Genre: Friendship/Romance/Humour

Summary: Hermione's trapped in a confined room with the only person she's ever came close to hating. 

________________________________________

9:13pm

A person did not have to know Hermione Granger very well to understand foolish mistakes were things she just didn’t do. It was ridiculous, unethical even, to think of Hermione ever committing a blatant mistake. Especially when one puts into account the number of times she’s read Hogwarts: A History (five and a half times to be exact, making a point to refresh her memory each year). Meaning, she was quite acquainted with all of Hogwarts recorded quirks and tricks. And so when Hermione failed to jump one of the many vanishing steps Neville was always forgetting, no one could have been more surprised than she.

She was so surprised, in fact, that for four solid seconds Hermione did nothing but stare ahead at the corridor she was supposed to be going, her face frozen in mortification. Even the first-years had gotten used to these steps by now and she’d been at the school for over six years. She could blame it on her frazzled mental state, it had been a long night, but that didn’t change the teensy but not so teensy dilemma that she was horribly and hopelessly stuck.

She looked at her right leg, caught nice and secure in the step. Tired to pull only to achieve making her eyes water in pain.

The sound of voices from one of the adjacent halls had her freezing, torn between whether or not this was good or bad. Good because whoever it was may help. Bad because she was in the dungeons after hours, the furtherest place from her own common room, and the only likely people to find her were Filch, Snape or a Slytherin. And it was with this last thought she deftly decided it was bad. She had Harry’s invisibility cloak, of course, but if anyone walked to where she was stuck they’d run into her. Naturally, this would result in some kind of uproar because the only people on the grounds who knew about Harry’s cloak were Dumbledore, her, Ron and Hagrid. If anyone else found out, even if Harry was allowed to keep the cloak, everyone would know. Everyone would be on the lookout. And while she thought this might put an end his and Ron’s constant rule breaking, it didn’t change that the invisibility cloak had proved very useful for previous and more important occasions.

Therefore, as the voices faded into a pair of footsteps, Hermione concluded that its worth was far greater than her own reputation. She stuffed the cloak into her bag, leaving herself fully exposed to whoever rounded that corner. 

The person who rounded that corner was probably worse than Filch, Snape and some random Slytherin combined. The torchlight caught on white blond hair, and she knew who it was instantly.

Malfoy was looking down as he walked, his face scrunched up in concentration over something. If he’d stayed lost in his own thoughts, perhaps he would have went by without seeing her. But alas, no god was on her side tonight because he did look up and he did see her, and the expression on his face would’ve undoubtedly been hilarious had she not been stuck as she was. His mouth had parted; his eyes were wide, and his eyebrows were raised so high they disappeared into his hairline.

And then Hermione, in an effort to get him to stop looking at her like he was, said the stupidest thing ever, the word sounding shrill and nervous. 

“Hello.”

Malfoy blinked rapidly, at least twenty times.

“I don’t suppose you could give us a hand?”

More blinks. More staring.

“See, I’ve sort of gotten myself stuck, a strange predicament, I realise, but if you could just pull –”

And then suddenly Malfoy threw his head back and laughed louder than she had ever heard him, clutching at his stomach, his face going red and tears streaming down his cheeks. He laughed so hard the sound dissolved into nothing more than the lurches of his shoulders and chest.

Hermione folded her arms and waited. Once he’d straightened up again, she asked patiently, “Are you quite done?”

He was not. No sooner had she’d opened her mouth than he was already doubling over again. Hermione drummed her fingers on a lower step, waiting again.

Malfoy stopped his laughing several times before he’d stand straight, look at her, and crack up again.

“Someone’s going to hear you!” she hissed at him.

“So?” he managed to get out, catching his breath and strolling over to her. “You’ll be the one in trouble.” He looked her over again, probably savouring this commercial sight. Then he kneeled down, and he wasn’t inappropriately close or anything, but Hermione felt herself shuffle slightly back. As far back as one could with their leg trapped in the middle of a staircase, that is. Her hand also fumbled behind into the folds of her bag, feeling for the wood of her wand should he decide to take advantage of her vulnerability. “Granger,” he said levelly. “I don’t like you in the slightest, but in the past you’ve proven to be significantly less annoying than Potter and Weasley have ever been and for that, I’ll help you.”

Her mouth fell open in disbelief when he extended a hand. “Really?”

“I’m not standing out here because I enjoy the torchlight.”

Her eyes flashed from his open palm, waiting for hers, to his face, the soft glow of the dungeons heightening his features. Reluctantly, she reached out, unable to process that Muggle-born germs didn’t seen to be an issue, was centimetres from his hand, hovering directly above, when suddenly Malfoy snatched his hand back with a snicker.

“As if I’d help you much less let you touch me.” He stood, looking down on her with a cruel smirk. “You should be so lucky.”

Disappointment. That’s what she felt, because for all of five seconds she’d thought there was a spark of kindness in him. Quickly following the disappointment, however, was the anger, and without giving it another thought she’d furiously reached out before he could leave her there and caught hold on the back of his robes and yanked.

That was when it happened. One moment Malfoy was tumbling backwards and the horrible thought occurred to her that she had nothing to cushion an indubitably painful fall, and the next she was falling too.

It was a fair drop. Malfoy found this out first; he landed with a loud thud and then a groan, Hermione a second behind and landing half on top of him. Sparks of light flickered across her vision as the back of her head hit the ground. She was dizzy, and blinked hard to focus again. Lying on her back, at a slight angle from Malfoy’s body to her right, she stared up.

The staircase Hermione had been trapped on seconds before was now directly above, missing no longer one step but three others – just enough room for someone to fall through and land… wherever they had landed. 

Hermione sat up tentatively, muscles screaming out in pain. Her elbow was bloody and her forearm chafed from the scratchy rug beneath her, but remarkably that appeared, for now, to be the most of the damage. Malfoy shoved her away from him, making a sound of disgust. Hermione surveyed their surroundings.

Dull orange light from the dungeons above glowed down on them. Dust molecules flittered in the air. The room’s corners, if it had any, were in total darkness. A single cheap looking bookshelf was on the wall opposite from them; the rug they’d landed on was in the centre of the room; and the only real pieces of furniture Hermione could see was a wooden circular table stationed in the middle of the room with only two chairs, placed side by side rather than across from each other. The table had a vase, and in it was a single dead rose, its brown petals curled in on themselves.

Malfoy was coughing and spluttering into the crook of his arm some distance beside her. With an eye roll, she asked dryly, “Are you okay?”

