Draco apparated to the edge of the driveway. Rocks crunched crisply underfoot. The frigid weather of the late-night October where temperatures dropped quickly once the sun set ate at his robes. His hands turned blue. He dipped them both into the long pockets of his robe. The stick of ten-inch Hawthorn rested against his knuckles. It offered him some solace. The witch of his wife was a formidable opponent and nasty with a temper.
Not that he didn't deserve it.
She was sure to curse him the second he stepped in the door. He prayed he'd at least come to within the next few days. Professor Snape would have his wand if he came in late to classes, again. After that time in Hogsmeade after the Yule Ball, he'd gotten four detentions just for that. Hermione, somehow, slipped in unnoticed. And unpunished.
He stepped up the rocky drive toward the main door. The two torches were lit. Their flames casted long shadows against the ground. Draco stopped short.
They weren't expecting him home. Why were the lights on?
There was only reason why…
Draco opened the door to his home quickly, letting the replica of Andrew Groppgin's statue catch it on the backswing. He tossed his long robes aside on the settee. Pawcett popped in the room with a humbled bow.
"Master Draco, what an honor to see you."
He nodded. "My parents expecting me?"
The house elf bowed near down to the floor. "No, sir. Mrs. Lestrange is in present company."
His blood turned cold. Not Bellatrix. She couldn't be here. The woman was deranged. Unstable in the politest of terms. No one hated Muggles, Muggleborns, and blood traitors like his mother's sister.
Hermione wasn't safe. His child was not safe, not even with his own family. He panicked, thinking of nothing but grabbing his wife and shielding her body with his. No, not that. He'd take her away. Kill anyone in his path: Lestrange, Voldemort, even his father. No one would stand a chance.
He stepped quickly. The suites were close. Stairs only a few feet away. He could dash up quick and check on her, floo her away. Hell, the way he felt right now, he'd go away with her.
Draco stepped through his home, noticing the typical silence that filled his memories like a thick blanket. It was a sound he dreaded when he left Hogwarts. The castle always bustled with students and staff, tiny creatures and moans of the outside wood. Malfoy Manor sat desolate, quiet, dead.
His hand touched the railing, ran up halfway then was yanked down a step.
"Mother?" She never handled him that way before, even as a child.
She pressed her finger to her lips. "Come, darling. You must leave. Quickly. Before they hear you."
For a moment, he wanted to follow. Aunt Bella was the apex of nightmares. She, not Voldemort, scared Draco into compliance wrought with trembles. The shrill ring of her voice raised the hairs on the back of his neck like a sense screaming for him to flee. A giant lump at the back of his throat surfaced his fear. He dared take a step forward, but a tug in his belly pulled him back with sharp digging claws. The tug in his belly fought that icy fear in deadlock as he stood paralyzed, gulping breath. His mother touched his cheek with a sad frown.
"You must go. You only have a moment," she whispered.
The bitterness coated his tongue. "Like a bloody coward. What would she think of me if I did? She has the courage of a lion. A Gryffindor. She didn't shy away. She doesn't run. And she has more reason than I."
"Hush, now, Draco. You're hysterical." She waited, breathing deep breaths in sync with his until it returned to normal. "She doesn't have to know you were here. There is no shame in protecting yourself."
A clatter came from the parlor. It was clear that the wench was in there, breaking fine china like a game. No doubt Mother hid the nicest pieces before Bella arrived.
Draco wiped his cheeks. "I'll know, Mother."
"Listen, son. There is no shame in self-preservation. You can save yourself. Witches are aplenty. Anyone you want, you can have," she said. "Please. Do not ask me to watch you suffer for one."
Any witch he wanted. It was not an understatement. They all wanted him. They all begged for him to visit them in their nightclothes with their friends fast asleep upstairs. Some cornered him in Diagon Alley with a faint suggestion of heading onto one of the many inns for a momentary romp. It was so easy for him to pick through the crowd and shag his way into infinity.
But he didn't want those ones. Not a single one interested him, got his cock hard like Hermione did.
