The Color Green

Chapter 2

Two days later, Hermione awoke that morning and immediately began pacing the floor of her bedroom. She was beginning to seriously question her sanity. How could she have done that? And with him of all people? She paused in her pacing, shook her head and angrily grabbed her things to begin to ready for the day. She brushed her teeth so aggressively that her gums began to bleed a little. She scrubbed her face hard and the skin became so red, it almost looked raw. It was as she was energetically pulling a brush through her ridiculous mane that she picked up her inner tirade once again. Draco Malfoy was a bully. He was also a prat, narcissistic, pompous, evil, gorgeous, sexy…

"Listing all of my wonderful personality traits, are we, Granger?" He was here. She started, again, at the sound of his voice and nearly broke her brush in two as she tugged on a knot in her hair. She felt the blush rush to her cheeks furiously, and slammed the brush back on the counter, bracing herself against it. Damn the man to hell and back.

"I wasn't talking to you, Malfoy," she said indignantly, barely glancing at his reflection leaning casually against his bedroom door. She continued to blush even more furiously upon the realization that not only had she been thinking out loud, but he had heard every word and he got to see that Hermione Granger looked beastly in the morning while he looked delicious. Did I really just use that word to describe Malfoy? It's official. I've gone mental.

"Yes, well, you were muttering to yourself so loudly that I couldn't help but overhear. Interrupted my beauty sleep, might I add." Hermione rolled her eyes at the last comment and tried to continue brushing her hair, but her hands began to shake with her nervousness. He stepped closer and damn if she didn't take one step back! Get a grip, Granger! You're made of stronger stuff than that! He's just a boy, for Merlin's sake! With that little pep talk to herself, she stopped and drew herself up to her full height, chin raised slightly.

"Whether or not I was talking loudly, it still wasn't meant for you to hear, Malfoy." To her annoyance, he simply rolled his eyes.

"Ah, so it's back to Malfoy, it is Granger? And here I've come to think that we could be on first name basis since we did swap saliva, after all. My mistake." Hermione felt what little hold he had on her already boiling temper beginning to slip away. How she hated this man for knowing exactly which buttons to push!

"Yes, about that. I'd rather you forget about it. It was a fluke and don't expect it to ever happen again." She inwardly smirked at how his face fell at her words. But that treacherous part of her that foolishly clung to the hope that they would someday end up together brightened at that look; maybe he liked her back, after all?

She gave him a brief nod after receiving no immediate response and was about to turn away when he grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, holding her close to his body one again. Immediately, she felt her body begin to respond. Damn. She was afraid this would happen.

"Don't you think it's a bit rude to turn away from a conversation before the other person has had his chance at a rebuttal to such an outrageous comment?" She raised an eyebrow.

"How was it outrageous? I would have thought that it would have been much appreciated on your part, Malfoy, After all, I am only a mere Mud—." She was suddenly cut off by his lips pressing angrily against her own. This position is starting to become awfully familiar. Of course, she wasn't stupid. Hadn't she promised herself that she was going to start taking what she wanted? She began to respond back and grinned when she received a moan from Draco in appreciation. He must had felt it because he pulled away briefly, lips still brushing against hers.

"And what's so funny?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all, Draco." At the sound of his name coming from her lips, he smirked and began to place a trail of butterfly kisses from the corner of her lips to her ear.

"Yes, my name is Draco. It would do you well to remember that." What that, he slowly, agonizingly, torturously ran his tongue along the shell of her ear. Hermione shivered helplessly, nearly melting into a pool of lustful mush before he suddenly pulled away and in one more second, was gone. She blinked at the empty space before her and if it hadn't been for the residual tingling sensation she felt from the roots of her hair down to her bloody toenails, she would have thought that she had imagined the whole incident.

Draco stalked back into his room, infuriated with himself. Just as he had been for the past two days. Ever since the first Incident, and yes, once again, it must be capitalized to show the severity of the situation. He couldn't believe that he had kissed her! Not one, but twice now! And it wasn't just regular kissing. He had tried to fucking consume the girl! He sat heavily on his bed.

This was bad. Very Bad.

Draco Malfoy did not lose control. He did not just randomly grab girls and begin to snot them within every inch of their lives. He did not let any girl, any person, especially not Hermione Granger, get the best of him, And he most certainly did not paw at a woman like was some randy virgin boy about to get to second base for the first time. But he had done all of those things…twice. And within the past 72 hours!

He groaned and fell backwards onto his bed, scrubbing his hands over his face. He didn't understand what was happening at all. This wasn't supposed to happen. All he had wanted to do was tease Granger for, obviously, having a crush on him. For staring at him all year. For wanting him when he, clearly, did not want her back. At least not consciously. Who knew that buried underneath that prim and proper person was the amount of passion that she had exhibited not once, but twice.

