Dedicated to weestarmeggie, who hates angst but loves me enough to read this! Happiest of birthdays to my soulmate! This is unbeta'd so please forgive me for grammatical mistakes and errors.
I. The first time they kissed, she was crying in the courtyard after Ron humiliated her during the Yule Ball.
She had felt so beautiful, so lovely, and had an amazing time dancing with Viktor. She felt like she was in a fairytale and, for once, she wasn't just the bossy, know-it-all.
She was Hermione Granger, bossy, know-it-all, and, in the words of Lavender Brown, an alluring vixen.
But Ronald Weasley had to ruin it all with his harsh words.
"Why do you let the Weasel get you down?"
Hermione turned to the source of the aristocratic drawl.
"Go away, Malfoy," Hermione sniffled, embarrassed to let him witness her like this.
She watched as he sat beside her.
"You looked beautiful tonight," he stated candidly.
Hermione let out a derisive laugh, "no mocking insults tonight? You're losing your touch."
Malfoy turned to her and stared at her with glassy, silver-eyes.
"You're drunk," she snorted, "of course."
Before she knew what was going on, he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers in a gentle manner that she wasn't aware he possessed.
"You really shouldn't let him get to you like this, Granger," he breathed across her lips, the sharp smell of expensive firewhisky and cigarette smoke fanning across her face, "you're much too smart for a Weasel like him."
He was gone by the time she realized what had happened, her forefinger and her middle finger pressed against her lips.
II. The second time they kissed, they had been arguing.
She accidentally bumped into him on the way to a D.A. meeting.
"Watch where you're going, you filthy Mudblood," he spat, his silver-eyes darkening in irritation.
"You have no room to be calling people names when you're just an inbred imbecile who's apparently blind," she snarled back, her hands clenching into fists.
He marched into her space, his face flushed red as he leaned into her, "what did you call me?"
"Are you deaf as well? Or are you afraid that I'm right, Malfoy?" she whispered tauntingly.
He stared at her for a long time and she noticed when those eyes strayed from her own and down to her lips.
"What is it?" she asked quietly, her head tilting slightly, "finding yourself attracted to a Mudblood?"
He flashed her a smirk, his body language suddenly slipping into an easy cockiness, "a warm body is warm body, Granger."
Her face twisted in disgust, "you're crass," she hissed, aware of the warmth of his body as he got closer to her, caging her against the side of the hallway.
Malfoy made a sigh, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, "I'm going to kiss you, Granger," he declared before leaning in and pressing his lips against hers firmly.
His lips were warm and they weren't unpleasant but Hermione remembered the slur he just callously used against her and pushed at him hard. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth the moment he stumbled away and pulled her wand on him, "you are vile."
He gave her a lopsided grin that shouldn't have looked that good on him but it did, "it took you a good minute to push me away there."
With a swagger in his step, he sauntered away, leaving Hermione fuming in anger and taking it out on someone during D.A. practice.
III. The third time they kissed, she deceived him.
Hermione was tired of Umbridge at this point and the Inquisitorial Squad breathing down her neck, as well as other members of the D.A., in an attempt to figure out where it was that they all disappeared to.
She was in the library, making an effort to study for her O.W.L.s' when she saw a flash of platinum hair. Deciding that she didn't want to have another confrontation like the last two times, she gathered all of her items and got up to leave only to find that he had been watching her the entire time.
"What's got you in a hurry, Granger? Can't be slipping off to some meeting, are you? Breaking rules?"
Hermione scoffed as she pushed past him, "I'm heading back to my dorms, you ferret."
He grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her back, "where is it? On the seventh floor?"
Unwilling to carry on the conversation any longer, Hermione leaned forward and snogged him in order to distract him. He made a small noise of surprise before he moved his arms around her waist and kissed her back.
She was very much aware that she shouldn't be kissing him, especially after what happened during the World Cup and the current politics of the school, but like the previous time, kissing him wasn't unpleasant so she didn't stop.
No one had to know anyways, right?
When she pulled away, Malfoy seemed flustered before stumbling away from her, seemingly forgetting why he bothered her in the first place.
He kept pulling her into closets and dark hallways after that, neither one of them saying anything about their arrangement.
IV. The fourth time they kissed, she lost her virginity to him.
He was avoiding her.
She knew this for certain.
The moment he spotted her, he would flee from her presence as if avoiding a plague. But one day, she found him crying in the girls' lavatory on the second floor and she knew, she knew, that she should have just walked away but she couldn't.
