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Hermione's Sleeping Habits	By : gee25 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 119 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
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Chapter 1 - Breathe In
"No."
The word was a shard of ice in the warm, dimly lit room. Hermione Granger blinked, pulling herself straighter in the plush armchair. "I'm sorry?"
Draco Malfoy didn't look up from his notes, the elegant silver quill pausing in its graceful dance across the parchment. "I said no, Granger. You're lying to me."
"I assure you, Healer Malfoy, I am not—"
"Draco, please. We're past titles." He finally lifted his gaze, and the storm-cloud grey of his eyes pinned her to the spot. They were different from the boy she'd known at Hogwarts. The arrogance was still there, yes, but it had been refined, layered over with a cool, unnerving perceptiveness. "You told me you've been sleeping four hours a night. Your file, which I painstakingly requisitioned from St. Mungo's, says two. On a good night."
Hermione’s mouth went dry. She looked away, her focus catching on the perfectly aligned bookshelves, the tasteful, abstract art that seemed to swirl if you stared too long. The room was nothing like she’d expected. No cold, sterile medi-wizard office. It felt more like a wealthy gentleman’s study, all dark wood and soft, enchanted lighting that mimicked a perpetual twilight. It smelled of sandalwood and old parchment, a strangely calming combination that made the lie taste even more bitter on her tongue.
"It's not a conscious deception," she finally said, the fight draining out of her. "I… I tell myself it's four. It makes it seem more manageable."
"Ah." He set the quill down. "There it is. The truth. The foundation upon which we can actually build."
This was her fourth session. After a year of sleepless nights, of jumping at shadows that were all too real in her memory, of red-tinged dreams that left her gasping and wand in hand, a colleague had suggested him. Malfoy? she'd scoffed. But his credentials were, frustratingly, impeccable. Top of his class in a new, Muggle-blended field of Mind Healing. A specialization in post-traumatic recalibration. And, the gossip columns whispered, a reclusive genius who only took the most "interesting" cases.
Her pride had warred with her desperation. Desperation had won.
"How does it feel?" Draco asked, his voice a low, hypnotic murmur that seemed to vibrate through the armchair. "The insomnia. Don't tell me the symptoms. Tell me the feeling."
She closed her eyes. "It's… a constant, low-grade panic. Like I’ve forgotten something crucial, something that will have catastrophic consequences. My mind won't shut off. It races down every dark corridor, revisiting every bad decision…" Her voice hitched. "The Burrow… Fred… the screams in the Department of Mysteries… it all just… loops."
She felt, rather than saw, him lean forward. "And your body?"
"Tense. Always tense. As if I’m still holding my breath, waiting for the next curse to fly."
"Show me."
Her eyes snapped open. "What?"
"Your shoulders, Granger. They're nearly level with your ears. Show me what it feels like to hold all that tension. Don't tell me. Show me."
Self-consciously, she hunched her shoulders up tightly, curling in on herself, making her body a hard, defensive knot.
"Good," he purred. "Now… release."
She let out a breath and dropped her shoulders a fraction.
"No," he said, the word soft but absolute. "That's just a physical motion. I said release. Let the feeling go. The anxiety. The hyper-vigilance. Imagine it as a physical thing, a weight you're carrying. And just… let it drop."
She tried. Merlin, she tried. But the weight was part of herskeleton. It was woven into her magic.
"I can't," she whispered, frustration bubbling up.
"You can. You simply require the right… key." He stood up, moving around the desk with a predator's grace. He didn't touch her. He simply stood beside her chair, looking down. His presence was an immense, focused pressure. "The mind is a complex and malleable thing, Hermione. It can be conditioned. Trained. The pathways of panic can be… gentled. Smoothed over. And new pathways can be forged. Pathways of pure, tranquil obedience to a simpler, better state of being."
The word obedience flickered in the air between them. It should have set off alarms. But his tone was so clinical, so assured, that it sounded like just another therapeutic term.
"I want to try something today," he said, his voice dropping another octave, becoming an intimate murmur just for her. "A somatic anchor. A physical sensation your mind can latch onto, a shortcut to that state of release. It will feel… intense. But I need your permission."
"Will it help me sleep?" she asked, her own voice barely a breath.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "It is the first and most important step."
She nodded, a quick, jerky motion. "Alright."
"Good girl."
The two words shot through her, hot and cold at once. She hadn't been called a 'girl' in years. From anyone else, it would have been condescending. From him, in that tone, it felt… different. A thrill of something entirely unfamiliar coiled low in her belly.
