Round 4 Challenge #10 - FINALE Voting!!
NOTE: FINALE VOTING POST BEING REPOSTED BECAUSE OF A POLL ERROR ON MOD'S PART. OOPS. IF YOU'VE ALREADY VOTED, YOU DO NOT NEED TO VOTE AGAIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!!
Can you believe we’ve reached the end of Round 4? It seems like the time has flown, like we were only just yesterday opening the sign-ups. Ah well, we’ve had a great round, and there are more rounds to look forward to!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you are not allowed to vote in the Finale.
Here we go for the GRAND FINALE!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Saturday, August 29th.
Grand Finale
PROMPT ONE
“The quarrels of lovers are like summer showers that leave the country more verdant and beautiful” ~ Sisanne Curchod Necker ~
The Drabble must be 300 words exactly and be in first person POV.
1
Title: The Anniversary Toast
Author: nightfalltwen
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 300
We fight about the stupidest things sometimes. It always starts out that way. A mess of papers in the study or an unmade bed. But no matter how often the argument starts out small, it usually ends with both of us feeling like everything is about to end. Often I wonder if it's because we have such a past. How can you stop yourself from bringing out the big guns when you have all that murky history? Hurtful words on the tips of our tongues ready to be fired at one another.
Never Mudblood.
Never Death Eater.
Hermione and I, we know our boundaries. Because when it comes down to the crux of it all, these are just arguments about stupid things. I don't hate her. Even if I find Potter and Weasley the most irritating of her friends. Even if she finds the request that she always wear a skirt around my mother infuriating and, her favourite term, "anti-feminist."
I really don't know what she means by this. A skirt is the most feminine thing in the world. And she does have great legs.
It's funny though. We fight. I walk away. She cries. We spend time apart. Sometimes an afternoon. Sometimes it's a day. Once, only once, it was a week. And then we talk. We talk about our outbursts and we make up.
I like that part. I especially like that part.
Everything is stronger between the arguments. Her and I are such different people. There's bound to be these little hiccups. Yet, and this is just me, I dare say it makes what we have stronger because we've always worked through it and come out better on the other side.
Twenty-five years, two children, one grandchild and many quarrels later we must be doing something right.
2
Title: When She Wakes
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG
Warnings: Fluff.
Word Count: 300
I watch her sleeping and marvel, yet again, at how angelic and peaceful she looks when she sleeps. It's hard to imagine that just two short hours ago I was harshly reminded of the whole "a woman scorned" concept. Her hair is slightly frizzy and spread out all over the pillows - I always have to be very careful in gathering it before lying down in order not to hurt her by pulling her hair - and her breathing is slow and even. Her eyelashes are quivering slightly, which is how I know she's dreaming.
I frown and prop myself up on my elbow to stare down into her face. I wonder if she dreams about fighting, or if perhaps her dream is happy and peaceful, but of a life she would have had if she hadn't chosen me over safety and predictability. I bet the Weasel wouldn't let her go to sleep angry and upset. I bet she wouldn't fight this much with him.
Gently, I stroke her hair and watch as she wrinkles her nose in the way she does when unsuccessfully trying to hold on to fleeting sleep. I run my index finger down her face and then over her lips, watching as she opens them slightly. I can't stand the temptation then. I lean in and catch them with my own, brushing my lips against hers lightly before leaning away.
She opens her eyes slowly. At first, there is a confused but happy expression in them, but then she seems to remember the last words we have said to each other before she went to bed and they narrow.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I love you."
She looks surprised and then her expression softens. She smiles sleepily.
"Thank you." And then, softer, "I love you too, Draco."
3
Title: A Frosty August
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warnings: EWE
Word Count: 300
“Well, you’re the one who said it was too hot!” I yelled as my lips started turning blue.
“That was before you turned the bedroom into our own private Antarctica!” Draco yelled back, his chattering teeth somewhat nullifying his glare. “What the hell have you done, woman?”
