Shaelune

Part III. " ‘I can’t control myself around him, Harry. It scares me.’ "

If she’d been tired before, Hermione would now have settled for Voldemort’s lair as long as she was promised the chance to sleep there. Every stomp of his interminably shiny designer shoes on the marble floors outside the ballroom and the loud, final slam of the door as Malfoy led the way back to their suite echoed in her head as though they’d each been repeated a thousand times. Her feet were killing her, cramped into the unnatural shape of the silver not-quite-Cinderella slippers, and the spell on her hair was beginning to wear off. Her vision was slightly skewed by the angry tears stinging at her eyes.

Her room was welcoming, cozy blue, with a fire lit in the large stone grate that hadn’t been there before, and the doors to the terrace had been closed against the early-spring cold. Hermione ripped off her shoes, yanking the silver strings painfully against her leg, and pulled her hair down from the half-knot before she collapsed gratefully into the womb-like pillows and blankets of the large bed; her skin felt hot against the cool silken sheets. Malfoy could wait.

She lay there for several minutes, not really thinking, letting her mind drift from one flighty, unimportant subject to the other, before she succumbed to the comforting darkness of sleep.

--~--

Malfoy, in fact, was waiting, but not for her. He was pacing his room in the calculated steps he’d watched his father take a thousand times, his mind groaning under the weight of the too-quick speed of his thoughts. And he was thirsty, but not for water, and he didn’t plan on drinking alone tonight. Where the hell was Pansy?

He heard her careful, society-bred knocking on the door- just twice, to alert the person within to one’s presence - a moment later. Without waiting to see her, Draco knelt and reached deep into the lower compartments of his trunk, his hand searching for what no professor who’d had the misfortune to to check his bags would have been able to find. Finally, he grasped the cold uneven weight of the bottle and pulled it up through the sea of black robes as though he was unearthing a priceless artifact from the tomb. The gold liquid spilled like gilt tears from the decanter’s carven mouth into the two glasses.

Pansy was leaning against the mantle, her shoulders as dark as Saharan sand in the firelight, and her face thrown into shadow but for the cutting gleam of catlike green eyes and the shimmer of hair that matched the whiskey in Draco’s hands. She was dressed not in gaily-colored satin like most of the girls, who’d bought their robes off-the-rack at Gladrags or Madam Malkin’s, but in a gown he knew she’d had custom tailored at a boutique in wizarding Milan the weekend before the trip. Canditia Parkinson had whisked her off school grounds due to a "family emergency."

Hers, instead, was the color of the leaves of the oldest trees in the forest on the Isle de Mal Fet, the color of the irises of her eyes when they were eclipsed by moonlight, the color of the darkest, coldest room inside his family’s manor, where the walls were hung with tapestries depicting scenes he couldn’t quite describe. It was cut low enough to show her decolletage to advantage but not enough to rival the Nott girl’s, and the corseted bodice was brocaded with curving, rippling lines in black that might have been flower petals or thorned stems or serpentine scales. Her skirt cascaded in a soft, un-petticoated fall of fluted silk down to her satin deep-viridian slippers. It was a gown designed to pronounce to anyone who might wonder that Pansy was a Slytherin socialite, and even after the uprising of Voldemort, she was not ashamed of it.

Draco handed her the cut-glass chalice, but instead of sitting at the plush chaise longue as others might have, he merely leaned against the mantle as well, facing her, his eyes matching hers over the rims of the glasses. Pansy didn’t speak, just nodded slightly and took the drink from him. She knew he’d talk when he was ready.

"Damn," he said hoarsely after the last drop of whiskey was gone from the bowl of his glass.

"I’m sorry, Draco," she said; there was sincere sympathy in her voice, and it was more than he could expect from anyone else in his house. It was a good joke, they all probably thought. Malfoy and the Mudblood. The fucking Odd Couple.

A sort of laugh found its way out of his throat. "Who’s your partner?"

Pansy’s green eyes gazed fixedly away from him, out to the terrace and the waxing moon. "Ernie Macmillan," she answered. A wry, distant smile appeared on her face.

"Lucky bitch," he muttered. Pansy’s eyes returned to him, but she didn’t laugh; he was glad, since he hadn’t meant it to be funny.

Pansy sighed, a clear signal that she didn’t feel like discussing this any longer. "I just wish Titleby hadn’t scheduled this trip right before the initiation."

