"Merlin!" cried Narcissa, jumping when Hermione had suddenly appeared in their fireplace. She had been sitting nearby, in the dining area, eating a small cup of yogurt mindlessly. How very Narcissa.

"I can't stay with my parents." Hermione said, stepping out and looking very upset.

"Oh, sweetheart, what happened? Do you need Draco?" she put down her yogurt and stood before Hermione could protest. "Draco! Draco Lucius Malfoy!" She was off, walking quickly around the house to find her son. Hermione stood, waiting. She didn't want to see Draco, really, she just knew the Malfoys would take her in and it was the only place she could think of going to in her rage.

"Hermione's here! I think she needs you!" Hermione heard Narcissa saying loudly in another part of the mansion. She came down the stairs nearby (it looked odd, since Hermione had not seen her go up the stairs, but she knew the Malfoy Manor had three sets of stairs to the second story. "He was asleep. He'll be here any minute though, he's just getting dressed." Narcissa came over and kissed her forehead affectionately. "I know how it can be being seperated. If you have to stay here I'll arrange it with your mother, alright?" She paused and asked her next question in a low whisper. "You're not with child, are you?"

"No, no, definitely not, we haven't even...no." She shook her head, a little disturbed.

"I'm just making sure; we have our families' reputations at stake, here." She went back over to her yogurt and sat down. "You can come sit too, you don't need to stand there."

"No, I'm fine," Hermione said dumbly.

It wasn't too long before Draco came down, dressed a little nicer than usual, and greeted her, looking a bit surprised.

"What Is there something wrong? Is it your parents?" He saw her look and tried to decipher it. "I told you to give them a chance. It's been one day."

"It's horrible. If I stay there I'll be miserable. The house is uncared for, my father is... I just can't be there. Can I stay with you?"

"Hermione, you have to go back."

"I can't!"

"They're your family!" He grabbed her arms tightly, staring her hard in the eyes.

"And they are monsters, Draco! The worst kind of people!" Hermione spat, shaking him away.

"Did he hit you?"

"What? No, he didn't-"

"Did he not let you eat? Were you not allowed a place to sleep? Did he hurt your mother?"

"No!"

"Well I met your mother, and she's very sweet. It sounds to me like your father isn't that bad either. Hermione, you're going back. Your father is going to want this chance to be with you."

"I don't care what he wants. He hates Muggles and Muggleborns and he's a Death Eater, through and through. I can't live with that, Draco. I knew it was coming, but I can't."

"In that case, we might want to rethink this marriage."

Narcissa gasped dramatically.

"Draco!" she hissed. He didn't even look at her. He was caught in Hermione's quivering lips, her eyes that started to gloss over. He was too focused in his own thoughts to hear her shout something at him.

"Maybe we should!"

He shouted back without knowing what he was saying.

"Do you know anything about my family?!"

Hermione let her tears flow and was about to scream something back, but Narcissa Malfoy had grabbed her son and pulled him away into the dining room. Hermione just cied, glaring at Draco, angry that he couldn't spare her an ounce of sympathy. Hermione couldn't hear them talking, though that hadn't stopped her from trying.

"Oh, it's just the Selwyn girl." Hermione jumped and saw Draco's father on the stairs, looking quite annoyed. "It's a bit early for a visit."

Narcissa and Draco stood up, even though they were not yet visible. Hermione, embarrassed, wiped her face with the sleeve of her dark sweater.

"Yes, I wanted to see if I could stay here," she said bravely.

"And that devolved into an argument?"

"Yes. Draco got upset because I-"

Oh. She had been thinking too much about herself, about how things affected her. She realized now how everything she had said about her father would have sounded to someone in the same situation. By rejecting her dad, she was rejecting Draco's as well.

"Speak, girl. What did you do, exactly, that upset him enough that you both had to resort to screaming?"

Draco came in, still upset at Hermione, judging by the way he looked at her.

