Seven months of pent up sexual tension has been building up for this very moment—the morning after.
Hermione wakes up first, having lost all feeling in her legs and hips. She realizes instantly that she slept in an unknown bedroom. Panic rises to her throat, the bitter bile of whisky mixing with it.
She starts believing in God when her vomit refuses to be projected.
She looks to her left, eyes widening in shock when she finds her neighbour's silver-blond hair peeking out from the green duvet. Judging by the slight euphoric ache she feels from in between her legs, she totally had wild and crazy sex with Draco Malfoy.
That single fact is enough to send her into an approximately 30-second screaming round, promptly waking up her one night stand.
Draco shoots off the bed, completely nude and glorious. His cheeks are reddening by the minute, and his embarrassed face is the most adorable thing Hermione has ever seen.
"Hello," she mumbles, making sure the green covers are wrapped carefully around her body.
Draco's eyebrows reach his hairline, and he shifts his legs to cover his private parts. "Hi."
Silence follows his greeting. Hermione refuses to glance anywhere near his direction.
Unexpectedly enough, it's Draco who breaks the silence with a stuttering yet clear question, "So… erm… Did we—last night?"
Sweet and hot memories begin to flash quickly through Hermione's brain, causing her to ache even more. "Yes."
"I'm sorry," he utters this in an uncertain way, as though he doesn't know what to say but doesn't want the silence to come again either.
Hermione cannot hold back the giggle. "Don't be. I liked—I enjoyed it."
"Oh," he articulates, blinking, "I did, too."
She watches in amusement as his cheeks blush bright again, this time redder and warmer. "Should we… er… should we do it again?"
His response comes in an instant. "Yes."
"Now?" she shyly asks, feeling her own face heat up.
Draco shrugs, looking away and clearly avoiding her gaze for some reason. "Do you want to—I don't know—maybe, eat first?"
As if on cue, her stomach growls at his words, effectively humiliating her.
Draco chuckles at her nonverbal reply, and out of instinct, she throws a pillow at his chest. He dodges it with one step sidewards, but she marvels at how comfortable they are with each other already.
She wonders if this kind of intimacy will only last for today.
July 29th is the day of their first official date.
Hermione sits across from him in a fancy restaurant, wearing a red dress she hopes he'll take off later. Draco pours her some wine, and his seductive gaze is enough to turn her into a flustered mess.
"What's your favourite colour?" he asks. It's the first question that has ever been uttered between them that is without sexual promise.
"Brown."
"Plain." He shrugs off the word like dirt on his shoes, and she almost goes into an offended rant before he continues his statement, "very unlike you."
She smiles instead. "I find it calming and minimalistic. What about you?"
"Green," he answers without hesitation. "It reminds me of money, and I love money."
Instead of chastising him for his superficial behaviour, she laughs because she knows whenever he means something and whenever he doesn't. "How did you end up at your job?"
He quirks a curious brow at her oddly-worded question but answers anyway, "It's a family company. I was expected to work there as soon as I was finished with school."
"What kind of company?"
"The one that's based here is a wine company. It's managed by my crazy aunt."
"How about your other companies?"
"Well," he pauses to take a small sip from his wine glass, "we have a publishing company in France, headed by my mum, more vineyards in North America, and my father built some experimental restaurants in Asia."
"So you're filthy rich?"
He laughs at her bluntness. He's always told her that he loves honest women the most. "My parents are filthy rich, but I'm just a regular old bloke who works for the millionaires."
She nods in understanding. "I'm a journalist if you'd like to know. My parents are dentists—well-off but not owners of corporations like yours—and I still visit them on the weekends."
"What are their names?"
"Helen and Paris," she says, rolling her eyes instinctively. "It's annoying, honestly, how openly affectionate they are. But they absolutely adore each other, and I couldn't have asked for better parents."
"They sound lovely." Draco gives a disarming smile that scares all of her fears away. With the small sip of wine that he takes, she feels her heart go down his throat with it. "I would like to meet them."
A beat passes.
"What?"
Draco chuckles at her disbelieving tone. It's delightful. It seems like everything he does is delightful. "I would like to meet them—let them know I'm courting their daughter and all."
