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Draco was mid-grind when sleep slipped fully away from him. The jolt into wakefulness made the second half of the motion confusing and doubly-arousing, the friction of his pajama bottoms against the firm mattress pulling a sleep-rough groan from his chest.
Shit.
This was the third morning in a row that he’d woken up in the middle of a sex dream. Each dream had been different in content although fundamentally all the same—horrible, uncontrollable, deeply arousing fantasies full of bouncing curls and gasp-parted lips and warm, golden skin absolutely all over him.
Dreams he shouldn’t be having, not in the day nor night, but dreams he couldn’t let go off. Dreams that lingered like perspiration on his skin, making it impossible to work the aching residue of them out of his system without feeling intense guilt. Because it was one thing to get hard over someone but something else entirely to get off over it. One was outside of his control; to give in to the other would be dastardly.
Even if he wanted to very, very badly.
With another forlorn groan, Draco rolled onto his back, feeling the sheets tent. A glance down confirmed what he already knew: he was obscene. Inappropriate. Beyond inappropriate. And frustrated—god, so frustrated.
He shifted around, agitated, and the loosely-contained sway of his cock elicited another low sound of anguish from his chest. How was it that even the gentle brush of cotton felt absolutely electric?
“Merlin, shuddup,” Theo mumbled from the adjacent bed, sounding only half-awake himself. “Did you forget basic dorm-wank etiquette over the summer? Stop moaning.”
“I’m not moaning,” Draco defended, voice hushed so as not to wake the rest of the Eighth Year boys. “And I’m not wanking, either.”
A rustle of fabric heralded the emergence of Theo from behind his hangings, propped up on an elbow and peering owlishly at Draco across the scant space separating their beds. Draco regretted not drawing his own curtains, but he’d long since lost the ability to sleep comfortably in a small, confined space.
“Ah,” said Theo knowingly, eyes on Draco’s lap. “Not wanking yet, you mean.”
“Not wanking at all,” Draco insisted, scrubbing his hands over his face and then up into his hair. Theo’s looking at your dick, he told himself loudly, in case his body needed the explicit reminder. Bye-bye, erection.
But his cock didn’t seem to care, not when he could still catch the faint scent of her on the scarf he’d shoved under his pillow; a scarf he hadn’t meant to pick up except that it had been left forgotten beside her usual table in the library and it was going to get colder soon so he knew she’d need it and—
And he’d been unable to resist the lure of it.
He’d kept it safe and snug under his pillow all week, driving himself to madness in his dreams and to stiff, throbbing hardness upon waking. She hadn’t asked about it, as far as he knew, so hadn’t yet felt the external pressure to return it. Maybe once her scent had dissipated. Maybe, a little part of himself whispered, maybe he wouldn’t return it until it was saturated in his own scent.
“What, you’re just going to will that away?” Theo asked, deeply incredulous.
Draco sighed again. It was true that he had an impressive showing at the moment, as if his cock thought that the only reason it was being neglected was because Draco had forgotten about it. If only. Certainly, it had been a few days since he’d paid himself any proper attention, but until he got her out of his head, he refused to.
And it seemed that getting her out of his head was a near-impossible feat.
So, each morning he’d simply dressed, tucked himself up under the waistband, and thanked the Hogwarts administration for adhering to the antiquated custom of formal robes for class. Even so, it had taken until the end of breakfast for the first day’s to subside, and yesterday’s had persisted until halfway through his first class. Which meant today, if the pattern continued to escalate exponentially, he’d likely be adjusting his robes until Potions—ah, which he shared with her, so…not until lunch then.
Gods, he was going to be useless in class all morning.
His fourth sigh was the most dramatic of the lot, enough to get Theo sitting up with a stupid smile on his face.
“Merlin, Draco, just have one off the wrist and be done with it. It’s not like you’ve never debased yourself before.”
Draco tsked. “Believe me, I want to but I…can’t. Not until I clear my head.”
Theo’s brows went up at that. “Ohh. I see. Go on then, tell me what’s gotten you all worked up and I’ll absolve you. Was it the Grey Lady again? Because I’ve told you, just because she’s a ghost, doesn’t mean it’s necroph—”
“It’s not that,” Draco interjected. It was entirely too early in the morning to hear Theo’s no kink shaming lecture again. “It’s a living person.”
Theo paused, and then his grin went delighted. “Person? Do you mean a boy? Because again, Draco, it’s completely natur—”
“I know, I know — it’s not that, either. It’s a live, human girl. Woman. Erm, our age. A friend. Sort of.” He raked his fingers through his hair again at the bumbling explanation. Merlin, he was a fucking mess. “It’s just that I’d feel guilty. Thinking about her while I…you know.”
“So think about something else,” Theo deadpanned.
“Funnily enough, that concept did occur to me.”
Draco tried to keep his tone mild but acknowledging what he wanted to do to himself had only made him want it more. And those amber eyes were still blinking open inside his skull, making him both harder and more despairing in equal measure.
“But she…it’s hard to think of anything else, not when it’s because of her that I’m all…” He petered off, the rest unnecessary to verbalize when the evidence was hard to ignore.
“Aren’t you noble,” Theo simpered, then rolled his eyes. “But really, what’s the harm? She wouldn’t know, and I’m sure you’d be very respectful about it in your head.”
