Disclaimer: I own nothing, but the plot.
Hermione finished writing the letter, stood up, and walked down to the Owlery to send it. On the way up she saw Malfoy walking out onto the grounds with a broom in hand and guessed that he must be going to practice for the first Quidditch game. She chose a beautiful barn owl to send her letter then headed back to the common room.
As she was walking to the couch, she tripped. She examined her ankle and discovered she had twisted it extremely bad, but it could be mended with a wand without any trouble. Only one problem, her wand was in her bedroom on the nightstand all the way across the room.
"Great, this day couldn't get any better," she mumbled sarcastically as she waited on the floor for someone to come in and help her.
Out on the Quidditch field, Malfoy sensed something was wrong. He was flying around when his head started to buzz. He knew he hadn't been drinking, so it wasn't from that. He figured it must be a veela thing and it probably had to do with Hermione.
He quickly landed and sprinted up to the castle. People from his own Slytherin house called out to him, but the buzzing just got louder and he couldn't hear them.
He headed towards the common room hoping she was there, nearly screamed the password at the painting, and finally reached his destination.
Malfoy became worried when he couldn't see her in there, but calmed down some when Hermione called out, "Hey, I had a little fall and I happened to have left my wand in my room. Could you please get it for me?"
Seeing she was safe and he couldn't smell and blood or real danger in the air, he decided to have a little fun with the situation.
"Sorry, but I don't think I can walk that far," he said with a lazy yawn.
"Malfoy," she hissed, "I'm the one with the hurt ankle, not you. So could you at least do something!"
"Alright," he walked over to her and picked her up. He wasn't surprised that she hardly weighed anything because she missed most meals to do research in the library. She put up a little protest, but calmed down when he placed her gently on the couch.
She watched in fascination as he examined her foot and ankle. He was barely touching her skin, but it felt great.
"It should heal in a day without magic. You can hardly call it a twist though," he said barely above a whisper. He then let his eyes travel north and noticed that her skirt was pulled back slightly above the knees so he could see a little of her thigh. Hermione squirmed under his gaze and was about to ask him to stop when he slid his hand slightly further up her leg.
She knew she should have told him to stop, but she couldn't get it out. He pushed her back to lie down on the couch and crawled above her. Inside, Hermione felt like a fog had settled over her brain and it wouldn't dissipate. She saw it coming, but still jumped in surprise when Malfoy lips touched hers. He kissed her like he owned her and she didn't want it any other way. She felt his tongue lick the bottom of her lip seeking entry, but she wasn't going to let him go that far.
His senses were going haywire. He could smell her everywhere and wanted so badly to mark her, but he knew he shouldn't. Maybe I can soften her up a bit and then that get her to let me mark her, he thought.
She felt his hand push her skirt up even further, but it was still in a comfort zone. He quickly snaked his hand up under her panties. She gasped and he achieved the access he wanted into her mouth.
She really did try to push him away, but it felt so good and no one had ever touched her like that. He was gentle and rough all at the same time to the point of driving her mad.
They fought for dominance in the kiss, but he won. He pulled back suddenly and asked, "Can I mark you?"
She opened her eyes and didn't move. They stared at one another for a minute before Malfoy let out sigh, climbing off her to give her room to get up.
Once standing they both tried to speak at once, "Look . . . ," and, "I . . ." Neither knew what to say for the first time in their lives and took the embarrassment by trying to avoid any eye contact at all.
After about five minutes of heavy silence, Hermione decided to speak up, "Okay, this is extremely strange for me? I'm sorry, but I guess I need more time and defiantly more information."
Another long and frustrated sigh came from the platinum blonde standing across from her. She really did feel bad about making him wait. All the books she had read said that veelas need their mates like they need air and she was still denying him, but this was indeed the cruelest joke fate had played on the two.
Nodding his head once, Malfoy thought about what he could do or say to make her understand how he felt. The problem was that there was nothing that he knew of, so he was in the palm of her hand until she decided his fate.
He took a deep breathe and suggested, "How about we meet in the common room tonight and I'll tell you everything."
A small smile crossed the lips of Hermione as they finally met each others eyes. Maybe he has changed, she thought.
Hermione hopped over into her room and retrieved her wand once Malfoy left to go back to Quidditch practice. After healing her ankle, she headed off to go find Harry and Ron.
They were in the Gryffindor common room playing a game of wizard chess. Of course, Ron was winning as always. Harry smiled when he saw Hermione, but Ron just gave a grunt as she sat down because he was too into the game to break his concentration.
"Send your bishop diagonally four places to the right," she whispered in Harry's ear. Grinning Harry made the move, although Ron seemed quite displeased with having to play two brains against his one and one of them happened to be at the top of their class.
"Why don't you ever help me, Hermione?" Ron whined, "I need it just as much as he does."
Both Harry and Hermione laughed at Ron. "You never need my help. You always beat Harry," she continued, "Besides; I'm just trying to level the playing field." Harry let out a 'Hey!' as Ron started to snicker. All of them were laughing as the afternoon went on. Man, she had missed her best friends over the summer.
Dinner was as peaceful as it could be with an awful detention coming up. Harry and Ron tried to keep Hermione's spirits up, but she still felt like she had been punched in the stomach and wouldn't eat anything.
Not surprisingly Malfoy watched her all evening with Blaise poking him in the side trying to get him to stare at something else. The something else proved to be an over-made up Pansy that arrived shortly before dessert and planted herself right in the blonde's line of vision.
