Water

Water
Chapter Five
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sexual References, Strong language

Thank you to my betas, Jen (http://jenl3227.livejournal.com) and Dina (http://dianoram.livejournal.com) for correcting this chapter.

Disclaimer: All these characters belong to JKR. I own nothing, much to my dismay, and make no money whatsoever out of this story!

Chapter 5.

“He keeps looking at you.”

“He’s just trying to piss you off, Harry.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is,” sighed Hermione quietly, turning the page of her textbook with a little too much frustration. “Now can you just leave it, please?”

She didn’t need Harry to tell her Draco was looking. She felt it. He may as well have been peeling back her skin.

Harry spoke through gritted teeth. “If he’s just trying to get to me—”

Merlin. Give it a bloody rest.

“—then why does he look away whenever I notice?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” growled Hermione, her voice rising. “But it’s clearly getting to you, isn’t it? So it’s working wonderfully.”

Draco must have heard her. He glanced at her again.

Harry’s jaw clenched. “See?”

“Merlin, give me strength,” replied Hermione, rolling her eyes at him in the standard grow-up-and-don’t-be-such-a-child way. “If you don’t stop—”

“Ten points from Gryffindor.” Snape glared up from his desk.

Harry’s face dropped further into a deep, aggravated frown.

“And another ten for that look on your face, Potter.”

“What look on my—”

“And another five for that.” Snape shut the heavy book in his hands with a loud smack. “So I believe that makes twenty-five points from Gryffindor. Congratulations.”

A couple of Slytherins sniggered.

Hermione glowered at them, the ever-familiar word ‘hate’ flashing into her mind. And it exhausted her. The feeling seemed permanently seared inside her brain. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so much of it in all her time at Hogwarts.

Hate. She hated that in itself.

Hermione stared down at her work. What was she even doing? Her neck was aching tremendously.

And then there was the other thing. The other thing so apparent it was almost hurting her.

Draco was looking at her. Constantly. Stolen glances that were all too noticeable and, quite evidently, incensing Harry beyond words. They weren’t the usual long, drawn-out stares of malcontent and loathing. They were shorter, unreadable. They almost seemed sad if she looked back at him long enough to decipher them.

And it was a sadness that she felt like heavy rain. A sadness belonging to her. Perhaps the only thing on earth that she and Draco shared at that moment. But she wasn’t about to empathise with the bastard.

The bastard…

Hermione cringed a little. Something was sounding almost too harsh about those words, for some irrational reason she had yet to establish. Perhaps it was seeing him like that. Seeing him crumbled on the ground. She’d felt something break. And the pity, it had changed something. Something somewhere inside her that didn’t want to be changed.

Hermione noticed it when she finally returned to her bedroom last night, and Draco had gone. She was shaking, as she had been for what felt like forever, and she was forced to swallow a small, biting, bursting twinge of guilt.

Guilt?

That was how messed up it all was. She felt guilty. And though she desperately tried to deny it to herself, it was useless. Whenever she replayed the memory of his body – that body of his silently breaking on the floor – eyes hopelessly beaten – her heart twisted in the kind of way that made her want to sob with pain. Because maybe she shouldn’t have run away from him.

Maybe she shouldn’t have left him. Not like that.

Perhaps that was what had made her run from the room in the first place? The fact that she had felt the urge to stay. It scared her that she wanted to stay. Part of her wanted to slide down the wall next to him in sobbing silence. And wait. Wait for something, nothing, whatever would come. Wait for the next instalment of this mental fuck up. Anything but leave him like that, quietly splitting inside himself.

And then she asked herself the hardest question of all.

Why the hell would she want to do that?

Maybe because she had a heart, after all. A big fat ball of love and longing and hate and hurt that thumped so loudly she almost wished it would explode.

So yes. She felt guilty because she should have stayed. Said something. Done something. He had been an unimaginable bastard – and yes, definitely a bastard – but she had just witnessed the faint possibility of a reason for all of it. Something different and unexpected. Something that wasn’t simply pure evil.

But it almost made everything more callous and convoluted. It made it harder to swallow. Maybe she was just thinking too much. Maybe she was hoping for something that wasn’t there. Maybe he really was just malevolent through and through. Down to the bloody, brittle bone.

Suddenly everyone was moving around Hermione.

“You’ve written about five bloody lines this lesson,” complained Ron. “How am I supposed to work with five bloody lines?”

Hermione blinked at being pulled out of her head. “You should try and learn not to rely on copying me, Ron,” she frowned. “That might be a good place to start.”