He stopped instantly. Peeked over the top of his arm at her. “Am I okay,” he repeated in a controlled voice, only to yell, “DOES IT BLOODY LOOK LIKE I’M OKAY?” He breathed fast and deep, as though he were hyperventilating. “Where are we?” he asked a second later.

“Look up at the ceiling Malfoy, I’m sure you’ll put two and two together.”   

He glared at her before his eyes flickered to the roof. “Vanishing steps don’t just… vanish! Don’t look at me like that Granger, you know what I mean. They vanish one at a time, not all at once!”

“The world does indeed work in mysterious ways.”

“How are you so bloody calm? I realise I’m incredibly gorgeous, of course, and this would be every female’s dream, but we are stuck several feet under Hogwarts in the middle of the night, in winter, in the coldest place anyone could be!” He stopped, a look of horror on his face. “We could die here.”

“We won’t –” But it was no use, Malfoy had thrown himself at his bag and was frantically going through his schoolbooks in search of a solution to get them out. Hermione sighed. “Right now, the best thing for us to do is wait until we’ve fully comprehended the situation and then decide logically how to proceed.”

Malfoy halted his frantic search, looked at her, and grimaced. “There is no way I can spend an entire night with you.”

“Keep this up, Malfoy, and the chances of me going insane and killing you only heighten.” 

9:46pm

“Come on, Granger.”

“No.”

“Why not? It’ll get us out of here! Don’t you miss the scent of sweet, sweet freedom?”

“The only smell up there is the smell of hundreds of potion ingredients combined, but I can see why people like you would come by to identify that as the ‘scent of freedom’.”

“In that case, wouldn’t you want to escape it and get back to your moronic –?”

“Don’t you dare insult my friends, Malfoy.”

Silence.

“Please. See? I’m being polite.”

“For the last time I will not let you use Levicorpus on me!” Hermione half shouted from her spot beside the bookcase. Malfoy was sitting at the table, having dragged one of the chairs around so he was sitting as far away as possible.

“So what if it’s by your ankle?” he pressed angrily. “At least you’ll frigging get levitated out of here.”

“Malfoy, I would no sooner let you use that spell on me than sleep in the same room as you,” she said bluntly. 

“If you continue on with this attitude that’s what you’ll be doing!”

“All we can do is wait now, I’ve told you this!”

“Who put you in charge?”

Hermione sighed.

Malfoy had so far made four attempts at freedom. The first was by yelling at the top of his lungs, to which Hermione responded by using Silencio on him because after ten minutes they were no closer to getting out and Hermione all the closer to a headache. The second time he’d levitated the chair he was sitting on, only to find it wouldn’t fit through the gap above them. The third time he’d tried to blast a hole through the stairs, Hermione having to hastily Accio his wand and then yell about what he was going to do once he’d made the entire dungeons collapse on them. The fourth time he’d tried moving the table to stand on, and she’d actually stopped studying to watch, thinking maybe this was it, but there had been nothing for him to get his leg around to scramble out, and he’d let out a sharp intake of breath when he tried to bend his left arm a particular way. She offered to take a look, only because he looked so defeated, but the icy glare he’d shot her said enough.

Hermione wanted to get out equally as much as Malfoy. She’d tried to make some suggestions as he was trying to escape their little prison, but he’d told her to shut up and that had been it. The thing was, Malfoy was so determined and desperate to get out and away from her, that he hadn’t even paused to think rationally. He was intelligent, she couldn’t deny, but his desperation was exceeding everything else.

Hermione, meanwhile, had already scrutinised the area and had long since drawn the conclusion that there was nothing to be done until someone came across them, as unappealing as that sounded. She thought she might have been more panicked if it weren’t for Malfoy’s continued escape attempts to keep her distracted. Or if it weren’t for her brain still trying to get around how they’d ended up in such a silly situation in the first place.  

“Are you studying?” he demanded some time later.

She shrugged lightly without taking her eyes off the spell book. “I was going to tomorrow anyway.”

“I guess to someone lacking a life such as yourself you’d consider that fun.”

She dropped her book to the floor, disturbing the dust on the floor. “Have you ever thought maybe you should follow your own advice and shut up? Your presence is infuriating enough, let alone your voice.”

He was taken aback by her audacity for a second, and then he was angry. “Oh, and you think it’s such a joy to be stuck with the likes of you? What the hell were you doing in the dungeons at that time?”

“What the hell were you doing in the dungeons at that time? Curfew, if you haven’t noticed, is nine for us!”

Malfoy stood, incredulous. “You were out too! And I don’t see why because it’s not like you have any friends outside your stupid house.”

Hermione also rose to her feet. “And you do? Nobody likes your house! None of you like anything about Hogwarts, always complaining about some teacher or some student or some defenceless animal or some portrait looking at you the wrong way! If you all feel like that why don’t you just pack up and leave?”

“I still have my wand, Granger.”

“Go on, hex me. I guarantee I’ll hurt you far worse than any pathetic spell you could conjure.”

“Harsh words coming from a Mudblood!”

“Obviously your brain is incapable of producing more insults so why don’t I save you the embarrassment and let you sit in a corner to think of something more original?”

“Have you ever thought maybe you study so much because you know, deep down, you don’t really belong? Have you ever thought all that studying is to compensate for something you know you’re lacking?”

“And yet I beat you every class!” 

He had just stormed over to her, eyes flashing and wand drawn, when there was a strange sound, like stone moving against stone, above, and then everything was thrown into darkness. They both glanced up, already knowing before they did what they would find. The stairs had closed up.

Malfoy unleashed a flow of curse words, shouting to a ceiling they could no longer see.

10:41pm

Neither of them had spoken since their only hope for freedom had sealed itself.

Hermione, getting desperate, was rereading everything she had written today by wand light and Malfoy was drawing ways to either kill her or writing his suicide note. She couldn’t be certain (however, she did catch him smirking to himself once or twice so was leaning towards the former). 

After a couple of minutes, he slammed down his quill and groaned loudly. “I’m going to die in here! Years later they’ll find nothing but my beautiful corpse and – ”

“You’re going to die in here? I also happen to be –”

“– unless we’ve discovered how to bring someone entirely back from the dead, it’ll all be for naught!” he finished dramatically as though she had not spoken. “Although, there is the possibility of perfecting human cloning.”

“Let us pray they don’t,” she muttered.

He shot her an icy glare. “What do you have to be complaining about, huh? Stuck here with the heartthrob of the school.”

Hermione couldn’t contain her bitter laugh. “Heartthrob of the school? Don’t you think you’re being a little generous?”

“Please Granger, I am like a god.” He paused and added as an afterthought, “A sex god.”

