, but Hermione had a theory that he was just better at pretending and it grew ever more probable when his eyes didn’t even move across the page to read, and instead lifted slightly when she shifted positions in her chair. She stifled a smile at this and sprawled out even more, stretching first one and then both of her legs out to rest on the chair next to Draco.

She watched as he watched as she crossed her ankles on top of the other. She flicked her eyes back down to the page when he glanced over at her.

And then it didn’t matter where Hermione sat–students may have walked past the Gryffindor and Slytherin and only the latter would have noticed because the former was far too engrossed in her book.

“This is a problem!” She burst out, some amount of time later, sitting entirely upright, and Draco folded his book closed and glanced up at her with just a hint of a smile.

“Yes?”

“Read this.” She turned the open book around and slid it across the table to him, pushing his aside. He rolled his eyes and took the new book in his hands.

He was quiet while he read, and attractive. Even more so as he blinked and reread a passage. Hermione felt her stomach relax and tighten at the same time–he agreed.

“You see?”

“Give me a second to finish here, Granger–”

“Alright,” she put her hands up, leaning back, biting her lip, but her toes tapped. Merlin, Draco Malfoy actually agreed.

Of course werewolves deserved proper accommodations for transforming during the full moon. Hermione knew Remus didn’t enjoy speaking about it to others so she didn’t know exactly what accommodations these should be, but certainly not the ones listed out in this guide to Homes of Dark Beasts.

No window to mark the passage of time. No sustenance. Locked in for one day before and one day after–just to be safe.

“This is absolute bullocks. Makes absolutely no sense.”

Hermione placed her hands on the table and shifted all her weight forward. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Draco shook his head and placed the book down. “I mean, it ignores every fact we know. Needlessly cruel.”

“Exactly.” Hermione nodded. “I’m glad you agree.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. He swallowed. Broke the eye contact. Met it again, a faint pink blush on his cheeks. “Is this what you want to do after Hogwarts?”

Hermione frowned. “What?”

“Animal rights?”

“It’s not animal–”

Draco shook his head, his face scrunching up. “Magical rights,” he amended. “Equality, equity. Sorry.”

Hermione stared at him for a moment, feeling her stomach twinge. “I… I don’t really know if I can plan for after Hogwarts.”

Their faces mirrored each other’s, with the multiple lines on the foreheads and the lips pressed together.

“Is that what you want to do?” she nodded at the Potions book on the table. “After Hogwarts?”

Draco glanced down at the book, and he inhaled.

A herd of first-years whooped a few stacks over and they both jolted, peering through the shelves to see the kids exiting the library.

“Hogsmeade trip must be over,” Draco said. He pushed back his chair and folded up the books, turning to walk them to the shelves. Hermione watched as he located the Potions section just nearby, and then walked over to where she was sitting. She stood and leaned against her chair as he put away her book.

“Do you want to be a Potions Master?” she repeated.

“I agree with you,” Draco muttered.

“But if you did have a plan.”

He shelved the book and pushed past her. “I’m not entirely sure there’s time for one–”

“Hey–” she grabbed onto his sleeve and pulled, gently, and he turned around, eyebrows knit.

“You didn’t answer the question, either.”

Hermione blinked.

Draco raised his eyebrows. “Magical rights?”

“Oh, I…”

He waited patiently.

Hermione played with the button on Draco’s sleeve. “I don’t know.”

“It’s difficult to know anything right now.”

The button had a divot in the center, where it was sewn in in two spots. But Hermione wasn’t looking there, her fingertips were just feeling. And Draco somehow smelled like honey apples and faint cologne, and Hermione couldn’t decide whether to breathe it all in or just hold his eye contact (his eyes were blue) and pretend the moment wouldn’t end if she didn’t move.

But he moved, and he moved closer and his hand was cool on her forearm, and she lifted her hand to his shoulder as if in slow motion and his head was dipping and she rose on her feet–

She stepped forward or he did, and he caught her waist as she dipped back slightly, her fingers clutching on the back of his neck–goddamn, there were muscles there–her thumb resting on his jaw as he moved it, ever so slightly, and his lips brushed hers.

It was soft in a way kisses never had been before, thoughtful with a lack of childlike frustration. Hermione frankly couldn’t tell who was leading and who followed, because he took her bottom lip between his and she made him make the smallest of noises by curling her fingers more on his neck. He pulled back and she gripped his robes tight with the hand not occupied in threading her fingers through a few locks of hair, not letting him pull away–she tugged briefly at his bottom lip with her teeth and he stepped forward again, kissing her more fully on the lips, cupping her face in his hands.

She half grinned and half tugged his robes again before pulling back, definitely blushing, her hands falling from his robes to in front of her body, and she tilted her head up to watch Draco collect himself (he had to collect himself) by lifting his chin and straightening his back against the bookshelf.

“Well,” he let out after a few seconds. He glanced down at her, his nose twitching and the corners of his mouth fighting against a smirk.

Hermione raised her eyebrows and her lips.

“I’ll see you around, then.”

Hermione laughed. “Mhm?”

Draco rested against the shelves. He lifted his eyes upwards and sighed. “What?”

“We live in the same school,” Hermione stated as plainly as she could. “Of course you’ll see me around.”

Massive eye roll. “Have a good day, Granger.”

“You too, Draco.”

And if she wasn’t supposed to catch the small smile on his face when he ducked his head leaving the library, he really should’ve waited a few more seconds before letting it break free.

---

Theo gasped. “Dracooooooo…” he drew out the name with excitement as the lad in question took his usual green velvet couch. “You’ve fucked!”

Draco looked up sharply and snorted. Not where he had thought this conversation would go. “And how was your afternoon, Nott?”

Theo leaned forward, an impish grin stretching from ear to ear. “No, this is far more important than the buckets of candies I got for us up in the dorm–oi!” he yanked on Draco’s sleeve–fuck, just as Granger had done–to get him to plop back down. Nott raised his eyebrows. “Who was it? Who deflowered our precious Malfoy heir?”

Draco couldn’t help but laugh. “No one.”

“Lies.”

A shrug.

At least the common room was fairly empty besides the two of them... Nott occasionally enjoyed using his commandeering powers to get the whole of the Slytherin lot up in arms. He’d have them all gaze upon one individual in particular, often Crabbe or Goyle, but Zabini had been pressured quite a few times to take part in a game and Draco could very easily see this strategy be used to get the answer Theo so desired out of him. It would never work, generally and with this question in particular, but Draco was glad that the situation wouldn’t be able to become any more uncomfortable than it already was.

Theo sighed. “Draco, I know you’re lying. You look pleasantly fucked.”

“Oh, Merlin,” he winced, averting his eyes from Nott’s all-too-wise face. “That’s disgusting.”

“You do. It’s the same look Blaise gives me after we’ve had a dirty shag.”

Draco slid his eyes back over to Theo, who reclined on the couch, folding his arms and crossing his ankles with a smirk.

Draco blinked. Theo remained eversmug. He felt his eyebrows furrowing and a frown forming.

“Uh,” he began. He cocked his head. “I’m–”

The urge to say something and the piles of questions that formed in his brain increased at competing rates. Theo. And Zabini. The boy sitting right there with his small, prickly shell and their social, lanky friend who thought he had his head screwed on better than them all.

“I’m just…” Draco frowned and then fixed Theo with a stare. “I’m not disapproving. I’m not, at all, I’m merely,” he shook his head, “surprised.”

Nott raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he drawled. “Malfoy’s discovered that life exists out of his inner circle. Who’da thought?”

Draco’s mouth opened slightly.

No, Nott was furiously wrong. Draco knew this intensely: he knew life existed around him. Nothing joyous thrived inside him. He just…

Nott’s father was a Death Eater and, still, he had found life.

Draco gazed down to the ground and the crease in his forehead deepened. “So you’re… with our friend. How long?”

“Some time.”

“Wow, great.” Draco rubbed his forehead. “How?”

“He bent me over–”

“THEO!”

“What answer did you think you’d get? Oh, Draco, it was so sweet, fucking Zabini sweetest swept me off my feet–”

Draco bit his lip and turned away farther to smother his laughter–

“THAT’S WHY I DIDN’T GIVE YOU THAT ANSWER, GIT, ask the prick himself if you want a vaguely more eloquent one, I don’t know what to tell you. Arse.”

But when Draco glanced back over, the smirk on Theo’s cheek was as jolly if not more gleeful than usual.

“Well. Happy for you.”

“Fuck off.” Theo leaned forward. “No. Malfoy. You don’t need to. You just did.”

Draco groaned as he leaned back, his head resting against the top of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. His mind raced far too fast for his body to keep up with.

“So tell me who you fucked!”

The Slytherin common room ceiling was cool to the touch–he knew this from when they had flown up on their brooms many years ago to swing from the metal snakes that laced across the ceiling. It mimicked the woven rope designs, or perhaps the rope designs mimicked these snakes, that were on the top of their beds in the dormitories.

“No, wait a second–” he sat back up, pointing a finger over at Nott. “When you two…” he waved a finger in the air.

“‘Shag’, Malfoy. Maybe you really haven’t done it.”

“Fuck off. When you shag, you don’t do it in the dorms with others there, right?”

Theo shrugged. “We cast a Silencing Charm.”

Draco’s face contorted into a grotesque grimace and groan as Nott dissolved into giggles.

---

If he hadn’t sensed Potter’s arrival from the blanket of entitlement that settled over his splayed-out ingredients, the petite throat clear did the job excellently.

“Potter,” Draco spat, not looking up from his harsh chops of the Potions ingredients for their next class.

“Malfoy.”

Draco watched out of the corner of his eye as Potter headed to the corner of the classroom, doing an awful job of pretending that he wasn’t checking out Draco’s potion as he walked by. He made far too much noise as he searched for his cauldron and the potion that Draco assumed was sloshing around inside, obnoxiously perfectly.

Frankly, of all the years, thank Merlin that it was this one when Potter somehow became good at Potions. This year, when Lucius was unavailable to send frequent reminders of the need for success in this subject.

His future, the connections he could make, et cetera.

Draco ignored Potter as he set up his cauldron to complete their homework on the other side of the classroom. Draco scooped the ingredients into a container. Potter began putzing around, the materials clanging together like he wanted to take away the peace of Draco’s private space. The brat.

So, Granger hadn’t told anyone about their kiss.

Potter’s cauldron clattered to the ground–the potion inside bubbled as it expanded rapidly.

“Holy fuck,” Draco jumped back, whipping around to raise his hands in Potter’s direction. He fished in his pocket for his wand, throwing some containing Charms at the ground and some choice swears up at Potter, who fumbled as he did the same thing.

“It was a fucking accident, Malfoy.”

“Yeah, and I thought you were supposed to be a prodigy now–make sure that doesn’t touch me.”

“Oh my god,” Potter mumbled, squatting down and siphoning the last of the trickling potion into a glass container with his wand.

The exclamation was the same as the one Granger always said, and a funny twist hurt in Draco’s stomach.

“Instead,” he continued, “you come in here, make a fucking mess–”

“Cleaned up now, insufferable dick–”

Draco picked up his wand and circled it over his potion, eyes still darting over, “still being an obnoxious nuisance with your textbook open and written in–Merlin, you’re even more of a nerd than Granger, I wasn’t aware that was possible–” he frowned and squinted closer at the handwriting, “hold up, give that here–” and he stepped closer to grab the book.

He managed to snatch the textbook before Potter could really react, stepping back and holding the pages up closer for just a second before Potter’s hand appeared and the textbook was gone.

His gut panged again, more sharply this time.

“Where did you get it?” Draco interrupted Potter’s grumbling and annoyed cursing.

“What’s it to you?”

Potter dropped the book roughly on the table and looked over his still disheveled desk. Snape would have smacked the poser over the head if he saw this mess, never mind his personal textbook, stolen by a student. Because–and here Draco clenched his fists at the discomfort in his body–Severus Snape would never have given his textbook to Harry Potter, of all people. Harry Potter, who had never poured over Snape’s notes with him for hours, assisting him in complicated potions. Harry Potter, who certainly had not sucked up to Snape enough to merit his handwritten guides.

