Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The girl screams, falling away as an arc of blood stains the screen. Hermione doesn’t see because she’s hiding her face.

She doesn’t like scary things and she hates watching the very end of films. She never gets the catharsis with any final scene, always struggles to reel in her attention long past the credits. Horror films are the worst—everything jam-packed into the final fifteen minutes, she doesn’t understand how anyone can find satisfaction in that. She tucks into her shoulder, bumping her forehead against Cormac’s chest. He chuckles softly, tightening his arm and pulling her close.

It’s true that Hermione does not like scary movies, but when he asked her out, Cormac had explicitly asked to see this movie. Some third installment in a horror franchise that she hadn’t even seen the trailer for. Ginny told her that she should just go for it, not kick up a fuss over the feature film.

And besides, Ginny had said over the speaker, dragging it out in such a way that Hermione could picture her friend twirling her hair around a thin finger. It isn’t like you’ll be watching the movie anyway.

Hermione flushes at the mere thought, Ginny’s giggles echoing off to silence in her skull.

Here she is, ‘going for it’.

And she does think Cormac is fit—always has, actually. He’s one of the forwards for the football team, and his dedication over the years has left him lean, tall and fast. She’s always nursed a flame for him, ever since he came around with that floppy hair and the lopsided grin, trudging in behind Draco and Lee. He was always the nicest to her; he didn’t ignore her like Draco sometimes did when his friends were around, or treat her like a little kid like Lee had.

So, to emphasize: She just really hates scary movies.

Cormac’s voice is warm at the crown of her head. “Alright, Mi?”

It sounds so close to mine that her brain goes soft.

She probably reads like an open book. The trouble with knowing someone so long is that they know all her tells, and where she might be better at concealing now, she definitely wasn’t back then. How many times had she peeked into Draco’s room just to catch a glimpse of Cormac’s grin or showed up in the backyard, carrying her dolls like they might impress him?

The memory makes her cringe. She can’t stop the sudden onslaught of it—the way she used to edge closer to their laughter, picking flowers from the front walk as they rode their bikes, hoping someone might look up and notice her.

“I’m fine,” she mumbles.

She wishes she were braver, that she didn’t need to hide her face from the screen, but she can’t help it. She’d done the same thing to Draco last time it was his turn to pick for family movie night. Sometimes she thought that he picked scary movies just to mess with her, knowing the way gore made her skin crawl. He so rarely came home from school these days, so every time he did, he was given free rein over the whole night. Draco’s favourite for supper. Draco’s choice for film. Draco gets the edge pieces of the brownies.

In any other universe, it might have really annoyed her. But she loves Draco, and he really is such a good brother.

Naturally then, Draco claimed the best seat in the house—the so-called coffin corner, where the old chaise stretched out just enough to let you lie back and still face the television without craning your neck.

As the movie Draco chose went on, with their parents curled together on the loveseat, her father’s hand absently rubbed small circles into Narcissa’s shoulder. Hermione, like clockwork, found herself doing the same—folded against Draco’s side in quiet mimicry, pretending not to notice the weight of his arm resting loosely along the back of the sofa. Breathing in his cologne as she gasped and tucked her face into his chest.

Cormac chuckles warmly, and she peels back enough to meet his eye.

“We can go,” he suggests with the same lopsided grin from all those years ago.

“You paid for tickets, I’d feel horrible.”

“Doesn’t matter to me what we do,” Cormac says quietly. “I just wanted to spend time with you.”

It makes her heart leap, somersaults beating against her ribcage. She nods wordlessly and then finds him standing up, towering over her, but ducking low so he doesn’t block the screen for those behind them. He keeps her hand in his as he pulls her from her seat, and it’s so kind—his consideration for her and what she likes, that she doesn’t even think when she presses him into the dark wall of the hall just before they exit the theatre. He grins as he comes close, and his lips slant over hers.

She’s kissed boys before, but Cormac is older. The thrill of his experience spins low in her belly, making a soft sound break from between her lips. He pushes her back against the opposite wall as she wraps her arms around his neck. He cages her in with his body, dropping his hands to her hips and smoothing up then down.

Her mind blanks completely; it’s just the dark hall and Cormac and his lips, which still have a trace of sugar on them from the packet of gummy worms they’d split.

“Excuse me—” a voice starts.

They break apart instantly.

Only it isn’t a stranger. It’s Lee Jordan. Another of her stepbrother’s oldest friends.

He stops mid-stride, eyes adjusting to the dim light. Recognition hits, his expression folding from surprise into a kind of wary pause. Just as quick, he looks down at her and smiles broadly.

“Hermione, hey, get over here. I haven’t seen you or Draco in so long.”

He takes a step toward her, pulling her into a hug. She smiles, murmuring hello as she adjusts herself next to the popcorn and his cell phone, which he balances in one hand.

“Dad would love to have you over for footie night. He just got that big telly,” Hermione says with a small smile.

She’s not sure why it feels like she’s been caught doing something wrong.

“I just might, I just might.” Lee’s easy grin fades as his gaze slides to Cormac. “What are you doing here?”

Cormac straightens, brushing a hand through his hair. “Same as you, mate. Movie night.”

Lee’s brown eyes flick between them, lingering half a beat too long on Hermione. Whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t say it. But she feels it—the subtle drop in her stomach, the way the air thickens with unspoken judgment.

“Right,” Lee says finally. “Didn’t know you were…here together.”

Cormac replies with a grin, the same one she’s seen on his face for years. “Just catching up.”

Lee nods once, slowly.

“I ought to get back. Enjoy the rest of your night.” He moves past them, brushing by close enough that Hermione catches a faint exhale—disapproval or disappointment, she can’t tell.

The silence is brutal, a real tangible weight once Lee makes his way up the ramp into the theatre. Cormac squeezes her hand once before letting go.

“Ignore him,” he murmurs, but the warmth from before doesn’t come back.

Hermione forces a smile, though her pulse is still hammering with the faint, creeping sense that she’s just done something she’ll have to explain later.

The summer air is cool, just muggy enough to make her conscious of her hair going frizzy. Cormac smooths a hand down her back, lower than he’d gone before, as she gets into the passenger seat. He passes her his phone, and she smiles as she scrolls through his playlist.

“No Oasis,” he teases, the corners of his mouth curling.

She snorts, grateful for the easy tone. “As if.”

