Just a little note;

I was never really into Dramione, but changed my mind recently; here's the baby that came out of my newborn fandom, enjoy!

Disclaimer;

Do not own J.K.'s characters, blah blah, do like to mess around with them.

Chapter one

Cosy get-together downtown

She tuned on the radio and turned the volume up and down with her wand.

Slightly shivering due to the cold November breeze that even seemed to fill the living room, she pulled her cloak more closely around her and nervously looked at Ron.

He was sitting on the edge of his seat, arms folded on his chest and narrowing his eyes at her, in an attempt to look threatening.

Which he quite did, because he was six foot something and a lot more impressive when he was angry.

'You're going to see Malfoy,' he said for the ten thousandth time that afternoon.

'Yes, Ron, he called me.'

'Yeah, over a fellytone! He's pureblood, doesn't that sound slightly suspicious to you?' he spat at her, trying to emphasize every word.

She sighed, disappointed at Ron because even months after the war had ended, he still did not trust Malfoy.

'First of all, it's a telephone –'

'That's what I said!'

'No, you called it a fellytone,' Hermione pointed out, and their bickering went on for several minutes before they heard Harry call out from somewhere upstairs that the both of them had to shut up, before he would be mending skulls.

'I don't put much trust in his healing spells, so if you'd crack open my skull, you'd better be the one to heal it, too!' Ron said.

Hermione only looked at him. She wasn't really planning on putting anything through Ron's skull, though thinking it over again, the idea sounded quite attractive when he looked at her like that.

'Look, Ron, Draco's be –'

'Draco?' Ron said in a revolted tone, sounding like the time Hermione had called Viktor Krum by his first name. 'Can't you just ask him out?'

'Hey, I just might, if you don't stop interrupting me!'

He shot her a dark, dark look.

'So I was saying, Draco's been hiding in a Muggle place, since there are still Death Eaters on the loose and because they've stayed out of the Ministry's and the Order's hands for so long, there is a possibility that they'd come for people like Draco; disobeying ex-Death Eaters who hadn't been loyal to the Dark Lord.'

Ron grunted in disbelief. He still thought Malfoy was a foul, ass-kissing git who was just pretending to be on the good side.

'And whether you like him or not, I will visit Malfoy today. To sort things out. He said he wanted to see me, rather than you and Harry because you two are obviously not capable of thinking rationally when he starts making, er, comments. He wants to explain.'

'Yeah, he's called you a Mudblood over a thousand times and you're still going to have a nice cup of tea and a cosy get-together with him?'

'Yes, I am! And then I'll be back at the Burrow, and we'll have our own cosy get-together later, okay?'

She waggled her eyebrows at him, but her brows froze halfway through their seductive movement when Harry yelled: 'I heard that!'

Ginny's sharp voice came right after him: 'Yeah, me too, and I suddenly feel nauseous!'

'Oh, why don't we have a cosy get-together and get that nasty feeling out of you?' they heard Harry say in a low voice, and Ginny giggled in a shockingly good impersonation of Hermione at the few times she'd giggle.

'ALL RIGHT, WE GET IT!' Ron shouted upstairs, his ears red.

Hermione stood up and gave him a quick kiss on his forehead, which immediately turned a cute shade of scarlet after her lips left his skin, and she smiled at him in adoration.

Ron nodded his head in a weird way, and Hermione took that as a permission to go and see Malfoy, but he still wasn't really into her little trip when he yelled after her:

'Oh, and be sure to bring him flowers! Golly, he'd love that.'

She paid no further attention to her boyfriend, whom she now heard running upstairs to complain at Ginny and Harry, who were most likely snogging in Ginny's bedroom, and walked through the kitchen, where George was sitting, alone, surrounded by papers.

'Hey,' he said in a hoarse voice, and she pitied him when she heard the pain in it, and when she saw the dark circles under his eyes.

She brushed her hand over his hair, hastily, a little frightened whether or not to something that intimate, but he appreciated the gesture and gave her a little smile.

