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Draco was ecstatic, delighted, in a world of bliss. He felt like he could do anything; like face his former master alone or, even scarier, tell the best friend of the Boy Who Lived how he felt. As he wandered along it occurred to him, through his fuzzy state, how that could be misinterpreted, and he gagged.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hermione asked, peering at him through slightly unfocused eyes. They had been drinking tonight; not their usual habit, but with the final fight looming, they had both needed a little Dutch courage. ‘Are you ill?’
He shook his head, inadvisably, and had to stop for a moment until the spinning stopped.
‘Why, then?’ Hermione managed.
‘Thought of kissing Weasley,’ he muttered.
‘Makes you gag?’ she asked carefully.
He nodded slightly, careful this time not to move his head too much.
She smiled at him understandingly. ‘Me too.’
He goggled at her, stumbling slightly under the shock of this revelation. ‘What? But, I thought you were mad about him.’
She tripped, leaning against him, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to stop her from falling. Unconsciously, she wound her arm around his waist as well, as she leaned in closely to whisper her secret. ‘So did I,’ she confided. ‘But,’ she added in her normal voice, ‘something changed.’ She shrugged. ‘I just…looked at him one day and he was like a brother. I admired him for his qualities, but he annoyed the hell out of me sometimes and the thought of kissing him just felt…wrong.’ She shuddered.
‘Shh,’ he said suddenly. They had reached the back of 12 Grimmauld Place; only a stone wall, a miniscule back-garden and a couple of floors lay between them and an unnoticed return.
She nodded solemnly and reached behind her to retrieve her wand from the back of her bra. Leaning too far over, she peered at a seemingly bare section of the wall and whispered ‘Specialis revelio’. Almost immediately, a large tangle of greenery became visible; twisting around itself as it climbed the tall stone wall and stretched down the other side.
Hermione reached under her floaty green top and slid her wand back into her bra. Draco could not stop his gaze from following her actions, although he managed to pull his attention back to the wall before she turned back to him, smiling proudly.
‘Nicely done, Granger,’ he muttered, smirking at her. She rolled her eyes at his continued use of her surname, despite the fact that they had been going on these secret dance trips for months now. Then, leaning against the wall, she reached down, wobbling slightly, and pulled off first one ridiculously high heel and then the other, flinging them over the wall and waiting to hear the soft whump of contact with the grass on the other side. When this was completed, she grabbed two sturdy vines and wedged her bare toes into the nearest worn sections of the wall.
He watched her climb just long enough to make sure she wouldn’t fall, before following her lead. For several moments, there was only the sound of quiet breathing and shifting dirt as they scrambled up the wall. Then, when she was near the top, there was a quiet exclamation and he looked over to see her clinging to the wall, her face pressed against the stone as a shower of dirt and a dead vine floated towards the ground.
‘Granger,’ he hissed, when she didn’t move after a moment.
She turned to look at him, her eyes wide with fear.
‘Here,’ he whispered, holding out a hand. She frowned at him for a moment, before she realised he was helping her onto his section of the wall. When she figured it out, she favoured him with one of the brilliant smiles that had made him, against all of his better judgement, fall in love with her. Cautiously, she reached out one hand, clutching his fingers as she shifted her feet over to new rests nearer him, before transferring her weight entirely onto new vines. When she was secure, he let go of her hand, unable to resist giving it a reassuring squeeze before he did so.
They traversed the rest of the wall without incident and he dropped down to the ground on the other side, turning around when he landed to catch her with the ease of practice. The minute her feet hit the ground, he let go as if burned and stepped back. As usual, she didn’t seem to have noticed, busy as she was with patting stone dust from her skirt and top.
‘When you’re quite finished,’ he muttered after a moment.
Sticking her tongue out at him in a most undignified manner, she leant over to retrieve her shoes, giving him a very nice view of her bare legs. In the last few months, he had become increasingly aware of her shapely pins, taking any opportunity to ogle them. He was, as usual, careful to be looking somewhere else by the time she had retrieved her shoes and pulled herself upright again.
With exaggerated stealth, she tiptoed across the narrow strip of half-dead grass at the back of the house. He grinned at the sight of her, arms held out on either side of her body, silver shoes dangling from one hand, and made his way more circumspectly along the edge of the lawn.
When they made it to the other side of the grass, Draco suddenly came up against an unexpected problem. Normally, at this point, he would float Hermione up to her open window and she would return the favour once she was safely inside. Of course, this was when they were both sober. Wingardium Leviosa required a lot of concentration and he didn’t feel comfortable that either one of them could perform it competently tonight.
Scanning the back wall, he noticed a slight protrusion on the ground floor that created a narrow ledge near Hermione’s window. Miming his intentions to her, he made his way over to the extension and gestured for Hermione to give him a boost.
‘Hang on,’ she whispered harshly. ‘Why do you get to go first?’
‘What?’ he hissed, looking back at her. She stood back from the wall, hands on her hips, a belligerent look on her face.
‘You’re heavier,’ she muttered. ‘You should lift me up.’
Draco raised one eyebrow at her. ‘One,’ he responded, raising a finger, ‘I am also taller and more able reach both the ledge from here and you from the ledge. And b,’ she frowned for some reason, ‘in case you’ve forgotten, you’re wearing a very revealing skirt. It would be ungentlemanly of me to risk an inappropriate view.’ Oh, how he wished he wasn’t a gentleman.
‘Oh,’ she said, blushing when his meaning registered. ‘Right, you first, then.’
