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“A quidditch match!?”
Neville jumps back at Hermione’s shrill voice, throwing his hand over his heart. He turns to look at her, and her hair is standing on all ends as she glares at the bulletin board. He quickly reaches over to rub his hand down her arm, trying to calm her before she spirals in the way that only Hermione is capable of.
“A mandatory professor quidditch match?” she continues, voice much too loud for the room. “This has to be a joke. Nev, please tell me this is just a cruel joke!”
She turns her head swiftly to Neville's face and searches it, but she doesn't find what she's looking for. Instead, he looks at her pityingly. “Sorry, Hermione. Minerva thinks it’ll be good for student morale.” A pained expression mars his features as he prepares himself for more of her outburst.
“I regret taking this job,” she huffs, passing her eyes back over the poster, hoping there’s some way she can just burn it with her eyes. If she pretends it never happened, that she never saw it, would McGonagall buy it?
“You don’t mean that, Hermione. It’ll be fine! It’s just for fun!”
She whips her head back to him, and he immediately cowers away from her stare. She knows this isn’t Neville’s fault, but she hates being told things will be fine. Only she can decide that for herself, and this will most definitely not be fine.
He takes a cautionary step back from her, and she suddenly feels guilty for taking her anger out on him.
“Sorry, Nev,” she sighs. “You know that Quidditch isn’t my thing.” There's a hesitation in her voice, a pause that makes it abundantly clear that she doesn’t want to admit the following few words. “I’m - I’m afraid of flying.”
He suppresses a smile, the corners of his mouth just starting to pull up before he swallows them down. “I know that, Hermione. It’s not like it was a secret when we were in school.”
Hermione forces a calming breath through her lungs. “Right... Well, it’s not a fear that’s easy to get over. Ron and Harry stopped trying years ago.”
Neville opens his mouth to respond, but she continues, her voice suddenly shifting from composed to something, something entirely crazed.
“And also, you’re no good at quidditch either, so it’s not like you can help me. And does Minerva even know how to ride a broom? I’ve never seen her on a broom. Nobody has seen me in a broom in years either, though. Oh my god, I’m going to be the laughingstock of Hogwarts when I get into the air! And—”
At some point during her meltdown, Neville starts to rub his hand down her arm again in a feeble attempt to calm her down.
He clears his throat and catches her in a stupor. “Hermione,” he says, voice firm and deep, so similar to the tone he uses with his students. “I might have a suggestion.”
Tears have already started to collect at the corners of her eyes. She looks at him like a child who's had their toy taken away, and he swallows the tug at his heartstrings before he speaks. “You’re probably not going to like it, though.”
“Don’t tell me another thing I’m not going to like!” she wails. “This quidditch nonsense is enough for the day! Correction - for the entire week! The whole year!”
It’s her biggest flaw: dramatics when things don’t go her way.
He takes a deep breath before he speaks, and she watches his throat bob.
“Well, there is someone who could, you know... Someone who could help you,” he finally stammers out. “Someone here at Hogwarts.”
She continues to look at him blankly.
“You know, someone like us,” Neville gulps, fumbling with the clasp on his vest and wringing his hands as he builds up the courage to finally blurt it out. She narrows her eyes at him, suddenly not liking where his train of thought is going.
“He’s pretty good at quidditch,” he continues. “ I think—”
“No,” she says flatly.
His expression drops. “Hermione, come on! You know he can!”
“I said no, Neville. Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“No! I am not going to ask him.”
“Hermione, we’re all adults. He has a name,” Neville rolls his eyes. He knows there’s no point in arguing with her, but he’s always the fool who tries. “I won’t tell you how to live your life, but I think you should.”
She crosses her arms in a huff and turns away from him. She misses the resigned smile he gives her as he squeezes her shoulder before leaving the room.
Hermione continues to stand in front of the poster and glare at it. In two weeks, she’ll have to be on the pitch, high in the air on a broom, pretending like she doesn’t hate everything about it.