"You're not—" Hermione inhales a thoughtful breath, gaining composure before attempting to talk once more, "You don't have to do that."
"I know," he says, "but I would like to do it very much, so long as you're okay with it, of course."
"You don't have to ask my parents' permission to be with me."
"Well, I'm sure they would appreciate it more if they met me."
He's right. Her parents are suckers for romantics. They've always preferred a sweet love over a burning one. They want for her to experience the kind of romance they went through—the kind of romance where the man stands in front of her home with an instrument in his arms as he sings on top of his lungs, Hermione watching from her bedroom window.
To be honest, Hermione has always dreamt of that, too. Maybe Draco is going to be the man who'll show her all those heartwarming gestures.
She sighs dreamily. "If you're free this Friday, maybe I can arrange for that to happen."
Hermione gives into the temptation and captures Draco's lips in a sweet thankful kiss. Draco snakes his arm around her waist in the most comfortable half-embrace she's ever gotten, leaning eagerly into her lips.
They just finished having tea with her parents, and even after awkward introductions, Draco managed to win them over. Her mum even snuck her away to the kitchen just to tell her that he's the best boy she's ever brought in their house.
Hermione has never thought a night could go so smoothly as this one did. If he continues to be so lovely and unexpected, she might be forced to believe that Draco Malfoy is her soulmate.
"Do you believe in aliens?" she asks him one night after an exhausting yet pleasurable round of romping.
Pillowtalk with them is strange. They don't know what to say to each other after a mindblowing orgasm, so they settle for asking the weirdest questions they can think of.
His face is flushed, cheeks practically glowing from the sweat on his skin. His breaths come out in short puffs, but he manages to smile at her. She likes to think that smiling is an unavoidable action for him whenever he is around her. "No."
His blond hair sticks to his forehead, and automatically, her hand reaches up to brush it away. "Why not?"
He shrugs, blinding her vision with his bright grin. "I just don't think the existence of them is plausible."
"But the universe is infinite."
"So, you believe in aliens?"
She nodded a little too passionately. "Yes. I really just don't want to believe that this is all that there is in life."
One. Two. Three.
Three beats pass without them interrupting the rhythm. The silence is unwelcome, yet kind of beautiful.
When Draco speaks up, he does so with a hesitating approach, an air of uncertainty present on his expression. "You don't want what you have now?"
"I'm thankful." Her hands somehow manage to find his amidst the chaos of the sheets. "But the world's so small, and I just want it to be bigger sometimes."
He brings their intertwined hands closer to his face for awed inspection, his lips worshipping her fingers intently. "I disagree. For me, the world's so big that everything overwhelms me every day, but then again, my world is shrinking smaller and smaller by the minute."
She frowns. "Why?"
"Because my whole world's rapidly turning into you."
Hermione realizes Draco might be more than a close friend with benefits (and an occasional date) at a completely random moment.
Hermione is sitting on her tub, feeling more tired than ever. She thinks of sleep and how effectively it erases her exhaustion. She wants to get up but feels as though her knees will shake and fall into the floor as soon as she does.
Then, her mind steers toward a totally different direction—Draco Malfoy.
She begins thinking of how wonderful her night would be if only Draco was right there beside her, soothing her nerves and calming down her soul. She thinks of how his arms around her would feel like heaven at the moment. She thinks of what it would feel like if he's lying beside her every morning.
She wonders what it feels like to have him for her own full-time—not just for a one-hour lunch date or a come-and-go kind of night, but for a lifetime.
She wonders what it would feel like to be in love with him, what it would feel like to stay up late at night, thinking of him, and what it would feel like to seek him out for comfort when she feels anything but comfortable.
Then, she freezes in her tub, realizing that she already is, irrevocably and indisputably, in love with Draco Malfoy.
Hermione memorizes his skin like words on a textbook. He opens himself up for the taking, and she is ready to get a hold of every single part of him.
She gives his face kisses and runs the tips of her fingers all over the highs and lows of his muscles. He is so beautiful—perhaps more than she is accustomed to.
She has never really worshipped him like this; it has always been him exploring her body and never the other way around. Of course, she's not complaining. Admittedly, she likes it whenever his attention is all hers.
She does not ask about the scars on his chest, the marks on his wrists, for he never asks about hers. He'll tell her when he feels like it.