“I still remember that dance you choreographed to Wonderwall,” he says, eyes still on the road, though the smile stays.

Hermione’s face scrunches. It hadn’t been Wonderwall but rather Champagne Supernova, though the distinction wasn’t really important. She’d made Draco lift her up for a spin, and her cheeks flush now at the memory of how she used to laugh right in his face, making him dance with her while they had an audience.

How embarrassing it would be if she corrected him over something so silly.

Headlights smear across his jaw as he drives, the glow turning everything drowsy and soft. The car hums low around them, windows cracked just enough to let in the sound of tyres rolling smooth against asphalt. Her thumb hovers over a song she half-remembers hearing lilt through Draco’s walls years ago, and before she can decide, his hand drops casually onto her thigh.

It’s nothing.

Okay, it’s something. Like, really something she’ll probably scream on the phone with Ginny about later.

She finds herself rooted to the sticky vinyl seat beneath her. The warmth of his palm melts into her bare thigh, and his fingers brush along her skin. Up then down. She tells herself not to read into it, that this is just how he is, ever tactile in his affection.

Still, her breath edges at the very top of her lungs, like she’s unable to pull enough in to inspire rational thought. Then she’s there in his passenger seat, asphyxiating to madness because he lightly skims her thigh. The streetlights flicker through the trees as they near her street, gold then shadow slicing across his face as his signal tick, tick, ticks over the quiet music coming from his speakers.

Cormac glances over, catching her in the half-light. “You alright?”

She nods quickly. “Yeah. Just—hot.”

He grins, drumming his thumb lightly against her knee before pulling into the drive.

The house looms familiar in the dark. Her father’s old car is parked crookedly, a porch light flickering above the steps. She knows no one is home—parents away for a conference, the memory of Draco’s apology that he wouldn’t make it up this weekend, citing some assignment for school.

So it’s just Hermione tonight, and no one even knew, save for Gin, that she’d been planning on going out with Cormac. The dark house is a comfort, a reminder of this little thing she’s doing that’s not technically off-limits, but also…sort of.

Everything stills when the engine cuts out, leaving them in the hush of crickets and cooling metal.

“I had a really nice time tonight,” she says. “Thanks for…leaving early.”

“Me too,” he murmurs. His gaze falls from her eyes to her lips, and she feels that creeping flush colour her cheeks yet again. “I wish tonight didn’t have to end.”

“Me too,” she blurts, then tries to cover it with a light laugh. God, she’s so nervous, and he keeps looking at her like he can read her mind.

“We could always…talk,” he suggests, tilting his head.

She nods repeatedly.

“Mind if we go in the backseat, though? I’ve got this killer kink in my neck, kind of hurts to turn to the side.”

They clamber into the backseat, awkward and giggly at first. The upholstery is cool beneath her legs, and the air smells faintly of manufactured pine and petrol. Cormac stretches with a groan, rolling his shoulders.

“Much better,” he says, settling beside her. His knee brushes hers once, then again, and when he doesn’t move it away, she doesn’t either.

He leans, resting his back against the car door, letting his arm reach across to grab at the headrest behind her. “You’ve really grown up, you know.”

Hermione lets out a small, nervous laugh. “That’s a bit patronising, isn’t it?”

“Not how I meant it. Just the last time I saw you, you were what, sixteen? Still walking around in your brother’s old jumpers, always tagging along after Draco.”

“I did not tag along after him.”

“You kind of did,” he teases, smile widening. “But now look at you. All…womanly.”

Her stomach twists. The word lands wrong, like a hand on her too soon. She tries to brush it off, eyes darting to the window. “I hadn’t realised I’d turned into some creature overnight.”

“Not overnight,” he says, words dropping a little in volume. “Just…it snuck up, I guess.”

He’s watching her again, and she feels the air shift—no longer teasing, no longer harmless. His hand drifts to the seat between them, his long fingers flexing.

She forces a laugh, trying to dispel it. “Well, two years is a long time. People are bound to, I don’t know, grow up.”

Cormac’s smile crooks. “You certainly did.”

And then the silence comes again, humming as the glass fogs with their breath. She tells herself it’s fine, that they’re just talking. But when he leans in a little, and she feels the heat of his exhale against her cheek, she realises talking isn’t what he has in mind.

“Cormac,” she starts just as his lips brush hers.

Her protest, if one could even call it that, dies when his tongue slips into her mouth. And there’s that same girlish anticipation from before, like she might die if he pulls back from her. Their bodies twist and shuffle in the limited space of his backseat, with him slotting over top of her.

He asks if he can touch her, just a hum of words, and she nods, eager. He pushes up her skirt and drags her knickers—chosen with extreme care and four separate texts to Ginny asking her opinion—to the side. His finger circles the nub at the crown of her centre, flicking it with a lazy index until it hardens under his touch.

And then, lower, a finger pushes in.

She moans at the sensation, back arching up into him, and Cormac’s lips fall to her neck. She shuts her eyes and pretends it’s someplace nicer than his backseat. In the dark behind her lids, it’s easier to focus, easier to tune out the extraneous and settle into the sensation.

Something is building in her gut. It knots tighter with each passing second. And she knows this feeling, but is so confused to feel it now, here, with him.

Her eyes break open and she stares up at the grey interior of the car’s roof.

“I think—I think I need—”

She doesn’t want to tell him that it feels like she’s going to pee, but that’s exactly what the pressure is forming in her gut. She wishes she hadn’t downed so much apple juice earlier in the evening, but it’s always been the only thing that calms her stomach, a trick she learned from Draco.

At the thought, her legs press together.

Cormac pulls back, still hooking his fingers inside of her.

“What is it?”

“I feel like I might have to…pee.”

Cormac’s grin tilts to a wry amusement. “Have you never had an orgasm before?”

She has. She thinks.

She hasn’t ever stuck a finger inside of herself, but she’s certainly achieved a happy plateau by other means, notably grinding against a pillow with her face muffled in her sheets. It just wasn’t something she did regularly, and boys never really expressed interest in her because they seemed to fear her close relationship to Draco and all his friends. So while everyone else was getting the experimenting out of the way, she focused on other things until it sort of ended up with her having no practical knowledge at all.

She doesn’t immediately respond, and his face shifts, a look of surprise clouding his vision. And now, she feels ridiculous.

“I thought—” Cormac starts.

