She is standing at the top of the Astronomy Tower.
A cold wind is howling.
But she feels warm, and the wind cannot reach her.
A giant bronze model is slowly rotating.
Clouds are chasing the moon across the night sky.
— Hermione.
She turns around.
It's Justin.
Shirtless.
His dark hair is blowing in the wind.
He presses her against the railing, and she looks over her shoulder down at the ground, too far away, too dangerous.
Justin presses closer.
— Do you like danger?
— Yes. Danger. Please.
The moon disappears behind the clouds, plunging the tower, the model, and Justin into darkness.
She kisses warm, smooth skin, her hands sliding over tense muscles, moving lower and lower…
— I can be dangerous, — a hoarse voice says.
Yes. She wants danger, darkness, heat.
Hands slide over her body, thumbs teasing her nipples.
— I can take you, — the voice whispers, soft lips touching her lips. — If you want. Do you want that?
— Yes, yes, Justin…
— JUSTIN?!!
Hermione's eyes flew open. She was not in the Astronomy Tower. She was in bed, lying on her stomach. And those were not Justin's hands on her body. Those were Malfoy's hands—she was sure of it, despite the pitch darkness. A strong shove rolled her back toward the enchanted canopy.
— Lumos, — she breathed.
The wand in her hair flared with light.
She blinked, shaking off the remnants of the dream—or half-dream, whatever it was—her gaze darted to the enraged wizard.
Malfoy's face was flushed, his arousal obvious.
— I… I had a dream, — she stammered.
— About Justin?
— I… I… — She didn't know what to say. What had just happened?
— Let's make this clear, — his voice was sharp, his face seemed to consist of nothing but sharp angles. — I'm not Dolbojustin Frickley, I'm Draco Malfoy. Got it? It was Draco Malfoy who was touching you. Draco Malfoy who made you moan. It was Malfoy's cock pressed against you.
— I… I know… — said Hermione, trying to control her scattered thoughts and her still-trembling body.
— I think you need a little reminder. Do you think you're dealing with some pathetic Puff? Do you think you can touch me in my bed while thinking about him?
— I'm not… — Hermione began, but fell silent. She was doing exactly that. She was touching Malfoy, thinking about Justin, but about the dark, dangerous Justin, and it was so…
However, Malfoy wasn't going to give her time to reflect. He loomed over her, breathing with fury, one hand gripping the carved bedpost, and his Dark Mark was just a couple of inches from her nose. Hermione stared at the inky skull with the snake, unable to meet Malfoy's gaze. How could she explain this?
His other hand yanked her hair, forcing her to tilt her head back and look at him.
— I should fuck you right now, — he growled, — fuck every thought of him out of your bushy little head.
Hermione's body flushed with heat at the thought, and she almost moaned. What the hell was wrong with her? Did Malfoy's Vanishing Spell include lust spells too? He seemed to have built in everything he could. Her mouth opened to say something cutting, but she couldn't speak. She was helpless. Truly helpless. Oh, shit.
However, Malfoy just pushed her away again and sat back on the opposite side of the canopy.
— Luckily for both of us, — he spat, — I don't even want to touch you. Mudbloods should be with their own kind!
— And Death Eaters should be alone! — Hermione blurted, wounded and enraged. — That's why you're sitting here alone, casting dark spells to drag a witch into your bed. Because no sane witch would want you or touch you without trickery, blackmail, or coercion…
A flash of light blinded her, and Hermione fell, thinking he had done it after all—thrown an Avada at her, blinded by rage—but a second later she realized she was lying on her mattress, in her own bed.
She froze for a moment in shock, staring at the golden lion embroidered on the scarlet canopy. The wand in her hair was still giving off a dim light. Hermione jumped out of bed and looked at the clock on the mantel. Exactly two in the morning.
Merlin, this situation was unbearable. Hermione was shocked to find herself back in the Slytherin dungeons earlier that evening, and grateful she had her wand with her. She had set up protective spells and settled on the bed with the firm intention of waiting for Malfoy and demanding explanations. But instead, she fell asleep. And if his words were to be believed, she had started groping Malfoy in her sleep. Merlin.
Now Hermione was back in her own room, but she hesitated—should she return to bed? What if she ended up with Malfoy again? He had looked ready to kill.