“Obviously I thought it would be fun to freeze to death, so I created an indoor bloody blizzard and froze the door shut on purpose!” I countered, sarcasm dripping from my words. “My cooling charm went awry, you nitwit!”
“Has it?” Draco said in feigned surprise. “I suppose my first clue should have been the icicles hanging off the canopy bed in the middle of August!”
“Oh, shut it, you, and help me figure out how to keep from dying of hypothermia in the middle of summer,” I said, my shoulders slumping.
“We’ve tried everything, even those ridiculous blue flames of yours. Nothing’s worked. If you’ve got any ideas, I’m ready to hear them,” he said, sitting down on the bed, which was now covered in six inches of snow.
“At least it should last only an hour,” I said.
“That’s all? Just an hour?” he said, and though I thought he was joking at first, he seemed to look relieved.
“What?” I asked.
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and patted the bed beside him.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Shared body heat might just be the ticket, pet,” he said. “Besides, if I’m wrong and we wind up a couple of ice cubes, can you think of a better way to go?”
I rolled my eyes but was already plodding towards him through the snow that covered our carpet.
Nine months later, we named our new daughter Zania Apollonia Malfoy, though for some unknown reason we always called her Snowdrop.
PROMPT TWO
Freestyle. Must include 5 words from the prompt table. word limit is 599 words.
4
Title: Tempest Tossed
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warnings: angst
Prompt words used: sunsets, clouds, seashore, stars, breeze, thunderstorm
Word Count: 599
The sound of waves rolling softly into the rocky beaches of Brittany was the same as it had been all summer, and, now that Draco thought of it, the same as it had been for a thousand years. The meeting of land and water at the seashore never changed, but even though eternity might be a series of perpetual meetings here, tomorrow his life took him elsewhere.
As he watched the last of his summer sunsets, clouds rolled in. The stars which usually shone so brightly overhead, tempting him to try to pluck them like ripe apples, were obscured. The fresh breeze became almost violent, and he could tell a fierce thunderstorm was in the offing. Good, he thought. It matched his mood.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” she said, and he turned, leaning casually against the seawall.
“Malfoys keep their promises,” he said. Mentally, he added “when it’s convenient and serves our purpose.”
“So do Grangers,” she said defiantly, her eyes snapping as the first drops of rain fell.
He smirked, but with less malice and more admiration than usual. His family had taken summer holidays in France ever since he was a little boy, but it wasn’t until the summer before fourth year that he’d realized the Grangers occupied a small cottage only a little farther up the coast for a week each year as well. After an initial meeting that had left him with his toenails growing backwards and she with a starfish affixed to her face, they called an uneasy truce for the rest of their time in France. The truce led to brief moments of stolen conversation, ignored when they returned to Hogwarts, but resumed the following year.
This summer, though, he had the command of the Dark Lord heavy in his mind. Draco didn’t want to kill anyone. All he wanted to be was a boy like any other on the beach that day, talking to a pretty girl (though he’d die before he said that to Granger’s face) and dreading the end of summer for reasons that had nothing to do with dark plots.
“What is it?” she asked, and he knew he’d been staring vacantly.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Something,” she said firmly. “You’ve acted strangely all week. What’s happened?”
For one moment he wanted to tell her everything, the plans to kill Dumbledore or else watch his mother and father die horribly, but that would endanger her too. He was sick of constant pressure and the itch beneath the long sleeves that hid the Mark that made his arm look like it belonged to someone else. He wanted to be just Draco.
It wasn’t a conscious decision when he pulled her towards him, holding her at arm’s length and studying her face as though he wanted to memorize every detail. The rain fell in torrents, the wind lashing the drops against them so hard it stung, and he brought his mouth crashing down on hers with the same desperate force. Her response equaled his, and the storm seemed as much within them as around them.
He drew back, panting, eyes wide and horrified.
“T-this,” he stammered, “never happened.”
He turned, lightning splitting the sky overhead, yet through the storm he heard her voice.
“Yes, it did.”