He never gets the chance to finish his thought. The overhead light flicks on. The door’s barely open before a hand shoots through the dark, and Cormac is ripped backwards with such force the car rocks on its tyres.

Hermione screams, shuffling against the door as she watches.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” a voice seethes.

Her cheeks flame in recognition, and then, as if she needed any visual confirmation, she watches her stepbrother shove Cormac hard.

Cormac stumbles, his shoulder slamming into the frame. Draco grabs his shirt and wallops him.

“Christ!” Cormac spits.

The rest is lost in the scuffle. Fists hit fabric, then skin, the dull thock of impact carrying over the hum of night. Hermione scrambles out of the backseat, heart hammering, knickers still askew as she slides her skirt into place, the air biting at her bare thighs.

“Stop!”

Draco doesn’t. Cormac’s arm catches his shoulder in a half-hearted swing, but he’s off-balance from being blindsided, and Draco’s too furious to feel it.

“Stop, please,” she repeats.

Hermione’s voice cracks, and he halts, chest heaving, hand still fisted in Cormac’s collar.

Draco releases him with a shove that sends Cormac sprawling onto the drive. Her date spits blood, looks between the two of them—the sight of Hermione, trembling beside Draco—then swears under his breath.

“Fuck this,” he mutters, staggering toward his car. The engine roars to life, tyres screeching as he disappears into the night.

Silence rushes in behind him.

Draco turns back to Hermione, pale in the porch light, his jaw tight enough to tremor. “Are you hurt?”

“You fucking arsehole!” she yells, punching him several times in the chest. He collects her fists with little effort and halts her attack.

She promptly bursts into tears.

“Me?” Draco stammers, eyes wide and expression aghast, even through the blur of her tears. He lets her go. “That fucking prick was—”

“Doing what I wanted.”

“Please, Hermione, you do not want him,” Draco spits. When she doesn’t respond, his stare hardens and his jaw goes slack. He puts his hands in his hair, smoothing the messy strands back from his face. “Oh, fuck me, no. You do not want him?”

“It’s none of your business.”

Draco’s arms shoot straight up in the air, some lame reckoning with an unseen God as he chokes on his words. It’s only then that she catches sight of his outfit, a thick hoodie oddly paired with athletic shorts. He’s wearing Birkenstocks without any socks, completely off kilter. He looks like he left in a hurry, practically teleporting here.

“Of course it’s my business,” he seethes, dropping his hands down to yank his hair. “I’m your fucking brother.”

“Well, congrats, brother, you just beat up my date.”

Draco’s face goes green in the dim streetlight. “Cormac is—He does not deserve to touch you.”

“And you get to be the one who decides?”

“Apparently, if you can’t use your fucking brain and figure out that he’s just using you.”

“He was not…using me.”

She wipes her face, tears still stinging her eyes. She hates how dirty he makes it sound.

“When was the last time you even talked to him? He’s—there’s no fucking way.”

“He followed me a while back, and we’ve been—” Her voice goes quiet, and she doesn’t know why she should feel shame, why Draco would go and make this out to be something ugly. “He swipes up on my stories sometimes.”

“He has a girlfriend,” Draco snaps.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes,” Draco says. “He does. He’s dating Daphne.”

“No, he isn’t. He doesn’t—he doesn’t even have any pictures with her recently.”

“Daphne is in Madrid for her gap year. He’s planning to visit her next month.”

“No,” Hermione says again, but it comes out thinner this time, the word crumbling halfway through.

It’s ridiculous how fast the air vacates her lungs. Her mind scrambles for proof, something, anything that contradicts him. The last message from Cormac. The way he’d joked about her hair, tugging on a strand when he picked her up. The little heart emoji in response to her messages. The stupid inside jokes she’d thought were theirs.

She remembers the silence between replies, the nights she’d stared at her phone until her chest ached, how easily he’d vanished for days and she’d just—she thought it was normal. Because, really, when had an older guy ever given her the time of day?

It hits her all at once—how little she actually knows, how much she’d wanted to believe there was something real there. And worse, how badly she’d needed it to have meaning.

Her throat goes tight. She feels childish.

Draco’s words keep ringing in her ears, that furious flush stinging his ears as he frowns at her.

She’d thought she was past caring what he thought of her, but now it’s all she can feel: the weight of his disappointment, the pity threading through his anger.

She wipes her face, but the tears keep falling, hot and stubborn. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says weakly, even though she knows he does.

Draco’s face falls, and he steps forward, going to pull her in for a hug. Hermione steps away from him, embarrassment making her skin itch.

“Get off me,” she snaps.

But Draco is stronger, and really, when has he ever listened? He grips her arm and pulls her into a rough hug, tucking her beneath his chin.

Unfortunately, his hold makes her cry harder. She feels so stupid because Draco had been right; Cormac’s actions make her feel used.

“How did you even get here—?” Hermione starts.

“Lee texted me. Asked if I knew where my baby sister was. Who she was with.”

Hermione’s face pinches, and she drops her head against his chest. “Well, that’s just great. Now everyone will think I—”

“Lee won’t tell anyone. And besides, it isn’t like you knew. No one cares now, we’re all older—it’s not like this sort of thing would be in primary. You’re an adult.”

“Astoria is definitely going to tell everyone,” Hermione interrupts.

“Astoria hates Cormac for Daphne just like everyone else.”

Hermione hadn’t hated him at all.

“He’s always been so nice,” she says.

“Yeah, well, he’s a vindictive little prick, isn’t he?” She glances up at him, surprised at the tone, and Draco’s face softens just a fraction as he meets her eye. “I—I told Daphne about another girl Cormac was shagging. One of the trainers for the club. He’s been mad at me since then.”

“When was that?”

“Two months ago.”

The date coincides with when she’d seen Cormac’s smiling profile in her follow requests.

“I’m so stupid,” Hermione says.

“Stop,” Draco murmurs, pulling her back into his grip. “You’re not stupid.”

“I…I have always liked him since we were kids. And it was so obvious that he knew he could use me to get back at you. I mean, why wouldn’t he just go for one of your girlfriends?”

It’s an empty question. Hermione knew that Draco dated at school, but he never seemed serious about girls, at least not enough to bring them back home for holidays or breaks. He just stares at her in that way that begets the whole of his attention, but doesn’t make any indication he intends to answer that. Then he tugs her back into a hug, squeezing her tighter.

