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By this time tomorrow, everything will be different.
The windowpane is cool against my temple, reflecting the shapes of the room behind me, too dark outside to see anything beyond the glass. In all black, my reflection is practically invisible, safe for my hair, but I tire of staring at myself so I watch the flames in the fireplace. They glow over Pansy, sprawled on the oriental rug, her head in Longbottom’s lap, surrounded by an explosion of rainbow streamers. He’s staring at her all bedazzled, as if she’ll vanish in a wisp of smoke if he quits looking.
Behind them, Theo’s asleep on the armchair, mouth parted, snoring softly even though he insists he doesn’t. I look over my shoulder as a shadow approaches and see Granger, a natural smile on her lips, holding a beer bottle in each hand.
I swing my legs down to make space, our fingers brushing as I take one.
She sits opposite me, crossing her legs on the window seat. “Recently found out Stevie Nicks is a witch.”
I take a swig. It’s oddly pecan-flavoured, definitely Weasley’s choice. He’ll never hear it from me, but not half bad. “What are you on about?”
“The band,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the charmed gramophone. Earlier, when Loony played DJ, we listened to a whole soundtrack of cows mooing in a field. “They’re called Fleetwood Mac.”
I breathe out a laugh. “Granger’s Fact of The Day can't take a breather on the last night of school?”
“I can’t turn off who I am,” she says indignantly.
“I know,” I say. I love it.
Her gaze lowers, index finger circling the bottle thoughtfully. I take advantage of the moment to admire her tight black trousers, how they hug her legs like denim skin.
She lifts the glass to her lips, tipping it back. Our eyes lock.
“How was your night?” she asks.
“Unsatisfying,” I say, realizing it’s the truth. “We built up tonight so much and now it’s over and it was just alright.”
She grins. “Hey, just alright for a party with Gryffindors is miraculous. You’d have used a hundred other words to describe it at the top of the year.”
“You’re not Gryffindors to me anymore.”
“What are we then?”
“Classmates,” I say. “Friends.”
Her brows nearly shoot up to her hairline. “Friends?”
“Especially you,” I tell her, picking at the label on the bottle. A boy on a broom thunderbolts into a star-speckled sky. I ignore his uncanny similarity to tween-Potter. “I’ll miss you, Granger.”
“Is this goodbye then?” she asks. “Won’t we see each other after this?”
“Of course, we will.” I roll my eyes. “But not like this.” I wave my hand around the festivity-drained room. “There’ll be business meetings. You’ll bug me with proposals to invest in some needy creature fund and I’ll give you a hard time about it because I enjoy riling you up. But ultimately you’ll get what you want and we’ll catch up from time to time so you can tell me where you’ve spent every knut I’ve contributed to the cause.”
“You’ve thought about this.” There’s a tiny streak of mascara beneath her left eye and I’m tempted to lick my finger and swipe it clean.
“I think about you all the time,” I say, fixating on how her hair spills down her shoulders, partially flattened against the stone wall.
“You do?” She leans forward, a curl falling over her brow. “In what way?”
I stare at her mouth. The dip at the centre of her lip. I never paid attention to that part of the mouth before, but Granger’s is plump and shaped like a heart with edges instead of curves.
“How much I want to touch you.” I wince, realizing I spoke out loud.
She sets her drink aside and reaches for my hand. “Like this?” Her thumb circles around my first knuckle.
“No,” I say hoarsely, even though I like it.
“Then how?” Her voice is a low hum, though nobody’s around to hear us. Longbottom and Pansy are spooning now, backs to us, bodies rising and falling slowly. There’s a buzzy silence as the needle grates vinyl until a slow song comes on.
Our eyes meet. “Do you want me to show you?”
“Yes,” she says immediately.
The bottle clinks softly on hardwood. Stretching forward, I clasp her hips and guide her onto my lap. She’s light and malleable, surprisingly eager as she straddles me. Veiling my periphery beneath a curtain of dark hair. Lovely lips float inches from mine and I take a second to admire them up close before bridging the gap.
Pecan beer on her tongue is sweeter somehow, headier. My trousers become too tight and I press against the wall to conceal as much as I can. Until she tilts her hips and makes a breathy noise at the back of her throat, and I think to hell with it, and pull her closer.
