Chapter 21

Hermione woke up the next morning nestled in charcoal silk sheets. It took her a moment to remember where she was, but when she realized it was Draco's arms wrapped around her waist, she smiled. There was a part of her that had feared that last night was just the most epic sex dream she ever had. She rolled over to see a sleeping Malfoy, he must have been exhausted. After the time in the drawing room they managed to go again in the kitchen (when they were supposed to have been eating snacks), that time had been more frenzied than the first, and then they retired to his room, snacks in hand. There was a third round which had been just as slow and romantic as the first. Hermione reaffirmed after the third round that he was truly as infatuated with her as he'd claimed, no man had ever made love to her like that. He painstakingly took his time to make sure she enjoyed every single moment of it, he had whispered sweet nothings to her over and over again, as if were the last time he'd get to say it. She sighed, it was easily the best sex she ever had and now, looking at him in his sleep form, she was sure it was probably the best sex she'd ever have, and a small over exuberant part of herself wondered if he would be the only sex she'd ever have again. She quashed that thought down though, it was way too early to have thoughts like that, there was still a million things that could go wrong. Draco moaned as the morning sun woke him. She smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. "Good morning," she whispered, biting her lip waiting for him to open his eyes.

Draco opened his eyes to a smiling Hermione nibbling on her lip. She looked far too happy for the hour of the morning. "Please tell me you're not a morning person." He rolled onto his back covering his eyes with his forearm.

"Depends on how I slept." She moved to sit on top of him, still naked from last night's activities. "And if I'm waking up alone," she took his member into her hand and started pumping his morning wood slowly, "or if I have a partner to make mornings more enjoyable." She gave him a cheeky grin.

Draco lifted his arm and looked at her, he could certainly get used to this. "Oh really?" And before he could say another word she lifted her hips and she took him again. It wasn't until they got out of the shower after thier morning romp and were laying on his bed in towels that they had an actual conversation since she had shown up the night before. "It's my turn to interrogate you," he announced to her as he rolled on his side, still wrapped in a towel.

"And how do you figure that?" She shot back sharply.

"Well, when we went to dinner I told you everything you wanted to know, now it's my turn," he informed her.

Hermione thought for a moment, there wasn't really anything about her life that she wanted to hide so she figured there was no harm. "Okay, fine, ask away," she smiled.

"No lying. I'll know," Draco warned her. She rolled her eyes at him but held out her hand and shook on it anyways. "What happened between you and Weasley?"

Hermione was slightly taken back, she figured he'd work up to that at least. "Right off the bat?"

"I heard about you two breaking it off while I was traveling, and I just wanted to know," he said simply.

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Okay, well, I think there was several reasons really. Firstly we got together right about the war so we were on this adrenaline high and it seemed perfect. I had been pining after him on and off for years, so after the battle it just seemed like we were meant to be together, and we just kind of rushed in to it because we thought everything would just fall into place like the fairy tales." She paused. "But we spent most of our time bickering at each other."She fiddled with the sheets in her hand. "Yet everyone kept telling us we were so perfect for each other that it was so "cute" that we fought like an old couple. So I just assumed that was the way it was supposed to be. Relationships are never easy per se, so I thought it was okay to fight all the time." She shrugged. "So we just kept at it, then he proposed and I said yes. We moved in together, then all the fights just got worse and we were both just miserable." She sighed deeply. "He's the one that called it off, and I don't blame him. If I wasn't so wrapped in work I probably would have done it sooner." She looked at Draco. "Long story short, we weren't right for each other."

Draco nodded. "I could have told you that, though."

Hermione smacked his chest. "Like you know what's good for me."

Draco didn't flinch. "I knew that Weasley was never going to be enough for you. You're to smart. You need someone to challenge you, keep up with you, smart people don't do well when they're bored."

"Oh, and like you're smart enough for me" she said with an eyebrow cocked at him.

