Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter© or any of the concepts derived from the book series. The book series is the soul property of J.K. Rowling.
This and Here
Chapter Ten
Here
He should've known it was made-up. Not just the Iwannaleia Nunnery of Hawaii. All of it. Everything from the nunnery to the European brothels.
Well, in his defense, at the time he'd thought that the honorable Harry Pothead had been guiding him, not that delinquent psycho maniac Ron Weasley with his crazy red ratnest hair and inbred family. Thus, he hadn't taken the laughter of the natives very seriously when they'd read the name of the nunnery out loud. Maybe it was some sort of cultural anomaly where the nunnery just happened to be in a town conveniently named after a blatantly provocative uh… pick-up line. Ignoring their jibes, he'd scoured the coasts for days until he finally realized that there was no such place, only to receive another owl from "Harry", expressing his condolences for misleading him.
Hermione, he'd said, had been behind it all, trying to throw everyone off her tracks. But Harry had sources—purportedly "good ones" that in retrospect, Draco realized were probably Ron's left and right buttcheeks as he'd been pulling this information out his ass. She had gone to the mountains in Tibet to try to find herself. That sounded much more like the Hermione he knew, trying to find what she really wanted and all that other psychobabble. She was really into that sort of thing, he'd figured out that much in the decade of knowing her.
So Draco packed up his things again and went scouring the mountains in Tibet, using any charm possible to pick up her trail. He envisioned himself climbing over the final crest of a mountain as the sun rose behind him just in time to see Hermione coming out of her hut to start herding her goats. Then, she would see his shadow laid out across the freshly settled snow and set her newfound yeti friends on him, and at least he would be mauled to death in her presence because all he really wanted was to be with her. Luckily, Draco did not have to die that way. He didn't find her in the mountains, after weeks of searching, and returned home to find yet another owl from "Harry".
Apparently, according to the letter, Draco had just missed her, as she'd returned to Europe to sell her body since she'd found her mind and no longer needed the rest. Upon reading it, Draco's initial reaction had been dread. Oh God, her body was the second best part about her! Of course, there were inklings of suspicions, but he didn't have time to investigate because he had brothels to inspect and Hermione's sanctity to defend. Months ago, he would have giggled at that thought, but this time around, he only sort of smirked. Merlin, he'd taken so many strides to change himself, it swelled his chest with pride.
Surrounded by women, ready and willing to throw their bodies at him, scantily clad with their boobs practically bouncing in his face, Draco realized that he was completely and utterly bored. Where was the substance to these women? The feistiness? Didn't any of them feel compelled to hold an intellectual conversation about government policies? God, or just some witty banter, really? He never thought the day would come that he would judge a woman based on her intelligence. It was sheer science-fiction.
But here he was, wringing Harry's letter in his hands and standing outside of a brothel with relief pouring from every orifice of his body. Thank God he didn't have to deal with those boobied zombies anymore because frankly, he'd had enough of women telling him in their husky, smoke laced voices: "I can be Hermione, baby. I can be anything you want me to be."
All he wanted was his Hermione.
xXx
"I suppose I deserved that," Ron said calmly, slapping the cold steak to his face. Ginny groaned and rolled her eyes, helping the now temporarily disabled Draco into an armchair.
Self-admittedly, that had not been the smartest decision Draco'd ever made, but God, it had felt soooo good to finally lay one on Ron Weasley. Of course, it was a short-lived sort of nirvana because as soon as the shock wore off, and Ron realized that it had been Draco, not some misguided hand of Ginny's or Harry's that had hit him, he'd tackled Draco to the ground where the two proceeded to slap at each other like drunk sorority girls. Under normal circumstances, Draco wouldn't have laid a hand on Ron, but as Ron had sent him on a wild goose chase around the world into the hands of slutty hookers and sherpas that Draco swore were cannibals, Draco felt he deserved some sort of payback.
With all things considered, the past was the past and Ginny had mixed something into his whiskey to help the collapsed ribs and body organs, so Draco was apt to change the subject.
"I'm sorry mate, just a natural reaction," Ron apologized with a shrug, letting his head roll back.
