SFS Chapter 210 210: Ten Points to Slytherin
Chapter 210 210: Ten Points to Slytherin
Draco glanced at Hermione again, picked up the fruit basket, and held it out to her, steering the conversation elsewhere.
"Would you like some figs? The Muggle waiter recommended them — apparently they were just picked from a farm nearby and are very fresh."
Hermione's eyes, bright with laughter, told Draco that she didn't dislike the suggestion. She picked a deep purple fig from the basket and slowly cut open the overripe, yielding fruit with a knife, revealing its glistening red flesh.
"It really is very fresh." She brought it close and breathed in the sweet fragrance, and a lively, girlish smile spread across her face.
Her unguarded delight when she was enjoying something good always seemed to chase away whatever anxieties had been gathering in the minds of anyone watching her.
Watching Hermione eat figs was rather entertaining for Draco.
She would never behave like those girls at his mother's salon — affecting an air of refinement, eating a single fig over the course of an hour, scooping out the flesh with what amounted to a decorative spoon. He had always found that sort of performance tedious.
Hermione was direct. She sucked up the fruit pulp expertly, using her teeth to draw it in. A small bead of bright red juice caught on her pink lips, and she licked it away before it could escape.
For reasons he couldn't quite articulate, these quiet, straightforward actions struck Draco as something more than ordinary.
He found himself unconsciously mirroring her, running his tongue across his own lips. He seemed to have become rather thirsty.
Merlin. He should drink something.
Hermione was clearly happy with the figs. Her eyes still bright, she reached for another one and asked, "Why didn't your grandfather bring you along with him today?"
"I used some of the Fever Fudge Fred gave me — it worked extremely well. Grandfather assumed I was simply exhausted from the journey and expected me to spend the day resting in my suite," Draco said, his composure recovering slightly as he lifted his sparkling water. "Besides, Grandfather didn't seem particularly inclined to take me to that monastery. I suspect he has his own quiet agenda."
"Oh, Draco!" Hermione's expression immediately softened with concern.
She set down her fig, got to her feet, and leaned forward to reach for his forehead. "You shouldn't — you absolute fool — you shouldn't treat your own health like a tool —"
Draco nearly choked on his sparkling water.
She was wearing only that bathrobe — what exactly did she think she was doing by leaning forward like that?
He had only just managed to pull himself together; and now, in a single unguarded gesture, she had undone every careful effort he had made.
"Wait!" He coughed, set down his glass quickly, and reached out to stop her. "Don't — sit down first."
Hermione had already risen, her hand hovering in the air, her expression stubborn and questioning. "I want to check whether you're feverish."
Was he refusing her touch because he was still unwell? That would explain a great deal. No wonder he'd seemed slightly unfocused, unable to hold her gaze — he simply lacked the energy.
Oh, how oblivious she had been! She'd been sitting with him for all this time without noticing he wasn't well. And he had only just been caught in a downpour, on top of everything else.
"Hermione, please — sit down. I'm asking you," Draco said, his thoughts in complete disorder.
Please, Merlin — she must not move.
That bathrobe was far too loose — please, it must not come open —
"Let me feel your forehead, and then I'll sit down," she said firmly, attempting again to lean towards him.
Draco stopped her again, with considerable difficulty. "I — you can check my forehead. But sit down first."
He stood up abruptly, crossed the room with the stiffness of a man wearing a full suit of medieval armour, and settled rigidly in the empty space beside her on the sofa — carefully, conservatively, preserving the appropriate distance.
Hermione was baffled.
When they had met that morning, he had been perfectly warm and affectionate. And now this.
Still, given his general good behaviour and the fact that he hadn't dug his heels in but had obediently come to sit beside her, she let the matter go, settled down as he had asked, and reached out her hand.
She touched his forehead at last.
"It does feel slightly warm," Hermione said softly, a note of worry in her eyes.
"I'm not warm at all — your hands are cold," Draco said, shifting to keep a proper distance between them, and failing somewhat.
"Cold hands?" The girl leaned forward at once, apparently intending to press her forehead against his to get a proper comparison.
Draco recoiled in alarm.
He leaned back hastily and landed heavily against the cushion on the sofa's armrest.
Reality was frequently strange and rather absurd. She was small and slight, and he was somehow afraid of her.