"I'd suffer a million deaths if it meant I could keep her safe," Draco muttered. "Likewise, I'll willingly spend time with Aunt Bellatrix if it means I can see my wife."
His mother's eyes widened. "Is that true, Draco? Would you defy your family, stand up to the Dark Lord, turn your back on everything just to keep her safe?"
He was not known for courage. That was a dominant trait in Gryffindor, but not Slytherin. It was everyone for themselves. Loyalty was as fickle as gossip. Self was number one, no matter what. Each person acted their own self interest and it wasn't taken personally.
He'd hold his tongue if it was his mother or father, Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle or even Claire if he had to. But Hermione? No. He couldn't even think of it. His arms shook with rage to think a spell befalling her whilst he tucked away in hiding.
Draco bowed his head and replied in a deep tone, "I would."
As much as she resisted the idea, Narcissa Malfoy led her only son into the presence of her deranged sister in casual air. Her chin raised higher, lips kept tightly pursed together.
Bellatrix wore a black leather trench coat, smudged with mud along the edge. Underneath were robes of black lace layer upon layer, wrapped around her petite frame cinched tightly at the waist with a short, patterned corset. She smiled as she beheld her grown nephew. Jutted brown teeth glowed in the candlelight. Draco fought back a scowl.
"Draco," she cooed.
The star constellation of his birth name etched upon a globe rested in her gritty hands. Inches of black dirt rested below her nail beds, buried deep. She wasn't one for gardening. How had it gotten there?
His breath caught in his throat when she tossed the globe back and forth in amusement.
"Good evening, Aunt Bella. Popping in for a visit, are you? In from the country?"
It was the most pleasant he could muster.
He nodded toward his father. Lucius nodded back. A place was set for him beside his mother on the loveseat. Her hands quivered as she dropped a sugar cube into his steaming cup of tea.
"Oh. I been everywheres, Draco. Our master finds so much work to be done," she said exasperated. She dropped down to an armchair, swinging her mud-caked boots over an arm. Narcissa tensed at the sight. "We find ourselves in a position, this family. A place that we must operate as the most loyal. Our lord demands it after all. Just last week, I had to turn on one of our own. Let a little Muggle brat get away. That can't be tolerated."
She chuckled. The crystal ball hopped over her hand as she tossed it joyfully. Draco kept his eyes ahead. One look at his parents and he'd be overcome with fear. Bella was a witch of many tricks. Insane, yes, but blind she was not. There was a point she had to make.
"What are you saying?" Lucius asked, impatient. He sat perched like a noble lord in his chair though the hair on his head was thinning, his eyes sunken to his skull. "What does the Dark Lord demand of this family?"
Bellatrix sat up suddenly. "Cissy, do you remember the summers we'd have to go and visit our cousins house? That dreadful place, Grimmauld Place?"
Narcissa straightened, tea cup gripped firmly in hand. "Yes, I do, Bella. Why? Has something happened to it?"
"No," her sister said casually. "I was just remembering how much I hated those two. Sirius and Reg. I wished I'd seen them both killed long ago, right after Sirius ran away to be with that filthy Potter house. A white mark on the very name, Black. Grandpa should have exiled them all."
Draco noticed his mother's discomfort. She hadn't like them particularly either. She never spoke well of Sirius Black. But Regulus was a Death Eater, same as Lucius Malfoy. And Bella. What was so wrong with him?
"Then we'd have been disowned, too. Because of Andromeda."
Bella spat at the mention. "That's different. She ran off with a Muggle. He should have just killed her. But Sirius. A blood traitor! Unbelievable. I'm so glad I was the one to kill him. It was funny to watch his face turn sullen, like ash. I'd only wished I used something harsher, let him bleed a bit."
It was uncomfortable to hear about Sirius, especially since Hermione had to witness his death firsthand at the Department of Mysteries. Sweat poured down his spine. Its hot path down each vertebra burned a fire that sank through his bones into his blood. Blood turned to fury.
