Contingent | D.M. + H.G.

Chapter 13: Insufficient

A/N: Beta love to AlmondMilkTeaDoubleBoba and LeilahMoon - and a major thank you to lost_poetx!

Prepare for cringe.

xoxo, carmen

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Red-faced and breathing heavily, Hermione's broken scream echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the walls. How dare he. The indeterminable amount of emotions that were coursing through her were making her head throb and blood sing.

Simply too angry to reach down and finish herself off, she cast freshening charms all over herself, trying to calm down. Where the fuck did he get off pulling that shit? She wanted to throttle him. Well, if she were being honest with herself, she wanted to do much more than simply throttle him.

Abandoning the work she'd originally planned on doing and grabbing her things, she headed back to Gryffindor tower – so mad that steam was practically leaving her ears. She doubted she'd be likely to get over this one for quite some time. Granted, they'd been playing cat and mouse for quite some time, but she'd never thought he would pull something like this. If she weren't so bloody pissed off, she'd probably be turned on. Well, more so than she already was.

After an endlessly long walk, Hermione stormed into the common room, hair wild and eyes blazing. Her face was flushed crimson with both anger and arousal, and she had nowhere to channel the sheer amount of frustration she was currently experiencing. Ginny was still downstairs, and she took one look at Hermione and shot to her feet.

"What happened?" her voice was hard, concerned. Ginny Weasley was always ready to go to war for her friends, and this could easily be one of those times.

Hermione, who was obviously livid, found it hard to find the proper words through her anger. "I cannot believe the nerve of that little–" she seethed, cutting herself off. Her hands were curling into fists at her sides, looking for somewhere to exert all of the things she wasn't used to feeling all at once - or on such a scale. Her breathing was rattling as it pulsed in and out of her chest, heart pounding with the fire coursing through her veins.

"What did he do?" Ginny pressed, seeming aghast at what Malfoy could have possibly done to put Hermione in such a state. Granted, he was awful and irritating at the best of times – but even after all these years, she'd never seen her friend so completely worked up over him.

Still bursting with endless amounts of agitated energy, Hermione started pacing. Luckily, the common room was empty due to the late hour, so there was no one to overhear their conversation.

"That sick fuck had the audacity to edge me for twenty minutes and not get me off," she practically spat through clenched teeth. "Twenty minutes, Ginny. I cannot believe him." She wanted so badly to go down to the dungeons and set him on fucking fire, he could burn with her and see how he liked it. With just how peeved she was, she'd probably laugh as she did it and then proceed to happily dance around his body as it burned.

After all, she was still burning everywhere because of him, so it was only fair.

Ginny had already known about their tryst between the metaphorical sheets from weeks back, and was all for it happening again – mostly, she'd claimed, for Hermione's benefit. But this was behavior she hadn't foreseen, even from him.

"And what's more," she continued, somehow getting visibly more angry as she relived the experience, "is that he said it was a punishment." She barked out a laugh. "As if that sod has any right to call out my behavior. He should really take a look in the mirror."

"Did he say what it was for?" Ginny asked as she sat back down, waiting for her to spill.

Hermione's anger morphed suddenly and into a wry, sarcastic smile. "The kiss."