"Yes, well, apology accepted," Draco muttered in response through a swollen and cut lip, "Even though I really only wanted to talk to Potter, I suppose I'll have to entertain the rest of you."
He stood up and limped to the kitchen where Harry was helping himself to a cup of tea, and pulled out three more cups from the cabinet. Oh no problem, let Harry Pothead help himself to his kitchen like he was his friend or something uncomfortably intimate like that.
"You got my letter?" Harry asked, stirring his tea, completely oblivious to the fact that Draco would have to incinerate his entire flat once they left because the little dolts were leaving their dead human cells all over everything. Sure, Draco desperately needed Harry's help, but that still didn't mean that some part of him didn't want to throttle the lot of them. His once pristine bachelor pad of epic love proportions was now a playground for these idiots.
Ugh, not idiots, people, nice people. He had to keep reminding himself that he'd have to turn over a new leaf if he ever wanted to get Hermione back.
"Yes, it would have helped more had I received it a few months before, but what's done is done," Draco replied, pouring the tea as best he could with a bruised knuckle or two.
"Oh come on, you prat, you loved it! Iwannaleia Nunnery! Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!" Ron yelled from the sitting room. There came a resounding "OOF" shortly thereafter which Draco took to be Ginny smacking Ron for his rudeness.
"Gods, sorry Draco, apparently Ron's head's been shaped like an ass since he was born. It's really quite unfortunate," Ginny called out, "Really doesn't help with the ladies."
Harry snorted and helped Draco carry the cups of tea out of the kitchen.
"So do you mind telling us exactly what happened?" Harry asked when they were all finally seated.
"Keep in mind that if you hadn't actually been crazy enough to run halfway around the world to look for her, I might be pummeling you into the ground right now," Ron said smugly, that little bag of shi—ugh… Draco had to remind himself again--they're nice people, they're nice people.
"Ahem," he cleared his throat and set the cup of tea down on the coffee table. How was he going to explain this to them? He'd only invited Harry over, but he should've realized Harry would bring his little entourage with him. It was humiliating enough to have to relay his greatest weakness to his once mortal enemy. And now he'd have to reveal it to Ron Weasley, the thickest boob in the world who'd probably sell his secret to some tabloid in exchange for the money to buy some high-class prostitute. Draco sighed and rubbed his hand over his now scruffy chin.
"I need to find Hermione," he finally said, his shoulders sagging halfway to the ground. Whew, that wasn't too bad. Now he'd just have to tell them the part of the story that actually held meaning.
"She's been working at St. Mungo's for the past week or so," Ginny informed him. Well, duh, Draco wasn't stupid. It was sort of under his job criteria that he picked up a newspaper every now and then.
"I realize that now, but for the first few months, I couldn't get a hold of her…" Draco tried to explain.
"Yeah, well, she didn't exactly want you to find her—" Ginny replied.
Ron leaned forward, steak still pressed to his face, his finger pointed accusingly at Draco.
"Yeah… YEAH! I can't believe I forgot that tantrum she threw, trying to make her flat entirely impervious to Malfoy DNA—WHAT'D YOU DO TO HER YOU LITTLE FERRET?" Ron suddenly exploded, throwing the steak to the ground.
Oh Gods! Draco still had a list of things he wanted to do before he died, sentimental things like drawing turkey-hand pictures with his children…
"You're right Ron! Hermione was a complete mess after she left the Ministry—oh Merlin—are YOU the reason she left? Should we even be helping you? You're probably just going to hurt her again…"
Draco tuned out Ginny's ranting until it faded into a high pitched squeak at the back of his head. He could see Ron's face turning beet red and Ginny's hair getting all in her mouth, but there Harry sat, as calmly and as honorably as ever, sipping his tea and intensely eyeing the couch pattern. It was somewhat consoling to hear that Hermione hadn't had the easiest of times getting over him because at least that proved she cared. But he already knew that. He'd known it since the moment she unwillingly ingested truth serum and spilled her feelings out like word vomit. Oh love, what a wondrous thing.
"…and she just sat in her bathroom all day—isn't that right Harry?" Ginny said.
"Harry?"