He looked at her, a stone’s throw away. Their eyes locked, and then she turned, walking back up the beach, a silhouette in the growing darkness of the stormy night.
“Yes, it did,” he whispered, letting the rain fall on his face, feeling one last second of purity before he returned to his life.
5
Title: Belief
Author: nightfalltwen
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Prompt words used: Thunderstorm, Clouds, Heat, Escape, Sweat
Word Count: 599
When Hermione was small, Granny Granger would tell her that the rumbling from the dark clouds above her was merely the angels playing cricket with God and the flash of lightening was when he'd bowled particularly well. It was a fanciful way of explaining what was happening above. Hermione never truly bought into it because she didn't think it was logical to believe in something she didn't see.
Then she got her letter to Hogwarts and her world view, at eleven, became a bit skewed. And started to believe in many things she couldn't see.
When Draco was small, there were no such fairytales in his life. Thunderstorms were just what they were. Magic could be found elsewhere and he only knew of the idea of God because his mother happened to have a penchant for very old, very valuable books and she kept a gilded bible from the seventeenth century in among all the other volumes in the library. The stories were strange to him. Muggles were a strange lot, easily believing in this unseen force that could smite them at any moment. Violence for everyone. Nothing good ever came from Muggles, he decided.
It was many years later that he realised that there were some good things that came from Muggles. Or at least one good person.
"How did we end up this way?" she asked him once as they both lay on the stone floor of the Malfoy family library, an early edition of Paradise Lost butterflied on her stomach, trying to escape the heat of the day by absorbing the lower temperature from the cool stones under their bodies.
"What way?" he asked, his arm flung over his eyes, trying not to think how much sweat had gathered at the small of his back.
"You and I. How did we end up here? How did we look past everything and end up in this place we're in. This place where you love me and I love you. It wasn't ever logical of us, was it? We had such different paths."
Draco peeked at her from under his arm and smiled. She always got thoughtful when she read Milton. It was one of her more amusing qualities. There was a point to everything she said. No one expected that they would be here. Potter and Weasley wouldn't talk to her for months when it happened. Everything had sort of mellowed out since. Not enough that her friends would ever consider inviting him out to the pub, but at least the howlers had ceased.
Turning on his side, Draco reached over and plucked the book from her stomach, closing it and setting it aside.
"We ended up here because it was the most natural place to end up. You and I... we started out with such certain views of the world. We compromised and decided to look beyond it all. I lucked out. Because beyond it all just so happened to be the person that completes my life... You surprise me every day."
"Do you believe in invisible things?" She glanced at him. "Like angels playing cricket in thunderstorms or unseen forces that influence our lives?"
"I have to."
"Why?"
"Because if I didn't then I wouldn't be able to trust that someone like you could love someone like me."
She smiled, her cheeks reddening beyond the pink the sun had put there earlier in the afternoon. He had a point. It was easier now to believe in things she couldn't see than it had been when she was small and everything was all angels and thunder.
6
Title: Squids Get Lonely Too.
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Fluff, passionate snogging.
Prompt words used: Thunderstorm, breeze, heat, swimming, lazy
Word Count: 595
"I've never done anything so reckless and crazy in my life," Hermione whispered. She was trembling visibly, and even her proximity to Draco wasn't making her any warmer.
"Relax." He brought his arms around her gently and pulled her to himself. She felt herself blush and her stomach flip when their bodies pressed together. It was the first time both of them wore so little and came into such close physical contact with each other since the whole thing started.
There was a loud crash and Hermione couldn't hold back a gasp as she jumped and then instinctively buried her head in Draco's neck. He laughed softly into her hair. He had promised her an escape from the tediousness of lessons, studying, and Arithmancy homework, but what she had imagined was far from what she got. Somewhere up at the castle her friends were curled up in arm-chairs with mugs of Butterbeer, or lazily entertaining themselves over sets of wizard chess, or being lulled to sleep by the sound of the thunderstorm, and there she was in her undergarments in the Great Lake, clutching a person her friends would Avada Kedavra her for even being friendly with. And Draco and her were decidedly more than friendly.
