Harry Potter: Among Shadows and Silence

The dim light caught his pale features well, and the orange glow waltzed in front of his silver irises. The angles and lines of his face were sharp and defined, as though each detail screamed for attention, but it made the eyes dance and she quite liked that. She could argue that he was too pale, almost like he'd been mastered from ice, but she realised he probably hadn't felt a ray of sunshine in Merlin knew how long.

"Have you read the books?" she asked carefully, deciding the silence had been breaching the fringes of discomfort. "The ones I left on the top."

She could see his hesitation to answer her. "Yes," he admitted cautiously.

"Which one are you reading now?" she pressed.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'm just curious," she shrugged honestly, wishing his suspicion towards her would simmer.

Draco exhaled loudly. "Titus Andronicus."

"Good play-

"It's alright," he corrected her quickly, nursing his drink between his palms. "Some parts are sloppy."

"I'd agree with that," she nodded thoughtfully. "It was one of Shakespeare's early plays."

"You gave me a lot of books by him," he mumbled slowly, giving her a stern glare. "I assume he is a Muggle author."

Her eyes widened. She'd expected nothing short blinding rage when her little experiment came to his attention, but he simply seemed irritated by it. "You knew I gave you Muggle books?"

"It pretty obvious, Granger," he rolled his eyes. "I didn't recognise any of the authors and it seemed like something you would pull."

"And you still read them?" she pushed with a disbelieving tone. "Why?"

His scowl hardened a little. Truth be told, he hadn't touched her Muggle literature for two days, simply eyeing them with genuine disgust. But boredom was too powerful and sanity-draining, and he'd yielded on the third day, rationalising that it was either the reading or a mental breakdown. He'd intended to have the books feed his revulsion for Muggles, providing him with proof that they really were uncultured and uncivilised beings who would struggle to pen a decent paragraph.

But...

But it was actually okay...Good enough that he'd continued to turn the pages and be subconsciously impressed. It was so unnerving and sickening, and it had made him question...things. Only for a moment, but he had. No, he had never believed all that propaganda shit about Muggles being feral, but he'd been convinced on some level that they would be less able with the arts, but this Shake-something guy was...adequate. He couldn't very well tell Granger that though.

"There's nothing else to read," he growled, realising he'd taken too long to respond.

Hermione sighed, watching him under her eyelashes as she took another sip. Her heart thudded with her inquisitive nature, and she wanted to know how far she could test this. "And what do you think of the play so far?"

He snorted. "It's violent," he said as though it was obvious, which she guessed it was. "Which is...entertaining, but it proves how barbaric Muggles are."

"Barbaric?" Hermione repeated, reining in the urge to scream at him. "How so?"

"Well, it's just mindless bloodshed-

"As oppose to all the Wizard Wars?" she pointed out quickly. "Violence is present in all races and species, Malfoy, and especially in humans. Magic or not-

"The guy killed his own son," Draco remarked, cocking his head proudly to the side as if that had been the winning blow. "That's an indication of how uncivilised Muggles are."

Hermione didn't skip a beat. "But Voldemort killed his family."

The blond's haughty expression faltered, and he hated that she witnessed it. "That's different," he mumbled defensively. "That was-

"And Crouch killed his father-

"It's different!" he repeated adamantly, but he knew the argument was weak.

Granger looked neither smug nor arrogant as she raised her head to meet his peeved stare, but simply dampened her lips with a quick flick of her tongue. "How is it different, Malfoy?"

He rummaged through his brain, hunting for a satisfactory argument or reasoning that would knock her back into place. He felt agitated and perturbed, but also a little smidgeon of respect for Granger slithered into his conscious, and that just pissed him off more. This would definitely earn her a mark on his headboard. Shit.

"It just is," he muttered, taking another swig of her rather perfect hot chocolate.

.

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The stiffness of his neck was his first clue that he hadn't slept in a bed.

Whatever his head was resting on was too hard to be a pillow, and as his eyes slowly blinked open, he focused on a different ceiling to what he was used to. Draco awkwardly shifted to find himself outstretched on one of the sofas, propped up by the armrest. It was still rather dark, but there were no windows in this space, and a brief check of the clock told him it was almost seven in the morning.

He groaned and rubbed his face, slowly rising into a sitting position that caused his back to click like crackling embers. His sleep-blurry vision focussed on his surroundings as he tried to recall just how and when he had fallen asleep on the couch, and his winter-grey eyes moved to the other side of the coffee table.

He stiffened.

She was cocooned from neck to toe in her blanket, her clumsy curls splashed across the cushion in coffee swirls. With her eyes shuttered and her features so relaxed, she looked the embodiment of comfort and peace. Gone were the stressed muscles consistently stretching under Granger's skin, and he couldn't ever recall seeing a person who looked so smothered by sleep. Her slumber-slow breaths hummed in his ears and snatched him from his trance, leaving Draco to silently scold himself for letting the morning fuzz his brain.

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