All three heads turned to look at Harry, his brow still fiercely knit in concentration, his hand mechanically moving the cup up to his mouth and back to the saucer. He finally looked up, but only at Draco, all business.
"I know that you and Hermione have had a long history together, and frankly I don't really want to hear every little detail about your relationship," Harry began, weaving his fingers together in his lap, "That's really none of my business… and also, I don't really want to have that image in my head… so I'm just going to ask you some questions, and if you can answer me honestly, then I'll do everything I can to help you."
Ginny's jaw dropped while Ron sat there babbling like an idiot, trying to understand what Harry had seen in Draco that he had not.
"All right, fine," Draco agreed with a nod of his head.
"Did you love her?"
"I do love her."
Harry chewed on this for a while as Ron sat in the corner gnawing on one of Draco's couch cushions.
"Then why has she been avoiding you?"
"Ha! I think the more important question is: when did she ever stop avoiding me?" Draco joked. But then his face grew very serious, and with his arms draped over his knees and his body slouched nearly to the floor, he turned to Harry, and really, only to Harry because he'd suffered enough humiliation running around the world on behalf of Ron.
"I love her, Potter, and you and your friends might not believe this when I say it, but I would never, ever do anything to hurt her. The last time we saw each other, I proposed to her..."
Upon hearing these words, Ron nearly went into cardiac arrest, but thankfully Ginny was there to slap some sense back into him. Ignoring Ron's reaction, Draco pushed onwards.
"And she said no."
He held his breath as he concluded, bracing himself for the flood of humiliation. Any second now, Ron would burst out in laughter. Any. Second. Now.
But the room was silent, and it hardly seemed right for Draco to crack some sort of farty joke to break the tension because this was not at all what he'd thought would happen. Where was Ron's brutal heckling and Ginny's high-pitched giggling? And why was Harry still staring at him through those clunky glasses, his face all… serious.
Good god, they really were nice. Draco's surprise was evident and when Ginny laid a reassuring hand across his own, he instinctively pulled his hand away.
"Sorry, again," she said, "I don't think any of us thought that you liked her that much."
In all honesty, he hadn't even thought too much about asking Hermione to marry him. At some point in their strange handicapped relationship, he'd come to accept that fact that there was nobody else but Hermione. He was going to put his babies in her, and live in a kooky house with her and have little animals running around with her and best of all, he'd get to draw turkey-hand animals with her. Turkey-hand animals!
And this wasn't about that stupid "request" his mother had made nearly a year ago. This wasn't about that at all. Marrying a mudblood for good media coverage? Worst. Idea. Ever. Good god, his mother was about a billion years old any ways. The best advice she'd ever given him in his entire life had been the few words she'd imparted on him the night she'd nearly killed him.
"If you know where she is, why do you need our help?" Ron asked, finally having cooled down enough to properly enunciate his words.
"Do you want to know why I've always been so jealous of you?" Draco replied with a sigh.
"I believe I was the one asking questions—"
Ginny elbowed Ron.
"Just shut up and answer him," she hissed.
Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"No, I don't know why you've always been so jealous of me," he tediously responded.
But of course, Harry already knew the answer and before Draco could reply, he cut in.
"Hermione trusts us," Harry answered.
"And she's scared of making herself vulnerable to me," Draco continued with a shrug. Ron, however, still wasn't convinced.
"Why wouldn't she want to trust you?" he prodded, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Ginny threw her hands up in frustration.
"You idiot!" she chided, "He just told you. It's Hermione we're talking about. She's scared of getting hurt, you boob!"
Then in a complete turnaround, she lunged for Draco's hand, clutched it tightly in her own, and smiled as reassuringly as she knew how.
"But don't worry, Draco, that's the problem most of us women have. Except Hermione is a slightly extreme case. So good luck with that."
Harry finally interrupted, gesturing for everyone to calm down.
"We'll go talk to her," he said, looking at Draco, "But it's entirely up to her whether or not she meets with you again. We're not going to make her do anything she doesn't want to, and we can't guarantee that this is going to be fast either. It's going to take time, Malfoy."