Hermione Granger, however, had never once in her life shown any inclination to be discouraged by difficulty.
She pressed closer, wearing the determined expression of a Healer from St Mungo's on a mission, her face set with resolute purpose — find out exactly what is wrong with Draco Malfoy — and accompanied by an entirely inconvenient sweet fragrance, she leaned over him without hesitation.
It was as though thousands of small glittering things had fallen all at once into the still lake of his composure, sending ripples in every direction and threatening to turn the whole of it into a torrent.
Draco realised he had nowhere left to retreat.
Because she brought both hands up to cup his face, and pressed her weight against him.
She had left him completely without escape.
As ever, this girl, who looked so innocently uncalculating, had no idea of the havoc she was causing.
She was only focused on the task at hand. "Draco, behave yourself! Stop squirming — let me check your temperature properly!"
Draco gritted his teeth, the muscle in his jaw working, feeling very much like a small animal unexpectedly grabbed by the scruff.
He found himself thoroughly trapped in the particular predicament that was Hermione Granger, with no apparent way out.
She was tyrannical. Domineering. Completely unreasonable.
And he had a very short temper when pushed.
"Draco Malfoy, if you've still got a fever, you're finished!" she said, cross as anything.
Oh, she was in a full temper and wouldn't hear a word of explanation.
This must be the real her, Draco thought, his gaze wandering involuntarily. All that shyness before had probably been a performance. His forehead was pressed against hers, his nose inadvertently touching hers.
She was so beautiful. Her eyes were beautiful, her pupils were beautiful — even her eyelashes were beautiful.
"So beautiful," he thought, a little hazily, his palms damp against the sofa cushion.
"Temperature's fine," she said softly, her eyes wide and warm with relief, and she let out a small breath.
Her breath brushed his face, carrying the sweet fragrance of fig.
What does a fig taste like, exactly? Draco pursed his lips.
Would it be inadvisable to try finding out right now?
Was this particular situation too precarious?
Or had he perhaps been wrong in his earlier conjecture, and the situation wasn't quite as precarious as he'd imagined — in which case, why did she look so entirely calm?
Would a kiss fall within acceptable boundaries for her?
Were there other options? And would those options fall within acceptable boundaries?
Draco felt as though a million restless ants were swarming over him, each one tracing a different branch of a decision tree, helpfully mapping out the consequences of every possible action.
He needed to establish certainty immediately.
The only way to do so was to confirm whether his conjecture was sound before he kissed her — and then decide whether or not to proceed.
He had to resolve this while he was still capable of rational thought.
He knew himself well enough to know how rarely that condition held.
If he simply kissed her without thinking, he couldn't be certain that his hands wouldn't, as they had once done on the Hogwarts Express over a shared ice cream, reach out blindly for something he had absolutely no business grabbing —
He had never managed it without encountering some kind of barrier.
He had wanted to, for a rather long time now. But could she accept that sort of intimacy?
And if he actually managed it — would he lose all restraint, and do something else entirely?
Hermione, oblivious, hadn't noticed the fleeting internal struggle crossing his face, nor had she bothered to put any distance between them.
She frowned, deep in thought, and slid into a fresh current of worry.
"Also — Fever Fudge does have side effects, doesn't it? I heard Harry mention them once — boils, or something of the sort..."
She leaned a little closer, studying his grey eyes in the candlelight, watching for any concealed emotion.
This time he didn't bother concealing anything. He looked back at her, steady and deliberate — the way he himself had studied her so often — and held her gaze.
It was as though the evasive Draco of ten minutes ago had never existed.
So unpredictable — sometimes warm, sometimes cold, sometimes near, sometimes impossibly distant! Hermione wrinkled her nose in exasperation.
"It's fine — I took the antidote," Draco said.
Like a careful hunter who has been waiting long enough, he made his move. His hands released the sofa cushion and instead moved, slowly and carefully, tracing the outline of her bathrobe.
He needed, in the softness of her warmth, to find the evidence to confirm his small but rather significant conjecture.
Fortunately, Hermione Granger had a formidable capacity for single-minded focus.
When she was occupied with worrying, she had no mental space left for anything else — including any instinct for self-preservation.
Draco kept his heart rate carefully contained, terrified that she would notice something was amiss.