“Hm?” Potter snapped his head over to Draco suddenly. “Just going to ignore me, are you?” He stalked forward. “Tell me, what have you been doing all year? What is it to you, where I got my textbook? What are you doing in the Room of Requirement?”

Draco felt the edge of his mouth twitch when Potter’s attempt at intimidation stopped quite a few centimeters below his eye level.

“This is funny to you?”

Draco let his eyes glass over as he gazed down and behind Potter’s glasses, just to further the impression this all barely amused him. “A bit, yes. Am I supposed to be scared?”

Potter’s eyes and nostrils widened and then he exhaled and stepped away. “I will figure out what you’re up to,” he grumbled.

A small laugh breath just escaped out of Draco’s nose. He crossed his arms and cocked a hip. “And if it doesn’t concern you?”

Potter’s eyes narrowed. “There is nothing you could do that wouldn’t concern me.”

Draco rolled his eyes. Dramatic prat.

He peered into his cauldron and extinguished the flames with a satisfying tap of his wand: homework completed. Potter was still frustrated, his nostrils flaring, as he surely watched Draco out of the corner of his eyes with the majority of his gaze focused on his cauldron. It might be fun if Draco hung around a bit more. Perhaps Potter would flare up again.

The door creaked open and the two boys’ heads snapped up.

“Hey, Harry.”

Granger smiled at her friend and then she turned to Draco, still hesitating by the doorway with her hand on the knob. The two stared at each other and Draco slowly raised an eyebrow.

“Malfoy.”

Draco exhaled. “Granger.”

She nodded, closed the door, and walked past him to follow in Potter’s footsteps, grabbing her cauldron and supplies. Her perfume made his nose twitch and his stomach shudder.

The room quieted as Granger set up. Draco chopped ingredients to get ahead for the next class, Potter mumbled under his breath as he continued relying on Snape’s textbook.

“Oh, wow, that looks…” Draco saw out of the corner of his eye as Granger leaned over to eye Potter’s potion.

“Thanks.”

“Hm.”

Draco barely stifled a snort. He had seen her annoyance in class when Potter suddenly excelled. It didn’t surprise him that she didn’t hide her opinions from her friends. But it did surprise him, a bit, when her posture straightened with interest when he made a noise. He began deseeding some vanilla beans and plopping them each with a clink into a glass jar. He felt her eyes on him.

“How long are you planning to be here?” Potter asked.

Granger shrugged. “Shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Why?”

“Gin asked if we all wanted to do something tonight.”

She laughed, pure and free. Draco bit down on his lip. “You sure you want us there?” she asked, knowingly.

Oh, ew, Potter dated Weaslette?

“Shut up,” Potter mumbled, and Draco glanced over to find a blush on his neck. He rolled his eyes.

“I’m just saying–” Granger singsonged.

“Yes, I do, Hermione. You can keep Ron company–”

The knife fell from Draco’s hand and clattered on the table. His jaw tensed and the muscles in his arms tightened and released and tightened again in a quick series. He felt his head twitch as the desk in front of him blurred.

The fucking Weasel. The fucking prat Potter, setting the two of them up, pulling Granger away–

Granger cleared her throat before lighting the fire under her potion with a calm tap. “I’m pretty sure he’ll be busy, but I’ll come.”

“Oh, yeah, the Gin and me thing?”

“No,” Granger dropped a few ingredients into her pot. “The Katie thing?”

Draco slowly began to move his hand to the table and run over the beans he had scattered, letting his fingers bump up and down with their texture.

“Ohh. Yeah. You’re probably right.”

He screwed on the lid to the bean jar and began to collect the rest of his scraps.

He was an idiot. The Weasel was still an ass. Potter was still a prick. And Draco remained an idiot, over or perhaps underreacting to stimuli that existed to distract him from the more important ones: the ones with coiled black hair, pasty white skin, soft perfume, a spark of fear...

He carried his materials back to the corner as Granger and Potter softly chattered on. He caught a glimpse of their potions: Granger’s looked excellent, while Potter’s was distressingly perfect. And Potter knew it, too–his little smirk as he admired his work was far too pleasant. It aggravated Draco.

But he didn’t trust himself not to say anything about the fucking Weasel, and thus Granger, or to not start to piss off Potter again, and he didn’t really feel like generally bickering with Granger when Potter would just turn it into something with darker intentions.

So leaving remained the best option.

“Bye, Malfoy!” Potter shouted as Draco opened the door and headed out, tucking his textbook next to his side. He rolled his eyes and held up his middle finger over his shoulder.

“Fuck off.” He paused just at the edge of the classroom, staring ahead at the corridor, weighing his options. “Granger.”

“Draco.”

He grinned as he shut the door behind him and walked away.

---

Hermione’s heart beat and goddamn it pounded awfully fast. It was his name, merely his name, but her cheeks were hot and she had said it in front of Harry, who was right here and who surely stared concerningly, lovingly, with raised eyebrows.

“You good?”

“Yes, no, yes, I am–”

Shit.

Hermione stirred her potion rapidly to get some of the blood flow–any of the blood flow–away from her neck and cheeks. Draco. She had said ‘Draco’. In front of Harry.

“Since when are you on a first names basis with that bastard?”

She shrugged stiffly. “I thought it might throw him off.”

“Hm. Interesting.”

She risked a side eye. “I mean, you said ‘bye’ all cheerily.”

Harry snorted. “Very different from calling him by his first name. That shit humanizes him.”

Hermione inhaled and turned to mimic Harry’s position, leaning against the desk with his hip. She raised her eyebrows. “He is a human.”

“Just barely,” Harry rolled his eyes. “Absolute prick before you arrived, wouldn’t tell me what he was doing in the Room of Requirement the other night.”

Hermione snorted and began prepping her ingredients for the next class, just as Draco had done. “And this surprises you?”

“Well, no, I suppose not… life would go much more smoothly if everyone would tell me everything, though.”

“Self centered much, huh?”

Harry shifted his weight. “Just know my worth.”

Hermione bit her lip on a smile and turned again to Harry, the lovely boy who, even if a bit convinced the world revolved around him, had grown into himself so much more than he had been five years prior.

“As lovely as you are, I don’t think Draco Malfoy necessarily sees you that way.”

“Eh, it’s alright. I’ll just figure out what he’s up to with a bit more work.”

Hermione stirred her potion and gathered the chopped ingredients. “Or, you could just live it up as a sixth year. Party like Ron’s always wanting you to. Even more Quidditch practice sessions than you have already.”

“And just let Malfoy plot without someone stopping him?”

“There are professors,” she tapped her fire out.

“Hermione.”

She met his eyes.

“When have you ever trusted that the professors are actually gonna solve the problem on their own?”

---

Of course, this issue joined the many that already circulated her brain on a never-ending, always-unresolved agenda. It had always been on this list, but featured even more prominently now: Harry didn’t deserve to have even more on his plate. And it appeared Hermione would be concerned with Draco, regardless of any added incentives.

“So, Granger,” he murmured as he passed by her seat in Potions, on the way to his own.

“Can I help you?” at the end of a DADA class where Hermione had caught herself staring far too many times for her liking, Hermione packing up her papers and Draco smirking as he tapped on her desk, heading to the door.

The usual awkward eye locks across the Great Hall–except these times Draco’s face didn’t harden but twitched with amusement, and Hermione felt hers soften.

She hadn’t been able to get away to the library since that Hogsmeade day–and, really, it was possible Draco hadn’t been there, either–but she hoped that she could go after the Prefect meeting finished tonight. She wanted to discuss Potions with him and her stupid hormonal brain wanted to duel him outside of class, where no one else could see. Her obnoxiously eager mind fantasized them matching talent for talent once again, curated skill against its equal, until Hermione came out victorious–

And Draco would be breathing hard, and he’d have to take another minute to gather himself–

Or he wouldn’t, he’d just stride forward until his hands grabbed her waist and he tilted his mouth to slant against hers, warm and wanting and Hermione could grip his shoulders as he pressed her backside against the library bookshelves, drawing his hands lower and lower–

Honestly, it was nonsense. For a multitude of reasons. All of which Hermione couldn’t stop exploring at length: this was Draco Malfoy.

Son of a Death Eater.

Still quite possibly a Death Eater himself.

But he also apologized.

And changed his actions.

Repeatedly.

But could she forgive him–was it necessary to?

The room the Prefect meeting occurred in was bustling when Hermione arrived, the two Head Students at the front of the classroom and Prefects from different houses scattered and segregated around and on the desks facing them. Hermione spotted Ron’s bright red fluff in the back corner of the classroom and scooched past the others to reach him.

“Hey,” he nodded at her. “Almost late.”

“Psh,” Hermione waved her hand, dropping her books on the desk in front of her and swinging a knee to land over the other, keeping her eyes steadily on the front of the room.

“Okay, everyone, we’re going to start. I just want to reiterate: Hogwarts is a school. We are here to help run the school, and to keep everyone safe. Got it?”

She turned to exchange unoptimistic glances with Ron. He shook his head, then slid his glance to the Slytherin side of the room. Hermione was sure none of them were being respectful–if they were even paying attention.

“Gosh,” Ron muttered, leaning over in his chair. “I wonder if this came from Dumbledore. Like, is this all they’re doing to stop them?”

Hermione sighed. “Yeah, Professor McGonagall was entirely lacking in her explanation of their efforts when I asked her last.”

“Wish it would change something if I told Mum and Dad about all this bullshit. They’d probably still worship him, though. Greatest wizard in centuries, totally unaware about what happens at his school.”

Hermione huffed a laugh and then stifled it when the Head Students looked over. She shook her head and went back to paying attention while Ron reclined in his seat, crossing his arms over his stomach.

“So, to help with this–”

Ron snorted. “Nice job really defining what’s going on.”

“–we’re going to change the way we’ve been doing patrolling at night. We’re going to mix you all up between houses.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Ron–” Hermione swatted vaguely in his direction, but kept her eyes trained on the Head Students.

“And it’s all gonna rotate, so this week we’ll start with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, so Anthony and… Hannah, Padma and Ernie–”

Ron leaned forward. “Oh, they’re doing it boy/girl? ‘Mione–”

“Yeah, I–”

“–So then for Gryffindor and Slytherin, we’ll have… let me see, Ron and Pansy, and–”

“Oh, ‘Mione,” Ron’s voice filled with sympathy and frustration simultaneously.

“Hermione and Draco.”

“Are…?”

Eugenia stared down at the girl–well, a woman, really. It had been, what, four years since this one had first entered the castle? And what did she want now? “Yes? Would you like to give me the password? I don’t have all day, you know.” And she didn’t, she had plans later: a picnic with a new friend… if she could get away.

The girl fumbled with her hands. She was usually much more composed, really. Betty, her name was. Gryffindor Captain. Usually held her shoulders high, said the password quickly, let Eugenia get back to her life.

“Yes, sorry,” Betty murmured. “I just, I saw you and another woman here earlier, and I was wondering… are you two, er, a couple?”

Eugenia snorted. “No, we are not.” She stared down at Betty’s face as it fell, as fear darted over quickly. “We are friends, Anne and I. We live like the Greeks,” she gestured with her grapes. “Don’t have time for that coupling nonsense.”

Betty blinked quickly. “Ah, so you…”

Eugenia cleared her throat. Alright, she could move this conversation along. She was supposed to picnic at sunset, and at this rate she wouldn’t get there until the moon had risen fully. She crossed her arms and shifted on her seat. “It’s Euphraïlde for you, isn’t it? The Lestrange girl?”

Betty’s head jerked up, her curls bouncing, her eyes wide. “I–uh…”

“Personally, I thought it was an odd choice,” Eugenia informed her. “A Slytherin and a Gryffindor? Really?”

“Oh, no,” Betty shook her head rapidly, “she’s so lovely, don’t think like that! She’s kind, and funny, and she just…”

Eugenia raised her eyebrows when Betty’s words ended and a pretty smile took over her face. “Did you have a password for me?”

“Do you have a name?” Betty blurted.