Her eyes drift to the street as she listens to his heartbeat, looking at his car with the lights left on and the driver’s side door open. Like he’d tumbled out, hellbent on beating the shit out of Cormac.

“God, that was so stupid of you,” she says, pushing off to look up at him.

“Me?” Draco says, pulling her back.

“He’s going to report you to the Dean,” she mumbles into his hoodie.

His lips graze the top of her head. “I don’t care about that at all.”

“You could get kicked from–”

“I don’t care,” he repeats.

They remain in their twisted embrace until his pulse returns to a steady thump. They peel apart, that muggy night air seeping into the space separating them.

“We should go inside. The neighbours,” she starts, motioning with a vague wrist to the street. He nods, pushing his hair from his face.

“I don’t think I grabbed my house key,” he says, walking to his car. He bends down, pulling the keys from the ignition. He clicks the fob, and it beeps once, the street returning to darkness once again.

“No problem, I’ve–” Hermione pauses, patting her side and then looking at the space in the drive that Cormac’s car had abandoned. “I left my purse in his car.”

“That’s fine, right? Mum and Rick hardly stay out late.”

“They’re at a conference in Worthing. Checked into an inn and everything.”

“That’s…surprising,” Draco mumbles, rocking on the back of his feet.

She supposes he’s right. Their parents had always had one of those passionate yet silently volatile marriages. Hermione suspected that Narcissa loved her dad, just never as much as she had loved her late husband.

But right now, they were good. Mostly. She thinks.

Of course, the one time Narcissa made an effort in her marriage would be the night that she and Draco got locked out.

“It’s fine,” Draco says. “You can stay at mine tonight.”

“No, I’ve got an early shift and need my uniform. If I’m late again, I’m going to botch this whole internship.”

His brow furrows, and he gets that thinking face, the same one he used to have when they were plotting how to figure out what the other got for Christmas without their parents finding out.

“I’ll call a locksmith.”

“Isn’t that insanely expensive?” she asks. “Especially after hours.”

“Well, I feel a bit responsible for having gotten you into this mess. Call it even, then?”

Hermione nods, dizzy from how sharply the night has plummeted into freefall. She’s still grappling with the aftereffects of what she and Cormac had been doing in his car, of Draco assaulting his friend and learning that she’d been little more than a pawn.

“You think the back gate is open?”

Hermione shifts to glance at him, but he’s got his neck craned, as if he can see around the entire house.

“Doubt it. Dad’s been worried the kids in the neighbourhood are stealing his squash from the garden.”

“Right, right.” Draco glances back at her, flicking a brow as his eyes drag up then down. “I’ll lift you and you can unlock it for me then.”

“Why do we even need to get into the backyard?”

“Well, it’s that or go drive around in my car, but I’m covered in wanker’s blood, so I think the public will have questions.”

“Fine,” Hermione grumbles.

Draco flashes her a winning grin.

They circle around the side of the house, past Narcissa’s roses lining the path, until they reach the new fence her dad had insisted on putting up. The thing is massive, hulking, solid wood, towering even over Draco’s head.

He lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Rick. Bit excessive.”

“I know,” Hermione mutters. “The man is very passionate about squash.”

Draco huffs a laugh, then glances sideways at her. “Alright then. Up you go.”

Before she can argue, his hands are on her hips, and he’s lifting her like it’s nothing. The air rushes out of her chest in surprise as her palms fly up to grab the top of the gate. Her shirt rides up in the process, and his fingers, warm, brush against bare skin.

He jerks back like he’s been burned, and she loses her grip, tumbling back down onto the stone path.

“Thanks a lot?” she snaps, brushing dirt off her stomach.

“Sorry, I—” Draco shoves both hands into his pockets, eyes flicking anywhere but her. “On second thought, maybe we just wait out front? I’ve got the new Killers CD, we could—”

“No.” She crosses her arms. “Just lift me. We’ve done this a million times.”

He hesitates, then nods once. “Right.”

This time, he crouches lower, bracing himself as she steps into his cupped hands. She grips the top of the fence, kicks off, and he pushes upward to give her the boost. Her skirt shifts on her hips as she scrambles for leverage, denim digging into her side. He presses on her bum to give her an extra little oomph, and finally she manages to throw one leg over, but her trainer catches on the lip, sending her off-kilter. She manages to contort her body but still flops inelegantly to the other side with a breathless oof, landing on her back.

“Fuck,” he calls from the other side, the curse tight with concern. “You alright?”

As the air is still knocked from her chest, she can’t immediately respond. She takes a moment, during which Draco starts to panic, before she stands, unlocking the bottom and latch locks.

Draco’s eyes drag over her, inspecting her for injury.

“I’m fine,” she says, feeling like the biggest bruise currently sits on the face of her pride. He nods a few times before she realises his cheeks are dusted with pink. “What is it?”

“Why’s your skirt so short?”

Hermione blanches and looks down. “It’s not.”

“I got a faceful of your arse right now.”

“Well, you hoisted me over a fence,” she huffs. She pushes him in the chest, and he laughs, once, rather nervously. She smirks at the sound and continues messing with him. “Which you wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t decided to play the hero.”

“Fuck off, bean,” he says, but instead of shoving her away, he grips the back of her neck and tucks her under his arm. She swats at his chest, but he tugs her around the corner.

“Get off,” she says, but he merely laughs and pulls her into a hug. “What has gotten into you?”

“I missed my baby sister,” he mocks.

“Come home more then,” she says drily. “They’re always more lovey-dovey when you’re around.”

She means it as a joke, but he quiets at that, hand lingering on the back of her neck. The air between them softens, their laughter fading into the night’s stillness. His thumb moves once against her nape before he clears his throat and steps back, shoving both hands into his pockets.

“Mhm,” he hums, eyes fixed on the ground. “Guess I’ll have to make an effort then.”

Hermione exhales through her nose, unsure what to do with the flutter that comment stirs. For years, he’s been this untouchable thing—always older, always somewhere else, always just a step away. But here he is, scuffed Birks on her father’s path, blood still drying on his sleeve, looking sheepish under the staticky light of the bug zapper.

She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “You should probably clean that off,” she says, nodding toward his hoodie.

“Right,” he says quickly, glancing down. He frowns a little, pulling it from his body to better inspect it. “Yeah. Probably not a great look, is it?”

