Authors Note: Super angsty, I know. I really hate writing characters out of.. well, character, but I feel like these aren't too terribly out of character because they are, after all, hormonal teenagers. I feel like people forget that Hermione is GIRL and has emotions, thoughts, needs and desires like one. I feel like she would question herself just like the rest of us do, and have emotions and feelings she can't control just like the rest of us do too. I realize that her moonlighting as Malfoys' lover is super unrealistic, and her falling for him is even more so, but that's why it's a fuckin' fanfiction. As for Mr. Malfoy himself, we all know that dudes have a tendency to want what they can't have, and it isn't exceptionally uncommon that they would fall for that forbidden person, especially if that person is as unusually kind as Hermione has a tendency to be.

Draco Malfoy could hear the muffled, excitable voices of his compatriots in the common room through the walls of his bedroom, but he had no desire to join in the revelry. He had no motivation to force himself interact with anyone at all at the moment. He found himself with a morose demeanor of late, and had often shunned the company of his peers and followers for the solitude of his own mind. Luckily for him, they didn't question his social withdrawals, deeming it a reasonable response to the stress of his family life, upcoming holidays, and exam pressure.

He kept his heavily hooded eyes downcast toward the opposite side of the bed where the silhouette of a body that had lain beside him the night before had left a delicate imprint. As pitiful as it made him feel, he couldn't bring himself to disturb the body shaped valley indented in the jade satin. Instead, he gently placed his own form down further on the bed, allowing his head to fall next to the slightly rumpled disturbance in the sheets, inhaling the soft perfume that still clung lightly to the fibers. Something in the subtle floral scent made a lump form in his throat, clawing it's way upward and leaving a painful trail down the back of his neck. It was an fragrance he knew intimately, more intimately than he would ever dare to admit to anyone. It was the scent that belonged to a certain female third member of the beloved golden trio of a rival house, and the same girl that spent the majority of the previous night wrapped underneath him. Not that anyone would ever believe that. The unspoken agreement between the two had seen to that, for both of their sakes. There was more than just schoolyard reputation at stake if someone were to discover that a treasured member of the Order of the Phoenix spent her nights within intimate proximity to the figurehead family member of Slytherin house and known Death Eater Draco Malfoy.

To the scrutinizing eyes of the rest of the rest of the school, they were bitter enemies. The high-strung, goody two shoes, puritanical mudblood of Gryffindor house was a constant target for a barrage of Slytherin based insults on a daily basis. The thought of a Malfoy spending his nights entwined with Granger was absolutely laughable. Granger's sexual prowess, or lack thereof, was often the butt of many jokes around the Slytherin common room. Up until a few months ago, Malfoy too would make snide comments and sarcastic remarks, mocking her equally with the rest of his companions. Fortunately, none of them seemed to take notice that he now sat silent and dismissive as they traded jeers directed at the prudish girl, or that his nails would dig harshly into the concealed flesh of his arm anytime someone would jovially slander her, nor did they notice the subtle twitch his eye would make anytime her name was mentioned casually.

It had started as a simple game. A game that started the moment he saw the frizzy haired girl becoming friendly with King Weaslebee and Saint Potter on the first days of school during his beginning years at Hogwarts. His immense distaste for Potter and Weasley made anyone they associated with a prime target for his malice, and the fact that Granger was a mudblood had only heightened his pleasure at cruelly mocking her. Year after year he made a point to make life difficult for the gawky girl, due in no small part to the way he reveled in watching Weasley's face convulse in rage when he made a point to malevolently belittle her. It wasn't until their third year that she finally fought back, not even defending herself, but the creature that was about to pay with its life as unfortunate byproduct of its arrogance.

"Foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach!"

The words reverberated freshly in his mind as if they had only been spoken moments ago. He had never been able to force them out of his mind, nor the physical assault that happened only moments later. That filthy little mudblood had been the first person to ever stand up to him with such passion. Instead of casually brushing off his abuse like she had in the past, she had broken his nose and humiliated him in front of his lackeys. The incident had only exacerbated his foul disposition toward her, jumping the gap from amused distaste to intense hatred. Not unlike a similar incident that inevitably lead to him taking her into his bed many years later in a surreal twist of events, and that lead to this moment where he now sat with an anxious churning in his stomach, feeling an overwhelming sense of emptiness as he fingered at a small, red love mark that shone proudly underneath his collar where her lips had once been.