'Do you think I should start producing Belly Button Bubble Gum?' he asked her, though he didn't sound like he really wanted her opinion on that.

'Erm, what does it mean?' she asked uncomfortably.

'That your belly button explodes as soon as you put the gum into your mouth.'

There was an awkward silence.

'Worst idea in years, huh?'

'Yes, but, that's all –'

'No, Hermione, it's not all right. Fred would kill me if he knew I was out of ideas the second he –'

'It's all right,' she repeated, swallowing at hearing Fred's name, and she turned towards the door.

'Oh, yes, Malfoy…' George mumbled. 'Make sure you kick his ass from me.'

Hermione looked at him in utter compassion. It was weird not hearing him say 'from us'. His other half had gone and the both of them were painfully aware of it.

Mrs and mr Weasley were trying really hard to maintain their normal lives, as if there hadn't been a death in their family. As if they haven't suffered from the war that had passed.

Mrs Weasley ran through the kitchen with familiar dark circles under her eyes, chasing a garden gnome that had found his way into the house.

'Oh, hello Hermione,' she said, and Hermione smiled at her before leaving the house and turning on the spot.

After feeling the gut-wrenching, breathtaking and most unpleasant sensation of Disapparating, she landed on Tommers Road in downtown London.

One man, most likely a Muggle, looked at her in confusion, but probably shoved her sudden apparition out of nowhere away into the 'mindfuck' department of his brain.

He looked like he'd seen weirder things in his life, judging at the little bag filled with white powder in his hand.

Muggles these days, though, were not as surprised at this sort of wizard behaviour as they had used to be. Wizards had, in their awareness of Voldemort having died for good now, lost all sense of rationality and partied their weeks away, either in the Muggle or wizarding world, until about a month after Voldemort and Harry's legendary last confrontation. The Ministry, not fully recovered from the horror that Voldemort and his Death Eaters had put them through yet, but already on the mend, had made some new rules.

Any wizard acting out of the ordinary in front of a Muggle would be exposed to punishment, but still, a minority of wizards and witches, did not really care.

Hermione did, but this time, she was in a hurry.

Her conversations with Ron and George had delayed her arrival at Draco's new place, and she was really curious to what he had to say.

Even she had noticed that she tried to make a habit out of calling him by his first name, but something in Malfoy sounded so loathing and reminding of Lucius Malfoy, and therefore indirectly pointing at Death Eaters, that she'd rather not think of that name.

It was chilly outside and she watched her visible breath in the cold air.

She walked through rather abandoned alleyways with coughing and snorting junks lying here and there, using carton boxes as their blankets.

She gave them weak smiles but no money, knowing they'd only throw it away on drugs, and she was quite relieved when she saw the house Draco had described to her over the phone. A little suspicious after the speeches Ron had given her earlier that day, however, she held her wand steady before pushing the doorbell that made a sharp, ringing sound.

The front of the house had once been painted black, but the weather had been peeling it off the dark wood that it covered. It had one window, covered in filth and Hermione was not able to see through it, though she reckoned she saw a flash of white behind it, the same flash of white that appeared behind the door in a moment.

'Who is there?' said Draco Malfoy's voice softly.

'Hermione Granger,' she answered quietly, and he opened the door a little bit, before asking: 'What was the name of the hippogriff that beat me in that oaf's class in our third year?'

'The teacher's name would be Hagrid and the hippogriff was named Buckbeak,' she answered a little curtly after him insulting Hagrid.

He opened the door completely now and she looked at him with the same pity that had flooded her when she'd looked at George a couple of minutes earlier.

His hair was messed up, his left cheek was marked by a bright red wound and he could've easily blended in with the Weasleys if you looked at the circles under his eyes. He seemed to have lost a lot of weight and she felt the urge to hug him, immediately followed by the urge to strangle herself when having thoughts like that.

He remained, after all, Draco Malfoy and he despised her.