Draco nodded, finally glad that this conversation was coming to an end. He'd seen Ron's eyes roll to the back of his head about fifty times in the past twenty minutes and he wasn't exactly eager to see Ron do it again. He valued his life too much.
"Fair enough," he replied.
He'd been waiting years for Hermione. He could wait a few more weeks.
xXx
Ahhh, so she was finally here.
She was right in the middle of the end, ironically enough—stuck in that little sliver of time between the end and the beginning or between the end and the… end.
How did she even get here? What happened to the time between leaving St. Mungo's and getting to his flat? At some point, she'd done something to her face, to her hair, and to her clothes, and yet she couldn't really remember any of it.
As she stood there, completely immobile with her eyes closed and her brow knit in concentration, she wondered what would happen next. What if he'd moved on? What if he was tired of chasing her around all the time? Maybe he was entertaining some skanky intern in his flat at this very moment… sashaying around, giving her a nice strip tease. Oh Merlin, what was she doing here?
She let her hand drop to her side. She hadn't thought this through very well—she didn't even know what she'd say if he told her he still loved her. Oh—gee, thanks?
Perhaps she'd come back later. Yes, she'd come back later—
"Don't go."
Ohgod.
The door was open. Draco was standing in front of her. No slutty intern. Just Draco. Disheveled, scruffy and very surprised Draco.
He was wearing a black shirt and dark jeans so that in the dimness of his flat, she could hardly see the outline of his body. Sensing her confusion, he flicked on a light and immediately regretted it because never before had Hermione seen his apartment in such a state of… disrepair.
But it was nothing compared to hers.
"Uh…" was all she could get out. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
All she had to do was keep her eyes averted. Yes, that's right, just stare at the room behind him. Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn't sure whether she was about to cry or pass out. As long as she didn't--
"Hermione?"
She shouldn't have looked at him. Oh god, now her heart was pounding in her ears and her throat was clenching up and all she could think about was either running away down the hall or running into his arms. What happened to her perfectly frozen sliver of time? She wasn't ready for this. Or maybe she was. No. She wasn't. Yes. She was. No. Yes. No.
"Yes?"
"Do you want to come in?" he said as nicely as possible.
She nodded, then walked into his apartment as he stood aside to let her in. She couldn't help brushing against him, her arm instinctively flinching as it bumped against his chest. He looked startled, but retreated to the kitchen, where she was able to get a better look at him without feeling too… creepy.
His facial hair had grown out a little—but knowing Draco, that had probably taken him months. Even with the fitted clothes, he still looked a little… messy. Still as slender as ever. A little darker than she remembered—probably from his travels… and his face, with its angular jaw and nose appeared more worn than usual.
But in his defense, he probably hadn't been expecting company. And it wasn't as though she found him any less attractive. Ugh, why was she already thinking about that?
"Do you want anything to drink?" he asked politely.
"Water's fine," she replied. He poured two glasses of water, then walked over to the sitting room where he casually threw off the strewn blankets and clothes to make room for them. On separate couches. She warily took her glass of water from him and sat down.
"So… how have you been?" he asked.
Taking a slow sip of water, she glanced at him over the rim, her heart racing again, and shrugged.
"I've been fine," she lied, "What about you?"
"Same," he replied, reciprocating her lie with another. This conversation was killing her.
She set her drink down on the only clear space on the stand beside her and very carefully crossed her legs. But his eyes stayed on her face. Slightly unnerving.
Agh. And then silence.
"Ahh… I suppose we should get to the point," he cleared his throat, "Why are you here Hermione?"
Well, he always did like to be direct. And god, she couldn't have taken any more of that useless banter any ways. She folded her hands over her knees and mustered up the courage to look him directly in the eyes.
"To see you," she answered. "To see how you're doing."
"Ahaaa… I think you know how I'm doing," he said, gesturing towards the clothes and blankets and pieces of trash covering the floor, "You didn't exactly make contacting you very easy."
Hermione scoffed and turned away from him.
"Well, maybe I didn't want to be contacted," she replied.
"Clearly," he sneered.
Oh Merlin, this wasn't the direction she'd hoped this conversation would take.
"Your friends were very helpful too—you know, after that entire global scavenger hunt was over," he continued.
