Silver and Gold // Dramione

The Dreams

6th Year, December 17th

Draco thought he should pinch himself.

It didn't feel real.

He was perched on the window seat, in Hermione's favorite spot. He'd been sitting there most of the evening as she went back to the library, intent on reading the Nicholas Flamel biography that had been checked out the previous few months, but now without students to hoard it, it was available to read.

She had returned, and saw him perched with a copy of his 'Magical Creatures Anthology' she'd walked right over, slid underneath his arm, sat to read with him, well, more sat to read half on top of him.

Now he couldn't believe it. Hermione Granger was sitting on the window seat between his legs. Leaning back against his chest as they read the same book in complete and simple silence.

Her hair was directly in his nose, and the intoxicating scent of sweet and tangy Honey Soap filled his senses. No longer as a ridiculous fantasy in dreams, and the scent no longer a point of contention in whether he was going completely off the rails. She was there, willingly and warm, curled against him, her scent filling the air they both breathed.

It had to be a dream; he thought to himself.

The sun would be setting soon, and dinner was long over. Yet he had no intention form moving from this spot, Hermione also didn't budge from the position as the sky filled with marvelous colors and glowed through the window into the room.

The darkness soon encapsulated them, and Draco felt Hermione shift. She'd fallen asleep some time ago, right as the sun was beginning to disappear behind the Forbidden Forest. He'd only known because she had stopped turning the page of the book in her lap.

Draco let his eyes shut then, knowing she was completely out of it with the book strewn lazily over her lap.

How had one day led to this? This contentment with her?

Hours ago he would have assumed she'd come barreling out of her room to slap him across the face, or punch him in the nose like she had in third year. He'd expected an obscene reaction from the Golden Girl of Gryffidnor, and he'd expected Whatever Aurie had gone to talk to her about would have made it a million times worse.

Except she'd come out of the room and kissed him again. Then she left him sit behind her and read with such close proximity that he had to shift very few minutes to conceal the growing bulge in his pants.

It was a world of wonder that Draco never wanted to escape, as long as it meant she was there, he was content.

His eyes fluttered closed and the rhythm of her steady breathing lulled him to sleep.

***

The first clue that something was wrong was the thudding in his ears. It pulsed like a migraine but with the force of a giant's footsteps; as if something was trapped and trying to escape from inside his skull.

It wasn't dark in his surroundings anymore.

Every Time he'd heard the pounding his head, the fire in his veins, and the screaming around him it had always been dark. Like a hollow hole with no context. The fire had returned in his core, burning in from the inside out like the spell had at Borgin and Burkes. He wanted to scream for help, scream for relief, for anyone to let up the pain.

There was no help.

There was essentially no him.

With enough awareness he could see that he was sitting in a dungeon. Brock walls that glowed blue from the moonlight coming through the single barred window in the corner. Far too high to make an escape, even if the bars would have permitted it.