Draco finally deigned to glare at his friend. “I would know.”
Theo considered this. “Is what you fantasize doing to her…immoral?”
Draco blanched. “Merlin, no.”
“So what’s the problem? Do you think she’s never been wanked over before? That you’ll somehow corrupt her metaphysical virginity?” Theo dipped his head significantly. “Do you think she’s never wanked before? For all you know, she’s done it while thinking about you.”
The thought sank through Draco like a hot stone, sizzling all the way down to his gut. Oh Circe, he’d never—surely she didn’t—not about him—
His cock jerked so fervently that Theo whistled.
Draco dropped a hand to cover himself, annoyed at his invasive friend and his over-eager cock and the dour reality that he’d somehow developed a conscience about masturbation. Anyone else and he might have just gone for it and sent a silent apology out into the universe for using them as wank material, but…but he couldn’t—not while thinking about her. Not without—Salazar. He stared at the canopy—not without her express permission to do so.
Since his hand was already there, he gave his cock a consoling squeeze. God, he was hard. Impressively, record-breakingly hard. It would be a waste to let it subside; to not use it for something productive and wonderful. But he wouldn’t let himself be selfish with her body, not even in his head.
“You don’t even know who I’m thinking about,” Draco reminded Theo in a crisp undertone. “So bugger off with that talk.”
Theo’s voice dripped with sardonic pity. “Don’t I?”
In his opinion, Draco had kept his wildly irregular crush a complete secret, so the suggestion otherwise was extremely unsettling. If Theo suspected, then who else had noticed? He cut a sidelong glance to Theo, who was smiling impishly.
“Do you?” he asked hesitantly, half not wanting to hear it confirmed.
“Oh? Would you like me to say her name?” Theo offered, grin expanding. “Would that help your little situation?”
It was entirely likely that hearing those six syllables would cause a coalescence between mind and body that Draco would be helpless to control, and so he played at bored and rolled his eyes extravagantly.
“No, you cad. I’m sure you’re mistaken, anyway. Go back to sleep. I’m going to…” He hesitated, but dire times called for dire measures. “...ugh, go take a cold shower.”
Theo snorted. “Better double-up on your Silencio.”
“Just a shower,” Draco emphasized, curling up to a sit.
The press of his cock was uncomfortable, the material of his pajamas not stretchy enough to provide the space now required. He slid awkwardly to the edge of the bed, the first touch of his bare feet on the frigid stones an unwelcome preview to what was about to occur to the entirety of his body. There was nothing – almost literally nothing – worse than a cold shower.
It would almost be preferable to lose half his attention span and reroute the majority of his cardiovascular system for several classes than to suffer through it, except that he needed every ounce of his intellect to maintain his suave exterior in front of her, and, secondarily in every way, ensure he retained the important parts of the lessons.
Sometimes just sitting across the Great Hall, watching her cutting up her breakfast into perfect little bites was enough to get him going. He wanted her meticulous attention to detail directed towards him, and to arrive at the table already fixated on her, body attuned to her…
A cold shower it had to be. Damnit.
The muffled sound of Theo’s amusement followed him across the chilly room and to the adjoining bathroom where he found himself blissfully alone. It made his public indecency easier to manage, not that the bathroom was a stranger to erections nor the natural conclusion of them. Not that his would be concluding naturally this morning.
No, today it would be destroyed in the most grievous of ways: pounded upon by a thousand tiny icepicks until even his balls had retreated out of the direct line of fire. He would emerge from the shower stall sad and deflated, skin adorned with pink splotches and goosebumps, and would shiver until he got a hot cup of tea in him. It would be horrendous. But in order to persevere, it was necessary. And at least his hair would be extra shiny after.
The cold water tap squeaked as he turned it on, the subsequent rush of water through the pipes ushering forth his punishment.
Did girls understand how much self control it took to not only resist an inappropriate wank but to further quell an unrepentant stiffy by submitting to the icy torrents of shower hell? Based on the lack of sympathy Pansy had ever shown, Draco surmised that they weren’t similarly self-flagellating. Surely if they knew how horrible it was, they’d be a bit more empathetic when those unconscious, uncontrollable hard-ons pressed against them during an innocent cuddle or a friendly hug or a fervent snog in an alcove.
Not that Draco had experienced any of those events in eons, inhibited as he was from acting on the sole object of his desire. No one else could possibly fill in for her, and Draco didn’t do second-best.
Dutifully, he stripped out of his pajamas, taking care to fold each garment neatly and set it carefully on the little bench because he took pride in his things, not because he was stalling. Standing naked just outside the shower stall was almost worse than being within—and it was unwise to linger in case Theo hadn’t gone back to sleep and might yank the adjoining door open at any moment, presenting Draco with further unsolicited comments—so with a deep, strengthening inhale, Draco stepped behind the curtain.
Merlin’s fucking tits.
The ice-cold mist assaulted him first, contrasting with the comparatively warm air and highlighting exactly how terrible his next two minutes were about it be. Was it worth it? To step under the spray and snuff out a little bit of his happiness forever?
He thought of the look she would send him as he walked into the Great Hall, the way her gaze always found his and held for a tiny, infinitesimal moment before she was either drawn back into conversation, or completed whatever eating-or-drinking action she’d been midway through, or—beautifully, disastrously—sent a tiny smile over at him.