"Would you relax," he repeated, amusement evident in his voice. He nodded upwards, where a magical barrier arched above them and protected them from the rain and the lightning. But not the freezing breeze, Hermione noted to herself sullenly. "You're safe with me, I promise." She couldn't help but lift up her head and stare at him at the tenderness of those words. "Besides, it's a nice change after all that bloody heat."
"What even gave you the idea?"
He shrugged and pulled her closer. "You said you liked swimming."
She rolled her eyes. "Swimming, Draco, does not usually equal sneaking out after dark during a storm, stripping down to one's knickers when the only thing we've ever done together is kiss, and joining the Giant Squid."
He smirked. "Squids get lonely too, you know." When she smiled despite herself his face suddenly got solemn. "Ok, I know this is a stupid date idea, but the truth is..." He swallowed and looked away. "The truth is I just wanted to know how much you trusted me. Whether you really believed I could keep you safe, and I could be trusted with you, as your friends no doubt will one day wonder when all of this comes to light."
She frowned and when he wouldn't meet her eyes reached up and gently removed a strand of wet blonde hair out of his eyes. "I wouldn't have gotten into this water for or with anyone else," she said seriously. "Not Harry, not Ron, not a whole entourage of Merpeople. But you told me to trust you, told me it was going to be amazing, and while the second part is up for some serious debate, I didn't have a doubt in my mind. And just so you know," her voice had gotten playful, "I don't strip down for just anyone, either."
She had barely finished speaking when his lips were on hers, pulling her so close and kissing her so passionately she had not even heard the next crash of thunder. When she was gasping and trembling under him from something very different than cold, he pulled her out of the water.
As he pulled her along to the castle, stopping every three steps to claim another kiss, a lone tentacle appeared above the surface of the water and waved lazily.
ooo REMEMBER: Vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, NOT THE NAME. It just makes it easier on the mods! Grand Finale writers are NOT allowed to vote.
Please leave both a MOST favorite and a LEAST favorite vote. We must have both in order for your votes to count.
Poll
Can you believe we’ve reached the end of Round 4? It seems like the time has flown, like we were only just yesterday opening the sign-ups. Ah well, we’ve had a great round, and there are more rounds to look forward to!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
- Which drabble best incorporates the prompt?
- Is the drabble clever, different, fresh? Does it evoke an emotional response (good or bad)?
- Does the drabble contain grammar, canon or spelling errors?
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you are not allowed to vote in the Finale.
Here we go for the GRAND FINALE!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Saturday, August 29th.
Grand Finale
PROMPT ONE
“The quarrels of lovers are like summer showers that leave the country more verdant and beautiful” ~ Sisanne Curchod Necker ~
The Drabble must be 300 words exactly and be in first person POV.
1
Title: The Anniversary Toast
Author: nightfalltwen
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 300
We fight about the stupidest things sometimes. It always starts out that way. A mess of papers in the study or an unmade bed. But no matter how often the argument starts out small, it usually ends with both of us feeling like everything is about to end. Often I wonder if it's because we have such a past. How can you stop yourself from bringing out the big guns when you have all that murky history? Hurtful words on the tips of our tongues ready to be fired at one another.
Never Mudblood.
Never Death Eater.
Hermione and I, we know our boundaries. Because when it comes down to the crux of it all, these are just arguments about stupid things. I don't hate her. Even if I find Potter and Weasley the most irritating of her friends. Even if she finds the request that she always wear a skirt around my mother infuriating and, her favourite term, "anti-feminist."
I really don't know what she means by this. A skirt is the most feminine thing in the world. And she does have great legs.
It's funny though. We fight. I walk away. She cries. We spend time apart. Sometimes an afternoon. Sometimes it's a day. Once, only once, it was a week. And then we talk. We talk about our outbursts and we make up.
I like that part. I especially like that part.