When she shifts her position to be filled by him, she keeps her breasts close to his chest, almost hoping that the love she feels in her heart can be transferred over to his.
She bites her lower lip when they start a rhythm, knowing herself all too well and not wanting to declare her love out-of-the-blue in the middle of intercourse.
His eyes do not stray away from her face, pupils blown open and intense. He licks his lips, and she loses all patience, moving rapidly on top of him and wanting desperately to get a taste of that sweet, sweet release.
She's so close to the finish line, closer than the—
Draco's cell phone rings.
She stares at him in a questioning manner. Should she continue?
He gives her a sheepish smile and puts his hands on her hips. At first, she thinks it is his way of asking her to proceed, but she soon learns that he's asking for her to get off of him.
She swallows disappointment like something that hasn't been chewed well as she climbs off him. It scrapes her throat, fighting to be let out, but she refuses to show him how she truly feels.
He reaches for his phone instantly, sitting up like he hasn't been affected by what they were doing earlier.
She waits a seemingly infinite amount of time, eyes glued to him so as to catch him without a phone in his ear.
It never happens.
He stands up instead, looking alarmed and furious. Before Hermione blinks twice, Draco dresses, ties his shoes quickly, kisses her goodbye, and leaves through the door without glancing back.
She tries to erase the hurt that prods and teases her heart. She pretends she hasn't failed.
After two consecutive days of bitter disappointment and receiving nothing from him, Draco takes her out on the best date she's ever had in her entire life—a double date with his parents. And by the best, she means the worst date ever.
Draco's parents are… snobs, to say the least. So far, they've made it very clear to her that they think Hermione is undeserving of their son. Draco chastises their comments, but it doesn't do much to soothe the hurt.
"Do you even have a job?" Draco's father, Mr Lucius Malfoy, questions in the most arrogant tone ever used in history.
She swallows the awful retort that rose to her throat with a smile. "Yes. I work as a journalist for—"
"Do you own a business?" Mrs Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, cuts her off in an unexpectedly polite voice.
"Well, my parents never encouraged me to—"
Dear God, will she ever get a full sentence in tonight?
"So, if you get married, you'd never be able to manage the family company with Draco?"
"Mother," Draco chimes in, "we've only just begun dating. No more talks of weddings after this, please."
Mrs Malfoy frowns but nods, sipping a small amount of wine. "Very well."
His father follows up with another inquiry, "What do your parents do for a living?"
Hermione perks up at the thought of them. "They're dentists, and they have their own—"
"Dentists, " Mr Malfoy repeats, "of course. Let me guess, they couldn't afford to be surgeons?"
Hermione's mouth contorts into a defensive snarl, and she's two seconds away from giving both of these entitled arseholes a piece of her mind when Draco's hand makes its way to her thigh as a silent plea.
She looks at him, sees his stern expression, and stays quiet.
He nods in appreciation, turning his gaze to his parents. She sees a tick in his jaw and knows he's holding back as well. She hopes her hand on his calms him down, too.
And somehow, his parents' disdain for her only causes their relationship to grow stronger.
Why isn't he answering her calls?
They haven't talked since she met his parents, and she doesn't want to seem like a crazy girlfriend, but why?
Don't get her wrong, she doesn't want to be with him every minute of the day (no matter how good that sounds), but she at least deserves one text a day from her boyfriend, right? Or has she been wrong all along? Are they even dating?
She knows he's told her before that he's always busy, but she has never assumed it would be this bad.
Maybe she isn't trying to understand him hard enough. Maybe she should be patient and wait for him.
Maybe.
This is the third time Draco hasn't shown up for a date, and Hermione would be lying if she says it does not break her heart.
The surroundings of this particular French restaurant are as familiar to her as Draco's hands. She's been in the same situation for too long, and she's not amused anymore.
It's the same routine; Draco calls to ask her on a date after a good eight days of ignoring her calls, texts, DMs, and e-mails. Like a fool, she agrees to accompany him wholeheartedly, and they settle for a date on Friday. When the fateful day comes, Hermione arrives at the restaurant (always the same damn place, too!) and finds him nowhere in sight. She assumes he is late every time, and when he doesn't show up for three hours, she leaves with her heart numb.
