Chapter Two
Draco went immediately to his own flat after leaving the diner, and flopped down on his own familiar and comfortable pull-out. It took him approximately thirty seconds to fall into a deep and unshakable sleep.
He woke to a familiar and comfortable face looking down at him, and felt a general sort of dreamy peacefulness. The events of the morning were difficult to believe as anything more than an unusual dream, let alone the events of the night before. "G'morning, Harry," he muttered cozily.
"Morning? It's at least four in the afternoon," Harry said, touching a hand to Draco's forehead. "How long have you been asleep?"
"At least a few hours, I suppose," Draco replied, being entirely unsure exactly when he'd woken up that morning in the first place and equally uncertain of when he'd fallen asleep at home. "How long have you been here?"
"Since two."
"And you didn't wake me up?"
"Believe me, I tried. You were dead to the world." Harry sat up and scooted toward the end of the mattress, fiddling with a corner of the top sheet. "What happened last night? Ginny said she saw you leave with someone a few hours after I did."
Draco groaned. "Oh, Hermione . . . "
"What?"
Wincing and mentally preparing himself for what he knew he had to tell Harry, Draco explained, "I think I left the pub last night with Hermione."
Harry blinked. "You mean, you walked her to her cab, right? Or maybe even her flat, she's not far from it, really, and she hates cabs . . . Or did you - "
"Harry, I leftwith her. I went home with her." As with most things, Harry wasn't making this easy for him.
It took Harry a few seconds to even begin to comprehend exactly what Draco was trying to tell him. "Do you mean that you . . . " The poor man couldn't even begin to get the words out.
"I think I did."
It took even longer for any sort of response this time, and Harry's expression rather reminded Draco of the sort Crabbe had worn in classes at Hogwarts.
"Why would you do that?" Harry finally asked. "What was the draw, the attraction?"
Draco could tell by the hurt and indignant glare in Harry's eyes that he would have to tread carefully around this one. "I honestly don't know. I mean, you know that I don't have any but a passing interest in women - "
"Do I know that, Draco? For all I know, you've been sleeping around with all sorts of women." The emphasis placed on "women" made it seem as though the word could have easily been replaced with, "children," or, "sheep."
"Why the hell would I want to sleep with Granger?" Draco asked, feeling his temper rise and cursing himself for not controlling it.
"I don't know! Why didyou sleep with Hermione?" Harry shouted, a vein near his temple pulsing madly.
Draco sighed. "Okay, okay. Try to understand - I wouldn't be doing this with a lot of people and then only tell you about one. If I were sleeping around as a habit, I just plain wouldn't tell you at all. And I certainly wouldn't get caught over a one-night stand that I can't even remember."
"What do you mean, you don't remember it? You just told me you slept with her." Harry was still a bit angry, Draco could tell, but the introduction of logic and reason into the discussion had helped soothe him a bit.
"I woke up this morning, stark naked, in her bed. My clothes were all over her flat, and so was whatever she'd been wearing. I can only assume that something happened between us, because I don't usually break into the homes of muggle-borns and skew my clothes all over the place then crawl into their bed for a lovely nap. She couldn't remember what happened, either, although she was as certain as I was that we'd done something we shouldn't have." He sighed. "Does that make sense now?"
Harry exhaled heavily, expelling the negative thoughts and nagging doubts along with it. "I suppose it makes some sort of sense. I just don't understand why you would leave with her in the first place . . . Why if you were that horny, you didn't just leave when I did."
"I didn't leave when you did because we'd had that row about the jukebox, remember? You wouldn't stop playing that song that I hate."
"So, what, did Hermione mop up your tears or something?"
"I don't know. I don't remember much past you leaving. I know I sat down with Ginny and that oddball, Luna, and that Hermione came over and joined us and that we were talking about something obscure . . . it may have been a potion she's been working on . . . and then the next thing I remember is walking up."
Shaking his head, Harry scooted towards Draco and draped his arm over his shoulder. "Is this something that's going to happen again?"
"Of course not! I'm absolutely certain that I was just as perturbed and disgusted this morning as you were when I told you what happened."
Harry snorted. "Yeah, I doubt that."
"Have you ever woken up naked with a woman and not known how in the hell you got there?"
"I've never woken up naked with a woman!" Harry joked, laughing and biting playfully at Draco's earlobe.
Draco delicately raised an eyebrow and looked at his lover, noting a very familiar gleam in the man's eye. "What, did talking about being naked get you going or something?"
"Maybe."
"You're not angry with me?"
Harry shrugged. "I'm sure it's nothing a nice romp can't fix."
"That's your solution to everything."
"Are you complaining?"
Draco grinned and gave a rather raucous wink. "Not now, not ever."
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Feeling extraordinarily satisfied and content with himself, Draco squeezed his lover's arm affectionately. "How do you feel now?"
Harry snuggled into Draco. "Tired."
"Not angry anymore?"
"About what?"
Draco smirked. "Exactly."
Before long, Harry was snoring like a bear and Draco was restless, tossing and turning on the mattress not meant for two, let alone for sex. He wasn't at all tired, he wasn't hungry, and it was too early to start in on any spirits. The restlessness he felt was a dangerous sort - one born of boredom and a discontented spirit. Despite having dismissed the "Hermione episode," as he was referring to it mentally, he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for having gone against Harry - particularly with a woman, and particularly with Granger.
After a while of staring blankly at the ceiling and counting the tiles from corner to corner, he decided that what he needed was a good, cleansing shower in scalding hot water. There was a good chance, after all, that he still had muggle-born bacteria and whatnot on his skin, and he blamed the dirty feeling he couldn't seem to shake on its existence. It had nothing to do with his conscience. Of course not.
He padded as quietly as he could to the small, pathetic cubicle of a bathroom, annoyed anew at the loss of family funds and property. The Ministry had confiscated nearly all of his inheritance, leaving him with only a sliver of the Malfoy's expansive estate to liquidate in order to pay the rent. Harry had offered to "help him out" once it became quite clear that nothing he had thought would be his would ever touch his hands, but the rather wide streak of pride in Draco's personality made him forcefully decline.
At least I still have somewhere to take a shower, he tried to reason, and somehow it just didn't have the calming affect that it once had. With a heaving sigh, he started the shower and the process of cleansing.
The water and the steam felt good on his skin. He was relaxed for the first time in at least 24 hours. And, for the first time since he woke up, he wasn't thinking about Hermione or the possible implication of what could have happened there.
Yes, indeed, he thought as he scrubbed copious amounts of shampoo into his hair, life is good.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Life continued in a relatively good-fashion until roughly two weeks later, when a howler awoke him by bursting into flames over his bed and nearly setting him on fire.
The voice was one he knew far too well, and it was one he'd hoped he wouldn't be subjected to for quite some time yet.
Listening with the confused mentality of a sleeper aroused, he heard two words that he never thought could be shouted quite so angrily.
"I'M PREGNANT!"
And suddenly, the singed sheets he was lying on were the least of his problems.