Voting: Round 1 - Challenge #2
Below are the drabbles for week 2 of dramione_ldws
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote. The drabble with the most point wins the week, and the twoauthors of the two drabbles with the least votes is voted off.
Skipping this week:
miyabita13
lylianf
Disqualified:
all_fics
1
Title: Choice
Author:
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG-13
I’m usually not the kind of person who drinks to forget. There are better ways to solve my problems, and I do my best to find constructive habits to deal with the low times. Once a year, however, I throw all of that in the rubbish bin and allow myself one night to get righteously trashed, to wallow in the unceasing pain; to think about you.
I know where you spend your Solstice days: as far from the sun as you can get. I hear things, you must know. They don’t talk about you when I’m around, but I hear tail-ends of conversations, whispered exchanges when they think I’m not listening. You seem happy but incomplete, and every year you go to the same place. Every year you end up in my bed.
What draws you to the darkness? It’s been ten years today, ten years since the last worthwhile moment of my life. The first anniversary was to forget; how was I to know you’d show up? Every year since, it’s been to see you, knowing that surely, this year, you’d stop coming. But I know you’ll be here, just like last year. I’m counting on it; I live for it.
Why haven’t you married? It’s the question that haunts me night after night, the one that keeps my heart locked away and inaccessible. It seems you, alone, hold the key. I watch from the distance as you become more successful, more admired. Every year, I think you won’t be there, and the thought of not seeing you again is nearly crippling.
The door opens …
… I can see you at the end of the bar, as usual …
Without looking up, I know it’s you …
… I would know your long, thin fingers anywhere …
I’m relieved …
… You’re here!
You sit beside me without a word and soon you’ve got a glass in your hand. It’s light, just a butterbeer, but the familiar scene comforts me.
You haven’t even looked up from your mixture of firewhisky and vodka, but I know you’re glad to see me.
“Granger.”
“Draco.” This is different and you stiffen. “We can’t keep doing this.”
I sigh. You’re right, of course. At least you did me the courtesy of telling me face to face. All I can do is shrug; the pain is too sharp to allow anything else.
“We have to choose,” I say, more bravely than I feel. “This ends now, or else … it doesn’t.”
I frown, the alcohol I’ve been drinking all day fogging my thoughts. I’d expected something else, something that would send me into a dangerous tailspin from which I would never recover. “What?”
I press on. “We ended ten years ago, but neither of us moved on. I know my heart: I can’t stand to watch you leave me in the middle of the night again. Choose.”
“There is no choice,” I whisper, meeting her anxious and expectant gaze. I take her hand. “Leaving again would probably kill me.”
2
Title: Hallucinating you, babe.
Author:
Word Count: 475
Rating: G
“Granger, what is this song about?”
Hermione looked up in irritation from the pile of paperwork rivalling the Leaning Tower of Pisa she’d been battling through for the last hour and a half. She rolled her eyes as he brandished a piece of parchment in her face, sighing dramatically as she took the paper off him. Her dark eyes skimmed the page quickly, and her annoyance turned to confusion and then curiosity.
“This is a Muggle song, Malfoy,” she said, looking back up at the man, who had decided to sit down in the chair opposite her own. He rolled his own eyes this time.
“I know that, Granger,” he drawled, with the air of a twenty year-old genius who was teaching the alphabet to a five year-old. “Doesn’t change the fact that I want to know what it’s about.”
“Malfoy, you realise that, as my partner in this establishment, you should have as much paperwork as me, and thus much better things to do than worry about the meaning of a silly Muggle song.” Her eyes, though, trailed down the parchment again, the corners of her lips twitching upwards slightly, as she heard the song begin to play in her head.
Summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage
and I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
Draco only sighed irritably and shook his head. “No, Granger, because I, as we both know, am the brawn of this establishment, and you,” His body leaned closer to hers over the desk and the pale silver eyes turned smouldering, “are most certainly the brains.”
She kept quiet, her eyes narrowing at his blatant misuse of sexuality.
“It’s about wanting something you can’t have,” she said, having looked away from Draco once more, reading the scribbled lines on the parchment, black ink still shining. “About searching for a replacement to whatever it is that you really want.
“She’s trying to make up for her loss, by drinking in a late night establishment. And then she goes on to say, summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely, I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women, and that says that even though she’ll look everywhere, she’ll never find a replacement for what she’s lost.”
“Huh,” he replied, looking thoughtful for at least thirty seconds. “Well, that makes sense.” Draco stood up, his quest complete, and reached across the desk to pick up the paper as he did so. With his free hand, Draco caressed Hermione’s flushed cheek with the slightest touch of his fingertips, playful grin gone from his face. “But Granger, don’t worry. You don’t have to replace me.”
With that, he winked at Hermione’s expression, which was now torn between outrage and exasperation, and strutted out of her office, slamming the door as he went.
The Leaning Tower of Paperwork fell over.
3
Title: Drink it Away
Author:
Word Count: 487
Rating: PG (for mild language)
“I don’t love her.”
The bar was nearly empty, which was normal considering it was almost closing time. The few stragglers that were left were all the same. At least in his eyes. Broken men sitting on broken stools drinking from broken bottles. The one in front of him though… well, he never expected to see someone like him here. Rich and respected purebloods didn’t just go and have a beer in dingy, dirty pubs in the middle of the night. Yet, here he was. Draco Malfoy. Sitting, wallowing, and trying to drown himself in his own sorrow.
He pinned his gaze on him, a knowing look in his eyes.
“I don’t!” The young Malfoy protested. He still didn’t believe him. And if he were to guess, he didn’t think Malfoy believed himself either.
“Then why ya here?”