He glances up at her from under his lashes, sporting a roguish dimple. And it’s weird because…it is a good look. The thought freaks her out. Hermione inhales a bit of extra air and glances away, expelling it in a shaky laugh before looking back.

“Not unless you want the neighbours to think you’ve murdered someone.”

He smirks, the familiar crooked one that makes her pulse misbehave. “Technically, I only hit him.”

“Draco,” she warns.

“I already know,” he groans. “Don’t lecture me.”

“I wasn’t going to mum you,” she says. “My only wish for this night is that you’d let me hit him too.”

“Nah,” he mumbles, reaching out to pinch her chin. “My sweet little sister doesn’t get her hands dirty.”

“Then you should’ve let me kick him.”

Draco laughs like she’s joking, but she hadn’t been.

They end up at the far side of the garden, where Dad had, in a moment of surprising whimsy, installed a battered little playground years ago, far past when they’d be young enough to use it. Two swings sag on a sunbleached frame, a seesaw distantly squeaks as it blows slowly in the limited breeze. Further, built against the curling bark of the single oak tree, gnarled and twisting in the centre of the garden, sits a low wooden fort that had once been a million separate places all within the span of an afternoon. It all smells faintly of damp wood and cut grass, which Hermione associates with adolescence. Her eyes travel back toward the house, and she watches a fat moth bump once against the lamp, then plummet, dead, in a slow arc to the ground.

Neither of them speaks as they cross the garden, but the silence between them is comfortable. It always has been.

Draco drops onto a swing with a theatrical groan; Hermione follows, perching on the next seat with her skirt pulled modestly down. Then they just swing like they used to, feet scuffed against the grass, the metal chain whining, and the motion undoes a knot worrying the back of her neck.

“You always used to cheat,” she says after a few pushes, half-laughing at the memory.

He quirks a brow, not trying nearly as hard to get as high as her. “No idea what you mean.”

“You’d start from a standstill and then shove me with your foot, so I went higher.”

He looks at her sidelong, half a grin working his mouth. She slows her swing until the moaning chain is nearly silent, turning to look at him. The light silvers his hair as he makes a big show of rolling his eyes. “You weren’t supposed to notice.”

“Of course, I noticed,” she says. “I noticed everything.”

Art by LuckyorNot

They trade a look. It folds them back into a thousand small shared embarrassments and the easy fog of youth—following after him down the slide, tucking into his side, wishing her strides were long so she could keep up with him and his friends. But Draco always slowed down for her, halved his paces so she might be able to keep up.

He still did, she realises, even now, sitting beside her in the dark with someone else’s blood on his hands.

The playground creaks under them, groaning in remembrance of bodies that have changed.

“You okay?” Draco asks after a little while.

Hermione lets out a breath.

“Yes and no,” she says quietly. She focuses on her feet. “I mostly feel ridiculous.”

“You’re not ridiculous,” he says.

She snorts, prepared to contradict him.

“Maybe I’m generous tonight,” he says, already knowing what she’d say, and there’s a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Or maybe…”

The swing slows; they stop pumping. Hermione watches him watching her, really watching, not the casual surveillance of an older boy glancing over homework. It’s unnerving and oddly tender.

“Or maybe?” she questions, lips pulling into a smile.

He chews his lip before looking away. “You’re too good for anyone around here.”

“Here we go again,” Hermione says, blowing out a breath.

“I’m serious. You should—Christ, you’re going to really be something one day. Attention from a guy like McLaggen is…that’s beneath you.”

“This isn’t making me feel better.”

“I’m not—I’m not saying you should feel bad for what happened. I just want you to realise that you’re better than that. Than him. You’re better than all of us.”

“Shame,” Hermione says under her breath. She tilts her head to waggle her brows at him. “I shouldn’t give Lee a call then?”

Draco’s jaw tightens, and he makes a disgruntled sound, glaring at his feet. “None of my friends.”

“Not even–”

But Draco looks over at her, tipping his head a little, and goes, “None of my friends, Hermione.”

She quiets, sobering from her laughter and repeats, “None of your friends.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe I just have hope that they’ll be like you.”

He shuts his eyes tightly.

She flusters, scrambling to save face. “I think maybe that sounded wrong—”

“You’re fine. You’ve—it’s been a long night.”

“I’m not…I’m not tired. Or…I mean, I meant that.”

“Hermione.”

“I mean, you’re the best. You’ve always…wouldn’t you want someone for me that treats me like you do?”

“Hermione.” Her name is final from his lips.

But tonight has been so much, too much, and maybe she’s always wondered, always wanted to know.

“If we were just—” She flushes but keeps going, thinking maybe if she words it right, it won’t be such a terrible thought. “If we were just friends this whole time, and nothing else was different, I mean…do you think–?”

“We shouldn’t talk about this.”

“Right,” she says. Her whole body feels hot. “I’m sorry, that was—yeah, I know.”

Draco hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t say anything else.

“Remember the summer you tried to teach me to ride a bike?” she asks, voice brightening. He glances up at the sound of her voice, recalling the memory. “You promised me I wouldn’t fall. You pushed me down the path and then sprinted after me, hollering like a maniac.”

“You were too old to not already know,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “And you know, you still owe me. I bruised my knee, saving your dignity.”

“Actually,” she amends his memory. “You proceeded to make fun of me until Christmas.”

“Well, it took you an abnormally long time to get it right, bean.” He grins softly as she moves to swat at him. “Would you rather I had let you face-plant in public?”

“No,” she admits, laughing until it fades to silence, earnest and nostalgic and too truthful for her own good. Quietly, she says, “I wouldn’t change anything about back then.”

He goes still, and even though they’re outside, beneath a billion stars and an atmosphere of possibility, Hermione finds it hard to breathe.

Draco’s hand drifts until his fingertips touch the back of her hand on the chain. Hermione doesn’t pull away. Her fingers curl, then relax, finding a rhythm. The contact is easy, like it’s always been.

“Be honest,” she says. She’s always been unable to let things go, and she thinks it's worse because he knows that, probably knew this was coming, with the way that he knows her. “Just. Be honest, and I’ll let it go. I just—do you think if we weren’t…?”

She can’t push the words out, but it’s honest curiosity that’s always been just beneath, a slice of a scalpel away, twisting under her epidermis, thrumming bright through her veins, practically coded into her DNA.

An honest question that she can’t voice because she already knows the answer. At least, for herself.

