Recall
She gathered her things scattered all around the room.
It must have been one hell of a night, Hermione thought as she picked up her shirt beside Draco's pants. She went into the bathroom and changed into her clothes.
While she was in there, Draco gathered his clothes and changed quickly thinking: What happened?
Chapter 3
Staying Away
After Draco finished changing and Hermione was still in the bathroom, Draco went to the reception area.
"Excuse me," Draco approached the lady.
"Good morning sir," the assistant asked.
"Who checked us in?" Draco asked her.
"What room, sir?" The assistant asked but she already knew.
Draco gave her the room number.
"Draco Malfoy, sir," the assistant replied after pretending to check the records.
"Me? I checked us in?" Draco raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, sir. I remember it was you. You were… uhm… drunk, sir," the assistant replied.
Draco stared at her for a moment then left. He waited for Hermione in the lobby.
The hell… Draco tried to recall what happened. I was drunk, that's for sure.
"Let's forget about it, alright?" Hermione said, without looking at him.
Draco nodded, not looking at her. They were both staring ahead of them.
Hermione glanced at him one last time and walked away. Draco glanced at her when she turned her back towards him. He huffed and walked towards the opposite direction.
Hermione shook her head trying to recall what happened last night. She remembered the shiny hotel floor though and she thought she wasn't walking. It was as if someone was dragging her. That was all she remembered.
Maybe it was Malfoy, she thought and cursed under her breath.
Hermione walked into an alley. She looked left then right. When she didn't see anyone, she apparated home. She sighed when she arrived home. She groaned and held her head. It was throbbing.
She walked to the kitchen and muttered, "I need a remedy for a hang-over."
She rummaged her medicine cabinet and couldn't find any muggle medicine for her aching head. She turned to the other medicine cabinet filled with medicine manufactured in the wizarding world.
She grabbed a bottle filled with brown, viscous liquid. She grimaced and put it back. She searched a bit more but found none. She cursed and went back to the living room.
She groaned and flopped on the couch. She fell asleep after a moment.
Draco walked slowly as his mind flooded with thoughts. He reached his place at last. He sighed and looked up at the towering building.
Serpent Tower has thirty floors, fifteen units each floor and the penthouse unit is inhabited by the owner himself. The tower has more than four-hundred units occupied. The rest of the units were left uninhabited because the former owners couldn't pay for it.
Draco stepped in.
"Good morning, sir," the guard who was on duty greeted him.
The guard rushed to activate the private elevator for him. The private elevator was only to be used by the owner and the elevator goes straight up to the penthouse and will not open in other floors unless operated from the inside.
"Thank you," Draco whispered and stepped into the elevator.
He arrived at the penthouse. He sighed and stepped out and locked the elevator, using the controls beside it. He walked towards the balcony and watched the people below. His head ached but he ignored it.
The people were so small from up. They looked like tiny dolls walking around. Even the cars looked so small. He went back inside and poured a glass of water for himself.
Granger, he thought and cursed. Stop thinking about her!
That night, he couldn't keep his thoughts off Hermione. She was his first and sadly, he couldn't remember anything from that night they shared a bed together. He could only remember the way she looked at him when they both found each other naked. No doubt that she was blaming him for everything.
Draco tossed and turned. He couldn't sleep. It was impossible to sleep with all the thoughts in his head. He sat up abruptly and pulled the sheets off his body. He rushed towards his private office and grabbed a parchment and a pen.
I need to talk to you.
Tell me where to meet you.
Draco
He rolled it hastily and rushed to the balcony where his owl was.
"Blaise and Pansy," he muttered to the owl and tied the parchment to his leg. The owl spread its wings and took off.
Draco crossed his arms over his chest and looked down again. The streets were filled with dots of light. It was nine-thirty and the streets were anything but quiet.
He went in and changed into black pants, wine red turtleneck and a coat. He stayed in one corner and waited for the reply. When he couldn't wait anymore, he picked the phone up and dialed Blaise's number.
It rang twice before he picked it up.
"Blaise," Draco greeted.
"Hm?" Blaise replied.
"Did you receive my letter?" Draco asked.
Blaise chuckled. "Yes. You send a letter and you call. You could have just called."
"I don't want to do it the muggle way but I was getting impatient," Draco replied and smiled.
"Alright. Meet you in Three Broomsticks?"
"No," Draco replied quickly. "Somewhere else. A coffee shop?"
"Okay, okay. How about Lillain's? Do you know where that is?"
"I'll find my way. I'll wait," Draco replied but he already knew where it was.
He ended the call and made his way out of the tower. He sighed as he stared at the coffee shop across the tower: Lillain's coffee shop.
He entered the coffee shop and sat on one of the chairs near the cashier.
"Good evening, Mr. Malfoy," Lillain, the owner, greeted him. She was around her mid-thirties. Her husband died a few years ago.
"Hi, Lillain," Draco greeted.
The people serving in that coffee shop knew him. He drank coffee there every morning. Lillain even joined him sometimes.
"I didn't see you here this morning," Lillain said as she moved behind the counter, probably counting today's earnings.
"I kind of overslept," Draco replied, pushing the Hermione thought that was threatening to resurface again.
"And you decided to have coffee at night?" Lillain said with a knowing smile.
"I'm meeting my friends here."
"That's nice. Anything you want, then?"
"The usual coffee please."
Lillain smiled and went off to tell one of her staff to prepare the coffee. Blaise and Pansy arrived.
"Draco, what's wrong?" Pansy asked the moment they sat down.