Eugenia sniffed. “I do.”

“May I know it? I’ve been here for a while, I was realizing I just don’t really know much about you.”

The hippos behind her gave a grunt and she held in a groan. “My name is Eugenia.”

“Eugenia,” Betty smiled again. “My name is Betty.”

“Yes, I know, you’ve been here for four years. Now, do you have a password or not? I have a picnic to get to.”

Anne teased her about it afterwards–“no longer anonymous, are you?”–“other students have known my name, you can shut up now”–but Eugenia couldn’t deny that this was different. Betty brought her girlfriend by a few weeks later, and even though Eugenia truly wished to keep the Gryffindor space closed (she had enough students bothering her already), she was forced to let Euphraïlde in after she saw how timid the girl was, how she bounced back and forth, and how Betty’s arm never left her back.

Eugenia placed her head in her hands when the door swung shut behind the two. She would hate it, this idea that had just popped into her head. Anne would be far too happy about it. But it was necessary.

In her thirties, Eugenia made sure to invite all her lovers to her portrait at some point or another. She enjoyed the company, she did, and she enjoyed the looks on her students’ faces when they saw her with a new suitor, gender be damned. Some of the students were idiots, but they always had been, so this was not too surprising. Some of the students were like Betty, and smiled at Eugenia softly, nodding at the people in her frame before heading off to class. Some of the students asked her name, and she begrudgingly gave it each time, if only for equity of information–Eugenia knew far too much about all of these dumb students, it was only fair they know a piece of her as well. Unequal relationship if not.

“So you do have a relationship with them?” Anne asked, and Eugenia scoffed, pushing her shoulder until she fell backwards into the flowers. Anne grinned up at her, and Eugenia hid a smile.

She supposed the nickname some students adopted for her only made sense; not everyone asked her name, and everyone needed something to call her. While she might have gone with ‘Lady Who Guards the Gryffindors’, Eugenia understood this was too long for everyday conversation. And so, The Fat Lady she became.

She had started meeting with Brian a few years ago. He was a decent enough man when he was Headmaster, and his painting was quite a delight. He enjoyed making the climb from the Entrance Hall to Eugenia’s nook, and always kissed her cheek before departing at the end of their time together.

“Are you free next weekend, Brian?” Eugenia would ask.

“Brian The Third,” he’d toss over his shoulder, jumping over a rock or across a stream.

She’d smother her smile. “Are you free?”

“Depends on whether you call me by the proper name, Eugenia dear.”

And she never would, and he’d always return.

He enjoyed lavishing her with food–“you’re my queen, darling, and I want to treat you well in every aspect”–and he blessed her with smooches every chance he got. He was particularly fond of her hair free, and sometimes she’d sneak down to his portrait in the dead of night, locks curled around her shoulders, to kiss him awake.

“It is okay with you,” she confirmed, “that we aren’t… together?”

Brian raised his eyebrows and tossed a grape in her mouth. “We are together right now. We were together last night.”

“But we–”

“And you’ll return to your Gryffindors, and I’ll come visit you. If you’d like.”

Eugenia nodded. “Yes, I’d like that. But I don’t…” she pressed a hand to her chest, pushing on her sternum, wrapping a hand around her waist.

“I like you as a person,” Brian told her. “I like spending time with you. I like when you kiss me. I like to kiss you.”

“I like to kiss you too.”

Brian tossed another grape, and it bounced off of her breast. She rolled her eyes at him when he grinned. His smile faded, though, and his eyes were sincere. “Then?”

“Then nothing,” Eugenia told him. “Just checking.”

Brian hit the other breast with a grape and Eugenia cackled, then pelted him with a few in retaliation.

By her forties, Eugenia was fairly confident in her singing. It called her lovers to her, it repelled students, and honestly, what more could she ask for in a talent? She enjoyed that this was part of her personality to students–just being The Fat Lady was only moderately degrading, and she liked that they’d groan when they heard her, coming up the hallway. Sometimes she’d serenade them, making the loud ones blush, making the shy ones grin, telling stories of her youth–how had it been so many years already? Headmasters had come and gone, past students’ children were entering the halls… Eugenia shook her head and sang louder.

The day she discovered she could crack a glass with her voice was an outstanding one. She yipped with glee and the dog asleep on the lawn next to her groaned at being awakened.

“No, you don’t understand,” she chortled, “my voice! Is so stronggggg!” She leaped into the air and sang until Anne came to congratulate her.

Eugenia knew her fifties would be the prime of her life–and this was only partially because she would be fifty until the end of time. Her youth had happened, and honestly, she was still in it, but also, what had to change? She was as plump as could be, had friends and lovers all around the castle, and fairly decent working relationships with the professors and students, after only a few years of strife in regards to the volume of her singing. The students were still idiots, but there was the occasional one every now and again who was halfway decent, and many each year with whom she had talking relationships–“no, Anne, like a professional talking relationship, like I have with the professors–no, those aren’t real relationships, no, go back to your portrait now, shoo.”

There were a few students for whom Eugenia refused to bend the rules. Poppy Pomfrey was allowed to visit her girlfriend Minerva, and Rubeus was allowed to reenter when his friends brought him by. Eugenia was all too happy to play innocent when Albus would ask her if the boy had been seen in the castle–he was a prick as a student, a prick as Headmaster.

Tom Riddle, however, was not allowed to enter. Eugenia hated the way he watched the others, and she didn’t like his smooth mannerisms–namely, the way he informed her there was someone he had to meet inside, rather than respectfully asking for entry. She never allowed a non-Gryffindor to enter alone, and the flare of his nostrils when she told him no was enough to ensure he was never allowed to enter at all.

She wasn’t surprised when she later found out Tom’s goals. She had seen the students grow more fearful over the years. She saw the Muggleborn students watch over their shoulders a bit more. She made sure to sing louder when they were in the hallway, so they knew they were never alone. She let no Slytherins into the Gryffindor common room for several years.

And then Sirius Black stood in front of her one day. And he had the correct password. And as much as Eugenia tried to sniff her way to superiority, this Slytherin-born child would not let her.

“Oi, narrow-minded hag, let me the fuck into my common room!” He stomped his foot, the petulant kid he was. “I have the password, you imbecile, I literally told it to you, what more do you want?”

Eugenia crossed her arms. “You’re telling me you’re a Gryffindor.”

“I literally came in here last night.” He gestured to her wall, eyes wide. “I literally slept in there. I’m a Gryffindor.”

“But your fa–”

“Don’t you even dare,” the boy marched forward. His eyes were dark and his hair long. He stopped right in front of Eugenia’s face. She didn’t allow herself to back away. “I am a Gryffindor.”

She held his gaze. He was strong. His jaw was set. And Eugenia let him in, closing behind him with a smirk as he swore strongly in passing.

The boy did not like her, calling her “piss off” and “go to hell” (to which she responded that this portrait was, in fact, her home, and she would be here indefinitely)–and Eugenia didn’t like him, except for the fact that ‘hell’ was a Muggle concept and even as he swore at her she saw the corner of his mouth lift. She saw him talking with the Muggleborns in their year. She snuck around the castle to see what he got up to in his downtime, and saw him causing mischief absolutely everywhere. Anne tried to convince her that she liked him, and, as per usual, Eugenia told her off.

She most certainly did not like that Potter boy–equally as cheery as his father before him, far too loud and incredibly obnoxious, waking her up in the middle of the night, entirely invisible, to let him in and out of the common room. Hogwarts at night was a serene place, not one for immature children to roam around. But her job was her job, and she could not deny a Gryffindor entry.

“You know,” Anne told her one day, resting her chin on Eugenia’s shoulder, “we were exactly like them.”

“No, we were not.”

“Yes, we were. Two young kids, flirting and running around–”

“Flirting?”

“Have you seen Sirius with Remus?”

Eugenia frowned.

“Watch them, I’m telling you.”

And Eugenia watched them, and she made sure to invite Anne around, and Circe, a new friend from a few floors up. She kissed Circe square on the mouth as Remus walked up one day, bade her farewell, and waited while Remus gathered himself before sputtering out the password. Eugenia was pissed when, a few years later, he and Sirius woke her up as they snuck back in late at night. Yet, she couldn’t deny that her chest warmed when she shut the door behind them, hearing their soft murmurs from inside.

“I have a question for you,” Eugenia asked Sirius one day.

He pushed his hands into his pockets (jeans, of course–why wear something wizard when Muggle would do?) and smirked. “I was going to give you the password, calm down.”

“No, not that,” Eugenia shook her head. “You’re not a Slytherin.”

Sirius crossed his arms and stepped backwards. “I thought we discussed this years ago.”

“Calm down, boy, we did. You’re not a Slytherin, but your family is. Don’t you have a brother here?”

Sirius lifted his chin. “Depends who’s asking.”

Eugenia snorted. “I am.”

“What’s your name?”

Eugenia sighed. “Eugenia.”

“Well, Genie–”

“Don’t call me Genie.”

“–there is another Black child in this building. He lives down in the dungeons, with the brainwashing brats.”

Eugenia inhaled. Offering favors was always difficult. And unenjoyable. But she remembered Betty, and knew it must be done. “You could bring him here, if you wanted. I do occasionally allow Gryffindors to let members of other houses in.”

Sirius’s face froze. “You… yeah?”

“To visit,” she quickly clarified. “This could not be a habitual act. Strictly occasional.”

“No, yeah, of course…”

“Hm,” Eugenia pretended to think. “Perhaps in return, you and your friends could wake me up less in the middle of the night, because it truly is quite rude.” She leaned back and popped a grape into her mouth. “Just something to think about.”

Sirius’ mouth twitched.

She hummed. “I’ve seen that Severus lad around though, and I don’t think he is welcome.”

Sirius laughed. “No, Snivellus is not.”

“I don’t like the way he talks to Lily,” Eugenia informed him.

Sirius nodded. “We don’t either.”

Sirius had a new nickname to add to his repertoire after that, and although Eugenia corrected him brashly every time he asked what wish she would grant, the name ‘Genie’ stuck. She noticed that Peter liked this new name, in particular–he had always winced when calling her ‘The Fat Lady’ in the past, and she felt he made more eye contact with her in using this new name. He was the only one she wouldn’t correct. James said it too gleefully, Remus with too much unfounded sass, and Sirius was just an asshole.

The asshole grew up, though. He mentioned offhandedly that Eugenia, despite all her warts–“hush child, I’m voluptuous and incredible”–was better behaved than the portraits that lived back at the Black house.

Brian was here for this, and he raised his eyebrows at Eugenia after Sirius had left. “You’re better than the portraits at his home?”

Eugenia did not let him come back to her portrait for a few weeks, purely out of principle. But she made sure that her insults were much less harsh after that. The boy was a Gryffindor, after all. He should feel safe at home.

She and Anne talked often about how odd it was that their students never really returned. Yes, some did, as professors, but they didn’t really. Minerva nodded at Eugenia kindly when entering the common room, but there was a bit of embarrassment as well–Eugenia had known her when she was bumbling around with the school nurse. Eugenia was a third party in what was now a friendly professional relationship.

Eugenia wanted to mention, somehow, that she knew much about sexual relationships coexisting with friendships, and friendships taking priority, and that, honestly, Minerva didn’t need to worry so much–Eugenia had been mentioning this to her for years, hadn’t she?–but there was never really a time, and Minerva was an adult now. Minerva was an adult, and the world was at war.

The portraits huddled together right outside the room where the professors discussed this war. They listened for anything that might alert them to what was going on in the world outside, and they ran around to tell their friends and dispel of nervous energy after the doors burst open and the news seeped out.

It did not surprise Eugenia that James and Lily had a child so soon after graduating. The two were always too dramatic, even though Lily had always made sure to never use that stupid nickname that Eugenia missed from time to time. It did surprise Eugenia that they died not even two years after the child’s birth. It distressed her that she knew the murderer. It bothered her, greatly.

Eugenia would let none of her lovers see her for weeks. She walled off her portrait and let in only the Gryffindors. Some students begged for their significant others to be let in, and Eugenia refused. She understood a war rampaged. She just didn’t want to allow it inside Gryffindor.

