bakerstreet | fell asleep on

Draco poked a little at her cheek. Insufferable twit. First, he'd been forced to sit with her because there was no more room on the train - he wasn't sure where her so-called friends were - and then she'd had the gall to fall asleep. On him. Oh, probably she hadn't meant to, he'd give her that. She just as easily could have tilted toward the window instead of onto him.

He poked her again, with no response, and sighed to himself. The last thing he wanted was to see people come in on them like this. Once her friends caught up with them, he was likely to get another punch in the eye. At the same time, it was nice and quiet and as soon as she found out she'd fallen asleep on him, she was likely to create a ruckus...and punch him in the eye.

So instead, he settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. He was tempted to tilt his head and lean against hers. It would be more comfortable. But it would also be harder for her to slip away with both their dignities intact, so he left his head where it was and hoped she woke up soon.

She had no joy when Malfoy had sat beside her on the crowded train. And so she had ignored him. She had been staring outside the window, when the click-clack click-clack of the train along the rails slowly lulled her to sleep.

Of course Hermione had no control over the way her body leaned when slumber caught up to her. She had no idea where her head rested.

Her slumber was so deep that neither of the poke at her cheek had no effect. She must be dreaming, for her body only moved a little, and an arm reflexively wrapped around his chest.

Draco groaned a little when he felt her arm wrap around his waist. That was it. He really was doomed. Either someone was going to kill him or he was going to kill himself. He'd always known there was nothing to be gained by being nice, but it was only when things like this happened to him that his theory was really proved.

And yet he still didn't try to move her away. And yet he did finally relax enough to rest his head on hers. He closed his eyes again and wondered if this was what it would have been like if he'd been friends with Potter. If maybe he hadn't taken everything his parents said as the utter truth.

Their last, belated year at Hogwarts, and the best thing he could say about it was that he and his parents weren't in Azkaban.

She slept steadily, her arm around him, her head on his chest for a long time. It was finally when the train took a corner, and there was a little jolt to the soothing sound of the wheels against the track, that Hermione finally started to waken from her slumber.

Immediately she knew that she was holding someone. Sleeping on someone.

It took several minutes of stillness, before she remembered who she had been sitting beside. And who she was holding right now.

Her eyes opened wide, and she looked up to where his head was resting on hers.

A rage of emotions filled her chest. Panic. Confusion. Fear. Anger. But somewhere in all that she didn't pull away. She didn't move to slap him (though that had first come to her mind). She really didn't know what to do.

Except by that point, he was the one whose breathing had slowed. After all the panicking and wondering what she'd think when she woke up, he'd managed to fall asleep before the worried-over event could take place. Of course, he'd managed to worm an arm around her so any movement on her part would have woken him up.

After a few minutes, he tightened his grip a little, frowned, and grunted. One of the biggest problems he'd been having since the end of the war were the nightmares about what might have happened if 'his' side had won. Or, maybe worse, what if they'd lost but the Dark Lord had somehow survived? It would have been his family that suffered. His family had always been the most loyal and the one who had ultimately betrayed him.

He jerked a little, his dreams shifting to what might have happened to the woman in his arms. Mudbloods were the most hated. Muggles were nothing but toys, but mudbloods were an insult.

He made another noise, this one closer to a whimper.

Hermione was putting her mind to different ways of sliding out of the arm around her body, when his grip tightened and she froze.

She looked up, just as he frowned and grunted. And then she heard something from him that she had never thought possible. A whimper.

He was obviously having a bad dream. And suddenly escaping his grip left her mind. Hermione gently placed a soothing hand on his cheek.

"Shush..." She whispered. "You are safe."

Instead of setting his unconscious mind at ease, the comforting gesture only made the nightmare worse. There was only one person he knew who would comfort him like that and the idea that his mother was in the world his dream had created was unfathomable. The whimpers grew into full-on words, pleas of 'no, please, no'. Maybe he should have woken up, but the part of his mind that blamed himself for everything kept him under.

Yet he still clung to Granger as if she were some kind of lifeline.

Damn Hermione swore to herself. Somehow she had made things worse. And despite their rocky past, it broke her heart to see him like this. She bit her bottom lip when his whimpers became soft little pleas.

And he clung so tight to her.

"Malfoy." She didn't want to cause a scene. Didn't think it would be proper for anyone else to see him so vulnerable. She had to do something.

So she slapped him. Something that would at least remind him who he was with.

Edited 2015-01-18 01:36 (UTC)

He gasped at the slap, going into motion before his mind caught up to the rest of him. He stumbled to his feet and then dropped to his knees as he lost his balance. He turned and scrambled back to the other side of the car and only then did he realize what had happened.

He pressed a hand to his cheek and stared at her.

"You were the one sleeping on me!" he protested, unaware that his nightmare had been the reason she'd slapped him.

"I know." Hermione replied softly. She waited patiently for him to return to his seat. Her hands in her lap, in case he thought she might slap him again.

Only when he did return would she explain why. "You were having a nightmare."

He didn't return to his seat. Instead, he got to his feet shakily and stared at her. He knew exactly what she meant by 'nightmare', but it was humiliating to think that she might have seen him in the grip of one.

"You couldn't think of any other way to wake me than to slap me?" he accused.

"I had stroked your cheek to waken you and it got worse!" Her own voice rose in her ire.

fell asleep on

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