Chapter Text
Hermione felt deliciously numb, cocooned in the scent of citrus, mint, and expensive cologne.
She both loved and hated it.
Loved the warmth. Hated the way it made her soft—how it turned her into something pliant, something that fit.
Draco’s weight was half on top of her, half tangled around her—his arms snaked under her, dragging her closer every time she tried to inch away. Like some bloody constrictor with good hair and no shame.
Asshole, she thought. Fucking needy baby.
As comfortable as she’d become with this… arrangement, she despised him for being so selfish about it. For stealing her sleep and her space. For pulling her in like he was entitled to it, like her body was a place he could return to whenever he pleased.
Like she was his.
Fuck.
She was Hermione fucking Granger.
The Golden Girl.
War heroine.
Brightest witch of her generation.
And this pointy-faced albino ferret had turned her into a pillow.
Hermione had been an only child with two very busy dentist parents. She hadn’t been cuddled like this—not really. Affection in their house had always been practical: a pat on the head, a cup of tea, a reminder to eat something other than toast. Even with Ginny and the girls, she tolerated a bit of forced closeness on the rare girls’ nights, and then—once everyone drifted off—she’d carefully untangled herself and returned to her own bed.
Her bed.
Merlin, she missed her bed.
Her bed was her safe space: books stacked at the side, peppermint tea within reach, pillows arranged just right—her cocoon, not someone else’s. Her quiet. Her control.
And honestly? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d slept there.
In her defence, she’d tried her usual tactic with Draco too.
The first time they’d slept together had been too overwhelming. She’d been knocked out completely, only to wake the next morning with Draco between her legs, nibbling at her thigh and calling her a sleepyhead like he hadn’t ruined her ability to think in full sentences.
Asshole.
The next time, she’d tried to remove herself after he fell asleep. But the gigantic baby wouldn’t budge. Head on her chest, arms and legs wrapped around her like she was a plush toy, holding her so tightly she’d spent most of the night trying—trying—to wiggle free. She even attempted to wake him up. A few times.
Nothing worked.
That had been six months ago.
Now he shifted again, mumbling something she couldn’t make out, moving his face from her chest to her neck. He moaned softly, breathing her in like she was a drug, rubbing that sharp, stupid nose against the column of her throat as if he could mark her with it.
Hermione’s breath hitched.
Heat pooled low in her knickers.
Fuck.
Even asleep, the idiot could make her feel out of control.
And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? Not just that he wanted her. Not just that she wanted him back. It was that he made her feel like she couldn’t choose—like her body made decisions before her mind could catch up.
She realised, with sudden clarity, that if she was going to end this—whatever this was—she couldn’t do it while he was touching her.
Could she even call it a break-up? They weren’t exactly dating. They’d never discussed their relationship. They’d never labelled anything, never promised anything, never even had the decency to define the rules.
They’d gone from fighting in the library one night to snogging each other against the shelves… and then to fucking like they’d been starving all their lives.
And—Merlin—she hated herself for it, but it had been the best shag of her life.
Draco Malfoy was a prat. An arrogant, sharp-tongued, infuriating prat who acted like feelings were a foreign language and vulnerability was a curse.
But he knew how to make her forget the world as long as he was touching her—knew exactly where to put his hands, exactly how to pull her apart, exactly how to make her melt until she couldn’t remember her own name.
It had been so good that she—the most practical person in the whole bloody castle—kept coming back.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Because it was easier to take his mouth than his silence. Easier to take his hands than his refusal to speak.
And now, six months later, she was a pillow to the Prince Prat of Slytherin, and she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do about it.
In two months, they would finish Eighth Year.
And then what?
Younger Hermione had always had plans. Hourly plans. Weekly plans. Five-year plans. Lists for the lists. She’d been a girl made of structure and deadlines and certainty—someone who could look at a problem and dismantle it until it became solvable.
Post-war Hermione was… a mess.
Her parents didn’t know who she was.
Harry and Ron hadn’t come back for Eighth Year—they’d gone straight into Auror training.
And Hermione didn’t even know what she wanted after Hogwarts ended.
All she knew was that Minister Shacklebolt had kept his promise. He’d found mind healers for her parents. The healers were starting the reversal process—slowly, carefully.
“I’m afraid it’s going to be a very slow process, Miss Granger,” they’d said. “The spell you cast was intricate. It flows through the brain like water. We can’t rush it. A wrong step could do more harm than good.”
“Anything,” Hermione had pleaded. “Anything I can do to help.”
“You have to move to Australia.”
She remembered staring at them, blank. Like they’d asked her to cut off a limb.
“We want them to remain in their environment,” the healers explained. “And we need you integrated into their lives gradually—perhaps as a colleague, a patient, a neighbour. We’ll reverse it slowly, so your presence doesn’t shock their system.”
A year. Minimum.
The first thing Hermione had thought wasn’t about the climate. Or the logistics. Or the fear.
It was: What am I going to do about Draco Malfoy?
Because the disgusting truth was—
Fuck.
She might have fallen in love with him.
No.
Not might.
She was most definitely in love with him.
And it made her furious.
Furious because love was supposed to be safe. Love was supposed to be mutual. Love was supposed to come with words and promises and something solid to hold onto.