"I'm sorry we woke you, father. It won't happen again. I will make sure that she is taken care of."

Hermione was offended by the way he callously referred to her as if she wasn't in the room at all, but kept quiet.

"She needs to be out before dinnertime." Lucius said. It sounded like a warning. Draco nodded and took Hermione's hand to lead her past his father and upstairs to his room. He didn't say anything until his door was closed. The room was familiar and smelled like the strangest week of summer she ever had. Not much had changed.

"Hermione."

"What? What did you take me up here for?"

"You're really bad at reading people."

"Yeah, I'm no Legilimens. I thought that was established a while back."

"I want to marry you, but you have got to get over the Death Eater thing."

"Oh, oh! Get over the Death Eater thing? Really? Yeah, I'll just get over the murdering thing. I just have to get over the damn Death Eater thing. I should just not even care about Voldemort-"

"Hermione!" He warned, tensing up.

"-is that it? Genocide, torture, oh, who cares? It's family, right, as long as they love their children they are redeemable? You just can't face the fact that your dad is one of the worst people in the world."

"Don't, Hermione, don't you-"

"I will. I will talk about your father because your father would have gladly killed me if he still thought I was a muggleborn and you would have continued your relentless bullying. Now Voldemort is back and-"

"Stop. Stop saying the name."

"You're a little coward."

"Are we going to be able to stop fighting right now?"

"Yes, if you admit that your father is evil, you're a little coward, and that it's reasonable to be terrified of my life right now."

"I'm not going to say that."

Instead, Draco kissed her and pulled off her sweater. Hermione stopped him there, pushing him away.

"What in the world are you doing?" she snapped.

"We're not going to agree. I just thought this would be better than arguing."

He reached around her and unzipped her dress and let it create a pool of fabric at her feet. Hermione wasn't sure whether she was excited by the spontaneity or not. Probably not, but she went with it anyway. Hermione kissed him aggressively while unbuttoning his vest and shirt. She felt his chest, which was harder now because he'd been playing quidditch during the school year.

"This is different," he said pleasantly when she let him go. He was obviously surprised she hadn't pushed him away yet.

"I have to put some effort in. I'm still angry, just so you know." Hermione was fairly certain he wasn't listening. She grabbed his chin. "Stop staring. You've see me like this before."

"That was six months ago."

"Try three. I can still leave, Draco."

"Yeah, but...I love you. I think about you all the time. I dream about you."

Hermione had also seen Draco in her dreams, but that was different. He'd been calling her a Mudblood and telling her he knew what she wanted. Wanted? That seemed so obvious. It was the one emotion she couldn't control, it was the reason she didn't slap Draco's face hard enough to draw blood when he started undressing her without her explicit consent and the reason she liked the way her hand felt on his chest at that very moment. Sex.

"Of course," Hermione said, drawing away.

"What is it with you? I mean it, Hermione."

"I know you do, I'm sorry, I'm just confused again. We're only fifteen and we're acting like adults. How can we do this? We're still children."

"Why does it matter? It doesn't matter if we love each other."

Hermione hugged him around the neck and whispered shakily.

"I'm scared because... my body... I think I want to have sex with you."

There was a pause. Draco was clearly not expecting that.

"You know we can't until we're married, right? It's just a rule, we can't-"

"I know that!" she said, much too loudly. "I know we can't, I just needed to tell you. It's bugging me all the time and now my father..."

He kissed her until she felt better, and then they talked, kissed some more, and finally got dressed before getting in one last passionate, tongue-filled kiss Hermione knew Ron would disapprove of.

"Alright, no more coming back here, dearest. Unless you want to surprise me on Christmas, I don't want to see you until January 3rd, on the platform. I have to know that you can get along with your parents. If you can't, you won't be able to get along with mine. I love my parents; I don't want to pick sides."

"Okay, okay, I'll get along. I'll just ignore them if that's what it takes."

It was easier said than done.