Three Months Left

Chapter 3

Hermione turns and flees back to the staircase to Gryffindor Tower. She's not sure Malfoy would even follow but she needs a minute. Maybe more than one.

Pansy, fussing with her hair and her skirt, emerging from the broom closet. Malfoy right behind her, looking somewhat dazed. It's not as if Hermione doesn't know they used to date; it's just that she'd been so sure this term that he wasn't seeing anyone at all.

She and Malfoy are not together. She doesn't want anybody to know anything anyway. And they've never talked about it, of course, being on the same page as they are. But - but he'd said she was his good girl, and doesn't that phrasing imply a proprietary nature of things?

He was jealous of Justin, she knows that. And he wanted people to see the mark he'd left on her neck. But that was basic territorial marking - Hermione's not an idiot.

Ginny had almost died laughing when she saw it, continuing with her comforting track of 'you don't have to tell me who he is.' Ron had broken a goblet but refused to ask about it. Harry had pretended it wasn't there. Although, come to think of it, Hermione isn't sure it really registered to Harry at all. If he's not off with Dumbledore, he's had his nose stuck in his Potions book all year and it's getting worse.

All in all, she hadn't minded the spot on her neck like she thought she might. She got a little bit of a rush about it, in fact, knowing it was Malfoy who had put it there and no one would ever guess. It felt like a secret, a secret just between them, and now he's stepping out of a cupboard with Pansy Parkinson.

Hermione reminds herself she has no right to get angry about it. 'His' good girl or not, she has no claim on him at all. And he doesn't really have one on her. It was talk in bed, that's all, something they both find hot. Just because she's wearing the shoes he bought her, and the knickers -

Maybe he's just growing tired of it. Whatever he'd said after they shagged, maybe the novelty is gone. He has been harder to meet up with lately, preferring to sneak away between lessons rather than meet at night. Maybe his nights are with Pansy. It would be so easy, after all, sharing a common room. Maybe Pansy even sleeps in his bed.

That thought gives her a very funny feeling in her stomach that's hard to identify.

She remembers dozing off in the Come and Go Room with him. She's not sure he slept at all, but she'd felt safe and secure. She'd felt... loved. It felt loving under his intense gaze, under his fingers stroking up and down the skin of her arm.

He's gotten undeniably more intense since they shagged. There's been less asking and more telling after they crossed certain thresholds. He sets up scenarios and gives her instructions, directions to follow. He's authoritative and protective, and - yes, proprietary. The way he'd stopped before she came just to ask about Justin. Twice. He'd done it twice. Then, of course, he'd given her one of the best orgasms she's had yet.

It's clear to her that whether he has the right to feel this way or not, he doesn't want her shagging anyone else.

But it's okay if he does?

Hermione's suddenly furious. She may not have the right to that, either, but the double standard of it is maddening. How dare he? He expects her to wear his sodding shoes every sodding day and he's getting off with Pansy Parkinson in closets?

She chucks the shoes across her dorm, frustrated anew by having to undo the strappy clasps to get them off, and yanks her most boring, nondescript pair of flats out of her trunk. Those are stuffed beneath the green pyjamas he'd sent her, the ones that are irritatingly warm and soft, extra cosy, and she shoves those to the side, too.