Hermione gripped her wand in her hand. She almost wanted to go back just to curse him properly. How dare he call her a Mudblood? How dare he insult Justin? As if Hermione was responsible for what she said and did in her sleep. She had just had a dream, for Merlin's sake. If she sometimes dreamed of pleasant things—unlike crazy former Death Eaters, who only dreamed of snakes and death—that didn't mean she deserved to be shoved and insulted. If she spent time with a nice person who didn't scare half the school and didn't use disgusting spells that…
Furious, Hermione pulled the pillow and blanket off the bed, trying not to touch the mattress, and dragged them to the couch. She settled in more comfortably, and Crookshanks immediately jumped up next to her.
Merlin, she was exhausted. She had been managing to get some sleep lately, but now that streak was broken. Obviously, Malfoy's Vanishing Spell was still affecting her bed, even if they couldn't detect the spell. She would just sleep on the couch until they found a solution.
Hermione turned onto her other side, trying not to think of Malfoy's outrageously comfortable mattress. His whole bed was simply absurd. She had looked at it properly that night when the Slytherin wasn't there and no one was distracting her, and she had been stunned. That monstrous construction was practically a work of art. Everything was adorned with the letter "S" and embodied the very definition of luxury: green silk pillows with silver tassels, a dark green blanket, a semi-transparent silver curtain trimmed with green velvet ribbons. On the canopy was embroidered a huge snake, glittering with countless shades of silver thread.
Disgusting. Even the black bedposts were wrapped with snakes, carved so skillfully they seemed almost real. When one of the carved snakes slid down the post, nodding its head, Hermione nearly screamed in fright. The other snakes on the posts remained motionless, but still, she moved closer to the center of the bed. Merlin, Hermione thought, what does the rest of the room look like? The temptation to peek was almost irresistible, but Tennant was there—his muffled growling and female moans were proof of that. Too risky.
Now, safe in her room, Hermione felt her cheeks flush at the memory of those sounds. Her body still tingled from Malfoy's touch. Malfoy's touch. And then he grabbed her hair and… she had never felt anything like it before, such wild, uncontrollable craving. Malfoy had looked so angry, ready to cross the line into violence, and yet she wasn't afraid at all—instead, she wanted him. Until he called her a Mudblood, of course. That was inexcusable.
Hermione pulled a book out from the couch cushions, where it had been digging into her back, and tried to get comfortable. Malfoy had better learn to control himself. She would no longer tolerate insults, even if she suddenly started moaning the names of half the Gryffindor Quidditch team in her sleep. He'd better behave if he didn't want to end up in Azkaban. Calmed by these thoughts, Hermione closed her eyes and managed to doze off while Crookshanks cozily curled up next to her.
Still feeling off from her dream, at breakfast Hermione decided to stay away from the Hufflepuff table and sat down opposite Ginny.
Ginny.
Hermione looked at her thoughtfully. She didn't know if she could mend things with Ginny, or even if she deserved her friendship. Harry needed her, and she didn't regret helping him, but Ginny had loved him for years, trusting Hermione with her feelings. Ginny had been so happy when Harry finally reciprocated, and crushed when they left her to hunt Horcruxes. Hermione knew the sense of betrayal Ginny felt was more than justified.
Meanwhile, Ginny's cold attitude toward Hermione had started to spark rumors at school. Ginny was very influential among the students at Hogwarts, thanks to her co-leadership with Neville the previous year, when the whole school was under the Carrows' oppression. The Gryffindor girls even styled their hair like Ginny—in the "no-hair-in-the-Polyjuice" fashion.
In the first weeks of the school year, when Hermione wandered the castle exhausted from insomnia, she barely noticed the whispers behind her back. But now she was more collected, and it had become clear that this couldn't go on much longer. Hermione had made up with Neville at the start of the year, helping him prepare ingredients in Potions (Neville hated chopping frog brains, never forgetting his toad Trevor) and taking care of his Shrivelfig, which they often walked to boost its confidence.
When Hermione sat down at the table, Ginny immediately looked away. She cast a spell on her portion of pancakes and sausages, nodding in satisfaction when a pale glow confirmed the absence of poison. The other Gryffindors just rolled their eyes.
— Will you check my breakfast? — Hermione asked cautiously.
Ginny was surprised at first, then her gaze became suspicious.
— When I was in third year, how did I describe Harry's eyes in my poem?
Hermione blushed.
— Ginny...
— Answer the question. — Ginny's voice was cold.
— Greener than a wizard's toad, — Hermione quoted awkwardly.
Ginny cast the spell on her plate too, getting the same pale glow, then started on her sausages without a word. Neville sighed, undoubtedly thinking of Trevor.