“You’re making me sick.”

“Only because you know you are the least likely female on the planet to get a taste of this gorgeous piece of perfection, and that includes Hufflepuffs and Muggles.”

“You know what I hear when you talk? It’s sort of like this continuous blah, blah, blah, blah, blah –”

“And you know what –“

“– blah, blah, blah –”

“– I see when you talk? You open your mouth –”

“– blah, BLAHH –”

“– and it’s like WHOA are those teeth –”

“– blah, blah, blah, blah –”

“– going to rip off my flesh –”

“– blah, BLAHHHH, blah –”

“– or take my soul?”

“BLAH!” Hermione finished, the sane part of her realising she was being totally and completely absurd.

“Wow, listen to you,” Malfoy remarked. “Wonder what dear ol’ McGonagall would say if she could hear her favourite student now?”

“I don’t know,” she replied offhandedly, “I think she’d have some kind of sympathy for me. I mean, it’s only been, what, a little over an hour and you’ve already pushed me to the brink of insanity. God help the poor unsuspecting woman you trick into marrying you.”

“Pansy was crazy long before she met me,” he said after a minute.  

Hermione was thankful she’d put down her wand, casting her face into nothing but a very faint light otherwise he may have caught the twitch of her lips. But she restrained it quickly.

“Hang on, are you saying the only way I could get a wife is if I tricked her?” He did not wait for a response. “Did you miss the entire conversation about my being a sex god?”

“Good boy, Malfoy,” Hermione said in a tone she normally reserved for seven year olds. “You can become anything you want to be if you believe in it enough.”

“Are you patronising me?” he snapped. “It’s your bloody fault we’re in here!”

“My fault?” she repeated in outrage, sitting up straighter. “My fault? If you’d just helped me like a decent person –!”

“If you hadn’t grabbed me –!”

“I didn’t know the stairs would –!”

“Oh, yes you did, this is all some plan –!”

“– already delusional –!”

“– these robes are Abercrombie & Fitch –!”

“– don’t give a damn about your –!”

“– just wait until I shove your head –!”

“– punch you harder than third year –!”

“– violent tendencies –!” 

“– I’m not the one who –!”

And on it went.

12:24am

“Granger.”

Hermione ignored him.

“Granger.”

She kept reading, blocking out his voice.

“Granger, helloooo?”

She closed her eyes and willed him to disappear.

“Grangerrrr?”

“WHAT?” Hermione slammed down her textbook, which happened to be the one she used in History of Magic, which meant it was exceptionally thick and the sound it made colliding with the stone ground was cacophonous, reverberating off the walls around them. 

It took Draco a minute to collect himself, swallowing visibly. He clearly hadn’t been prepared for such an intense reaction. “I need to urinate.”

Hermione blinked. “What?”

“I. Need. To. Urinate.”

She stared at him.

“I NEED TO PEE!” he exclaimed. “My god, woman! Have you lost the competency to speak English? Or are you now deaf from that racket you made?”

“I know what you said, I just don’t understand what it is you’re asking of me.”

“I’m asking just what the hell are we supposed to do without a toilet? Or food? What if we starve to death?”

“Please, the human body can survive up to three weeks without solids.”

“That’s fabulous, really, but it doesn’t solve the real issue here,” he gritted out.

“Which is?” she asked, amused.

“MY BLADDER!”

Hermione smiled to herself; he was fun to toy around with. She sobered up when she noticed he was actually starting to look a little distressed.

“Okay, Malfoy, want to hear a psychological fact?”

Malfoy, who was now pacing around and around the table, shot her a dark look as he passed. “Granger, you are really much more sadistic than I’d have given you credit for.”

Hermione stood up and rested against the wall, following his recurring laps. “You’ve probably heard it before, but you only need to use the lavatory because you know one’s not available.”

“Now you think you know my bodily functions better than me? The term know-it-all is a vast understatement as of tonight.”

“You know you can’t pee, so you’re panicking and your mind’s making your body believe it needs to go more than it actually does.” As Malfoy passed her again, she saw he still did not look convinced. “It’s a bit like the whole wanting what you can’t have concept,” she explained further, crossing her arms and sinking down the wall a few inches. “For example, have you ever been invited to go somewhere with Blaise or whoever, and your parents said no? And it didn’t seem like much at the time, but suddenly with their disproval you now had this gnawing urge to go? Or say there was a person you couldn’t have –”

“We’ve been over this, I can have anyone I want.”

“Not if she’s from the wrong blood purity.” Malfoy paused and looked over at her. Hermione realised that as she had talked, his pacing had slowed down to listen to her. And she did not know why she found this so uplifting (because she definitely had never cared before if he paid attention or not), but it was. She cleared her throat. “Imagine if you couldn’t have Pansy because she was a Muggle, wouldn’t that enhance her appeal?”

Malfoy scoffed, and instead of the snark reply about why he’d ever want someone who wasn’t pure-blooded in the first place that she was anticipating, he said, “Nothing could ever make Pansy appealing.”

“That’s not nice.”

“You hate her.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t change her loyalty or fawning devotion for you.”

“It’s annoying,” he had stopped pacing entirely now, and she wondered if he knew, “I can’t go anywhere without her wanting to know about it.”

“She still cares, I think that should count for something.”

“It’s her fault I was even walking the dungeon corridors when you were.”

“How so?”

“If she had just let me be the first one to walk out of the broom closet instead of making me wait those three bloody minutes, she’d have found you.”

“Broom closet, hey,” Hermione commented, wrinkling her nose. “Classy.”

“What were you even doing down here so late? In case it’s escaped you, your common room is on the seventh floor.”

“I was looking for Nott, if you must know. Head Boy and Girl business.”

Malfoy sunk into his old seat at the table again. Hermione slid down the wall until she was sitting back down. It was calm, for a moment. She would not really call it a civil conversation, but they had just managed to speak to each other without screaming insults. Perhaps the lateness of the night was startling to take its toll.

“You’re not half bad,” Malfoy said after she’d resumed flicking through her History of Magic textbook, “if I were Weasley or Potter, that lie would’ve fooled me.”

Hermione glanced at him. He was doodling idly on some parchment. “I was looking for Nott,” she pressed.

“No, you weren’t.”

She pursed her lips, began turning through her book without reading. “You’re not as brilliant as you think you are either.”

“Hm?”

“You lied too.”

Hermione could feel him watching her now. She did not meet his eye. The silence continued and held, and she considered bringing up that another half an hour had passed and he hadn’t brought up needing to pee, but decided that would defeat the purpose. She would save and use it against him later.