It was Poppy who came to her one day, many months after James and Lily’s deaths. The sweet boy Peter had died. Sirius Black was in Azkaban. Remus Lupin was lost to the world.

Poppy sat across from Eugenia, her knees knobby, her frame smaller than when she had anxiously paced back and forth, waiting for her girlfriend to come out for their date.

Eugenia would not give her the pleasure of speaking first. “Spit it out,” she hissed.

“Your judgement is sound,” Poppy said.

And the women stared at each other, and Eugenia could not make the words leave her throat.

“You do a good job here,” Poppy told her.

“I never get to see them again,” Eugenia whispered. “They leave, and they take their mischief with them.”

Poppy’s smile was wobbly. “And we are not there anymore to heal them.”

Eugenia spent the night in silence, and the next morning she informed each Gryffindor who left the common room that she would again open the doors. “But I have jurisdiction,” she said.

“Of course, Genie,” a fifth-year replied, winking at her. “You know best.”

She tried to hold back her flinch at the nickname, waiting until the child had turned the corner before she shuddered. A hippo rumbled behind her and she turned around to flip it off.

Severus came back a few years after, and it was as if he had never left at all. Tall boy, not grown into himself yet, sitting at the professors’ table when Eugenia peaked her head in. She didn’t like to sit in the Great Hall paintings–too much commotion–but enjoyed hearing the gossip. Sacrifices had to be made for gossip.

Eugenia liked whispering ‘Snivellus’ as he walked past her, hiding behind a rock in a landscape. He stopped and turned around, eyes darting every which way, and Eugenia held her snort. She gave a full belly laugh when he was gone, though, and scampered off to tell all her friends, her dress waving behind her.

She knew Harry Potter had to come at some point, but his wide eyes and horrific scar were not any easier to see with this vague preparation. She sang louder on his first night than she had in decades, and Anne sat a few portraits away to listen.

Harry’s friends were questionable, but of course he didn’t have a wonderful pool to choose from. Ron was too happy, Hermione was nosy and asked Eugenia’s name the first day the two met, and Neville forgot the password and made Eugenia late to far too many picnics for her to count.

Circe, from her position up by the towers, tried to get Eugenia to befriend a Slytherin–she pretended that wasn’t her motive, but how could it not be, sliding the boy’s name into every other conversation and using adjectives such as “lonely” and “snarky” to entice her? A Slytherin had to be brought by a Gryffindor, though. Eugenia had never let a random non-Gryffindor inside, and she certainly wasn’t going to start with Draco, a boy who made Hermione cry and hit her knee on Eugenia’s frame in her rush to get inside. The cheery boy Ron even lost his cheeriness every once in a while due to this lad. The slugs were funny, though, although Eugenia visited the infirmary that night and heard Poppy discussing the intense dehydration they had almost caused.

She and Anne spooked Draco for the next few months in any downtime they could find. It was like they were teenagers again, and the two adored it, stealing kisses in between jumping from portrait to portrait and calling his name–

“Draco…”

“Draco!”

“Draco, over here!”

“Draco…”

–so he didn’t know where to look.

Hogwarts was unsafe again, but Eugenia wasn’t really sure it had ever returned to safety. Since she had seen that boy Tom stand in front of her, she had always been a bit on edge. She found it ridiculous that Albus was still in charge–the previous headmaster hadn’t lasted nearly this long, and he didn’t have as many issues with her being a bit late to her post. Albus was a bit more of a stickler in that sense, the obnoxious man.

Eugenia tried to tell Minerva that she would make a better headmaster, and while she could tell the woman was pleased the first time she mentioned it, the conversation seemed to bring her annoyance more than anything else afterwards. Minerva’s strides would increase so Eugenia was in a full-on run between portraits, following the professor back to her classroom after a meal. The exercise was enjoyable, though, and Eugenia did snicker when telling the tale to Brian a few nights later, so it all was worth it.

Relations with Circe grew difficult, however. Eugenia feared at first that she hadn’t made herself clear, or that Circe wanted more from her–

“No, no, I’m fine with what we have,” Circe said, pushing her hand through her hair. She bit her lip and wouldn’t meet her lover’s eyes. “It’s just hard to watch. There are students here whose lives you could change.”

Eugenia scoffed. “Excuse me? I let them in and out of their rooms every day; they can’t function without–”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Circe placed a hand on Eugenia’s. “Of course you’re a presence in their lives. Of course their lives change because you’re in it. It’s just… you have the ability to do more.”

Eugenia pulled her hand away.

“I don’t understand why you won’t take the lost ones under your wing.”

A jolt ran through her. Circe’s eyebrows knit together.

“I just… you could do so much.”

“Take the lost ones under your own wing,” Eugenia snapped.

“I’m trying. I talk to them, I do, but they don’t listen…”

Eugenia laughed. “And they would listen to me?”

“They have to talk to you, you quite literally have a space where they could feel at home–”

Eugenia stood, pulling her dress up, over her shoulders. The fabric felt wrong. Too heavy on her body. “They have to talk to me? Oh, no, they don’t.”

“Don’t leave,” Circe pleaded. But she remained seated, and bit her lip. “I just mean, you could make Gryffindor a place for people to feel at home. Like you do for the queer kids. Like you do for everyone.”

“Not everyone,” Eugenia said, and she turned to walk away, Tom Riddle’s face pounding in her brain.

Severus Snape, who still walked these halls.

Draco Malfoy, fast asleep in the dungeon.

Sirius Black, the boy she let con her.

Remus Lupin reentered the castle the following year. Eugenia watched him walk in with Anne, the two muttering about his face, the facial hair they had watched him grow, the scars they had witnessed appear. Eugenia noticed the same inability to form a full smile that she had seen from many students before. She understood why he felt blank.

He sought her out and she was grateful for it. He just strolled up one afternoon, and she looked at him solemnly.

“Password?”

He cracked a smile. “Ah, no, not today. I just wanted to come, and…” he looked around at the empty corridor.

“Am I the only one who knows?” Eugenia asked.

Remus met her eyes. “Yes.”

It fell silent, and Eugenia’s voice shook when she spoke next. “I hate him.”

Remus’s face wobbled into a smile. His voice barely made noise at all. “I love him.”

And Eugenia closed her eyes and sobbed, loudly and for a long time. When she opened her eyes, Remus was gone, and a crowd of students waited to be let into their common room.

Harry Potter was not like his father, and perhaps for this alone Eugenia liked him more. He was quieter, more respectful of others’ space and ears, and his snark was sparing but when it came out, it bit. Eugenia had to work very hard to hide her smirk each time she overheard it, and she loved that.

Nights were a bit quieter without Circe. Eugenia still had Anne, and Brian, and a few others, but she was more hesitant to make new friends–lovers or platonic. This castle was only so large, after all, and avoiding Circe’s disappointed looks took up far too much energy. Eugenia spent more time with the animals, letting cows come to graze and sheep curl up at her feet. She perfected the whistle to get her favorite dog to come and shoo all the animals away when the smell became too much.

But there was very little she could do when an animal existed outside of the painting. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the black dog in front of her watched her open her eyes. She didn’t know what was happening as the dog grew–

“Oh, fucking Merlin,” she breathed. She clutched her arms.

Older, yes. Withered. But the same hungry look in his eyes. Same glint like he knew more than she did. Same disrespectful stance, walking closer to her.

“Genie?” he whispered. “Genie, let me in. I need Harry, I need to–”

“Remus!” Eugenia screeched, like someone would come. “Minerva!” Her voice echoed down the hallway and Sirius turned.

“Re–what?” He shook his head. “No, Genie, I need Harry, let me in–”

“There is no way I am letting you in, Sirius Black–” she raised her voice again– “Sirius Black!”

“Eugenia!” he hissed. “Let me the fuck in, I need to get to Harry, he’s my godson–”

“Sirius Black!”

“Fucking–Eugenia, let me in!”

“Someone help me! Someone come! Sirius Black is here!”

“Oh, fucking shit, I–” he reached around the edges of her frame and Eugenia held herself, leaning backwards. He pulled and pulled, his face contorting and wincing each time Eugenia screamed louder. “Peter is in there, I need to get that son of a–”

“Get the fuck away, you shithead! You’re mad, Peter is dead, you–”

“Let me in–”

Sirius began to claw at her painting, and she shrieked and ran back. Her dog was barking now, and scurried off to other portraits. She could hear the castle come alive with the animal's yelps. Sirius stared at her, his jaw shifting, breathing heavily. He swallowed, morphed back into an Animagus, and scampered away.

There was very little Albus could do to console her. She tried to explain this to him many times–he had been obnoxious as a student, too rigid as a Headmaster, and now, clearly, not nearly rigid enough, if a murderer was on the loose in his school. Albus tried to explain that she’d have all the time and peace she needed, and he had her moved elsewhere for recovery. She swore at him all the way. She did not need to be moved, she needed confirmation Sirius Black had been locked up again. She needed Tom Riddle gone. She needed every Slytherin checked for their true alliances.

Eventually, she returned to her post at Gryffindor. Eugenia contemplated cutting off all her hair over the next year. She wondered if a lack of hair would give her a new mindset. She kind of wanted to grow a whole new part of her that had never seen tragedies before.

Brian sat with her while she cut it off; he spread the hair in the breeze for the birds to build nests with.

“Will you still find me attractive?” she asked.

Brian laughed. “It would take the work of a very dark wizard indeed for me to no longer find you gorgeous. Just… gorgeous.” He held her face in his hands and smiled. He kissed her softly. Eugenia walked back to her portrait slowly, listening to the sounds of the castle. She lay down in front of the Gryffindor common room and slept.

Age had not granted Ron Weasley any more quietness. Eugenia kept waiting, but even four years after she first met him, he spoke loudly and with glee. He made Harry and Hermione laugh far too often. Naturally, it was the moments when he and his trio were silent that intrigued Eugenia the most.

“Yeah, he’s at Professor Lupin’s house, he’s sending me letters–”

“I really can’t tell Mum, she’ll be horrified that Sirius Black is communicating with you–”

“No, I think she knows, I think they’re all working together–”

“I really don’t think so, I mean she was really–”

Eugenia stood up, and the sudden movement startled the three. “Are you talking about Sirius Black?”

Harry blinked. “Er, yes.”

“What are you doing with that man?” She felt her heart pump. “Is he here? Are you in danger?”

“No, no.” Harry stepped closer. “He’s innocent. He’s my godfather.”

And Eugenia listened, and her limbs barely waited to let the three in before sprinting down to Albus’ office. She screamed at his door until he came out, and she screamed at him once he stood in front of her.

She berated him for ruining this man’s life, for ruining that boy’s life, for keeping two people apart who very clearly needed each other. She screamed until her voice ran out, and then sat while he spouted bullshit at her, gulping water from the stream next to her. She interrupted him when her vocal cords worked again, and informed him he was to never stand in front of her again, and she would never allow him inside the common room again, and she–

Eugenia put her hands to her head.

“You’re an absolutely awful excuse for a headmaster.”

Eugenia saw Minerva on her stalk back to her portrait, and Minerva’s eyes dripped with tears. Her mouth opened, and Eugenia nodded, and heard Minerva’s steady voice grow shaky as she walked farther away. Good. Minerva would handle this.

She stopped Harry the next time he exited the common room alone. She told him she had known his parents. She told him he was most like his godfather, but that she could see parts of all of them in him. She loved the look on his face when she spoke of his family.

“Would you… I mean, could you tell me about them sometime?” Harry bit his lip and Eugenia nodded.

“I would. Perhaps you could do less sneaking out in the middle of the night, as payment.”

Harry blushed. “Ah, right.”

“It’s just, I’m fast asleep, you know. And then I’ve got to let you out, and then back in…”

Harry pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah, no, yeah. Well, thank you.” He smiled up at her, and Eugenia felt her heart beat. “Your name is Eugenia, right?”

Eugenia leaned back and nodded slowly.