The shiver that wracked through him had nothing to do with the goosebumps pricking along his entire body. The ache in his groin was unending.
Fuck.
He stepped under the spray and barely muffled his shout of shock as the water cascaded over him, colder than the Great Lake; colder than the glacial run off he’d once fallen into on a holiday in the Alps. He pulled in shuddering breaths through his nose, letting the water hit his chest and pour down to extinguish where he was still adamantly up for the task. It was almost impressive how persistent his cock was today. What in Merlin’s name had he been dreaming about, exactly? All he could recall were the flashes of sensation; the gut-warming allure of having her attention and desire and permission to do all the things he’d mapped out over the years.
Because yes. Damnit. His infatuation had been gestating for a while.
At first, he’d misconstrued it as hatred or envy, but it had slowly shifted into something he’d quietly nurtured, something tender that he’d tucked away, safe in the cocoon of his heart, during the realities of the last few years, only for it to emerge sticky-winged and beautiful in the wake of the war. He’d left out to dry all summer as they’d worked together-but-mostly-separately rebuilding the castle, and after that, it had soared high up above him, brilliantly out of reach but impossible to look away from.
Despite her friendly looks and lack of reticence to be partnered with him during the repairs and even more directly in Potions, he had a sense she didn’t hold a similar fascination with him. That he didn’t turn her heart rate into an erratic, pounding beat; didn’t fill her stomach with nauseating flutters. He was just the blonde prat who’d tormented her for years.
Oh shit, was this karma? Was this just his turn to be tormented by her?
How unfair for it to be with dreams that stoked his fire for hours; with world-class erections he couldn’t allow himself to stroke; with near-constant distraction in class.
How just.
The water was so cold it burned, his nipples so tight they hurt, every inch of his skin hyper-sensitive with goosebumps, but mercifully, finally, it worked. He groaned with relief, head tilting backwards out of the spray as he finally felt himself shrinking back to his socially-acceptable form.
Is this what being a good person was truly like? Potter probably had a cold shower every morning. It would explain a lot.
A quick dip under the spray to wet his hair and then he was swearing hoarsely and tugging back the curtain, scrabbling for his towel and bundling it around himself all the way to the ears, shivering in the quiet, cold bathroom.
If he woke up hard tomorrow, it was entirely possible he would cry.
She sucked jam off the side of her thumb, her eyes meeting Draco’s across the Great Hall in a blink-quick touch as she did so, and his cock hardened so rapidly, he had to brace a fist on the tabletop lest he keel right over.
The morning was dreadful.
By some miracle, his second erection of the day had relinquished itself without requiring he take forceful measures again, but it had lingered in his mind, distracting him all through Double Charms. The walk down to the dungeons was a brief reprieve but when he slid onto the stool beside her—his assigned Potions partner—and saw the lesson waiting for them on the chalkboard, he knew it’d only be a matter of time until he was debilitated again.
Professor Slughorn, it seemed, had a twisted sense of appropriateness and thought that, in the spirit of unity, they ought to understand the nuances of infatuation. It might not have been an unsubtle reference to the Dark Lord’s lust for all the wrong things, but, as Slughorn pontificated about the fine line between a healthy attraction and a dangerous, fatal obsession, Draco thought the allusion rather apt.
He’d certainly fallen victim to the lure of unhealthy admiration time and time again, but now, walking that line between sanity and whatever it was that Granger was doing to him, he found it was a topic he didn’t need revision in.
Ingredients were gathered and burners lit. Draco accepted whatever tasks Granger assigned him, quite happy to stand to the side and let her handle direct contact with the nefarious brew. He certainly had no need for it.
As Granger stirred in a steady counter-clockwise, Draco observed her out of the corner of his eye. She had her hair pulled back into a tidy braid today, a precaution he could appreciate given how fluffy and unruly her curls typically got around the high humidity of a boiling cauldron. Not that he minded when her curls took on a personality of their own, the spirals separating as if teased apart by careful fingers, the little halo of frizz bringing to mind the soft destruction of a pillow and a sleepy blink awake.
Did it swell like that in those first few seconds upon stepping into a hot shower, when the mist and steam clung to the curls before she tilted her head back and let the water saturate them? The curls were so tight when dry, how far would they stretch down her back when wet?
“Malfoy?”
Her voice brought his gaze up from where it’d been—oh fucking Merlin—drifting slowly down her back.
“I wasn’t–” he blurted, then cut himself off before he made it worse by protesting too adamantly. “What is it?” he asked, voice back to his normal register.
She was frowning at him, like she was trying to figure something out, then twitched her head in a half-shake, as if needing to manually refocus herself. “I asked if you’d finished cutting the mistletoe berries. It’s nearly time to add them.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the cutting board in front of him, his knife positioned inertly against the cutting surface though, thankfully, surrounded by a neat pile of perfectly minced berries. “Yes.”
“Great.” Her quizzical tone brought his attention back to her. She was still studying him, her wrist loose but exacting as she kept up the slow rotations in their shared cauldron. “Are you…alright?”
Immediately, his cheeks flared with heat. Fuck, was he being obvious? After all his efforts to remain aloof, leave it to Amortentia Day for his facade to finally fail.