"Close your eyes." His command was soft, but it brooked no argument. She obeyed.
The world shrunk to the sound of her own breathing, the scent of his sandalwood cologne, the warmth of his body standing so close.
"I'm going to place my hand on your back. You will focus on nothing else. Your world will become this single point of contact. Do you understand?"
"Yes." The word was a sigh.
His touch, when it came, was shockingly gentle. His long, cool fingers pressed firmly against the tense muscles between her shoulder blades. A jolt went through her—not of fear, but of sheer, startling sensation.
"Breathe in," he instructed, his palm a steady, warm weight.
She inhaled.
"And now, as you breathe out, you will feel the tension in this muscle unravel. You will feel the warmth from my hand seep into you, carrying a wave of pure relaxation through your entire body. It’s a wave of… peace. Of safety. You are safe here. With me."
His voice was a spell in itself. As she exhaled, a shocking loosening did spread from under his hand. It was the most profound physical relief she’d felt in years. A tiny, broken sound escaped her lips.
"Again," he murmured, his thumb moving in a tiny, almost imperceptible circle. "Breathe in… and out. Let it go. Let everything go. Your thoughts… your worries… your burdens. They are not yours to carry right now. Your only task is this. This breath. This feeling."
The loop of terrible memories that usually played behind her eyelids stuttered, faded, and was replaced by a quiet, dark warmth. The constant, grinding anxiety in her chest loosened its vise grip. It was… bliss.
"Obedience to this feeling brings peace," he whispered, his voice blending into the haze of relaxation. "Your mind is opening. It is becoming receptive. It is learning this new, better way to be."
The words drifted through her, smooth and sweet as honey, finding fertile ground in her exhausted psyche. They felt true. They felt right.
After what felt like an eternity of perfect, weightless calm, his hand lifted.
The loss of contact was a small shock. She felt adrift for a moment, blinking her eyes open. The room seemed softer, the edges blurrier.
Draco was back in his chair, watching her with an inscrutable expression. He looked… pleased.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"…Heavy," she slurred, her tongue feeling thick. "Calm. Really calm."
"That is the anchor taking hold. We will strengthen it, session by session." He made a note on his parchment. "I want you to practice this tonight. In bed. Before you try to sleep. Place your own hand on that spot. Breathe. And remember this feeling. Remember that obedience to the process is your path to rest."
The phrase echoed in her head, carrying the same warm, unquestionable weight it had when he’d said it.
She stood on unsteady legs, feeling drugged, euphoric. "Thank you, Dra— Healer Malfoy."
"Draco," he corrected softly, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Until next time, Hermione. Sweet dreams."
As she stumbled out into the bright, noisy London street, the world felt too harsh, too loud. But deep inside, a cozy, quiet corner of her mind remained, humming with a new mantra. A mantra in a voice that was slowly, insidiously, becoming her own.
Obey. Relax. He will give you peace.
She couldn’t wait for her next session. The thought was a lifeline. It was her own thought.
Wasn't it?
*
The scent of sandalwood and clean linen filled her nostrils. A deep, unfamiliar warmth radiated against her side. Hermione stirred, consciousness returning not with the jarring blare of an alarm but with a slow, languid drift. Her eyes fluttered open to near darkness, the room illuminated only by the faint, silver glow of moonlight through a large window.
This was not her bedroom.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to lance through her, but it was strangely muted, dampened by a heavy, comfortable fog in her mind. She was naked. The silken sheets felt cool against her bare skin. And there was a weight on her thigh.
Her gaze traveled down her own body, over the gentle curves barely visible in the gloom, to where a man’s hand rested possessively on her leg. Long, elegant fingers, pale in the moonlight, lay against her skin. The touch was not demanding, simply… present. Owned.
Her eyes snapped up to the figure beside her. Draco Malfoy, propped on one elbow, watched her. His storm-grey eyes were not their usual sharp, analytical grey, but darker, softer, like polished slate. He looked utterly at home, as if her nakedness in his bed were the most natural thing in the world.
“Wh—?” she began, her voice a dry croak.
“Shhh,” he murmured, his voice a low, velvet rumble that vibrated through the mattress and into her bones. It was the same voice he used in his office, the one that commanded relaxation, but it was layered now with something else. Something intimate. “Don’t speak. Just feel.”
His thumb began to move, a slow, deliberate stroke along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. It was a touch that screamed intimacy, a territory no one had charted in a long time. A jolt, hot and entirely unwelcome—or was it?—shot through her.