If they hadn’t been introduced years ago and spent their adolescence just down the hall from one another, would he be someone who fancied her? Would he still slow his strides? Would she be someone to him?

Was it Cormac that kept her interest? Was it easier to just tell herself that? Was that why she peeked around the corner?

The thought bleeds guilty, dirty and wrong. He’s her brother—not literally but…God, did the distinction even matter? What they didn’t share in blood, they shared in memory. He was there for everything.

She thinks of Draco, braces on his teeth and hair in front of his eyes, calling her Hermus Bean when she introduced herself as Hermione Jean, laughing when she chased after him. He’d just decided years ago that he’d be there for her, that he’d take on the role of big brother. And she twisted it up, made it wrong and vile and—

Tears are falling before her thoughts can jumble further. She doesn’t need him to respond; she doesn’t need to know that she…that she’s done something horrible all these years. That she’d taken the innocence of his love and attached her own selfish meaning to it.

“Hey,” he says softly. She draws her hand back and covers her face, bending in on herself. “Hey, stop.”

“I’m…I’m sorry that was awful of me to even ask. I can’t—I’m sorry.”

“Hermione, stop that.”

He’s in front of her swing and tugging her to her feet, pulling her into his chest, and she breathes him in because this has to be the last time. She can’t keep telling herself that he’s all for her.

Because he isn’t. He isn’t anything more than her family, and she needs to recognise that; she needs to stop herself before she makes this something so much worse.

She presses against his chest and pushes away from him, tear-blind and horrible. She can’t believe herself. She walks away and goes to the fort at the back of the garden because she just needs to be alone. Perhaps she can pretend it's a cell, some place she can pay penance for how bizarrely she’s catalogued their history.

She hears the crunch of his footfall following close behind her.

“I think I should just be alone,” she says without turning.

“No.”

“Draco, really, I—”

She says it while turning sharply, prepared to scream at him because she needs him to be mean to her. She doesn’t deserve his comfort. He catches her wrist and backs her against the wooden fort. And there’s nothing but their breath, just a quick inhale, a beat, exhale.

Then his mouth is on hers.

His hand tightens around her wrist, the other coming up to cup her jaw, and for one long, suspended second, she lets him. Because maybe this is what’s been humming between them since they were old enough to name it. Because she’s tired of pretending she doesn’t know.

Her lips break open, and her tongue traces the seam of his mouth. And then he opens just barely, the kiss deepening, the taste of him and his breath finally as close as she’s wanted it.

And it’s as her arms slide around his neck, and his drops to her waist, that her brain catches up.

She breaks the kiss with a startled gasp, their foreheads pressed together, breaths tangled in the night air. Her lips part as his eyes open.

He shakes his head, eyes wide, haunted. “Don’t. Don’t say anything yet.”

His chest heaves as his thumb ghosts against her jaw, memorising the shape of her.

“You think you’re the only one who’s been twisted up about it?” he whispers. “You think I haven’t spent years telling myself you were—” He stops himself, the rest catching in his throat. “Fuck, I’ve been trying to stay away.”

She stares at him, an unbearable want rattling her ribs.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispers. He drops his hand like it burns him, stepping back a half-pace. The air feels scorched, like everything is moving fluidly, seared through and through. “God, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. There’s too much threatening her tongue, a crippling shame, a horrid want, confusion, all bleeding together until she can’t tell one from the other. And he’s trying to pull away, to turn from her, to leave, and what if he never comes back—she can’t…she can’t lose him.

“We can pretend,” she whispers, tugging on him. “Like we used to.”

His jaw ticks, and she thinks a million thoughts race through his mind. But when he bends forward, it’s enough of an answer. His lips touch hers, and she doesn’t let herself think of anything else—the world outside null and void.

It is play. This is just pretend. The way he moves her hip and pulls her forward, bringing her back to his mouth. Her hand curls into his hair, keeping him as close as he comes. Just like she goes when he tugs her into the fort.

He has to bend and contort his body, which has long outgrown the ceilings inside. There’s still the bench along the back wall, and leftover pots and pans that collect rainwater. His hand slides along her neck, then drops back to her waist, and they’re shuffling, movement without looking as their breathing syncs up.

Then it’s hands touching all over, like if they don’t let themselves now, they’ll never get another chance. Draco’s fingers skim her hip, just beneath her shirt, until his index is tracing letters along the dip of her spine. She shivers and feels his lips widen into a grin.

“Ticklish?”

The heat of the question isn’t lost on her. The first layer of his skin is kissed with goosebumps, anticipation freckling her skin.

She reminds herself that it’s a game. This is how Draco is with girls he can fancy, the kind he can take out and snog in front of his friends. She pretends like having him nearby doesn’t dizzy her mind, doesn’t press her lungs through a sieve.

Against his lips, Hermione whispers, “Yes.”

And then they’re moving backwards, knocking into miscellaneous items as he pulls her back into him, and his knees catch on the lip of the bench. He bends and she goes into his lap, scrabbling up his body as his breath rushes all over her. She’s never been this close to anyone else, only ever him, but before it was different—despite the girlish idea she had of him—it was never like this, never so needy, never seeking something like this.

But this is pretend, and for the seconds in this fort where anything they could imagine might come to life, they can be whoever they want to be, they can want without sores in their mouth, with lechery and shame clouding the desire.

His head knocks against the back of the fort, and he seethes a breath, and then they’re laughing because this is so entirely absurd. As they sit, breathing one another in, the edges of amusement evaporating, every nerve pings where they’re connected. His palms against her hips, her arms at his pulse, and lower the heat of him now presses firm between her open thighs.

Her skirt has ridden up, and it’d be so easy to peek—to see the fabric of hot pink settled against the dark blue of his shorts. And she knows him so well, has known him all these years. She understands boys intrinsically, at a biological level, the way they want and how it manifests. But it still shocks her as his eyes trail down, appreciation so brazen and overt in the hard line of his jaw, the slightly hooded heat of his pupils as they dilate until he’s staring right at her lap, right where she’s pressed up neat.

It makes her whine, makes her needy and pathetic and stupid.

His eyes flick up to hers, hot through the frayed mess of blonde. His lips are bruised, a warm pink, all because of her.

“Earlier,” he says, voice lower now, a register he’s never used with her before, “when I picked you up? I could feel the little wet spot on your skirt.”

She swallows, flushing. He’s never been crass with her—even through their teenage years. She wonders if it was manners or self-preservation.