He offered her a mild expression, ignoring his blush. “I’m fine. Why?”
“Hm. You seem….” A slight tilt of her head and then her gaze slid back to the potion. “Nevermind. Alright—add the berries.”
He slid the blade under the pile of berries, holding his palm carefully against the sharp edge so that none slid off prematurely. She stepped to the side, giving him space to carefully tip them into the liquid. The resulting plume of fragrant steam that wafted up as the final ingredient completed the brew nearly took him to his knees.
“Fuck,” he blurted, then sidestepped quickly away.
The knife clattered inelegantly to the worktop, his hand curling into a fist as his stupid, pathetic, beastly cock flared to life with vengeance.
His nose was filled with the scent of gardenias; a veritable garden-full. He wanted to inhale until his lungs were screaming, to fill himself with that scent; one that reminded him of warm summers under open skies, and group projects in the library, and the quiet contentment of having a small, private joy.
“Malfoy…?” His name held the all-too-familiar lilt of concern on her tongue and panic flared that she’d discovered his reaction to the potion, but then she faltered, eyes flicking from him back to their cauldron and going wide. “Oh. It worked.”
Freshly mown grass, he recited to himself automatically. New parchment.
And a third thing she’d kept to herself.
Was it pathetic that he’d remembered something she’d shared only once, years ago? It hadn’t been on purpose—not really—it had just been…interesting. An unconscious new addition made in the little Hermione Granger notebook that he kept shoved between the Things I’m Allowed to Fantasize About and Things To Be Watchful Over books in his head.
“Did it?” he said, aiming for mild academic interest. “Excellent.”
She was peering in, inhaling carefully and mumbling half-distractedly. “Yes…although it’s…hmm.” Her head shot up, and then her hand. “Professor?”
Shit. Draco leaned forward against the table, hoping the hard edge would scare his erection away. Alas, it was used to his rough handling and throbbed happily instead. Before he could do anything other than grit his teeth, Slughorn was ambling over, peering at Granger with expectant curiosity.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”
“I think we’ve done it correctly,” she began, “except that it’s not the same as last time. The scents, I mean. Could you check it?”
His scents hadn’t changed from his last exposure in Fifth Year, but then again he’d been deep in the throes of his reality-dismantling realization. If her scents had changed since then, then…well, he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. The little mental notebook was energetically flicking to the appropriate page, ready to strike through his previous entry and update it with her new attractions. Externally, he kept his expression vaguely disinterested.
Slughorn bent over their cauldron, inhaling tentatively at first and then a deep lungful. He sighed it out happily.
“A perfect brew,” he assured her. “I daresay anyone who had a drop of this potion would find themself quite infatuated. Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger.” A quick glance to Draco had him adding on, “And ten to Slytherin, of course. Well done, Mr. Malfoy.”
“Thank you sir, but, the different scents…?” Granger prompted, expression still unsure.
Slughorn clucked consolingly. “Experiencing a different scent profile is not uncommon. As we mature, so do the things that attract us. It’s perfectly natural, Miss Granger.”
Her shoulders were still tense though her expression shifted from mild concern to relief. “Oh, of course. That…makes sense.”
It was clear by her tone that it didn’t, but Slughorn gave her a beaming grin all the same and then toddled off to see who had need of him next.
Alone with their perfect love potion, Draco experienced a mini crisis.
He’d known, obviously. He wasn’t stupid, and in the past year-or-so, he’d been intentional in eradicating as much willful ignorance as he could. And on top of that, his subconscious had been hammering it home quite adamantly for years, and had been practically kicking the door open in the past week.
But it was a confirmation he hadn’t truly wanted, to know that each subtle note of what attracted him was made corporeal in a single person. To know that it hadn’t changed in years.
Gardenias, cardamom, and a briny, carbonic, faintly woodsy scent he’d toiled over identifying until he’d caught a whiff of it while working alongside her once, having caught the scent when she’d accidentally gotten ink on her fingertips. He’d wanted to lick it off, one finger at a time.
Smelling that combination in concentrated potion form while standing next to the human source was wreaking havoc of the emotional, mental, and physiological nature because oh Merlin, unless he either overcame his fear of rejection or threw out his personal standards surrounding appropriate masturbatory visualizations, he was destined for a lifetime of unsated erections.
He’d never be rid of her—whether he wanted to or not.
(Not. Not not not.)
He clenched his jaw so tightly that it ached, but at least it distracted him momentarily from the ache south of his belt. If they were done with the potion, then he was getting the hell away from her. He couldn’t be trusted not to disgrace himself in one way or another with those dangerous fumes already beginning to saturate the room.
“Nice work,” he told her brusquely, tidying up his workspace with a few broadly-cast cleaning charms and then stacking the cutting board and knife back at the top corner of the workspace. “You can take care of that, yeah?” He gestured to the cauldron and its nefarious contents.
Her brows were knit as she observed his hasty retreat but she didn’t berate him for abandoning the task to her. Instead she just tilted her head in that same figuring-it-out way of hers. “Of course. But where are you–?”
“Got a headache,” he lied, slinging his bag across his chest and then casually positioning it over his front. “The fumes—I’m just going to have a lie-down before lunch.”