"Yeah." Draco felt his hand tense around the glass. The sharp edges of the diamond pattern cut into his fingers.

Pansy looked at him for a long moment, forcing him to eventually meet her gaze. "You are ready for the initiation, aren’t you?"

After a moment of silence, she placed her glass, which she’d politely sipped at but hadn’t drained, on the polished tabletop, then stood. "You’re going to have to do it, Draco," she told him. "You know you don’t have a choice."

He didn’t answer, just stared into the fire as though the world was ending and the rising, vanishing flames were all he had to hold on to.

--~--

Darkness met Hermione’s eyes as she opened them, wakened by some unknown dream, and she stared at the gold-embroidered canopy of her bed for a long moment before standing and realizing that the lovely red dress was wrinkled, and that the rip down the front had come open again; apparently, her hasty Reparo hadn’t been enough.

The second thing she noticed was that the fire in the grate had gone out, presumably doused by a well-meaning house elf, and that the room was unbearably cold, as though it was winter again and the frosty air had penetrated through the stone walls. Hermione sank back to the bed, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, and watched the empty moon hanging high in the lucid night. It beckoned to her, a silvery white crescent full of new beginnings and possibilities.

Even though it had rained a few hours before, itt couldn’t be any colder outside than it was in here, she reasoned, and shoved open the French doors.

It was vastly different at night. The stone terrace was like an island in the black wash of forest and garden; the only sounds were the faint splashing of a fountain somewhere below and the faraway crashing of the waves against the craggy shore. The moon found its inconstant twin in the choppy sea, reflected on its broken-mirror surface. Hermione sighed and breathed in the exhilarating, mysterious darkness of the world beyond her safe, cheery Gryffindor common room. She’d live here, if she could. And if Malfoy weren’t asleep next door.

How could she possibly cope with him for the next nine days? He was everything she couldn’t stand in a person- combative, argumentative, arrogant, cunning, closed-minded, opionated, hateful. She hated the way he always glanced at her, a knowing, too-personal smirk on his face, whenever she raised her hand or answered a question correctly. She hated the way he looked at her, with a sneer of disdain, mocking her for every reason he could find. She hated the way the word ‘mudblood’ sounded in his aristocratic drawl.

Hermione hated him, at the very essence of his serpentine being, and she hated that he hated her.

--~--

Draco was awoken at- he glanced at his tasteful silver watch- two ‘o clock in the morning by the brief slam of a door in the suite next to his. Climbing out of bed, where he’d fallen asleep in his dress trousers with his oxford unbuttoned, he pulled open the door to the terrace and stopped dead.

The same girl was standing there, gazing at the moon, and she was wearing Granger’s red dress.

At the sound of his door opening, she whirled, and the sharp dark eyes that had glared at him a thousand times before stayed unchanged. She simply looked him up and down, half-bared chest to fully bared feet, then turned away and resumed her examination of the landscape before her.

Something snapped inside him. Annoyance, he loved, and hatred he could stand, but indifference? No one ignored Draco Malfoy. Ever.

All too quickly he was by her side, his arms around her in a pseudo-possessive gesture that had less to do with an affectionate embrace than with keeping her hands bound by his so she couldn’t slap him again. And rather than looking at her, he simply followed her gaze up to the thin slice of white in the black sky.

"Isn’t it past your bedtime, Granger?" he said quietly after a long moment of trying to understand the silence and the darkness and her cool skin beneath his hands.

She was ignoring him again. Draco’s hands tightened over hers; his fingers were still sore from where the glass’ edges had cut into them, and the large gold ring on the third finger of her left hand felt almost soothing against the red marks.

"What is this?" he asked, forgetting that she wasn’t speaking to him. He lifted her hand up so he could see the engraving on the ring, and then, with the deftness gleaned from years of treachery and speed, Draco slid it from her finger. That did it; she cried out and grasped at his wrist. "Give it back!"

Draco withdrew from her, closing his fist around the ring. "Honestly, Granger, I’m intrigued. A gift, perhaps? From Krum? Or… no… a joint present from Potter and Weasley. To equally express their love for you."

"Just give it back, Malfoy," she ordered imperiously, her tone dangerous.

Draco looked down at the ring, now lying heavily in his palm and glittering in the moonlight, then back at her. "Why?"

Her eyes narrowed angrily. "Because it’s mine!"