He bit back his tongue, hot iron covering his taste buds in a slick blanket.
Lestrange babbled on for a while about her hatred of the Black brothers, spitting on the carpet despite her sister's disapproving looks, and tossed a precious family memento, crafted on the night of Draco's very birth, around like a cheap Muggle artifact. Her disregard of her own family was despicable. Draco looked to his father in frustration. Malfoy Manor was their home, not hers.
Lucius Malfoy examined his nails with profound interest, not bothering to observe her sister in law as she tainted and touched priceless family heirlooms. His father's gray eyes flicked to a smudge of dust against his robes. Long pale fingers brushed and brushed the emerald velvet.
"So, to what do we have the pleasure of your company this evening?" He said after a while. "To hear that whistle of your nose every time you breathe?"
Draco swallowed a chuckle. It was impolite to laugh at guests, even if they were his deranged aunts.
Bellatrix casted a sharp glare intensified by her two bulged eyes. Lucius sat straight, unafraid. He'd cowered from the Dark Lord, but to his wife's mental sister, it was laughable. No Malfoy ever gave a woman the luxury of fear. It was an insult to the family honor that Lucius still bared as a proud crest on his chest.
The woman settled back after a moment. "The Dark Lord questions this family. With your failure at the Department, he's grown tired of waiting. It is true all our hope rests with dear Draco."
Narcissa inhaled sharply, barely audible to the room, but her son felt her fear leech under his skin like a plague. He swallowed up her fear and let his thoughts race. His heart pounded in his ears. The Dark Lord. Tired of waiting. Hope? What hope? He was set to fail. He failed at everything.
He didn't want Voldemort to come. The man billowed evil as easy as breath. Surrounded by a dark cloud of blood and screams, their master commanded undying loyalty or else, just as his victims, his minions paid the price. They were killed with purpose. Most often, to make a point. Voldemort liked to make them suffer. He relished their pain as their bodies spasmed uncontrollably, pissing themselves and stinking the entire scene with their filth.
It was his turn. He felt it. The Dark Lord knew. He knew of Draco's deception. His failure.
Draco felt the panic bubble through as he forced himself to concentrate on his aunt's words.
"…So, it seemed prudent to offer up Malfoy Manor as a gathering place for the Dark Lord and his faithful, until Draco completes his plan, we are vulnerable. It is all too clear his distaste over you, Lucius, after one mistake," she chuckled heartily and then continued, "the tides changed on you. The Dark Lord finally realized what I knew all along. You were a coward, no better than that slithering creature Snape."
Lucius gritted his teeth, grinding them to a fine powder. No reply was given.
"You're a goner. No use in saving you now. You'll go down in a way He sees fit," Bellatrix sneered. "But Narcissa and Draco must be protected from your mess. They must be more loyal than you. Or else, they too, will be dragged down to your filthy depths."
This rattled Draco's father a step farther.
He stood from his chair. "You intend to offer my home without my permission! I am Lord Malfoy of Malfoy Manor and I do not tolerate this kind of treatment."
Although a look crossed through her eye that was sheer delight, Bellatrix remained seated. A glance over to his mother showed just why. Her glare was colder than a winter breeze, and it was fixated on her sister. As Lady Malfoy she was bound to the fate and insult of the Malfoy name, the same as her husband and son. Now daughter and soon-to-be grandchild, too. All Malfoys. Their name was worth more than it'd ever been.
Lucius kept rigid, perched in fury like a moving statue, but Bellatrix ignored his presence completely in favor of her nephew. The elder Malfoy was done. Now, it came to his son to fulfill their family destiny at Voldemort's side.
Intensity washed over his face as she beheld him. It crawled over his limbs, across his face, into his eyes. He even felt her dig into his mind. Draco pushed her out with fury.
Bella seemed indifferent. "How go things? I haven't seen Hogwarts fall yet so that man must be alive. Still."
"But he's only just gotten there," Narcissa stated. "Can't expect his mission to happen over night? Albus is a wizard beyond Draco's years and experience."