She approached him slowly, as if he was a caged animal and placed a hand on his shoulder. In a blink of an eye, she was pinned in between him and the sink, his hawthorn wand pressed against her jugular vein.
Hermione took a good look at him and noticed that his eyes seemed sunken in, his skin a waxy pallor, and his face gaunt. He visibly relaxed when he realized it was just her and removed his wand.
"What do you want, Granger?" he spat at her, but it lacked the venom it usually held.
"What's wrong, Draco?" she whispered.
"Nothing for you to worry your pretty little mind about," he snapped, backing away from her. The cold air hit her immediately and she shivered.
Hermione stared at him again, taking in the tension that riddled his lithe frame. She stepped towards him and reached out her hand toward his face, cupping it gently and watching as he leaned into her touch.
"Are you okay?" she asked, trying again.
He shook his head, his silver-eyes weren't bright as usual and it worried her more than she would have liked to admit.
"No," he confessed, "everything's gone to hell, Hermione, and I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
She stepped even closer to him, removing all spaces between them, "let me help."
He shook his head again, "no one can help me. I have to do it all by myself or he'll kill me."
She froze - Harry was right.
"Who will kill you?"
Draco shuddered as he swung his head side-to-side quickly, "you-know-who, Hermione."
Not knowing what to say, she comforted him as best a she could, leaning into kiss him. He kissed her back brutally and she was sure she would bruise from the force of it as he clutched onto her. She stumbled as he hoisted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist.
"Draco," Hermione called out as she broke the kiss, "I can help -"
"Please," he begged, his voice broken and sad, a shadow of the arrogance that she was so familiar with.
She gave into him and she wasn't sure how they moved to an abandoned classroom but they did and he laid her down on a desk and worshipped her body with a devotion that echoed through her.
It was awkward and messy but he made sure she was comfortable the entire time. When he fell asleep curled around her, she kissed his forehead and left.
V. The fifth time they kissed, she wanted to know more.
"What is this?" she asked him, and she knew she was slipping into dangerous territory but she had to know.
After that night, they spent time together whenever they were free and she found herself missing him. She enjoyed reading while he rested in her lap, occasionally reading with her or debating theories, the both of them ignoring the dark circles that bruised underneath his eyes or that she now carried her wand in a holster on her forearm.
He stared at her for a long time, his silver-eyes boring into her own. His unwavering gaze made her feel uncomfortable and she started to feel that she maybe she shouldn't have asked him at all.
Right when she was about to pull away, he answered, "this is ours, no one else's. We can make this whatever we want it to be."
He pressed his lips against hers and she found herself wanting more, deepening the kiss when she slipped her tongue into his mouth. Draco let out a little noise and she thought to herself that she wanted to make him make this noise for her forever.
Draco tightened his grip on Hermione's waist before he pulled away.
"And I think I would want nothing more than to make this something more, Granger," he whispered before he walked away to his class, not letting her respond.
VI. The sixth time they kissed, she finally realized that she might feel something for him.
"There's something wrong with me," he murmured into her lips, his thumbs tracing down her jawline.
She leaned back against the wall as she stared at him, "what do you mean?"
"I thought that one taste was all I needed to stop thinking about you. I hated it, you know? Seeing you crying because of Ronald fucking Weasley. You have always been so brilliant and clever and amazing and this bloody idiot had hurt you and you had actually let him. You throw me off, you witch. You have broken every single ill-conceived notion I have ever held and you challenge me in a way I have never been. I couldn't stop thinking about you."
He sighed and stroked the side of her face almost reverently, "I thought one kiss would be enough but I can't stay away, Granger. I keep coming back to you. What have you done to me?"
Hermione grinned at Draco, her eyes alight with a certain mischief as she answered him, "only what you want me to."
She captured his lips between her own, giggling when his hands slid down to her bum to give it a squeeze.
Long after he was gone, Hermione realized she was still smiling and that she felt both giddy and at peace, a peculiar sensation that she wasn't quite sure what to make of.
She wondered if she would always feel like this when she was with him.
VII. The seventh time they kissed, he broke her heart.
She knew something was wrong and she should have been gathering members of the D.A. and the Order but she couldn't, running through the hallways trying to find him.
She found him leaving the dungeons and skidded to a stop.
"Something's wrong," she blurted out without preamble, her hands fidgeting nervously as she looked at his state of dress, "you know exactly what's going on."