For the children, the sign says, for inter-house unity.
Unity - impunity, the voice in her head mocks.
The thought of drafting a resignation letter suddenly doesn’t seem all that bad. Would Minerva take her back the week after the tournament? What if she came down with a bad (but fake) case of dragon-pox? Or just pretended to disappear? Would Harry agree to launch a phony investigation into her whereabouts but then miraculously find her right after the match concluded?
A girl can only dream.
Her first stop in all of this will be the headmistress’s office to try and wriggle her way out.
In any case, asking him for help would be the last thing she ever does.
Two days later, she finds herself forced to go back on her words.
After spending almost an hour in Minerva’s office, complaining, then pleading, and finally putting forward a proposal that she thinks is nearly bulletproof, the woman has to practically shove her out of the room to get her out. The meeting concludes with the Headmistress saying the same thing that Neville did: that she has all the help she could get right at the school if she wants it.
That door being shut firmly in her face is why she finds herself where she is—standing in front of a different door, one engraved with a large serpent, just a layer of wood separating her and the Slytherin head of house.
Her heart stammers in her chest as she knocks sharply and steps back, waiting for him to open it. But instead, his muffled voice rings out from behind the hidden room.
“It’s open.”
She pushes the handle down carefully and peers her head inside.
The room's lone occupant has his feet up on a large wooden table, leaning back in a faded leather chair. He keeps his eyes glued to a book in his hands as if he isn’t expecting company, as if he hadn’t just told someone to come into his office.
She steadies her breathing as she pushes the door open and steps into the room.
He turns a page of the book in his hands with his slender fingers and hums quietly to himself.
She clears her throat. “Draco?”
“It’s Professor Malfoy,” he smirks, eyes still glued to the pages. “What can I do for you, Granger?”
They toe the line between acquaintances and friends, but much to her chagrin, he’s never moved past that nickname. He refrains from calling her anything but Granger, yet he sternly corrects her whenever she calls him something other than Professor Malfoy.
It’s a double standard she’s huffed at more than once and to his face. But it’s as if it amuses him, like some sort of joke, a kink that she has no in on.
“Right,“ she rolls her eyes. “Malfoy, I’m here to ask you for some help.”
His head flashes up to look at her. “Are you now? What with?” he arches a brow.
Her eyes pass over him, and she feels the words get stuck in her throat. He wears a perfectly tailored suit under his robes, emanating confidence and wealth from every pore. He sits behind his large table, in his oversized chair, with his domineering frame filling it all, and looks at her like he’s undressing her with his eyes.
“I—I need your….”
She’s thought before that he looks at all the staff and parents that way. He plays up the charm with both men and women, a shameless flirt if there ever was one. However, it doesn’t irk anyone the way it does Hermione.
He’s a favourite amongst the school, and she isn’t sure what she hates more—that or the fact that she has to pretend like it doesn’t get under her skin.
“I need your help with riding,” she blurts out.
His eyes go wide as he drops his feet from the table and sits up straight in his chair. “You need my help with what?”
“Riding,” Hermione says, weaving as much confidence into her voice as she can. “You know...” she motions her arms forward to show her hands around a broom under her thighs.
He follows the motion with his eyes, and his mouth falls ajar, blinking like a deer caught in headlights before swallowing tightly.
He stares at her in silence, and it gets to be too much before she’s probing him impatiently.
“Is there a problem with me coming to you for help?”
“N-no,” he stammers, flushing pink. “I just wasn’t expecting this.”
“Well,” she takes a step forward, “It’s not like I could have asked Neville or Minerva,” she throws her hair over her shoulder. “They’re both much less experienced than you.”
Draco covers what seems like a choke with a ragged cough, slowly rising to his feet. “And, do you—is experience important to you?”
“Yes,” she drops her head to her clasped hands. “I’d like to learn from the best,” she whispers, bringing her doe eyes back up to his face slowly.