Perhaps it was time to bring this awful nickname back. Perhaps a boy’s sass could bring his adult self some comfort. Perhaps Eugenia wanted to change her own legacy in this castle, in her home.

He was aware of her eyes on him in the classes they shared and he found himself seeing Pureblood stupidities through her eyes more and more frequently—her presence was in him, somehow. He wondered what she’d think of something and wanted to protect her from it all at the same time. He wondered if she hated him and his bones felt brittle if he wasn’t around her. In the middle of the night when it felt as if there was a stark lack of oxygen in the air, getting to the library helped loosen his diaphragm.

Even when she wasn’t there, Draco sat at their table and lit the candle and he remembered that, somewhere in this castle, Granger existed. And she made him feel alive. And whether she was next to him as he flipped the pages in whatever book he happened to be reading, or whether he sat there alone, remembering this tacked a future on to the end of the night.

Sometimes he picked up a book that he could imagine her reading, and his old house-elf’s name came back to him as he read—Dobby. And he wondered what this elf was doing now, and he wondered what Potter had been thinking when he freed the elf. Draco hated his mind for thinking that this elf was worse off now than it had been in their care and he hated Potter for intrinsically wanting to free it. He despised his father for his cowardness and repeated failures to prove himself. Draco wondered if he was simply repeating destiny by waiting for Granger instead of continuing on his task to repair the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement.

He had thought she wasn’t coming this night, but it was half two and her feet almost dragged on the library floor. She made some flapping movement with her hand to get him to move over on his windowsill perch. He scooched, his shoulder brushing against one bookshelf and Granger hopping up to sit between him and the other bookshelf that blocked off their little area.

Everything else disappeared.

He breathed in.

His heart beat.

Merlin. She wanted to sit right next to him.

“Good night to you, too,” he said, trying to exhale slowly.

Granger snorted and fiddled with the book in her lap: their DADA textbook. “Do we use manners with each other now?”

Draco leaned more on the bookshelf so he could turn and see her grin.

“What a huge step we’ve just taken.”

“I can remedy it,” Draco offered, kindly. He glanced her up and down and fought against the fucking twitch in his pants. “Your hair is a fucking mess and you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

Granger rolled her eyes. “Oh, says the talking smudge of sleep—”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “‘Smudge of sleep’?”

She waved a hand up and down his face. “You look like you can barely muster together a sentence, let alone insult me with something you didn’t think up first year. You’re a smudge of a person, and that’s when you’re trying.”

Heat burned his chest and he took a breath. “Like you look so put together—you have literal food stains on your clothing. Honestly, Granger,” he smirked, “you’re completely filth—” Draco blinked and watched Granger’s face, his heart pounding. “I—”

She watched him back, curiously, and then shifted into the bookshelf, pushing her hand into her pocket. It brushed against their touching thighs. Draco hated himself for noticing this after he had just called her—would he always be like this? Horrifically fucking up everyone in his life?

“Mhm, I was wondering if I should even bother having my hair out, or if I should just wrap it up…”

The scarf she pulled out was satin and lavender, and it smelled like her perfume and Draco couldn’t break eye contact as she gathered her curls.

Draco had to say something. “Granger, listen, I—”

“You know, for all the utter shit you’ve done,” Granger began.

Draco rolled his eyes.

Granger’s face hardened slightly. “For all the absolute hatred you’ve spread,” she repeated herself, “you’ve never come at me for being Black. Racism was never really in your repertoire.”

Okay, Granger wanted to change the subject.

“It’s not taught to us,” Draco admitted. “Er,” he frowned, “‘us’ being Pureblood kids. Racism is lesser. It’s a battle Muggles have made up.”

Granger twisted off her hair wrap and tucked the end in. She appeared to have a halo and it entirely suited her.

“Odd,” she said slowly, “since racism has killed far more people than have blood wars.” There was an edge to her voice, and Draco cocked his head. “Slavery, police brutality…” she shook her head. “Coming from all that to then blood wars… anyway, I’ve never understood the custom of house elves, either.”

“Oh, right, I was thinking about this earlier,” Draco snorted as a young Granger came to mind. “I had forgotten about your SPIT shit—”

“S.P.E.W.—”

“But the elves don’t really care—” Draco remembered Dobby’s face. His chest tightened.

“How on Earth do you know that?” Granger’s eyebrows knit together.

“We’re their family,” Draco explained. “They’re bound to us.” Draco thought of his parents standing together in front of the Dark Lord. He fought to breathe.

Granger laughed, loud in the desolate library. “Do you always love your family, especially when you can’t escape them?”

Heat bubbled behind his ears. What did she—

Draco pushed off of the window ledge. He paced away, and then spun back and held up a finger. “No. You don’t get to do that to me, no. Don’t talk about my family.”

“And why not?”

Draco scoffed and cocked his head. Everything needed to leave his head, now. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hm, have you spent a lot of time studying racial history, Muggle or otherwise? Thought a lot about slavery?” She propped her hands up on the edge of the windowsill and leaned forward, over her knees. “Rethought if your stance on house elves is actually yours?”

Draco realized with a start that the snake had begun hissing several minutes prior. It spiked hot and cold up the veins in his forearm.

He inhaled sharply and held his breath. Then, “don’t come at me like you know me—”

Granger leaned back, eyes wide. “Oh, is that—”

“Or,” Draco admitted, imagining a wall forming to separate his arm from the rest of his body, “like you know me better than I know myself.”

She had a stupid little satisfied smile on her face. “You had a lot of opinions on werewolves’ rights, it’s surprising that you’d think house elves deserve so few.”

Draco shifted his weight. He crossed his arms and tried to ignore the burning in his chest. “They just… they never seemed to give a shit.” He tried to keep his eyes open to block the images on the back of his lids.

Granger chuckled. “Somehow I doubt that they’d feel comfortable telling you if they cared, though.”

He jerked his head upwards.

Granger breathed out and opened the textbook on her lap, leaning back against the windowsill.

Draco fiddled with the inside of his sleeves, his arms still folded in front of him, but Granger was clearly done with the conversation. He had to stop letting her have the last word, though. She was ‘winning’ too many of their arguments. And Draco knew she wasn’t entirely wrong. But Draco’s memories began with his parents. And he remembered everything his tutors had offhandedly mentioned about Muggle history.

Draco glanced up and saw Granger still deeply invested in her DADA reading. Frustration simmered.

“You know,” he bit out, “I was perfectly fine before you came here.”

Granger jumped at his voice in the silence and blinked up at him. “What?”

“You just fucking come in here,” he stepped forward, waving a hand around, “steal my fucking seat, and start an argument with me when I was entirely peaceful here.”

Granger’s eyebrows knit. “Oh, and I should have just done absolutely nothing when you started marching into prejudiced territory?”

“I was doing no such thing—”

“You are not the one to say that—” she slammed her book shut. “I have been more than patient with you—”

Patient? Draco scoffed and shook his head, flinging his hands up. “I never fucking asked you to be! Don’t fucking treat me like a child you need to teach, just let me—” he broke off into a mumble, “berate myself…”

“Don’t treat you like a child?” She slid the book to the side with a thump and pushed off the windowsill. “Alright, then. I don’t owe it to anyone, let alone you, the wizard who bullied me for years, to engage in conversation with them!” She stepped forward, waving her finger at him. “I was doing you an absolute favor to let you know that you were being an arsehole without just outright saying that, because, frankly, I just didn’t have it in me for an argument! But, well, here we are! You were being a dick, Malfoy. You can’t just say things without realizing they have an effect on others!”

Draco seethed. Holding his name against him, again—“you can’t open up a conversation and not let me explain where I’m coming from, Granger.”

“Psh! I let you explain—”

“You can’t judge it, then! Or hate me for it! It’s your choice to spend time here, with me, the fucking asshole who isn’t worthy of you literally at all—it’s childish to do so and then get angry when I elaborate! I know I’m wrong!” his voice cracked faintly and he cleared his throat against the heat on his cheeks. “My entire family is fucked up. Not my fucking fault, Granger.”

He stared down at the ground. He’d said too much, just now and entirely. Granger had to give him some time. Except she didn’t have to do anything, and he desperately wanted to leave and to never have met her, and—

Draco spun on his heel and strode out of the library. She wouldn’t get the last word this time.

His heart pounded harder than the snake.

—

This boy was exhausting. He’d leave and a part of Hermione’s insides would deflate, simultaneously allowing her to relax and depriving her of all energy so all she could do was get back to bed and allow sleep to take over.

And, at the same time, her thoughts didn’t leave him.

His words rang around in her head, his calm voice, his agitated and emotional one. The voice crack repeated and caused her stomach to clench each time she remembered it. The flash in his eyes when he over-emphasized her last name, ‘Granger’, after she had called him ‘Malfoy’.

She felt like a traitor, laying in the red and gold dormitory, cuddled in the blankets, listening to her roommates breathing softly all around her. Her head was full of white-blonde hair and blue-grey eyes and eyebrows that she thought sometimes only raised to get a smile out of her.

And she felt a bit like an imbecile, letting his words run over again: ‘you can’t judge it, then!’

Had she been?

He had cut deep, unknowingly, her days-old hair in need of a wash, her brain unable to concentrate and put that much time aside to braid and condition her afro. Her crown, her mum would’ve called it. Her bulls-eye for bigotry.

And Draco had talked fast so she had talked faster, and had she hurt him in response?

Did she care?

‘The fucking asshole who isn’t worthy of you, literally, at all!’

‘The fucking asshole who isn’t worthy of you, literally at all!’

Where had the pause gone? Which word had been emphasized?

Did it matter?

The point was the same—Hermione was someone to be worthy of.

And she rolled her eyes so hard it hurt in the dark, because of course she knew this, Merlin, and it wasn’t the fact that Draco had said this that made her believe it. She had been a whole person even during first year, when half of her was pure insecurity, and she was a whole person now, no matter the state of the world or what others said about her.

But it was that Draco, the boy whose mouth was warm and whose touch had been nothing but gentle, believed himself so deeply below Hermione.

It was sobering. And confusing.

And she knew he had upset her with his ignorance, but she worried she had upset him with her snap judgements.

What might Ginny say about all of this? Something blunt and cutting right to the root of it all. Something like, ‘talk to him, Hermione.’ Something like, ‘you wanted to kiss him more last time? Well, he’s an ass, but if the makeout was good, go for it!’ Something along the lines of, ‘are you sure you know what you’re getting into?’

“Does anyone know what they’re getting into?” Hermione mouthed to the night.

‘No,’ imaginary Ginny shrugged in response. ‘But you want to kiss him? Do it.’

—

“Hey, I’m—” Hermione cleared her throat, groggy from disuse. She wrung her hands and then flattened them out on the potions table in front of her.

Draco glanced up with a snort. His face was plain and his hands kept busy, putting aside the herbs he needed for Sluggy’s latest assignment.

“I’m sorry for the other day.” Hermione hesitated. “I mean, you were being—”

“Hm, your apologies take too long for here,” Draco noted, and he looked away.

Ron’s elbow landed on Hermione’s shoulder. “All good?”

Draco picked up his things and walked away from the supply table without a second look. He emptied everything on his desk and nodded at something Crabbe said.

Hermione exhaled against the brief tense in her body.

“Yes, Ron,” she said, flashing him a smile and gathering her own supplies into her hands.

“What was the prick up to?” Ron folded his arms and glared at Draco’s back.

Hermione’s mouth twitched. She tried to stop herself from staring at the outline of his hips beneath his school robes. “Getting his ingredients, I’d assume.”

“‘Mione,” Ron warned, his voice dropping as they passed by others, headed back to their desks. “You know you’re gonna start patrolling together soon. Now isn’t the time to stop being on high alert.”

“No shit, Ronald.”

Ron held his hands up. “Yes, I know, I, just—”

The bottles clattered on the table. Hermione turned to him and raised her eyebrows.

He bit on his bottom lip. “It’s just, there was no way he was just getting ingredients.”

“You don’t know that. People can change.”

Ron frowned. “Not now.”

“Sluggy’s gonna come by soon, guys,” Harry said. “Everything alright?”