Her arms loop all the way around my neck, so she’s spread against me, spicy-sweet and delicious.
“Draco,” she says, not Malfoy, and it makes me pause. Allowing her to pull back. “Tell me how you feel about me.”
My hands clasp at the small of her back, keeping her close. If I let go, it will be over. “I fancy you,” I say.
And then I realize what’s happened.
“You bitch.” I push her back, recoiling against the wall so we aren’t touching anymore. “What did you put into my drink?”
She wobbles on the ledge, feet landing on the ground to catch her fall. “Veritaserum.”
No wonder I’m so fucking enticed by this woman. She’s a snake.
I stand, forgetting I put beer there, and it topples over with a loud clang, spilling everywhere. “Fuck!”
Theo leaps awake, takes one look at me, then Granger behind me—cheeks flushed, lipstick smeared across her mouth, which reminds me to wipe my lips—and he grins wide, all teeth. Smug bastard. Saluting me with two fingers, he strolls upstairs whistling.
“Wait, Draco!” She grabs my wrist when I try to follow him. “Don’t be angry.”
I wrench my hand back. “Only because you asked.”
What have I told her?
I fancy you.
I want to touch you.
Fuck!
“I trusted you.” I hate that my voice sounds hurt, that I’m unable to conceal that from her.
“I took it too!”
I pause.
“I put it in both drinks,” she says, blood rushing to her cheeks. “When I offered it to you, I let you choose, remember? We’re on even ground here.” She sighs. “Go on. Do your worst.”
“Why did you put Veritaserum in my drink?”
“Because I wanted to know how you feel about me.”
“Why not just ask me?” I take a step toward her.
She’s fumbling with her charm bracelet, not making eye-contact. “Because you would have lied. Right?”
“Yes,” I say, then glower at her. “It’s my turn to ask the questions.”
I close the distance between us as she retreats, until her back is against the wall, closed in by me with nowhere to go. “Why does it matter how I feel about you?”
“You already know,” she says, then clamps her lips shut. I wait, knowing the potion will do the work for me. Having Hermione Granger under my thumb without even working for it is the greatest stroke of kismet.
She takes a deep breath, lays her palm on my chest, and shoves me back, creating space. “I don’t like being looked at that way.”
“What way?” I’m grinning.
“Like I’m a rat and you’re a feline,” she snarls. “I fancy you too, Malfoy. I have for months and wasn't sure how you felt about me. I had to find out before we lost our chance.”
My mind reels envisioning Diligent Head Girl Granger sneaking into Sluggy’s closet to steal Veritaserum because of me.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, needing to know if I’m an itch she needs to scratch. Hook up with the Slytherin nemesis just to say you did it once.
“I want you to be mine,” she says, eyes huge and vulnerable. “To talk every day about all the things no one will listen to me ramble about. Except you. Which is all I want anymore anyway, to talk to you. I want to know about the potions you’re working on and help you research ways to improve them. I want…”
I’m walking toward her as her fingernails sink stubbornly into the back edge of the sofa. “I want—I want to kiss you when you look at me that way, with those eyes—”
I pull her into my arms, gripping so tightly she makes a strangled noise and I’m forced to loosen my hold. If I could, I’d absorb her whole, keep her inside of me for as long as she’ll be mine. She’s offering to be mine.
No. She wants me to be hers.
“I already am,” I tell her, whispering the words against her lips. “Yours.” I’m tempted to ask more questions. All of them. Why me? What did it? How do I avoid fucking this up?
But not like this. Not when there’s poison inside of us wrenching confessions, spinning us in fast-forward. Things with Granger unraveled naturally. I won’t douse our progress with gasoline just to force it along.
Instead, I kiss her again, silently, covering the words she’s about to say with my mouth because we have time. Tonight is just another night, and tomorrow will be a better day. “Ask me what I want,” I whisper into her ear, my breath swaying her curls.
She fidgets with a button on my shirt, staring at it. “What do you want?”
“Look at me,” I say. And when she does, I tell her, “All of it. With you.”
