Sleeping With the Enemy

Chapter Nine

Three days later, Hermione and Draco were sitting in the dining room and eating breakfast together. Hermione had put a heavy book in front of her, opened it and was reading and eating at the same time. Draco had his eyes on his plate. None of them said a word.

Hermione tried to concentrate on her book. But she couldn't help but thinking: This is not how I imagined eating breakfast with my husband.

In fact, this was not how she had imagined living with her husband. They hadn't said almost a word to each other since she got back from the Burrow. Hermione couldn't believe it was happening, but she actually missed talking to someone. Anyone. Draco spent the whole time reading, and so did she. She would sit in the long hours of the day, until the night, reading in one of the big, dark, cold rooms. And although reading was her favorite way to spend her free time, she still felt terribly lonely.

"So, when are we going to do this?" Draco's voice broke the silence.

Hermione raised her eyes. "I beg your pardon? Do what?"

"Have sex," he said simply. "We should, you know. You have to get pregnant by December. It's not as far away as you think. We have to do it as soon as possible."

"It can wait," Hermione said, trying to avoid the issue.

"Actually, it can't. You're starting to work on Monday. I'm starting a week later. Then we won't have that much time. We'll both be busy."

Hermione crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. "I'm not sleeping with you," she said sharply.

"What do you mean?" Draco said impatiently. "You know the rules. You have to get pregnant soon, or we both lose our jobs."

"I don't care," Hermione lied.

"You don't care about losing the opportunity to ever work again?" Draco asked, raising his eyebrows. "You don't care if you'll never be able to be an Auror? You don't care about that?"

Hermione said nothing for a moment. Then she sighed. "All right, I do care. Happy now? I care. I want to be an Auror. But I'm not having sex with you again."

"Then what do you suggest?" Draco said, losing his patience again. "Waiting until you get pregnant by the Holy Spirit?"

"I don't have a suggestion, all right?" Hermione snapped. "All I know is that the Ministry can't force me to sleep with a disgusting, cruel, obnoxious idiot like you. They cannot make me have sex with the one person whom I hate more than anyone else in the world. They cannot make me sleep with you!"

Draco glared at her, but said nothing. Hermione rose from her chair and went to lean against the wall, her back turned to him.

"We don't have a choice," she heard Draco's voice from right behind her. Her lower lip trembled.

Draco closed in. He was standing right behind her. She could hear him breathing.

"You don't have to like someone to sleep with them," he whispered.

"Yes, you do," Hermione said hoarsely, crossing her arms. "I'm not like you. I know you can sleep with any girl, anytime, anywhere. You can go into a bar, find a nice-looking girl, drink a few beers, take her upstairs and have sex with her without even knowing her first name. Well," she added, turning around to face him, "I'm sorry, but I'm not like that. I can't sleep with someone unless I care about him; unless our relationship means something to me."

"Then how did you sleep with me the first time?" Draco demanded.

"Huh?" Hermione's jaw dropped.

"If you can't sleep with someone unless you really like him, how did you sleep with me four days ago?"

Hermione didn't answer. Draco's lips curled into a smirk.

"I knew it," he said. "You did it without liking me. Just as I had told you to do – you pretended I was someone else, just some guy you were attracted to – and frankly, that wasn't too hard, considering how I look – and you slept with me because you wanted to. Not because you had to."

Hermione gazed at him angrily, but it was hard to deny, since every word he'd said was true. But with Draco smirking at her like that, she had to say something. She couldn't let him win an argument.

"Draco, I – "she began.

"Huh? What did you call me?" he interrupted.

Hermione stared at him. "What?"

"You called me Draco," he informed her. "You didn't call me Malfoy. You finally called me Draco."

"Damn," Hermione mumbled.

"Well," Draco said, wearing his arrogant smirk again, "after a week of being married, it's time we started calling each other by our first names. Don't you agree?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll call you Draco from now on. Happy now?"

"Yes," he answered, stretching out his hand for a shake. Hermione hesitated, then shook it.

Now he was looking at her differently, not with that stupid smirk, but with a different look Hermione couldn't figure out its meaning.

"So," he finally said, "doing anything special today?"

"I never do anything special these days," Hermione muttered. "Not until I start my Training. Then I'll have something to do, thank God."