Hermione gave up and opened her Divination textbook, but didn't read it. Instead, she watched Justin out of the corner of her eye, trying to reconcile the picky Hufflepuff (who was at that moment cutting his sausages into perfectly identical pieces) with the dangerous half-naked Justin commanding her on the Astronomy Tower. Honestly, her hormones were out of control. One evening in the library, and the Head Boy got the lead role in her erotic dreams? She already doubted she should go near the other candidates for ORGANS.
Shaking off distracting thoughts, Hermione returned to her textbook. She stared at the embossed illustration of the divination mirror as if it were real. But her thoughts kept returning to the previous night. She had almost let Malfoy do it—she had almost let Draco Malfoy fuck her in his own bed. Her eyes had been closed, her body available, and it would have been so easy…
Merlin, she shouldn't be getting worked up like this over breakfast. She took a big gulp of icy pumpkin juice and focused again on the history of divination mirrors. The making of magical mirrors was a delicate art, somewhat like wand-making, except the master used glass instead of wood to… and why did her body react so much to Malfoy's touch? Of course, he was dangerous, but Harry was dangerous too—he was a walking Horcrux, for Merlin's sake—and after the first night his touch didn't…
The scraping of a bench broke her thoughts. Ginny was leaving the table. Hermione flushed, ashamed of her fantasies.
The entire Gryffindor table watched Ginny go, then stared at Hermione. She shrugged and dipped her forkful of pancake into syrup, absentmindedly watching a blueberry muffin roll along the table. No one touched it—everyone knew the Ravenclaws had enchanted the house-elves' muffin molds to study the blueberry-to-dough ratio. The spell was supposed to sort the muffins, but something went wrong—instead of lining up by blueberry content, they just rolled across the tables, eventually rolling out of the Great Hall and escaping the castle entirely. Only Greg Goyle had been dumb enough to grab and eat one, ending up in the hospital wing with severe stomach pains.
Parvati Patil spoke, distracting Hermione from the trembling muffin at the edge of the table.
— How's Justin, Hermione? — she asked.
Parvati looked stunning in bright silks and gold jewelry, her hair done up in an elegant style, her dark eyes framed by thick lashes. She was also a terrible gossip, but Hermione was glad for any social interaction that didn't involve a sex-obsessed Slytherin.
— Justin's less of a twat than he used to be, — Neville chimed in.
Hermione smiled.
— Phenomenal praise, really.
Parvati lowered her voice.
— Justin had a rough year. He couldn't come back to Hogwarts, and Hannah said his Muggle parents refused to go into hiding—they said they had too many social events. Justin was losing his mind.
Hermione looked again at the Hufflepuff table, where Justin was now absorbed in a large Astronomy book. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up, and Hermione smiled at him. He raised an eyebrow and went back to his book. Hermione turned and caught Parvati's meaningful look.
— What? — Hermione asked.
Parvati gave her an all-too-innocent smile.
— Pick a sausage, Hermione.
Despite her promise to follow Harry's advice and really start socializing, Hermione was silent and distracted all morning. Harry's and Malfoy's voices kept echoing in her head as she walked the corridors to lunch.
A hoarse voice: "I can take you. If you want. You'd like that?"
A breathless whisper: "Please, Hermione."
A deep purring voice: "I can be dangerous."
Hermione stopped and stared at the corridor wall. Yes, this place looked perfectly suitable to get a running start and bash some sense into her own head. What, in Godric's name, was happening to her? She'd never get eight NEWTs if she kept this up.
She was just tired, Hermione decided. That's all. No wonder, considering the crazy dreams, crazy spells, and crazy Slytherins. She pressed her forehead to the pleasantly cold wall and closed her eyes.
"Please, Hermione."
"We shouldn't."
Hermione pressed her whole body against the wall. Harry needed her, and she refused to regret what she had done. She wouldn't get anywhere if she acted guilty and pitiful around Ginny. Pull yourself together, you're a Gryffindor.
So she straightened up and went to lunch, determined to socialize. She gave Justin a bright smile as she passed the Hufflepuff table, and he nodded back with a touch of smugness.
And there was Malfoy, looking like he was ready to Avada the entire Great Hall. He glared at Hermione and pulled out a piece of parchment, probably homework he had postponed. Some people had no concept of time management.
She sat across from Ginny again (there were always empty seats around Ginny—despite universal admiration, it seemed only Neville could feel relaxed near her). Hermione sipped her coffee, watching Malfoy write quickly. His impatient voice echoed in her head: I can be dangerous.
Hermione pushed the memory away.
— Hi, Ginny, how's our Quidditch team doing?
Ginny immediately cast Muffliato.
— What's my Patronus? — she asked sharply.
