Meet Your Match

14. From bad To Worse

The faint edge of very early morning light filtered through Draco’s lashes as he woke. He made to roll over but froze when his leg encountered soft skin. He turned his head instead, and a grin broke over his face as he took in the sight before him. 

Granger was sprawled in the bed next to him. Her hair was everywhere—spread so thickly around her head that he almost couldn’t tell whether she was facing him or not. The only clue was a patch of strands fluttering gently with her sleep-heavy breaths. She was on her stomach, one knee pulled up tight to her chest, and the covers were kicked halfway down her other leg.

He lifted himself up on one elbow to better survey the scene. She’d put on a matching set of silky pyjamas last night: a camisole and shorts in a pale pink. The shorts were small... but loose and not truly tiny. Still, the curve of her arse where her leg was hiked up...

He cut off that line of thinking abruptly. He really needed to piss and his usual morning wood was going to make that difficult enough without any extra provocation from Granger’s curves. He laid back down on the pillow, taking a few more minutes to enjoy the view in case she woke when he got up.

She’d dozed off with her book on her chest the night before, and he’d read for almost another hour listening to her soft, steady breathing. When he felt drowsy himself, he’d set both of their books aside and arranged her more comfortably. 

Just like the first night, she slept incredibly soundly and hardly stirred as he moved her. He didn’t move her that much, of course. Okay, he may have pulled one of her arms over his chest. And he might have shifted her head so that it was a little more on top of him. He supposed at one point that he might have draped one of her legs over his, but really nothing other than that.

He wouldn’t deny spending several minutes stroking his hand over her hair, though. He had definitely done that, and he would have gladly continued if he hadn’t fallen asleep himself.

His bladder gave a painful twinge of protest, and he slid out of the bed as quietly as possible. Checking his watch on the nightstand, he noted that it was barely after six.

After using the toilet, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked closely at his reflection. The hollow look that the war and Azkaban had left him with tended to fluctuate in intensity. He had noticed it when his father was sent to Azkaban the first time. That wasn’t the first domino set up in the destruction of his family, but it was the first one to fall. Everything had stemmed from that failure: his “training” with Bellatrix, getting Marked, being tasked with killing Dumbledore. By the end of his sixth year, he’d hardly recognised his own face. 

When the Trio was brought to the Manor during the spring of what should have been their seventh year, he’d wondered if he looked as different to them as they did to him. He’d recognised them immediately, of course—even Potter—but they all had the same look: haunted.

From what Granger had told him, he now understood some of the personal demons the three of them had been fighting, but at the time, he’d been much too concerned with the literal demon living in his house to consider anything past that fact that they were scared, desperate, and nearly hopeless. Just like him.

He wasn’t really sure when the look had started to fade. It happened gradually after leaving Azkaban. Halfway through his first semester was when the change had started accelerating. He’d started spending time with Thomas and Shannon, he’d bought his flat, he’d worked out a tentative plan for his future.