He waited patiently for an answer, wiping down the countertop with his tattered rag. The answer would come in time. He’d been a barkeep long enough to know that half the men that came in in Malfoy’s situation didn’t quite know why. They were prideful and in his experience, that was, more often than, not a bad thing. They’d come in the bar with the idea that they’d drink away all of their pain. It would never work that way though. But they’d still keep chugging along, even when they knew they really should be somewhere else. Should be with her, saying their sorry and begging for mercy. Some of them never figured that out.
“To forget.” Malfoy’s voice was hoarse, he noticed. Like he had been yelling for hours on end, and, by the dark and defeated look in his eyes, it was probably the truth.
“Boy,” he laughed, throwing down his rag and wiping his hands on his pants. “You foolin’ yourself if you think this shit is gonna make you forget her.” He motioned towards the deep-colored whiskey in the grimy glass that Malfoy had is hand firmly wrapped around.
“You don’t know anything.” Malfoy scoffed.
He watched the boy as he shook his head and gave a defeated sigh. Sighing himself, he leaned his hands on the counter and looked Malfoy straight in the eye.
“I know that if I were you, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at Miss Granger’s door, on my knees, praying to the gods that she’d let me back into her arms.”
Malfoy’s head snapped up and the barkeep watched the whirlwind of emotions as they swam, creating a hurricane in his eyes.
“How did you…?”
“I been doing this a long time, boy.” The boy was obviously confused but he let it slide. Instead, his mind seemed to come unhinged for a moment and his glassy gaze signaled that he was somewhere else.
“She’d beautiful. I never told her that, but she is.” Malfoy said, wistfully.
“So go tell her, then.”
And he did.
4
Title: By The Seventh, It’s Still A Lie
Author:
Word Count: 255/260
Rating: G
By the third glass, his sight turns slightly blurry; cross-referencing young women, their twirling skirts and matching flats, he blinks ever so often. No, the thought burns.
By the fifth glass, he tilts his head to the left, squinting through memories of scents and touches. It’s easy to remember the tiniest details, her ankle brushing his - accidentally, she’d claim, and the tops of her cheekbones would flush.
“Pretty boys like you shouldn’t sleep with their heads on the table”, he hears, and his half numb mind almost chants further, you’re forgetting your manners, Draco.
“I hardly fall in the boyish category”, he snaps; this suddenly raspy voice grates his throat. “But you look like you’d do for a good mum.”
The woman staggers away, awkwardly. Another victim of his bitter insults, another silent witness to his lingering fall. Meanwhile, the seventh glass lures his hand to a faint touch, his mind to complete oblivion - it’s summer, and his pockets are only half filled by his shaking hands.
“Pardon me, Sir, but we’re - “
“I think I know”, his discovery makes him burst, and he feels so alive. “She always smelled of fresh ink and lilac powder. Like, you know, my grandmother’s closet.”
The barman narrows his eyes, knowing he can’t turn his back on this; it’s always the same reluctant client, his pale features so familiar from somewhere.
“Grandma would joke and state that it was the most appropriate place to lock one’s heart within”, the blonde young man finally adds, his lashes dabbing in a trial of tears.
5
Title: Fighting the Heat
Author:
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG-13
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” Draco Malfoy murmured, as he tossed and caught a WWW Daydream Charm for the hundredth time in a row. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. He looked over at the witch in the bed next to his and sighed. “Granger?”
“Hum?” she responded, not bothering to look up from her book.
“How many N.E.W.T.s did you get?”
“Eight.”
“I only got three. Yet here we both are, two years after leaving Hogwarts, locked together in the same sweltering room. Interesting, don’t you think?”
“Yes, the irony is remarkable,” Hermione dead-panned, trying to move as little as possible in the heat.
Draco glowered at her, but it did no good since she wouldn’t look up from her book. “Let’s go downstairs. I need a cold drink.”
“There is a pitcher of water in the corner,” she informed him.
“I’d rather die of thirst than drink this place’s water,” he complained.
Hermione finally glanced at him. “Grow up, Malfoy.”
“I’ll behave if you take me downstairs.”
She refused to answer him, wondering for the thousandth time whether or not she’d made the right decision in leaving the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for a position in Magical Law Enforcement. She’d hoped her new job would be satisfying and challenging. Instead, her first assignment was to baby sit Malfoy. He was testifying for the Ministry against several accused Death Eaters and needed someone to get him to the Wizengamot on time each morning. The entire experience had been a complete nightmare. He was spoiled, whiney, and only enjoyed discussing the most asinine of subjects - like who had a better chance surviving for a week in Muggle London, Hagrid or Kreacher? To make matters worse, a heat wave had hit the city four days ago making him more petulant than usual.
“Granger?”
“Forget it, Malfoy. Last time we went downstairs you got drunk and were hung-over at the trial.”
“Did it affect the outcome?”
“It looked bad.”
“If everyone avoided things that looked bad, no one would stand within five feet of your hair.”
Hermione glared at him.
“Fine,” he pouted. “Then I’m going to get comfortable.”
“What are you doing?!” she squeaked, as he started to remove his shirt.
“It’s bloody hot in here. I refuse to burn up just because the sight of a little flesh offends your sensibilities.”
Hermione growled under her breath and turned away from him. “You’re a piece of work, Malfoy. Do even care about trying to just get through these next few days amicably?”
“The temperature is making you grumpy, Granger. Maybe if you too removed your shirt we would get along better.”
“Bugger off.”
When he didn’t reply, Hermione hoped that he would silently pout on his bed for the rest of the evening. She gasped in shock, however, when he grabbed her wrist, licked it, and then blew on it gently.
“W-what?” she stammered.
“Wandless cooling charm,” he winked.
Hermione swallowed loudly. “Teach me."