Draco shrugged casually. "I am. I was second to you throughout Hogwarts, and I'm sure as hell better for you than Weasley."

Hermione folded her arms together. "We'll see about that. Next question."

Draco smiled. "Did you lose it to Weasley?"

Hermione blushed hard, biting her lip, thinking for a moment, she decided she had to answer honestly. "No."

Draco cocked an eyebrow at her, he was sure Weasley popped her cherry. "Who did you lose it too?"

"Draco..." Hermione whined.

"No, come on, you asked me terribly sensitive questions," Draco egged.

"You're going to hate me." Hermione warned.

"Come on, out with it."

"Harry." Hermione grimaced.

Draco's jaw just about hit the floor. "You lost it to Potter?!"

Hermione sighed, and nodded. "That's not even the worst part." She looked at Draco who was clearly waiting for her to elaborate. "Ron doesn't know."

Draco was sure he look like a fool his mouth gaping and his eyes wide with shock. "Weasley thinks he popped it when he never did?"

Hermione bit her lip, now that Draco was saying it aloud, it sounded way worse than it did in her head, but she slowly nodded.

"Wow." Draco laid back into his bed. "Why didn't you tell him? And how did you end up sleeping with Potter?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "It is a long explanation." When Draco gestured for her to continue, she took another deep breath. "Well, Harry and I decided way before Ron and I dated officially that we'd never tell Ron, or Ginny. Ron has always been in Harry's shadow, and always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about it. We honestly believed that if we told him that he'd leave us again and never come back." Draco gave her a confused look. "When we were horcrux hunting our eighth year, Ron and Harry got in to this really big fight, then Ron turned to me and asked me to leave with him, and I told him I couldn't. I couldn't just leave Harry by himself, we had to bring down Voldemort and Harry was the only person that could do it. Ron left anyways, and he was gone two and a half months." Hermione started playing with the sheets again. "And well, Harry was missing Ginny and I was so hung up over Ron that we were just so lonely and hurt, and we felt like nothing was going to bring Voldemort down, that we just leaned on each other emotionally. Until one day...it just kind of happened, I guess." Hermione smiled weakly. "Harry has a very soft heart beneath it all, and I was just a mess over Ron leaving us that he tried to lighten the mood dancing with me, there was no music and it was a silly dancing. But it was the first time in weeks I'd smiled and laughed, and we just got caught up in the moment." She shrugged. "And it felt so good the first time that we just kept doing it, and then all of a sudden, Ron came back, and Harry explained to me what Ron saw when they triggered the locket's curse." Hermione looked up at Draco realizing he didn't know what she was talking about.

She took a steadying breath. "Each of the Horcruxes had a curse on it to protect it, right? So the curse the locket had was to point out the attacker's darkest fears, like a boggart except an emotional attack. So when the curse was triggered Ron saw Harry and I together, and it was telling him how worthless he was and that no one would ever love him so on and so forth. Except it was the curse version of me telling him this, as I was snogging Harry." Hermione watched the puzzle click into place in Draco's eyes. "So we agreed we could never tell Ron. Harry said he wasn't going to tell Ginny, but I'm pretty sure he did because Ginny refused to look at me for a long time and like freaked out every time Harry and I talked, it's fine now, but it was rough there for a little bit. And by the time that the war was over it had been so long since it had happened that Ron would have lost it knowing that we kept it from him. I swore to myself that I would tell him before we got married because I couldn't keep it from him forever. But then things got really hard between us and we fought all the time so there was just never a good time really, and then he called off the engagement, so there was really no reason to tell him anymore." Hermione shrugged.

Draco mulled this information over in his head, he was never a fan of Potter but even less of a fan of Weasley. "Wow, Granger, who knew you could keep a secret like that. How downright Slytherin of you." Draco fended off her attack this time, laughing at her. "Don't you have to go to work today? It's Tuesday," Draco divereted, he didn't need the gritty details of her past, but he needed to know if there was risdule feelings for Weasly, but instead found that he needed to watch Potter.