He smiled slowly at her, his expression speaking volumes, blinking with a gentleness calibrated precisely to hold her attention on his face for as long as possible.
"Hermione, don't worry. Fred's been refining the recipe for years — the boil problem was solved long ago. There were no side effects whatsoever, and it was entirely painless."
His eyes really were impossibly deceptive, Hermione thought.
Her parents' psychology books always maintained that the eyes were the surest indicator of dishonesty.
But Draco, ever since reading the Muggle psychology book she'd lent him, had reversed the strategy entirely.
When he wanted to misdirect, he would maintain steady, guileless eye contact first — to establish his apparent innocence.
There was no boy alive who was smarter — no, more cunning — than him.
"I don't believe it — I've never heard Harry mention any improved version." Hermione held his apparently innocent gaze and noticed that his cheeks were flushing in a rather suspicious way.
He was definitely up to something.
She hadn't yet worked out precisely what.
In that moment, caught between genuine worry and irritation, the girl grabbed his face with both hands. "You always do this — act first and tell me afterwards, no matter how many times I ask! It never changes!"
The words carried, now, a distinct note of feeling.
Draco smiled lazily, showing no displeasure at her rather emphatic grip on his face. His eyes took on a dreamy expression, even as his hand continued its slow, steady progress — pressing with just enough pressure to confirm what he needed to know.
If you are trying to discern what lies beneath a bathrobe through the fabric, a certain amount of pressure is required.
"Checking up on me again?" Draco murmured. "Playing the Auror, like last time in the attic? Or — no, today you seem to be playing the dutiful Healer. Am I your patient?"
As he spoke, her face slowly flushed.
Hermione went red, of course.
The attic incident had been so muddled, combined with the effects of Butterbeer, that the whole thing remained mortifying in retrospect.
She always felt shy whenever he brought it up.
But that wasn't the only reason she was blushing.
She had just registered something else entirely.
She could feel his hand — pressing, slowly and deliberately, against her bathrobe — the warmth travelling through the fabric.
They had held each other before, kissed before, and this had happened then too.
But before, she hadn't been nearly so flustered by it — in fact she had rather liked it. Today, though, was different.
Today was far too precarious.
She felt as unprotected as a fish pulled from the water and left to the mercies of a very clever cook.
Wrapped in nothing but a bathrobe, she could be entirely at his disposal at any moment.
If he knew her little secret, she thought, an infinite variety of alarming possibilities would probably flash through his mind.
And then she caught his eyes. His expression was calm and reassuring, but deep within his pupils there was a dark, wicked flicker.
She was nearly certain she had glimpsed it, just for a moment.
But then the candle on the table guttered — a spark leapt out — and before she could see him clearly, it was gone.
Could his earlier "go to the bedroom" have been less of a misunderstanding and rather more sinister? Hermione's wariness sharpened.
And this suspicion only deepened as his hands continued to behave in a distinctly indecent fashion — they might, at any moment, simply remove the obstacle.
"Draco, don't —" She tried to get up, but he held on.
He held her firmly — so that she fell more heavily against his chest, with a directness and closeness she hadn't entirely bargained for.
And that was that. Draco's last vestige of composure was finished.
The soft, yielding sensation — the unambiguous reality of it — its name was confirmation.
Furthermore, having searched thoroughly, Draco had found nothing additional beneath the bathrobe.
No straps. No fastenings. Nothing beneath the belt.
His conjecture was correct. Completely, entirely correct.
Ten points to Slytherin. Or perhaps a hundred.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" he said quietly. "Hermione. I know your little secret."
"What secret?" Hermione asked in a low voice.
"The secret of 'nothing,'" he murmured in her ear, his voice carrying a clear and knowing weight.
The last rational thread in Draco's mind was burning down to its end. "Tell me — are you deliberately trying to torment me? I've spent every ounce of self-restraint I have trying to do the right thing, and you keep finding ways to come closer."
Hermione went into a complete panic.
Good heavens. He had found out.
What was she supposed to do? It was the rain — the rain had been entirely indiscriminate, soaking everything thoroughly and without mercy.
There were no spare clothes for her here.
She had considered asking him to find something, but decided that would be even more awkward — it was pouring outside and he wasn't entirely familiar with the Muggle world.