1:08am

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

She looked over at Malfoy in irritation, his fingers drumming against the tabletop for the past six minutes. “Will you stop? Some of us are trying to study for the upcoming exams.”

He did stop, if only to look at her in disbelief. “Exams aren’t for another month!” 

Ignoring him, Hermione jumped to her feet and stretched. She walked to the old bookcase, pulled out a book by random, and could do nothing but watch when it crumbled to pieces in her hands.

“I’ve read Hogwarts: A History five times and I have never read about this place,” Hermione mused, more to herself. She grabbed another book, more delicately this time, and was pleased when it didn’t immediately crumble to pieces. Gently, she rubbed off the thick layer of dust to reveal the rotten and decayed cover beneath it all. The title was in what must have been golden letters, but now looked an odd brown. It was damaged enough that Hermione couldn’t make out the words except for the date under it. 1356.

“Hate to disappoint, Granger, but I think those books may be a bit outdated for studying.”

She half turned. Malfoy was standing behind her. “Actually, I was hoping maybe one of these books might help us get out of here, but obviously…” They both looked down at the ash that had once been the previous book. “They’re too old.”

“You don’t say,” he said dryly.

Hermione opened the book carefully, tried to turn the first page, but it came out in her hand.

“I thought you were studying.”

“I was,” she told him uninterestedly, looking at the pages at random and being less careful – it was going to fall apart either way and there was no one alive to miss it. “But I was using it more as a way to distract myself from you than anything else.”

“And you realised you couldn’t ignore me?” he asked arrogantly.

“I think I found a love note.”

“Trying to change the subject.”

“No, look.” Hermione pulled it out. The writing was far too gone, but she could make out: Yours eternally and with love always, Alice. She went back to the front, where ‘Alice Grouchet’ was printed in the same handwriting. “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it,” she said, fingertips ghosting over the yellowed parchment.

“What is?”

“Well, she obviously never gave this to who it was written for.”

“So?”

“So, he died without ever knowing she loved him.”

“Stop,” he drawled. “I may shed a tear.”

Hermione put the book back, being gentle with it again, then swivelled to him in annoyance. “Don’t you ever get tried about being so passive and distant towards everything? Haven’t you ever wondered what it’s like to, oh I don’t know, show some kind of emotion rather than spending every single waking second being robotic?”

Malfoy was taken aback by the sudden fierceness in her words, but then he recovered. “For someone who’s been an unfortunate aspect of my life for the past seven years, you don’t know me at all. So don’t ever assume to.”   

“I never want to know you,” she hissed, storming over to the table and sitting.

“Excuse you, that’s my spot!”

“My butt hurts.”

“My, Granger, what do you and Weasley get up to?”

“You are single handily the most foul, disgusting, crude person on the planet.” 

“And you are the biggest prude.”

“Just because I am not overly open about my sex life like someone does not make me a prude.” 

“You don’t know anything about what I do in the sheets.”

“Pansy. Daphne. Tracey. Astoria. Those girls from Beauxbatons. That substitute in Transfiguration we had for a week.” 

“I had no idea you listened so much to gossip, ‘Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl who seems to have developed a taste for famous wizards’, namely the ‘Bulgarian bon-bon, Viktor Krum’.” He smirked when Hermione could only stare, taking her former place on the floor.

This time, it was Hermione who drummed her fingers on the table. One, two, three minutes passed. She sighed loudly in defeat. “Fine! I’m… I shouldn’t have…” She gazed intently at the pattens in the wooden table, struggling. “I shouldn’t have so readily believed what people were saying, especially because a lot of it came from Lavender and Parvati.”

“Still not hearing that magical word,” he taunted.

“Ugh, I’m…” she ran a hand through her hair, frizzy despite that it was tied in a ponytail, “I’m sorry! There! I am sorry for judging you.”   

She thought he was smiling, but it had to be a trick of the wand light. “Don’t be. I shagged them all.”

Hermione’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Kidding. If you want to get technical I only tempted Astoria, fooled around with Daphne and Tracey, there was just one girl from Beauxbatons, and I tried so hard with that substitute, but it never went further than shameless flirting.” He said all this flippantly, his legs crossed and head tilted up to the ceiling.

“Thanks for sharing,” she said with an eye roll.

“So. What about it?”

“What?”

“You and Weasley. What’s going on?”

She gazed at him incredulously. “You actually think I’d tell you?” 

“Make no mistake, I don’t care or have any interest in the petty lives the three of you lead, but I am bored out of my mind and I swear if I don’t do something other than drawing aimlessly, planning ways to kill you and arguing about trivial things, I’m going to Avada Kedavra myself right here. And there is no way I’m sleeping because I saw something long and snakelike with thousands of legs crawl up the wall before.” 

“I’m not telling you anything, you’ll use it against me as soon as we get out of here,” she said, because how stupid did he think she was?

“I’ll promise you I won’t,” he said, very near desperate.

Truthfully, she was also bored. And frustrated. And tried. And upset because there was no way she could study under such circumstances even though now, where she was far away from disruptions, was the best time to.

“Okay,” she decided. “But nothing leaves this room and we are only having these conversations for the soul purpose of curing boredom and you will remember I’m top in every class and if you jeopardise this lapse of possible insanity on my part I will personally hex you to pieces and you’ll be covered in so many boils movement will not be possible without excruciating pain.”

He nodded and smirked. “Granger, you are a delight. I’m surprised Potter isn’t fighting for you against the Weasel.”  

“Contrary to popular belief, nothing is happening between Ron and I.”

“But you want it to.”

Hermione shrugged. Hesitated. Then thought to hell with it, this conversation would only be interesting if she participated. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.” She chose her words carefully. “We’d risk messing up our friendship and… I’d never tell him this, but he’s really important to me. Losing him for the sake of a potential relationship, in the long run, isn’t worth it.”

Malfoy nodded. Surprisingly, what next came out of his mouth was not a jibe or some kind of insult. Merely curiosity. “What’s so great about him?”

Hermione smiled automatically. “He’s Ron.” Malfoy’s eyes were locked on her smile when she looked at him, as though he’d never seen one before. “Pansy. Do you love her?”

Malfoy made a great show of pretending to choke. “God, no.”

“She loves you.”

“No, she doesn’t. She thinks she does, thinks what we have is ‘real’, but it’s not.”

“What is it, then?”

He thought for a moment. “Infatuation. On her part. A convenient distraction on mine.”

“Distraction from what?” she asked, genuinely interested.

He laughed humourlessly. “Everything.”

“Vague answer.”

“If we got into the gory details we’d be here for days.” Pause. “The bottom line is, my family’s fucked up. Surely you noticed?”