Her face splits into a full-blown smile, hot and dazzling, sunshine streaming out of her pores, and I melt. The insides of my stomach drip away until there’s nothing but a Draco puddle on the floor swirling around pecan-flavoured beer.
Arms winding around my waist, her weight tilts into me as she reaches for a kiss. A ferocious kiss, all hands and teeth and months of pent-up energy. We fumble against the sofa, knock into the side table, the brazen old lamp wobbles dangerously close to the ledge, and then we’re on the floor. I’m on my back, Granger draped over me, our mouths meeting somewhere in the middle.
The squeeze of her thighs is enough to make me hiss, sparks hop-skip-jumping beneath my veins. “So soft,” she says, threading her fingers through my hair. “I’ve always wanted to touch it.”
My hands latch around her hips, keeping her steady because if she brushes up against me one more time, I might come in my pants. The ends of her hair fall into my eyes as she leans over me. She does a head flick to sweep them behind her shoulder, which is barely effective, but then our mouths are colliding again and who cares about unobstructed vision. Even blind, I’d know this mouth, the scent of her skin, the clean lilt of her voice.
I straighten my bent knee, and the hem of my trousers sinks into a cold, sticky puddle.
She pulls back at my grimace. “What?”
“It’s just—” I sit up, out of breath, heart thundering. “We have time, don’t we?”
Her eyes glisten topaz in the dim light, staring at me in a way that’s new. Possessive. “That was the whole point.”
“Then why are we rushing?” I ask, knowing I’ll kick myself for this later. But this is Granger, not some witch making eyes at me from across the room. Certainly not a one-night stand.
Her expression slackens. “You want to stop?”
“It may come as a surprise,” I say, “but the thought of shagging you for the first time on the filthy floor of the common room with beer soaking my sock, and Longbottom and Pansy sleeping a few feet away makes me cringe.”
She leans back, bracing her palms on my thighs, a laugh tumbling out of her lips. “Not as surprising as you think.”
With a roll of her eyes, she pushes up to stand, then offers me her hands, helping me off the floor.
I guide her back to the window. Claiming my spot on the cushioned bench again, only this time, I sit her down in front of me. Her back flush against my chest, my thighs kissing her hips.
She clutches my hand, runs her thumb up and down the slopes of my knuckles. Eyes shutting, I bask in the rhythm of her touch, the thrill of having her in my arms on the last night of school, knowing it’s far from the last time.
“I’m going to do this properly,” I tell her in a low voice. “Take you out in something besides starched shirts and striped ties. And when I bring you home afterwards, there’ll be a big, soft bed.”
She snorts, but raises my hand up to her face and brushes her cheek against my skin. I uncurl my fingers so I can caress her, sweep my thumb over the line of her lips. “A date at Wizarding London?”
My stomach twists. “Unless you don’t want to… I understand that dating Death Eater scraps isn’t a good look.”
“Don’t call yourself that,” she says like she’s cross, and I’m relieved she can’t see the dumb look on my face. “I couldn’t care less what people have to say about us.”
“Right, you’ll just turn them into bugs and hold them hostage for a little while.”
She smacks my thigh, whisper-hissing, “I told you that in confidence!”
I laugh. “You’re wicked.”
Her fingers crawl up the length of my trousers. “Are you afraid of me?”
I scoff. “I can handle you.”
She shoots me a look from over her shoulder. “Handle me? ”
I backtrack, not in the mood to sit through a feminist lecture at this time of night. “I can handle what you throw at me.”
“We’ll see about that.” Her mouth quirks into a smirk.
“You’re gorgeous,” I say. “Remind me why I made us stop just then?”
“Because you’re too pretty to do it on the germ-infested floor.”
“You should thank me. Who knows what diseases we could contract down there.”
She snuggles against me, securing both my arms tightly around her, tilting her head to use my shoulder as a pillow.
Someone has cast Wingardium Leviosa over me and I’m weightless, rising higher and higher, no ceiling to this outburst of joy.
Beside us, I catch our reflection in the blackened window. Her head tucked beneath my chin, strands of hair smushed against the glass, curls splayed all over me. Since we’re both in black, it’s impossible to tell where one of us ends and the other begins.
By this time tomorrow, everything will be different. I look forward to it.