"Oh please—that was just Ron, and it's not like you've always treated Ron with the utmost respect before," she retorted, "You could have just asked somebody at the Ministry to contact me."
He laughed, harshly, and stood up to put their glasses away.
"What?" she said, stalking after him. This conversation had suddenly gotten much, much worse. But it was so familiar. They were back to their old sparring grounds. She couldn't help but feel a rush of adrenaline.
Draco walked into the kitchen and didn't even turn around to acknowledge that she'd followed him in.
"Do you remember—you remember how you always used to complain about how bad it would look to take our relationship public?" he suddenly asked, dropping the glasses into the sink. He turned around to face her.
"What about it?" she pressed.
He was shaking his head and rubbing his temples at the same time, clearly frustrated.
"We were the two top candidates for the Minister position, for Christ's sake," he brusquely said, "It's not exactly easy to go sneaking around. That one evening at the Shrieking Shack—we were tailed by at least two—three photographers."
"Draco—what are you talking about?" Hermione asked slowly.
He was standing absolutely rigid, still thumbing his temples, still refusing to look at her.
"You were so adamant about keeping this a secret. Just so adamant."
She didn't understand how this was a response to her jibe about asking the Ministry for help, so she tried to look stern and resolute, and said nothing.
"I paid off a few photographers here and there so you wouldn't have to wake up in the morning and see pictures of the two of us together—being anything but professional on the front page," he said angrily, "All because I thought that that would make… that would make what we had okay."
Hermione could hear her teeth rubbing against each other as she clenched her mouth shut in uncertainty. This wasn't what she'd expected at all.
"…So I knew that as soon as I went to anybody at the Ministry to try to find a way to contact you, it would just give fuel to the fire, and God, the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt you," he concluded, finally turning his head to look at her.
"Is that why you didn't talk to the press after my resignation?" she asked.
"No—that was because I physically couldn't, as I was either in Hawaii, Tibet or France," he scoffed.
He was clearly still angry. And she had clearly not grasped the point of that diatribe.
"Why are you here, Hermione?"
She raised a brow, put her hands on her hips.
"I already told you why," she replied.
"No, you didn't."
Draco eyed her, half in anger, half in desperation.
"I told you—I came to see how you were doing."
"That's it? That's all you came over here for?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
That's it? Of course that was it. What did he want from her? He was so hot and cold, she just didn't understand it. She was so used to him being shrewd and calculating and manipulative that it always came naturally to be on the defensive. One minute he was holding a normal conversation with her, and the next, he was telling her about these things that he'd done for her that she wasn't even sure she was ready to hear about. And God, that was such a heartbreakingly considerate thing that he'd done that she'd almost started crying just hearing about it. But still, she was confused. She had finally come here, on her own, to talk to him. To just be with him. What did he want? She was here, wasn't she? She was standing in front of him, talking to him, wasn't she? She'd given up her job at the Ministry for him, hadn't she?! For Merlin's sake--
"What do you want from me?" she finally cried, dropping her hands to her sides in balled up fists.
His expression grew very blank, then annoyed, then frustrated. One hand dropped to his side, the other began wildly raking through his hair.
"What do I want from you? What do I want from you?!" he yelled back, "Hermione? Are you kidding me?"
"No I am not kidding you! Draco, I'm here, aren't I? I'm here, damnit!"
"What?! What does that even mean? God—Hermione, do you know why I started working at the Ministry in the first place?"
She didn't respond. Where was this all going?
"Hermione—ever since Hogwarts—ever since that train ride when you said it couldn't work out—I have spent my life trying to figure out what I did wrong," he said, painfully precise, painfully emotional, "Do you even remember how this all started? Do you remember what we went through to get there? Hermione—you didn't have to say no. You knew it then and you know it now. You never had to say no."
She pulled away when he stepped forward, feeling very claustrophobic and all of a sudden very vulnerable. She could feel that nauseating constricting feeling at the back of her throat, getting ready to trigger the tears. Hermione, hold it together! Geez, she was stronger than this.