“A little,” she admitted.

And then it went quiet again. 

2:51am

They spoke about easier things after that – topics that were safe and in no way too personal. By the time thirty or so minutes had passed, Hermione knew that Draco Malfoy’s favourite food was pumpkin pasties and his favourite colour was navy blue. Somehow from their conversations, she’d learned he always had to sleep with socks on and he thought shorts should never be worn by men and he loved the rain and hated the heat and sorted his shirts and pants in two separate piles in his suitcase and he had a talent for drawing but his father thought art was a waste of time and wasn’t something to be pursued. He had a passion for words and could sort of play the piano and, secretly, he really did like Crabbe and Goyle.

Much of the information shared she had guessed at and didn’t come as a surprise, but there was some unexpected. She thought he felt the same by the things she told him. The whole thing was still working as a way to pass the time. She wouldn’t say she knew him inside and out or anything, it was just simple experiences they were sharing with each other that anybody close to them would likely already know. They were sitting lazily at first from opposite sides of the room, but then Malfoy’s backside started hurting and he came to sit across from her at the table, only somewhere in the middle of it all one or maybe both of them had inched their chairs closer, so they were side by side. 

His head had fallen in his hand. Hermione’s head was on the table. She blamed it on her drowsiness for saying what she did next. 

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.”

“I’d marry myself if I could.”

“Good idea because I don’t think anyone else would want to.” She said it teasingly.

“That stung, Granger.” There was amusement in his voice. Tiredness was definitely playing a huge part in all this.

Before she could ask if he was going to answer anytime soon, Malfoy stood up, went to her bag by the wall, and started digging through it. She didn’t see this, her head buried in her arm, so Hermione wasn’t in time to stop him from finding the firewhiskey in her bag.

With wide eyes, Malfoy pulled the bottle out, holding it by the neck. From the look on his face, having Ron or Harry stuffed inside would have been less shocking.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled delightedly, abruptly very awake again. “What has the Head Girl been up to tonight?”

“Put it back,” she growled. “You shouldn’t even be going through my stuff!”

“Oh, as if I could prepare myself for this, Granger. I was merely going to copy some of your notes from History of Magic, but this…” Malfoy eyed the bottle as though he had never seen anything more beautiful, “this is much better.”

“Put it back.” Hermione stood. “We’re not having any, it’s, what, three in the morning, the test is less than eleven hours away, and –”

“That’s why I thought I smelt alcohol! Ah, not so fast,” he said when she tried to grab it. 

“Malfoy,” Hermione insisted through gritted teeth, “please.” 

“Hmm.” He pretended to think about it. “No, I don’t think so, Granger.” She made to snatch the bottle again, but with a smirk he held it above his head. “I don’t know why you’ve got your knickers in such a twist, it’s not as though I’m going to tell anyone, remember? What happens in this fucked up room stays in this fucked up room. You even said so yourself.”

“Yes, with much less profanity.”

“Please, stop trying to act proper. You’re always going to be a raging alcoholic to me now.”

She whirled around to look for her wand, but saw that that too was left in her bag. They had been using Malfoy’s wand for light since he had joined her at the table. Said ferret also happened to be standing between her and her bag.

With a savage-like screech, Hermione practically threw herself at Malfoy. He hadn’t expected this type of reaction and they both stumbled back into the wall, Malfoy still triumphantly holding the bottle over his head, where Hermione was too short to reach.

As a last resort, she grabbed onto his shoulders, ready to somehow climb up him. 

“You know,” he said breathlessly as they struggled, “if you wanted to get frisky, all you had to do was ask…” He shifted the bottle to his other hand when her fingers grazed the glass, using his right hand to try and push her away. “Mind you, I would have said no. I am highly superior to you and, well, you and I just don’t make sense.” 

“Then get your hand off my boob, you dolt!”

“Oh, was that your boob? Terribly sorry I thought it was some kind of mole.”

Hermione, temper boiling over, made another inhuman shriek of fury.

Both continued to wrestle for a while longer, snapping at one another the entire time, until Hermione let out another cry, though this time in defeat. It was too late for this.  

“My god, you’re vocal at this time of night.”

“Shut up and poor me a frigging glass of that goddamn firewhiskey,” she said with such venom, Malfoy didn’t even bother to get suspicious about this sudden change of heart.

He conjured up a goblet and, watching her for any signs she was about to pounce on him again, poured the drink.

He offered it to her tentatively. Hermione grabbed it and swallowed it down in one, coughing and spluttering a moment later.

“Did you actually drink it?” he asked warily.

Hermione walked over to him. Malfoy backed away on instinct, then realising he was afraid of a girl, flushed and took a stubborn step forward. She breathed across his face.

“Does that smell like firewhiskey to you?” she asked over Malfoy’s exaggerated choking fit. 

“Dear god, woman. You could kill a man with that breath.”

“Sod off, Malfoy,” she snapped, sitting in her old spot at the table. She moved her glass to the centre and gestured for him to refill it.

He sat beside her, poured another glass, and conjured up his own goblet. They clinked their glassed together in a toast, perhaps to the victory that hours had gone by and neither had killed the other yet, before drowning them down simultaneously.

3:24am

“I think women should have wings.”

Malfoy looked at her unfocused. “And why’s that?”

“Walking’s soo…” Hermione moved her hands around wildly, “lame.”

“What about the men?”

Hermione giggled. “I don’t know. The female praying mantis eats the male after mating.”

“Are you suggesting,” Malfoy slurred, “that women not only grow wings but become cannibals as well?”

Hermione shrugged and grabbed the bottle from Malfoy. They had long since abandoned their spots at the table and had moved back to the floor, backs rested against the wall. They had also abandoned drinking from glasses and had taken simply to sharing the bottle.

“All right,” Malfoy said after she had taken a drink, “praying mantises aside, would you rather be a moth or butterfly?”

Hermione looked at him and laughed. “Gosh, how bored are you?”

“It’s a legitimate question,” he defended, absently taking the bottle back.

“I’m not answering that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s stupid,” she said bluntly. “And uninteresting.”

“Ahh, that’s the beauty of it, Granger,” Malfoy said with a lazy smirk. “They’re only uninteresting if you make them uninteresting. Explain to me why you’d be a butterfly.”

Hermione gave an exaggerated puff and considered the (totally, utterly and completely inadequate) question. “What…” she chewed out, “makes you think I’d be a butterfly?”

“Hmm?”

“You said ‘explain to me why you’d be a butterfly’.”

“Come off it, Granger,” he drawled, “what girl wouldn’t pick butterfly?”