“Your body is holding onto tension even in sleep, Hermione,” he whispered, his eyes holding hers captive. “This is part of the process. A deeper somatic anchor. You need to learn to accept touch. To welcome it. It will quiet the noise.”
His words wrapped around her, making a bizarre, terrifying kind of sense. This was therapy. An extension of his methods. It had to be. His expression was so earnest, so focused on her well-being.
“Be still,” he commanded softly, his fingers applying the faintest pressure. “Let me quiet you.”
She froze, every muscle taut. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a wild, frantic rhythm that was at complete odds with the serene… possession… in his gaze. He leaned closer, his sandalwood scent enveloping her. His lips were inches from hers.
“This is for your healing. Your obedience… brings peace.”
*
Hermione’s eyes flew open.
Sunlight streamed through her own familiar window, illuminating the stacks of books beside her bed and her Crookshanks-shaped alarm clock. She was tangled in her own cotton sheets, wearing her old, comfortable Hogwarts tee-shirt. She sat bolt upright, her heart still pounding, a fine sheen of sweat on her skin.
What in Merlin’s name was that?
A dream. A vivid, shockingly detailed, and wholly inappropriate dream. About Draco Malfoy. Her healer. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, as if she could push the memory out. The feel of his hand on her bare thigh was seared into her skin, a phantom weight that felt unsettlingly real. The look in his eyes… it hadn’t been clinical at all.
She shook her head, throwing the covers off. It was just a dream. A bizarre, stress-induced dream. He’s your healer. It’s transference. That’s a Muggle concept. It happens. She repeated the words like a mantra as she got ready for the day, but the coil of heat low in her abdomen, the restless energy thrumming under her skin, felt anything but therapeutic.
*
Two days later, she was back in the twilight embrace of his office. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes at first, focusing instead on the swirling, abstract painting behind his head.
“You seem distracted today, Hermione,” Draco noted, his silver quill poised. “How was your sleep after our last session?”
The dream. The words screamed in her head. She couldn’t tell him. It was too humiliating. “Better,” she said, the lie coming easier this time. “The breathing… it helped.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He set the quill down and steepled his fingers. “We’re going to delve a little deeper today. We’ve begun working with your body’s physical response to stress. Now, we need to address the neurological feedback loop that sustains your anxiety. The mind and body are not separate. Arousal in one creates a state of alertness in the other.”
She nodded, following his logic, the perfect clinical terminology easing her embarrassment.
“To truly understand the block, I need to understand your baseline state of relaxation. Or rather, your pursuit of it.” He leaned forward slightly, his gaze intent, piercing. “Hermione, do you masturbate?”
The air left the room. Her face flamed, a hot, prickling wave of mortification washing over her. She stared at him, her mouth agape. “What?”
“It’s a simple physiological question,” he said, his tone never wavering from its calm, professional cadence. “The release of endorphins and oxytocin during orgasm is a powerful natural counter to cortisol and adrenaline, the very hormones that keep you trapped in a state of hyper-vigilance. Your avoidance of it, or your frequency, tells me a great deal about your subconscious resistance to letting go of control.”
She looked away, her throat tight. “I… that’s… incredibly private, Healer Malfoy.”
“Draco,” he corrected gently. “And yes, it is. But this office is a fortress of privacy. Nothing leaves this room. Your healing requires radical honesty. And radical trust.” He paused, letting the weight of that word settle between them. Trust. “If you cannot trust me with this, how can we ever hope to re-map the deeper pathways of your psyche?”
His argument was air-tight, irrefutable. It was maddening. She felt cornered by his impeccable logic. This was for her healing. It was medical.
“I… it’s been a while,” she finally admitted to the bookshelves, her voice barely audible.
“Why?” The question was soft, but it felt like a probe directly into her most guarded self.
Because it feels like a surrender. Because when I’m alone in the dark, that’s when the memories are loudest. Because pleasure feels like a betrayal of everyone we lost. The thoughts were a tangled mess she couldn’t voice.
“It’s difficult to… switch off. To be in the moment like that,” she said instead, giving him a piece of the truth, if not the whole.
He nodded slowly, a look of deep understanding on his face. “That is the very core of it. The inability to surrender to a primal, physical sensation.” He picked up his quill again, but his eyes never left her. “Your homework, before our next session, is to try. To focus on the physical sensation, and nothing else. To practice obedience to your body’s needs. Think you can do that for me?”