"God Hermione!" Draco went on, clearly stung by her decision to pull away, "You say you're here, but what does that even mean? You're not here at all! Working at the Ministry was the closest I could ever get to you—and even then, you STILL managed to run away. But Hermione, you know what—I don't even care anymore. I don't care if you came here just to "see how I'm doing". I don't care that you probably still don't think you know what you want."
He tentatively took a step forward, and Hermione stood her ground. It felt so strange to be told how she felt, especially because Draco was telling her without the slightest tinge of sarcasm and without the slightest hint of malice. For once, she felt like he was speaking from his heart, and not from… other places.
"I know that this is real love," he said, "None of that grade school shit. This is the love that makes me feel like dying knowing that you're not happy. This is the love that makes me want to grow old with you. This is the love that makes me want to be with you. But if you want to run away again—then fine. You're not the only one who's getting hurt. You've seen me, you know how I'm doing, and if you want, you can go."
Hermione hadn't taken a breath in a while. Her face was so tightly drawn back that she swore if the slightest muscle twitched, she would start bawling. This was so much more than she'd ever expected from Draco. This was so much more than she thought it had been. She had been so concerned about the subjective details—concerned that he wasn't right for her because he didn't know her favorite book or her favorite food—when frankly he had known what really mattered from the beginning. He had always known who she was, what she was afraid of, how to protect her—and that was what she should have been looking for. Her favorite things were trivial compared to knowing her hopes and her fears. God, why had it taken them so long to finally get to this point? The term real love had never before sprung up in her vocabulary, but apparently this was what it was. It was why Draco bought up tabloid pictures so she could sleep at night. It was why they'd been stupid enough to go to the Shrieking Shack together, knowing they probably wouldn't get through the night unobserved. For fuck's sake, it was why she was here! Oh GOD—that's why she was here!
And now she could say she knew what it felt like. It hurt. It hurt to be loved. It hurt to know that she was hurting the one person who would never want to hurt her at all. Oh god, mouthful.
"I love you!" she burst out.
They both stood there in awkward silence, not sure if either of them had heard that correctly. Draco's face grew very still.
"Draco—I said—"
Before she could finish, his hands were tangled in her hair and his nose and forehead were pressed against hers in fierce determination. He grazed her cheek with his thumb, kept his lips a hair's away from her own, his face still so stern and broken.
"Please, say that again," he asked.
Ah… there it was again, the incredible happy feeling gushing through her body--
"…I love you, Draco," she said again.
And then their lips were crushed against each other. And god, those lips, lips that were kneading hers so mercilessly, and all she could do was achingly knead back, their mouths parted, his tongue running along the edge of hers. He gently pushed her towards the wall, ran his hand down her neck, down her collarbone, and in a surprising display of gentlemanly aptitude, bypassed her breasts and skirted straight down her side. She ran her hands down the back of his neck as she arched her body into his, taking incredible care to acknowledge the bulge of his jeans, and the air that came out in a slow hiss by her ear was the sort of gratifying release she was looking for.
Even without the petting and the groping and the gasping and the panting, he probably could have taken her breath away just by looking at her--
She had never wanted to be with someone so much in her entire life.
And she certainly wasn't going to be patient now that they'd finally gotten here.
She pressed her hand against the bulge, dragged her nails along the outline of his penis, nipped at his lips and ran her fingers along his taut abdomen following the hem of his pants. He unbuckled his belt without ever pulling his lips away from her, then before he undid the zipper, reached for the hem of her dress and lifted it in one persistent tug over her obliging arms. She promptly pulled his pants down by the belt loops as he dragged kisses along her neck and shoulder, then wrapped her leg around him to press him against her.
She cried out when his fingers drifted beneath the waistband of her panties, gently rubbing, teasing, making her want to tip her head back and moan his name. But as soon as she slipped one hand beneath the waistband of his briefs, momentarily encircling his shaft, he let out a cry of surprise and pulled away from her.
"What—Draco," Hermione sputtered, panicking as she envisioned some horrible disfigurement of his dick. Oh God, or maybe she'd moved too fast—no that was ridiculous, this was Draco Malfoy. She suddenly felt very naked.