Her mouth opened on another question but he gave her a curt nod and fled.
The dorm was empty.
He sent a silent thanks up to the saint of small mercies then flung his bag on his bed. He could still smell her—the potion—and so tore off his outer robes and then his jumper, tie, and shirt.
The scent lingered. Stripping down fully in the middle of the dorm was unwise, given that the door was unlocked and that the room was shared with others who might turn up at any moment, but he was going to be stiff as a pole until he got rid of the scent, and it was getting really, really hard to do anything but…be hard.
The trousers had to go, and his socks…and his boxer-briefs, too, just to be safe. Standing there, naked and panting, he could still smell every note of it. Gardenias. Cardamom. Ink. Shit, the fumes had definitely permeated his hair during that brief moment he’d leant over the cauldron.
He’d have to shower again. Perhaps it could be a nice hot one? Something relaxing and truly cleansing, with plenty of soap. Fuck. No—that would lead to one thing and if he so much as gripped himself, he knew it would be over. He’d be sudsing himself up properly, getting his cock so…fucking…clean.
No. It had to be a cold one. Again.
A gusty, forlorn sigh and then he stalked to the bathroom. He could do it. It was just pain. Just suffering. He had long since mastered both. Except that…ugh, it was so cold. And being cold was horrid.
As he turned on the cold tap and stepped under it for the second time in less than five hours, he considered the moral fiber he was exhibiting. Was this Order of Merlin worthy? It surely ought to be.
He shoved his head under the spray, spitting out a string of curses to withstand the way it felt like burning alive. It would just be a quick hair wash and then she would be rinsed from him.
Except that the visual of it—of her essence cascading from his hair down his shoulders, along the rise of his chest and the knobs of his spine, over the ridges of his abdomen and the cut lines of his hips, down to where he was perpetually ready to be of use…fuck—it made him mindless.
He was fisting himself before he realized he’d done it, his other hand lifting to brace against the tiles as he worked himself in quick, firm, helpless strokes. Fuuuck it had been too long. It was almost laughable, how unbearably fucking hard he was even as the icy water poured down his back.
Would she laugh at him, to see him weak for her like this? Breaking down like this? Abandoning his good sense and moral high ground and last shred of dignity? Pumping himself like a degenerate, gasping out little huffs of air that carried the thin edge of a needy whine, fucking his fist as if it was anything close to the hot, slick, snugness he craved.
Pleasure surged, huge and inviting, and just when he was about to reach for it, the bathroom door opened.
Fuck–
He squeezed around the base of his cock tight, willing his thighs to stop trembling, willing his breath into a normal, controllable pant so that he didn’t give himself away. There were basic rules to cohabitation and having a loud orgasm in a communal space with an unsuspecting audience was a strict Mustn’t Do.
He inhaled a slow, measured breath through his nose, trying to focus on the freezing water and not the fact that his unchastised balls were pulsing with the need to flood his cock. He could hold it off—it would just be a moment of lingering at that eye-rolling edge and then whoever was out there would turn on their shower, or nip to the bank of toilets, or do something else beside standing directly outside his curtain, and he’d be allowed to quietly suffer through an abbreviated orgasm and finally turn the tap to hot as a small, undeserved reward.
But then the intruder spoke.
“Malfoy?”
His entire body throbbed, balls lifting hopefully and cock pulsing so fervently he had to squeeze with every bit of his Quidditch-trained grip strength. His vision whited out, just a little bit, at the constriction but he found a blip of control.
Merlin’s fucking tits, what the fuck was she doing here? This was the Eighth Year boys dorm—it was considered off limits to anyone else, particularly girls, though the castle magic had never extended in that direction. But despite what the ancient stones thought, he knew girls weren’t incapable of sin. Not that she would be here to—
“G-Granger?” he choked. Gods. Her name alone; the way it vibrated in his throat—fuck. “What are you doing here?”
“You looked like you were ill,” she said, voice both cautious but resolute, like she knew she was breaking a rule but considered it a rule worth breaking. “Mistletoe berries are highly poisonous, and you’d been rather distracted in class so I was worried you’d nicked yourself and gotten some juice in the cut. Or…or licked your finger, or…”
Her voice felt like silk around his cock. Not stroking himself was taking all his effort. His muscles were burning with the tension of not moving.
“I don’t lick my fingers,” he managed, and finally found the sense to release himself, planting the second hand safely on the wall alongside the first. His cock bobbed adamantly, the motion arousing enough that he had to squeeze his eyes shut. “Es-especially not in Potions. I’m not an…an idiot.”
“No, I know…” He could imagine her chewing the edge of her lip in that way of hers. With his eyes closed, it was all too easy to visualize. A little flash of sharp, white teeth. The unbearable plushness of her bottom lip. A damp flick of tongue.
He turned his face into his arm, teeth sinking into his bicep in desperation as the raw heat and hopeless want teased its way up the thick vein to pulse right below the swollen ridge of his cock. Two strokes, if that, and he’d be shooting so hard, she’d probably hear it against the tiles.
He bit himself a little harder, panting against his damp skin. Don’t come. Don’t come, don’t come, don’tcome—
Even through the cold water rushing over him, he could smell gardenias.
She needed to leave. She needed to leave straight away.