Ron grinned. “Didn’t you realise? Your work is the only reason I’m friends with you.”

Hermione sighed. “Honestly, Ron, that’s not funny. You can’t always expect—” And then she stopped, poking Harry hard in the ribs. “Will you stop staring at Malfoy, Harry?! He’s not even looking anymore.”

Harry flinched and jerked away from her. “Alright!” he frowned. “I just—” He made a sound of frustration. “Whatever.”

Hermione felt angry all of a sudden. Yes, Harry, she thought, because it’s so bloody difficult for you, isn’t it? You poor, poor thing. And then she stopped. Because perhaps that wasn’t overly fair. Perhaps that wasn’t fair at all. But it still annoyed her.

And then something unexpected happened.

“Granger, I need a word.”

She turned to see Draco.

It was the last thing, the very last thing Hermione had expected. He barely ever – if ever at all – approached her around Harry and Ron. Unless it was to make a few underhand comments, of course.

And what was most surprising was that she thought he would never speak to her again after last night. She thought he’d be too ashamed. Or something like it.

But this— This was too bloody soon. And she noticed Harry’s face clenching with severe distaste of it.

“Err…” You can do better than that. Merlin, say anything. “About prefect…stuff?” You can do better than that, Hermione, she scolded herself.

“No. It’s nothing to do with any of that.”

What? Hermione was stunted. What the hell was wrong with him? Why would he ever imply they had anything else to talk about in front of Harry and Ron? Why wouldn’t he just agree? Harry was right there for Merlin’s sake.

As if he wasn’t already suspicious enough, you prat.

Hermione quickly glanced at Harry. He looked livid. No, the prospect that she and Malfoy had something other than prefect duties to discuss had not gone down well with him at all. Not at all.

Hermione felt herself fast becoming the person with the loudest heartbeat in the school.

“Okay,” she answered, composing herself as best she could. “But make it quick.”

Harry spoke before they could leave. “What’s this about, Malfoy?”

Hermione looked at him. Merlin. You couldn’t just leave it, could you, Harry?

Draco’s gaze flickered over to him. “That’s none of your business, Potter.”

Hermione silently pleaded at Harry with her eyes.

Not right now. Please.

“When it involves you breathing within three feet of her for no good reason,” snapped Harry, “it becomes my business, Malfoy.”

Hermione shot Ron a look. Stop him, it said. But that was clearly the last thing Ron was going to do. He didn’t look too joyful about it either.

Well isn’t that just great.

“Leave it, Harry,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

He looked less than impressed with her intervention. Argh. Why? It has nothing to do with you, Harry, I’m a big girl.

Yeah. A big girl that was begging for you to rescue her from underneath Draco Malfoy last night.

“Fine,” he mumbled, paying Draco one last look of threatening disgust. “We’ll see you in the common room.”

She had to admit it surprised her. Perhaps the whole leaving-it concept wasn’t as lost on him as she’d thought.

“Don’t be long, Hermione,” added Ron, following Harry. He shot a similar glance in Draco’s direction.

Hermione sighed inwardly as they left. She was pretty certain this had just placed her and Harry back to square one. How long would it take to break out of it this time?

And then she turned to Draco and they walked back into the emptied classroom.

“Was that really necessary?”

“What?”

“Saying it was nothing to do with prefect business.”

“It’s not.”

“But you didn’t have to say that.”

“And you didn’t have to ask.”

Draco closed the door.

It made her feel slightly uneasy.

And so they stared at each other. It was the longest moment. And Hermione felt every second as if it were hammering into her head.

It was written all over their faces. Last night. To say it was tense was a massive understatement. Because it was so much more than just tense in that moment. The air may as well have been dripping with anticipation.

Break the silence, Hermione, she thought. Say something because, Merlin, saying nothing is hurting like hell.

“What is it?” Her voice was small and thick with caution.

It was obvious he didn’t want to be there. At least that was one thing they had in common. Along with the sadness, she remembered.

“Malfoy?”

“What happened yesterday—”

Her breath froze.

“—I thought we should just...go over a few things.”


*


“Go over a few things?” She exhaled. “Like what?”

Draco could feel her staring at him expectantly.

Merlin, did he regret this. And he ventured quickly upon the fact that he should never have acted on his sudden impulse to talk to her. He didn’t even have anything to say.

Because what can he say to the Mudblood bitch he almost kissed twice? Absolutely shit all.

But there he was. He’d set up his own bloody trap. And he was standing slap bang in the centre.

