Just when Hermione thought she was about to fall heavily onto the hard floor in an extremely embarrassing manner.
Draco had been sitting comfortably in his armchair, made a move.
His reaction was astonishingly fast.
Almost at the same moment Hermione tripped over the carpet and cried out in surprise, the languid and playful look in his eyes vanished instantly.
In a flash, his arm, which had been casually resting on the armrest, suddenly exerted force, and his body swiftly and steadily stood up from the soft armchair.
At the same time, he opened his arms outwards.
Reality freezes in a fleeting moment.
The next moment, a heavy impact occurred.
"Ugh!" A muffled groan escaped Hermione's lips, not from pain, but from the shock of the impact and immense horror.
But the expected coldness and excruciating pain from the hard floor did not come.
Instead, she crashed into a firm but not particularly soft chest.
The instant Draco stood up, he precisely adjusted his angle, using his body and arms to absorb most of the force of her forward momentum and fall.
The force of the impact caused him to stagger backward, his back seemingly hitting the back of the armchair behind him with a soft thud, but he did not fall.
Hermione, due to the inertia of her forward momentum and the force of being caught, ended up falling solidly into Draco's arms.
Because of the position and angle at which she fell, her face was buried precisely between his chest and the back of his neck.
The tip of my nose was instantly filled with Draco's unique scent.
Her hands, in the instant she fell, instinctively sought and grasped at her body to maintain balance.
After waving futilely in the air, she instinctively grabbed the fabric of his school robe at the waist the instant she crashed into his arms.
As Draco caught her, he naturally tightened his embrace in response to the force of her falling into his arms.
One of his hands was firmly supporting her back near her shoulder blade, while the other hand, seemingly for balance, was placed beside her.
Their positions, due to this collision and contact, instantly became extremely close, extremely... ambiguous.
Hermione practically threw herself into Draco's arms.
The flickering firelight from the fireplace cast long shadows of the two people embracing tightly onto the crimson carpet and the wall beside them.
The shadows intertwined and overlapped, as if they were an inseparable whole.
The air seemed to freeze at that moment.
Only the steady crackling of the burning firewood in the fireplace remained.
And the sound of their rapid, unsteady breathing mingling together.
Hermione's breathing was erratic from extreme shock, her voice trembling and whimpering.
She could clearly feel the steady, strong heartbeat coming from the other person's chest beneath her cheek.
One beat after another, pounding against her eardrums through her thin shirt and wool school uniform.
She could also clearly feel the arms that were wrapped around her; the touch wasn't particularly strong, but it carried a sense of stability and control.
And the warmth of another person's body emanating through the clothing.
This uncontrolled heat created an extremely... overwhelming sensory shock.
Her mind went completely blank and froze.
He couldn't even issue the most basic command to push him away.
She simply remained in the position of being nestled in his arms.
My body trembled uncontrollably due to intense emotional fluctuations and physiological tremors, like the most fragile fallen leaf in the autumn wind.
Draco didn't move either.
This is a golden opportunity!
He lowered his head slightly, his chin seemingly touching her fluffy, messy brown curls.
He could clearly feel the softness and warmth of the body in his arms, as well as its uncontrollable trembling.
You can smell the faint scent of shampoo and her own natural body fragrance coming from her hair.
He could feel her fingers trembling slightly as she gripped his robe tightly.
And the burning heat emanating from her cheeks through her clothes.
Fortunately, Draco tightened his grip slightly.
But only for a moment.
The scalding heat of their physical contact was like the strongest electric current, instantly shattering Hermione's remaining defenses of reason.
Her mind was completely enveloped by a blinding white light and a sharp buzzing sound.
Everything about her was abruptly "frozen" by this sudden, tight embrace.
Time has lost its meaning.
A second could be a century.
She couldn't feel her body trembling, couldn't feel the difficulty breathing, couldn't feel the burning temperature on her cheeks, and couldn't even feel the arms wrapped around her back and sides.
At that moment, a voice rang out above her head.
"Are you alright, Hermione?!"
Draco didn't push her away immediately, nor did he make any further moves.
He just wanted to know if Hermione was hurt.
This question, so calm, so ordinary, so... inappropriate.
Hermione's frozen mind began to turn again because of this all-too-common question.
She sluggishly repeated the word in her mind.
Then, the dulled senses belatedly return to the body.
She felt the warm touch on her cheek.
She was alright, but she didn't know what had happened, how to react, or how to break free from that absurd embrace.
But as her thoughts began to race again, a wave of shame overwhelmed her!
"Waaaaah--!"
A suppressed sob was forced out of her mouth.
At the same time, her body, which had been as stiff as a stone sculpture, instinctively tried to bounce back as if it had been burned by a scalding hot iron, trying to escape this suffocating contact.
However, her body was already exhausted and weak from the fall and prolonged tension.
This weak force not only failed to free her, but also caused her to stumble even more awkwardly in Draco's arms due to the loss of balance, almost collapsing again.
In that instant, she could almost clearly feel the hard outline of Draco's school uniform buttons pressing against the soft skin below her collarbone.
The strength of his embrace was thus transmitted more clearly.
The distance is even closer than before!
The embrace was even tighter than before!
Even more inescapable than before!
An overwhelming sense of shame and helplessness instantly engulfed Hermione.
Her face was once again forced to be buried deep between his neck and chest.
Draco's arm, sensing her futile struggles and the resulting deeper stagger and loss of balance, not only did not loosen its grip, but instead...
Again, it tightened a little.
The force was like a gentle yet cold iron clamp, binding her body, which was trying to escape, even more firmly in his arms.
Then, that almost soothing voice whispered in her ear:
"No rush."