"So, Drakie, what are you doing tonight?" she tried to whisper seductively, but it came out too high pitched and the way she fluttered her eyelashes it made her look like she was having a seizure.
"Already have plans," he ground out trying to glance behind her.
She also took a peak around her shoulder, but she couldn't tell what he was looking at. "With who?" she pouted.
"Professor Snape," he answered without thinking how that sounded as Pansy scrunched up her nose. Malfoy hardly noticed even then as he caught a glimpse of Hermione walking out of the Great Hall, leaving Blaise to explain that he had a detention that night.
Malfoy caught sight of her as she rounded the corner to go down in the dungeons. He struggled just to keep up with her fast paste. It was cold and damp down in the Slytherin territory and he knew Hermione would be freezing by the time they got there if she kept the wind blowing around her by walking that fast.
She stopped outside the potion's room and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to try to warm herself up. Malfoy was a step ahead, after taking his cloak off, he walked up quietly behind her and put it on her shoulders.
Spinning around, she drew in a quick breathe. Malfoy could hear her heart speeding up, but saw the relief on her face as she let out a smile after finding out it was just him.
Boy, did her moods change quickly, though. Hermione went from frightened to relieved to pissed in about two seconds flat.
"Don't sneak up on me like that! I thought it was somebody trying to kidnap me!" she screamed and was about to continue her rant when the door flung open and a greasy haired, big nosed man stepped out from door frame.
"Enter," he commanded with a small smirk at a blushing Hermione.
Both walked in and saw about fifty filthy cauldrons sitting at the desks. "Start now and I'll be back in two hours. Have them all sparkling by the time I get back," Snape called out from behind as the last of his robes swished out the door.
Malfoy smirked at Hermione as he pulled out a wand. Horrified, she was about the tackle him when he spoke up, "Now, now. He didn't say we couldn't use them."
Her jaw dropped as she lost her voice and her head started to shake unconsciously side to side. Almost laughing out loud, Malfoy stared at her appearance. Her cheeks were flushed from anger and her nose stood out red in the chilling air of the dungeons, a mouth hanging open for a couple of flies to fly right in with eyes that seemed about to bug, down to the Slytherin cloak hanging around her shoulders and a Gryffindor sweater up under that.
"Alright, if you're so against it, then I'll take this half and you take that half," he indicated, "And we'll go separate ways." A slight swing of his wand and his half was done.
Hermione huffed and went in search for the water bucket and a scrubbing brush as the infuriating boy sat down and just stared at her.
An hour later and Malfoy was getting tired of watching her torture herself as she only got about ten done.
She didn't have time to register what happened as he suddenly took out his wand and cleaned hers, too. Scrubbing a minute more before she realized the cauldron was already spotless where seconds ago it was scummy.
Glaring, she stood and marched over to where he looked relaxed and stuck her finger in his face. On a normal occasion she might have laughed as his eyes crossed to view the finger now in front of his nose, but she was so mad she didn't even notice.
"Look here, buddy! I'm so sick of your high superiority attitude! I told you I don't cheat and what do you do, you to it anyways- go right behind my back and-" she was cut off as he stood up and moved her arm away.
She had guts, no doubt about that, but you'd almost have to be stupid not feel a little intimidated with a strong Quidditch player that is a foot taller than you looking down at you through two slits.
Taking a step back, he took a step forward. They continued this until her bottom hit the nearest desk behind her and then he moved into her personal space.
"I was trying to do you a favor," he hissed, "I saw that you didn't eat anything at dinner tonight and I know you're exhausted. No mate of mine will ever work on an empty stomach."
Hermione just squeaked for her answer as his gray storms burned into her.
Then as quickly as the anger came, it disappeared. The two clenched fist by his side slowly unfolded and where placed on her hips. She stood still fighting a mental battle when he then lowered his head to her neck.
He nipped and sucked on the vein that was throbbing so wildly he thought surely it would burst. Breathing in her scent was like heaven and he knew it would only make it harder to pull back now.
Her heart felt like it stopped the second his tongue came out to taste her skin, but then it kicked it up into overdrive and pounded throughout her ears. The fog from earlier came back as he slowly moved a hand up under her shirt, rubbing small circles at the small of her back.
His light kisses trailed up her neck and down her jaw. He chuckled low when he felt her hands fist in his shirt. She tastes wonderful, he thought as he finally brought his lips to hers for the second time that day.
The difference from before was that she lost the battle with her rational side and completely let him in the moment he asked with his tongue. This was only her third kiss and somehow she knew very few would ever be able to measure up to the way he made her feel. He was a strong and protective, but also sweet and gentle when he wanted to be.
She had no idea how long they were there before they heard a soft clearing of the throat. Hermione buried her head in Draco's chest, trying to hide her embarrassment.
Snape cleared it again and she met his eyes with a sheepish expression. They then both glanced to Malfoy and were surprised to find him glaring quite murderously at the professor.
"If you two are done exchange spit," he sneered, "then you would be wise to leave as soon as possible."
The two teenagers practically ran out of the room and headed down the hall, Hermione walking ninety to nothing and Malfoy desperately trying to catch up.
Author's note: I so sorry it took me so long to update! I've was so busy and then I forgot about the story. Now I am going to try to get started back. I know it's a short chapter and I promise the next one will be longer, but I just needed to update. Please review- I really would like to hear what you've got to say about the story.
Thanks for reading,
JulieAnn5