"I want to know… if… I mean, what happened last night?" Draco asked.
"Last night?" Blaise's brows furrowed.
"Did I pass out?" Draco asked.
Pansy stopped herself from glancing at Blaise. She'll let him handle the questions.
"If you did, we wouldn't know. I drove Pansy home. She was the first one who passed out," Blaise said casually.
"You left? Did I go with you?" Draco asked.
Blaise put on a worried look. "Are you alright? Don't you remember? You said you'll stay for a while longer."
"Maybe because of that girl," Pansy added. Blaise tensed. Pansy!
"What girl?" Draco's head immediately turned to her.
"The girl you were admiring. She was sitting by the bar," Pansy said. "That's all I remember before I passed out."
Blaise relaxed a bit.
"Did I do anything? I mean… did I make a move on her or something?" Draco asked, turning to Blaise.
"Don't know. My memory is kind of hazy," Blaise lied.
"Me too. I don't remember much," Draco said as he sipped his coffee.
"Why so worked up over this?" Pansy asked.
Draco shook his head. "Nothing."
They continued to talk about other things. Blaise and Pansy avoided the talk about what happened last night. Draco tried to clear his mind by talking about Quidditch and stuff.
After finishing their coffee, they all stepped out of the shop.
"Do you want us to drop you off to where you're staying?" Blaise asked Draco.
"No, thanks. I'll be fine," Draco replied.
"Where are you staying anyways?" Pansy asked.
"Somewhere," Draco replied. He glanced briefly at the tower across the street. The two didn't notice.
"Why so secretive about where you're staying?" Pansy asked again.
Blaise sighed. "He's probably staying with his girlfriend."
Draco turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
"You are?" Pansy asked.
Draco shook his head. "I don't have a girlfriend right now."
"Whatever you say," Blaise said and placed an arm on Pansy's shoulder.
"Bye now. Take care," Pansy said. The couple rode Blaise's car and left.
Draco huffed and placed his hands in his pocket. He crossed the street and entered the tower.
"He really thinks he slept with Granger," Blaise said to Pansy as he stepped on the brake on a red light.
"What makes you say that?" Pansy asked.
"He didn't tell us anything about it," Blaise said and glanced at her. "He just asked about last night."
"Were we too cruel?" Pansy asked with a mocking smile.
Blaise laughed. "What we did makes his life interesting."
Pansy chuckled. She looked a bit worried. The light turned green. Blaise released the brake and glanced at Pansy as he drove.
He reached for her hand. "Don't worry. He'll forget it after a while."
Draco couldn't sleep anymore.
The thoughts…
And the coffee…
He stayed in the balcony and watched the lights go off as the night wore on. He just couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened last night.
Somewhere in the city, someone couldn't sleep too.
Hermione was also thinking about last night.
The thought that bothered Draco the most was: He had slept with Hermione Granger.
And…
The thought that bothered Hermione the most was: She had slept with Draco Malfoy.
They both stayed up and thought of each other until the early hours of the morning.
"Sir, you have a meeting with Ms. Rainier this afternoon. About the remaining units to be sold," Draco's secretary stepped into his office in the Real Estate Broker's building found in the heart of the city.
"Granger?" Draco's head shot up.
Liza, his secretary, looked at him questioningly. "No, sir. It's Rainier not Granger. Ms. Sylvia Rainier."
"Oh. Of course," Draco turned back to the stack of papers in front of him and started reading them one by one.
Liza nodded slightly and left him alone. Draco tried his best to push the Hermione thoughts away by working all day. He busied himself with a lot of things and he even did advanced work just to preoccupy him.
Harry knocked twice and rang the doorbell for the fifth time.
She's not home? He asked himself.
Harry didn't want to apparate into her home in case she has something to fix up that he's not supposed to see.
He remembered one time when he apparated to her apartment and found her half naked dozing on the couch. He left right away and came back three hours later, knocking on the door. She had asked why but he said: "I just feel like it."
Harry walked around the house and stopped searching a moment later. He thought for a while. He went to the back of the house and apparated to St. Mungo's.
He walked towards the reception table.
"Is Hermione Granger on duty?" Harry asked.
The woman behind the counter eyed him for a moment then turned to a list. "Yes, she is."
"Where is she now?" Harry asked.
"Skin Injury ward," the woman answered.
"Uhm… where's that?" Harry asked sheepishly.
The woman pointed a finger to the hallway on his right.
Harry found Hermione talking to a patient with blue-colored bulges on his face. Harry grimaced and turned away. Hermione noticed him. She called for a med-wizard to attend to the patient. She approached him.
"Hi, Harry," Hermione greeted.
"Hermione, why are you here?" Harry asked.
"I work here, Harry," Hermione said sarcastically.
They laughed.
"No, really. The hospital allowed you a week off," Harry said when they stopped laughing.
"I'd be insane by then," Hermione replied with a smile.
Harry just stared at her.
"I need to work. I need something to keep my mind off of things," Hermione said when he said nothing.
"I guess you're right," Harry smiled, thinking of Ron.
Hermione smiled back.
"I'm going now," Harry made a move to leave. Hermione stopped him.
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"I'm going to work," he replied, grinning.
Hermione grinned back. Harry gave her a light kiss on her forehead and left.
Hermione stood there for a while. When Draco thoughts were starting to fill her head, she quickly turned around and went back to work.
Author's Note: So, here's Chapter 3... I'm really sorry it took me so long to post it...
Thanks for the reviews... and I'm sorry for the delay.
Happy Holidays!