She had simply had to brace herself, carry on as though nothing were unusual, and hope that "he wouldn't notice."
Stepping out of the bathroom wearing only a bathrobe had been extremely uncomfortable.
At first she had been terrified; but then he had seemed not to notice at all, barely looking at her. She had begun to believe the secret was safe.
As their conversation deepened and they talked their way through wandless magic and Divination and all manner of interesting things, the earlier awkwardness had melted away. Her original apprehension had simply vanished.
And then he had brought up the Fever Fudge.
She had been so worried about his health that her bathrobe had completely slipped from her mind.
But now, in this moment, Hermione Granger felt a profound resentment towards her own inattentiveness.
That inattentiveness had led directly to being caught — in every sense of the word.
"Draco, I don't know what you're talking about. Let me go —" She attempted a smile, though she suspected it came out rather stiff. "Let's finish lunch. The figs are delicious — won't you try one?"
He did not smile.
He watched her with a measured, alert expression.
Like a cat studying a goldfish through a glass tank, he appeared to be working something out.
"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about," Draco said, a quiet, knowing smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "I once made you a certain promise — that I would behave myself and follow your lead."
Hermione was briefly thrown. When had he made that promise?
"However —" Draco said, slowly and deliberately, "this is making things extraordinarily difficult for me. Especially today, when you're waving your little secret in my direction and then quite literally throwing yourself at me."
"Uh..." Hermione bit her lip, watching him.
He hadn't moved further. But his hold on her was firm.
She drew a small, startled breath as she sensed her closely-held secret threatening to announce itself.
He gave a soft, low laugh. Even through the bathrobe, his warmth felt like something that left a mark directly on her skin.
She could feel that her cheeks were slowly turning red.
She suspected that everywhere his hands had touched, so carefully, was now flushed beneath the fabric.
She sagged slightly against him, wanting to argue, to explain, to emphasise that she too was a victim of the rain, that none of this had been voluntary. "I was absolutely drenched! There was nothing else I could do —"
"Drenched —" he repeated her word slowly, watching her with an inscrutable expression, turning a small loose strand of her still-damp hair between his fingers.
He paused.
Then, with a look of very deliberate mischief, he asked: "Was — or am?"
Hermione went completely still.
A particular implication in his words hit her.
In an instant her entire chest felt like a kettle at a full boil.
His tone had shifted entirely into that of a thoroughly shameless provocateur.
She was not amused. She was absolutely mortified, in a way so extreme that any sensible girl would immediately flee.
She bit her lower lip, breathing quickly, and in her extreme embarrassment and tension, she couldn't think of a single thing to say in rebuttal.
"Hermione — you've been checking up on me quite long enough. I think it's only fair I check up on you." His light grey eyes had darkened to something closer to storm-grey as he said the most unconscionable things with the most guileless expression.
He really was impossibly cunning, Hermione thought furiously.
And he carried that subtle, disarming fragrance that seemed specifically designed to be distracting — she used every last reserve of concentration to resist leaning in and simply breathing him in.
And then he continued, whispering softly into her ear.
Hermione was forced to admit, to herself only, that her willpower had a particular weak spot when he was at this distance...
She had no idea how she had got herself into this situation... She truly hadn't intended to end up soaked through...
"I'm going to check. By hand —" he said, with complete and unhurried intention.
She blinked and asked, very quietly, "Check for what?"
His voice came low and unhurried, each word precise. "Whether there is a place on you — that is — still drenched."
"No — there isn't," she said faintly, pulling herself together with effort.
Absolutely not.
She could not allow that.
In a moment of decisive action, Hermione reached up and caught his ear firmly. She decided to invoke his inexplicable promise — whatever it was, whenever he had made it, regardless of whether she could remember it — as the most available means of restraining his imagination.
"Draco. You promised to behave yourself and follow my lead. Didn't you?"
"Yes." Draco's throat moved. His thoughts were thoroughly disordered by her continued stream of small, devastating gestures.
He rapidly calculated his options and decided, with something close to inspiration, to adopt the air of a French chef introducing a new dish — adding a note of wounded feeling to an expression of complete innocence.