6
Title: It’s Always in the Summer
Author:
Word Count: 424
Rating: PG for some suggestiveness
It was always in the dead heat of summer that Draco Malfoy thought of her; her brown hair, her fair skin, and her round breasts. He groaned. She had left him five years ago and since then his summers had been filled with her memory. Failing to purge her image from his mind he conceded defeat and now sat in a London bar sipping fire whiskey. He wondered idly how she’d look on a night like this.
She’d wear a dress as dark as it was low, and walk across the room in long strides. She didn’t prance, she always walked with purpose. She’d join him at the small table without a word and smile. They’d drink until she became delightfully tipsy and susceptible to his charms.
He was ripped from his thoughts when someone sat at a nearby table, a cloak pulled up over their head. Draco could only make out the tip of a nose but still felt a strange sense of familiarity. The newcomer seemed tense, perhaps sensing Draco’s watchful gaze. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol in his system but he felt the sudden urge to speak.
“You usually come here?” Draco asked. The stranger shook their head.
He emptied his glass in one gulp and set it down with a loud smack. He chuckled, “Woman trouble perhaps?” The stranger shrugged. Draco continued, bitterness settling upon him, “It’s always women isn’t it? They come into your life, screw everything up, and walk right out.”
Minutes passed and the alcohol kept flowing but Draco did not take his eyes off of the stranger in the black cloak as his thoughts shifted once again to Hermione.
Whenever she drank she lost her sense of propriety and would touch and tease him shamelessly. He could almost feel her fingers creeping up his thigh. He cursed when he suddenly noticed them; the slender fingers poking out from under the cloak. Her hands trembled slightly as she placed them on her thigh. Of all the bars in the entire world she had to end up in this one.
“A yearly tradition then?” he asked his voice low and seductive. At this she hesitated but finally stood, pulling the cloak away. She wore a dress as low as it was dark. He smiled in spite of himself.
“Something like that.” Hermione said bashfully her honey brown eyes projecting her uncertainty. He considered her for a moment and gestured towards the empty seat next to him. Perhaps this summer wouldn’t be so bad after all.
7
Title:Summer in The City
Author:
Word Count:319
Rating:PG-13
I sit here and drink myself into a stupor every night just in hopes of catching a glimpse of your chestnut hair. Sometimes you come early with a cheerful smile and a contagious laugh; sometimes you show up late with a pout on your plump lips; and some days you don’t stop by at all, and I wonder if those are the days you let the Weasel touch your womanly essence. It makes me see red, and whisper sweet nothings into the ears of pretty strangers who giggle and flirt and spread themselves open for me and my manhood. The quick shags against the door of the pub loo are always most unsatisfying, but allow me to let out my frustrations at not having you anymore. Always biting my tongue to keep from screaming your name during my completion, I’ll stubbornly bite my tongue and bury my face into the cleavage of the nameless women - angry mostly at myself for giving in to my carnal weakness.
I miss you. It’s been months since we broke up, or more since the day you walked out of my life. I thought you were a Gryffindor - brave and all that snot.
Instead, you left me broken and hurt claiming a love like ours could never be in this world.
And I hate you Hermione Granger because I can’t get you out of my mind, body, or soul no matter how many witches I fuck up against the bathroom door of the Leaky Cauldron just so I can forget how pliant, soft, and responsive your body is, or how many Galleons I spend on Firewhiskey every night in hopes of forgetting all the sweet nothings you once whispered into my ears.
But I can’t help myself - every time I catch a glimpse of your frizzy curls my heart skips a beat and the cycle starts all over again the next day.
8
Title: Learning Curve
Author:
Word Count: 493
Rating:M for implications
Hermione decided to take Draco on an afternoon stroll of window shopping. They had serendipitously started dating a few months before and took turns organizing weekend excursions to get to know each other. Their outings often ended in tantrums, on Draco’s part, for Hermione’s threats of withholding because she didn’t agree with his style of debate. (He always fought dirty) They were asked to leave a “Mystery Dinner Theatre” because they couldn’t stop bickering about the process of proper deduction. Draco‘deduced’ that Hermione was daft and Hermione ‘deduced’ that Draco was poncey. In the end, their little field trips were always fun.
It was a squelching summer day and Hermione was enjoying the sunshine and window displays of the antique shops. Draco was enjoying Hermione’s tank-top.
“Are we done yet?” he said irritably as Hermione stepped up to gaze at a broach in the window. In all of her Austenite glory, she turned to tell him why she loved Edwardian antiques and noticed he wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was bravely trying to ignore the young woman walking by in a barely there halter.
The girl was drooling at Draco, parading around him like a fluffed up slag! Where was the damn garden hose when you needed it!?
“Close your mouth, Draco. Malfoys don’t gape, it’s unbecoming” she tutted.
“I…” clearly he was flabbergasted. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Seriously, I’ve never seen such beautifully large breasts! Is it magic? Do you suppose she’s a witch?” he said in all sincerity.
“It’s muggle magic, called plastic surgery…” she replied shortly.
“Do all muggle women wear short trousers like that? You’re a muggle, do you have trousers that short and if so…WHY have I not seen them!?”
Where were all the normally dressed girls!? Maybe they wandered onto the wrong street...
If he wanted cleavage, she would show him cleavage. “I can’t believe I am doing this” she muttered as she pushed up her girls. She tied a knot in her tank-top so that the material was taut and low across her chest, emphasizing her generous curves. She pulled out her “teacher glasses”-they always drove him wild (the man had a very naughty teacher fetish).
“Pay attention Mr. Malfoy”, she snapped her fingers at him. He oggled her breasts before looking into her eyes.