He sensed her confusion, but said nothing and swept her up into his arms, very quickly, but very carefully, navigating his way around the wreckage of his apartment to his bedroom. He gently kicked the door open, lay her down on his blue cotton sheets.
Merlin, his room was so ridiculously… normal. There was a large decorative clock hanging on one wall, a music system, a floor lamp here and there, and a table with books piled all over it. She saw his broomstick propped up beside the French doors to the balcony, and even some picture frames hung haphazardly on the wall. Of course, the people in them were all now gone, having seen a half naked Draco waltz in with a half naked Hermione, but she recognized the background of one of them and would have bet her left foot that it was one of the pictures Draco had bought off of the photographers.
While Hermione was examining his room, Draco had as deftly as possible grabbed his wand from the nightstand and quickly muttered a contraception incantation, not even turning to look where his wand landed as he tossed it aside to kneel next to Hermione. She raised herself on her knees as soon as he settled down in front of her, ran her hands all over his chest and his neck and his face, combed through his hair, just trying to take him in.
"Hermione," he said, looking at her, honestly looking at her until she felt the blush rising up in her cheeks and her heart bursting out of her ribcage. How did he do that? How did he just look at her and make her feel light-headed? It was like some incredible and absolutely legal hallucinogenic. God, and she just wanted more of it. She wanted so much more of it. He wasn't even touching her anymore for Merlin's sake, and she was already wet for him.
She reached behind her back, unfastened her bra, and after shimmying it down her arms, tossed it to the ground beside the bed. And in his greatest surprise move yet, Draco never broke eye contact with Hermione. Yes, this was, in some ironic and comical and awesome way, real love.
As she slipped her panties over her butt and down her legs, he simultaneously pulled his briefs off, and both fell to the bedroom floor. She wrapped her hand around the wet head of his penis, stroked her hand up and down the shaft as his fingers moved in and out and around her opening. Her legs were quaking, she wanted him so bad. Oh fuck it, enough foreplay.
She wrapped her hands around his neck and with a very flexible ease, pulled him down on top of her.
"Draco, wait—" she cried when the tip of his penis brushed against her.
He immediately tensed, but she smiled and cupped his face in her hands.
"Draco—I love you."
He smiled so brightly that she was fairly certain she experienced a heart palpitation. Then he buried his head into her neck, making her heart race even harder with the way she could feel him smiling against her skin. His heart was pounding just as loudly as hers. She could hear it beating against her own chest that was thumpthumping wildly out of control.
"I love you, Hermione. I love you," he whispered into her ear, before slowly and carefully entering her.
And she had never felt so incredibly brilliant and so incredibly perfect as she did right now.
Sensing that Draco was taking an achingly slow caution with his strokes, she wrapped one leg around him and without warning, drove him all the way into her, causing her to cry out in surprise and him to yell out half in concern half in pleasure. He immediately pulled out, only to have her leg clench around his butt and thrust into her again. She smiled at him, kissed him lightly, ran her tongue over his bottom lip. She was fine. She was more than fine, actually.
She unhooked her leg from around him and lifted it, lifted it until her knee was caught above his shoulder. He let out a slow moan as he continued thrusting, and realizing that he was close, she walked her fingers down towards her opening to give herself a helping hand.
But apparently Draco had been thinking the same thing because his fingers were already there, and as they explored her, pinched her, stroked her, she rumpled the sheets in her hands, gasping until she could no longer look at him because her head had tipped back so far.
And she let out a gasp, her entire body clenching up, her walls squeezing him until he let out a cry of pleasure and collapsed beside her, his hand draped protectively across her body.
All she could think was real love real love real love.
He turned his head to look at her, the rest of his body lying face down into the bed, his smile so bright she found herself trying to suppress laughter.
"I love you, Hermione Granger," he said, placing a kiss on her shoulder, then on the side of her neck. Then he was propped up over her again, planting kisses on her cheeks and forehead.
She smiled and wrapped her arms around him.
"I love you, Draco Malfoy," she replied.