Everything is stronger between the arguments. Her and I are such different people. There's bound to be these little hiccups. Yet, and this is just me, I dare say it makes what we have stronger because we've always worked through it and come out better on the other side.
Twenty-five years, two children, one grandchild and many quarrels later we must be doing something right.
2
Title: When She Wakes
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG
Warnings: Fluff.
Word Count: 300
I watch her sleeping and marvel, yet again, at how angelic and peaceful she looks when she sleeps. It's hard to imagine that just two short hours ago I was harshly reminded of the whole "a woman scorned" concept. Her hair is slightly frizzy and spread out all over the pillows - I always have to be very careful in gathering it before lying down in order not to hurt her by pulling her hair - and her breathing is slow and even. Her eyelashes are quivering slightly, which is how I know she's dreaming.
I frown and prop myself up on my elbow to stare down into her face. I wonder if she dreams about fighting, or if perhaps her dream is happy and peaceful, but of a life she would have had if she hadn't chosen me over safety and predictability. I bet the Weasel wouldn't let her go to sleep angry and upset. I bet she wouldn't fight this much with him.
Gently, I stroke her hair and watch as she wrinkles her nose in the way she does when unsuccessfully trying to hold on to fleeting sleep. I run my index finger down her face and then over her lips, watching as she opens them slightly. I can't stand the temptation then. I lean in and catch them with my own, brushing my lips against hers lightly before leaning away.
She opens her eyes slowly. At first, there is a confused but happy expression in them, but then she seems to remember the last words we have said to each other before she went to bed and they narrow.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I love you."
She looks surprised and then her expression softens. She smiles sleepily.
"Thank you." And then, softer, "I love you too, Draco."
3
Title: A Frosty August
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warnings: EWE
Word Count: 300
“Well, you’re the one who said it was too hot!” I yelled as my lips started turning blue.
“That was before you turned the bedroom into our own private Antarctica!” Draco yelled back, his chattering teeth somewhat nullifying his glare. “What the hell have you done, woman?”
“Obviously I thought it would be fun to freeze to death, so I created an indoor bloody blizzard and froze the door shut on purpose!” I countered, sarcasm dripping from my words. “My cooling charm went awry, you nitwit!”
“Has it?” Draco said in feigned surprise. “I suppose my first clue should have been the icicles hanging off the canopy bed in the middle of August!”
“Oh, shut it, you, and help me figure out how to keep from dying of hypothermia in the middle of summer,” I said, my shoulders slumping.
“We’ve tried everything, even those ridiculous blue flames of yours. Nothing’s worked. If you’ve got any ideas, I’m ready to hear them,” he said, sitting down on the bed, which was now covered in six inches of snow.
“At least it should last only an hour,” I said.
“That’s all? Just an hour?” he said, and though I thought he was joking at first, he seemed to look relieved.
“What?” I asked.
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and patted the bed beside him.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Shared body heat might just be the ticket, pet,” he said. “Besides, if I’m wrong and we wind up a couple of ice cubes, can you think of a better way to go?”
I rolled my eyes but was already plodding towards him through the snow that covered our carpet.
Nine months later, we named our new daughter Zania Apollonia Malfoy, though for some unknown reason we always called her Snowdrop.
PROMPT TWO
Freestyle. Must include 5 words from the prompt table. word limit is 599 words.
4
Title: Tempest Tossed
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warnings: angst
Prompt words used: sunsets, clouds, seashore, stars, breeze, thunderstorm
Word Count: 599
The sound of waves rolling softly into the rocky beaches of Brittany was the same as it had been all summer, and, now that Draco thought of it, the same as it had been for a thousand years. The meeting of land and water at the seashore never changed, but even though eternity might be a series of perpetual meetings here, tomorrow his life took him elsewhere.
As he watched the last of his summer sunsets, clouds rolled in. The stars which usually shone so brightly overhead, tempting him to try to pluck them like ripe apples, were obscured. The fresh breeze became almost violent, and he could tell a fierce thunderstorm was in the offing. Good, he thought. It matched his mood.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” she said, and he turned, leaning casually against the seawall.