“No no, look here, eyes on the prize if you want to learn to appreciate cleavage properly!”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Now, proper cleavage should reveal about 1/3 of the top swell of breast, like so…” she demonstrated. “Breasts should not pop out over the shirt or bra and should appear soft but firm” she said trailing her finger.
“Mmmm”, he said licking his lips.“I need extra help with this lesson, we should retire to the manor for private tutoring. What say you?”
“You’ll have to study really hard, Malfoy” she said and pressed her bum against his bulge. She placed his hands on her breasts, “I grade on a curve…”.
He apparated them.
9
Title: The Meeting
Author:
Word Count: 495
Rating:PG
I was nervously fingering the beer in front of me, sweat pooling in the valley between my breasts, my summer dress sticking to my body. The heat was overwhelming.
Casting a freezing charm would have been a relief, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was at a Muggle bar, trying to be inconspicuous. My wand was hidden in my purse.
I sighed while the college students occupying the table behind me were getting rowdier with each round of ale. Normally, I wouldn’t have entered a bar like this, especially this late at night. But I was meeting somebody.
And he was late. I took another sip from my beer, making a face as the bitter liquid touched my tongue. I hastily put down the bottle, wiping away the foam that had spilled on my chin.
“Very attractive, Granger.” Suddenly the stool beside me was occupied. I glared at him while he ordered a beer.
How someone so obviously a wizard as Malfoy could blend into a Muggle bar that easily was beyond me. Nevertheless, he probably was doing a better job than me. He seemed completely at ease.
The barman came back with Malfoy’s beer and he took a sip - no slopping.
You’re late,” I hissed.
“I had to shake a few tails,” he didn’t sound apologetic.
I glanced worriedly to the door, but when no Death Eater was entering, I turned back.
“Did you have to pick a bar like this for meeting,” I asked, gripping my bottle tighter. I would not take another sip in front of him, but I needed to hide the shaking of my hands. Whether the shaking was due to anger or something else I did not dare analyse.
“We’re crappy today,” he commented, taking another sip. No care in the world.
I very much hated him right then.
“Please, let’s just get this over with,” I said anxiously.
“As you wish.” Malfoy got up from his stool, standing behind me before I even realised he had moved. Bracing his hands on either side of me on the bar he leaned impossibly close, whispering in my ear. “Always a pleasure, Granger.”
He pressed a hot kiss against my neck, something I ought to have slapped him for, and then strolled out of the bar, whistling.
My whole body was shaking.
I unsteadily got up from the chair, paying for both beers and ignoring the boisterous cheers from the drunken college students. Malfoy was gone. I knew he had delivered what I had wanted. I clutched my purse to my breasts, which by now should contain my wand and information on Voldemort. While I looked for a secure spot to Apparate out of this hellhole, I resolved to beg Harry to get someone else to meet with our most important spy - anyone but me.
I was still shaking.
But when I finally Disapparated from a secluded alley, I knew I would not talk to Harry.
I never did.
10
Title:Last Call
Author:
Word Count:496
Rating: PG-13, language
“Why did I let Ginny talk me into this?” Literally and figuratively. Hermione surreptitiously tugged up her deeply v-necked top.
“Because moping isn’t a viable lifestyle choice?” guessed Lavender.
Ginny returned with their drinks. “He’s here.”
“We know,” chorused Parvarti and Padma.
They sipped from their glasses, emphatically not looking at the ex-crown Prince of Slytherin holding court in the pub’s corner booth. Surrounded by toadying strangers. And buxom wenches with lots of cleavage. The prick.
Hermione gulped down her Firewhiskey and got unsteadily to her feet.
“I need another one. You lot okay?”
The other girls blinked down at their full glasses and back up at her wordlessly.
“Right.”
She squared her shoulders and marched tottered off toward the bar.
Luna played idly with her umbrella and asked dreamily, “Do lions eat ferrets?”
The others snorted in response.
Hermione was waiting impatiently for her Firewhiskey -- Honestly, did they Apparate to Siberia for the ice? -- when she felt his breath on her neck.
“The she-devil Weaselette must’ve dressed you tonight,” he slurred slightly.
“Ginny helped, yes. However did you guess?”
“I can see my freckles, Granger. The ones that trail across your curves like breadcrumbs to your --”
“MALFOY!” she whirled around to face him, stumbling a little on impossibly high heels. He caught her, and they both froze when his palms met the bare silky skin of her upper arms.
He circled his thumbs against her shoulders and drawled, “I’m starting to miss you, boobies, sometimes.”
“I… I… WHAT?”
He blinked. “Baby… miss you, baby, sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Her eyebrow shot up and her hands went to her hips.
“All the times…”
“Except when you’re playing Qudditch.”
“Ummm…”
“Or out boozing with the lads. Unless there’s a Bruce Lee movie to watch.” She held up fingers for each item recited. “Not during Sunday dinner with your parents. Well, that might be boring enough that you’d spare time to think of me. I wouldn’t know - her voice went up an octave - as I’ve never been. Or while you’re poring over the latest Broom & Flyer. Perusing the latest issue of Playwizard.” Here she made a crude jerky side to side motion with her loosely fisted hand. “Certainly not while you were kissing Pugface Pansy at Neville’s birthday party.” This statement drew gasps of outrage from a nearby table of eavesdropping witches. “Really, I can’t imagine when you’d have the time to miss me with such a busy sched--”
He pressed his lips against hers and thrust his tongue in her mouth, drawing her close and arcing her backwards in his eagerness to taste her. She was shocked into compliance for a few heavenly seconds and then started struggling viciously. He let her go when she bit his lip hard.
“What was that for?” he asked angrily as he wiped blood from his lower lip.
“I think I’m going to throw up!”
