As she stared at him now, Hermione grew decidedly uncomfortable… and in a way she hadn’t expected.
Between her thighs, she felt a bit sticky.
Determined not to think about Malfoy in that way, she turned her attention to fiddling with her bracelet instead, twirling it round and round on her wrist, fighting the urge to jiggle her leg.
As the first toll of the bell rang out throughout the castle and surrounding grounds, Draco looked up at Harry and nodded, and Harry turned to Seamus and tapped him on the leg.
The men had drawn straws earlier to see who would go first to draw from the Partners deck, and in what order.
Seamus stepped up to the set of gold cards and flipped the first one.
His gaze travelled to Lavender.
“Seems I’ll be gettin’ me second chance after all, angel,” he slowly smiled, his green eyes warming as he crossed over to her and handed her his Partners card – the one that had his magical signature on it.
He kept hers in the trade.
Lavender looked positively astonished, blushing, and looked down at the floor, taking his card with shaky hands.
“Oh,” was all she said.
As Seamus returned to his seat, Blaise stood up next and took the top card off the pile next.
His grin was positively feral as he silently read the name.
Moving across to the Gryffindor side, seating himself beside Ginny on the couch, he passed her his Partners card without a word.
Livid splotches of red painted her girl friend’s cheeks.
“There is no God,” she sighed with resentment.
Accepting his card, she leaned back into the cushions of the sofa, frowning, and crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture.
Zabini remained silent at her side, smirking in triumph.
Theo went next.
His grin was cheery as he read off his name.
“It’s you and me, babe!”
Daphne adjusted the reading glasses on her nose.
“So it would seem.” She held out a hand for his card.
He passed it off to her and sat at her side, too.
Hermione looked at the dwindling supply of cards and felt her heart racing, knowing who was next and terrified of her odds.
One in three.
There was still a one in three chance that she might end up with either Harry or Ron.
Oh, please.
Oh, please.
Oh, please, she prayed to whatever deity might be listening in the great wide cosmos.
She may have started all of this with the intent of making Malfoy pay for being an unbelievable arsehole all these years, but now that the reality had come down – specifically, that she’d had an opportunity to read the Deeds and Forfeits of her Housemates in advance and knew what kind of depravity would go on during this game – she was regretting such foolhardy revenge planning.
The idea of being the partner to Slytherin’s Prince was decidedly dismaying.
Malfoy said nothing for several seconds as he flipped the name card.
The tiniest twitch of his lips was all she needed to know her doom had been settled, however.
She closed her eyes and swallowed the heavy heart-shaped lump in her throat.
Ginny’s hand on her knee to her left was the only anchor to her world of sanity in that moment.
A presence stood over her, and in graceful surrender, she held her hand out knowing what was expected of her.
Instead, he bent one knee before her, and caught her hand up in his own.
With a chivalrous flourish that shocked her into meeting his gaze head-on, he pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles.
Pools of lively, heated mercury stared directly into her soul.
“It’s been our raison d’être from the beginning to cross swords again and again, Granger,” he said.
“What made you think tonight would be any different?”
Something in the way he’d phrased that… “Did you cheat?” she challenged, yanking her hand away and rubbing the imprint of his lips against her skin away with disgust, feeling real ire grow in her belly.
If he had defrauded the game it would automatically disqualify the both of them – something she was praying for just then, as that meant her team would get a win from it, and she wouldn’t have to touch him.
The cards would make him answer honestly, too, as the spell upon them would insure his truthfulness now that he’d signed the magical contract and bound his will to the rules.
“No,” he told it to her straight, and she felt her heart sink again, “but I tried to.
The game wouldn’t let me.
It prevented my spell.
This time” – he held up her name card and passed her his – “it was definitely all Fate, princess.” He stood to his full height, which stood only an inch or so shy of Ron and Theo.
“Personally, I can’t wait to find out all of your secrets, beautiful.”
Staring at the card in her hand as he made his way back across the room, Hermione felt hot tears waver before her eyes.
She blinked them away, refusing to appear weak.
The others had accepted their destinies with some small measure of grace – even Ginny, who had seemed to want to rail about the unfairness of it all at the top of her lungs, but had simply sat back and quietly sulked – so she could do the same.
She was a Gryffindor, after all, and that meant she’d take this hit on the chin and get back up.
Harry was next.
He blushed when he read the name he chose, a shy expression lighting his features as he glanced over at Tracey Davis.
“It seems we’re partners tonight,” he told her, heat blooming across his face and neck.