“Did he make you come?” Draco asks.

Hermione shakes her head.

He tuts, a sad sound, still staring at her.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” Hermione stutters finally, shaking her head. “No, he was—he was nice.”

“Didn’t even make you come,” Draco says. “That’s not very nice.”

“I felt like—like I was going to pee.” She tries to look away, but one hand comes up, pinching her chin like he always does. He makes her meet his eyes, and she gets it; if she can’t be honest with him, then she can’t be honest with anyone. Weakly, she says, “I got embarrassed.”

Another soft tut, Draco’s face so open as he shakes his head, staring at her with wide eyes. “You were so close, weren’t you?”

“I don’t think I would have.”

“You can,” he interrupts, still shaking his head. His whisper is soft, tastes so sweet. “You just needed a bit more. A little help. What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t help?”

She wants to remind him that this is pretend. He isn’t her family here—he’s a man, like that makes it more removed. But he’s being so nice, such a good brother, that she can only nod along faintly, shivering under his widening grin.

“It won’t hurt anymore. I’ll help you,” he repeats, nodding encouragingly.

She nods back.

Does it make her a whore? To have had two sets of hands inside her within an hour of each other? To give up something they called precious so willingly, to spread her legs wider for him?

She wants him to look, wants him to notice that she’s wetter now in anticipation of him. She understands more, too, what he means when he asks if it hurts. There’s an ache, a twinge of pain that pulses to the beat of her heart, seeking something, seeking him.

She rocks her hips a little bit, rubbing against the hill of his arousal. Firmer than her pillow, it catches on the hood of her clit, and she whimpers.

“Ah. Is that how you do it then?” he asks, holding her hips more firmly. He pushes forward on her, then back.

Her face feels so hot, and the emotions are all jumbled up. She doesn’t quite know what he means.

“Used to wonder how you did it. If you put your little fingers in your cunt or fucked your pillow.”

“Before,” she says, still struggling to keep up. Especially because he hasn’t let up, keeps rocking her back and forth on top of him. “Before you—you could hear me?”

“No,” he rasps. “No, I just thought about it. Always wondered.”

“I was too afraid to…try it myself. I didn’t want to do it wrong.”

“You can’t do it wrong,” he responds gently, furrowing his brow. “I can show you. If you want.”

She nods.

“You have to say it out loud, Hermione.”

“I want you to touch me.”

“Where should I touch you?”

“My…my cunt.”

“Cause I’m helping you,” Draco says, taking over, speaking mostly to himself.

“Yes,” she mumbles quietly, nodding and moving her hips a little harder. “I need your help.”

His hands drop from her hips. “Stand up.”

She starts to refute, because this was good, she liked what was happening, but Draco sets his lips. She stands up, absent-mindedly tugging her skirt back into place when he shakes his head.

“Take that off.”

“What?”

“Take off your skirt.”

She wants to argue that Cormac hadn’t made her take her skirt off, that if she shifted her hips enough, it would rise around her waist like a scrap of a denim belt. But his jaw is set, and he’s waiting for her to listen, so she tries her best.

Her fingers go to the cool metal button just beneath her navel, and she unbuttons. His eyes stay on her face, even as she bends, tugging the hem of the skirt until it pools around her feet. She’s left in her pink knickers, the straps cutting into her hips as she shifts from side to side, self-conscious under his gaze.

He holds out his hand for her, and she steps forward, only to have him tug her back into his lap, this time with her back against his chest. She balances, straddling one of his thighs, feeling the warm release of his exhales on the back of her neck.

Draco leans back, wrapping an arm around her stomach and pulling her hips flush until she’s planted on his lap. She can feel the hard press of him against her bum and moves her hips a bit, biting her lip.

His hand loosens on her stomach, one palm settling on her hip, stilling her.

“Did he tell you sweet things when he touched you?” asks Draco against the shell of her ear.

Hermione shakes her head.

“He should have,” he says, pressing his lips gently to the side of her neck. He peppers soft kisses between vowels, the sentence unhurried like molasses against her skin. “He should have told you how soft you are. How pretty you look when you flush.”

Draco’s hand moves over the front of her knickers, resting his palm just over the fabric, but giving her nothing else. If he shifted his fingers, he’d have a palm full of her cunt.

Needy, trying to get his hands where she wants them, Hermione cants her hips forward then back.

“So warm,” he says against her skin, something almost like a groan. “Eager for more.”

“Please,” she whispers, trying to catch his hands, make him touch her—really touch her.

“Sweet baby,” he coos, kissing her skin again. “You need my help.”

She nods, feeling so pent up that she could really sob.

Draco’s middle finger curls, hooking on the fabric and dragging up her cunt. He stops at the base of her clit, finger schlicking off the damp fabric. He makes a pleased sound of awe, his arm tightening around her hip again. He holds his wet middle finger up to her, making her look at the arousal painted on his skin.

“Oh, your little cunny’s all messy, bean. Look.”

She tries to turn her head, but can’t because he catches her jaw softly, instead rotating her face to look at him. And she watches, transfixed, as he pops the finger into his mouth, sucking the taste of her off of his skin.

She doesn’t need him to push her head or call for her to follow an order, because when he takes the finger out of his mouth and grins a bit, mumbling “All of you is sweet,” Hermione leans forward of her own volition and kisses him, chasing that pleasure.

He kisses her back, and then they’re rocking and rubbing against one another, and she’s half prepared to straddle him the right way, pressing her chest against his so he can feel the aching desperation of her pulse, but he pulls away hard and sucks in a seething breath.

“I bet you’re so soft down there,” he says, pressing his face into her neck.

She nods because she thinks she should. Her brain rebels against reason, rejects the urge to start an eight-count to control her breathing. Every inch of her feels attuned to him and the warm pant of his breath along her skin. She wants to feel his tongue circling every freckle on her body, wants to pull him close and feel him deep.

And how desperate, she thinks, all he has to do is graze her slit. Now she’s ruined and messy, a dark imprint wet and abandoned on his shorts.

His finger traces her centre again, pressing against the fabric. He presses in, giving her just a little, before his fingers climb up to her clit, flicking the bud through her panties.

She breathes hard, exhaling through her nose, and his finger presses in, like he might pluck more of the sound out of her throat.

