Disclaimer: You've found this website, obviously you know it's not the real thing!
Author's Note: Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, reviews! Yay! I absolutely loved writing that last chapter! OMFG UPDATE I LOVE THIS!!! and Lita—thanks for the reviews; I couldn't send you a message back :{
Hermione couldn't wait to leave the house when she finally woke up, which was appallingly quickly after she'd fallen asleep: she'd had about three hours' sleep by the time Crookshanks started licking her face, and when she heard Teddy churning out concertos on the upright piano in his bedroom there was no way she could get back to sleep. So she showered and spent half an hour deciding on an outfit, finally settling on a sweet multi-patterned short silk dress, her favourite dark blue jeans, her brown cowboy boots, and flicked her wand so that her hair plaited itself into two lovely intricate braids, which she tied with two pieces of midnight-blue velvet ribbon. She sat in front of her mirror doing her makeup and dabbed the excess wine-red lipstick from her lips so only the pigment stain remained and did her eyes like the woman had done them at Lissuin; luxurious curling lashes. She smiled at her reflection; she looked a bit like an Old Hollywood glamour-girl, like Ava Gardner or Gene Tierney or someone, from those films her adoptive-mother used to watch when she was younger. Checking herself over in the mirror again, she went downstairs with her purse (in which she'd stashed Draco's journal) and tossed some powder into the grate: "Malfoy Manor."
Mrs Malfoy wasn't sitting in the drawing-room when Hermione stepped out of the grate. She dusted herself off with her wand and glanced around the room. The entire house was silent, but the marble of the floor in the drawing-room made everything echo eerily as she pigeon-stepped across the room. Knowing it was wrong to sneak around, but glad she didn't meet Mr Malfoy, she hoped silently that Draco wasn't home and that she could slip his journal back in its place without him noticing.
Of course he was at home; it would have been much too convenient for her not to have to see him. She could hear his music—Use Somebody by Kings of Leon—through his closed door as she reached the end of the gallery, and portrait-Draco smirked knowingly down at her. She knocked on the bedroom door and waited.
"Not now, Mummy, I'm studying naked," Draco sighed, cutting his music for a few seconds.
"What!" Oooh!! Hermione smirked, wondering if he was just joking, hand on the door-knob, or whether she would catch him butt-naked!
"Hermione?" his voice said through the door. She grabbed hold of the door-knob as the door opened a fraction of an inch.
"No, no, no!" Hermione laughed nervously. The door jerked open despite her efforts and Draco smirked deliciously as he rested against the doorframe, wearing one of his yummy plain heathered-grey t-shirts and his dark jeans, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You're dressed!"
"And you're at my house. I wonder who's more disappointed," Draco smirked, eyeing her up and down. This boy jacks-off over you, Hermione thought, frowning at Draco as he smiled and a shiver went up and down her spine. "What're you doing here?"
"Um…I came back to return something that I...stole," Hermione said quietly, feeling the heat creep up her neck and cheeks. You should have just left it in the drawing-room. He'd never have known! You IDIOT! Draco frowned bemusedly at her for a few seconds, then something sparked in his eyes and his mouth opened a little bit, eyes widening, and he turned back to his bedroom, going straight for his armchair by the fire. Oooh! Nice butt, Hermione thought, distracted momentarily as Draco squatted down by the table, his jeans pulled taut, but as soon as he had flipped up the valance of the upholstery she cringed guiltily.
What's he going to do? she thought worriedly. Had it been Ron, no, Harry, he would have most likely bellowed to high-hell and gotten over it by dinnertime after brooding for a few hours. But she didn't know how to gauge Draco's reactions like she could Harry's, although she felt she knew him better than she knew Harry, which was a strange thought. She'd only read his journal; Yes, that's the problem!
"You took it!" he said accusatorily, standing up straight and staring at her with wide, reproachful eyes. Hermione stepped tentatively over the threshold of his room, wondering if there were any special features of the room that would keep her still while he cursed her to oblivion.
"I…I saw my name written when I came back to get my purse last night and I was curious and then I couldn't stop reading it," Hermione said in one breath, dropping her head shamefully, wishing she hadn't worn her hair up so it could have formed a curtain across her face. She brought Draco's journal out from her purse and offered it to him, not looking at him. Of course, the guilt of 'thieving,' as her Harry-Conscience called it, and of reading the journal had been pushed virtually out of the window, so to speak, when she'd actually read what Draco had written. Draco took the journal gently and opened it to the last page he had updated, scanned what he'd written to refresh his memory and flushed bright red. Wow. She'd never seen him blush before.