"So how about this," Draco suggested, taking a step forward, "just because it means so much to you that you'll like the person you're sleeping with, we'll spend the day together, and try to pass it without insulting each other with every sentence. Then, maybe by tonight, you'll care about me enough to sleep with me."

Hermione opened her mouth to say something offensive, but changed her mind.

"It's not practical to go to St. Mungo's after every time we have sex," Draco went on. "It's a big waste of time, because you have to wait at least two days before the results are accurate. So I have another suggestion. We have almost a week until you go to work. In this week, we'll have sex every day. Then, on Monday, after work, you'll go to St. Mungo's and take the test. Then we have a much bigger chance that you'll really be pregnant. Deal?"

He stretched out his hand again. Hermione stared at it, hesitating. Finally, she spoke. "Listen... when people have sex so often, they might begin to... develop feelings for each other. So... I need us both to promise that it's never going to happen."

Draco gazed at her. "Don't worry, Hermione. Neither of us will fall in love with the other."

"Good," she said, nodding.

"So... feel like going out?" Draco offered.

"Going where?"

Draco thought for a moment. He didn't know what Hermione liked to do. "Well... I know a great bookstore," he finally blurted.

Hermione's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah. It's a really huge one, too. It's got more than twenty thousand books. They even have a Muggle books section."

"Where is it?"

"Southport Alley. It's called Silver Books. Ever been there?" he asked.

"No."

"So we'll take the Underground," Draco said. "Come on, let's go."

----

They sat together in the train, not really knowing what to say to each other. If anyone's looking at us right now – they would never believe we're married, Draco thought. It was a sad thought, but it was a fact.

"I never really understood how Muggles lived without magic," he said as the train stopped in a station.

"Obviously they do," Hermione said. "And quite well. I've lived as a Muggle for almost eleven years, and I can promise you that they have lovely lives."

"Yeah, but no magic?" Draco said, trying to speak quietly so the Muggles around won't hear. "No wands? No charms, no potions? What kind of life is that?"

"It's great, for your own information," Hermione shot back. "And just because they don't have magic, doesn't mean they're inferior to us."

"Of course not," Draco protested, "but – "

"What did you say?" Hermione asked, looking at him in shock.

"What?"

"What did you just say? Did you say Muggles were not inferior to wizards?"

"Oh," Draco said. "Umm, yes."

"And you really meant it?"

"Yeah," Draco said, trying to figure out why she looked so dumbstruck. "What's the big surprise, anyway? It's not like I said something horrible."

"No," Hermione said quietly, "it's just that... well... never mind."

"What?" Draco demanded.

"No, no, never mind."

Draco hated when people did that. "Come on!" he repeated, shoving her.

"All right," she finally said. "You know, before I... married you, Dumbledore came to talk to me. He told me that I had to marry you. And I was... well... not too thrilled, you can say. I guess you weren't the happiest man on earth when your mom told you that as well. So, Dumbledore saw how I felt and he said something like: He's not as bad as you think. His mother has affected him enormously, and he's changed. But I – I didn't believe him. And... well, now that you said that..."

"You do believe?"

Hermione looked very uncomfortable. "Don't take it as a compliment or anything," she warned, "but I might be starting to. Because I remember you from Hogwarts as the boy who hated me just for being a Muggle-born, and always called me Mudblood and thought I wasn't worth anything because of my family."

"I didn't hate you just because you were a Muggle-born," Draco protested.

"You didn't? Then what else did you hate me for?"

"I hated you for being a Gryffindor, and best friends with Potter and Weasley. I hated you for being the annoying Miss Know-it-all, always knowing everything in class, always walking around with your nose stuck in a book, always beating me up in tests... I couldn't forgive you for getting higher marks than me. My dad always taunted me about that. He said I should be ashamed of myself if a Muggle-born gets better marks than me. And I believed him. So naturally, you weren't my favorite classmate."

Hermione stared at him. She hadn't expected him to talk to her like that. Like... like they were friends.

"And there was another thing," Draco added mischievously.

"What was it?" she asked, getting curious.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Sure I'm sure."

