All characters belong to JKR
Chapter 14:
It was early afternoon, they were in the afterglow of just having sex, and Hermione was still dressing, having just slipped on her pants and shoes. She placed her hand on Draco's head to steady herself, slipping on one shoe, then the other. Draco asked. "Was Weaslebee really your first?"
He was sure they had discussed this a few times. She had even discussed the how, where, and when, so he thought he was just making idle conversation.
So imagine his surprise when she didn't answer his question right away. He looked up at her, waiting, and wondering, but before he could repeat his question, she sat back down beside him and said, "No, no he wasn't."
She purposely didn't look at him.
He couldn't look anywhere but to her. He took a couple of deep breaths, but before he could ask her to explain she said, "I think it's getting more humid. It will probably start raining again. Look how grey the sky is over in the east. Those clouds look ominous. We should get back to the cabin before the downpour starts." She scrambled to her knees, and reached for the fishing poles. She had just reached the first one, when he stood up suddenly, and grabbed it from her hand.
He threw it in the lake.
"Draco?" she asked.
The other one was by her knee. He picked it up, and broke it right in two, by hitting it hard against the tree that was previously behind their backs. She looked shocked. He took the fishing basket, but she stood and grabbed the leather strap.
"This was my grandfather's! You will not destroy it just because you're angry about something that doesn't even concern you!" she harped.
"DOESN'T CONCERN ME?" he shouted. He pulled on the basket, and she almost slipped.
"Exactly," she shouted back, holding tight to the strap. "If I had claimed that you were my first, and it ended up you weren't, your anger would be justified, righteous, and completely reasonable! You weren't, and no one ever pretended otherwise! Likewise, I'm not sure this is something we need to discuss, okay?" She let go of the strap and said, "Fine, throw it in the lake, but you have to tell my father, and when he yells at you, you have to take it like a man."
She had made a point, regarding everything. He wasn't her first, his anger wasn't justified, and her father, though a nice man, had a scary temper sometimes. He had nothing on her mother, but still, Draco didn't want to upset Edward, so he placed the fishing basket back on the ground and he said, "I'll buy him new fishing poles."
"Good," she said. She walked away from him, and sat on a rather large boulder near the bank of the water.
He said, "Scoot over," and he sat next to her. He took her hand in his.
"Do you still have that little white rock that I gave you that first night at the Burrow? The one I like to think of as our engagement present?" she asked.
He wasn't sure what that had to do with anything, but he pulled it out of his pocket. It was still smooth and shiny, resembling a piece of polished glass, more than a rock. He said, "You know I always carry it with me. Always have and always will. It's a part of me." He wondered if she was trying to lead him astray, by going down memory lane. He would humour her for the moment, but eventually he would find out with whom she lost her virginity, if for no other reason than morbid curiosity.
She held out her hand, and he placed the smooth stone on her open palm. She fingered it a moment and then held up her wrist and said, "And I still always wear the little polished rock that you gave me that night."
"You mean the diamond bracelet, worth several hundred, thousand galleons," he said with a wiry smile.
"Fine, yes, it's a pretty little rock, that is expensive, too," she said, handing him back his stone, before she fingered the equal sized one that hung as a teardrop from a pendant on her wrist.
"You once told me Weasley was your first," he said, coming back to the thick of things.
"Believe me, this relates," she said. "Remember that night, after I gave you the little rock, and then you told me to shut my eyes, and you had something for me, but then you apparated away?"
"Yes," he recalled, "I had to go get this, and it took me a while, and though I argued with you at the time that it only took me four minutes tops, you were right, I was gone about ten minutes or so, and you thought I left you."
"Yes, and I looked for you everywhere, and I thought you left, and it made me feel very insecure," she reminded him.
"I know, but I came back, and I promised you I would never leave you, but sweetheart, what does that have to do with who your first lover was?" he asked.
She seemed frustrated for a moment. "Remember after we made love that night? Do you recall who I went to talk to, after I went to the bathroom?" she asked.
"No," he answered honestly.
She played with his fingers and said, "No, you have to remember. Remember after we made love, I went to go to the bathroom, I was gone a long time, and you came to look for me. Remember?"
"Hermione, please, just tell me, what are you trying to say?" he asked.
She pulled on his hand, then grasped it tightly in hers and said, "No, remember? I went down to the kitchen, to talk to someone about us."
He looked introspective for a moment, and then he said, "Yeah, you went downstairs, and I went to find you, and I heard you talking with one of the Weasleys, and I sat on the steps to eavesdrop."
"Which Weasley did I speak with that night?" she asked.
"Charlie," he answered slowly. "Hermione?"
"Charlie," she answered back, just as slowly. "He told me if I loved you, I shouldn't care what everyone thought. He said that I deserved love and that you were good for me, and that you would be good to me. He said that I was over thinking things, as I was apt to do, and that I needed to just live a bit. Before you started listening, I confided to him that you and I had just made love. He asked me if it was everything that I had hoped and dreamed, and I told him it was more than I could hope and dream. I said if I could turn back time, I wish I could have given my virginity to you, because in many ways it felt like the first time for me, because it was the only time I really felt as if I made love. Love, Draco, not sex, but love."
Draco didn't know what to say.
