Quicksilver

Quicksilver
(title subject to change)
story rating NC-17
pairing: DM/HG

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, etc. are the sole property and copyright of the lovely J.K. Rowling. This story is for entertainment purposes only and is in no way affiliated with the original Harry Potter novel series or the Warner Bros. films.

This story containsor vor violence, some adult language, and overt sexuality.

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Chapter 3
Closet Phobias

After Potions had ended, Malfoy attempted to get her attention outside of the classroom door.
He tugged her robe from behind as the Gryffindor Three walked in a unit toward the Great
Hall. She pulled back from the two chattering wizards\' company and was surprised to see
who had summoned her.

She half-feigned annoyance and said, \"What do you want, Malfoy?\"

He smirked. \"Though I\'m sure you appreciated the peace while I was gone, I think that you
and I should talk to each other.\"

\"Why, so you can insult me and lower my IQ with your opinions simultaneously?\" she replied
nastily, un of of her own sincerity.

Malfoy scoffed and opened his mouth to say something else, but before a single word came
out, there was a shrill scream of \"TROLL!\" and an absolute uproar in its aftermath. With-
out any organizational efforts by the professors...young students, old students and house
elves alike began to panic and run in several directions. Frantic people instantly began
to push the pair in their zeal. Malfoy instinctively grabbed her hand, and pulled her into
the nearest open door and slammed it shut behind them.

The two panted in silence as they continued to hear screaming and shuffling outside in the
corridor. It was pitch black, so he murmured a quick illumination spell and they discovered
that they were in a house elf janitor closet. There wasn\'t much room, just shelves of
random cleaning objects and potions, some nails/screws, buckets, etc.

\"Curious,\" Draco said softly, as he picked up a feather duster. Hermione giggled, knowing
he probably didn\'t know what the object was or what it did. He looked up with a sheepish
smile and said, \"It looks like a wand with feathers glued to it instead of inside of it.\"

\"The static electricity it creates within itself helps to collect and swipe away dust,\" she
tried to explain without laughing.

\"Oh.\" He looked at it for a moment longer, then put it down. He was studying a can of
paint thinner when she wondered aloud, \"How long do you think we should stay in here?\"

As if he suddenly realized who the person was that was trapped inside the closet with him,
he replied sarcastically, \"I don\'t bloody know. Whenever they catch the troll.\" He tried
to make it sound as if she couldn\'t ask a dumber question.

Hermione frowned to herself and sighed exasperatedly. \"Right then,\" she said and then
turned to the door. The knob wouldn\'t budge, so she pulled out her wand and tried to cast
the alohamora charm. The door would not open. \"Bugger!\" she snarled angrily, and
yanked on the door knob. \"Look what you\'ve done NOW Malfoy! We\'re stuck!\" She huffed
into the corner and sat down, drawing her knees to her chest.

He watched her stare into the darkness. In the dim light of the lumos spell, she looked
angelic. And he wanted to slap himself for thinking so. He remembered his extraordinary
bombardment of subconscious images while he was in the hospital wing. He was unsure of from
where this disgusting obsession with (ugh) a Gryffindor muggle-born witch, of all things, was coming, but
he knew that he was steadily becoming unable to ignore it.

She startled him out of his thoughts. \"What, in Merlin\'s name, did you want to talk to ME
about, anyway?\" He almost winced at her sarcastic emphasis of \"me\". He was used to her
speaking to him harshly as he almost always deserved it, but right now he was unable to
react in the way he normally would. He couldn\'t muster a single nasty word in response.

And so, he told the truth. \"I wanted to talk to you about the day of my unfortunate quid-
ditch accident.\"

\"Oh, I suppose now that you know that Harry\'s fake spell wasn\'t what sent the bludger up
your arse, you\'re going to accuse ME of something,\" Hermione said spitefully. She had
indeed been feeling guilty, but she didn\'t want him to know that. She nervously
twined a misbehaving curl of hair around her finger and waited for his response.

Before he could say anything, though, the little blue ball of light from Malfoy\'s lumos
spell went out. \"Damn. They must be disabling magic use in the castle to help catch the
troll. You aren\'t afraid of the dark, are you?\" Draco\'s voice seemed to come from all
directions in the black room.

\"No, not that you reacarecare.\" She was truly surprised he\'d even asked.

\"Well, I am afraid of the dark. Laugh all you bloody want,\" he said defensively. He
really expected her to do just that.

\"Really? I would never have guessed...\" Hermione began.