“Malfoys keep their promises,” he said. Mentally, he added “when it’s convenient and serves our purpose.”
“So do Grangers,” she said defiantly, her eyes snapping as the first drops of rain fell.
He smirked, but with less malice and more admiration than usual. His family had taken summer holidays in France ever since he was a little boy, but it wasn’t until the summer before fourth year that he’d realized the Grangers occupied a small cottage only a little farther up the coast for a week each year as well. After an initial meeting that had left him with his toenails growing backwards and she with a starfish affixed to her face, they called an uneasy truce for the rest of their time in France. The truce led to brief moments of stolen conversation, ignored when they returned to Hogwarts, but resumed the following year.
This summer, though, he had the command of the Dark Lord heavy in his mind. Draco didn’t want to kill anyone. All he wanted to be was a boy like any other on the beach that day, talking to a pretty girl (though he’d die before he said that to Granger’s face) and dreading the end of summer for reasons that had nothing to do with dark plots.
“What is it?” she asked, and he knew he’d been staring vacantly.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Something,” she said firmly. “You’ve acted strangely all week. What’s happened?”
For one moment he wanted to tell her everything, the plans to kill Dumbledore or else watch his mother and father die horribly, but that would endanger her too. He was sick of constant pressure and the itch beneath the long sleeves that hid the Mark that made his arm look like it belonged to someone else. He wanted to be just Draco.
It wasn’t a conscious decision when he pulled her towards him, holding her at arm’s length and studying her face as though he wanted to memorize every detail. The rain fell in torrents, the wind lashing the drops against them so hard it stung, and he brought his mouth crashing down on hers with the same desperate force. Her response equaled his, and the storm seemed as much within them as around them.
He drew back, panting, eyes wide and horrified.
“T-this,” he stammered, “never happened.”
He turned, lightning splitting the sky overhead, yet through the storm he heard her voice.
“Yes, it did.”
He looked at her, a stone’s throw away. Their eyes locked, and then she turned, walking back up the beach, a silhouette in the growing darkness of the stormy night.
“Yes, it did,” he whispered, letting the rain fall on his face, feeling one last second of purity before he returned to his life.
5
Title: Belief
Author: nightfalltwen
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Prompt words used: Thunderstorm, Clouds, Heat, Escape, Sweat
Word Count: 599
When Hermione was small, Granny Granger would tell her that the rumbling from the dark clouds above her was merely the angels playing cricket with God and the flash of lightening was when he'd bowled particularly well. It was a fanciful way of explaining what was happening above. Hermione never truly bought into it because she didn't think it was logical to believe in something she didn't see.
Then she got her letter to Hogwarts and her world view, at eleven, became a bit skewed. And started to believe in many things she couldn't see.
When Draco was small, there were no such fairytales in his life. Thunderstorms were just what they were. Magic could be found elsewhere and he only knew of the idea of God because his mother happened to have a penchant for very old, very valuable books and she kept a gilded bible from the seventeenth century in among all the other volumes in the library. The stories were strange to him. Muggles were a strange lot, easily believing in this unseen force that could smite them at any moment. Violence for everyone. Nothing good ever came from Muggles, he decided.
It was many years later that he realised that there were some good things that came from Muggles. Or at least one good person.
"How did we end up this way?" she asked him once as they both lay on the stone floor of the Malfoy family library, an early edition of Paradise Lost butterflied on her stomach, trying to escape the heat of the day by absorbing the lower temperature from the cool stones under their bodies.
"What way?" he asked, his arm flung over his eyes, trying not to think how much sweat had gathered at the small of his back.
"You and I. How did we end up here? How did we look past everything and end up in this place we're in. This place where you love me and I love you. It wasn't ever logical of us, was it? We had such different paths."
