Paste your document here...Hermione watched the music box as the enchanted drum rolled along, plinking the tines that played out the chorus to her favorite song…the song that reminded her most of Draco.
"I know that it's true…that I'd rather be anywhere but here without you…"
This was supposed to be her wedding song. Draco said he heard it one day, as he was shopping for the ring that he would eventually propose to her with, and he knew that his search would not be for naught because that song came on, and he said he wasn't a sentimental being (she knew this, knew it from day one) but he could feel his heart grow and he said it hurt his chest because he realized just how much he had truly loved her.
It was after this that he had presented her with the most beautiful ring she had ever seen, catching the soft light of their dinner table, throwing it all over the restaurant so dazzlingly that the people next to them couldn't help but peek over to see what caused the dots of light that suddenly shone on the wall.
Of course she had said yes.
And if anyone had asked her, she was the happiest girl in the world, riding on cloud nine.
She should have known that of course it would be a fight that would drive him away. Of course, his stubbornness to listen would have made him walk out of what was theirs (no longer mine, Draco; you're too much of this place for me to call it mine anymore), and of course, she would never hear from him again.
At least, that's what it felt like almost a week later.
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Draco wasn't one to run home to mommy and daddy after a fight. Nor was he one to run away from a fight…one that he was bound to lose, sure, but this was no simple fight.
He had thought she was his…only his. From the first to the last. The first to touch her, the first to see her, the first to make love to her.
And then he found out she was lying. Well, maybe not lying, per se, but certainly left out information! She never really told him, but he had assumed. She was so innocent and untried and he was proud to have been the one to teach her how to make a man happy…and he was even happier to then have known that he was the only man she would make happy for the rest of their lives together.
Until the grapevine shared that maybe, he wasn't her first. Her first time was outside of a tent, the summer after the war…with that Weasley.
Not that he hadn't figured. They were practically attached at the hip all through school, and half their graduating class thought they'd be together forever in baby-producing bliss.
Until he had come around. He didn't take her from Weasley; he had done that himself, keeping away following his and clipping Hermione's wings. Draco hadn't only wined and dined her, but showed her a world where she could soar. It had only been too easy to point out how easily she could work for change with him (Malfoy Enterprises was no longer…could no longer preach about superiority) and then live that change next to him. She accepted.
She was too good to be popping out babies or be a housewife…she was beautiful inside and out and where he was nothing but cold as the earth she was warm sunshine. And she helped him grow.
And she gave herself to him and melted him in her fire… when he found out how inexperienced she was he tutored her and she took to his teaching like she did nothing else. She was the best pupil he ever had, and was thankful for her.
Until he had found out. It felt like everything about their relationship changed and he no longer knew what to do. His friends told him it was not as big of a deal as he thought, but he knew that in his mind, she was no longer solely his; he had shared her with that red-headed git and he couldn't get his mind around it. He hated it.
He wished he'd never found out. And he wished, even more so, that he had gotten to her first.
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She let him be. She went on with her days. She had taken the ring off, though few noticed, because she had been spending a lot of time travelling and so her gloves were often on. The worst thing about the winter was that the cold and grey made her sadness even more acute.
She finished her business and left. Usually, she would stay until Draco was done with his work, and they would walk and window-shop before they went home. Christmas was coming soon, and every day another store would put up its store front, beckoning prospective shoppers to come in and try their wares. She passed the shop where her ring had come from, pulled her hat closer to her ears as she passed so she didn't have to see her ring on the advertisement in the window.
He hadn't said he was breaking off the engagement, but it certainly felt like it. Her owls had gone unanswered. His floo was blocked and his parents had kindly – coolly – informed her that he was not available at the manor but warned her that he was not taking calls. (The from her was heavily implied.) She couldn't do this anymore.
She had been young, and stupid. She had thought she loved Ron, even though then she hadn't even an inkling of what the word meant. And it had been spur of the moment, and all feeling and touches and happiness to be alive and in the sun and breathing air and… it just happened. And she hadn't regretted it.
She just never spoke about it again. To him, or anyone.
And he had just assumed. She had never said anything to the contrary. It was true, she had come to him truly untried and yes, she had known the mechanics of the act but he had been the one to teach her the art. Did he really blame her for not sharing? He was so possessive of her (mine, mine, mine was a mantra of his from the very beginning) that she never even bothered.