“LAST CALL!” the bouncer cried and the bar bell rang.
Poll Drabble Voting
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote. The drabble with the most point wins the week, and the twoauthors of the two drabbles with the least votes is voted off.
Skipping this week:
miyabita13
lylianf
Disqualified:
all_fics
1
Title: Choice
Author:
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG-13
I’m usually not the kind of person who drinks to forget. There are better ways to solve my problems, and I do my best to find constructive habits to deal with the low times. Once a year, however, I throw all of that in the rubbish bin and allow myself one night to get righteously trashed, to wallow in the unceasing pain; to think about you.
I know where you spend your Solstice days: as far from the sun as you can get. I hear things, you must know. They don’t talk about you when I’m around, but I hear tail-ends of conversations, whispered exchanges when they think I’m not listening. You seem happy but incomplete, and every year you go to the same place. Every year you end up in my bed.
What draws you to the darkness? It’s been ten years today, ten years since the last worthwhile moment of my life. The first anniversary was to forget; how was I to know you’d show up? Every year since, it’s been to see you, knowing that surely, this year, you’d stop coming. But I know you’ll be here, just like last year. I’m counting on it; I live for it.
Why haven’t you married? It’s the question that haunts me night after night, the one that keeps my heart locked away and inaccessible. It seems you, alone, hold the key. I watch from the distance as you become more successful, more admired. Every year, I think you won’t be there, and the thought of not seeing you again is nearly crippling.
The door opens …
… I can see you at the end of the bar, as usual …
Without looking up, I know it’s you …
… I would know your long, thin fingers anywhere …
I’m relieved …
… You’re here!
You sit beside me without a word and soon you’ve got a glass in your hand. It’s light, just a butterbeer, but the familiar scene comforts me.
You haven’t even looked up from your mixture of firewhisky and vodka, but I know you’re glad to see me.
“Granger.”
“Draco.” This is different and you stiffen. “We can’t keep doing this.”
I sigh. You’re right, of course. At least you did me the courtesy of telling me face to face. All I can do is shrug; the pain is too sharp to allow anything else.
“We have to choose,” I say, more bravely than I feel. “This ends now, or else … it doesn’t.”
I frown, the alcohol I’ve been drinking all day fogging my thoughts. I’d expected something else, something that would send me into a dangerous tailspin from which I would never recover. “What?”
I press on. “We ended ten years ago, but neither of us moved on. I know my heart: I can’t stand to watch you leave me in the middle of the night again. Choose.”
“There is no choice,” I whisper, meeting her anxious and expectant gaze. I take her hand. “Leaving again would probably kill me.”
2
Title: Hallucinating you, babe.
Author:
Word Count: 475
Rating: G
“Granger, what is this song about?”
Hermione looked up in irritation from the pile of paperwork rivalling the Leaning Tower of Pisa she’d been battling through for the last hour and a half. She rolled her eyes as he brandished a piece of parchment in her face, sighing dramatically as she took the paper off him. Her dark eyes skimmed the page quickly, and her annoyance turned to confusion and then curiosity.
“This is a Muggle song, Malfoy,” she said, looking back up at the man, who had decided to sit down in the chair opposite her own. He rolled his own eyes this time.
“I know that, Granger,” he drawled, with the air of a twenty year-old genius who was teaching the alphabet to a five year-old. “Doesn’t change the fact that I want to know what it’s about.”
“Malfoy, you realise that, as my partner in this establishment, you should have as much paperwork as me, and thus much better things to do than worry about the meaning of a silly Muggle song.” Her eyes, though, trailed down the parchment again, the corners of her lips twitching upwards slightly, as she heard the song begin to play in her head.
Summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage
and I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
Draco only sighed irritably and shook his head. “No, Granger, because I, as we both know, am the brawn of this establishment, and you,” His body leaned closer to hers over the desk and the pale silver eyes turned smouldering, “are most certainly the brains.”
She kept quiet, her eyes narrowing at his blatant misuse of sexuality.
“It’s about wanting something you can’t have,” she said, having looked away from Draco once more, reading the scribbled lines on the parchment, black ink still shining. “About searching for a replacement to whatever it is that you really want.
“She’s trying to make up for her loss, by drinking in a late night establishment. And then she goes on to say, summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely, I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women, and that says that even though she’ll look everywhere, she’ll never find a replacement for what she’s lost.”
“Huh,” he replied, looking thoughtful for at least thirty seconds. “Well, that makes sense.” Draco stood up, his quest complete, and reached across the desk to pick up the paper as he did so. With his free hand, Draco caressed Hermione’s flushed cheek with the slightest touch of his fingertips, playful grin gone from his face. “But Granger, don’t worry. You don’t have to replace me.”
With that, he winked at Hermione’s expression, which was now torn between outrage and exasperation, and strutted out of her office, slamming the door as he went.
The Leaning Tower of Paperwork fell over.
3
Title: Drink it Away
Author:
Word Count: 487
Rating: PG (for mild language)
“I don’t love her.”
The bar was nearly empty, which was normal considering it was almost closing time. The few stragglers that were left were all the same. At least in his eyes. Broken men sitting on broken stools drinking from broken bottles. The one in front of him though… well, he never expected to see someone like him here. Rich and respected purebloods didn’t just go and have a beer in dingy, dirty pubs in the middle of the night. Yet, here he was. Draco Malfoy. Sitting, wallowing, and trying to drown himself in his own sorrow.
He pinned his gaze on him, a knowing look in his eyes.
“I don’t!” The young Malfoy protested. He still didn’t believe him. And if he were to guess, he didn’t think Malfoy believed himself either.
“Then why ya here?”