"He has my mother, Hermione," he said hoarsely, "he told me he'd kill her right after he killed my father. We're being punished - my father failed and if I fail, it's over for us."
"What can I do?" she asked, stepping towards him. He closed the distance between them and placed his hands on her waist, rubbing circles on her hip bones with his thumbs.
"Leave the castle," Draco requested, "it's the only way I can keep you safe. They're coming and I can't do anything to stop them."
Hermione shook her head, "you know I can't do that, Draco, I can't leave them."
He closed his eyes and pressed his body against hers, every muscle in his body tense, "please."
"I can't," she repeated.
"Run away with me?" he tried again.
"We both know that we'd be hunted down."
She felt him trembling as he held her and she felt every defense around her crumble along with her heart, "this was never supposed to happen," he whispered.
He kissed her as if it was the last time he would ever get the chance, his hands moving from her waist and gripping her face almost painfully. He kissed her until she ran out of breath and had to pull away. He kissed her until she forgot why she even went looking for him in the first place.
"But I don't think I'll ever regret this, Hermione."
He left her and her heart felt like it broke, him taking a piece of it with him.
VIII. The eight time they kissed, he saved her.
Bellatrix stepped up to Hermione, her dark eyes wild as she lifted her wand but it was abruptly ripped from her hand and landed into the waiting hands of Draco.
"What do you think you're doing?" Bellatrix screeched in anger.
Draco stunned his aunt quickly before making his way to Hermione, ignoring all of the protests from his parents, "are you okay?"
She gave him a quick nod before he gripped her by the arms and pulled her up.
"Good," he responded, brushing her hair away from her face, "you're too thin, Granger."
Hermione chose not to answer, instead, asking something else of him.
"Come with me, Draco, please," she begged him, her hands clutching onto his tightly.
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, "I can't, Hermione. Don't ask this of me."
"He'll kill you, Draco! He'll know that you helped me, helped us! You're signing your own death sentence if you don't come with me!" she practically shrieked, her heart lurching violently into her stomach at the thought.
Draco opened his eyes and gave her a sad smile, "what a way to go, then, isn't it? Saving the witch that I love."
"No," she growled, practically vibrating with anger, "you can't do this to me. You can't bleeding do this to me!"
"My clever and brilliant witch," he whispered against her lips before kissing her hard, desperation poured into every ounce of it, telling her everything that they didn't have the time to discuss, "I wish I could have told you on my own terms."
He stepped away from her and she stumbled towards him, unable to stop tears from trailing down her face.
Is this what he felt like that night? she thought distantly to herself.
"Dobby, take care of her," Draco ordered and before she could understand what was going on, she was on the shore of a sandy beach, a scream of outrage and pain falling from her lips when she finally did.
Harry and Ron held onto her as she fell apart, unable to do anything else to soothe her as she whispered over and over that Draco was going to die.
IX. The ninth time they kissed, she thought that the stars and heavens could collide and she wouldn't even flinch.
She spotted him, running up the staircases.
"Draco!" she yelled, watching as he stopped and turned around. Her heart stuttered on a beat before she sprinted toward him, launching herself into his arms before she could stop herself.
She quickly pulled back, placing her hands on both of his cheeks, inspecting him for any visible injuries.
"You're alive," she sighed in relief, "I thought that after you saved me -"
He cut her off with a searing kiss, holding her body flush against his as if he could mold her to him so that she could never leave. One hand cupped her cheek while the other held onto her waist.
"Our jobs here aren't finished, Hermione, we have to go."
He gave her one last kiss on the forehead before he turned to leave, but Hermione grabbed onto his wrist and pulled him back.
"If we survive this, if the both of us come out of this alive, I want to give us a proper chance."
He flashed her one of those smirks that drove her wild, "I would expect nothing less."
X. The tenth time they kissed, neither one of them walked away.
"You may now kiss the bride," the officiator declared.
Hermione grinned at her new husband before reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss him, squealing in delight when he picked her up to give her a proper kiss.
A wolf-whistle came from the crowd and the two of them pulled away, Hermione's face bright red as she buried it into Draco's shoulders.
"Looks like you're stuck with me forever, Granger," Draco whispered into her ear.
Hermione pulled back and glared at Draco playfully, "it's Granger-Malfoy, Malfoy."
"Too much of a mouthful, I'll just call you Malfoy from now on."
fin.