She loves routines, but she feels as though this one is too heartbreaking for her to enjoy. He gets her hopes up and disappoints her. When he apologizes for his behaviour, he tells her how hectic his schedule is and manages to disappoint her even more.
She watches as the grandfather clock points exactly to 12. It's finally midnight. It's time for her to go.
Hermione leaves. She doesn't feel as though anything's worth it anymore.
Draco's words repeat themselves in her head, echoing and vibrating off the walls of her mind—his heartfelt apology, his convenient excuse, and his punchline. Is she a joke to him?
"You're leaving," she repeats, wanting a confirmation. Needing so badly to be strong, she refuses to express her pain to him.
"Yes," he tells her with genuine eyes. "I'm heading to Wellington, New Zealand for at least a year or so. My father decided to branch—"
"We should break up."
He looks at her with hurt permeating his grey eyes. She guards her expression and meets his gaze fiercely. Long distance relationships never work.
She sees heartbreak creeping in on the curves of his irises and instantly feels bad. He asks her one question, "Why?"
Why, indeed? It's the same question she's been begging him an answer and now, it's directed at her. Is she the bad one? For not trying? Is there anything to even try for?
"Long distance relationships never work," she says, repeating her thought out loud. The aching lump of feelings continues to block her throat. "It's just common sense. We're just going to end up hating each other."
"I could never hate you." There he goes with his words again—his beautiful words. She falls for him as she tries to pull herself up. It's confusing.
She forces a smile to break out her face. "Of course, that's what we think now. It might change, you know, in a year or so."
It's obvious by the worried lines on his forehead that he isn't amused. "I don't want to give this up. I don't want to give you up."
"Draco," she utters his name like a prayer, sighing, "it's not just about you wanting things all the time. We both have to work hard for the things we want. How could I be in a relationship with a man who doesn't even answer my calls when he's just a thirty-minute drive away from me? I know you're busy, but—I don't know!—a little 'good morning' is not much to ask for, right?"
"I'm sorry," he apologizes for what must be the millionth time that night. "I've been neglecting you and this relationship, but I'm willing to try. For you. For us."
"Trust me, I don't want to let you go either." Hermione smiles weakly. "But it's very hard to make a house withstand a storm when it doesn't have a stable foundation."
"Then, let's rebuild the foundation!" The way he grasps her hand is too desperate. She is shocked to find tears building in his eyes. "We're good together, Hermione!"
"Draco, I—"
"I love you! You're the first woman I've ever been in love with! I can't—I don't want to—" He cuts himself off as he breaks into sobs. Her heart longs to hold his in a loving and comforting embrace.
Her previous weak smile strengthens into a fully-stretched grin, tears gathering in her eyes regardless. "I love you, too, silly."
They both cry together.
And the night ends in his bedroom, their legs locked together, his lips on her hair, and her ear pressed against his heartbeat.
For the first time in a short while, they are both happy.
Hermione tries to suppress the grin that overwhelms her face as Draco stands in front of her flat building, out on the pavement, in the middle of the pouring rain, with a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
He brings her a different bouquet at the same time every day after their declarations of love for each other, always ready with a promise of a date after she accepts his offer.
How stupid of him not to bring an umbrella, though!
But she does not dwell too much on the matter, for she knows it's not really important—not when she's going to be his umbrella in the rain; she's going to be his protection from the cold; she's going to be his caretaker after he catches a cold once they get inside.
Before he leaves her alone at Heathrow he gives her the sweetest of all kisses. "Promise me you'll talk to me every day."
She laughs, wrapping her arms around him like she's afraid he'll fade away in front of her. "Promise me you'll respond."
He nods, not thinking of anything at the moment as a joke. "Promise me you'll miss me."
She turns serious as well. "Promise me you'll be here in a year."
"Promise me you'll wait."
"Promise me you won't find anyone better."
"Promise me you'll love me?"
"I already do."
He kisses her again.
The first month, everything goes well. They Skype every chance they get. She even tries to get him naked on camera one hormonal night, and they laugh about how he blushes when she's suggested that. They make sure to take time for each other, they make sure to let the other know just how much they love them, and they make silly kissy faces at the camera as soon as goodbye is close.