\"Well, all witches and wizards tend to have one major fear in their lives. It\'s like
we have some sort of cross to bear and overcome from the time we\'re born. Potter is afraid
of failing anyone else that he is close to. He didn\'t actually fail anyone, but being the
only survivor in a murd fad family will bring that mindset. Weasley is afraid of spiders and
that was probably exaggerated by his second year visit to Spider Hell in the Dark Forest.
His twin brothers are afraid of being totally alone because they\'ve always had each other, no
matter what.\" Draco\'s monologue was stunningly insightful and unbiased and Hermione almost
couldn\'t believe her ears. He was speaking so neutrally and matter-of-factly about people he
hated...like he took the time to figure out every single person around him.

\"Do you...know why you\'re afraid of the dark?\" she asked timidly, hoping this personal
intrusion wouldn\'t cause his sensitive tone to change for the worse.

\"No, but I\'m sure it\'s got a lot to do with being spoiled. There was always a light on in
my family\'s house. It\'s just been that way since I was very young. I\'m sure that the only
reason I haven\'t panicked yet is because you\'re here with me, stupid as I\'m sure sou sounds.\"
Draco added the last words as a quick way to save face, but realized that she was not like
him...not looking for a weakness to turn into a weapon.

\"Stupid? Absolutely not. Actually, I\'m more shocked by your insight and the fact that you
are being so honest with me, of all people,\" she admitted.

\"Well, I suspect you know that if you tell anyone, I\'ll hex you into next year,\" he said
cheekily, surprised at his guard slowly faltering. \"Now, about six days ago...no, I\'m not
going to accuse you of anything. I-I was just going to apologize for our collision in the
hallway. I wasn\'t paying a bit of attention to where I was going,\" he stammered out in a
somewhat sheepish manner. He was picturing her angry eyes and crazy brown hair framing her
face and that perfect view down the front of her shirt...

\"I can\'t believe mys. Ds. Draco Malfoy, apologizing to me?\" Hermione was incredulous and
was glad for the lack of visibility, because her cheeks began to burn.

Why the devil am I blushing? No matter how curiously he\'s acting, it\'s still just Malfoy
in here with me, she thought. Malfoy, the spoiled rotten purist Slytherin arse. It doesn\'t matter
that he -is- having a few shining moments of humanity and intelligence or that if I could see those
gray eyes, they\'d melt me to the floor... Hermione shook herself. \"Blast,\" she said, not
really intending it as loud as it came out.

\"Yes...I just apologized to you. Don\'t expect it to happen again if you\'re going to tease me
about it,\" he said with a little more embarassment than he\'d meant to convey. \"And what
are you \'blast\'-ing about over there?\"

Hermione blushed twice as hard. \"Oh, it\'s er...nothing. I had just let my imagination run away
with me for a moment.\"

He was intrigued and smiled mischievously to himself. \"And where was it that your imagination
brought you?\"

She was so very glad that he could not see her, growing more flushed by the second. She
wondered if he could sense her agitation. \"N..nothing. I mean, nowhere.\"

\"You are a bad liar, my dear.\" Draco paused at this endearment, hoping she wouldn\'t read too
much into it. He shrugged it off, then continued. \"You are almost seventeen, you know. You\'re
allowed to entertain all kinds of thoughts.\" He delighted in the fact that no matter what she
had been originally thinking, she would be flustered by his words. She was too straight-laced
for anything else.

Hermione gasped, hoping he hadn\'t heard her. Was he really so intuitive that he had even the
slightest idea of what she was thinking...?

Before she could muster any sort of reply, they began to hear voices outside the heavy door.
She jumped to her feet and beat on the door screaming, \"Help, we\'re in here!\" Malfoy had
joined her within a minute and it wasn\'t long before the voices became clearer.

\"Do you hear something, Severus?\"
\"It sounds like this door here. What does this door lead to?\"
\"It\'s just a maintenance closet. Bugger, the door is jammed.\"
\"Alohamora! ...Albus, the lock charm isn\'t working...\"
\"Okay, everyone on three.\"

\"Holy cricket, they\'re going to blow off the door. Granger, get back!\" Draco wrapped one arm
around her waist and moved her away toward the back of the closet before the voices could get
to \"three\". A bright blue light shone around the outline of the door, and then the blue light
formed cracks in the door itself. The door crumbled to its threshold, and through the settling
dust they could see McGonagall, Dumbledore, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick all trying to see inside
the closet, wands drawn.

The two missing students had been found, but no one could see the protective arm around the
girl\'s waist under her robes. Hermione looked up at Draco, murmured a quick \"Thank you\" and
released herself from his grip before he could see her turn as crimson as the stripes on her
Gryffindor tie. The young wizard had the bewildered look in his eyes and a giant lump in his
throat as he watched her leave.

***

Author\'s Note:
- Like a slightly younger and darker version of Arthur Weasley, I see Draco Malfoy to have a deep inner curiosity. Though he was taught that muggles and their children are beneath him, I enjoy the idea of Draco analyzing \"ordinary\" objects with a childlike wonder. It\'s symbolic of a sort of harmless rebellion.

***