"You…you read this last page?"
"Er…" Hermione bounced on the balls of her feet nervously, avoiding eye-contact. Do I tell him I've read everything? Lull him into a false sense of security. The boys love it. But Draco's eyes had darkened to that soft heathered-grey; she'd come to realise last night that the only way he expressed his emotions was through his eyes, and when they softened like that he was speculative or mellow. That was good, for her.
"You…you read all of it." Hermione cringed at his tone; betrayed. Harry got like that a lot, when he thought he was completely alone and everything was working against him, and she was the only one on whom he could take out his frustrations. Maybe you should get Harry a journal… He doesn't even use that homework-diary you got him!
"It was just so…good," Hermione said lamely, wincing guiltily. She couldn't think of any other way to describe it; he'd made her laugh sometimes; other times she felt like she wanted to slit her wrists or drink a bottle of Ouzo—and sometimes he'd made her so hot and horny she'd started wishing he was... Well, she vividly recalled a quote of his incorporating 'Hermione' and 'Honeyduke's hot-fudge sauce' in one sentence. "I know I had absolutely no right to steal your journal, much less read it, and I'll understand if you want to curse me into oblivion; it'd be less than I deserve, so if you want to curse me, I'll understand, and I won't hex you back." She straightened up, arms spread and welcoming any curse he might throw her way. He stared.
"You want me to curse you?" he laughed incredulously, taken-aback. Hermione raised her eyebrows.
"You're not going to?" she stared.
"I know you'd probably expect me to," Draco said solicitously. "But I don't think I'll give you that satisfaction."
"You're not going to curse me!" Hermione gaped incredulously. Why the hell not? "I stole your journal and read it! Aren't you at least a little bit pissed off?"
"Not really."
"Are you high?" Hermione asked, frowning. She surprised a laugh out of Draco; he smiled softly and flicked his eyes over her face.
"No, I'm not," he said softly.
"So why aren't you cursing me?" He laughed again at her insistent tone, and the hands on her hips. This was really annoying her. She wasn't used to Draco Malfoy being so blasé. She wanted her Draco Malfoy back: the one who would call her 'Mudblood', curse her, and insult her friends! Do something for god's sake!
"Well…" Hermione dropped into a chair in front of the fire, utterly defeated. "I don't know what to say!"
"A first, I think," Draco said tartly, smirking deliciously at her as he leaned on the back of his armchair. Hermione glared at him, but could find no appropriate response. Why isn't my brain working properly? she thought desperately.
"So, what did you think of it?" Draco asked softly, and Hermione glanced up. Huh? "What I've written. You're a literary critique. What did you think?" Hermione flushed. Did he really want to know what she thought to his ideas on fluffy red handcuffs and fudge sauce? No. She'd pretend she hadn't read that.
"I thought… I think that if…" Hermione stood up and took the journal from him, kneeling on his chair facing him. She opened the journal to one of her favourite pages; the entry just after Katie Bell had been cursed by the opal necklace. The beginning of his breakdown. "I think that if you let people see the person in here…" He took the journal and read, and as he did so he tautened his jaw and blinked furiously as his eyes glistened, following the writing that was just barely decipherable through the tearstains that had bleached parts of his writing.
"And…" Once he had finished reading that part, she flicked ahead to the painting of the shattered chandelier on the marble floor in the drawing-room. Where he'd talked all about her and having to watch her be tortured and being unable to do anything to prevent it; the tears had fallen freely here, too, the handwriting rough and scratchy; he might have been writing in the dark, his hand shaking, unable to talk to anyone else, probably afraid for his life when Voldemort arrived after Bellatrix's summons.
"If you were so open with other people, like you are with this journal, if you let people see who you are instead of who people expect you to be, I think we could have been friends a long time ago," Hermione said softly, smiling sadly. Friends, she thought with a heavy sigh, sliding her eyes wistfully over Draco's handsome features as he looked down determinedly at his journal, his eyes hard and glassy. His mouth gave him away; his lower lip trembled ever so slightly.
