Chapter 2: The Room of Requirement
The stone gargoyle was deaf to her excuses. Hermione stood before it, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The final portrait had been suspicious, her rounds a blur. She’d practically sprinted the last few corridors, her bag smacking against her hip, Crookshanks a disgruntled weight inside.
She paced three times, her thoughts a focused, desperate chant. I need the place we go. I need the place he waits. I need to be unseen.
The door materialised, smooth and ancient. She pushed it open and slipped inside, the heavy wood sealing behind her with a final, muffled thud that felt like the closing of the outside world.
The air was different here. Warmer, softer, tasting of old parchment and the faint, crisp scent that was uniquely his. The Room had provided a cavernous space tonight, lit by floating orbs of muted gold. Vast velvet drapes in deep emerald and Slytherin silver hung from nowhere, pooling on a floor of dark, polished wood. In the centre sat a bed that was less a piece of furniture and more a landscape – a massive four-poster, hung with more of that sheer, dark fabric, the covers rumpled as if someone had already claimed it.
He was standing by a heavy oak dresser, pouring something amber into two crystal glasses. He’d shed his school robes. He wore only black trousers and a thin, grey linen shirt, untucked, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He didn’t turn around.
“You’re late.”
His voice was flat, but she heard the edge in it. A challenge.
“By four minutes,” she shot back, dropping her bag. Crookshanks erupted from it with an offended huff, stalking towards a plush velvet armchair and leaping up. He arranged himself into a loaf, his huge yellow eyes fixed on Draco with simmering disapproval.
“Four minutes is an eternity when you’re waiting.” He finally turned, holding out a glass. His grey eyes swept over her, from her windswept curls to her tightly laced shoes. The intensity of his look stripped her prefect badge away, layer by layer. “Drink this. You’re wound tighter than a new broom.”
She took the glass, their fingers brushing. Firewhisky. She swallowed a mouthful, the liquid tracing a fiery path to her stomach, loosening something in her chest. “You’re one to talk. Parading in front of first-years. ‘Enjoying the view’.”
A ghost of his corridor-smirk returned. He took a slow drink, watching her over the rim. “I was. You in that ridiculous robe, all furious and flushed. It’s a good look on you.” He set his glass down with a quiet click. “Take it off.”
It wasn’t a request. Her breath hitched. The familiar thrill, laced with a thread of defiance, uncoiled within her. “Or what?”
In two strides he was before her. He didn’t kiss her. He took her glass from her trembling hand and placed it next to his. Then his fingers went to the clasp of her cloak. The metal was cool, but his knuckles grazed the warm skin of her throat.
“Or I’ll do it for you.”
His voice was a low vibration in the quiet room. He unclasped it. The heavy wool pooled at her feet. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, thumbs pressing into the tense muscles there. He leaned in, his mouth hovering a breath from hers. “You think too much, Granger.”
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming. A release of all the pent-up words and glances and restrained touches from the hallway. His mouth was hot, insistent, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened for him with a gasp that was half-surrender, half-relief. Her hands flew to his shirt, fisting in the soft linen, pulling him closer until not a sliver of air remained between them. The world narrowed to the scent of him, the taste of whisky and mint, the sharp feel of his hip bones against hers.
He walked her backwards, never breaking the kiss, until her calves hit the edge of the immense bed. She fell onto the soft duvet, and he came down over her, his weight a solid, welcome anchor. One hand slid under the back of her jumper, his palm searing a path up her spine. The other tangled in her hair, tipping her head back to deepen the kiss until she saw stars behind her closed eyelids.
“Draco,” she managed, the word swallowed by his mouth.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, all silver eclipsed by black. “Say it again.”
She was breathing in ragged bursts. “Draco.”
He kissed her jaw, her throat, his teeth grazing the pulse that hammered there. His hands were everywhere, impatient, pushing her jumper up. She arched off the bed to help him, the cool air hitting her skin just before his mouth did. He made a low, appreciative sound against her stomach, his fingers making quick, efficient work of her trousers.
There was no patience, no slow seduction tonight. The tension from the corridor had built to a breaking point. It was a scramble of tangled limbs, of soft fabric yielding to urgent hands. A shoe hit the floor with a thud. His shirt, torn open, buttons pinging somewhere into the shadows.