"So how exactly are you going to make it up to me?" His tone took on a slightly aggrieved edge. "After enduring all of this, I'm still supposed to force myself to behave? That seems rather hard on me."
What he said had, Hermione reflected, a certain logic to it.
He did look quite harmless when he sat like that, perfectly docile.
"I could give you a kiss —" She thought it over and decided that this was a manageable level of compromise.
She attempted to look entirely natural. "Just a kiss. And then you let go."
"A simple kiss won't do," he said, suppressing the leap in his chest, putting on an expression of dignified disappointment. "It would have to be a convincing one."
"I'll do my best! But you're not allowed to touch — that." She negotiated with great wariness, making a concerted effort not to lose herself in his gaze, not to lean in and sniff his neck — at least not until the terms were settled — however unbearably tempting he looked at this particular moment.
"I won't touch you unless you ask me to," he added, with deliberate significance, and watched her face grow even warmer.
Hermione knew she needed to handle this quickly.
While she still possessed the capacity for rational thought — before she completely succumbed to the pull of his arms, though she refused to acknowledge that she was already halfway there — she needed to produce a sufficiently convincing kiss and send this occasionally impossible, aggrieved boy on his way.
This was something of a challenge.
She wasn't sure her technique would satisfy him. He was a rather accomplished kisser, and therefore a demanding standard to meet.
"Close your eyes," she said, her voice not entirely steady.
He closed them obediently, like an unusually patient child waiting to receive something good.
She took a breath and searched her memory for those kisses that had left the deepest impressions on her, those moments of particular tenderness.
She kissed his eyelashes.
The delicate, sweet fragrance of figs drifted softly against his cheek. That fleeting, barely-there touch sent a shiver down his spine.
Draco had always struggled to close his eyes in front of other people. Trust did not come naturally to him.
But she made him feel safe. Holding her, he felt, strangely, as though something long-missing had settled quietly back into place.
It was all right to close his eyes. He didn't need to be on guard. He didn't need to brace for the possibility of being hurt.
She was telling him so — with her lips.
She kissed his earlobe. At first the warmth of her was distinct and precise; after a moment, her warmth and his had become the same temperature.
He gripped the edge of her bathrobe; the fabric had a slightly rough texture.
Then her lips moved to his neck. He was fairly certain she was inhaling him quite deliberately. One of Hermione Granger's particular habits.
He twisted the corner of the bathrobe tighter. Her breath was warm against his skin and seemed to go straight through him.
And then — she was kissing her way down his neck to his collarbone.
She undid his first button. Then the second.
He opened his dazed eyes and exhaled softly. "Hermione —"
"Is that convincing?" she asked, pulling back, her face flushed.
"Not particularly," he said, his voice rougher than intended, his eyes half-lidded.
That was not the answer Hermione had been hoping for.
His mouth needed softening, did it? She had a plan. She would treat his mouth the way she treated a fig.
Yes. Draco discovered what a fig tasted like.
Very. Very. Very sweet.
And then he thought that he himself might be a fig of some kind.
Yes — his tongue seemed to be the flesh of the fruit. And she drew it in, nibbling gently with her teeth, pulling it into her mouth. Just as she had eaten the figs.
Hermione Granger knew how to start a fire.
Not only that — she kept threading her fingers through his hair, smoothing out all the jagged tension in his mind.
Draco sighed.
Satisfied and deeply unsatisfied, all at once. He already regretted agreeing to the terms.
He wanted more. His unruly hands were acting without instruction.
"Is that convincing enough?" she whispered against his ear.
"No." He swallowed hard, struggling to get the word out, wanting to see what else she was capable of.
Hermione was running out of ideas.
She had very little experience to begin with — all of it, in fact, taught through Draco's own example — and two weeks apart hadn't done anything to improve her fluency.
To make matters considerably worse, he appeared to be the most exacting professor in existence, never satisfied with whatever she produced.
This was truly infuriating.
If she were to simply surrender entirely, would he go ahead and "check" her in an entirely wicked fashion regardless?
This was deeply unfair. She had already made extraordinary efforts.
None of this had been easy for her — so why was he never satisfied?
And the kiss itself seemed to be having some sort of adverse effect on her own concentration. Under the influence of the overcast, stormy afternoon, the flickering candlelight, and the prolonged meeting of lips, the temperature inside her body was rapidly approaching critical levels.