"Friends," he whispered hoarsely, as if unable to hold it in. He blinked and wiped his cheek. Hermione gazed up at him: she had never been this close to him before, in private, with absolutely no-one to interrupt them. He sniffed subtly and came to sit on the arm of the chair beside her. A great wash of his scent—warm, musky, boy-smell, with a tiny hint of his shampoo—swept over her and Hermione couldn't help breathing deeply. He sat despondently; shoulders slumped, watching his hands, looking completely miserable.
"I… I've never been very good at meeting new people," Draco whispered hoarsely, eyes watering as he played with the twisted hemp bracelet on his right wrist. "I never know what to say, and then I...then I just end up insulting people so I don't have to talk at all."
"You're talking to me, aren't you," Hermione smiled playfully, nudging his arm. He glanced at her and after a second nodded, licked his lips and turned to the fireplace, where a small fire was dispelling the cold touch that seemed intrinsic with the house.
"You're different though… You don't care what other people think," Draco said quietly. Hermione chuckled softly, curling up in the armchair and watching Draco.
"Is that what you think?" she asked, smiling.
"If you do, you never show it," Draco said, glancing at her thoughtfully. "Nobody ever purposefully tries to hurt your feelings…except me. And that Brown girl." Hermione rolled her eyes. So even Draco Malfoy noticed I liked Ron, she thought, sighing. Love him as she did, Ron Weasley just pressed on her last nerve sometimes. After he'd ditched them last year she'd realised she couldn't be in-love with anyone that volatile. She did love him, though; he had always been one of her best friends, and she hoped that never had to change.
"Well, you know, it's all those times you called me 'Mudblood'. You sort of desensitised me to everything else," Hermione joked, and then bit her lip, realising she'd said the wrong thing as Draco's mask crumpled and he curled up as the tears splashed down his cheeks. Utterly appalled at herself, Hermione knelt up quickly and put her arms around Draco's neck, drawing him close to her in a hug. He froze for a few seconds, and Hermione smiled and inhaled quickly as he hugged her tight to his body, nestling his head in the crook of her neck. She was conscious of the fact her breasts were pressed flush against Draco's chest and his lips brushed against her bare skin, but she breathed in deeply, smiling as she smelled Draco. He smells so good…
"I'm sorry," she whispered into his neck. "I didn't mean that." Draco's chest rose and fell falteringly and he clung to her as if she was his last lifeline. She felt like she could stay like this for the rest of eternity, held in Draco's strong, lean arms. But she leaned away from him: His eyelashes had clumped together because of the tears, and his eyes were an exquisite pale sapphire this close, and Hermione licked her lips nervously, stroking the fresh tears away from his cheeks with her thumbs, cupping his face tenderly. It was now or never, and she never wasted opportunities. Draco bit his lip nervously, watching her with wide eyes, and he sighed softly when she gently kissed his bottom lip. Breaking away, Hermione closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, savouring the warmth transferred from Draco's lips.
Draco's thumb rubbed softly against the bare skin her top exposed at her midriff and she smiled shyly as their heads came closer together. Draco kissed her tentatively—is this his first kiss? He never wrote anything…she sighed and traced her tongue against his lower-lip, and she almost gasped as he slipped his tongue into her mouth, massaging hers. She moaned softly and cupped his cheek, using his shoulder for support as her knees did an odd quaky thing. She laughed breathlessly as Draco slipped from the arm into the chair and tugged her down on top of him, laughing softly. Hermione moaned breathlessly as he instigated their next kiss, a hand at the back of her neck, the other playing with the hem of her top at her side, tentatively stroking the hot skin above the waist of her jeans with his thumb. Hermione straddled him and pressed her chest against his as she leaned over him and kissed him hotly. A gentle tinge coloured Draco's cheeks and Hermione smiled as she bent her head and kissed him again, working her hands underneath his t-shirt, running them over his hot skin.
Viktor had been a good kisser; her first. Cormac McClaggen had been in league with the giant squid. She'd never kissed Ron, or anyone else. But Draco was the best.
"You don't happen to have any hot-fudge sauce, do you?" she asked, and Draco broke away from her neck to blurt out a laugh of surprise. His cheeks flushed and he buried his face in her shoulder again as she giggled. She smiled down at him as he rested his head against the arm-rest, gazing up at her with a soft smile playing with the corners of his lips, and closed her eyes as she grazed her lips against his teasingly.
"Draco, my dear, I'm ho—oh! Oh my goodness!"
A.N.: I'm evil. MWAHAHA!!!!!