When skin finally met skin, she cried out. The feeling was always a shock – the smooth, hard planes of him against her softer curves, the shocking intimacy of it after a day of formal distance. He stilled for a moment, buried deep inside her, forehead pressed to hers, his breathing harsh.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice ragged.
She opened her eyes. His face was a mask of raw need, stripped of all arrogance, all control. In these moments, he was just as undone as she was. It was the most honest thing she ever saw from him.
Then he began to move.
It was a frantic, driving rhythm, a physical conversation of hunger and release. The bed groaned in protest. Her nails scored down his back, earning a sharp, gratifying gasp from him. He whispered things in her ear, filth and praise woven together, words that would make her blush in daylight but here, in the dark, only stoked the fire higher. She met him thrust for thrust, her legs locking around his hips, pulling him deeper, wanting to erase any space, any thought, anything that wasn’t this.
From the armchair, there was a loud, pointed yawn.
Hermione’s eyes flew open over Draco’s shoulder. Crookshanks was still there, watching them with an expression of profound boredom. He lifted a paw and began meticulously licking between his toes.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat, choked off by a gasp as Draco shifted his angle, hitting a spot that made her vision whiten.
“Ignore him,” Draco growled, his mouth on her neck. “Judgmental little beast.”
But the spell was momentarily cracked. The real world, in the form of a half-kneazle, was watching. Draco seemed to feel it too. His movements became more focused, more determined, as if to outrun the intrusion. He slid a hand between them, his touch knowing and precise, and that was all it took.
She fell apart with a shattered cry, her body arching off the bed, every nerve alight. He followed her over the edge moments later, his own release a silent, shuddering convulsion against her, his face buried in the crook of her neck with a muffled groan.
For a long while, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing slowing, syncing. The floating orbs of light seemed to dim. He was heavy on top of her, but she didn’t want him to move. Here, she was anchored. Real.
Finally, he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him so her head rested on his chest. His heart thumped a steady, slowing rhythm under her ear. They were both slick with sweat, limbs intertwined in the wreckage of the sheets.
Crookshanks, from his perch, emitted a low, rumbling chirp. It sounded suspiciously like critique.
Draco’s chest vibrated with a quiet laugh. “He’s plotting my demise.”
“He might be,” Hermione murmured, tracing the lines of a faint, old scar across his ribs. A silence stretched, comfortable yet perilous. These were the moments when words became dangerous, when the careful walls they’d built threatened to soften. “My Charms essay is ruined.”
“Your essay was ruined the moment I stepped out from behind that armor,” he said, his fingers absently combing through her tangled curls. His tone was light, but his hand stilled. “You shouldn’t have to escort lost children alone after curfew. It’s not safe.”
The protectiveness in his voice was a live wire. It always startled her. “I’m a prefect. It’s my job. And it’s Hogwarts, not Knockturn Alley.”
“Hogwarts has hidden things,” he said, his voice going distant. Then, as if hearing himself, he shut it down. His hand resumed its motion. “Forget it.”
She wouldn’t. She stored the comment away, a piece of the puzzle that was Draco Malfoy. She looked at the draped canopy above them, the green fabric seeming to breathe in the dim light. “The Room gave you Slytherin colours.”
“It gives me what I want.” His answer was simple, arrogant again. The wall was back up. “And tonight, I wanted you in my bed, not some sterile, neutral space.”
The possessiveness should have rankled. Instead, a warmth that had nothing to do with the Firewhisky spread through her. It was a confession, in his way.
A chime, soft and silvery, echoed once in the room. The warning. An hour was up. The real world was calling them back to their separate towers, their separate lives.
Neither of them moved.
Crookshanks jumped down from the chair with a soft thump. He padded to the edge of the bed, butted his head against Hermione’s dangling hand, and then turned his squashed face to Draco. He stared. It was a long, assessing look.
Then, with a flick of his bottlebrush tail, he turned and trotted towards the door, which shimmered back into existence. He sat before it, waiting.
Message delivered.
Draco let out a long, weary breath. “Even the cat is enforcing curfew.” He pressed a kiss, surprisingly soft, to the crown of her head. “Come on, Granger. Time to go back to pretending we can’t stand each other.”