Draco's lips pressed against mine, firm but gentle and my eyes fluttered closed. As his lips moved against my own, I felt myself begin to respond and I started kissing him back. I had never kissed someone like this before. Slow and gentle and yet I still found that it took my breath away.
My skin was flushed, my lips tingling and all I wanted was to sink deeper into him and feel his hands all over my body. As if he was reading my mind, his hands came to rest on my waist, pulling me closer until I was pressed up against him. I gasped into his mouth at the close contact and his tongue was suddenly there, sweeping into my mouth. When I reciprocated, Draco groaned, and I felt it reverberate through me in delicious waves. His hand moved lower on my waist and I found myself arching against him, desperate to be as close to him as I could. The kiss grew more frantic and I shivered at the feel of him against me, of the feel of his mouth against mine. I couldn't keep up. I couldn't get enough. My brain could no longer function properly, lost in the heat and fire of his kiss; drowning in the sensation.
I'd been kissed before. But I never knew that it could feel like this. I never knew that it could light up my entire body in this way. I felt like I'd been living in the dark and someone had finally turned on the light. This was what made Harry look at Ginny in that way. What made them sneak off to be with each other. This was what it was supposed to feel like. This was what I had been waiting for. That feeling of completeness. For it to feel right.
My eyes shot wide open at the realisation. Opened to see Draco Malfoy. 'No,' I gasped, pressing a hand hard against his chest and forcing him back as I scrabbled to get away as if his mere touch was burning me.
'What? What is it?' Draco gasped, looking up at me with concern and confusion.
All I could do was stare at him, horrified. It couldn't be. How could it be him? I had waited for that feeling all my life, I had wanted it. I had been desperate to feel it. I had thought that I had felt it with Ron, but that had been a warm spark compared to the raging inferno that Draco had just unleashed. How could it be him? He didn't even like me. And I certainly didn't like him. How could he be the one to make me feel this way?
He reached out a hand, but I jumped backwards, watching as his hand fell to his side. I couldn't let him touch me again. I couldn't risk what would happen if he did.
'I have to go.' I skirted around him and grabbed my bag from where it sat near his feet.
'Now?' he asked in surprise, as he stood to his feet. 'But-'
'I'm sorry, I can't.' I kept my eyes pointed to the ground as I turned away from him and hurried along the corridor.
'Hermione, if I…' I heard him say, but his words faded away as I tore along the corridor, making my way back to the safety of the Gryffindor common room.
The portrait of the fat lady swung open and I rushed through, slumping against the cool stone wall, breathing harshly from running the entire way. As my breaths began to slow, I gingerly brought my hand up and gently touched my lips. They were still tingling. I could still feel the ghost of his touch. Closing my eyes, I shook my head, trying to get rid of the image. Trying to get rid of that feeling. Why had I kissed Draco Malfoy? I buried my face in my hands. It was such a stupid thing to do!
I shook my head, forcing myself to get it together. It had happened. It wasn't a big deal. It was only a kiss after all. It was simply because I had been emotional. I was tired and I was lonely, and I was upset, and he was simply there. It was simply comfort in a difficult moment. It could have been anybody.
But then it wasn't just anybody. It was Draco Malfoy. Despite what had been happening between us in the last few weeks; the conversations we had, the things that we had shared, the somewhat amiable understanding that we had found between us, none of that mattered because he was still him. He was still the boy who had bullied me, he was still the boy who had the dark mark imprinted on his arm and even though we had built up a tentative friendship, that was as far as it could possibly go between us. It didn't matter that his kisses were incredible, or that he made me feel more alive than I had in months, because it didn't mean anything. I couldn't let it mean anything, which meant that the best thing that I could do was to forget that it had ever happened.
I had no other option. I had to forget it because what else could I do? What was the alternative? There was no situation in which it could possibly happen again. There was no scenario where anything could ever come from it. Not that I would ever want it to, no matter how good it might have been.
Having processed everything, having made my decision and knowing what I was going to do, basically pretend it had never happened, I pushed away from the portrait hole entrance and made my way into the common room. Ginny was sitting with a group of her friends, but she peeled away from them when she saw me.
'You look weird,' she stated as she sat down beside me. 'Why do you look weird?'
My eyes widened guiltily and it took everything I had not to bring a hand up to me cheeks to check if they were still flushed. Instead, I turned away from her and pretended to dig about in my bag for a non- existent item. 'What are you talking about, Ginny?' I mumbled from behind my hair. 'I don't look weird.'
'Yes, you do,' she insisted and I could feel her eyes on me, watching. 'And you're acting weird too.'
'I am not acting weird,' I forced myself to look directly at her, schooling my features into something neutral. Trying to erase the fact that Draco Malfoy had just kissed me from my face.
She peered over at me and I could swear she saw the secret hidden in my eyes, but as the suspicion faded a new emotion settled in her eyes, something that put me immediately on edge. 'Have you seen Ron?'
Now it was my turn to look suspicious as I caught something in her tone. 'No. Ginny. Why are you asking?'
'No, reason,' she said innocently, too innocently, 'I just wondered if you had seen him.'
'Ginny,' I groaned, immediately realising what is was she was trying to do. What she was still trying to do. 'I told you to stop.'
'Stop what?' she said innocently, although her eyes were wide and something was working behind them, some scheme that she has put together and if I wasn't mistaken, something very much like hope. 'I'm not doing anything,' she insisted.
'I don't know what you're doing,' I accused, pointing my finger at her, 'but you're doing something.' When she just continued to give me that innocent yet hopeful stare, my tone turned sharp with warning. 'Ginny!'
