Daydreams

Chapter Nine:

It was six days before he saw her again.  She must have eaten ...who knew what or where...she was an accomplished witch after all, she could conjure or make food in her room for all he knew, or in the garden, or damn it all wherever she wanted which was not in the common room where he was.  She wasn’t in classes, she wasn’t in the hall or in the woods.  Not that he’d looked.

Not that he’d looked every daylight hour; he’d only glanced around, every now and then, when he’d had a spare minute.  Or two or three hundred.

Not that he was anxious or worried or anything; after all, they’d only snogged in a closet.  Nothing too over the top.  Just normal Hogwarts behavior.  He knew many of his friends, Blaize, in particular, who’d had their fair share of time with girls...before.  And, sure, she wasn’t the first girl he’d kissed, but she was the first enemy, the first Mudblood, the first one who, well, truth be told, who’d gotten under his skin until he felt like it would blister and peel away in shreds off his ashen corpse.  Those ten minutes in the cupboard were like ice, like fire, like…

There she was.

He was sitting in the library at one of the oversize oak desks; not waiting to see if she’d show, of course, just, you know, looking at some books on wand creation.  Actually, he’d spent a great deal of time in the library for the last several days, and he was actually finding the subject more than a little….

Thump!

Granger unloaded the most massive book onto the table in front of him.  It was clearly covered in faded dragon skin, older than old, almost in shreds, as thick as his hand and as broad as his shoulder to his wrist.  To even move it at all, she must has cast a serious weight reduction spell.

He looked casually, very casually, over at her.

“Oh.  Hello, Granger.”  

“Draco,” she replied in a chilly voice, her head at a tilt.

His name, his own name, on her lips.  

Malfoy quickly bridged the distance between them and kissed her.  Mouth only a little open.  Tasting her.  Breathing her in.  

She kissed him back.

She kissed him back in the library.

She kissed him back in the library in front of teachers.

Not a crazy kiss.  Really just a little kiss. But then she put her hand on his cheek.  He made a strangled sound, and grabbed the hair on either side of her head, ready to …

“Stop.” she said, pulling back.  “Look what I’ve found.”

Sitting up straight, her voice even, she opened the book to a marked page and looked up at him, expectant.

Hunching forward, mouth open, tongue running over his lips, heart thudding, other parts throbbing, he looked at her.

Then, with an enormous amount of self control, that he’d relied upon in the past in countless situations, he sat up, wiped his mouth, squared his shoulders and looked at her.

He glanced down at the page, unseeing.

“What I’d like to find,” he said, in a cool, remote voice, “Is the best spot at school to close the door, turn off the lights, and touch you in places you’d never dreamed of, until you screamed for more and begged me to make you mine.”

She looked at him, smiling very slightly.  

“Perhaps later,” she said patting him on the knee.

“Perhaps you’d best not touch me again, unless you’d like the aforementioned activity to become very public on top on this table.”

She looked at him again, and his eyes met hers.  Flush started to rise up and over her face.  Her mouth opened and closed.  He gazed steadily at her.  She started breathing in just slightly as she continued to lock eyes.  She leaned a little closer to him.  He instantly leaned closer as well, until they were only separated  by just a little bit.

Still looking at him, “What is this between us?” her voice was steady but very, very measured and quiet.  “I really don’t know what it is, or why I feel this way.  I’m not really scared, but I’m apprehensive, because I can’t explain it.  But it feels very powerful.  Like right now,” she continued turning her head slightly and closing her eyes, “Even with my eyes closed, I can feel you, like heat, and…” she breathed in, “I can smell you, and you smell so wonderful.”  She opened her eyes, looking a little sad.  “I don’t think you are the same person, from before…. I know I could never feel this way about you if you were the same.  Now,  you are civil, calm, quiet in a way, intelligent.  I don’t laugh with you, the way I do with Ron and Harry…”

He flinched.  And immediately grabbed her forearms.

She was his.  

Not theirs.

She accepted his movement, and slid her arms back, until she was holding his hands.  

“Your hands feel like...they feel warm, and I do want you to touch me….”

He interrupted, “You never know when to stop talking.  Really.”  He brought one of her hands to his lips, breathing her in.  Then let both go and turned to the table.

“Show me this sodding book, now, and I promise you, I will be happy to touch you as much as you wish.”  He tried to keep his voice level, even though he said it with his muscles clenched with the effort of holding himself in check.  

Turned out it was an ancient Celtic book dealing with the antiquated use of tattoos for spells that she had discovered in an old wizarding castle in Wales.  

“You were in Wales?”

“Well, I heard a good lead on this book, and it is so important…”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why is it so important?”

“Because I’m looking for a way to remove your dark mark, of course.  I know you are unhappy seeing it, and I am determined to find a way to help you, and  your father of course.   In fact,” she said, quite proudly.  “I found it.  It’s rather a complicated spell, spoken aloud, and a tricky, because the biggest challenge is that to remove a dark, cursed tattoo, you have to actually replace it with another charmed tattoo, which is quite a feat of magic. There are several options as to the nature of the new charm itself;  the tattoo can be whatever image you choose.   But this chapter…” she touched the book gently on the open page, “Gives very explicit instructions.”

“You actually did it?  You actually found a way to remove it?” He shook his head in wonder, bending low over the page, interested at last.

She covered the page with her hand.  “Well...you see, another part of the spell...to create a charmed tattoo, rather than a cursed one, you see...well... it requires…”  She mumbled.

“What?”

She looked at him and winced slightly.

“It requires a witch and wizard, with starlight, fire and water,  to use their….” she closed her eyes and continued. “To erase the curse and replace with charm, they must cast the spell while in union.”

She opened her eyes.

Draco Malfoy looked at Hermione Granger.

And smiled.