He pulls at his necktie to loosen it, starting to look like he’s overheating as a light sheen of sweat coats his forehead. “Al—alright,” he says. “Do you have a preference for when?”
“I’m free before lunch today.”
“Lunch?” he squeaks. “So soon?”
“Well,” she crosses her arms, leaning back on her heels. “We can always do another day if that’s too much for you and you need more time to prepare.”
“Oh no,” he blurts out, “I’m always ready!”
“That’s alright. Maybe it would be better to give us a few days.” She places both her hands on the edge of his desk and leans on it. “I could use the alone time,” she sighs. “It’s been a stressful day.”
He winces at her words and undoes the top button of his dress shirt.
“Does Friday work for you? After dinner?”
Draco nods vehemently. “Yes, Friday works, of course.”
She smiles at him. “How about we meet at the quidditch pitch?”
He seems to choke, clearing his throat roughly before addressing her with a wary look. “Where the children can see?”
“Yes,” she narrows her eyes. “Is that a problem for you?”
He clasps his hands before him and looks at her rather dumbly as if the gears are whirring in his head with no success. “No, if you don’t mind, then I don’t either.” He pauses for a moment, opening his mouth and then closing it before his cheeks flush again. “I just don’t want Minerva catching us, that’s all.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Hermione waves the concern away. “I already told her my plans.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I confided in her, and she suggested I go to you.”
A slow-rising smile pulls at his lips as his eyebrows shift up his forehead. “She did?”
Hermione nods. “So, Friday?”
“Yes, of course,” he says, rising to his feet as he pulls down on the front of his waistcoat to straighten it. He pulls once, then twice, before his ears turn red, and he drops down to his chair. “I’ll see you then, Granger.”
She gives him a small wave as she leaves the room and makes her way back to her chambers. As she walks, she smiles to herself, thinking that everything has gone considerably better than she expected.
On Wednesday, Draco sits down next to her during lunch and makes idle chit-chat about their classes. It's a pleasant gesture, considering that she’s been at Hogwarts for an entire term, and it’s the first time they’ve had lunch together as colleagues.
“Are you nervous about Friday?” he whispers to her between courses, the smile evident in his voice.
“Yes,” she breathes, looking out onto the Great Hall. “Very.”
He chuckles. “Try not to be. I’ll do my best to make you comfortable.”
She turns her head towards him and smiles.
During rounds that night, they’re out on patrol together. Hermione can’t help but reminisce on how similar it feels to their days as students when she and Draco were Prefects in their eighth year.
It had always been testy, but it would be a lie to say she didn’t enjoy it even then.
Who would have thought they would be where they are today?
She certainly didn’t.
But now she’s days away from having him help her, with flying of all things.
Time certainly has a peculiar way of shifting the tides.
“So I was thinking,” she says as they’re strolling through the seventh-floor hallway. “Are you okay if we meet just as it starts to get dark?”
He shoots her a look that seems almost greedy. “Are you a fan of the moonlight?”
“Not particularly,” she says. “I just think it might help my nerves.”
“It might be harder for me to see you,” he snickers. “But, if you’re that nervous, then it might be easier if it’s dark. At least the first time.”
“I hope you’re right. Harry and Ron used to refuse,” she says sadly, thinking back to all the times they tried to teach her and mocked her for the silly ask.
He stops walking abruptly. She turns to look at him over her shoulder, and his mouth is hanging open. “Potter and Weasley? You used to—"
She waves him off. “It was a long time ago. I’ve moved on.”
They spend the rest of their shift in comfortable silence, but when he leaves her at the door to her chambers, he lingers for longer than usual before turning on his heel and speeding out of sight.
On Thursday afternoon, he drops by her classroom after she finishes teaching sixth years. Most of them are stragglers, taking much too long to pack their things into their bags amidst boisterous conversations.