He waited patiently for an answer, wiping down the countertop with his tattered rag. The answer would come in time. He’d been a barkeep long enough to know that half the men that came in in Malfoy’s situation didn’t quite know why. They were prideful and in his experience, that was, more often than, not a bad thing. They’d come in the bar with the idea that they’d drink away all of their pain. It would never work that way though. But they’d still keep chugging along, even when they knew they really should be somewhere else. Should be with her, saying their sorry and begging for mercy. Some of them never figured that out.
“To forget.” Malfoy’s voice was hoarse, he noticed. Like he had been yelling for hours on end, and, by the dark and defeated look in his eyes, it was probably the truth.
“Boy,” he laughed, throwing down his rag and wiping his hands on his pants. “You foolin’ yourself if you think this shit is gonna make you forget her.” He motioned towards the deep-colored whiskey in the grimy glass that Malfoy had is hand firmly wrapped around.
“You don’t know anything.” Malfoy scoffed.
He watched the boy as he shook his head and gave a defeated sigh. Sighing himself, he leaned his hands on the counter and looked Malfoy straight in the eye.
“I know that if I were you, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at Miss Granger’s door, on my knees, praying to the gods that she’d let me back into her arms.”
Malfoy’s head snapped up and the barkeep watched the whirlwind of emotions as they swam, creating a hurricane in his eyes.
“How did you…?”
“I been doing this a long time, boy.” The boy was obviously confused but he let it slide. Instead, his mind seemed to come unhinged for a moment and his glassy gaze signaled that he was somewhere else.
“She’d beautiful. I never told her that, but she is.” Malfoy said, wistfully.
“So go tell her, then.”
And he did.
4
Title: By The Seventh, It’s Still A Lie
Author:
Word Count: 255/260
Rating: G
By the third glass, his sight turns slightly blurry; cross-referencing young women, their twirling skirts and matching flats, he blinks ever so often. No, the thought burns.
By the fifth glass, he tilts his head to the left, squinting through memories of scents and touches. It’s easy to remember the tiniest details, her ankle brushing his - accidentally, she’d claim, and the tops of her cheekbones would flush.
“Pretty boys like you shouldn’t sleep with their heads on the table”, he hears, and his half numb mind almost chants further, you’re forgetting your manners, Draco.
“I hardly fall in the boyish category”, he snaps; this suddenly raspy voice grates his throat. “But you look like you’d do for a good mum.”
The woman staggers away, awkwardly. Another victim of his bitter insults, another silent witness to his lingering fall. Meanwhile, the seventh glass lures his hand to a faint touch, his mind to complete oblivion - it’s summer, and his pockets are only half filled by his shaking hands.
“Pardon me, Sir, but we’re - “
“I think I know”, his discovery makes him burst, and he feels so alive. “She always smelled of fresh ink and lilac powder. Like, you know, my grandmother’s closet.”
The barman narrows his eyes, knowing he can’t turn his back on this; it’s always the same reluctant client, his pale features so familiar from somewhere.
“Grandma would joke and state that it was the most appropriate place to lock one’s heart within”, the blonde young man finally adds, his lashes dabbing in a trial of tears.
5
Title: Fighting the Heat
Author:
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG-13
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” Draco Malfoy murmured, as he tossed and caught a WWW Daydream Charm for the hundredth time in a row. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. He looked over at the witch in the bed next to his and sighed. “Granger?”
“Hum?” she responded, not bothering to look up from her book.
“How many N.E.W.T.s did you get?”
“Eight.”
“I only got three. Yet here we both are, two years after leaving Hogwarts, locked together in the same sweltering room. Interesting, don’t you think?”
“Yes, the irony is remarkable,” Hermione dead-panned, trying to move as little as possible in the heat.
Draco glowered at her, but it did no good since she wouldn’t look up from her book. “Let’s go downstairs. I need a cold drink.”
“There is a pitcher of water in the corner,” she informed him.
“I’d rather die of thirst than drink this place’s water,” he complained.
Hermione finally glanced at him. “Grow up, Malfoy.”
“I’ll behave if you take me downstairs.”
She refused to answer him, wondering for the thousandth time whether or not she’d made the right decision in leaving the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for a position in Magical Law Enforcement. She’d hoped her new job would be satisfying and challenging. Instead, her first assignment was to baby sit Malfoy. He was testifying for the Ministry against several accused Death Eaters and needed someone to get him to the Wizengamot on time each morning. The entire experience had been a complete nightmare. He was spoiled, whiney, and only enjoyed discussing the most asinine of subjects - like who had a better chance surviving for a week in Muggle London, Hagrid or Kreacher? To make matters worse, a heat wave had hit the city four days ago making him more petulant than usual.
“Granger?”
“Forget it, Malfoy. Last time we went downstairs you got drunk and were hung-over at the trial.”
“Did it affect the outcome?”
“It looked bad.”
“If everyone avoided things that looked bad, no one would stand within five feet of your hair.”
Hermione glared at him.
“Fine,” he pouted. “Then I’m going to get comfortable.”
“What are you doing?!” she squeaked, as he started to remove his shirt.
“It’s bloody hot in here. I refuse to burn up just because the sight of a little flesh offends your sensibilities.”
Hermione growled under her breath and turned away from him. “You’re a piece of work, Malfoy. Do even care about trying to just get through these next few days amicably?”
“The temperature is making you grumpy, Granger. Maybe if you too removed your shirt we would get along better.”
“Bugger off.”
When he didn’t reply, Hermione hoped that he would silently pout on his bed for the rest of the evening. She gasped in shock, however, when he grabbed her wrist, licked it, and then blew on it gently.
“W-what?” she stammered.
“Wandless cooling charm,” he winked.
Hermione swallowed loudly. “Teach me."