'Hi,' he said, his greeting accompanied by despair.

He moved out of the way to let her in and she looked around the small hallway curiously. Not much to be seen there, though, there was only a door that probably led to a toilet given the fact that it had a 'Pee for free!' sign on it.

He saw her eyes wander towards it and coughed uncomfortably.

'Not my humour, another wizard stayed here before me and his lack of humour is doomed to remain here forever, 'cause it has a Permanent Sticking Charm on it,' he said blankly.

Hermione gave him a brief look and cleared her throat.

'Right,' she answered, realizing that he probably would be anywhere rather than here, and she followed him into his small living room.

There was only one couch and a small coffee table, and a clock that made loud ticking sounds at every passing second, and she was painfully aware of the silence that hung between them.

'So, er, why did you –' she started, but just like all the other men in her life were used to, he interrupted her in the middle of her sentence by asking her if she wanted something to drink.

'Erm, okay, yeah I guess I fancy a coffee,' she said and clasped her two cold hands together.

'You know,' she said after he'd nodded and disappeared into a room that would most likely be the kitchen, 'you do have some good protection around this place, I nearly froze to death only getting here.'

Unfortunately, she'd never had the talent of joking at the right times like Ron had, or the ability of saying the right things at the right time like Ginny, so she just shut up when she heard no laughter coming from the kitchen.

She stared at a small radio in the corner that looked like the one in the Burrow and wondered if he listened to the daily reports of the dead bodies of both Death Eaters and, well, good siders that were found everywhere.

The war hadn't really ended; the few Death Eaters that had survived were still busy killing off people, though they didn't get really far. They'd scarcely manage to kill two people a week, but that was still two lost lives a week, and the mood was grim whenever they'd listen to the numb voices calling out the names.

Draco returned with two cups of coffee and sat down next to her, because he had no chair to sit on.

'So…' he said and made a funny noise that she couldn't explain until his eyed started watering. 'Didn't think you'd be the first human I'd see in weeks beside some junks, Granger.'

'I'd love to return the compliment,' she said coolly, noticing he still was not planning on calling her by her first name, and added: 'Malfoy. But I can't, unfortunately.'

She thought of Ron and asked: 'Why did you call me? And how do you know how to use a telephone?'

He shrugged. 'Does it look like there's much to do around here? You'll want to play with the phone after two days of being locked in here. I guess I didn't know who else to trust, and I… just wanted to see you.'

She gave him a quizzical look.

'I mean… rather than your silly little friends. I need your help.'

She took a sip from her coffee and spit it back the moment she tasted the bitter substance. That was just nasty.

'Where'd you buy that? That's gross, Malfoy! Thought you were getting used to doing Muggle stuff!'

'I er… Transfigurated it.'

'Where'd you Transfigurate it from? A rat's head? Damn, don't ever do that again. Next time, just ask me.'

He gave her a half-irritated, half-shocked look because of her tiny outburst, (if Harry and Ron were present, they'd probably tell him she could be much, much worse. Hell, she had punched him once, he knew she could be much, much worse.) and she smiled.

'So, what do you need my help for?' she asked after a rather uncomfortable silence and moved as far away from him as possible on the small couch, and pressed her back against the side.

He looked slightly taken aback at this movement and muttered something like:

'I shouldn't have called you. I'm sorry.'

She gave him a hard stare, then stood up and pointed her finger at his chest.

'Listen, and listen carefully! I have been arguing with Ron – Draco's nose gave a funny twitch which made her even angrier – all day, about whether or not I should visit you, and against his judgement, I did, and you'd BETTER explain to me why you gave me that desperate phone call out of NOWHERE, and you'd better explain it NOW!'

He blinked and he gazed at her index finger still pointing at his chest, as if Hermione was aiming her wand at his heart and was about to Avada Kedavra his ass.

'Now,' she said, returning to her position in the couch and giving him a swift smile, 'what exactly do you need my help for?'