Learn to Love » Draco Malfoy x Reader

VIII

I clung onto Cedric's arm as he guided me through the mob of sweaty, mostly drunken Hufflepuffs in their common room. The music was blasting so loudly, I could feel the vibrations from the bass pounding in my chest and rising up to my ears, feeling like they would pop at any given moment.

My grasp on his forearm was tight as he was weaving his way through the crowd, saying a quick "hello" to anyone giving him a passing congratulations on catching the snitch. I kept my eyes glued to the back of his head, the honey-brown highlights of his hair that I loved being hidden by the dimmed light of the party.

I noticed a few familiar faces either out dancing or huddled up in a corner that certainly weren't from Hufflepuff. Mostly the outsiders were Gryffindor, but there were a healthy amount of Ravenclaws and a sprinkling of Slytherins scattered about.

We had just spent some time in a corner with his best friends chatting away (as much as we could, anyway) and laughing together over things in our lives. It felt natural, like old times, just inserting myself into their group since Cedric wanted me there. But after a long while, he pulled me away and dragged me from the group.

"Fancy a dance?" Cedric's head was lowered so that his lips were close to my ear. Under any other circumstances, I'd be putty in his hands, but seeing as he was almost shouting it to be heard, I was mostly unaffected.

"Anything you want, seeker," I smiled up, earning a pleased grin from him.

I probably should have noticed, but the whole time he had been leading us to the center of the common room, wedged right between sweaty bodies of dancing Hufflepuffs. I tried to keep a slight distance from him to start, but nondescript students bumped into me from every which way, causing Cedric and I to be pressed up against each other in no time.

Us being so close felt tensely awkward at first, but the combination of his familiar touch and everyone else's proximity keeping us together made it all seem natural in just a short while. The warmth of his body was radiating onto me and it heated me up even more than I already was.

Cedric was completely unlike any other person at the party. He seemed happy and content by just being there, acknowledging a few of his friends as they passed by, but otherwise keeping his focus entirely on me. Apart from intervals of just a few seconds to see his housemates, his gaze didn't stray from mine once. Like although we were swarmed by masses of people, I was the only person he saw.

The lighting was dark, but his eyes bore into mine. Small rays of light bounced off his blue eyes and made him appear all the more mysterious and handsome as I saw myself reflected in his widened pupils. The dim lighting and our bodies pressed together made it so that although I couldn't see everything, I could feel his every thought. When I wrapped my arms around his neck and his breath hitched, or when his arms around my waist made his fingertips tremble. I could sense how I made him react physically, which I could only assume equated to how he was emotionally.

The only caveat to that being he could do the same to me; he could tell what I was feeling without me having to say it. There was no doubt he knew that my hands sliding down from his shoulders to arms meant I was reveling in how good he felt, or pressing my nose into the crook of his neck meant I was trying to further consume myself in his scent.

There was something comforting about his scent; it was the same sensation as coming home to a warm dinner or snuggling up on the couch reading a book. In fact, there was something comforting just about him. He never failed to settle my nerves, and although he made me flush or teased me romantically, I felt safe in his presence. The type of safe that you never want to leave, and if I let go of him, I'd be giving up that feeling.