“Ronald’s being a mama bear.” Hermione grabbed her knife and began to slice apart the vanilla beans to enunciate her point.

“Am not. I’m being perfectly reasonable—”

“Don’t argue when she’s got that knife.”

“I’ve got a fucking wand—”

“So does she.”

“Ah, Harry! How is your potion going? Do show.”

—

That night, Hogwarts’ halls smelled too much like her familial home. Hermione knew it was due to the holly wrapped around each sconce, but it just made turning each corner that much more painful. So close to break, but returning to the Muggle world wouldn’t be any better. Her parents were just too lovely. They were all undeserving of this war, but it was poor luck that dragged her parents into all of this.

Hermione sighed silently and ducked her head as she kept a steady pace towards the library. There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on any book tonight, and her hands were empty, and she just wanted to talk or pace or anything—

Draco stopped as Hermione rounded the corner.

“Oh, hey,” she said.

He stared at her. He was wearing some flowier, wizard equivalent of sweatpants and just a white t-shirt that battled his hair for lightest object in the hallway.

She cocked her head. “What?” Her chest pounded.

“Hm.”

“I was just on my way,” Hermione pointed ahead, towards the direction of the library. “I was going to…”

Draco ignored her and walked calmly to the side of the hallway. He pulled on a latch; a door opened with a quiet creak.

Hermione bit her lip. Draco stood in front of the space and raised an eyebrow. A hint of a smile played on his face.

She walked in.

Identical to the broom closet from a few months ago, cramped and dark and barely any room to stand apart as Draco closed it behind them.

Maybe it all was magnetic, because she had never done anything like this, but Hermione’s hand went to his waist and looped into his pants to pull him flush against her and her other hand grazed his chin and curled around the back of his neck.

He was warm, Merlin.

His hands returned to their place in the dip in her back and cupping her face. His lips were soft and grazed hers lightly. Hermione pulled against his pants and he stumbled into her more, strengthening his hold on her back, though she fell into the wall behind them anyway.

“Shit, sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” he said roughly, then pulled away, his fingers tapping thoughtfully on her waist. “Or, at least, not for this—”

“Oh my god, I did—or, at least—”

But his mouth was back on hers, his teeth biting briefly around her bottom lip before his mouth was fully on hers again, and his knee nudged her leg back into the wall. Their bodies pressed up against each other, and Hermione gave one last tug at the front of his pants to get him closer before wrapping both arms around his neck and sucking on his bottom lip.

Draco groaned and positioned his hand more firmly on her jaw, his thumb stroking against the bone.

“I was trying to—” Hermione huffed, and Draco dropped his head to her neck, sucking, hard. “Oh my god—”

“Fucking apology novelist, you are,” he murmured.

“A shit insult,” she whispered, bringing her hands forward to his face and pulling him to her.

“Wasn’t an insult,” he said, and his mouth was on hers again. “I… I appreciated it,” he breathed.

Hermione made some noise in the back of her throat as his tongue brushed along her bottom lip. “I—me too—”

Draco squeezed gently on her waist and resumed kissing her.

At some point Hermione noticed that he was hard against her leg—although she was pretty sure he was trying to hide this from her, pulling away until she nudged him back into place—and a deep blush rose all over her cheeks.

“So,” Draco said, and he bent his head to her neck, butterflying kisses down and across.

Hermione felt the faintest twinge of nerves in her stomach. His erection, their proximity… did she even want to go farther?

“We’re going to patrol together.”

Oh. Oh, that’s what he wanted to discuss. She fought off a smile. “Hardly seems like the most relevant of topics right now.”

“I disagree.” He picked his head back up and looked her in the eyes as he inched his fingertips under her shirt, just holding her without the barrier of clothing. “Is this…”

She nodded at him, and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re quite familiar with Hogwarts at night,” he continued on, drawing loops around her sides and stroking up and down.

Hermione’s breath hitched.

“I daresay we could find cupboards like this all over the castle, non?”

The word had just a hint of French in it, and Hermione blinked. “No, patrolling will remain a perfectly professional affair, Draco.”

He gripped her harder. “Say…”

Hermione frowned.

“Say my name again?”

She exhaled and brought her hands to his cheeks. “Draco,” she began, and couldn’t stop herself from kissing him when his eyes sparkled, causing the rest of the sentence to be mumbled against his lips, “there will be absolutely no debauchery when we patrol.”

“You are horribly convincing, Granger.”

—

He wasn’t entirely sure whether they were to meet up before patrolling, or find each other somewhere in the halls—on the one hand, Draco really wanted to watch Granger’s neck flush when she saw him randomly, on the other, he wanted to spend as much time with her walking and talking as he could. When he was supposed to patrol with Pansy, he either simply didn’t, or he avoided her at all costs.

Regardless, he was unsure what the protocol was this year. In his fifth year, he and Pansy had just left Umbridge’s office together and patrolled from there. Draco’s stomach squirmed at those memories. Not only the strange content of their conversations those nights, but the knowledge that if a Gryffindor appeared, there was a professor who expected violence from him. The knowledge that he could commit that violence, that he had, that sometimes he had felt satisfaction from it.

Draco did not want to kill his Headmaster, and he wondered if he could enjoy doing it. He breathed in the candle-lit hallways and wondered if he could enjoy submitting fully.

“Good evening,” Granger said.

The snake on Draco’s forearm twisted harshly. He barely stifled a wince.

“Are you—”

“So we are patrolling together,” Draco said. He continued walking, past Granger, hoping that routine agitation, familiarity of Granger’s voice, something, would convince the snake to settle down again.

Granger sputtered and turned on her heel. “Yes, Draco. I’ve already been down this hallway, I thought we would perhaps go upstairs?”

“I’ve already been upstairs,” Draco lied. He didn’t think he could get any closer to the Room of Requirement without guilt taking over. He had a sudden urge to whip out his wand and cut out the snake.

“Okay.” Granger caught up to him and he could just barely feel her glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

His hands were fists and he hated this all.

He wanted to disappear into a broom closet and make Granger breathe gently into his neck again. He wanted to feel her waist, her warmth. He wanted to remember that she was alive and real.

Draco’s steps continued to rush down the hallway and Granger kept pace. He knew her brain ticked and wished for her to snap at him. He wished for the snake to stop hissing and writhing.

“Are you going to say anything?” he bit out.

“Yes, in fact, I will—” she reached out and grabbed his arm, hard, and the snake wanted to bite her and Draco couldn’t breathe—

“What on earth is up with you? I—did something happen? Are you okay?”

Draco wrenched his arm free and the corridor was dark and he didn’t know where he went—

“I can’t—”

“You can’t what? Draco, hold on—”

And she grabbed ahold of his robes.

His vision blurred and spun and faded and Granger spoke around it all. She said something about taking a breath and calming down and this was the last time they would see each other, probably, until after Christmas—and oh, was that it? Draco—

“Oi, Malfoy!”

The Weasel came to a stop as Draco turned the corner and he felt anger seep up in his chest.

“Ron, what—”

Draco pulled out his wand and continued on his path down the hall.

Weasley adopted a dueling stance, narrowing his gaze. “Oh, don’t you even think about it—Stupefy!”

Draco dodged it easily, sending a jinx in response that Weasley deflected into the wall, sending sparks that bounced off the floor and sent smoke rising.

He lifted his wand again, debating between a tripping jinx and some sort of hex, when Granger grabbed on to the back of his robes.

“No,” she hissed at him. “Ron, stop it.”

Draco jerked his elbow around to make Granger lose her grip. “Fuck off,” he growled.

“Someone needs to teach this fuckwad that he can’t be allowed to—”

“Ron, seriously, we’re patrolling, this is ridiculous—” Granger shoved Draco to the side as she tried to stand in front of him.

“Hermione, don’t!”

“Granger, move—”

Granger lowered her voice and shook her head, eyes flashing. “Arrêtez, connard.” Stop, asshole.

Draco paused. He cocked his head. “Oh?”

“Honestly, qu’est-ce qui s’est—Ron, get off,” she squirmed out of his sudden hold and Draco raised his wand again, irritated at the Weasel’s insistence to hold on to Granger.

“Oh, you want to have a go, Malfoy?”

“This is absolutely ridiculous! Ron, back up; you—” she turned to face Draco again, and narrowed her eyes, and—

Draco barely concealed a smirk, twirling his wand in the air. She had learned one swear! He wondered whether she had looked it up in a book, or whether she had known it all along and only now dared to voice it.

“Get yourself together,” Granger hissed at him.

Draco felt his smirk turn into a scowl.

She returned instantly to the Weasel—“stop it”—and she held her wand up at him. “Okay, this is idiotic, you and I are going back to the Gryffindor tower, and you…” she just shook her head at Draco. “Forget it.”

—

Draco didn’t move until many minutes after Granger and Weasley disappeared from view; their bickering lingering in the hallways. Draco wished he could feel jealousy over their proximity—yet he knew nothing but preemptive exhaustion and deep regret.

He was horrible, to her and in general.

Draco or the house elves packed up his dorm room in the following days. He couldn’t remember who it had been; he lay numb on his covers and ignored Crabbe and Goyle.

He went to his classes, and sometimes he felt hungry. Mostly, he thought about the mechanics of remembering a smell and tried to see if he could recall Granger’s perfume.

Draco hadn’t finished the Vanishing Cabinet. Dumbledore was still alive.

Snape nodded curtly at him in their last Potions class before the holiday break; the two would see each other again in mere days.

He didn’t let himself make eye contact with Granger again. But he couldn’t ignore the Trio. Weasley was loud and thought he knew everything, and Draco had no energy to show him otherwise. Potter made painful attempts to lighten their moods. Draco hated to find it admirable the way the three of them cared for each other.

Draco wished there was no way that Granger knew what she had said during their patrolling altercation—but Granger was smarter than anyone gave her credit for, this he knew.

Draco wished he could have some of that intelligence. He would need to move without hesitation over this holiday.

He wished he could have someone look after him.

And he hated that he wanted someone to try and make him feel better.

“Ah, Mr. Malfoy!” Voldemort smiled widely from where he sat at the head of their dining room table. “Have a seat. How was your autumn term?”

—

In her half-asleep dreams that night, Draco rolled over to press his stupidly bony nose in the crook of her neck. Hermione curled herself into him and he held on to her waist. He had come home to meet her parents, and it was awkward and strange and he breathed next to her now. Hermione closed her eyes against the rush of emotion that rose up in her chest.

“I…” Hermione shook her head. She uncrossed her arms. “Maybe I didn’t…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Brightest witch of our age, faltering?”

Hermione cleared her throat around a sudden lump. “Maybe I didn’t put enough thought into you before.”

She felt his steady gaze on her even in the low light, and hoped he couldn’t see her blush. She could decide why the blush was there, later.

“I gave you very little reason to think about me in any way but fear.”

Hermione scoffed. “Don’t big yourself up.”

“No?”

She shook her head, not letting her eyes leave Malfoy’s face. “In the early years, occasional humiliation and, perhaps, sparse moments of fear, but mostly abhor.” She picked back up her quill and twirled it between her fingertips.

His expression barely changed. “That’s fair.”

Something in her stomach turned at his resignation and her eyebrows drew together. “Did you really come here just to… inform me about my very English French and have me berate you? I’m not a moral compass for you to use whenever you feel like being an actual human being–”

“No,” Malfoy shook his head insistently. “No, I promise, I was…” he shook his head again, gaze resting in his hands, “hoping you’d be here because I wanted to apologize.”

A jolt ran through her stomach.

He met her eyes. “I–regardless of how my actions made you feel, you deserved–deserve–none of that.”

He leaned forward but scooched his chair back, so the space between them remained relatively the same. Hermione blinked as he nodded.

“Really. I… it’s utter bull–but you know that already; I–I treated you awfully. I should never have done… any of the things I did. I am truly sorry, Hermione.”

Hermione inhaled. She contemplated the set of his brows. “Well. I appreciate that.”

Malfoy nodded. “Well,” he jerked his head at her work, “I’ll let you get back to it.” He pushed his chair back again and his hair flopped forward as he bent up from the table.