She continued with, "He laughed and said something about 'what a way to stroke his ego', but he understood, because it had to be better with you, because I was in love with you, and when you were in love, making love was always better."
"Charlie Weasley was your first?" Draco asked. He was no longer angry, just curious. "I know thought that you told me the story of your and Ron's first time. I know you did."
"I know I did, too, and I wasn't lying to you, when I recounted that story. I was accurately portraying my first time with Ron; it just wasn't MY first time."
"But you know that's what I thought," he countered.
"Why does any of this matter now? It was so long ago," she said. She dropped his hand and sighed. She looked out over the rippling water, just as the raindrops began to fall, mimicking the weather from the morning, and the night before, and the day before that. She held out her hand and said, "We need to get back."
"I want to finish this conversation," he said. He stood up, picked up the basket, took her hand and disapparated them both to the front porch of the little cabin.
Hermione said, "Let me go to the toilet, and take my blood sugar, and then I'll be out and we can talk." She gave him a sad smile, and walked into the cabin. He sat down on the little, wooden loveseat, to wait for her.
He told himself that no matter what, it didn't matter. He knew she had been with other men. In fact, that first weekend that they fell in love, she had said that she had made love to five men in her life. If that was the case, then so what if the rest of them were all Weasleys, as long one of them wasn't Potter, or stupid Oliver Wood, or that wanker from her Muggle neighborhood, whom he met last year. Yes, he could handle a Weasley or two. Not many more than that, but one or two wouldn't be so bad.
She walked back outside, and she had changed her clothes. Her hair had been brushed out, and was down long. She had on red shorts, a white t-shirt, and flip-flops. She was eating an apple, which made him believe her sugar was probably low. He smiled at her and patted the seat next to him.
"Okay, I've been thinking," he started, "As long as you've never had sex with Ollie Wood, I'm fine with everything."
She laughed and said, "Oliver and I only dated that one time, and you know it, and I don't have sex after one date"
"You had sex with me after no dates," he pointed out.
"Wait," she said, laughing, but hitting him hard on the arm. He winced, in real pain. "I thought our whole weekend at the Burrow was a speed dating thing. You said that we had dated the equivalent of something like thirty-two times before we made love that night. Don't you dare ever throw that up to me again, Draco Malfoy." She was still smiling, so he knew she wasn't angry. "And for goodness sakes, what is your problem with Oliver Wood, really?"
"I've always hated him on principle," Draco said, quite sincerely.
"What principle?" she asked, throwing her apple core out among the trees.
"One, he was a fab Quidditch player, and I hated anyone who played better than me. Two, he was a Gryffindor, hello, I was Slytherin, so I hated Gryffindors just because they existed," before she could comment, and he could tell she wanted to, he placed his hand over her mouth and said, "you aren't included in this. These are the rules to hating men." She nodded and he let go of her mouth. "Three, his damn accent was so annoying. Four, well, there might not be a four, but three reasons are enough to hate a man."
"If those three reasons are enough to hate someone, you must hate most of my male friends," she said.
He thought a moment, smiled, and said, "By jove, I think I do."
"Ha!" she said in a clipped tone. "Well, anyway, I've never had sex with Oliver."
"Or, Harry, right?" he asked.
"Yuck," she said, with pure disgust in her voice.
He smiled brightly, hugged her tight and said, "That's my girl. I knew we were almost of the same mindset regarding Potter. I knew someday you would hate him as much as I do."
She pushed away from him and said, "I meant, yuck, he's like a brother to me, and I love him too much, AS A BROTHER, to ever make love to him."
"Wait a minute," he said, pointing his finger at her. "You claimed once that every single Weasley was like a member of your surrogate family. You mourned the loss of your relationship with Weaslebee mostly because you didn't want to sever ties with your pseudo family, so wouldn't making love with Charlie be, in your words, Yuck?"
Hermione yawned, rubbed her face with her hands and said, "Oh, Draco, your logical makes me tired sometimes. Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Yes, I do, and I won't judge," he said. He took her hand again.
She said, "First, do you remember something that you told me that first weekend at the Burrow. I mean, you probably remember a lot from that weekend, but probably nothing specific, and I'm sure you don't remember any of your little speeches verbatim, but this was right after you gave me this bracelet, you said the sweetest thing to me, when I said that I couldn't face the possibility of you ever leaving me or hurting me. Remember?"
"I had just gone downstairs to look for you, because I thought you left me, and when you came back, you said the nicest thing to me, something about not ever hurting me, because it would hurt you, too."
"I remember exactly what I said to you, Granger," he said, smiling. While his wife looked on with a smile, Draco kissed her hand, then with a hand placed gently on her cheek he repeated the words he said to her that day. "My dearest, sweetest, beautiful, girl. If I ever do or say anything to you, from this point on, that distresses you, or causes you pain, embarrassment, or harms you physically or mentally, in anyway, than know this, I will be hurting myself as well. Because I really think to hurt you in anyway would be to hurt myself, and to hurt myself is the last thing I would ever want to do."
"That sums up all of our commandments, doesn't it?" she asked.
"I was way before my time. Quite a visionary, really. I amaze myself," he said. "Why did you want to know if I remember that?"
She shrugged, because there was no specific reason. She leaned over, kissed his lips and said, "Okay, here's the story."