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 contains minor violence, some adult language, and overt sexuality.

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Chapter Seven
So Much for the Afterglow

Hermione hid momentarily in an empty classroom to put on more clothing after her dash from the bathroom in a towel. Her lower body was still so tender than she flinched while pulling up her knickers. Once dressed, she sank to the floor with her back against a wall and stared disbelievingly into empty space.

She expected that any moment now, she would groggily awaken in her bed and ponder the overwhelming weirdness of this dream.

But this was not a dream. She\'d just lost her virginity in the Prefect bathroom...to none other than Draco Malfoy. There was no comprehending anything right now. She felt dizzy. She threw a hand over her mouth to muffle a distressed wail, then gathered the rest of her things and fled to Gryffindor Tower.

***

Draco knew it wouldn\'t be wise to chase her. It would take him too long to get anywhere near properly dressed even though she would probably stop shortly to also dress herself. And by the look on her face when she\'d left, he was probably running tisk isk of a hex as well if he chased her, naked or otherwise.

He resigned himself to continuing with his normal morning routine and cooking up a plan to talk to her later. Mentally reliving the past half hour of his life wouldn\'t exactly be torturous, he thought with a slight grin. He lowered himself into the steamy water scented heavily with chamomile, then looked up at the mermaid on the wall. \"You\'re a dirty little voyeur, you know that?\" he remarked snidely at her devilish grin.

\"You were ha too too much fun to notice; no harm done. I\'ve seen many quick trysts in this place over the years, yes indeed. You and Miss Granger have definitely become my favorite, though.\"

\"Really? And why\'s that?\" He asked amusedly, lifting one eyebrow.

\"A Gryffindor/Slytherin pair has always got that dynamic rebellious edge to it, what with the two Houses not usually likin\' one another and all. You know the two must really like one another in those cases. With human sexuality and interaction, it\'s as if a spectator can see the two spirits tangling with one another amidst all the physical and verbal actions taking place. You two have such strong spirits, that the show is bold, colorful and exhilirating.\" She sighed. \"It was living, breathing art.\"

\"You can see all that when people are shagging then? It\'s that just a merfolk trait?\" He sneered at her, beginning to think she\'d gone mad.

She frowned at his skepticism and swam away, out of the painting. He snorted irritably and reached for his washcloth. He noticed the glaringly red scratch marks on his upper arm and smiled proudly. He began to imagine the marks on Hermione\'s body...bruising between her thighs, bite marks and blotches on her neck...he smiled wider.

He finished bathing, dressed, and exited the bathroom back toward his House. Upon entering the common room, he found that Milicent Bulstrode had charmed Crabbe into dancing like a wind-up toy for her own amusement. Draco shook his head and sat down on the sofa, combing his platinum locks into place. A nasal, high-pitched giggle alerted everyone to the impending presence of Pansy Parkinson. He rolled his eyes and continued grooming.

\"Ooooh, look who\'s all squeaky clean from the bath,\" Pansy squealed, having fixed her eyes upon Draco. Her bubbly grin was wiped straight off of her face the second he met her gaze, however. \"I\'ll kill her, whoever she is,\" she hissed, scowling at him now.

\"There\'s no level on which you\'d even compare,\" he retorted smugly, then rose, hygiene items in hands. Pansy, speechless and fuming, stared a hole in his back as he left the room to owl his parents.

***

Harry and Ron were babbling away about the Yule Ball and the snowball fight and barely noticed that Hermione hadn\'t said a single word since she\'d arrived at breakfast in the Great Hall. It wasn\'t until Harry had addressed her with a question that her silence and disconnection became obvious.

\"Um, Earth to Hermione?\" Ron prodded. \"Did you hear Harry\'s question?\"

\"Huh? Oh. What?\" She acknowledged the boys\' presence, but still had not quite tuned in yet.

\"Did you know that Ron put newt feet in your flapjacks?\"

\"WHAT? EWWW....\" Hermione jumped up from her seat, staring at her plate.

\"Now that we\'ve got your attention,\" Harry said, grinning at his own joke. He took a bite of toast then washed it down with pumpkin juice as she slowly sat back down. \"Why did you seem so sad at some points during the dance last night, as if when you weren\'t distracted, you were being haunted by something?\"

\"Oh.\" She searched her mind for an answer, then responded lamely with, \"Ron kept stepping on me with those canoes he calls feet.\" She flushed slightly and stuck some food into her mouth as if to keep it from releasing further idiocy.