He was… trying not to do his orders. He had apologized. He, Draco, had called her by her first name. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

“It’s…” she scrutinized his hesitant frame. What was Malfoy, and where did he belong? “You can stay, if you’d like.”

“Oh?”

Hermione sighed. “I really doubt you’re going to distract me any more than I would be already. Just give me a warning before you plan to duel, so I can clean up my work.”

He cracked a smile and pulled back the chair. “No dueling tonight.”

“No? I seem to piss you off quite frequently.” She picked up her quill and dipped it in the ink.

“You sure it isn’t the other way around?”

Hermione jerked her head up to find him smirking, lying back in his chair. She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t instigate.”

“No, you just come out of nowhere with Stupefys that bruise for a week.”

“Not nowhere. You had called me a bitch.” Her voice did not falter around the word, and she hadn’t expected it to, but Malfoy shifted his jaw slightly when she clipped her voice around the final consonant.

He cleared his throat. “I was goading the Weasel–or, I–no, yeah, you’re–”

“You called me a bitch.”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward a bit. “Uncalled for.”

Hermione placed her chin atop folded hands, ignoring the ink dripping from her quill. “Were you going to say I was right?”

Draco cocked his head. “Uh, no.”

“‘No, yeah, you’re–’” she raised her eyebrows. Draco’s nose twitched, but he remained still otherwise. “Wow,” she leaned back, tilting the quill down to the paper so no more ink could stain her fingers. “The bitch of a Mudblood is more right than the Pureblooded prick.”

Draco flinched, hard. Hermione held his eye contact for a long moment, then looked down to the table, continuing faintly on her essay.

“You interrupt a lot,” he finally came up with, which Hermione thought was just a little rich. “If you did less, perhaps you’d be able to hear all I had to say.”

“I don’t want to hear–”

“Sure seems that way–”

“I don’t interrupt nearly as much–”

“Mhm.”

“Pot calling kettle.”

“What?”

Draco’s face was genuinely confused when Hermione raised her eyebrows up at him–a wholeheartedly amusing sight.

“Pot calling the kettle. Black. Is that not a Wizarding phrase?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

Hermione frowned. “Well, I suppose, the pot is black, and the kettle is black, so if the pot is calling the kettle black, they both are–essentially, you were saying I interrupt as you were interrupting me–”

Draco snorted. “But what if the pot and the kettle are not black?”

Hermione paused, her mouth still half-open, and then didn’t know whether she was more shocked by the laughter that came out or by Draco’s smile at the noise. “I mean, that’s a moot point.”

“Is it, though?” Draco leaned forward. “At my house, our kettle is silver and the pots…” he frowned. “They’re marble, I think?”

She couldn’t stop the laughter this time. “You have,” she shook her head, “a silver kettle and marble pots?”

“And?”

“That just makes so much sense.”

“Well, what do you have, Granger?”

Hermione leaned back and crossed her arms. “Er, our kettle is blue, I suppose? Our pots are black, though.”

“So, there.”

Hermione shook her head.

“Not both black.”

“That’s a stupid point. It’s a fine phrase. And accurate, in this instance,” she looked at him pointedly. She then smirked as she scribbled a sentence on her parchment. “Anyhow, yours are quite easy to mend,” she continued on. This point had been in her mind for awhile, now. She was eager to get it in before he had a chance to commandeer the conversation with some futile disagreement again.

Draco cleared his throat. “Bullocks. And at least my French doesn’t sound classroom-taught.”

Hermione snorted. Her stomach squirmed pleasantly that he knew exactly which conversation she had picked back up. “You’d prefer colloquial French over complex spells?”

He answered with silence, and she watched out of her periphery as his jaw clenched and one of his fingers rubbed the other forearm harshly.

The peace persisted for quite some time. Hermione finished this essay that was due at the end of the next week; Draco got up at one point to find a book in the shelves and then returned to his seat to brush a hand through his hair and open it up. He read quickly, the crinkled pages turning satisfyingly, and his mouth twitched whenever he got to a part that Hermione assumed must be amusing.

It was a book she had read before, a few years prior, a novel about a wizard going on a quest to find hidden treasure. She found it interesting that she had clutched that very same book that now lay between Draco’s long fingers.

She thought all this in between glances up from her parchment. She didn’t allow her eyes to linger for too long, but it truly was difficult–

Draco had apologized, sincerely. He also had scratched at a quite possibly tattooed forearm. And now, he sat in silence, while Hermione did her work, and subtly analyzed him, and came to terms with the fact that a yawn was about to break.

---

It had been some time since they had layed like this, Ginny sprawled out in front of Hermione on her bed, bouncing the Quaffle off the wall and then the floor and then catching it before throwing up at the wall again–

“You’re gonna dent it, I swear.”

“‘Mione, I’ve told you, like, every year: Wizarding walls don’t do that. Or,” Ginny shifted positions to throw up at the ceiling now, “they do, but they’re easily fixable.” She looked around the room at the empty beds, taking account of the miscellaneous stains from spilled drinks on the worn wooden floor. “The House Elves must go through all the rooms on holiday and fix all the messes we make.”

Hermione glanced up from her book and frowned. Oh, this was a good point. She mentally increased the stack of coins she’d leave for the House Elves at the next school break.

“Okay, but, tell me,” Ginny flipped over once more, tucking the Quaffle under her chin and looking up at Hermione, who leaned back on her headboard, “you think?”

Hermione allowed a small smile to sneak on her face. “Mhm.”

Ginny raised her eyebrow. “Really.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, not about this.”

Ginny grinned and her cheeks reddened atop the scattered freckles and acne. “Maybe I’ll ask him to Hogsmeade.”

Hermione laughed. “We all go together anyway.”

“Yes, but hush,” Ginny swatted at her, “the boy can always use more wholesomeness in his life. Did you see,” she opened her eyes wide, “how he fucking blushes when I tease him? He blushes.”

“He does.” Hermione shut her book and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning forward. “You do, too.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and turned onto her back. She flung the Quaffle upwards again. “Enough.”

“You brought it up.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” Hermione picked the book up again.

“‘Mione.”

“Gin’.”

“It really sucks that I hate the taste of gin–”

“When did you try?”

“Bill gave me some last holiday.”

“Wow, did Molly flip?”

“Bill took us all out for dinner; Molly wasn’t there. But anyway–” Ginny reached forward and snatched Hermione’s protection from her hands, tossing it behind her. It landed with a thump on the floor and Hermione winced at the noise. “Any feelings?”

Hermione raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Excitement about two of my best friends getting together,” she crossed her arms, “uh, concern about the future, stress about N.E.W.T.S…”

“And any feelings about any humans?” Ginny laced her fingers together and blinked expectantly.

She rolled her eyes and ignored the tension in her chest.

Her life contained no time for crushes. It made absolutely no sense to have any of those feelings, as it would only complicate everything. They headed into a war and this fact was obvious and any attempt to deny that was ridiculous and selfish and irresponsible.

Ginny groaned at the silent response, dropping her head into her hands. Hermione blinked down at her, bounced a little by the sudden movement on the bed, and watched as she popped her head back up and thought for a minute. “Okay, new question, because I know where your brain is going at the moment: if you had no obligations. Like, nothing. Do you think you’d have any feelings? For anyone?”

Hermione chewed on her lip. She watched Ginny and remembered so many times the two had sat like this, Ginny on Hermione’s bed, and saw her gorgeously wide eyes and her hair swept up into her ponytail. It had been awhile since they had been here, just the two of them, with none of Hermione’s roommates bustling around. Maybe this was the first time all school year. They had been quite busy. Or Hermione had been, at least, holed up in the library seeking something, trying to solve everyone, doing her absolute best to do it all in the background so her friends could–

She felt herself blinking faster and faster and–

“Hey, Hermione, hey,” Ginny sat up and scooched closer. She wrapped an arm around Hermione’s shoulder, steady against Hermione’s sudden sobs, and nudged her so Hermione’s head dropped against her neck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“No, no,” Hermione sniffed, rubbing harshly at her eye, cringing when tears dripped on Ginny’s sweatpants. “It’s just, I don’t think…”

“Mhm?” Ginny rubbed her back and Hermione felt warm all over, suddenly sweaty, her curls slicked on to her cheek and growing damp from her crying.

“How…” She breathed raggedly. “I don’t think I know anymore. I don’t think my brain has room for this, I… I’m trying every day to find something to help Harry, trying to make him stress less, trying to make me stress less–” she sniffled, “I just, and then the only time I feel any quiet is at night, but even then it’s kind of shite, except then the other day…”

“Mhm?”

Draco Malfoy no longer burned the line between the two with each word and each action. Rather, the library turned into just the library when he was there. The hallways held only the two when they had walked at night. Even fighting in DADA–he watched her and she learned him in response. The class had surrounded them, and she had been absolutely pissed at Snape, but Draco had been a puzzle and working towards a solution had been not unenjoyable. Relaxing. A workout where she hadn’t felt as if her job there was to help someone else. He had challenged her enough that she had to work enough that... Everything else had been pushed to the side.

Hermione shook her head. But. “I just… any time my brain settles, for any reason, I’m losing out on time. But maybe I’m not losing out, and maybe I… maybe it’s helping… but, I–”

“Okay, okay,” Ginny pushed her back slightly to meet her eyes, and squeezed her hand.

Hermione winced when she saw the lack of tears in Ginny’s eyes. This girl, her baby sister, had grown up. Was comforting her now. Felt steady in this moment, or was pretending to. “I’m so sorry for putting this all on you.”

Ginny shook her head. “Nope, nope. You clearly needed to talk.” She leaned back on her palms and frowned. “Do you want to… like, make a list? Like of what you actually need to do? What you actually can control?”

The loving eye roll was difficult to stop and Hermione hoped her smile lessened its effect.

“Alright then,” Ginny laughed. “Fine. I’m not gonna let this go, but, for now.” She raised her eyebrows. “Feelings aren’t out of place in difficult times.”

“Ginny, these aren’t difficult times–”

“‘Mione, shh, okay?”

Hermione exhaled and rubbed at her eyes again.

“If something is there, it can make the horrible times worth living through. If you stifle it all, it can become difficult to remember…” Ginny shook her head. “Just, Harry needs this.” She grinned at Hermione. “Harry needs me. I’m ‘this’. And Ron… he deserves wholesomeness and happiness, too. We all do. Including you.”

Hermione grabbed a tissue from her nightside table and groaned as she rammed her nose into it.

“Yes?”

“I really don’t like that you’re wise now. You’re only fifteen. It’s weird as shite.”

Ginny grinned. “Anytime.”

---

“You have no idea how happy you’re making me.”

Draco straightened his dress robes and gave himself a onceover in the mirror, trying his best to ignore Theo’s bouncing figure on the bed behind him. “I can guess.”

Theo shook his head. “Nah, you can’t.”

“Nott,” Draco chuckled, “you look like you’re seven again and we’ve just discovered where the Head Elf keeps the cookies.” He turned to raise his eyebrows at Theo’s smirk. “It’s just a party.”

“Yeah, Malfoy, that we’re crashing. You’ve been a sourpuss–”

Draco bent down to slip on his shoes, the words barely getting through his tense jaw. “You sound like my mother–”

“Oh, ew, alright, you’ve been a pissed lad the entire semester. Haven’t spent any time with us, haven’t gotten pissed, really–”

Draco stood back up and the bed creaked as Theo came to stand at his side. He slogged an arm around Draco’s shoulders, who winced and shoved him away unsuccessfully–Theo just gripped Draco tighter, beaming at the two of them in the mirror.

“Purebloods are gonna take it all back, eh?” Nott raised his eyebrows and his eyes glinted. “Gonna right the wrongs.”

Draco jammed his elbow backwards to get Theo in between his ribs. The boy gave an oof–“holy fuck”–and finally let him go, falling back on the bed again. Something squirmed unpleasantly in Draco’s stomach while the snake hissed up to his ear; he stepped towards the door, turning the knob. “Don’t think there’s much for us to ‘take back’.”