Just blurt something out. Say something, anything to hurt her.

“I can’t fucking think straight when you’re around.”

What? No.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Of all the nasty, biting little comments he could have thrown at her. Why the hell did he have to say that? Where did that one come from? What the hell was it supposed to mean? And look at her. She’s looking at you and her eyes have never been so fucking big. She’s analysing the comment right here and now. Confusion splashed across that stupidly smooth skin.

He had to change every bit of its meaning.

Change. Rectify. Restore the balance.

“But I figure it’s because you’re so unavoidably disgusting.”

And then he could so abundantly taste the sudden waves of whatever it was that came out of her. Something was telling him she wouldn’t rise to it. And that wasn’t good. That wasn’t a game he knew as well as the others.

“How are you…” she trailed off.

Where was that sentence about to go? Finish it off, Granger. How are you such a bastard? How are you so unkind?

She hesitated. “How are you feeling?”

And he thought it would go fucking anywhere but there.

It threw Draco off guard for a moment. How was he feeling? How was he feeling? Don’t ask him that. That’s just not what they did.

“Right now?” Add an insult. “Not that great with you standing here in front of me.”

That was almost pathetic.

Almost pathetic, since Draco could never be completely pathetic. Or maybe. Maybe his father was right. Remember last night?

Remember last night?

She didn’t even roll her eyes at him. He never thought he’d see the day he was disappointed about that.

“Have you been sick again?”

“There’s nothing left in me to throw up.”

And then the silence resumed.


*


Hermione had absolutely no idea why she’d asked him how he was. For some reason it just felt necessary. As if she’d be making up for the fact she’d left him like that. Not that she had anything to make up for, she kept telling herself.

Draco’s silence was frustrating her. Had he not been the one to instigate a talk? That was something she could ask him at least. Something a little safer.

“You’re the one who wanted to talk, Malfoy,” she said. “Do you even have anything to say?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Well, what?”

“Last night…”

There it was again. The freezing of her breath.

Draco looked like he was struggling to get out the words. He raised his chin. “Last night, I don’t know what happened to me. And I don’t want you thinking things because of it.”

“Things like what?” Her voice was quiet.

Draco frowned. “What do you think, Granger?” he growled, slight irritation hitting his voice. “I’m sure a hundred things have crossed your mind since last night.”

She stared back at him. “Yes. Yes, they have.”

“Well, forget them,” he replied. “Forget them all. I don’t know what happened but I wish it never had.”

Forget them all, she thought, like it never happened? That’s as impossible as him never calling her a filthy Mudblood again.

“Which parts?” Hermione felt sudden newfound courage. “The part where you shoved me up against a wall again, Malfoy? Or the part where you almost kissed me for the second time this week?”

“Fuck you,” he spat. “I regret every single bit.”

“Really?”

“Down to the last moment.”

“And what if I hadn’t pushed you off?”

“Oh, don’t start, Granger.”

“What if I hadn’t left?”


*


What if she hadn’t left?

Don’t ask. You really don’t want to hear the answer to that question.

“What if you hadn’t left, Granger?” That’s right, turn it around. His frown felt so deep it was hurting. “Let’s stop talking like I was the only bloody one there. How about what you would have done?”

Hermione paused.

This feeling between them. He couldn’t understand it. And it was mounting. Every bloody second.

She swallowed. “We can’t go on like this, Malfoy.”

“Go on like what?”

“You know like what.”

He looked at her. His cheeks felt hot.

“And what are you going to do about it, Granger?” he spat. “We both knew this wouldn’t be an easy ride.”

“How is this simply not an easy ride?” She shook her head. “This is a complete train crash. I mean seriously, how can we continue as Head Boy and Head Girl when we can’t even stay in the same room without saying something to hurt the other one? And then the times that it goes further, Malfoy. What about those? Have they finished? Was that it, last night? Was that the last of it?”

He stared at her silently, cheeks flaming.

“Well?” she asked him.

Draco said nothing.

“I don’t know what happened either, Malfoy. But you were gone. You were completely out of it. Merlin, you were dangerous, Malfoy. At one point I didn’t even recognise you. So yes, I’m admitting that you frightened me. You terrified me beyond belief. And this whole bloody thing is going to self-destruct at any moment. So I’m always terrified. I can’t sleep across the wall from you without my wand in my hand. Isn’t that bloody rich? That’s how you make me feel.”

Draco had no fucking idea what to say. So he just said anything.

“Good.”