The strange mix of longing and disgust he felt left a sneer gracing his lips. She was filth, dirt, and everything he had been raised to believe should be exterminated from the world, yet she was the only person in the world that didn't make him feel completely isolated and utterly alone. The only time he felt anything other than devastating anxiety or even more terrifying apathy was when he could feel her skin gracing his. The excitement and stimulation he felt when her sultry mahogany eyes stared up at his iced grey ones through thick lashes was unparalleled to anything else he'd ever felt with anyone else before her. The sirenic way she chanted his name in the throes of passion was the only thing that made him feel wanted, made him feel needed. On the rare, moonlight nights they spent together, there was no mudblood or Malfoy name. The death, chaos and persecution that existed outside the castle walls no longer stained his conscience. The only thing existed was a woman who should have been seeking shelter anywhere but in his arms, yet she continued to lie in the serpents den against what he knew to be both of their better judgments.

A whirlwind of conflicting emotion raged behind his steel eyes. Many times he had begun to write the letter that would put an end to their secret affair, yet each time only one sentence would find its way onto the paper.

"I need you now, Granger."

When he called, she would always come. It never took long before her hooded figure would appear from the shadows and he would take her hand, leading her deep into the bowels of the dungeons and into his room. There was sparely a word exchanged from the time they transverse the winding tunnels of the Slytherin dungeon to the time they each lay collapsed and breathless on each others chests, but after all was said and done, she would occasionally utter a phrase or ask a question, and he would find himself telling her of his home, his family, the ways he grew up or things he was fond of. She would listen silently as he would talk of his pet peacock Abraxas, named after his grandfather, or the way his mother smiled when she told him how much he looked like his father while she would reach up and stroke his pale, golden hair. He would speak of the way he loved the smell of rain in the forest and the way wind sounded through willow trees all while she would gently run her fingers along various scars that marred his blanched skin, drinking in every word he would say, smiling softly. It struck him that she was the only one who cared to actually acknowledge and listen to the things he would say instead of nodding in polite agreement like his elders or howling in fake, exaggerated laughter out of fear like his peers. It wasn't long until a sick, empty pit would begin to grow in his stomach as he realized how lowly the moon hung, and that inky black was beginning to give way to periwinkle blue in the sky, and she would close her eyes and sigh as she lifted herself carefully from the bed and reached for her clothing. He often found himself wondering if she dreaded that moment as much as he realized he did.

When their lips would meet one final time before she slunk into the shadows and back to her world, each time he resolved that this had to be the last time he called for her. What they were doing was too wrong, too against nature, too dangerous. There was no telling what would happen to the both of them if either side discovered the truth of where Hermione really disappeared to at night, and it was nothing in comparison to what was to come, the things he was about to do. If she knew the truth, she would never, could never forgive him. It was his destiny, his fate, and though her finding out the truth was an inevitability, the thought that made his insides curl in agony was that she would likely be dead long before she could look at him with eyes once again filled with rage, hate, and disgust. He would be left with nothing but the bitter memory of her ghost laying next to his, her intoxicating scent haunting him, and the echo of the soft sounds she would make as she slept as his only remaining part of her. He had to get her away from him, he had to protect her from himself, but the thought of living without those nights with her as his only company brought an icy stillness to his heart and permeating dread throughout his body.

One last time, he told himself. One last time, and then I'll force her to go.

As he sat there clutching the pillow that had once housed her body, he felt a stifling sense of loneliness as the staggering urge to cry overwhelmed his body. His family values waged a war on his heart and mind, knowing the full extent of his fathers disgust and disappointment should he ever be discovered and the fact that he would likely be the one to have to kill her regardless, either second hand or by his own. Never before had he felt so full of self hatred and frustration. He hadn't chosen this life, he never even had a choice. Why couldn't she have just stayed away? Why couldn't she have rolled her eyes and gone about her business? Why hadn't she pushed him off in the library instead of looking up at him with eyes that held a hint of something besides anger? Again and again he berated himself, telling himself a sentence over and over in hopes that eventually he would believe it.

"I never should have held you at all."