All characters belong to JKR
Chapter 10 – A Little Touch of This, A Little Touch of That, a Little Touch of a Chapter, but Don't Complain to me
Hermione looked up into the warmest set of grey, silver eyes she'd ever seen just as Draco said with a small smile, "Hey, Granger. How've you been?"
"Good," she said, less than eloquently, feeling flushed that he was standing right in front of her, especially as she had been thinking of him, and musing over their night of lovemaking. Feeling as if she had been caught doing something that she ought not, she started to straighten already straight piles of papers on her desk.
He walked into the room and looked around. He felt nervous to be around her and he could tell that she felt anxious and tense as well. Picking up a book that was left abandoned on a table in front of her desk, he laughed and said, "Sixth Year Runes? A bit advanced for the children maybe?"
She shrugged and smiled in return. He held the book out for her, but didn't walk toward her. She stood from her desk and met him in the middle of the room as he handed it to her.
And that was how they met halfway…he held out a book for her and she collected it.
"Something about you looks different," he noted. In truth, she looked tired, but radiant all the same. Her hair was longer and she wore it as she usually did, but it seemed softer and curlier, and it hung in gentle waves on her shoulders and down her back. She seemed to have gained some weight on her small frame, and it made her seem healthier. Even the sadness that was so evident in her eyes before was now only a slight shadow, with only a small trace of it lingering there when he looked at her closely.
Shrugging again, she turned to place the book on her desk. Self-conscious of the way he was staring at her, she looked down and wondered if he could tell she was pregnant. Even at four months, she wasn't really 'showing' yet, though she knew she had gained some weight, and had a 'small bump' in her middle. With her back to him, she said, "I can't fathom why I might look different."
"Maybe the country air's been good for you," he remarked. "You were looking undernourished when you first arrived here two months ago, and now it seems you've put on weight, but in a good way." In fact, he thought she was glowing with health. She looked more beautiful than he remembered. He hoped it wasn't being away from HIM that made her seem to appear better. He repeated, "You're positively glowing."
Hermione halted with her back to him. Didn't people say THAT to pregnant women? She turned, and a blush crept up her cheeks.
He was going to tease her about the spot of crimson that formed on both cheeks, but decided it was best not to do that. Her blush was one of the things that he found so refreshing about her. Deciding to keep the conversation light, he joked, "Your prison sentence is due to be over, did you know? Two months is almost up." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. "Here's the remainder of your cheque, for your school."
Seeing the cheque in his outstretched hand and hearing the finitely of it all in his voice was almost too much for her to bear. She wanted to shout, "NO!" to him loudly and immediately because she didn't want to leave yet! There was still so much to do! The children weren't ready. She wasn't ready. And he had just returned. And she was glowing! Nevertheless, what could she do? What could she say? She reached for the cheque with a shaky hand; only to her surprise, he placed it back in his breast pocket before she could touch it.
"You'll get it in the morning, after you give me a full report of your success," he declared with a smile, adding, "Which you'll deliver to me tonight, over dinner, just the two of us. Mrs. Jenkins' taking the kids out for dinner tonight." He added that last part on a whim. The worst she could say was no.
"Success?" she asked softly, almost to herself. Then she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, I can't do that."
He cringed and almost cursed. "Damn it, Granger, I've stayed away, just as you wished, for almost two months. I won't seduce you again, I swear. We'll keep our relationship as it was before the first night. I mean, it's just dinner, to find out about the children."
He was lying. He didn't mean a word of it, but if lying was the only way he could keep her from leaving, or keep her from pushing him away, then he would lie. He would lie, beg, borrow, or steal, but he positively WOULD NOT leave her again!
She licked her lips, turned back around and walked over to the chalkboard. Wiping it clean from today's lesson, she smiled, even as she had a most dastardly thought. She didn't want to leave, not yet. She had grown close to the children. She still had so much she wanted to teach them. In addition, she wanted to find out why Jeff stopped speaking. More than that, she wanted to be with Malfoy again. She wanted to get to know him better; she wanted his little touches, his compliments, his words of encouragement. She wanted to see why he haunted her every thought during the day and starred in her every dream at night. Goodness, she might even want to sleep with Malfoy again…if that made her a wanton, a wanton she would be, although seriously, who used words like that nowadays.
Furthermore, he thought she was glowing, and that was rather nice of him, wasn't it?