“I’m fine,” he said, the words muffled against his arm. “Can you–can you leave now.”
“Are you in pain?” she asked. She sounded closer. Just the other side of the curtain. “Do you need help?”
An uncontrollable laugh escaped him, half bark and half strained tension. Was he in pain? He was fucking dying.
“Yes,” he laughed bitterly.
And then, when the curtain was whisked open, he realized she’d asked him two things.
“Oh.” Considering where she’d found him, the surprise in her tone was entirely confusing. “Oh, you’re…naked. Fuck.”
At the current moment, he was both so mentally poor and so disastrously worked up that he simply hacked out another strained laugh, lifting his head from his arm enough to peer over at her incredulously.
“I’m in the shower,” he deadpanned, the words catching in his throat. “Of course I’m naked.”
She was maintaining eye contact with him as if it was the ultimate test, not even blinking as she stared resolutely forward. “I thought you might have gone in fully clothed, in case you had something on your…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes flicked down meaningfully, forgetting herself already, and then…lingered. “Oh…my god.”
It was the breathy reverence that finally knocked the malfunctioning mental cog back into working order. He was naked and unspeakably hard, and Hermione Granger was looking.
Her eyes flared as his cock flexed to tap against his abdomen before bobbing at a gravity-defying 60 degrees, the clench hard enough to steal his breath. He panted out the resulting harsh exhale and waited for her to shriek and dart away, to flee to the Headmistress’s office to have him summarily expelled for indecent acts, or even more disastrously, to Weasley and Potter, who would likely find it within themselves to gut him like a fish properly this time.
And then on the other side of the bathroom door, the door to the dorm banged open and, with a muffled startle, she darted forward.
Into the shower.
His next breath caught in his throat, and then he was discovering that yes, her hair did expand when misted upon even when confined in the braid, and yes, the dampening of her lashes did make the warm amber of her eyes impossibly beautiful, and yes…yes he could come just like this. Hands on the wall, mouth against his arm, simply looking at her. It was enough.
He bit into the muscle, hard enough to hurt, in order to stop himself from doing just that.
A second later, her expression went horrified, and he felt a fissure of panic that he’d accidentally done it anyway—had striped her with a hot lick of his come—but a downward glance confirmed he was still heavily laden, still pent right up.
“Merlin fuck, the water is freezing,” she hissed, and shifted her trajectory from whatever she’d been heading for to the knobs at her left. “Why are you showering in ice-cold water? Godric above, Malfoy—”
She twisted the cold tap off and spun the hot tap impatiently, squirming out from the spray to press against the wall under the shower head, right in front of him.
Ha, he thought dazedly. Girls truly had no clue then.
Under the rising heat of the water, his muscles began to relax, his body sinking into the luxury of it. The comfort of not being cold smoothed his thoughts out from constrained fight-or-flight back to the normal, easy glide. But with clearheadedness came the unwelcome jolt of reality, namely that she was in the shower with him.
Hermione Granger was in the shower with him and he was doing nothing but panting and staring at her and, shit, very likely leaking from his flushed tip. A flushed tip that was pointed right at her rather aggressively—shit he was completely naked and she was here—
“Jesus.” He finally dropped a hand to cover himself in a belated impulse for modesty. “Shit, Granger, what the fuck—”
Her eyes snapped to his, expression going wary at whatever expression of shocked disbelief had taken over his features.
“Sorry! Oh god, I just…invited myself in without asking—and you’re…” Her gaze was resolute on his face. “...busy.”
In the dorm, someone was making a hell of a racket, banging around in their trunk as if they were repacking all their textbooks purely for the enjoyment of the chore.
Right. She was hiding.
“Someone’s out there,” he said dumbly. “It's fine. You’re fine.”
She blinked; licked her lips. “Okay.”
For a protracted moment, they just looked at each other. The water was hitting his shoulder, his head bowed just to the side of the spray, hands still braced on the wall below the shower head. Her new location put her just beside his left hand. An arm’s length away. That was it. That was all. It would take half a second to close the distance, to bury his nose in her gardenia-scented curls or lick into her mouth and all over her skin, to try and discover where that hint of cardamom lurked.
The water temperature was nearing his preferred just-shy-of-scalding, and in the tight space, he could see the flush of deep rose blossoming in her cheeks. There was something going on behind her eyes, those same calculations she’d been running in Potions ramping up as she looked at him, blinking sporadically against the spray of water that was slowly beginning to wet the front of her body.
Her jumper was beaded with moisture, perfectly spherical little droplets resting daintily on the knit material like tiny diamonds. She followed the path of his eyes, looking down at herself and then hummed a little sound of awareness, reaching for the hem of her jumper and stripping it over her head. Which made sense—damp wool was another of his least favorite things.
And then reality rocketed through him again. She was in the shower with him, and…and stripping.
“Granger,” he blurted. “What—what—?”
She handed the wet mass of fabric to him. “Here,” she whispered, still carefully holding eye contact. “If you’d…be more comfortable.”
Ah. He took her jumper and held it over his cock, the dark material darkening further under the direct beat of the water.
In the dorm, the trunk banged shut.