Then he was smiling into her skin again and all she could do was laugh, feeling perfectly content. Real love real love real love.
xXx
She should have known something was amiss after he'd gotten up at the crack of dawn to go to the bathroom—oh, uh… the bedroom bathroom's too dark in the morning—and had clearly just gone to the kitchen instead. She hadn't thought much of it, still too dazed, still too wired on love to really consider what he could have been doing.
But with the newest edition of the Daily Prophet in her hands, his face on the front page, hands waving jubilantly in parting, she now knew what he'd been doing.
"Draco!" she cried, climbing back onto his bed to straddle him as she waved the newspaper frantically about, "You dropped out?"
She could tell he was faking it, his eyes were squeezed so tightly she could see the wrinkles forming at the corners. And the smile, the big goofy smile gave it away too.
"Why?" she asked.
He opened one eye, then the other, and took the newspaper out of her hand to read the article.
"Hm… not exactly my best side, but I'll take it," he commented, examining his face from its multiple, moving angles.
She groaned and tried to grab the newspaper from him, but he quickly crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the mess of clothes on his bedroom floor. He rested his hands on her legs, began rubbing them affectionately.
"Why what?" he smirked.
"Oh! You know what I'm talking about," she huffed, retying the sash of the oversized robe that she'd found in his bathroom.
"Why'd I submit my resignation, you mean?"
She nodded, folded her arms across her chest.
"I thought it was fairly obvious," he said, tugging at the sash, "Better question—why did you resign from the Ministry?"
"I thought that was fairly obvious," she mimicked, rolling her eyes and dropping her voice a few decibels. She smacked his chest.
"I'm serious—why did you drop out?" she asked again.
He smiled and shook his head.
"If you tell me, I'll tell you."
Hermione groaned, but as much as she hated to admit it, she loved the way they sparred. It was never boring. It was just the way they fit together.
"Fine!" she submitted, throwing up her hands in surrender.
It took her a few minutes to gather her thoughts together, and to tear at the loose thread in the bath robe sash until Draco had to put his hands on her own to calm her down.
"You were right," she finally said, as quickly as she could, "I just… it wasn't what I really wanted to be doing. And I wasn't exactly being honest with myself… and I was scared of doing something other than what people expected of me… so I went back to Healing, which was what I really wanted to do in the first place."
And that was the end of that. She would have been wringing her hands together the entire time if Draco hadn't been holding them, doing that little de-stressing thumb-rubbing trick he always does. He was smiling when she finished talking.
"Okay okay okay, you've heard my story—what's yours?" she said, poking him in the chest with her finger.
"What? I already told you," he shrugged.
MERLIN always with the stupid riddles! She collapsed alongside him, throwing her arm across her face in defeat. Why couldn't he just give her a straight answer?
He pulled her arm off her face, wrapped his own around her and with the other arm propping him up, began twisting and untwisting her hair around his finger.
"Do you remember when I told you that you were the reason I was working at the Ministry?" he asked.
Oh right—she'd forgotten about that bit. She tried to hide her smile, but she completely failed. God, he could make her so giddy without even doing that much.
"But what if some other girl you like starts working at the Ministry?" she joked.
"Oh…I kind of figured that this," he gestured back and forth between the two of them, "That this was sort of… a forever kind of deal."
Then she was burying her face into his chest, smiling all over his skin
"Isn't it?" he asked with the most endearing look of confusion on his face when she finally pulled away.
Before she could burst out laughing, she managed to yell--
"I'm here, aren't I?"
And then he was kissing her madly, making her heart race and her breath stop.
She was here. She would always be here for him.
Fin
Author's Note-
AHHHHAAAAAAAaaa, this is finally done. And it took way too long. How does one conclude something as time-consuming as this? Uh.. well, this story was first published on five years ago. Not only do I feel old, but this story may or may not hold any relevance to its original plot line of which was initially concocted half a decade prior. Hopefully I'm still funny. If not, I'm totally cool with that too. I might rewrite some of the first couple of chapters because, as they were written back at the dawn of the century, they might need a few stylistic upgrades. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the story as much as I did? This was awesome. And some of you may be wondering why there are a lot of loose ends left like: Who is the new Minister of Magic then? Uhh, Neville Longbottom? Just shut up and enjoy it.