Turning back to him, she said, "I can't do that, because I haven't been a success. I've failed you and the children, but we still have over three weeks until the start of the first term of school. If you think you can stay here and devote yourself to helping us, perhaps we can have at least Marie ready when September first rolls around."
Draco smiled with his whole face. Hell, Granger wasn't fooling anyone, but he would let her think she was. He knew that she wanted to stay here as much as he wanted her to stay, and as much as he wanted to stay, too. He approached her slowly and said, "Sure, I can probably accommodate you. I can stay and help you, just for the children, but of course."
Draco had a feeling that Hermione Granger had ulterior motives for wanting to stay. He didn't doubt her need to succeed. He went to school with her for six years, and she always was one that needed to exceed at everything. He also didn't doubt her feelings for the children. She was a passionate, caring woman, so of course she had started to care for them.
Also, being a inquisitive person, she would want to solve the puzzle as to why Jeff couldn't (or wouldn't) speak, so he didn't doubt the validity of her statement regarding the fact that she wanted to find a cure for him, or at least the cause for his muteness.
However, she wasn't pulling ALL of the wool over his eyes. He knew she had some feelings for him. Perhaps she didn't lay awake every night thinking about him the way he did about her, and perhaps she didn't miss him the way that he missed her, but damn it all to bloody hell he didn't imagine the passion they felt when they made love. He didn't imagine the fire that existed between them every time they looked at each other, or every time they touched.
It was real, and she wanted to explore it as much as he did. Well hot damn and hallelujah.
He walked around her and asked, "Does this mean we're to be friends again?"
She swallowed hard, cleared her throat, picked up the Ancient Runes book, placed it back down, coughed, and stammered, "Well, of course. If we were friends before, then I guess we're friends again."
"Are we more than friends?" he asked lazily, one eyebrow in the air, stalking closer to his prey, almost touching her now, his shoulder touching her back as he walked around her.
She looked down at her hands as they fiddled with a Muggle pen on the desk and said, "Of course, because you're actually my employer, too," and then she tried to laugh, though it came out as a forced, nervous giggle. She could feel the brush of his breath against her hair, which meant he was dangerously close.
"Is that what we are, Granger? Employer and employee?" He turned her to face him with a gentle caress of his hand on her shoulder.
She gazed up into his face. "Friends first," she clarified, "and then employer and employee."
His fingertips moved lightly from her shoulder down her arm to the top of her hand, and then he moved his hand back to his side. "What else are we?" He dared her in his mind to say 'lovers' but he knew that she wouldn't.
"I don't know what else we are, but I know what we used to be. We used to be archenemies," she gleamed with a smile.
He had to smile in return. He reached out to touch her arm again, fleetingly, and joked, "I would rather think you were my nemesis, not my archenemy. That was Potter's purpose in my life."
One shoulder came up in a half shrug and she laughed, "Same difference. Former adversaries, if you'd rather."
"And now we're…what are we again?" He couldn't stop himself from touching her. He found that he wanted to touch her all the time, all day long, for the rest of his life. His hand went to her arm again, traveled up and then down, until he felt little pinpricks on her flesh indicating goose bumps. Leaning forward, until his mouth almost touched her hair, he asked again, "Well, I'm waiting. What would you say we are, because friends just don't describe it, and I refuse to call us employer and employee?"
"Bosom buddies?" she said sincerely, her face lifting upward toward his at the same time that his gaze sought hers.
He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Bosom buddies indeed. The depth of his feelings for her went way beyond that of friendship. Other adjectives, such as acquaintances, coworkers, mates, associates, or 'bosom buddies' were just as stupid. Speaking of bosoms…hers seemed larger. He tried not to stare, but he couldn't help it.
"Speaking of bosoms…buddies," he said aloud. "Are bosom buddies permitted to touch?"
"You've barely kept your hands to yourself," she pointed out as both of his hands were gliding up and down her arms. The moment she referred to it, he stopped and she felt an instant bereavement from the loss of his touch. She shouldn't have mentioned it.
She announced, "Yes, I suppose there are proper times and places for friends to touch, and seeing as we've come to an agreement about my staying, and an agreement about us being friends, I'd think it would be appropriate for us to shake on the matter, at the very least."
He reached out his hand. "Good. Let's shake on it, call it a verbal agreement, an addendum to our original contract."
"For the children," she agreed, and took his hand. They shook on it. After they shook on it, neither let go of the other one's hand. In fact, he pulled her closer to him and she pulled him closer to her.
Then they both smiled. It seemed they both had a bit of 'wanton' in them. Hmm.