They're disgusting. She feels like a teenager girl with her first hot boyfriend. She feels the butterflies rampaging her stomach. She notices how he beams every time she says she loves him. Sometimes at work, she even writes down Malfoy beside her first name just to see how it looks like.
They're a terrible, clichéd romance. She loves it.
The second month, there's been a few missed calls and messages. They've both been occupied by work, and they understand because it seems like the need for more money is more important than each other at the moment.
Hermione changes her lock screen wallpaper from a silly picture of Crookshanks to a photo Draco took in New Zealand.
Fifth month: nothing but a bunch of 'I miss yous' with no actions to follow said words.
This is when Hermione realizes that long distance relationships are hard work, and the pain of missing someone is criminally downplayed. She didn't know it would cause her heart to ache so much. She didn't know that it would cause her to reach out for the other side of the bed, expecting Draco's warm body and finding nothing at all.
She just misses him so much.
Hermione starts to get annoyed whenever Draco falls asleep while they're video-chatting, while she's sharing a part of her soul to him as soon as the sixth month hits. When she calls in the middle of conversations and dinners, she doesn't think of it as endearing anymore—moreso, intrusive and distracting.
He calls her more times than she accepts his calls.
When her phone rings in the middle of the most important interview she's ever had, she becomes unreasonably angry and blames Draco for when the person she's interviewing denies her request for a second one.
They fight.
Draco thinks she's not investing much to their relationship. Hermione thinks he's interfering too much when she's working.
They don't talk for the rest of the week, and she doesn't even think of him.
Hermione assumes they don't have a relationship anymore when their fights last till the eighth month.
They don't talk to each other, but she sees his images on Instagram, his tweets on Twitter, and his posts on Facebook—she can see how unbelievably happier he is without her.
She misses him. She wants to crawl in his arms and apologize for a lifetime. She needs to hear how much he loves her over and over.
She needs to call him and attempt to fix things, but she doesn't.
She goes to a party instead to lessen her pain.
She finds an ex-boyfriend and wonders if she'd be happier with him.
After crying in the bathroom with alcoholic bile dripping down her chin, she concludes she'll only ever be truly happy with Draco Malfoy, but she'll continue suffering until he decides she's worthy again of his messages.
She gets a promotion. She should be happy, but she isn't. In fact, she's more miserable than she's ever been.
Apparently, the insecurities begin to take over during the eleventh month. The questions continue to plague her mind as well. So many stupid, meaningless, and unanswered questions.
What's Draco doing now? Is he happy? Is he safe? Would he like this green duvet? Would he think I'm pretty in this dress? Would he approve of the height of my heels? Is Draco thinking of me? Is Draco thinking of others? Does he love me still?
"Hello?" His voice is like a relieving balm for her constant hurting.
Tears fall down her face as she breathed out a sigh of relief. She does not let him hear her cry. She does not respond to his greeting.
"Hermione?" Her name has never sounded so utterly breathtaking until then. He spoke the three syllables like he was born to say it, like it's the name that's been entwined to his own from their very conception.
She misses him so much that she starts to believe he's taken her soul with him as soon as he departed the airport.
"Hermione, I'm coming home." With four words, he amends the pieces of her soul back together again.
He sits at their usual table in the same French restaurant where she used to wait for him until midnight.
Hermione becomes whole as soon as she memorizes his form again.
His blond hair is longer, and his eyes look sadder. He looks beautiful, nonetheless—the most beautiful man she's ever laid her eyes on.
Taking notice of how his face brightens up when he first sees her, she sits on the chair across from him rather than the one next to him. She doesn't know what he thinks of her, after all, and she's completely uncertain of what they actually are to each other.
But then, she takes a deeper look at his grey eyes. Within, she sees clouds and storms and flowers in the pouring rain. At the lowermost depth, she sees his pain and his tears. She sees how he hurt when they were apart. She sees how much he missed her. She sees loyalty in the way his eyelashes flutter when she neared him. With the dilation of his pupils, however, she sees love—a seemingly unstoppable and impossible love that withstood everything they went through.
Not bothering to wipe away the tears on her cheeks, she smiles at him. "Hi."
His blinding responsive smile is immediate, as are the tears that collected in his eyes. "Hello."
For now, that is enough.