She tilted the bottle toward Draco, and he plucked it from her hand and took a swig of his own. His eyes were locked on hers until he lowered it. Then he glanced around the bare room they were in. Pulling his wand from a holster strapped to his right arm, he flicked it and conjured a loveseat.
Hermione gave him a look.
“I'm not scooting across a sofa every time we pass the bottle,” he said. Then he added in a mocking tone, “I can conjure a courting bench if you require a barrier.”
His eyes were taunting. He was still shirtless.
“Or you could have conjured some tumblers,” she retorted, giving him a pointed look. She dropped down onto the small couch and waited for him to do the same.
He leaned down, resting his hand on the back of the couch behind her shoulder and leaned over her, sliding the bottle into her hand.
“Your turn. You've got a lot of catching up to do,” he said in a low voice before seating himself beside her. He was much closer than he needed to be.
Hermione took another sip, and he watched her. When she tried to hand it back, he demurred and indicated that she continue.
“You'll regret it when I start crying on you,” she said, growing suspicious once again about how drunk he was. She could already feel it starting to hit her. She'd picked at dinner and that had been hours earlier. A warm dulling sensation was beginning to creep over her.
“You didn't cry that much,” he said, leaning back gingerly. Then, discovering that it didn't hurt, he sunk against the back the couch with an audible sigh. “I had no idea how much I missed leaning against things.”
“Be careful for the next few days,” Hermione said between sips. “If you're careless while they're setting, the skin might tear, and I'll have to redo parts. If you want — I can keep coming. If I keep treating them for a few days longer, you won't even be able to feel them. As least — not the physical aspect of them.”
He smirked over at her and shook his head as though in disbelief.
“Is there anyone you don't feel responsible for?” he asked.
Hermione didn't answer the question, and she took another gulp of firewhisky. Tears suddenly pricked at the corners of her eyes.
“All my friends are out drinking tonight. They invited me, but I couldn't go,” she said abruptly.
He was quiet for a moment.
“I'm sorry. We could have rescheduled,” he said.
Hermione scoffed.
“Right. I'd just leave you with lacerations in your back for an extra day so I could go drinking. It's not as though I could even drink with them anyway. I'd probably get into some raging fight with Harry and Ron.”
She burst into tears and cried for several minutes. While she was crying, Draco plucked the bottle from her fingers and set to draining it. When her sobbing finally eased to sniffling, he chuckled.
“You know,” he said dryly, “if I ever had to interrogate you, I think I'd skip the torture and the legilimency and just pour a bottle of firewhisky down your throat.”
Hermione started laughing through her tears.
“Oh god, you're right,” she said huffing and wiping her eyes.
He handed the bottle back to her, and she sipped it for several minutes in silence.
“Thank you, Granger,” he said quietly after a while.
The corner of her mouth curved into a small smile. “I thought you said if I drank with you that you'd call me Hermione.”
“Hermione,” he said. She looked over at him. His eyes were hooded; he was staring over at her intently.
“Yes?”
He didn't say anything; he just kept staring at her until she started to blush. It was distracting to look back at him when he didn't have a shirt on. Her eyes kept dropping, then lingering, and then she'd catch herself and look up and find he was still looking at her.
“I thought you said you were angrier when you were drunk,” she finally said nervously.
“I normally am,” he said. “Last time I got drunk, I warded myself in and wrecked the room.”
“You don't seem drunk,” she said. She was beginning to feel really drunk. Her head felt heavy, and she had an overwhelming desire to both laugh and cry and curl up on the couch.
“I'm not a relaxed person.”
“I've noticed. And you scold me,” she said severely. She felt her face make a more exaggerated expression than she'd meant to.
He laughed under his breath. “My tension doesn't interfere with my dueling. I bet I could still beat you in a duel even now.”
“You probably could,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I've been exercising though. I thought I would hate it, but it's actually nice.”
He smirked, and it was loose and crooked. Hermione blushed.
“You should put a shirt on,” she finally said, her voice jumping. “You must be cold.”
Suddenly her hand was in his, and he had pressed it against his chest. She gasped faintly with surprise and felt her heart rate begin rapidly increasing.
“Do I feel cold?” he asked in a low voice. He'd sat up and they were suddenly very, very close. So close Hermione could feel his breath against her neck. A shiver rolled down her spine.
“N-no,” she whispered, staring at her fingers splayed across his chest. She'd spent hours touching him as she treated his runes, but being face to face made the physical contact suddenly intimate. She could feel the faintest sensation of his heartbeat under her index finger. Without thinking, she stroked his skin lightly.
He breathed in sharply, and she felt the shudder of it under her hand. His hand was still over hers, but he wasn't holding hers in place any longer. She drew her thumb across his pectoral and felt him shiver under her fingers.
Hermione felt like she were barely breathing; that if she were to inhale or exhale too sharply, something in the air would snap.
The moment — the tension between them — felt like the wings of a butterfly. Delicate. Breathtakingly fragile.
She looked up at him. His face was inches from hers. His eyes dark as he studied her face.
He was startlingly handsome.
She'd hardly let herself notice it. But somehow, drunk and feeling his heartbeat under her fingers, she saw it. The coldness of his persona had faded; his skin was warm, and his breath against her skin was warm, and he was beautiful to look at.
She couldn't remember when she had stopped being afraid of him.
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though it were a confession, “if anyone had told me that you'd become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I first saw you again.”
She stared at him in confusion.
“You're like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips curved into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
“I've never thought about it,” she said.
“That doesn't surprise me,” he said, voice quiet. His hand reached over and he captured a curl that had come loose from her braids. “Is your hair still the same?”
She snorted. “Yes. Mostly.”
“It's like it's you,” he said, twisting the curl in his fingers so that it wrapped itself around his fingertip. “Tied in place, but still the same underneath.”
Hermione stared at him for a moment, and then tears welled up in her eyes. His eyes widened.
“Oh god, Granger,” he said hastily, “don't cry again.”
”Sorry,” she said withdrawing her hand and reaching up to wipe away the tears. She felt cold.
When she looked back up at him again, his expression was pensive.
She'd never seen him so expressive before. Everything had felt like a mask until then. With just the briefest flickers of something real coming through on occasion.
As they sat there, she almost thought she might be seeing the real him.