Twice. Meaning not one, but two times. Meaning he had lost control of himself not one, but two times. That simply was not the way Draco Malfoy worked. If he wanted a woman, he seduced her. He flattered her with insincere compliments, charmed her with his winning smile and made her shiver with want with a subtle graze of his hand in strategic places. He eased his way into a woman's favor.

But it was not so with Granger. But then again, he was never really trying to get Granger. He was simply trying to goad her into admitting that she had an interest in him after so many years of them having been at each other's throats. He never meant to actually touch her. Before that moment, he had never even entertained the idea of Granger being a prospective conquest.

And that's all that women were to him: conquests. He never got attached. He never invested any sort of emotion into any relationship, to use the term loosely, that he had participated in. But to her Hermione say that he should forget the Incident ever happened…well, it did something to him. Something he did not like. He felt a fury like none other towards her. It burned like a hot poker stabbing him through the chest. And underlying that, there was another emotion. One he couldn't quite place. One he didn't want to place. And he most definitely did NOT want to think about the implications of what that strange chest pain could have been.

And then she simply had to use the "M" word.

Mudblood.

Somehow, that word coming from her lips seemed wrong. It seem like that derogatory slur that society has come to recognize it as. But most of all, it made him realize how much it must have hurt to hear it, day after day after day, for the past five years.

He didn't want to hear it. He didn't like to think that he was a bad person. Evilness and to just be a bad person seemed like two different things. Evilness entailed that you were sinister. He liked the sound of that. It made him sound like the stereotypical bad boy. The Forbidden Fruit to Hogwarts' residential "good girls." But to be a bad person…Draco considered bad people to be the type that society turned their backs on. Bad people were the sort that people like the Malfoys gossiped about in hushed voices amongst their equally snobby societal peers. Draco couldn't possibly be one of those people. The Malfoy family was still well known and respected. He couldn't afford to commit such a horrendous faux pas such as spouting off at the mouth about Mudbloods during these volatile times, especially since the Wizarding World seemed to be on the verge of war, scared citizens sussing out Voldemort supporters as if it was the proverbial witch hunt. No matter that the rest of his society had been committing the same faux pas all their lives. And this is all aside from the fact that Draco had not realized how bad-mannered the word seemed until right that moment.

And so he kissed her.

And damn! The girl could kiss. And double damn! He really wouldn't mind doing it again!

He sat up abruptly. Again? It shouldn't have even happened the first time! Hermione Granger was seriously off limits. Not because he didn't think that she would have him, because it was quite obvious by now that he easily could get past what weak defenses she had put up against him. It was because she represented so many things that went against everything he represented. She was a Mud…a Mu…er…Muggle-Born (Damn! Even in his own bloody thoughts He couldn't say it anymore!), she was a bossy, know-it-all swot, who would probably tell a bed partner that he was ejaculating wrong, she was a Gryffindor, and she was best friends with Harry-bloody-Potter and his shit-poor sidekick. And while he never really judged her based on her friends, he felt that maybe he should start if it meant that he would stay away from her.

He scoffed. Yeah, right. Fat chance of that.

Hermione still stood in that same place, same position, five minutes after Draco had already gone up to his room. She still didn't know what to make of the man. He was utterly confusing! And what was more, she still didn't know what she saw in him. He was a prat. He was arrogant. He kissed like he would consume her in one bit. She sighed and finally moved out to the surprisingly empty common room and sat on the sofa in front of the happily blazing fire. Such a contrast to the melancholy that she felt.

She didn't delude herself into thinking that Draco Malfoy felt anything for her. She would have found it a miracle if he even felt half the way she felt about him. No, she wasn't naïve enough to think that she may be in love with him. He was still and arrogant prick, after all. But he oozed charm and confidence and sex appeal from every pore of his lean, Pureblooded body. It was absolutely alluring. And she didn't believe for one second that rot Lavender and Parvati have been saying for year, about how the Malfoys were part Veela. He was attractive, yes, but not in such a way that would move women to start wars over his face. His money, maybe, and judging from what she had felt pressed up against her body just moments ago, his masculine form could cause squabbles in the Great Hall at the very least.

It was just too bad that his personality for the past seven years had been absolutely repellant. He was a little shite. The running joke amongst the Gryffindor girls was that he could have been the sexiest thing to have ever crossed the threshold of Hogwarts, if only he never opened his scathing mouth. It was pretty to look at, but the sewage that spewed out of it was toxic.

And yet, she had fallen for him harder than she had fallen for any other bloke before him. The question was why? Had she ever stopped to think about why she had developed this silly crush on the boy who enjoyed making her life a living hell? The stupid boy who had, at many times, gotten her into trouble? The boy who called her names with that malicious tone and made her cry silently into her pillow more nights than she had bothered to count? Yes, Hermione, just why the hell DO you like him?

She sighed and stood up, heading for her room to contemplate the answer to that question.