“Apparently me because I’m a moth.” She put a great deal of emphasis on the last word so there could be no mistake.

Malfoy actually cracked a smile, and she couldn’t help but stare. “And why would you be a moth?” He mimicked the way she had said ‘moth’. 

Hermione turned her face away entirely too quickly when he caught her staring for it to be inconspicuous. She knew he was likely quirking an eyebrow, or watching her curiously, so she fiddled with her hands. “Because moths are stronger and faster than butterflies.” 

“They’re less pretty.”

“But they have the ability to make themselves warm, while butterflies merely rely on the sun.” Hermione felt his gaze on her, likely making fun of her in that silent way of his. She reached and took the firewhiskey from him, taking a gulp. “Would you be the moon or a star?”

“Two things among many I am beginning to wonder if we will ever see again,” he commented melodramatically. She nudged him with her knee. “Star,” he said.

As inebriated as Hermione was, this still came as a surprise. “Stars? Really?” He nodded, (if it could really be called that, his head going left and right as well as up and down). “Why?”

Malfoy tilted his head back and looked up. “When you’re the moon, people expect more from you. You’re supposed to show up practically every night without fail, right on time. You stand out; the world would be darker without you, less stable. Extinctions. Eventually the earth would probably crash into the sun, provided asteroids and meteorites don’t get there first. Apocalypse.” He shrugged, words slurring and sentences becoming fragmented. “It’s a big job. The world would literally fall off its axis if you were gone, you know? Being the moon means you matter, that you’re a big deal.”

“Don’t you want that?”

His head lolled to look at her, smiling without mirth. “I had that last year, if you recall. Found out I’m not too good handling responsibilities. But being a star, you blend in. If anyone notices you, chances are the next night they have no idea which one you were. No one expects anything from you, if you disappeared it wouldn’t matter because there are billions and trillions of stars out there. It’s the safer option, really.”

“There is nothing safe about you, Draco Malfoy.” Hermione took another swing of the bottle to purposely avoid his eyes. “I think I’d pick star too. I’d crack under the pressure from being the moon.”

Malfoy grabbed the bottle from her. “Don’t be ludicrous, Granger. You’re a big fat moon.”

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but let out a small breath of laughter instead.

“Seriously, Potter, Weasley, Longbottom, teachers, each and every Gryffindor, would all lose their minds without you. God, I remember those rare days when you weren’t in classes. Weasley had this permanent expression of constipation on his face and Longbottom didn’t know which way to point his wand.” Somewhere, in all of that, was a compliment. She smiled at him; too drunk to care that smiling at this particular person wasn’t customary. Malfoy cleared his throat and faced away. “The ocean or a river?” he asked.

“The ocean.”

“Thought you’d be more of the river type.”

“Rivers are calm and consistent. Always flowing. Always at the same pace. There’s nothing too risky about them. They’re soothing, reassuring, beautiful.”

“So what’s the problem?” 

“No adventure. Not compared to the ocean, anyway. The ocean’s not steady. It’s wild and loud and potentially life threatening at times and it’s deeper and there’s no telling what waits at the bottom. The mysteries and possibilities are endless. You could drown or get lost forever, but that doesn’t stop people from wanting to swim in it. It’s a reckless sort of beautiful and I think, being a river, I’d be bored. I don’t want consistency, I want thrills.”

He was looking at her again, only this time the intensity of it burned her, went through her skin and touched parts of her that had never been reached or seen before. She offered him the whiskey, and when he took it his fingers brushed hers.

“For someone who lives in the library and spends her days correcting everyone and is inexplicably maddening, you’re surprisingly much more interesting than I would have given credit for.” 

She scoffed, if only to hide her blush. “You say that as though you’re not quite maddening yourself. A tree or flower?” 

“Tree. They stand their ground, through storms and sunshine.”

“Unless someone cuts them down or lightning strikes.”

“Whatever, Granger. The point is they’re sturdy and wiser and –”

“And you’re mostly just saying tree because what kind of man would you be if you said flower, right?” She grinned when he rolled his eyes.

“Feather or leaf?”

“Feather.”

“I see why you’d be a feather.”

“Why?”

“Well, like you they also possibly carry diseases.”

“You butthead.” Although there was less malice behind her words than there once would have been. Hermione hit his arm as she reached for the bottle. Malfoy held it out of reach, smirking as he took another long gulp.

Unable to tolerate watching him drink all of her firewhiskey, Hermione decided then and there she wouldn’t let him best her (again) just because his limps happened to be longer.

She shifted and scrambled, leaning over Malfoy further and further while he moved so far right his arm was touching the ground on the other side of him. Without thinking, heedlessly and impulsively, Hermione moved closer until she was half on top of him, moved so she was three quarters on top, and then finally moved until she was straddling him.

As Hermione leaned over, her fingers brushed the bottle. She felt Malfoy’s body stop squirming to kept the whiskey out of grasp. She didn’t pause to look at him, far too pleased and consumed in triumph when her hand fully wrapped around the bottle. They both straightened up, Hermione grinning as she took the very last mouthful. It still burned, she doubted she would ever prefer the harsh tang of firewhiskey than butterbeer, but hey. Beggars can’t be choosers.

She studied the label, looking proudly at her token of victory, before meeting a pair of grey eyes, tracking her movements closely, clouded by alcohol and… something more. The intensity was there again, singeing her. Her first instinct was to look away, but there was another part – curious and wondering and irrevocably captivated by his gaze, that did not want to break the contact.

Hermione was drunk, there was no denying, and so was Malfoy. They were stuck in a tiny room underground with the exit sealed up and only each other for company. She also happened to be on top of him, a compromising position she hadn’t considered before. Before, the only goal had been to get her firewhiskey back. But now it was in her possession again, they had finished the bottle, and there was nothing left but the silence of the room, him, her, and the tension that had suddenly built that had nothing to do with anger or loathing or blood status.

It was just her and him. It was just a moment.

She relaxed into him, allowing herself to sit more comfortably in his lap. Her hands found his shoulders. In the bluish glow from his wand on the ground, she both saw and felt him tense again, as though not sure, but his gaze didn’t shift from hers and his hands reluctantly rested on her thighs.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before,” she said quietly.

She didn’t think he would. He hesitated long enough that she was close to certain of it. Except then he opened his mouth on a sigh. “I was in the dungeons after curfew not because I’d been with Pansy in a closet, but because…” The hesitation again. “Because I’ve been having extra lessons with Snape. I’ve fallen behind considerably since the events of last year and my father has ordered me to do something about it, told me to become top of my classes by the end of the year. Only I can’t.”