“Oi, you’re still pissy–” he bounded forward to follow Draco out of the room, “and no, that’s inaccurate. We’re missing out on our invitation to Monsieur Sluggy’s fête, non?”

The uncomfortable feeling only increased and Draco’s pace down the stairs momentarily slowed.

“I mean, Crabbe and Goyle? Instead of us? Ridiculous. Get a move on, boy,” Theo shoved him in the shoulder, “wanna crash this party.”

“Yeah, alright, I won’t deny you that,” Draco trotted down the last few steps.

“Nah, you won’t. No need for dates, no need for girls, just us going to cause a ruckus!” Nott grinned widely, pushing down on Draco’s shoulders to give himself a jump as the two exited the stairs to the common room.

“Nott, get off me,” Draco growled, twisting around yet again, “or I swear–”

Theo held his hands up. “Alright, mec, let’s get a go on. After you.” He gestured extravagantly towards the door and Draco shook his head, opening it and ignoring Theo’s goodbye calls to those still in the common room as they entered the cool hallway.

He wasn’t sure if Nott had pushed for this excursion more or if he had, some ironic mix of not having seen Granger in a few days and lust for potions opportunities propelling him forward, and the snake ready as always to assert its dominance. It had fought him all throughout his apology, making him stutter and reword and greatly overthink Granger’s awfully blank face–

Or maybe that had just been him, flustered over Granger’s golden brown gaze and determined to get the truth out so she could know, so even though the snake and maybe he himself hated him for saying each truth, it felt deeply, intrinsically wrong not to, and awfully manipulative to continue further without acknowledging, and he didn’t want to think that she thought he thought terrible thoughts about her–no, Draco had become quite good at ignoring the snake. The fears during this apology stemmed only from himself. If he were honest, once again, his thoughts about her shone crystal clear while his self image was the cloudy water after a bath.

Chatter trickled out of Slughorn’s office as the two approached, “fashionably late and better dressed than anyone inside,” winked Theo, and Draco felt his stomach flip, or twinge, or just jolt ever so slightly in anticipation and nerves.

The difference between what could be and what was felt profound in this moment. Draco hesitated at the edge of the door while Nott just ducked inside and beelined towards the refreshment table. Sluggy’s laugh thundered over from farther in the room, and holiday music played from a rickety gramophone hovering over near the food–Nott turned around, raising a slice of cake in the air with a grin.

Most of the people who mingled were ones he never would have spoken to, anyway. And his only obligation here currently pertained to Theo–and he also bit his lip on an inhale, spotting some curls hidden at the back of the crowd. Loony Lovegood and Potter shared a laugh at the front of the mass. Draco straightened his shoulders with a faint roll of the eyes, and marched in.

The party lasted late into the night, but the Slytherin crashers only lasted about twenty minutes. Ten of those were spent in front of the food, ignoring other students who gave them odd looks when they walked up to the table, instead piling a feast on Theo’s plate to satisfy the kid’s glorious sweet tooth. It felt nice in some ways, to have the dress robes swishing by his sides–a lot of time had passed since Draco had been able to actively put thought into an outfit. On the other hand, the last time he had worn these robes had been to a Voldemort-sanctioned dinner this past summer, and he could almost still smell the fear sweat bathing each thread.

“How much do you bet one of the punches is spiked?” Theo murmured, nodding over at the bowls and colorful liquids that smoked and bubbled, with ladles bobbing in the air above them.

Draco lifted his head to look over the crowd–Slughorn’s voice came from all the way back in the corner. “At least one. Sluggy’s been back there for so long, no way he’s checking.”

Nott nodded seriously and began spooning purple slosh into one of the many goblets lined on the table. Draco held one of the fruit cups in one of his hands to look like he had something to do and turned to see Granger with her eyebrows raised and arms crossed.

“So, you were invited to this?”

Draco lifted his chin and shifted his weight to the foot farthest from her. “Ah, in a manner of speaking.”

Granger narrowed her eyes. A glass dangled out of one of her folded hands.

“I’m here, now.”

“That you are,” she acknowledged. “And, how are you enjoying?”

Draco snorted. “You running this thing, Granger? Somehow Slughorn’s pet as well as every other teachers’?”

Her cheeks reddened and she shot him a glare. “No, merely you seem to be standing here, alone, while your only accomplice has ditched you for the food and you’re now talking with the one person who, honestly, when this one friend sees you with, might ruin any social status–”

“I don’t give a fuck about–”

“That’s absolute bullshite,” Granger shot at him, and her gaze was dark and fierce and Draco started at her insistence, his stomach knotting.

“If I had it my way–”

“Ah, Malfoy boy, making a new friend, non?” Theo slugged an arm over Draco’s shoulders–again–and fixed Granger with what Draco could only assume was a simpering smile.

“Nott.”

“Granger.” Draco felt Theo’s sharp nod. “Have you sucked Sluggy off yet, tonight?”

“Have you Malfoy?” Granger’s face did not twitch and Draco felt something deep in his stomach heat. He struggled to keep a smirk off his face, but from the way Granger caught his eye he had a feeling he wasn’t entirely successful.

“Hey, now, you fucking Gryffin–”

“Alright, Nott,” Draco nudged him in the side. Granger’s eyes were still too dark and piercing and her blinks too slow to make any real sense out of. It required effort to distance himself from them, and each push in the soft spot above Theo’s waist was energy out of engaging with Hermione. “Let’s go find the other party favors, alright?”

Draco was sure Theo gave him a look, but he truly couldn’t be arsed to figure out what it was, not when he hadn’t yet solved Granger’s. And, really, he would have spent all night bickering with her, hoping to come to some conclusion on what each shade of brown in her irises meant, except not only was the sweaty warmth of Nott’s arm drawn away, but a familiar cool bony clutch grasped around his forearm, and Granger’s posture immediately straightened–she had been relaxed before–and Nott groaned quietly next to him.

Low, slick. “Mr. Malfoy. Mr. Nott. How interesting to see you here, tonight.”

“Yes,” Nott drawled, “Professor Snape, we knew you’d be here and just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to coexist with you. And Professor Slughorn, of course. You know Malfoy and I, we’re all about the potions.”

Draco glanced at the floor and shook his head minutely to himself. No point, really.

“Mr. Nott, head back to the dungeons. Ms. Granger, do continue socializing.” Her nostrils flared. “Mr. Malfoy. Come with me.” And with the cold nails digging into his arm, what was Draco supposed to do, but leave Granger and Nott behind and let himself be dragged into the dark hallway, feeling Snape’s magic seep off of him and begin to surround his mind?

Draco fisted his nails into his palms when various memories began to surface–Narcissa’s blank stare as her husband was dragged away, screaming and wild; Potter on the train, petulant face bent and bruised after Draco was done with him; and he groaned lowly with the pressure of keeping Granger out of his brain.

“Snape–”

“It would be a lot easier, for both of us, if you simply did your assigned task.”

Draco looked the asshole straight on, the black beady eyes swallowing his insistent glare. “There is only so much I can–”

Snape stepped closer and lowered his voice to merely more than a purr entering his ear, “The Dark Lord will have your life for this task. You know this, Draco. You are rarely an idiot. Now is not the time to test that.”

“And what happens if I do?” Draco hissed through his teeth.

A slow blink. “Your father’s fate will worsen. Your mother will be tortured.” The Professor’s face inched closer with a hint of a smile. “You will never see the light of day again. The Dementors will suck every last drop of life from your skull.”

“Ah, and thank you very much for that,” Draco cleared his throat. “But, much more tangibly, what will happen if I did not complete my task?” Snape’s nostrils flared. “You would do it, right? Unbreakable Vow and all?”

“You would never get away–”

“But what if I did?”

Snape backed away, eyeing Draco slowly. “You are forgetting your consequences. There is no room for escape. The Dark Lord knows everything; a Mudblood optimist’s influence will not change that.”

Draco’s jaw tensed.

“Do not forget this. Return to your common room at once, or ten points from Slytherin.”

“I’m a fucking Prefect–”

“So carry out your orders and act like it.”

The walk back to the dungeons was cold and echoey, and Draco couldn’t tell whether he was fully unsettled by Snape’s knowledge of his and Granger’s interactions or whether this really changed nothing: danger was ever present and Dumbledore would die regardless of what he did.

Everyone must have still been at dinner, or in the library, or just back in their common rooms already, for Draco walked alone.

“And what the everloving fuck are you doing here, Slytherin prick?”

Draco blinked up at the portrait, quickly settling his face into a sneer. “That’s no way to speak to a Prefect.”

The Fat Lady raised her eyebrow and peered closer. “A Prefect? More like a little boy playing dress up in the clothes of someone with competence.”

“Fuck off,” Draco drew his wand.

“Oh ho ho!” The Fat Lady held up her hands as if to surrender in mockery. “Oh my, do forgive me! I have transgressed! The Great Slytherin Prefect, doing his work so diligently all year, appearing for no reason at the Gryffindor Tower, all to hurt The Fair Fat Lady!”

Draco cocked his head. “Eugenia. Your name’s Eugenia, right?”

She squinted at him. “No.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “yes, it is.” Granger had said Eugenia with her hand wrapped around his wrist.

Eugenia appraised him for a moment, then flinched when a bird flew over her head and waved her hand in Draco’s direction. “Go back to your cold solitude.”

“Thank you for the well wishes,” Draco rolled his eyes, beginning to walk backwards.

“Be a stranger!” her chortle devolved into high pitch singing and Draco turned around, ducking his head when some Gryffindors passed him on the stairs.

And it did get colder as he descended. And the portrait outside the Slytherin common room made some quip about how lost he seemed, and Nott already awaited him once he stepped inside. His eyes drooped with exhaustion and he wished he would stay awake long enough to sneak into the library. Some company tonight would have been good.

---

Harry threaded his fingers through his hair and patted it down on the sides. “And this shirt is okay?”

Ron groaned and fell back on his bed, and Hermione reclined against Harry’s pillows, flicking her wand at the record player Sirius had gifted Harry for his last birthday. The weirdly angsty tune Harry had had playing changed into something a bit more upbeat, and Hermione opened her book again.

“‘Mione, I think you should come.”

“I can’t crash your date, Ron. That’s just weird on about a thousand levels.”

Harry snorted and pulled his shirt off again.

“Harry, it’s fine,” Ron threw his hands in the air. “The larger issue is what do I say? She’s… so cool.”

“And you’ve been bonding all year in Quidditch! Chatting each other up at dinners… after practices…” Harry glanced back in the mirror, a new button-down on, and then turned and pointed at Ron.

“Katie’s great, you’re great, Hermione–” she lifted her head, eyebrows raised as he turned his arm to her, “–needs to come, if only to get the fuck out of the library for a day.”

She scoffed in protest. “I won’t go to the library.”

Ron laughed, a loud, big one, his bed bouncing with the movement from his stomach. Hermione couldn’t help her grin in response.

“Yeah, we all know that’s a lie,” Harry said. He bounced forward onto the bed, his head propped on his hands to look up at her. “Neville and Luna are going, you could at least join them. Quill Shop?”

Hermione offered him a smile… stationary would be lovely. She bit her lip. But the library… it held promise of something, and maybe she was an idiot, and maybe she would be letting everyone down, and maybe what Ginny said had been true. She could not deny she wanted to find out.

“No, you all go on ahead.” She leaned forward and quickly rumpled Harry’s hair, dissolving into laughter when he flipped her off and ran to the mirror to fix it. “Both of you will be great. You have such lovely girls to go out with–”

Ron’s voice was low and mumbled through his hands, “and one of them’s my sister–” and Harry shot a glance at Hermione, who shrugged.

“–and you both are gonna have such wonderful times, and you’ll get over the awkwardness and it’ll all just be great.”

“Thanks, ‘Mione. Alright, Ron?”

“Yeah. She’s just so witty and–”

“You are, too–”

“I’m not witty, I’m nice–”

“And she’s gonna love that!” Hermione piped up. “She already does.”

“Mm.”

“Alright, Ronald, let’s get going–”

“You can’t call me ‘Ronald’, only Hermione can–”