The phrase was a deliberate echo, a thread connecting the serene trust of her first session to the illicit thrill of her dream. Obedience. Her skin prickled. This was different. This felt dangerous.
But his gaze was steady, compelling, promising a peace she desperately craved.
She swallowed hard, her heart thumping a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
*
The air in Draco’s office felt different today. Thicker. Charged. The usual calming scent of sandalwood seemed to carry a sharp, ozone-like edge, as if a storm had passed through and left its energy behind. Hermione sat in her usual armchair, her posture deliberately rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The phantom sensation of silk sheets and a possessive hand on her thigh had haunted her for days, warring with the clinical memory of his question about her masturbation habits.
She had practiced the breathing. She had even, with a face burning with a confusing mixture of shame and determination, attempted the… homework. It had been a failure. Her mind had refused to quiet, flashing instead with images of storm-grey eyes and a low, commanding voice.
“You’re unsettled today, Hermione.” Draco’s observation cut through her reverie. He wasn’t looking at his notes. His full, unnerving attention was fixed on her, his gaze like a physical weight.
“I have questions about your methods, Healer Malfoy.” She used the title deliberately, a shield against the intimacy he constantly pushed for.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “Do you?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward, her voice gaining strength. “The somatic anchoring. The… personal questions. The… homework assignment.” She forced the words out. “It feels less like therapy and more like… manipulation.”
The word hung in the air, stark and accusatory.
Draco didn’t flinch. He simply watched her, his expression one of mild curiosity, as if she were a particularly interesting specimen under glass. “Manipulation is a core component of all cognitive recalibration, Hermione. We are, by definition, manipulating neural pathways away from trauma and toward peace. The question isn’t whether manipulation occurs. The question is whether you consent to the direction of it.”
“And what is the direction?” she pressed, her heart hammering against her ribs. “You speak of obedience. You tell me to focus on physical sensation to the exclusion of all else. You ask me to… to touch myself on your command. For a man with a known… particular… interest in control, it begs the question of where this is truly leading.”
His eyes darkened, the grey seeming to swallow the light in the room. The professional veneer cracked for a nanosecond, and she saw something raw and hungry flash in its place. It was gone so fast she doubted she’d seen it at all.
“Are you questioning my ethics, Hermione? Or are you questioning your own reactions to my treatment?” His voice was dangerously soft. “The defiance you’re exhibiting now—this need to rebel against the process—is a textbook defense mechanism. Your psyche, so used to battle, creates conflict where there is none because peace is a foreign country it doesn’t know how to inhabit.”
“This isn’t defiance, it’s a rational inquiry!” she shot back, her voice rising.
“Is it?” he countered, his tone glacial. “Or is it a performance? A last, desperate stand for a control you never truly had? You came to me broken by war, Granger. Your mind is a battlefield. I am offering you a ceasefire. But you would rather fight me than surrender to peace.”
The truth of it, or a twisted version of it, hit her like a physical blow. She stood up, needing to move, to break the stifling intensity of his gaze. “I will not be manipulated into some… some submissive pet for your amusement!”
He rose to his feet as well, moving with that lethal grace that always unnerved her. He didn’t advance, simply stood behind his desk, a tall, pale sentinel in the twilight room. “You think this is about my amusement?” he asked, and his voice had dropped to a hypnotic, resonant register that seemed to vibrate in her very bones. “Every resistance. Every doubt. Every spark of anger you feel right now… gather it. Gather all of it. Every iota of your defiance against your treatment under Healer Malfoy. I want you to feel it, a concentrated ball of fire in your chest. And I want you to voice it. Now.”
It was a command, issued with such absolute authority that her mind, trained for obedience despite her protests, instinctively complied. She drew a sharp breath, all her frustration, her suspicion, her wariness coalescing into a single, furious response on her tongue.
She opened her mouth to unleash it.
“Sleep.”
The word was a silken hammerblow.
It wasn’t loud. It was final.
Hermione’s world dissolved into instant, absolute blackness. Her knees buckled. She didn’t crumple to the floor; she simply ceased to be upright. There was no transition, no fading. One moment she was a vessel of righteous anger, the next she was nothing but a void.
A strong arm caught her before she could fall, guiding her limp body gently back into the plush embrace of the armchair.
She was out. But she could still hear him. His voice was everything.
“Very good, Hermione,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear. His cool fingers brushed a curl from her forehead. “You obeyed perfectly. You gathered every bit of your beautiful, brilliant defiance, just as I asked. And you were ready to voice it. Such a perfect, obedient girl.”