— For Godric's sake…
The witch's suspicious gaze didn't waver.
— Hermione Granger is asking about our Quidditch team? Answer the question.
— Are you saying someone would use Polyjuice to pretend…
— Why not? Someone's emptied Slughorn's entire supply.
Ginny's bright brown eyes darted around the Great Hall in Mad-Eye Moody style, searching for someone acting unusually. She frowned at Hagrid, who for the first time was actually using a napkin, wiping clumps of potato from his beard.
Hermione sighed.
— A horse.
Ginny said nothing but lifted the spell.
— Well then, — Hermione said cheerfully. — Tell me about our new Chaser!
Ginny gave her a scorching look, then stood up and left the table.
Hermione looked around at the other Gryffindors.
— What? What did I say?
After lunch, Hermione had Divination on her schedule, because that was just her life. They were going to study divination mirrors, which often gave clearer images of the past, present, and future than crystal balls. The Mirror of Erised was considered an especially powerful divination mirror with a single purpose.
Malfoy showed up late, as usual, scowling, his black cloak billowing in Snape style. Hermione sat on her pouf, stubbornly trying not to look at him.
— Auuuutumn has come, — Trelawney announced, as if this were news to anyone. — When the Earth dies, and the veil between our world and the spirit world is thinnest. It is the Season of Insights.
Most students shivered in anticipation.
— Look, look into your mirrors, class, — the professor continued. — Feel, feel the spirits moving inside. Reflect, reflect on what you see.
Malfoy stared into the mirror. Hermione was impressed by his focus—had he been trained? Mirror divination was an advanced technique.
She scooted closer to peek into the mirror. Unlike crystal balls, whose contents looked different to everyone and were therefore useless, images in divination mirrors could actually be confirmed.
Malfoy blinked, then again, his dark eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Hermione craned her neck a bit more, trying to see the mirror without touching Malfoy, and then she blinked too.
The round mirror was filled with dark, swirling clouds, and in the center was a small blue square.
— What's that? — Hermione asked, forgetting herself and speaking to him.
— Parchment, — Malfoy snapped.
— Not parchment, paper, — Hermione corrected him. The little square was too smooth for parchment and curled slightly at the bottom…
— Merlin! — she suddenly exclaimed. — It's a sticker!
Malfoy looked at her for the first time.
— What the hell is a sticker?
— A square piece of paper with a bit of weak glue on the back, so you can stick it to other paper and peel it off again. — She pulled out her Numerology essay draft from her bag and unfolded it, showing the bright pink stickers scattered across the parchment. — See?
— Some Muggle nonsense, — the wizard scoffed. He snapped his fingers, and an empty white card appeared between them. He placed it on the table. — Useless.
Hermione was indignant.
— You don't have to use magic for everything, Malfoy, I'm surprised you can even eat without your wand…
— And what have the Spirits shown us here? — Trelawney asked, approaching their table. The professor looked into the mirror and recoiled immediately.
— Oh, my suns and stars! — she exclaimed, clutching her heart.
— Another Grim, professor? — Hermione asked sweetly.
— These dark clouds, — said Trelawney, pointing with a bony finger tipped with a long orange nail, — are the Omen of Death!
The whole class gasped.
— And in the center? — Malfoy asked.
— The fading blue sky of your lives, — she answered sadly.
Hermione and Malfoy exchanged a rare look of unity: We hate this subject.
Trelawney moved away from the table, holding a transparent scarf in front of her face to protect against Death Microbes. Malfoy slapped the mirror face down so hard he nearly broke it.
— We need to meet tonight to discuss the spell, — Hermione said in an icy tone.
— I'm busy. We'll talk in my room.
— No. I'm planning to sleep on the couch in my dorm tonight since the beds are still linked by the spell. I'll meet you at eight in the old DADA classroom on the third floor. Classroom C.
Romilda had mentioned Classroom C as a great place for private meetings. Not that Hermione wanted any more privacy with Malfoy. Four nights were enough for a lifetime.
— Bring a splinter from your bed, — she added. Malfoy looked at her skeptically. — I'll bring one from mine, — she said. — I read it might help.
— Fine. — Malfoy stood and grabbed his black briefcase.
— And also, Malfoy…
He looked at her with an expression that clearly said: What now?
Hermione waved her arms and rolled her eyes:
— Beware… the Stiiiicker of Faaateeee!
Malfoy turned and left the room with an air of offended dignity. The lesson wasn't over yet, but Trelawney, touched, let him go. Hermione, on the other hand, hummed to herself while writing a report about Malfoy's inevitable Death by Clouds.