6
Title: It’s Always in the Summer
Author:
Word Count: 424
Rating: PG for some suggestiveness
It was always in the dead heat of summer that Draco Malfoy thought of her; her brown hair, her fair skin, and her round breasts. He groaned. She had left him five years ago and since then his summers had been filled with her memory. Failing to purge her image from his mind he conceded defeat and now sat in a London bar sipping fire whiskey. He wondered idly how she’d look on a night like this.
She’d wear a dress as dark as it was low, and walk across the room in long strides. She didn’t prance, she always walked with purpose. She’d join him at the small table without a word and smile. They’d drink until she became delightfully tipsy and susceptible to his charms.
He was ripped from his thoughts when someone sat at a nearby table, a cloak pulled up over their head. Draco could only make out the tip of a nose but still felt a strange sense of familiarity. The newcomer seemed tense, perhaps sensing Draco’s watchful gaze. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol in his system but he felt the sudden urge to speak.
“You usually come here?” Draco asked. The stranger shook their head.
He emptied his glass in one gulp and set it down with a loud smack. He chuckled, “Woman trouble perhaps?” The stranger shrugged. Draco continued, bitterness settling upon him, “It’s always women isn’t it? They come into your life, screw everything up, and walk right out.”
Minutes passed and the alcohol kept flowing but Draco did not take his eyes off of the stranger in the black cloak as his thoughts shifted once again to Hermione.
Whenever she drank she lost her sense of propriety and would touch and tease him shamelessly. He could almost feel her fingers creeping up his thigh. He cursed when he suddenly noticed them; the slender fingers poking out from under the cloak. Her hands trembled slightly as she placed them on her thigh. Of all the bars in the entire world she had to end up in this one.
“A yearly tradition then?” he asked his voice low and seductive. At this she hesitated but finally stood, pulling the cloak away. She wore a dress as low as it was dark. He smiled in spite of himself.
“Something like that.” Hermione said bashfully her honey brown eyes projecting her uncertainty. He considered her for a moment and gestured towards the empty seat next to him. Perhaps this summer wouldn’t be so bad after all.
7
Title:Summer in The City
Author:
Word Count:319
Rating:PG-13
I sit here and drink myself into a stupor every night just in hopes of catching a glimpse of your chestnut hair. Sometimes you come early with a cheerful smile and a contagious laugh; sometimes you show up late with a pout on your plump lips; and some days you don’t stop by at all, and I wonder if those are the days you let the Weasel touch your womanly essence. It makes me see red, and whisper sweet nothings into the ears of pretty strangers who giggle and flirt and spread themselves open for me and my manhood. The quick shags against the door of the pub loo are always most unsatisfying, but allow me to let out my frustrations at not having you anymore. Always biting my tongue to keep from screaming your name during my completion, I’ll stubbornly bite my tongue and bury my face into the cleavage of the nameless women - angry mostly at myself for giving in to my carnal weakness.
I miss you. It’s been months since we broke up, or more since the day you walked out of my life. I thought you were a Gryffindor - brave and all that snot.
Instead, you left me broken and hurt claiming a love like ours could never be in this world.
And I hate you Hermione Granger because I can’t get you out of my mind, body, or soul no matter how many witches I fuck up against the bathroom door of the Leaky Cauldron just so I can forget how pliant, soft, and responsive your body is, or how many Galleons I spend on Firewhiskey every night in hopes of forgetting all the sweet nothings you once whispered into my ears.
But I can’t help myself - every time I catch a glimpse of your frizzy curls my heart skips a beat and the cycle starts all over again the next day.
8
Title: Learning Curve
Author:
Word Count: 493
Rating:M for implications
Hermione decided to take Draco on an afternoon stroll of window shopping. They had serendipitously started dating a few months before and took turns organizing weekend excursions to get to know each other. Their outings often ended in tantrums, on Draco’s part, for Hermione’s threats of withholding because she didn’t agree with his style of debate. (He always fought dirty) They were asked to leave a “Mystery Dinner Theatre” because they couldn’t stop bickering about the process of proper deduction. Draco‘deduced’ that Hermione was daft and Hermione ‘deduced’ that Draco was poncey. In the end, their little field trips were always fun.
It was a squelching summer day and Hermione was enjoying the sunshine and window displays of the antique shops. Draco was enjoying Hermione’s tank-top.
“Are we done yet?” he said irritably as Hermione stepped up to gaze at a broach in the window. In all of her Austenite glory, she turned to tell him why she loved Edwardian antiques and noticed he wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was bravely trying to ignore the young woman walking by in a barely there halter.
The girl was drooling at Draco, parading around him like a fluffed up slag! Where was the damn garden hose when you needed it!?
“Close your mouth, Draco. Malfoys don’t gape, it’s unbecoming” she tutted.
“I…” clearly he was flabbergasted. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Seriously, I’ve never seen such beautifully large breasts! Is it magic? Do you suppose she’s a witch?” he said in all sincerity.
“It’s muggle magic, called plastic surgery…” she replied shortly.
“Do all muggle women wear short trousers like that? You’re a muggle, do you have trousers that short and if so…WHY have I not seen them!?”
Where were all the normally dressed girls!? Maybe they wandered onto the wrong street...
If he wanted cleavage, she would show him cleavage. “I can’t believe I am doing this” she muttered as she pushed up her girls. She tied a knot in her tank-top so that the material was taut and low across her chest, emphasizing her generous curves. She pulled out her “teacher glasses”-they always drove him wild (the man had a very naughty teacher fetish).
“Pay attention Mr. Malfoy”, she snapped her fingers at him. He oggled her breasts before looking into her eyes.