'Oh, all right,' she huffed, flopping back against the settee. 'But the two of you will actually need to sit down and have a conversation at some point.'
'We talk all the time.'
'No,' she argued, giving me a pointed look. 'He comes into a room and you just about run in the opposite direction.'
'I do not,' I disagreed, discomfort filling me that she'd noticed. I thought I had been subtle. 'Just yesterday we sat beside each other at dinner and we talked with Neville about his plants.'
She turned to me with one eyebrow raised sardonically. 'Yes and I'm sure that was absolutely riveting for both of you.' She pushed herself up so she was sitting up straight and staring at me once more, a look of disapproval on her face. 'I mean a real conversation, where you actually talk to each other about something that matters.'
Tired of pretending and knowing that there wasn't really a point, Ginny saw through me anyway, I took on Ginny's former position and slumped backwards. 'It'll just take time, Ginny.'
Ginny's eyes turned sad as she stared down at me and I felt a pang of guilt at the fact that I was disappointing her, even if I knew it was for the best. 'Hermione, I don't know what he did, but we both know that Ron can be an idiot,' she gave me a sad but amused smile, 'but I just want to make sure that you're not throwing something good away out of stubbornness.'
'Ginny, I'm not. Honestly,' I added at her doubtful look. Like I said before, Ron is my friend. One of my best friends, but we both just need a little bit of time to find that again and we will. But as for anything else,' I shrugged hopelessly at her. 'It's just not going to happen.' And I knew now that I could say that with complete and utter certainty, because I knew now what that feeling was and I knew that I didn't have it with Ron and I never would.
'But don't you think –' Ginny began to argue, before she was cut off when a letter whizzed through the air and landed in my lap. I recognised the writing immediately. Professor McGonagall. I quickly opened the letter and my stomach dropped.
'Sorry, Ginny, I've got to go.' Professor McGonagall wanted to see me. With everything that had happened, I had completely forgotten that I had run out of a detention. Again.
'Is something wrong?' she asked, looking concerned.
I shoved the letter into my bag and stood up. I didn't want to make McGonagall more mad by having to wait for me. 'No, I'm sure it's nothing. I'll catch up with you you later though.'
I gave the Griffin statue the password that was written at the bottom of the letter and all too soon I found myself knocking on the headmistress' door. I heard her voice bidding me to enter. I walked across the room and sat in one of the chairs across from her desk. I didn't say anything. What was there to say? My eyes were lowered, unable to meet the disappointed gaze that was trained on me. Before this year, I had never been summoned to a teacher's office before, at least not for a telling off, and yet here I was again. In trouble again. I was nineteen years old. After everything I had been through, it shouldn't matter so much. I should have been over such things, but I respected Professor McGonagall. I wanted her to have a good opinion of me and it hurt to know that I had let her down again.
'I'm sure you are aware why you are here, Miss Granger,' she asked me, peering over the top of her glasses.
I took a deep breath before I answered with a simple, 'Yes, Professor.'
'And do you care to offer an explanation for your behaviour.'
I looked up at her, but then lowered my gaze to my lap and shook my head. I would take whatever punishment she wanted to give me, however many extra detentions that she wanted to add on, but I would never admit to her why I had run out of that detention. Or what had happened after.
'Miss Granger, that is now twice that you have left a detention before it has been completed. Surely you understand the severity of your actions.'
I kept my gaze firmly in front of me still not able to look at her. If I looked at her then I might crack and tell her everything and that was something I could not do, no matter how much my silence was frustrating her.
'And yet still you can offer me no explanation,' she said, annoyance beginning to creep into her tone. I stayed resolutely silent. 'Madame Pince suggested that something might have upset you today. Was it perhaps something to do with Mr. Malfoy?'
Once again I had to fight my reaction, but Professor McGonagall was a shrewd woman and must have seen the pained wince that his name evoked. 'No. It was nothing,' I said, in a vain attempt to try and convince her, but one look at her face told me that she wasn't fooled. Her words confirmed it.
'I had hoped that pairing the two of you together might help to ease some of the tensions, but I see now that I was wrong. I was being unfair.'
'Professor?' I asked confused, beginning to feel uneasy at what was to come.
She leaned back into her high backed chair, steepling her hands in front of her as she surveyed me for a long moment. I tried not to squirm under her scrutiny.
'I think some separation would be good for both for you. I suggest separate detentions from now and I will also speak to Professor Haven about a new potions partner.'
'Professor McGonagall, that's not… you don't…'
'No, I am decided,' she cut me off, resolute and I knew that I couldn't dissuade her. Although why I wanted to, I wasn't sure. 'I think this will be better all round.'
I sat back in my seat, knowing that I should be relieved, wondering why I wasn't.
'Now, Miss Granger, if you are sure that there is nothing else that you would like to tell me.'
That I hadn't ran out of my detention because Draco Malfoy had done anything to me. That he had apologised for everything that he had ever said and done. That for some strange reason he was the only person in the entire school that I felt that I could talk to. That I had left detention because I was worried I had shared too much with him. That he was making fun of me. That he has come to find me to make sure that I was okay. That he had kissed me. That I had kissed him back. That I was having a meltdown because I didn't know what to do next.
Of course I didn't tell her any of this. How could I? She would probably think that I had gone insane. But then I wasn't entirely sure that I hadn't. So instead, I simply shook my head.
She stared at me with that penetrating gaze of hers, as if she knew that I was keeping something from her. After a long moment, she drew her gaze away and I could finally breathe again. 'Very well, then.' She gestured to the door signalling that the conversation was over and I was dismissed. 'I shall owl you with the details.'
'Thank you, Professor,' I said as I turned towards the door, feeling, for some reason, strangely disappointed.