He strolls in with purpose, flashing a smile to one student, a wave to another, and heads towards her desk at the front of the room. He’s wearing suspenders over a grey button-down shirt, and it’s the most endearing outfit she’s ever seen him in.
If his reference to her by her last name is his kink, she thinks that him dressed like that is very likely hers.
She shakes herself free of the thought immediately.
“Hi,” he whispers, partially out of breath as he nears her desk. He brings his face close to her ear and blocks his mouth from the students with his palm. “Do you care what I wear tomorrow?”
She hums to herself and thinks that if she had the nerve, she would tell him to wear exactly what he’s in, but it doesn’t seem like the time or the place.
“Not really,” she clears her throat. “Wear what makes you comfortable. That’s what I’ll be wearing.”
His face lights at her response.
“Professor Granger, why is Professor Malfoy here?” a young voice calls out. Hermione shifts her eyes to the student, who’s much too curious for her own good, and lands on a group of girls looking in her direction.
But they aren’t looking at her.
They’re looking at Draco, eyes sparkling as they appraise him from head to toe.
She flashes him a look before clearing her throat. “We are—uh, we’re working on a special project together.”
She catches him bite the inside of his cheek next to her. The students giggle and wave to him as they make their way out of the room.
“Special project?” he teases, “Is that what we’re calling it?”
Hermione rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like I could tell them what we’re actually doing!”
“Right,” he smirks. “Wouldn’t want them getting any ideas.”
“Exactly.”
She collects her binders and books as she shifts towards the exit.
“See you tomorrow, Malfoy,” she says before turning the corner out of sight.
When Friday comes, Hermione skips out on lunch and bribes the elves to grab her dinner to go, which she eats in her chambers alone.
She’s left Draco a note specifying they meet at eight o’clock, and when seven strikes, her heart is ready to beat out of her chest, out the window, and into the air toward another life without her.
She dresses in all black, hoping the colour will help her blend into the night sky and away from any prying eyes of the castle. Her favourite pair of trousers, fitted at the waist and tapered at the legs, a simple black henley, and a pair of grey sneakers.
Appraising herself in the mirror, she wonders if he knows who Catwoman is, realizing that all she needs is a mask to pass for a less sexy version of her.
She spends fifteen minutes pacing the locker room, wringing her hands back and forth as she tries to prepare herself for what awaits her.
After rummaging through the broom closet for longer than she’ll ever admit, Hermione makes her way out onto the pitch. She has no way of knowing if she’s grabbed a broom that will work—choosing one simply because it’s all black, and matches her ensemble, before calling it a day.
Draco is already waiting. He stands with his back facing her, hands clasped behind him, no broom in sight.
“Hello, Malfoy,” she says as she finally approaches. “Where’s your broom?”
“My…? What?” He turns to look at her, eyes flashing from her face to the broom in her hands, back to her face, and then down to his empty hands. “My broom,” he clears his throat. “It’s... erm… I forgot it.”
Her eyes trail down his form, and she can’t help the smile that cracks along her cheeks. He’s in a pair of casual slacks, combat boots, and an unbuttoned plaid shirt. Unbuttoned with nothing underneath, his chiselled chest reflecting the light of the moon off of each peck.
He looks like a lumberjack, dressed for a completely different occasion than Quidditch. Hermione’s eyes are fixated on the lines of his chest, and she shakes her head to snap out of it.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
He looks down his body, stopping short at the bare expanse of his chest, almost fully exposed as a gust of wind pushes his shirt back off his shoulders. He grabs the edges on either side and pulls them tightly in front of him.
“This, erm—this is what I’m comfortable wearing.”
She nods, not knowing what else to say. Who is she to judge him for what he’s comfortable in?
“I’m just going to get my broom,” he says, scurrying away from her and towards the boy’s locker room. “I’ll be back!”
Hermione watches his form retreat in a run until he vanishes behind the doors, and she’s left out on the pitch alone. She shakes her hands out and rolls her shoulders back, steadying her focus in his absence.