“No no, look here, eyes on the prize if you want to learn to appreciate cleavage properly!”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Now, proper cleavage should reveal about 1/3 of the top swell of breast, like so…” she demonstrated. “Breasts should not pop out over the shirt or bra and should appear soft but firm” she said trailing her finger.
“Mmmm”, he said licking his lips.“I need extra help with this lesson, we should retire to the manor for private tutoring. What say you?”
“You’ll have to study really hard, Malfoy” she said and pressed her bum against his bulge. She placed his hands on her breasts, “I grade on a curve…”.
He apparated them.
9
Title: The Meeting
Author:
Word Count: 495
Rating:PG
I was nervously fingering the beer in front of me, sweat pooling in the valley between my breasts, my summer dress sticking to my body. The heat was overwhelming.
Casting a freezing charm would have been a relief, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was at a Muggle bar, trying to be inconspicuous. My wand was hidden in my purse.
I sighed while the college students occupying the table behind me were getting rowdier with each round of ale. Normally, I wouldn’t have entered a bar like this, especially this late at night. But I was meeting somebody.
And he was late. I took another sip from my beer, making a face as the bitter liquid touched my tongue. I hastily put down the bottle, wiping away the foam that had spilled on my chin.
“Very attractive, Granger.” Suddenly the stool beside me was occupied. I glared at him while he ordered a beer.
How someone so obviously a wizard as Malfoy could blend into a Muggle bar that easily was beyond me. Nevertheless, he probably was doing a better job than me. He seemed completely at ease.
The barman came back with Malfoy’s beer and he took a sip - no slopping.
You’re late,” I hissed.
“I had to shake a few tails,” he didn’t sound apologetic.
I glanced worriedly to the door, but when no Death Eater was entering, I turned back.
“Did you have to pick a bar like this for meeting,” I asked, gripping my bottle tighter. I would not take another sip in front of him, but I needed to hide the shaking of my hands. Whether the shaking was due to anger or something else I did not dare analyse.
“We’re crappy today,” he commented, taking another sip. No care in the world.
I very much hated him right then.
“Please, let’s just get this over with,” I said anxiously.
“As you wish.” Malfoy got up from his stool, standing behind me before I even realised he had moved. Bracing his hands on either side of me on the bar he leaned impossibly close, whispering in my ear. “Always a pleasure, Granger.”
He pressed a hot kiss against my neck, something I ought to have slapped him for, and then strolled out of the bar, whistling.
My whole body was shaking.
I unsteadily got up from the chair, paying for both beers and ignoring the boisterous cheers from the drunken college students. Malfoy was gone. I knew he had delivered what I had wanted. I clutched my purse to my breasts, which by now should contain my wand and information on Voldemort. While I looked for a secure spot to Apparate out of this hellhole, I resolved to beg Harry to get someone else to meet with our most important spy - anyone but me.
I was still shaking.
But when I finally Disapparated from a secluded alley, I knew I would not talk to Harry.
I never did.
10
Title:Last Call
Author:
Word Count:496
Rating: PG-13, language
“Why did I let Ginny talk me into this?” Literally and figuratively. Hermione surreptitiously tugged up her deeply v-necked top.
“Because moping isn’t a viable lifestyle choice?” guessed Lavender.
Ginny returned with their drinks. “He’s here.”
“We know,” chorused Parvarti and Padma.
They sipped from their glasses, emphatically not looking at the ex-crown Prince of Slytherin holding court in the pub’s corner booth. Surrounded by toadying strangers. And buxom wenches with lots of cleavage. The prick.
Hermione gulped down her Firewhiskey and got unsteadily to her feet.
“I need another one. You lot okay?”
The other girls blinked down at their full glasses and back up at her wordlessly.
“Right.”
She squared her shoulders and marched tottered off toward the bar.
Luna played idly with her umbrella and asked dreamily, “Do lions eat ferrets?”
The others snorted in response.
Hermione was waiting impatiently for her Firewhiskey -- Honestly, did they Apparate to Siberia for the ice? -- when she felt his breath on her neck.
“The she-devil Weaselette must’ve dressed you tonight,” he slurred slightly.
“Ginny helped, yes. However did you guess?”
“I can see my freckles, Granger. The ones that trail across your curves like breadcrumbs to your --”
“MALFOY!” she whirled around to face him, stumbling a little on impossibly high heels. He caught her, and they both froze when his palms met the bare silky skin of her upper arms.
He circled his thumbs against her shoulders and drawled, “I’m starting to miss you, boobies, sometimes.”
“I… I… WHAT?”
He blinked. “Baby… miss you, baby, sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Her eyebrow shot up and her hands went to her hips.
“All the times…”
“Except when you’re playing Qudditch.”
“Ummm…”
“Or out boozing with the lads. Unless there’s a Bruce Lee movie to watch.” She held up fingers for each item recited. “Not during Sunday dinner with your parents. Well, that might be boring enough that you’d spare time to think of me. I wouldn’t know - her voice went up an octave - as I’ve never been. Or while you’re poring over the latest Broom & Flyer. Perusing the latest issue of Playwizard.” Here she made a crude jerky side to side motion with her loosely fisted hand. “Certainly not while you were kissing Pugface Pansy at Neville’s birthday party.” This statement drew gasps of outrage from a nearby table of eavesdropping witches. “Really, I can’t imagine when you’d have the time to miss me with such a busy sched--”
He pressed his lips against hers and thrust his tongue in her mouth, drawing her close and arcing her backwards in his eagerness to taste her. She was shocked into compliance for a few heavenly seconds and then started struggling viciously. He let her go when she bit his lip hard.
“What was that for?” he asked angrily as he wiped blood from his lower lip.
“I think I’m going to throw up!”
“LAST CALL!” the bouncer cried and the bar bell rang.
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