Draco’s heart was racing, his pulse throbbing in his throat and chest so mightily he was sure that if her eyes drifted downward, she would be able to see it trying to get to her right through his skin. Her throat bobbed on a labored swallow and then she bit the edge of her lip. Rolled the swell of it under her tongue. Dragged her gaze from his.
“It smells stronger when you’re wet,” she said nonsensically, eyes raking over his hair and then sliding along his torso. “And it’s so strong when you’re hot. That day when you came to class straight after a morning fly, still damp with sweat, I…it was…gods. So this is…”
He had no clue what she was rambling about, but he’d heard the words you and hot and his pathetically hopeful, affection-starved brain was running with it. Released from her unbroken stare, his eyes began a survey of their own, only to snag on her chest and…freeze. His mouth parted on a silent exhale because…
Because Hermione Granger was standing in the fucking shower with him and her white school-issued shirt was steadily going translucent, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of lacy texture and mouthwatering, dark little nipples.
Fucking Christ. Fucking hell.
He was definitely getting precome all over her jumper.
The thought pulled an unconscious whine to his throat. He managed to muffle the bulk of behind closed lips but even so, he knew she’d heard it. She licked her lips again, eyes fixed somewhere around his navel.
“Malfoy?” A quiet question, but not exactly timid.
“Yeah, Granger?” he breathed.
She was still staring at his navel, or perhaps just below, where his fist was clutching her jumper to his cock. The proximity of her gaze was making him throb all over, with arousal and nerves and a thin slice of pride. She was staring at his body. Couldn’t look away from his body. She liked his–
“I’m sorry for interrupting you.” He dragged his eyes to hers, finding a familiar glint of purpose in the warm amber. “I could still help. If you wanted.”
The words were English, but the meaning momentarily escaped him.
Perhaps if he scrubbed her jumper over himself just a little bit, he could have a secret orgasm into the soft, sodden knit and then his brain would work properly again.
Merlin, Draco. No.
“Help?” he repeated, daring to hope.
Distantly, he could still hear the person in the dorm, though their actions were mostly drowned out by the shower and the heady pound of his blood in his ears. The repetitive squeak-and-thunk made it sound like they were…jumping on a bed?
Another flash of her tongue brought him straight back to her. Her bottom lip was glossy in the wake. Fuck. “If you're still turned on, I mean. I’d like to help you. If…if that’s something you’d want.”
Was she seriously offering to help get him off? He blinked. Frowned. Cocked his head. He had to be sure, because if she was offering…
“Granger, are you asking if you can…?” He raised a brow and glanced downward meaningfully, but on his way back to her face, his vision snagged on her chest.
Her shirt was completely see-through now, to the point that he could tell exactly how thin and lacy her bra was; how insubstantial the garment must be to go so sheer that he could see the round swells of her tits and her nipples. Hard, solid little points that he could practically feel under his tongue. He wanted to pinch them; wanted to play with them until she was panting and whimpering and—
She was suddenly right in front of him.
It took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t stepped forward but that she had. Under the direct spray of water, the loose curls around her face began to saturate, and clump, and coil, and go absolutely textbook perfect.
Her hands braced on his chest and then slid to his shoulders, the contact sending bolts of raw sensation radiating through him. Oh god, she was in the shower with him and she was practically naked and he was literally naked and she was touching him—
“Yes," she whispered, lips somehow only inches from his. “Can I?”
The heat of the water was perfuming her all around him, adding deeper notes of musk and salt which he could only presume was emanating from her skin; from between her legs—oh god.
He shook his head in disbelief. And then quickly adjusted the motion to a rapid up-and-down, forehead bumping hers as he dipped down to find her mouth. Anything. She could do anything she wanted with him.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, lips brushing hers. “Fuck, yeah.”
One hand curled over his shoulder to cup the back of his neck. The other slid between them, grazing first his abs and then the back of his fist. He exhaled a little gasp and dropped her jumper instantly, cupping her jaw with his newly vacant hand and tilting her just so, so that when he kissed her for the first time, it would be perfect.
She was breathing in harsh little pants, perhaps as suspended in disbelief as he was, but when her fist curled around his cock, there was no hesitation in her grip.
He’d intended to kiss her at the moment she touched him, but she slid her fist right to the base and then straight back to the tip, squeezing around it greedily with a breathy little whimper, and he was capable of nothing but an anguished sound of pleasure.
Oh…oh shit.
He was going to come. A singular stroke and he was going to fucking lose it all over her. He tensed his thighs, toes pressing down to the slick tiles, the fingers at her jaw curling in to find some semblance of a grounding point. But it was no use.
“Fuck, Granger,” he panted. “Wait, fuck, I’m–”
He dropped a hand to her wrist, stilling her fist mid-stroke. His knees were fucking shaking under what he knew was going to be a monstrous orgasm. This is why you don’t repeatedly edge yourself, mate.
“Oh—are you going to come?” The question sounded deeply hopeful, her voice high and strained.
He grunted a tight sound in the affirmative and her fist flexed around him so snugly, his eyes rolled shut, hips juddering forward in an abbreviated thrust completely outside of his control. “Granger, oh fuck–”
His thighs burned with the burden of keeping himself on his feet, the muscles of his abs and arse tensing as he fought the edge he’d tried to stay this side of for days. Distantly, he knew she wanted him to come but she hadn’t said it, and he was operating under a strict regime. Not without her permission. He was going to come thinking of her and he couldn’t—not until she—
“Yes,” she whispered, half moan. “Oh, do it. Let me.”