Short, sharp, bitter.

Hermione shook her head again. “Of course,” she murmured, laughing. “Of course, that means nothing to you. It just makes you glad. Makes you feel proud. I’m wasting my time.”

Hermione turned to leave.

Draco lunged to grab her wrist.

“No!” she exclaimed, turning back and yanking her hand away from him so fiercely she stumbled backwards. She was shouting now. “I won’t let you do that again, Malfoy! I won’t let you touch me this time!”

“Is that right?” he spat. Fuck it. He didn’t even realise he’d grabbed her anyway. Didn’t realise or didn’t want to realise.

“Look at us!” she exclaimed. She was laughing again. But also shouting. Loudly. “Look at this! It’s been only hours since we were last doing this and look! Here we are again! This is it, right here! This is what I mean! And how long did it take this time? About a minute? How much longer can you go on like this, Malfoy? How much longer before one of us cracks?” She shook her head. “We have to sort this out. We have to sort this thing, this stupid fucking us thing, out! So who’s going to do it? Because from where I’m standing it looks like you couldn’t get enough of it!”

And then he answered her.

And as he did, as the words fell out, he wondered what was happening to his head, he asked himself, asked himself over and over again... Why wasn’t he laughing back at her and sneering? Telling her that he would keep this going and going until she was the one that cracked so spectacularly, straight down the middle, begging him to stop. Wasn’t that what he should be saying? And shouldn’t he be screaming it at her so fucking loudly it burst her ears and filled them with blood? Thick, muddied blood? Then why wasn’t he doing that?

What was he saying instead? Draco listened to himself. He could hear words. Lots of them.

“...and it’s worse for me! You flit around like a fucking queen, prancing about with your stupid hair and stupid eyes and stupid everything! Granger, the victim! The victim of the big bad Prince of Slytherin and oh— Oh, you poor thing, you poor fucking weak little bitch, Granger, it must be so hard for you! And I fucking hate you for it! Fucking hate every part of your skin, and everything underneath it, everything written on it! All those big fat words spelling out Mudblood and slag and filthy fucking whore! And I hate what you do to me! I hate the way I can’t stop fucking looking at you! I can’t stop fucking drinking you in! And it’s been like that since the beginning, since they fucked up and made you Head Girl, since you started to spread your dirty shitting presence everywhere I went! I look at you and I just want to grab you and shake you and fuck all the Granger out of you because then it can’t torture me anymore! Then I won’t feel it every minute of every day! Then I’ll stop having to fight the fact that all I want to do is kiss you to silence that stupid fucking mouth of yours! And what would my father say to that? He’d tear me into a bloodied mess and spit on the remains! You’re dirty and you’re disgusting and you’re a Mudblood! So I hate you! I hate you for fucking existing, Granger! I wish you were fucking dead!”

He was panting.

And now his heart wasn’t just on his sleeve, it was splattered on the floor in front of him.

And she looked so shocked.

And so did he.

And then suddenly the door shot open.

Draco’s fists clenched.

Potter.


*


Harry had wondered out of the common room after ten minutes of waiting.

She wasn’t back yet.

Ron told him not to look for her. He promised he wouldn’t. He lied, of course.

Was she still with him? Was she still with Malfoy? And what were they saying? What could they possibly have to say that took longer than a few seconds? Harry didn’t like it. Something wasn’t right. And that something was sure as fuck Malfoy. The biggest fucking son of a bitch he had ever met in his life.

So that’s where he was going. To check. To see if she was alright. Hermione. His best friend. His absolute necessity. His can’t do without.

He was so angry with her. So damn angry with the girl for not understanding why he did this. Why he was so afraid to let her be around Malfoy. Surely it was obvious? The guy was fucking dangerous. He was capable of anything. Anything.

Harry began to walk faster.

Hermione just hadn’t been herself. She hadn’t been herself since the beginning of the term. And this last week. Fucking hell. He wanted to know so hard what she was thinking about. Because that’s all she’d been doing. Sitting there and thinking. What about? Was it about him?

Was it about Malfoy?

Had he done something?

What had he done?

And what if Harry was completely and utterly oblivious to it? What if he had forced her not to tell anyone and there was nothing she could do? Magic is powerful. Magic can do all sorts of things. It can ruin lives in the most delicately subtle ways possible. Harry should know. He fucking lived it.

Harry felt a heated dose of anxious fury shoot through him.

And if that was what had happened, he would kill him. And he wouldn’t even think twice about it.