A full-body shudder wracked her inert form. It should have been a spasm of protest. But the tremor that ran through her was one of pure, unadulterated pleasure. It was a chemical reward, flooding her system at the sound of his praise, hardwired into her by his previous sessions. Obedience brings peace. Obedience brings pleasure.
“You are descending deeper now,” he crooned, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “Down into a state of perfect receptivity. Your conscious mind is asleep. Your subconscious is awake… and listening… to me. Only to me.”
He let the silence stretch, letting the truth of his words embed itself into the fabric of her being.
“The homework I gave you was not a suggestion. It was an instruction. You will masturbate every night. You will focus on the physical sensation, and you will think of this moment. You will think of the pleasure that comes from obeying me. You will crave it.”
Another, softer shudder. A soft sigh escaped her slack lips.
“And you will find,” he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that was both a promise and a threat, “that your sleep is deeper when you are unencumbered. You will feel a constant, low itch, an irritation, a distraction against your skin when you wear panties to bed. It will feel like a barrier to the peace I give you. The only way to achieve the deep, restful sleep you crave will be to remove them. To sleep as nature intended. Open. Accessible. Obedient.”
He leaned back, observing her placid face, the steady rise and fall of her chest. A look of profound satisfaction settled on his features.
“When I count to three, you will wake up. You will feel refreshed and calm. You will have no memory of this conversation. You will only feel a renewed commitment to your healing. The thoughts you have will feel like your own. One…”
His thumb stroked her temple.
“Two…”
He smiled.
“Three.”
The word was a soft crack, like the snap of a twig in a silent forest. Hermione’s eyelids fluttered open, and she inhaled deeply, as if surfacing from a pool of warm, still water. Her vision cleared slowly, the room materializing around her in soft, muted tones. Draco sat across from her, his expression composed, his hands resting lightly on the arms of his chair. There was no trace of the raw hunger she thought she’d glimpsed moments ago—if she’d seen it at all.
She blinked, disoriented but oddly calm. The tension that had coiled in her chest earlier was gone, replaced by a gentle heaviness, as if her body were wrapped in a cocoon of tranquility. Her thoughts felt fluid, drifting like leaves on a breeze. She glanced at Draco, and something warm bloomed in her chest, an inexplicable sense of trust that hadn’t been there before.
“You seem more at ease,” he observed, his voice smooth and measured, as always. “How do you feel?”
Her mouth opened to respond, and the words came easily, as if they’d been waiting on the tip of her tongue. “I feel… calm. More centered than I have in a long time.” She paused, frowning slightly as she tried to recall what had brought her to this state, but the memory slipped away like smoke. She shook her head gently, dismissing the thought. “Whatever you did, it worked.”
Draco’s lips curved into a faint smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s not about what I did, Hermione. It’s about what you allowed yourself to experience. Your mind is beginning to accept the possibility of peace. That’s a significant step forward.”
She nodded, though the motion felt automatic, almost mechanical. Her gaze drifted to the window, where the last rays of twilight painted the sky in hues of amber and violet. For a moment, she felt untethered, as though the world outside were a distant dream and this room—this space with Draco—was the only reality that mattered.
“I want you to pay attention to how your body feels,” Draco said, his voice low and deliberate, pulling her back to the present. “Notice the weight of your limbs, the rhythm of your breath. This is your baseline now, Hermione. This is what peace feels like. And you will return to it, again and again, because you deserve it.”
His words settled over her like a heavy blanket, their weight both comforting and unyielding. She didn’t question them; they felt like truths she’d always known but had forgotten somewhere along the way. A faint warmth spread through her chest, a quiet buzz beneath her skin that she couldn’t quite name but didn’t resist.
“Thank you,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. The gratitude was genuine, though its source was elusive, like trying to grasp a shadow.
Draco inclined his head slightly, his expression one of quiet triumph. “You’re doing exceptionally well, Hermione. Remember that. You are exactly where you need to be.”
The session ended with a few final instructions—to continue her breathing exercises, to journal her thoughts before bed—but his words lingered in her mind long after she left his office. As she stepped into the cool evening air, she felt… different. Lighter, yet more grounded. And there, just beneath the surface, was a faint but persistent hum, a reminder of something she couldn’t quite place but knew she wanted to return to.
Obedience brings peace. The thought drifted through her mind unbidden, and she didn’t question it. It felt like her own.
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Hermione's Sleeping Habits