He looked into her eyes. Her big, brown, beautiful eyes. He had never thought of how beautiful brown eyes can be. Brown eyes were... normal. Almost everyone had brown eyes. Blue eyes were special, green were lovely, but brown were... very usual.

Now, however, with Hermione, he suddenly realized brown eyes could be just as beautiful as blue or green ones, and even more. He liked her eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well... the War lasted for two years. Our last two years at Hogwarts. And during those two years, I slowly changed. Like Dumbledore said, it was thanks to my mother. I spent much more time with her when my father was gone, and she affected me. I don't know how much I changed. But I know for sure that I did, enough to..." he eyed her mischievously, "enough to have a secret crush on you."

"What?!!!"

"Yes. I didn't like it, of course, so no one ever knew about it, except for Mom. You can be proud – you're the only one I'm telling this to."

Hermione stared at him, too astonished to be flattered. "You had a crush on me?!"

"Yes. In our seventh year. You were going out with Weasley, and I was... pretty angry. That's why I was even nastier to you and him. I hated myself for liking you, and I hated you for being beautiful and capturing my eye, and I hated him for being so lucky to go out with you, and I hated you again, for liking him so much... So yeah. It was another reason for me to hate you."

The train stopped.

"That's us," Draco said, and before Hermione managed to say another word, he jumped up and hurried to the exit.

Hermione stood up and followed him, still amazed. Draco Malfoy, the Slytherin sex god who had been the dream-prince of at least half the girls at school, used to have a crush on her. On her, Hermione Granger. Had he just wanted the one he knew he couldn't get, or was it something else?...

----

Hermione stood in the doorway of Silver Books, staring all around her. It was a huge three-story store. Thousands and thousands of books filled the shelves from the floor right up to the ceiling. So many books... Hermione knew this was heaven for her. She could stay there for at least a month.

"I knew you'd like it," Draco said softly.

"It's amazing," Hermione whispered. The store was so quiet, like a library, and they didn't want to interrupt the complete silence. Hermione kneeled in front of a shelf and started reading the books' titles, mouthing each title silently to herself. Draco walked around, taking a book out and leafing through it, then putting it back on the shelf.

"My mom used to buy me books there," Draco said, and Hermione turned around to face him. He was leaning against the wall with a big, blue book in his hand, his eyes wandering over the pages. "She bought me books every birthday, every Christmas, every holiday. When I was young, we spent almost two hours a day just reading. I remember her sitting on the edge of my bed, reading out loud my favorite stories. These were my favorite hours as a child."

Hermione gazed at him, trying to picture him as a child, listening to his mother read stories to him. When she didn't succeed, she asked: "Do you still read a lot?"

Draco's eyes met hers. "Of course," he said quietly. "I have to read. I've never been able to pass the week properly without reading at least one good book. I can read the same books over and over again, and every time I see them a bit differently."

Hermione's eyes widened. "I'm just the same," she said. "I can read the same book a thousand times. Like you said... I have to read a lot. I never feel satisfied if I pass a day without reading."

They gazed at each other. "I've never met anyone who's like me about reading," Hermione said.

"Neither did I," Draco answered.

A moment later, they both tore their eyes off of each other at the same time, and each of them turned to another shelf.

As Hermione kept reading the books' titles, she suddenly remembered... I'll have to sleep with him again tonight. I wonder... maybe this time I won't have to pretend he's someone else?

----

A/N: You have to admit it was a longer chapter than usual – almost two times longer! – so it was worth the wait. Anyway, I'm having a blast writing this and reading your wonderful wonderful reviews. And yeah, you got it right: next chapter will include sexual content. I'll update as soon as I can, promise!

Another Note: I can't believe one of the reviewers (an Anonymous one) chose the nickname RONIBLACKISAWESOME. Thank you so much, dear reviewer whose name I don't know! You're so sweet!

Love,

Roni.

Mia: Do you want the story to end so quickly? LOL, sorry if it's disappointing you, but there's a long way to go before this story is finished. I have big plans, hope I can make them right.

Lulu: It's explained in chapter 1... Ron has a girlfriend – Luna, so he can't marry Hermione. Draco is the only Pureblood who counts because he doesn't have a girlfriend. Please see Dumbledore's explanation in chapter 1 for more details. Hope I helped. :-)