Hermione shrugged. "I'll send an owl in a bit, let them know I'm under the weather. I never take days off, so Bateman never fights me when I don't show up for work."

"How naughty of you Granger, playing hooky, lying to your boss. Are you sure you were a Gryffindor?" Draco teased, but she smiled mischievously back at him. " Well then, since I have you to myself all day, I hardly see the need to leave the room." His long fingers traced her legs up to her hips then brushing her nipple, then pulled her face in for a kiss.

"Sound logic to me," she murmured into his lips, then moved herself on top of him.

They just snogged for a long time, not really taking it anywhere. There was some touching and groping but, for the most part, they just enjoyed being close together. When she rolled off of him to lay her head on his chest, he decided that he would continue his line of questioning. "So after you and Weasley split, what happened then?"

Hermione kissed his chest. "Well, it was awkward for a long time we could barely look at each other, but then he started seeing this girl in his office, Sara. So I started casually dating for about a year because I'd never truly dated before, but I just got tired of it. Dating is so exhausting and the sex was never what it was with Ron, so I stopped dating and focused on work."

Draco nodded, he didn't particularly care how many other men Hermione had been with, Merlin knew Draco had his fair share of women. "This next one is a two part. First, at the ball why did you kiss me back? I thought for sure that you would hex me for just looking at you. Second, what made you stop?"

Hermione rolled on to her chest looking Draco in the eye. "First, I was so taken by the way you kissed me, I don't think anyone ever has kissed me with that amount of passion. It was like you lit my body on fire, and all I wanted was more. Second, I stopped because I was sure it was some kind of trick. I was sure that you were going to spread it around about how easy I was or something and I didn't want to be hurt by you."

Draco nodded, he had expected as much. It must have seemed insane to her for him to say what he did. "What changed your mind? Why did you show up here last night?"

"Harry." Hermione smiled. "Harry caught the latter part of our conversation yesterday, and he just said some things that put it into perspective for me."

"Do you need his stamp of approval for everything?" Draco began to wonder if there was more to Harry and Hermione's relationship then she was letting on.

Hermione scoffed, the idea that she needed Harry's approval for anything was laughable. "No, I don't. Harry just knows me better than anyone. We spent so much time relying on each other that we just understand how the other functions. The problem is that I was too close to it, too scared of what may happen, that I couldn't see you and what you were doing. Harry did see it, and pointed it out to me in a way he knew I'd understand."

Draco was going to have to thank boy wonder. Fuck. "How do you mean you relied on each other?" he probed, now thoroughly interested in how deep their friendship went.

Hermione took another deep breath. Draco was being quite thorough in his questioning. " Well, when Ron left we were the only thing the other had. We weren't talking to anyone in the outside world, it was just us. We were incredibly isolated so we just talked about everything all the time to keep our minds busy and keep the silence at bay. So we learned each others habits and thought processes, it took the friendship that we already had to this insane level. That's also why we ended up sleeping together. We were just so comfortable together that it just felt good, I guess. That comfort never went away either. Even when Ron came back, Harry and I understood each other on a whole other level than Ron and I did. For a long time I was convinced that the understanding would come when Ron and I slept together, but it just never did. After the war I started suffering from what Muggles call PTSD, we all did, but Harry was the worst. He would thrash and yell, there were times where he'd wake up convinced he was being chased and he would run out of the house firing spells at anyone who came after him. Everyone except me. I was the only one who could bring him back, I was the only one who could ground him. So I spent much of the summer after the war bringing Harry down from his episodes."

She sighed. "And while Harry primarily had night terrors, I had panic attacks. I would just be doing something normal and there would be a sound or a flash of light, and my entire body would freeze, and I couldn't breath, my heart would just start racing, and all I could see and feel around me was the terrors of the war. Being chased through the woods, being crucioed, the battle of Hogwarts exploding around me, and I just couldn't escape it. I would get stuck in these memories as the panic of it all washed over me again and again. Harry was the only one that could bring me back, it drove Ron insane with jealousy. He tried everything that Harry did to calm me down but it never worked, Harry always had to step in."