Draco comes jogging out of the locker room some minutes later, dressed, buttoned, and with a broom in tow.
“So,” she says, trying to steal her voice. “Where do we start?”
He runs his hand through his hair before clearing his throat. When he speaks, it’s hesitant. “I guess we can start with you telling me exactly what you'd like to accomplish.”
“Right.” She nods, feigning nonchalance, hoping he doesn’t notice her shaky breath. “Well, I’m afraid of heights.”
He exhales deeply, eyes drifting up to the sky in a motion that looks almost like a prayer, but one he knows is coming too late.
“Riding,” he sighs. “You needed my help with riding.”
The pause after he speaks, silence settling between them, is the exact moment Hermione notices the stammering of her heart in her chest.
“If you’ve changed your mind,” she mutters. “We don’t have to do this. I can figure this out on my own.”
“No.” He rolls his shoulders back. “I’ll help you.”
Draco mounts his broom with one hand and lets it hover a foot off the ground. He looks over to Hermione and waits for her to do the same, letting his arms rest before him, with no grip on the handle to keep him steady.
He looks as comfortable as she does with her feet planted on the ground.
She struggles to place her broom under her bottom properly, wriggling around as she tries to make herself comfortable. The wood digs into her pubic bone, and she wonders if there is an innuendo there somewhere but relents sharing anything aloud.
Hermione leans forward onto the handle when it jerks suddenly into the air. “Woah!” she yells out instinctively, tightening her grip.
Her broom rises off the ground slowly, as her feet dangle below her, just a foot up like him, but her stomach whirling with somersaults.
“Follow my lead.”
He wraps one hand around the shaft and pulls his body forward onto his broom as it soars up into the air against the currents of wind. She watches his fluid motion, the ease with which his body maneuvers the device between his legs, and feels her lip slipping between her teeth.
When her shaky hand wraps around her handle, the entire broom jerks forward. Her fingers tighten even further, and the device jerks back, nearly throwing her off.
“Merlin!”
She grasps on with both hands as the broom shakes beneath her, jolting one way, then the other, until it soars into the air towards Draco’s, and she screams. He shifts out of the way as she comes to an abrupt spot, at no doing of her own.
“Granger, be gentle,” he teases, pulling up next to her in the air.
But she can’t hear him. Her eyes flash down to where she stood, now thirty feet between where she is in the air, and she's certain she’s going to be sick.
“Earth to Granger!”
Her eyes shoot back to the voice, landing on Draco waving his hands in front of her face in a poor attempt to get her attention. “Don’t look down,” he says, wisps of hair billowing in the warm evening wind. “That’s the cardinal rule of heights. Don’t ever look down.”
“Where am I supposed to look then?” she shrieks.
“Anywhere but down. At the tip of your broom, at the sky, look at me if you want right now, but don’t look down.”
She shuts her eyes forcefully and draws calming breaths through her chest. In, then out, in, out, in -
“ - When you’re ready, we can start flying.”
“What the hell do you call this?” she mutters through gritted teeth, eyes still closed. “I’m already flying.”
“No,” he chuckles, “you’re floating. Not flying.”
She feels his presence circling her, the shifts of wind ghosting across her skin as he moves through the air atop his broom. His voice filters into her ears from all around as if it’s consuming her, nothing but him for miles beyond her space.
She forces one eye barely open to see him before her, arms crossed but face amused.
“Are you ready?”
“No,” she mutters.
“You’ll never be ready. Just try to follow my lead.”
And try she does, but the attempt is feeble. When he soars gracefully one way, her broom jerks side to side along the same path. When he dives, her broom twists. When he flies, her broom dives. All the while, she feels the sweat between her palms and the handle accumulate, fingers slipping as her broom takes her on a path of its own.
A particularly aggressive incline has her screaming for help as one of her hands' slips, Draco rounding up behind her to catch her if she falls.
“You need to relax, Granger,” he says from behind her, sending gooseflesh down her spine.