Then Harry shook himself. He was slightly disturbed by the feeling that hurting Malfoy gave him. A strange, hungry feeling.

He loathed him.

Loathing. That was what it was between them. And even that word wasn’t powerful enough to spell it out. There weren’t any words. If there were he would have used them already. Every single one. Shouting them at him like razors. Over and over—

“—the Granger bitch.”

Harry’s head jerked up. He froze.

Her name.

He heard her name.

And whose voice was it? Where had it come from?

“I’ll fucking rip her eyeballs out, Millie,” it said. “Just watch me.”

Pansy Parkinson.

Harry pressed himself up against the wall. He could hear her behind the dim light of the corner just in front of him.

What was she saying about Hermione?

Harry listened.

“I swear if you say anything to anyone, you’ll regret it.”

“I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”

Millicent Bullstrode. Almost hideous just from the voice alone.

“If people find out what’s going on between him and that fucking Mudblood, then I’ll come off as a right twat. Got it?”

What did she just say?

“I thought you said nothing was definite. That you didn’t know.”

“It’s so fucking obvious. You should see them. It makes me sick.”

Harry’s heart halted. His breath stopped.

Was she absolutely fucking mental?

Tell him she was absolutely fucking mental.

“Well, then, what’s your plan?”

“Well what the hell can I do? I’m sure he’ll realise what a stinking bitch she is at some point. I just— I can’t believe that he stopped me, Mill. I can’t believe that he didn’t let me punch the stupid whore. Doesn’t that just say it all? Why else would he have done it?”

Why else would he have done it?

Harry’s fists clenched. No. Wherever the fuck Pansy’s poison came from, it certainly wasn’t the truth.

It couldn’t have been the truth.

It couldn’t.

Because.

He would know.

“And I swear he said her name that time. He growled it somewhere in the back of his throat. I could barely hear it, but I knew. I just— I didn’t say anything.”

Harry could hear the tears in Pansy’s voice now.

“I’m such an idiot!” she growled. “Why, Millie? And the way the bitch looked at him. The way they look at each other. Fuck! He said her name when we were fucking shagging and I ignored it! How could I be so bloody stupid—”

And that was enough.

Harry clamped his hands over his ears so hard the pain rang loudly in his skull.

No.

NO.

Pansy was wrong. She was so, so wrong.

She couldn’t have spat out a bigger pile of shit if she tried.

And he had to find her.

Find her and ask her and prove it.

And then Harry was running away from the voices and towards the dungeons, so fast he thought he may have left his lungs behind. So fucking fast he thought his heart might rip and burst.

Not Hermione. Not Hermione.

He shook it into himself.

Not with Malfoy.

Anyone but him.

Had he misheard? And even if it was true. It’s just Malfoy that wants her. It’s just Malfoy that wants Hermione. She doesn’t want him back. And if he so much as lays one finger on her, Harry will break every sodding bone in his body. Every-single-fucking-one.

Pansy was delusional. She was just searching for excuses for their failing relationship. Well Hermione wasn’t one of them. She had absolutely nothing to do with it. Pansy was an idiot for thinking that any of it would make the smallest bit of sense. Because it didn’t.

It made absolutely no fucking sense at all.

That was why she was wrong. And the sooner she understood that, the better.

So why was Harry’s heart pumping so fast? So fast it could break his skin?

It was all just a pack of over-exaggerated lies and he knew that. But he didn’t like what they had done to his head. And it was only temporary, he told himself, only until he found Hermione and asked her and confirmed that none of it was the truth. And she would tell him that truth. The real truth. And he was going to believe every word she said.

Nothing was going on between her and Malfoy. They hated each other. You didn’t have to be within a mile of them to know that. She hated him just as much as Harry did. Just as much as Ron did.

Harry flung himself down the abrasive stone steps of the dungeons. Pansy’s words were screaming in his head.

The way they look at each other.

No.

Not.

Hermione.

Harry was breathing so hard he couldn’t think straight.

And suddenly he could hear shouting. A loud, rasping, ripping voice.

Malfoy.

Harry reached the door, stopping so fast he almost lost his balance. Sweating. Panting. Aching. Burning.

His ears filled with blood. It was searing in his veins.

“And what would my father say to that? He’d fucking tear me into a bloodied mess and spit on the remains! You’re dirty and you’re disgusting and you’re a Mudblood! So I hate you! I hate you for fucking existing, Granger! I wish you were fucking dead!”

Harry’s fists clenched.

He would kill him.

He would fucking kill him.


*