dramione one shots

30 | the missing perfume

they're head boy and girl in their eighth year set around march time
—

Draco wouldn't be able to remember, when asked, why he had gone into Hermione's room at all.

And he was asked. Weaslette had seen him going through the door from the common room that she so happened to be waiting for Granger whilst she finished her studying. And when Hermione  mentioned to Draco after breakfast the next morning that she seemed to have mislaid her perfume, Weaslette must have overheard and told on Draco. This he deduced from the fact that in their study session, she asked him about it.

"Ginny says she saw you going into my room last night,"Hermione  said, once Draco had dipped his quill into her inkpot.

"Um," was all Malfoy managed to say, overcome with panic.

"You didn't happen to notice if my perfume was still on my dresser, did you?" Hermione went on, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't suspect him, she was just treating him as a possible witness. A way of getting a better handle on the timeframe of when it had gone missing.

"No idea," Draco said lightly. "I don't really make a habit of cataloguing your personal belongings."

"No, of course not," Hermione agreed. "Just thought I'd ask." She was lost in quiet contemplation for a moment and Malfoy took the opportunity to try to calm himself. "What did you want in there, anyway?"

This was when Draco realised he had no earthly idea why he had gone into her bedroom when he knew that he had just left Hermione at the Great Hall. He fumbled for a plausible lie; "I think I wanted a book."

"You think?" Hermione repeated, with one of those gentle, lopsided smiles that made her eyes twinkle. Draco saw them very rarely. "It was only last night."

"Yeah, well... I didn't find any I wanted," He deflected. "So don't come to me when you realise you've lost a book too."

He knew it was unlikely that he could have already forgotten the reason for his visit. And yet it was true. The only thing Malfoy remembered with any clarity was uncorking the bottle of Hermione's perfume, taking a sniff, and immediately becoming so hard he had had to shove the lid back on, close his eyes and count to a hundred before he was in any fit state to cross the corridor to his own bedroom.

It was expensive perfume, that was all. Draco spent his money on drink and sweets and Quidditch bets, whereas Granger's only real outgoings were her parchments and quills - and he knew that it was one luxury that she could afford for herself.

And it reminded him of Hermione.

But he hadn't thought too deeply about that.

In fact, he tried very, very hard not to think about it at all.

He didn't think about it when he put a dab of the perfume on his pillow. He didn't think about it when he let a single drop fall onto the inside of his wrist. He didn't think about it as he went about his days in a fog of arousal and essential oils. He definitely didn't think about it when he started stroking Hermione's perfume onto his neck, the scent mingling with his own and wondering if this was what heaven smelt like.
—

"Maybe it's time to admit you lost it and buy a new one," Draco suggested about two weeks after the incident.

Hermione had turned over every inch of her bedroom, enlisting Draco's help to move the furniture in case the bottle had rolled out of sight underneath something. And she had been borrowing Ginny's perfume while the search went on.

She smelled wrong. It was very confusing.

Granger hadn't noticed. Draco had tried very hard not to stand too close to her since he had begun to smell like the perfume, to avoid just such a situation. Everyone else just assumed it whatever bimbo had been in his bed most recently's perfume.

She was in Draco's bedroom doorway now, waiting for him to give over his spare parchment as she had used all hers up and was due another trip to Hogsmeade. She was only wearing her pyjamas. Draco still hadn't got used to seeing her like that. It had only been 6 months and already she trusted him enough to practically stand naked in his bedroom. He could see all her curves, for merlin's sake. They were... compelling.

"Maybe you're right," she said, in answer to his suggestion. "I don't want to use up all of Gin's."

Draco took a step more than he had meant to when he approached to put the parchment in Hermione's hand. Her fingers closed around it, but Draco didn't let go, leaning in closer and breathing in deeply. His nose against Hermione's neck, he said: "Just make sure you get the same one. You don't smell right, using the other one."

"Right..." Hermione agreed vaguely.

Draco still hadn't removed himself from her person. He clutched the parchment tighter.

"'You smell very floral Malfoy. It's quite nice," Hermione said with a slight chuckle. "It smells like -" She broke off and pulled back to look at Malfoy strangely.

He gazed back at her and tried to look innocent.

Striding past him, Granger went to Draco's dresser and rifled through the contents scattered over the top.

A sense of inevitability was settling over Malfoy and so he said and did nothing, even when Hermione found the right drawer and her hand emerged with her own perfume. She turned to him, holding up the little glass bottle.

"You took it." Hermione sounded more puzzled than anything. "Why did you take it?"

Draco didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to cross the room and take the bottle out of her pliantly confused hand and spill a little of the oily substance onto his fingers.

So he did.

Then he looked up at Hermione and spread the perfume over her soft cheeks and neck, covering the trace scent of the other perfume still lingering from the previous day.

Hermione merely watched while Draco caressed her skin, the shivers running up and down her body.

It was only now that Draco became aware of the reason behind his need to put her perfume on him. It meant that he could now lean in close, holding Granger's wrist to make sure she didn't back away, and fill his nostrils with the scent of her and him together. He wasn't at all sure that the smells worked as a pair, but it was the implications of it - the two of them mingling - that he liked. "Yes," he whispered, and pressed his lips against her neck. "You should smell like this, always. Both of us."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked unsteadily, but her free hand had come up to rest gently on his back.

Easier than words, were actions. Draco slowly kissed his way from Hermione's neck, over her jaw to the corner of her mouth, at which point he let go of her wrist in favour of linking his hands behind Hermione's beautiful neck.

"Please say you haven't forgotten our kiss," Draco begged, so close that their lips brushed when he spoke. It had been Christmas and they'd been drunk, coerced into kissing under the mistletoe. He hadn't been the same since.

"How could I?" Hermione murmured, and her tongue emerged to touch his bottom lip.

He dropped butterfly kisses on Hermione's mouth, keeping it light, trembling with every reciprocal movement she made. Draco had somehow got himself exactly where he wanted to be, despite not knowing what he was aiming for. "I'm sorry I stole your perfume."

"What are you going to do to make it up to me?" Hermione asked, her hands sliding down Draco's back, and he found himself arching into her body.

"Anything you want."

—

wow two updates in two days it's a world record