\"Hey now. I happen to know for a fact that I only stepped on one of your feet just once and it was because Harry distracted me,\" Ron replied indignantly, pointing at Harry with a sausage link for emphasis.

\"Oh, sorry,\" she said and idly pushed one side of her hair behind her ear and shoulder.

\"What\'s that?\" Harry said, looking at the part of her neck she\'d just exposed.

\"What\'s what?\" Ron looked at him, confused.

When Hermione figured out what Harry was staring at, she fixed her hair the way that it had been before Ron got a good enough view to know what was going on. She got up wordlessly and walked, as if in a trance, out of the Great Hall to the girls\' lavatory. She hadn\'t touched her breakfast.

\"What was that all about?\" Ron said through a mouthful of sausage, still having no clue what just happened.

\"It\'s...it\'s nothing. She probably has to go to the loo, and I thought I saw a bug on the table,\" Harry lied clumsily, then pushed his glasses up his nose. \"No big deal.\"

\"Right. We all know I\'m the only normal one here anyway,\" the redhead grinned cheekily at his friend, knowing quite well that he had food in his teeth.

\"Normal, indeed. Your mum will get a kick out of that one.\" Harry said with a laugh, grateful that Ron seemed unfazed. He made a mental note to corner Hermione as soon as possible.

***

\"Oh, Myrtle, does it really look that bad?\" Hermione whined, examining the reddish love bites and patches of purple on her neck in the mirror. Myrtle giggled, then floated upward to perch herself on top of one of the toilet stalls.

\"Who are those marks from? Is it Harry or Ron?\"

\"Oh...they\'re from...nobody. From Crookshanks. I startled him last night...\" Hermione stammered, knowing that they looked nothing like accidental injuinjuries. She tried to remember a cover-up spell, but her mind was too cloudy to think properly.

\"Of course you won\'t tell me. Who wants to tell stupid old Myrtle anything worthwhile?\" Myrtle started to sniff, the curious smilne fne from her transluscent face.

\"Merlin\'s BEARD, I cannot lie to save my life!\" Hermione shouted exasperatedly, then turned to the young ghost, now in tears, and said more calmly, \"I\'m just embarassed, Myrtle. It\'s nothing to do with you.\"

Her only response was a loud sob before Myrtle disappeared into a toilet stall.

***

Draco was greeted at his bed once more by another unfamiliar owl. This one had a small parcel bound to its feet. He relieved the owl of its current burden, replacing it with a small note of thanks to his parents. After it flew off and he\'d put his bathroom items away, he turned to open the package.

This was also from his parents, but the small enclosed note was written by his father.

You\'d asked for this several weeks ago. This will have to do as a Christmas gift until we are able to see you. Enjoy and do be careful not to get caught with it.

Happy Christmas,
Father

Lucius was uncharacteristically vague in this note; he normally sent wordy letters filled with Death Eater rhetoric, Daily Prophet dissertations, mixed encouragement or criticism on Draco\'s current acts in school from quidditch to class, etc. He was much more shaken by this laconic effort of his father\'s than by the strange mood of his mother\'s letter or the use of anonymous owls.

Draco broke out in a cold sweat -- breaks in his father\'s patterns were omens, indeed. Without the lack of a purely Dark nature, he could not stand to think of anything that may be communicated with this subtly monumentous implication. It was too weird.

He put the letter with the one from his mother\'s into the drawer in the nightstand. He sat on his bed and stared blankly for a moment before shaking it off to be dealt with later. King of emotional procrastination, that was definitely the Malfoy style. He turned to the small bottle that had been enclosed with the letter in the box. It was his father\'s personal flask of Polyjuice Potion, filled to the brim.

He grinned. He\'d asked for the potion a few weeks ago, when he\'d decided that Potter faking him out must not go unanswered. He was going to turn himself into Ron Weasley and mess with Potter\'s mind for an entire hour, getting the last laugh when he turned back into himself. He\'d thought it would be fun and virtually harmless in order to keep him out of serious trouble.

There were far better things to be done, though. He tucked the flask into his robes and headed for the Great Hall.


***

Author\'s Note: This chapter\'s title is an allusion to the title of an Everclear album.