“My pretty baby sister,” he murmurs, dipping into the gusset of her knickers and tugging them to the side. He pushes a finger in, voice only a whisper as he smiles. “Leaking all over me.”

She starts to apologise with some flustered stutter of “I’m sorry,” but he cuts her off, thrusting a finger deeper.

“Your pussy is so tight. You’re already squeezing so hard, and I’ve only given you one finger.”

His words dredge up a silly sense of shame, and then she’s rocking on his hips, trying to get away. But his palm settles wide over her gut, and he presses on her abdomen, keeping her in place.

“Do you need more?” he asks mildly, lips muffled against her skin.

“Yes, please.”

At her whine, Draco adds a second finger, dipping in slowly, collecting the wet arousal that leaks out of her each time her cunt clenches and dragging it back up, encircling her puffy clit. He must find her so desperate, these little jumps of her hips, the half-fitted syllables that she can’t string together to form a proper sentence.

“Fuck, Hermione,” he breathes, sitting up straighter, pressing her tighter against him with his hand over her belly and his fingers stuffed back in her cunt. The slight jostle makes him feel so big, makes her feel weak, and instead of pretending, it’s them as they’ve always been, the way she notches so perfectly in his arms.

Draco’s fingers speed up a fraction, depth easier at this angle, and her head lolls back, tucking into his shoulder. Draco shifts, resettling with his chin tucked over her shoulder, watching his fingers as he fucks into her quicker, each time making his palm tap, tap, tap against the surface of her cunt.

“You’re so sweet like this,” he says. “So good for your brother, hm?”

“You make me—” she rasps. Her hips jump, chasing his fingers. “You make me feel good.”

“Oh,” he murmurs with a grin. “Your cunt is tightening up. You’re trying so hard, aren’t you?”

Again, that flush of humiliation, the tension in her hips tightening to the point of pain. “Yes, it hurts. I need more.”

“No,” he says, and it’s a dark, smug satisfaction. “Just like this. Like you’re grinding on your pillows.”

She whines his name, feeling that same pressure on her stomach that she did before. Like if he keeps going, she’ll do something really embarrassing, and she doesn’t want to ruin the moment, not if this is a memory she’ll only have once.

“I think I need—just a little break.”

“No,” he repeats, “that’s how it’s supposed to feel. You can do it.”

His other hand drops from her stomach, and so weakly-limbed, she’s putty slipping forward in his fingers. His chin digs into her shoulder, keeping her in place as her knees quake just a little bit.

All the while, that pressure builds, all of the pleasure burning brightly in her stomach. She clenches to keep from letting it out, and Draco groans a little praise against her ear.

“Come on my fingers, bean.”

He quickly swipes a hand over her clit, and her hips jump up, driving his fingers deeper. He doesn’t let up, lets her writhe and work herself up, and keeps a steady pace. And the warmth spreads thick over her, pressure knotting each time his fingers drag inside of her.

It drives her higher and higher, making her knock her head from side to side. Draco’s lips press over her pulse, whispering about how cute she is and how she was made to feel this good, and doesn’t his little sister have just the sweetest pussy?

His words make her thick-skulled, like the syrup trudging through her tired veins, and when he licks up the side of her neck and peppers kisses by her ear, her hands tighten and pluck at him, and she feels that pressure go pop.

A rush of liquid spurts out of her, past his fingers that still scrub at that steady pace along her clit, and all over his leg.

“Oh,” he hums, laughing slightly as his neck cranes to watch her. “Oh, good fucking girl.”

All at once, her stomach drops, and she realises she was practically keening, a voiceless stream of nonsense as she watches the clear fluid spill out of her cunt. She goes boneless, sugar soft in his arms, just a mess of limbs to be collected and held close.

He pulls his fingers from inside of her and pops them in his mouth, palm shiny and wet from her. She lets her jaw slacken, sticking out a tiny pink tongue, and then his lips cover hers again, swapping spit that tastes like her cunt.

His shorts start to vibrate. Draco groans against her lips, pulling back to slide his still-wet palm into his pocket to pull out his phone. He checks the caller ID, then answers quickly.

“Hey,” he greets, voice rough—stuck somewhere between the deep one he’d used with her and the friendly boy he’s always been known to be. “Oh, shit, really? Yeah, no. In the garden. I’ll come around. Do you just need–? My ID. Got you. Alright, thanks mate. Yeah? Alright.”

He hangs up, pushing the phone back into his pocket, and it’s still again—like a bubble burst. Hermione slides off his lap as reality rushes in.

“The locksmith is here, I’ve—I should…” he starts.

She nods wordlessly.

“—I know what you’re thinking, Hermione,” he continues, casting his eyes down. “But…we don’t have to talk about it again. Pretend, like you said.”

“Pretend,” she mumbles quietly, bone-tender.

“We’ll go back to how we were, okay? I’m glad we could—thank you for giving me that.”

She turns her head away, pressing against the rough grain of the gnarled oak built into the fort. Draco doesn’t say anything else, but stands, running a palm down over his slick thigh.

He tries for humour, but the words fall flat. “Locksmith’ll probably charge me extra for waiting.”

She doesn’t respond. He hesitates in the doorway anyway, one hand on the frame. For a heartbeat, it looks like he might say more, like those words are on the tip of his tongue, but then he just swallows hard, gives a tiny nod, and steps out into the night.

Hermione stays where she is. The fort feels smaller now, folded in around her and what has happened. She traces her fingers absently over the carved lines in the wood—his handwriting, her own messy scrawl beside it—and her chest tightens.

The air still smells like wet earth and him, and her lips still sting like she can feel the imprint of his, and her heartbeat, thumping pathetically hard against her ribs, is too loud for pretending.

She thinks of the way he looked at her before he went; the quick flick of his eyes to her mouth, the restraint in his shoulders. How he’d said thank you, as if she’d given him something precious instead of losing something she can’t get back.

Pretend, he’d said.

She swallows hard, tasting salt and herself and him. She’d done it, spent so long pretending. She’d abstained for years.

But that was before having, and now—now she can’t imagine another second without.

In the distance, comes his voice, calling for her—using that silly little nickname. The night air carries the sound over the buzz of insects, past the soft moans and creaks of the neighbourhood settling into sleep. A dizzy girl, she stands on shaking legs and bends down to pluck her skirt from the ground.

She casts one last glance over her shoulder. The fort is quiet and by the time she turns, Hermione decides she’s too old for pretending.