“I’m the furthest thing from relaxed right now!”
“I know, just -”
“What would you like me to do?” she shrieks. “Like always, this isn’t working!”
“Stop.”
Her motion halts abruptly as her broom reacts to his command. The nose of it comes up, and she freezes in the air, hovering in one spot. He rounds up next to her and sighs.
“Would it help if we flew together?”
She searches his face as the words come down on her like a pound of bricks. “We are flying together.”
“No,” he says, motioning to the space behind him on the broom. “Together.”
“Oh.”
“Here,” he shifts closer to her until the tips of their knees touch. “Give me your hand, and I’ll help you onto my broom.”
Her eyes flash from his face to his extended palm, back to his face. “Malfoy, do you really think this is a good idea?”
“Just trust me.”
He waits for her hand patiently, his eyes glazing over with something akin to sadness the longer she hesitates. He swallows heavily as she looks at him, feeling her palms start to sweat again before he begins to pull his hand away.
She grasps it. “Okay.”
He holds onto her fingers tightly, his large hand swallowing hers, and pulls the two brooms even closer together, side by side in the air. The wood of hers presses against his leg, while the wood of his presses against hers.
“Lift your leg and throw it over my broom.”
Her eyes jolt down to the brooms in the air, just narrowly getting a glimpse of the ground far below them, when she flashes her head up to his face. When he speaks, she's certain he catches the fear in her expression. “I’ve got you.”
Hermione’s hand clenches his, feeling her nails dig into his skin, but he gives away nothing if she causes him any pain. She eyes the spot at the front of the broom and plants her gaze on it, lifting her leg before he realizes what she's doing.
“Oh,” he shifts back suddenly to make room for her in the front, letting go of her hand as he does.
The shaft of his broom slides under her buttocks, and she feels her own get pulled away, watching as Draco pulls it out from under her before letting it float down to the ground unattended.
And then it’s just them. Two people on one broom.
He clears his throat.
She looks back at him over her shoulder, his chest just inches from her back, and sees the flush of his cheeks despite the darkness.
“Merlin,” she exhales, suddenly coming to terms with what she’s done. “You meant for me to be on the back of your broom. Not here!”
He smiles nervously at her and nods. “That’s alright, this is fine too.”
“I can still climb into the back!” she exclaims.
“And how are you going to do that? Over my head? It’s okay Granger, I just have to hold on around you.”
She feels her breathing start to strain.
“Is that alright with you?” he asks.
“Mhm,” a knot tightens in her throat as she turns away from him and digs her eyes into her hands wrapped tightly around the handle. “That’s fine.”
“Okay, I’m going to move closer now,” his breath brushes against her neck. “Don’t get startled.”
She feels the presence of his body as it shifts closer to her, the warmth emanating from his chest, ghosting across her skin before any part of his body even touches hers. When he presses against her, there’s a caution to his movement, hesitancy not to get too close to her. His arms come around her, and he positions his hands just inches ahead of hers along the handle.
Her eyes watch as his deft fingers wrap around the wood once, veins protruding along his knuckles as he tightens his grip and then releases again as he repositions. She tries to swallow, but the lump that forms in her throat renders her incapable.
His pinky finger brushes against hers, and she’s hit with the sudden realization of how hot she is. She’s sweating everywhere, acutely aware of every piece of fabric pressed against the nooks and crannies of her skin—hot, damp, everywhere.
“You ready?” he breathes along her cheek, voice soft but thundering in her chest.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I’m ready.”
There's a brief pause before the broom takes off, and she feels herself sway back into his chest. They fly swiftly through the air, and the exhilaration that fills her lungs as the wind blasts by them is unlike anything she has ever felt before.
What started as fear, debilitating and threatening to consume her, is slowly and then all at once overtaken with excitement.
Draco’s arms around her, there but not quite touching any part of her skin, his chest brushing along her back as he breathes in and out steadily, and the hardness of his thighs around hers.