Hermione suspected that if this continued much longer, she would lose the ability to think entirely and become a creature of pure sensation.
The boy in front of her had flushed cheeks and a dreamy expression; even the way he sighed with his eyes closed was entirely too arresting.
She could feel his breath against her face. She could sense, without any ambiguity, that he was thoroughly enjoying himself — just as she could feel him gripping the back of her bathrobe with both hands.
And then she realised, with a sudden drop of her stomach, that this particular grip had an unwanted side effect — she could feel air moving against her shoulders and collarbone.
When wrapped in fabric, one's skin should not detect any airflow.
Oh no. Hermione's heart seized.
Draco appeared to have created something of an unintended catastrophe.
Like an inspired Parisian couturier with no regard for convention, he had inadvertently redesigned the bathrobe — gathering unplanned folds into the back and in doing so, transforming the neckline from something cautious and restrained into something considerably less so.
The one mercy was that he didn't seem to be aware of what he'd done.
What should she do? She needed to stop before the situation became entirely irretrievable. Hermione panicked inwardly.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
It dragged them both back from wherever they had been.
She startled, completely forgetting the newly altered state of her neckline, and sat up to look towards the door; he startled so sharply that he released her and opened his eyes instinctively.
In that instant, he saw, in the dimly lit, candlelit room, two of the most beautiful things in the world.
The brightness of it dazzled him. The shape of it robbed him of breath. The sheer sudden reality of it sent a bolt of something through him that he was entirely unprepared for.
He could not look away.
She was beautiful. Like Aphrodite stepping from the sea.
On pure instinct, Draco's hands tightened on the bathrobe — and nearly pulled it away entirely.
Two or three seconds later, the girl in front of him went white with horror and made a frantic grab for the bathrobe, which had slipped somewhere around her ribs. Face blazing red, she hauled it back into place, leapt from the sofa — her shin catching the edge of the table, though she didn't stop to register the pain — and bolted for the bedroom.
"I — I did my best!" she called from behind the bedroom door, her voice high and rushed. "I think I've been convincing enough!"
"Yes —" he said, his voice unsteady, his mind still entirely full of soft, pale cloud-shapes. "Very. Very convincing."
The doorbell was still ringing.
The Muggle waiter called through the door, "Your clothes are here — express service!"
"Hang them on the door handle!" Draco called back, pressing a hand to his head.
A pause. Then, through gritted teeth: "Thank you!"
A bewildered mutter came from the other side of the door.
Followed by the rustling sound of garment bags being hung on the handle.
Then silence.
"Draco? Why aren't you getting them?" Hermione asked softly from behind the bedroom door.
The poor boy, still rather red, said, "I need a moment."
"But I want to put my clothes on as quickly as possible." Her voice was mortified.
"Just a little longer." He looked down at himself.
"Are you all right?" she asked, tentatively.
"Perfectly fine," he said, through his teeth.
"Then why —" The worry crept back into her voice.
"I need to sit quietly for a moment," he said curtly.
"For what reason?" she frowned.
"No reason," he said.
Hermione could tell something was off about his tone.
"Are you angry with me?" she asked.
"Not at all." He drew a very slow breath and said, as composedly as he could manage, "I'll bring you your clothes. After I — calm down."
"All right." Hermione, distracted, was busy pressing her palms against her still-hot cheeks.
What did "calm down" mean, in that context? she wondered, finding it peculiar.
She couldn't think about his odd behaviour for long.
She had a far more pressing matter to attend to.
She closed her eyes, and asked the question that had been burning in her mind for several minutes.
"Did you — just now — did you see anything?"
The living room went very quiet. Not a sound.
"Tell me!" Her voice rose by several tones, like an extremely indignant cat whose claws had gone entirely blunt, still doing its level best to sound authoritative. "You saw something. Didn't you? How much did you see?"
"Two small things," Draco said, swallowing, making a genuine effort to settle his still very unsettled self — with limited success. "A little bit white. A little bit... flattering."
The bedroom fell silent.
After a moment, the full implication seemed to arrive.
"Oh, shut up, Draco!" The bedroom door slammed shut with considerable feeling, her furious voice muffled behind it. "This is absolutely not the moment for wordplay!"