"I'm sorry." Draco squeezed her tightly, knowing that he had a hand in her panic attacks, and knowing that she had suffered so immensely because of it, made Draco's heart cringe. He had dealt with his own PTSD. His mother went as far as bringing a mind healer to help Draco manage his own night terrors, but he always felt he deserved to be punished for what he had done, despite the healer saying otherwise. "I'm so fucking sorry, Hermione."

Hermione kissed his chest again. "I know, Draco. I know." Then they laid there for a long time in silence, letting the remorse of their lost childhoods sink in. It wasn't until one of the house elves popped in with a late breakfast that they started talking again. Hermione finally sending in word that she wouldn't be making it to work. They sat on his bed eating croissants and muffins, joking and laughing together. Hermione could not have asked for a more perfect morning. When the afternoon sun warmed the balcony they decided to bask in the sun for a bit, Draco still insisting on no clothes, even though they had already gone two more rounds since their late breakfast, but gave in when Hermione demanded on wearing at least a robe. She watched Draco lounging on the outdoor chair naked when she finally got up the nerve to ask him. "The scars on you chest. What are they from?" Hermione had seen them many times at this point run her fingers along them a few time even. She was afraid she knew the answer but still wanted to know for sure.

Draco cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure Potter told you," he drawled.

Hermione grimaced, she was afraid of that answer. "Well, if it's any consolation, I yelled at him for using that spell against you. I even came to see you once while you were in the hospital wing."

"I know," Draco said lazily.

"You knew that I yelled or that I came to see you?" she wondered.

"Both," he replied.

"You were still unconsious when I saw you." A look of surprise crossed her face.

"I was, I was just pretending to be, if you knew I was awake I would have had to say mean things to you and push you away. So I pretended so I could just enjoy your presence."

"But I said things..." A look of horror on Hermione's face.

Draco gave her a mischievous smiled, sliding off his chair and moving towards her smoothly. "Oh yes, you did, I think you apologized several times, cursed Harry a few times." He slid his hands up her legs, parting them to place himself between them and then pulling her hips to the edge of the chair. He then slowly untied the knot to her robe, pulling it down to the side so her skin was completely exposed to him. "Then I think you said something about how truly handsome I was, and that maybe in a different life." He slipped his fingers into her fold, her heat radiating from her skin as he lowered himself down to her clit again, licking with the top of his tongue.

Hermione's breath became ragged. While this was not where she intended this conversation to go she wasn't going to stop him. She moaned in pleasure as his hot breath teased her and his fingers slowly moved in and out of her. Draco was very very good at this, Ron was the only other man to go down on her and he was not nearly a methodical about it as Draco. Hermione was so enveloped with Draco's mouth pleasuring her that she completely forgot that they were on the balcony where she could be heard by other people. "Oh, Draco, please," she pleaded with him. She always wanted more from him. This time Draco did not comply with her wishes. He kept slowly pumping his fingers in and out of her, meticulously massaging her folds and clit with his tongue. She begged some more, she could feel the build up in her legs and her lower stomach. She just wanted him to finish her. She wanted the release of pleasure so much that her pleading gave in to begging, and begging rather loudly for all to hear. "Dracoooo, please, please," she moaned as she could feel her build up against his fingers. "Oh please just fuck me." And before Hermione knew what was going on Draco had pulled her down onto his erection, pumping quickly in and out of her, his thickness and length hitting her sensitive spots, sending her over the edge. She called out in pleasure as the orgasm washed over her and, much to her satisfaction, he was not far behind her, his juices once again spilling into her depths. "I hope this never gets old," she mumbled lazily in to his ear.

"Well if you're doing it right, it shouldn't," he laughed.