“Why?” she asked gently.

His shoulders shook under her hands on a humourless laugh. “Because there’s this bushy haired girl who always beats me.”

Hermione did not know what to say. She was surprised, though she probably shouldn’t have been. She was not, however, going to apologise for being intelligent. And she didn’t think he wanted it anyway. So she settled for squeezing his shoulder lightly, a subtle gesture.

“Why were you really out tonight?” he asked.

Hermione bit her lip before replying. “The match against Ravenclaw was today. Gryffindor won, as I’m sure you would’ve heard. The celebrations consisted of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, butterbeer and, of course, firewhiskey. No one was holding back but me, and Ron noticed. Said I should get in on the celebrations too and that I always do well in History of Magic so I didn’t need to do anymore studying. I guess I saw his logic because I had been going over notes whenever I had time to spare. I had some firewhiskey. Not much, I was sipping on the same bottle for most of the party, but then Ron handed me a second one.” Hermione lifted the empty bottle she had put beside Malfoy’s wand. “And somewhere amidst the celebrations it occurred to me I was likely to be hungover the next day. To be prepared, I went off to Madam Pomfrey and told her I was feeling sick and wanted a Pepperup Potion. She said they’d run out. I wanted all my lunch breaks tomorrow devoted to studying for the exam, so in desperation I went to the dungeons to look in Snape’s personal store cupboard. And that is why I’m down here.”

Malfoy snorted. “Of course this whole thing would be Weasley’s fault.”

Hermione only vaguely heard what he said because his hands, without thinking, had snaked around her and rested low on her back. It pulled her closer, and he seemed to notice this a second after she did.

Hermione met his gaze, afraid to but also intrigued. She was waiting for him to make fun of her, she realised. Waiting for a belittling comment about drinking and how she was a disgrace to the title Head Girl and something thrown in there about being a goody two-shoes. But there was nothing. Not even a malevolent glint in his eyes.

“If you could do anything,” she whispered, “anything at all right now without any consequences, what would you do?” The question came out of nowhere, was spoken before she could understand it or understand the need to ask it. They were fringing on the edge of some line, she thought. Some invisible barrier that had always kept him on his side with his beliefs and his friends, her on the other with her beliefs and her friends. They were nudging at it, and in this dark and confined room; things didn’t feel quite as real and scary as they did on the outside.

Their foreheads were nearly touching. They both reeked of firewhiskey. Again, a part of her was screaming that this was Draco Malfoy, that she shouldn’t be anywhere near his lap let alone actually in it, that his hands should not be where they were and she should not be gripping his shoulder with one hand and subconsciously resting the other over his heart, and she should absolutely not think his erratic heartbeat was the most beautifully rhythmic beat she had ever felt. But she was in his lap, his hands were on her back, and it was just a moment, and when his eyes flicked down to her lips, she was sure her heart must be thumping faster than it had ever done it her life.

“Anything?” he asked softly.

Hermione could only nod, not trusting herself to speak lest her voice tremble.

In this room, things didn’t feel quite as real and scary as they did on the outside. Nothing leaves the room, she had said, and she had the feeling Malfoy was remembering this too as he used his upper body to push himself from the wall, the hold on her waist steadying him. Hermione did not move her face closer to his or move at all, for that matter. She was frozen, frozen entirely, when he leaned in up until his mouth was on hers.

And then she thawed out and abruptly she was moving. She had been kissed a few times in her eighteen years, but never had it been passionate. Viktor had been too much of a gentleman to try and Cormac had grossly overestimated his abilities and the whole affair was more of a dishwashing experience. Malfoy, however, wasn’t as much of a gentleman to restrict himself and knew exactly what he was doing.

Her body reacted as though it knew precisely what to do, as though it had been waiting all along for this moment. Her hands cupped his cheeks and she pressed in closer, Malfoy aiding by pulling her in by the waist so she was flush against him, her stomach pressed into his chest and his hands winding around to the small of her back, the right one continuing upwards until it reached her hair.

She kissed him hard and abandoning all reason. They were already doing something irremediable, there was no point in holding back. She opened her mouth for him and he took the invitation, his tongue lightly touching her own, earning a quiet moan to slip out. He was wilder after that, hands travelling down her back, making their way around her stomach and sliding up, up, up to her breasts and continuing to her shoulders, moving open the collar of her blouse teasingly, to finally bury in the back of her hair again, impatiently taking out her hair tie.

Malfoy was the first to break away for air, panting heavily. Hermione went on, kissing his cheeks, along his jaw, placing feather light kisses down his neck to his collarbone. He made an approved sound in the back of his throat, head lolling back before tipping forward and hungrily capturing her mouth again.

The second kiss was just as feverish as the first, but then Hermione slowed. Malfoy followed suit, kissing her with more tender and longing, idly moving his mouth with hers. She ran her tongue across his lips before she pulled back.

He looked at her with lascivious eyes. His hair was mussed, clothes rumbled, neck sporting red patches where her lips had been. She thought he had never looked lovelier.  

“So,” she breathed after a minute, “the least likely female on the planet to get a taste of this gorgeous piece of perfection, including Hufflepuffs and Muggles, huh?”

“Oh… shut it, Granger,” he mumbled between pants, but she saw the smile in his eyes. 

5:56am

They slept for about an hour. Malfoy’s head resting on the wall, Hermione slumped against his left side, arm overlapping his and head resting snugly on his shoulder, thighs touching.

It had not been a deep sleep. Her muscles were killing her and she could feel a headache coming on, but that wasn’t what had woken her.

“Granger,” Malfoy said again, only clearer this time, moving his shoulder none too gently. 

“Mmm?” she mumbled, yawning.

“Believe it or not, but I think we may get out of here after all.” He spoke calmly, but Hermione caught the contained glee in his tone.

She sat up, looked upwards, saw that the ceiling was open again and let out a high-pitched squeal of delight, one she had not done since she was little.

“I’m ecstatic too, but was that really necessary?” Malfoy said irritably, wincing from the sound. Clearly someone’s hangover had struck. 

“We’re going to be freeee!” she exclaimed in a hushed voice, jumping to her feet. She offered Malfoy a hand, and he eyed it with such distrust that she started to retract it. But then he seized it and pulled himself up. “How long has it been opened?”

“I woke up and it was like that.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Does it look like I have any concept of time?” When she continued to wait for an answer, he sighed. “Twenty minutes, roughly.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked.

“Well you – you wouldn’t wake up. You sleep like the dead, and I’ll have you know my shirt feels wet so for your sake I hope it’s not drool.”