With some difficulty – he was hardly hefty but he was heavier than her – they managed to get both of them onto the very narrow ledge. Sidling along the side, Draco managed to take a long step from the end of the ledge to Hermione’s open bedroom window and manoeuvre himself inside. Turning back to help her through, he found her frowning at him.
‘What now?’ he asked.
‘You’re getting dirty footprints on my duvet,’ she muttered.
‘So?’ he hissed. ‘Are you a witch or not?’
‘Oh. Yeah,’ she whispered, blushing at her lapse.
‘Come on, then,’ he added, reaching out for her. Clinging to his outstretched arms, she extended her legs to their fullest extremes, curling her toes around the window frame to get a grip, before leaning all her weight on Draco - who grunted but made no comment - to pull her leg over from the ledge. At the last minute, her grip wavered and she had to clutch at Draco to stop herself from falling to her death. Before she could recover, the force of her jump had toppled the two of them backwards onto the bed. They both froze for a second, waiting to see if Ginny would wake. When she only turned away in her sleep, Hermione let out a relieved breath and Draco muttered, ‘Bloody hell, Hermione.’
Hermione giggled drunkenly into his shoulder before something occurred to her. ‘You called me 'Hermione',’ she whispered, lifting her head until she could look him dead in the eye.
‘Yes, I did, Hermione,’ he said, feeling her shiver against his hands. Before she could respond, he lifted one hand to touch her cheek. ‘You’ve got a scratch,’ he whispered, cupping her cheek and tracing the thin red line with one thumb. Her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned into his touch. ‘Hermione?’ he asked quietly, his voice barely audible.
She opened her eyes and nodded. ‘Draco,’ she whispered.
He felt a smile spread across his face even as he leaned forward to kiss her. Just as his lips met with hers, there was a loud grinding sound and the wooden legs of the old bed collapsed beneath them. They landed with a thud, followed, before they could catch their breath, by Ginny sitting bolt upright in bed and the bedroom door crashing open to reveal Harry and Ron looking shocked and confused.
‘Hermione!’ Ginny cried, staring aghast at her roommate.
‘What are you doing?’ Harry cried.
‘What are you wearing?’ Ron added, looking distinctly nauseated at the sight of Hermione sprawled across Draco’s supine form, hands resting against his shoulders, his arm around her waist, her skirt hitched up to just below her bottom from the fall.
Hermione looked from the shocked expressions of her friends, to the shy smile on Draco’s face and suppressed a smile of her own. When she moved to stand, he released his arm, letting her slide off of him to stand upright.
Facing them squarely, Hermione smoothed down her skirt and smiled at the boys. ‘Harry,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye, ‘it’s none of your business. Ron, it’s called a skirt. I am a girl after all,’ she added, unable to resist a small dig at his Puritan attitude towards her. ‘I appreciate your concern, but as you can see, I’m fine,’ she gestured back to the bed where Draco had the gall to wave languorously at the shell-shocked boys. ‘You can go back to bed now,’ she added, in what was clearly a dismissal. Draco smiled quietly. The boys wavered for a moment, glaring at Draco, before returning to their rooms.
Hermione let out a little sigh of relief as the boys walked away. Obviously, they were too tired and shocked to be angry but she was sure she would hear about this tomorrow. Still standing in the open doorway, Hermione turned to shoot a significant look at Ginny. Ginny, still groggy and shocked, could only stare blankly at Hermione. Widening her eyes, Hermione tilted her head to one side and gestured towards the door. Understanding dawned on Ginny and she scrambled from her bed.
‘Erm, I need to pee,’ she declared, before hurrying out of the room.
Rolling her eyes at her friend’s pathetic excuse, Hermione turned back to Draco to find that he had repaired the bed frame and was cleaning the bedspread. Feeling anxiety gripping her vocal chords, Hermione twisted her hands together and said, ‘Well, that was sobering.’
Straightening, Draco forced himself to ignore his self-preservation instincts and tell the truth. ‘I’ve...been sober for a while,’ he admitted.
Hermione’s head shot up, her mass of curls falling back off her shoulders with the speed of her movement. ‘Really? Earlier, when you...’ she blushed and gestured at the bed.
Looking down at her, he stepped a little closer, his hand reaching out for her before he pulled it back. ‘You are an amazing girl, Hermione,’ he said quietly. ‘And I would like to be...more than friends.’ She was silent and Draco felt his heart freeze as he waited for her response. ‘And you?’ he prompted. ‘Now that you’re...sober.’
Suddenly, she broke into a warm smile and stepped closer. ‘I’d like to be 'more than friends', too,’ she said, reaching out to stroke his long fingers where they hung at his side. Beaming down at her, he twined his fingers with hers.
‘Well,’ he said, when they had simply smiled at each other for a moment, ‘I should...go to bed.’ Reaching up, he traced her scratch with one gentle thumb. ‘Here,’ he said, retrieving his wand from the bed and healing her.
Unconsciously, she smoothed a hand across her undamaged cheek. ‘So...tomorrow, then?’ she asked.
Leaning down, he pressed a kiss against her full lips. ‘Tomorrow,’ he promised, squeezing her hand and slipping out the door. Just before he closed the door, he turned back and winked at her. Biting her lip, she allowed herself a little smirk before waving him away.
Smiling to herself, Hermione stroked her healed cheek. ‘Tomorrow,’ she whispered.
We can dance until we die
You and I
We'll be young forever