Sensorial (Dramione)

Chapter 5. Storm

Hermione had bitten her tongue very hard in an attempt to hold back her string of questions for their next few detentions. Every evening Draco would stroll along beside her to the Potions classroom; some days he tossed an insult at her and other days they were held in silence. Each day, she noticed, he looked worse and worse. Pale skin, red eyes. He looked...broken.

Today he looked on edge. As though anything she said might set him off. Well, good. She was filled with fire today and wanted to rile him up.

Draco's broom knocked against hers.

"Do you mind?" She snapped and scuffled away from him.

Draco shot her a careless glance.

"Not really." He shrugged.

Hermione frowned. He sounded so tired.

Draco smothered a yawn and she grimaced at the sound of his bones cracking and popping while he stretched.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy." She muttered.

Draco brought his half eaten apple to his mouth and took another loud bite.

Ah yes, Hermione recalled, the Granny Smith apple was going to be her next little research task.

A flash of lightning shone through the window and caught Draco's face allowing Hermione to see just how dark the skin below his eyes were and how suddenly frail he seemed. She shuddered at the loud clap of thunder and her stare fell to the drizzle of raindrops racing down the glass.

"It's awful out there." She mumbled to no one.

"Aren't you used to it?" Draco muttered in response, his eyes fixed on the cracks in the flooring.

She glanced at him once, "I suppose I should be."

"But you're not."

"Every storm is different." Hermione murmured distantly.

Every storm had a different smell. A different rhythm.

"It's just clouds and rain, Granger. Every time." He scowled.

Hermione watched as he forced another yawn into his arm. She searched for his dark mark and found that it looked even worse than the last time she'd seen it.

"Well, that'd be like saying you're just skin and bones, Malfoy." She countered.

"The storm has a personality?" He smirked a little.

"It certainly has character." She said matter-of-factly.

"And what's mine?" Draco leant on his broom.

"I...–what?"

His smirk widened as her nose scrunched up in confusion and her eyebrows pulled together.

"Well, you said I'm not just skin and bones, so, go on...what's your interpretation of me?"

She faltered.

"I can't say I've spent enough time analysing your incorrigible self to give an interpretation."

That was a lie.

"You're stalling, Granger," he eased himself to sit on one of the desks behind him, "I expected better of you."

Hermione scowled.

"You're a prat and nothing more, Malfoy. You think far too much of yourself, as though you're an untouchable wizard who can do no wrong, when in actual fact you're no better than the rest of us. Perhaps worse—"