The last part, they both knew, was a lot of rubbish. For a start, Hermione hadn’t slept well enough to drool, and she had the suspicion it was more of a cover-up or lame excuse for admitting he simply hadn’t wanted to wake her, or maybe even for allowing her to sleep on him in the first place. Whichever way, she didn’t press the matter further.

Hermione moved closer to the hole in the ceiling, before examining the stone stairs projecting from the wall, leading all the way to the top.

“That’s convenient.” She turned to Malfoy. “Coming?”

“No, I’d planned to spend the rest of my life down here as an educated hermit.” He came over to stand beside her at the foot of the small staircase.

“No need for cheek,” she muttered, smirking when he shot her a glare she did not meet. She took a step forward.

“You know that letter you found,” he said unexpectedly.

“Yeah?”

“He did read it.”

Hermione glanced at him over her shoulder. “What?”

“The guy she wrote to. He got it. Maybe it was still in her book for safekeeping, but there’s a letter in one of the other books over there. Same date. Addressed to an ‘Alice’. It fell out when I was browsing through them while you were studying.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Malfoy looked up at the ceiling to avoid her eyes. “You seemed pretty distressed about it. I don’t think I’ll have another chance to tell you, so I’m telling you now. He got it. She loves him. He loves her too. I don’t know if they got married and had four point five kids or anything, but they both knew.”

She was still processing this as he walked past. And then Hermione followed, smiling after him.

In no time at all they were both back on Hogwarts floors, and even if it was the dungeon, Hermione had never been so glad to be in its creepy cold exterior than now. She looked down at the hole. From where she was standing, she could see the little round table. The chairs were pushed in, oddly, and the rose, that was once dead and decayed, was in full bloom. She only had a few seconds to look at this and assure herself she wasn’t seeing things before the stairs closed up. Perfectly innocent again.

“Did you…?” she started, looking up to find Draco gone.

He came back an instant later, walking fast from the main corridor. He came to a halt at her bag; opening and closing it again before she could see what he’d put in there.

“Some mysteries aren’t meant to be known right away,” he said before she could ask. He then looked around them. “I imagine people will start waking up soon. You should be back in your common room before then.”

“A subtle way to get rid of me?” she teased.

A smile or smirk started to lift his lips, but it faded halfway through. “It’s different now,” he said, and she knew instantly what he meant.

“A bit,” she agreed.

There was an awkward pause; neither seemed willing to leave, because leaving would mean leaving the entire night behind.

“What happens in the room, stays in the room?” he asked.

Hermione started to nod. Stopped herself. “Do you want it like that?”

“I don’t want everyone to know, can you imagine the rumours?”

“No, I mean us. Do we have to forget?”

It went silent. From somewhere above, voices could be heard.

“Do you want to forget?” Hermione pressed.

“No,” he said, “but I don’t even know what we are or where we stand.”

“We’re a work in progress,” she said deftly. 

Malfoy stared at her, taking in all of her features like he would never get the chance to again. He briefly gazed at her hand, like he was tossing up whether or not to take it. He resolved to patting her on the arm instead. The less intimate option, perhaps, but she hadn’t expected anything else.

He whirled around for the main corridor.

“I’m not sorry, you know,” she called at his retreating back. 

He spun on his heels; still walking backwards as though it were something he did every day. “For what?”

“For beating you in every class.”

This time, he most definitely smirked. “Of course you aren’t, silly wrench.” He swivelled around and kept going, Hermione watching until he rounded a corner. They were not in love, or even friends. It would take much more than a night to change anything, but it was a definite start towards something.

6:16am

Hermione was on the first floor of the Grand Staircases when Dumbledore strode out of the gold doors leading to the Great Hall.

“Ah,” he smiled, straightening his moon spectacles. “Good morning, Miss. Granger.”

“Good morning, Headmaster,” she replied, eyes looking up longing at the seventh floor. “I was just –”

“Sleepwalking?” he supplied.

“Uh –”

“Or up and eager for your History of Magic exam?”

“Well –”

“Or perhaps only just returning from a rather unfortunate fall through the vanishing stairs in the dungeons?”

Hermione knew her mouth had fallen open, but she couldn’t stop herself. How on earth…?

His smile widened knowingly. “Don’t worry, Miss. Granger. I myself have fallen down a few in my time. Quite troublesome for when you’re in a hurry to somewhere.” He put his hands behind his back, quite at ease, and leaned in a little, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret. “In my youth, I once had these friends. They really rather despised each other, would never want to speak with me if the other was present. It was… to say the least, exhausting being their friend. One day, I believe it was on the way to potions class; they fell into some underground room. A small room, they told me. Nothing but a table, a bookcase, two chairs side by side and a wilted flower. An entire night, they were in there. When they emerged, they weren’t the same. I wouldn’t say friends, but that’s what certainly put them on the road to friendship. They’re the best of friends now.” Dumbledore lowered his voice even more as he said, “Peculiarly, before they left, the flower had blossomed.” He straightened up and spoke normally again. “Curious thing, magic.”

Hermione filed this information away for later, but could not resist asking the one question that was nagging in the back of her mind. “Sir…” she began reluctantly, “what exactly is the room?”

“Oh, Miss. Granger,” Dumbledore said with that twinkle in his blue eyes, “as I have said to Harry, I would never dream of assuming I know all of Hogwarts’ secrets.”

He gave a gentle nod to her and strolled back to the Great Hall. She couldn’t shake the feeling he had been waiting for her to pass.

When Hermione reached the common room and took off her bag, she remembered something.

It didn’t take long to look through her bag to find it. She held it up, turning the vial so it reflected the morning sun streaming from the window.

She could not hold back her goofy grin.

Pepperup Potion. 

________________________________________

omggg it feels so nice to be posting something dramione again. I MISSED YOU ALL. i've been on about these  phantom one shots for months, at least you know i wasn't bluffing now haha. thank you for your patience :) i tried to make this one light and humorous but it still got pretty deep in places. i am a very brooding and depressing person. i also hadn't realised i've never portrayed dumbledore before UNTIL I WAS SUDDENLY PORTRAYING DUMBLEDORE AKA THE GREATEST WIZARD OF ALL TIME  so i hope i didn't disgrace his name. it's like why i avoid writing voldemort they're just toO POWERFUL AND GREAT while i am nothing but a wee fangirl. 

IN OTHER NEWS. that second one shot is in the making. i may have to split it into two parts, it's gonna be a doozy. oh and it's A PREQUEL to blood runs thicker than water. so like, it's super depressing bc it's in the middle of the war and we all know what happens to hermione. so BRACE YOSELVES.