Draco peeked at her from under his arm and smiled. She always got thoughtful when she read Milton. It was one of her more amusing qualities. There was a point to everything she said. No one expected that they would be here. Potter and Weasley wouldn't talk to her for months when it happened. Everything had sort of mellowed out since. Not enough that her friends would ever consider inviting him out to the pub, but at least the howlers had ceased.
Turning on his side, Draco reached over and plucked the book from her stomach, closing it and setting it aside.
"We ended up here because it was the most natural place to end up. You and I... we started out with such certain views of the world. We compromised and decided to look beyond it all. I lucked out. Because beyond it all just so happened to be the person that completes my life... You surprise me every day."
"Do you believe in invisible things?" She glanced at him. "Like angels playing cricket in thunderstorms or unseen forces that influence our lives?"
"I have to."
"Why?"
"Because if I didn't then I wouldn't be able to trust that someone like you could love someone like me."
She smiled, her cheeks reddening beyond the pink the sun had put there earlier in the afternoon. He had a point. It was easier now to believe in things she couldn't see than it had been when she was small and everything was all angels and thunder.
6
Title: Squids Get Lonely Too.
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Fluff, passionate snogging.
Prompt words used: Thunderstorm, breeze, heat, swimming, lazy
Word Count: 595
"I've never done anything so reckless and crazy in my life," Hermione whispered. She was trembling visibly, and even her proximity to Draco wasn't making her any warmer.
"Relax." He brought his arms around her gently and pulled her to himself. She felt herself blush and her stomach flip when their bodies pressed together. It was the first time both of them wore so little and came into such close physical contact with each other since the whole thing started.
There was a loud crash and Hermione couldn't hold back a gasp as she jumped and then instinctively buried her head in Draco's neck. He laughed softly into her hair. He had promised her an escape from the tediousness of lessons, studying, and Arithmancy homework, but what she had imagined was far from what she got. Somewhere up at the castle her friends were curled up in arm-chairs with mugs of Butterbeer, or lazily entertaining themselves over sets of wizard chess, or being lulled to sleep by the sound of the thunderstorm, and there she was in her undergarments in the Great Lake, clutching a person her friends would Avada Kedavra her for even being friendly with. And Draco and her were decidedly more than friendly.
"Would you relax," he repeated, amusement evident in his voice. He nodded upwards, where a magical barrier arched above them and protected them from the rain and the lightning. But not the freezing breeze, Hermione noted to herself sullenly. "You're safe with me, I promise." She couldn't help but lift up her head and stare at him at the tenderness of those words. "Besides, it's a nice change after all that bloody heat."
"What even gave you the idea?"
He shrugged and pulled her closer. "You said you liked swimming."
She rolled her eyes. "Swimming, Draco, does not usually equal sneaking out after dark during a storm, stripping down to one's knickers when the only thing we've ever done together is kiss, and joining the Giant Squid."
He smirked. "Squids get lonely too, you know." When she smiled despite herself his face suddenly got solemn. "Ok, I know this is a stupid date idea, but the truth is..." He swallowed and looked away. "The truth is I just wanted to know how much you trusted me. Whether you really believed I could keep you safe, and I could be trusted with you, as your friends no doubt will one day wonder when all of this comes to light."
She frowned and when he wouldn't meet her eyes reached up and gently removed a strand of wet blonde hair out of his eyes. "I wouldn't have gotten into this water for or with anyone else," she said seriously. "Not Harry, not Ron, not a whole entourage of Merpeople. But you told me to trust you, told me it was going to be amazing, and while the second part is up for some serious debate, I didn't have a doubt in my mind. And just so you know," her voice had gotten playful, "I don't strip down for just anyone, either."
She had barely finished speaking when his lips were on hers, pulling her so close and kissing her so passionately she had not even heard the next crash of thunder. When she was gasping and trembling under him from something very different than cold, he pulled her out of the water.
As he pulled her along to the castle, stopping every three steps to claim another kiss, a lone tentacle appeared above the surface of the water and waved lazily.
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