Eventually, she’s giggling, laughing as he maneuvers the broom around the pitch, for no moment remembering her fear of heights and instead being consumed completely by the fun that she’s having.
“I think, Granger,” he speaks loudly, voice muffled by the wind beating against their faces. “That you’re not afraid of heights. You’re afraid of falling.”
“I don’t feel like I’m falling now,” she says, laughing again as he pushes the broom to pick up speed.
They course through the air for seconds, minutes, and eventually near an hour before he finally positions them off their course and heads for the ground.
She’s dizzy, as much from the flight as she is from him, instinctively taking his hand as he helps her off the broom, legs shaky as she finally plants them on solid ground.
She looks up at him as he rights his shirt and pants, turning to pick up her belongings and the discarded broom from earlier. They both stand, neither quite knowing what to say or do, and after a moment’s silence, turn towards the school at the same time and start their walk back together.
They’re already approaching the front gates of the school when she finally speaks. “Thank you for this.”
His head flips to hers, startled by her voice after the prolonged silence. “You’re welcome,” he musses his wind-swept hair.
“It was really fun.”
“It was,” he smiles as they enter the corridor leading to her chambers. They walk up the stairs in silence before both coming to a stop in front of her door.
She turns to look at him and is taken aback by the look on his face. There’s a flush to his cheeks that she can now see beneath the lantern-lit hallway. His eyes are alight as he looks at her, biting the inside of his cheek. His expression is warm, inviting even, unlike anything she’s ever seen directed at her.
She flushes under his gaze, and suddenly, the energy in the air shifts.
“So,” he says, rocking on his heels.
“So,” she whispers, tugging a lock of hair behind her ear.
She can’t help but think that he wants to say something, as she feels her own mouth open, and close silently, not quite having the nerve or clarity to utter anything herself.
Something scurries past them in the hallway, and both their heads turn to catch the movement.
Mrs.Norris pads past them and disappears around the corner.
When they look back at each other, the moment is gone.
He meets her eyes with a resigned expression and sighs. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she breathes, pushing the disappointment down with the door handle. “See you then.”
The next few days follow the same pattern. She dresses in all black, and they start on the same broom - Hermione at the front and Draco slotting up behind her back. They meet at the quidditch pitch after dark and sail through the air together until nighttime falls.
Each day she thinks it’ll get easier to process seeing his arms come around her and wrap around the handle, but each passing day just fills her with more angst. Every movement of his body, every word that leaves his mouth, every breath that she feels along her skin drives her positively mad.
On the second day, he wears a fitted henley to match her own, and she’s certain he catches her staring at the way the fabric pulls against the muscles on his chest.
On Sunday, he wears a t-shirt, just as she does, and the contact of skin is the only thing she can focus on until she throws her head under her blanket later that night.
The days leading up to the tournament fly quickly before it’s the night before, and she’s an anxious mess. She stands before her mirror and stares at herself, hating the realization that comes over her - that the only reason she hasn’t felt afraid of heights is because she’s been too distracted in the air by him.
He had been right. She wasn’t afraid of the heights themselves; she was afraid of the sensation of falling. And with him, sturdy arms like a cage around her, she has no fear of that.
The problem is that she’ll be up on the broom by herself for the match, on a completely different team than him, no steady arms prepped to catch her if she falls.
And she feels completely unprepared for what awaits her the next day.
She awakes early, hours before the sun even rises, a jittery mess, after sleeping barely a few hours the night before.
She stumbles out of bed and peers out from her window, which overlooks the pitch.
It’s empty, and her heart stutters in her chest.
She dresses quickly and grabs the broom perched next to her door before scurrying through the still quiet hallways and pushing through the castle's front doors.
The morning wind is surprisingly warm as she drops her things on the ground and mounts her broom slowly.
There’s a tentativeness to her movement, a shaky confidence that she barely feels without Malfoy with her, but she swallows it down and forces herself onto the broom.