"Where’d you get it, though?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested, though there was a strangely sinister air in the way he rolled it between his fingers, slipped it on, held it up to the sky.

"It’s none of your business," she said. "Don’t force me to get my wand, I’ll hex you into sixth year."

Draco laughed at that, though he was sure she hadn’t been joking. "Just tell me who gave it to you and I promise not to throw it over."

She blanched at that and stepped back, a little uneasily. "You wouldn’t."

"Granger, have you met me?"

"Malfoy… just…"

He decided to bargain with her as he held it, a little loosely, over the railing of the balcony. "Say please."

"I’m not about to beg for something from you!" The color rushed back into her cheeks.

"Really? Because judging from your position right now, I’d say you are."

She shrieked and launched herself at him, knocking him to the ground as she grabbed his wrist and wrestled the ring out of his hand, then tossed it through the open doorway of her room. In response, Draco rolled over so that his weight kept her from getting up. She didn’t seem able to find the words to curse him with, so she settled for a frustrated yell as she kicked angrily at his legs.

Draco looked at her, enjoying how disheveled she was, how her spell-straightened hair had fallen out of perfect order and blanketed the stone around her, her face and chest flushed from exertion. She’d stopped kicking; she was looking at him now, with a mix of fear and anger swimming in the depths of her eyes. That was it, Draco thought triumphantly, the look he wanted to see cross her face every time he entered the room.

"I hate you," she whispered vehemently, her voice choked with conviction. He could feel her heartbeat.

"I’m not going to kiss you now," he answered with a smirk.

"I do hate you!" she cried, ripping her hand out from where he had pinned it down and slapping him hard enough to whip his face to one side. The smirk vanished, and Granger stomped back to her room and shut the door.

--~--

At nine ‘o clock the next morning, Hermione was already deeply immersed in the mansion’s library, sitting beside a pile of books that, while they had nothing to do with research for her assigned project, were still very interesting. She had even found a few on the Pseudonym Theory- the one that stated that the Founders of Hogwarts had, in fact, changed their names to suit the houses they wanted to be named for. Hermione happened to be writing a thesis on that theory for her advanced History of Magic class- the one she was taking in private sessions with Professor Binns so she wouldn’t fall asleep. It was, indeed, very interesting.

Harry found her at the back of the roomful of books, head bent, curling mass of hair falling over her shoulders as she concentrated on a small leather volume with miniscule print. "Hermione?" he said, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone else who might be there. She didn’t respond. "Hermione!" he said again, a bit louder.

She looked up, her brow creased worriedly; as soon as she saw him, though, she smiled brightly and shoved her books over to make room for him next to her. Harry sat down, crossing his arms on the table, and looked over at her as she closed her book. "How are you?"

"I’m quite alright, thanks for asking," Hermione replied. "What about you? Who’s your partner for the projects?"

Harry grinned. "Padma Patil," he told her happily. "Not too shabby, eh?"

"Compared to my situation…" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"How do you think that’s going to work out?" Harry said a bit more seriously.

She sighed. "I honestly don’t know. I mean, we’ll have to act like civilized people at one point or another- it’s just Malfoy’s so infuriating. I can’t control myself around him, Harry," she said, meeting his eyes. "It scares me."

"I’m sorry, Hermione," he said sincerely. He covered her hand with his, and the large roughness of it was comforting, but it reminded her of another hand enveloping hers. Hermione looked down and fingered the gold ring, brilliant against the black leather of the book it rested on.

"I’ll be fine," she told Harry after a moment, smiling at him to prove it. "Now, don’t you have research to do?"

"Not until Padma forces me," Harry answered. "She’s a lot like you in that regard."

Hermione slid her hand out from under his and reopened her book. "Well, then, hopefully she’ll tell you to get a move on," she said. "Just because I can’t be around all the time doesn’t mean you can slack off."

"I know," Harry said, standing and waiting for a moment before dropping a chaste kiss on the top of her head. "See you later."

Hermione stared at the open page of her book, not reading, just thinking. About everything- Ron, Harry, Ginny, Parvati and Lavender, the rest of the Weasleys, old jokes from holidays at the Burrow and long conversations in the Common Room, the History of Magic paper, her O.W.L.s, her N.E.W.T.s, her parents climbing in the thin air of the Peruvian mountains. Everything except, of course, Draco Malfoy, and he was the one she really needed to think about the most.