She began to stroke him hard and fast, as if he wasn’t currently holding her wrist immobile. Oh. Except that he wasn’t. Any semblance of restraint had dissolved at her little hopeful plea, and now he was just holding her steady, helping her stroke him, and the visual of it—of her fingers curled around his cock, and his fingers curled around her wrist—them working together—
He slid his hand to the back of her neck, finding a secure hold, and then he was kissing her, sinking his tongue into her mouth to muffle himself as best he could as his orgasm crested hard. She flicked her tongue along his absently, moaning as she stroked him energetically, every glide of her fist made easier with the way he was filling her palm with what felt like endless pulses of come.
It felt so good. Too good. The noises he was making against her lips were uncontrollable and distantly mortifying, but god, every pulse was pure euphoria. He felt hot and heavy and completely, deliriously spent. Finally.
The aftermath was dizzying.
Against his newly sensitized skin, the water was scalding but he didn’t want to move, not while she was still clinging to him. Because she was clinging to him; her hands were all over him. Fingers were twining gently in his damp hair while others were still stroking lightly up and down his cock, easing him through the intermittent aftershocks. Her tongue was soft against his, a slow, coaxing presence.
For a moment, he savored it, exactly as it was.
And then he stepped forward, bringing her out from under the spray with a gentle hand at her jaw and a slightly firmer one at her hip until her back was against the wall. She hissed out a little sound of protest and he hummed an apology, turning so that it was his back pressed to the cool tile.
She smiled against his mouth, leaning into him. He returned it, and then deepened the kiss.
He was just beginning to formulate the exact way he was going to get her shirt off as the first step toward repaying the favor twenty times over when the bathroom door banged open and their lips jolted apart, wide-eyed.
“Merlin’s bloody beard, aren’t you finished yet?”
Theo.
Of. Fucking. Course.
Draco shot a look toward the curtain. “Bloody hell, fuck off.”
On the other side, Theo made a disparaging sound. “I wasn’t talking to you, Draco.”
What…? Oh fuck, had there been someone else in the bathroom the entire time? But then Granger rolled her lips in, compressing a cheeky, faintly guilty smile.
“Nearly done,” she called out.
Draco’s brows went up. Theo sighed laboriously.
“Fine, fine. Just hurry up, yeah? Lunch is almost over and the lads will be up in droves, and certainly you’d rather not be caught so brazenly in flagrante delicto. Not that I’d mind having to hold them off, of course, but I only have two hands and one—”
“Yes, thank you, Theo,” Granger intoned dryly, but as she gazed up at Draco, he could see the liminal tension between amusement and concern tightening her expression.
The door clicked shut and the distant thud of idle busyness resumed. Draco spared half an exasperated thought to the room beyond and then turned a scrupulous expression on Granger.
“Nearly done?” he drawled. “Hardly. We haven’t even properly started, Granger.”
Whatever tension she’d held vanished under a bemused eye roll.
“I’m nearly finished ascertaining that you’re not suffering bodily harm,” she said in a prim tone. “That’s why I made Theo let me in, anyway. Though now that I think about it, he was suspiciously eager to have me do it, rather than come check on you himself...”
For a fleeting moment, Draco found it in his heart to be grateful for Theodore Nott. And then he refocused.
“Give it a minute and I’ll be suffering again,” he promised, sending a significant look at her wet blouse. Was she opposed to biting? Because her tits were so fucking bitable. He licked his lips, inhaling slowly through his nose as his mouth began to water.
“We should get out of here,” she said, stroking her fingers over his shoulders and making him shiver. Her head tilted as she traced a rivulet of water where it spilled over his collarbone. “Go somewhere dry.”
The thought was immensely appealing, even if it meant having to encounter what Draco knew would be an unbearably smug, chummy Theo on their way to that warm, dry place. Actually on second thought, Theo could probably be convinced to direct the rest of the dorm inhabitants elsewhere, or at least bar the door from the outside this time...
Draco nodded agreeably, then hummed an interrogative sound. “First, tell me. What did the potion smell like to you today?”
The look she sent him was playfully exasperated and punctuated with an expansive eye-roll. “You, obviously.”
Obviously? Please. But either way, he was delighted.
“Could I trouble you to be a bit more specific?” he hedged, both because he was curious what sorts of scents comprised her perception of him, and because he needed to make note of what they were to ensure he never inadvertently removed them.
“New parchment,” she recited. “Vetiver. And what I can only infer is sweaty leather streaked with grass stains.”
He barked a laugh at that and her lips pressed into a little close-mouthed grin.
“Sounds delicious,” he murmured teasingly, sliding his hands down to her arse to keep her close against him.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You are.”
She didn’t seem to mind his hands on her body and so luxuriated in a double-handed squeeze. The damp skirt did nothing to conceal how very biteable her bum was, too. Would she let him? He would endeavor to find out immediately.
“I’ll give you one of my Quidditch tops,” he promised her, then pitched his voice low, brushing the tip of his nose over hers. “Or perhaps an undershirt.”
She bit his bottom lip, hard, and then…so was he.