It slides under her buttocks and floats up slowly into the air.
She hovers a few inches off the ground, taking steadying breaths, telling herself that she can do this, that she’s a capable witch, that she can fight through the fears she had all on her own without Draco’s help. And suddenly, she soars forward, fast and wild, into the air.
The wind billows past her ears, pulling her shirt off her shoulders, as she climbs higher, slowly but steadily. Her stomach lurches with every inch, but she forces herself to look anywhere but down, and before she knows it, she’s soaring with ease.
That innate fear she always had is still there, it’ll likely never go away, but it’s not the same as it always was. It feels smaller now, trumped by something else entirely.
A pull at her gut that she can’t quite place.
She stops her motion in the air and hovers.
The sun is starting to rise over the horizon, but the quidditch pitch is barely lit, the stands casting shadows along the field below her.
“I had a feeling I’d find you out here,” Draco’s voice ghosts from behind her.
She turns, startled, to see him sitting on a broom.
He floats forward, turning to face her and stops when the front of his knee brushes against hers. She doesn’t look at him when she speaks, as that pull on her gut amplifies.
“Have you been looking for me?”
“Yes,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” she continues to gaze at the sunrise.
“About the last week.”
She turns her head to look at him, and he’s already watching her. “What about it, Malfoy?”
He clears his throat as she sees the tension pull into his shoulders. “I really enjoyed it.”
His knee presses into hers harder, and she can’t help the way her hands tighten around the wood of her broom.
“I enjoyed working with you too,” she smiles.
There’s a pause in the air between them as they both come to terms with what the other means, neither quite sure if it’s the same thing they’re thinking.
“Why are you up here?” he finally asks.
“I wanted to see if I could do it without you.”
“How’s it coming along?”
“Fine,” Hermione slouches forward on her broom, eyes watching him intently, looking for the shift or tell of how he reacts to her next words. “But I don’t like it as much alone.”
It takes a moment for him to register what she’s said before he smirks, the early morning sun shining off his cheekbones.
The expression is endearing, making her heart flutter, and she moves before she can even think to stop herself.
Her knee digs harder into his until the pressure pushes them past each other, and her leg stretches open. The inside of their thighs meet as they slide together until her knee presses against the wood of his broom.
It’s a compromising position, and his breath catches at the contact on sensitive skin, but he doesn’t move.
She settles back into her broom, one hand falling behind her onto the shaft.
His face flushes as he tries to keep eye contact with her.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, his eyes flashing hungrily down to their interlocked legs.
“What does it look like I’m doing, Draco?”
A cheeky smirk pulls at his face. “Hermione,” he extends his hand to her, “care to ride with me?”
The satisfaction she gets seeing the expression on his face is indescribable. She places her hand in his without a second thought, letting him pull her onto his broom in one swift motion. His movements are frantic as he slots her into the space in front of him, lacking any hesitation when he presses up behind her, breath ghosting the skin of her neck on purpose, and whisks her away.
“What does this mean?” he mutters in her ear, a tone so low that she shouldn’t be able to hear it as they fly, but it rumbles in the depths of her chest. His arms enclose around her tighter than before, stronger than she remembers, and she feels the moment her heart goes from racing to threatening to beat from out of her chest.
She shifts her behind into his crotch and feels as he hisses through gritted teeth. “Would you like me to tell you in the broom closet or back in my chambers?”
“You little vixen,” he breathes as he drops his chin onto her shoulder. The broom takes a nosedive then, speeding along the ground before it deposits them at the base of the pitch. Her feet just land on the ground when the doors to Hogwarts fling open.
They both turn to look at the commotion as groups of students filter out in their house jerseys. Draco looks back at Hermione slowly, and she’s smiling.
She grabs onto the hem of his shirt and pulls him behind her. “Come on, Professor Malfoy,” she teases, leading him towards the broom closet. “Not in front of the children. We don’t want them to see what me and you are about to do.”
Fin.