But Draco gave her none of that.
Fuck my life, she groaned, because Draco’s hand slid—still asleep—down her waist and grabbed her arse like it belonged to him.
Like she belonged to him.
What was she supposed to do?
She’d told him two weeks ago, trying to sound casual when her entire world was splitting in half.
And Draco had just looked at her and asked, “Do you know where you’re staying in Australia?”
No comfort. No reaction. No I’ll miss you. No what about us? Not even a flinch.
“Ah—no,” she’d said, stupidly hopeful, voice too small. “But I should probably stay near them.”
Draco had only hummed. “Mm.”
And then he’d gone back to his Arithmancy problem like her leaving the country for a year was a scheduling inconvenience. Like she hadn’t just told him she was going to be ripped away from everything familiar. Like she hadn’t just offered him an opening—an invitation to say something that mattered.
Heartless bastard.
How could she love him?
She’d told herself it was infatuation. Lust. Chemistry. Trauma bonding. Anything. Something simpler. Something she could cut out cleanly like a tumour.
God, how wrong she was.
A week later, Draco had gone to the Manor for Sunday dinner—like he did most weeks—but unlike every other Sunday, he didn’t come back that night. Or the next.
Instead, he sent an owl saying he needed to stay an extra two days for “estate work”.
At first, she’d been shocked.
Since they started sleeping together, he hadn’t slept away from her once. Not really. Not even naps. In the library, in the Slytherin common room—he’d fallen asleep with his head in her lap like it was normal, like she was his safe place.
The snakes had teased him for it constantly.
“Aww, does Drakey need his emotional support human to sleep?”
He’d mentioned nightmares once. Briefly. Like he’d spit the admission out before it could burn him. He’d said Hermione helped—that being near her kept the worst of it away.
She’d wanted to ask more.
He’d been more interested in getting her naked.
So when he left, when the bed was finally hers again, she told herself she should be relieved.
And she was.
For about an hour.
Then the emptiness arrived.
She demanded a girls’ night. Let Ginny bully her into drinking. She laughed. She danced. She tried—Merlin, she tried—to enjoy being free of him.
But later, when everyone fell asleep, she felt it—this hollow ache in her ribs. Like she was missing a limb. Like her body had got used to the weight of him and had decided it was necessary for survival.
And then she started crying like an absolute idiot.
Fuck.
She missed him.
She missed him so much—his stupid head on her heart, his arms too tight, the way he nudged her neck in the middle of the night like he couldn’t get close enough. She missed the way he always found her, as if proximity was instinct, as if she was gravity.
She loved him.
And she had no idea what she was going to do without him.
Even a week later, she was still utterly clueless.
When Draco returned, everything slid back into place like it had never shifted.
He found her in the library, dragged her into the Restricted Section, and dropped to his knees to taste her like he’d been starving—urgent, messy, almost angry.
Like he’d missed her.
Had he? The same way she had?
She would never know.
Because Draco Malfoy was generous with his body and stingy with his heart.
And Hermione—fool that she was—kept accepting the first while starving for the second.
Now Hermione decided: Enough.
She needed to protect herself. Her heart.
Because if she stayed like this—half loved, half hidden, held at night and ignored in daylight—she was going to break.
And she refused to break over Draco Malfoy. Not after everything she’d survived.
And it was not going to happen while she was trapped in his arms like a pillow.
With that determination, Hermione did something she hadn’t managed in six months.
She extracted herself from his grip—slowly, carefully, like removing herself from a spell.
Draco made a soft, unhappy sound in his sleep and tightened once, instinctive.
Hermione froze.
His wand lay on the bedside table within reach—neatly placed, as if he’d set it there the moment he’d crawled into bed, as if he couldn’t sleep unless he knew he could defend her in half a second. His signet ring glinted faintly in the candlelight, discarded beside it like armour he forgot to put back on.
There was a faint crease in the pillow where her head always went. A shallow dip in the sheets where her body had learned to fit beside his. Evidence. Habit. Proof.
Draco’s arm flexed again, searching in his sleep.
And then—barely a breath, barely a sound—he mumbled into the dark, rough and broken:
“’Granger…”
Her stomach dropped.
For one treacherous second, her body begged her to sink back. To let him keep her. To pretend his hands meant what his mouth refused to say in daylight.
Hermione clenched her jaw so hard it hurt.
She ignored the ache, the heat, the stupid, desperate hope.
She pulled free.
She slipped out of his bed.
Her feet hit the cold floor, and the chill shocked her awake—made her vicious with it. She grabbed her clothes in silent, angry handfuls, tugging them on like she was armouring herself. She didn’t look at him again. If she did, she’d fold.
At the door, her hand found the latch.
She paused.
Not because she wanted to stay.
Because she wanted—God help her—to hear him stop her.
To hear him say her name like it mattered. To hear him ask where are you going? To hear him say don’t.
The room stayed quiet.
Draco breathed, slow and oblivious, wrapped in sleep and denial.
Hermione swallowed around the sting in her throat.
Fine.
If he could sleep through her leaving, then he could live with it.
She opened the door.
And she left without looking back—because if she did, she knew she’d climb right back in.
And she was done being weak for him.