It didn't matter. In her eyes, he was her first, and her only. That was the way she wanted it to be forever.
She would be late that evening. She did volunteer work with children at St. Mungo's and he knew she wouldn't get home until 8, maybe later, depending on whether or not she stopped and got take-away for dinner.
He let himself in to the apartment (theirs she had always insisted on theirs) and closed the door, hung up his coat and took off his shoes. He wandered into the bedroom, and laid down on the bed, breathing deep the smell of her so ingrained into the sheets and he imagined he could also smell her tears.
He saw the ring he got her lying in its case, the diamond sparkling from the dim light being let in from the main room. He was hurt, but he was sure that the way he left her, she thought he'd never see her again.
He had thought the same.
Until he was wandering and his feet had lead him here, to her (their) door without his asking or even his approval, until he had let himself through the wards and pushed the key into the lock, and walked in to the apartment and into the familiarity that was home.
"Draco?" was all that echoed as the door clicked shut, and he could hear her feet quicken as she recognized his shoes next to hers once more and his coat and scarf on the tree. He sat up in bed as she pushed the door to the bedroom open, and he only had a second to take her almost-defeated form from the past week when she launched herself through the threshold and onto him, kisses and tears falling with equal abundance on his face, peppered with "I'm so sorry" and "Forgive me" over and over.
And he took her into his arms and began to undress her, as he had done every time they made love from the first, placing her hands at her sides and unbuttoning her blouse slowly, kissing his way from her temple to her cheek, down the column of her neck and between her breasts, following the trail of the palest, softest hair on her abdomen and to her navel, kissing around it and on it.
He laid her back, her eyes fluttering shut and he placed the most tender of kisses on her lips, the words she most loved to hear falling from his lips as he raised her hand to kiss her knuckles.
"Mine. Forever mine."
And her tears kept falling as she shakily pulled his turtleneck over his head, like she had done the first time, unsure and scared whether this would ever happen again, whether she would be able to see him like this again.
Her fingers found his trouser buttons and she undid them, but he again pulled her hands away and pinned her hands above her head.
"Mine."
He pulled down the zipper on her skirt, and then he tugged that slowly off, and he pulled her up to him and kissed her as he worked her blouse the rest of the way off, reaching around to unclasp her bra. He laid her back down to find the spot at her neck where he knew she would gasp, and was rewarded as his fingers followed the trail of his kisses and further between her legs.
She was ready, he could tell she was so ready, her body begging him to fill her in the ways that only he could, that only he ever would. His finger circled her nub once, twice, and she gasped for him again, her back arching and keening, his name once again on her lips and her arms around his neck, clawing and desperately trying to find purchase as he sent her world spiraling.
When she opened her eyes, they were still wet, shining as they had when she had come through the door. She looked to him and to his trousers, and allowed her to push them and his pants down and toe them off, revealing all of himself to her. He hooked his thumb through her panties, and pulled them down, following them down to – to him - her most sacred place, because it no longer mattered about what was then, but what was now and now, this was his, and never would it belong to another.
He touched and he tasted, kissing his way up her thighs and around her mound, teasing her with the lightest of touches and pressures, watching her breasts heave and her hips jump, her legs shaking from the efforts of his tongue and lips. His name never far from her lips, as she cried out for him again and again, her head twisting and hands pulling at the sheets, his hair, anything she could hold to keep herself grounded as he worked his hardest to make her forget about everything: the past week, the fight, Weasley, everything except for him and how he loved her.
And when he finally let her back rest, and her breathing return to normal, he crawled up to her on the bed, kissing her and her kissing back, her arms snaking around his neck to bring him as close to her body as he could be. She opened her legs and she felt him, trying to line herself up with him, as he avoided her. He chuckled, and reached to her nightstand, and felt herself blush.
He fell to her side, and turned her around, her bottom in his lap, and his voice in her ear as he rubbed his length between her legs, teasing her nub and making her arch her back into him.
"I gave you this ring as a promise," he said, taking her left hand, and placing it back on her fourth finger, "to be with you as your lover, and your friend, and your husband. I will always love you, Hermione," his breath growing ragged as his strokes became less measured and more frantic, "and I hope that I can be all you ever dreamed."
He sank himself into her as she cried her response, his arms around her tight and desperate; he could no longer be slow and measured, but he took her fast and hard and he whispered it into her ear as his name became a mantra on her lips:
"Mine, mine, mine, forever and ever mine."