It sounded like she lacked confidence.
Draco sneered. "I can handle the old tosspot."
"Good. Make us proud, boy."
Bella sat with the funniest smile on her face content with reply as sweat drained from Draco's skin in floods. What if Hermione heard? The look he shared with his mother confirmed that she realized, too, what it meant to reveal him. Narcissa offered a pair of sad eyes before turning back to her tea.
Warmth pulled into his mouth. Saliva gushed up from his cheeks and poured over his tongue as he tried to swallow back the rising bile. If she had changed her mind about the annulment, this night was bound to convince her back again.
He had to go to her.
Draco retired to his childhood bedroom to calm himself down. He bent over a toilet bowl, choking and gasping for air, twice. The calming was not going well.
He walked the length of his wall back and forth into a tired old path, one he'd made throughout the years when he was angry or scared. Stressed, too. It was all there. Every emotion on the tip of his tongue. His wand ached for use, and so did his tears. All at once, his body trembled with fear.
Hermione was all he had, the only bit of good left for him in the world. He was condemned by everyone else. A Death Eater, a Death Eater's son, a Slytherin, a wealthy heir, a traitor, a Muggle sympathizer. Not a single side would take him; he was in too deep for both. No one trusted him. What's worse is that it was better than way. Draco didn't even trust himself. Each choice was a deeper lie he'd spun himself in.
There was nothing else he could do for the night. He laid atop his Bulgarian red comforter and fell into a lucid dream that lifted when he felt the pop of a ward go off.
Bellatrix was gone.
Draco ran to his wife below the study, dropping through the hole without holding onto the ladder. He levitated just before landing. It was black. Pitch black. He grabbed his wand ahead of himself.
"Lumos," he said softly.
A room ignited in his white shining light. It was bare, stripped of everything except a simple floor covering. Some old carpet it seemed. It scraped below his Oxfords as he walked. Smoky clouds fled his mouth. Each breath, a denser fog throughout the nothingness.
It was so different now. As a child, he'd had a hideout in the very same space with a collection of miniature dragons in their cages and a fort composed of sheets and old curtains from the attic that his grandmother ranted about for ages. He chuckled in the memory. It was the very best of times below the study.
Now it was an empty shell.
He couldn't believe Hermione stayed there. How could his mother find it acceptable?
There were no candles on the walls, not a single place to sit. It was bloody colder than a blizzard.
"Hermione?" He whispered out. "Hermione, are you here?"
Silence answered back. Draco swore. She had to be there.
He searched the room which wasn't hard, until he noticed a lump of blankets on the floor. They moved through gentle motions as he came close. Her breath, a slow sigh.
Draco pulled the blankets back as Hermione's sleeping form revealed to darkness. Goosebumps speckled her flesh as the cold rushed against her. She moaned softly.
"No," she said, eyes still closed.
The gentle bump of her stomach raised with each breath as a mountain through the plains, it struck Draco as noticeable. It wasn't fleshy. The skin didn't jiggle. He just knew that throughout his years of observing her through the castle and class, Hermione never carried weight there. It was his child that pushed through her body ever so slight and measured. His child that ate away at her. A parasite that changed the brightest, most honest, and smartest woman of his school into his wife, a carrier for an unwanted heir.
Pain of the years worked their way closer, peeking through happy memories of love and intimacy as black disturbing claws. He remembered her face when he called her a Mudblood. It'd cut through her much sharper than he ever expected. His father used the term with ease in passing through conversation at breakfast, but once Draco uttered the word, it was much harsher than he thought it to be. The way her lovely brown eyes sloped in hurt, water held at the brim.
Not long after, Hermione was a paralyzed corpse in the hospital wing. Her flesh was ice cold to the touch. There was no usual flush of anger or embarrassment when his long fingers dragged along her cheek. Just a blank slate. Emptiness. A shell.
But she came back alive, as she always did (Potter was a saint after all) and Draco hadn't managed to get her out of his head no matter how hard he tried to. Nothing worked. There was such a rage inside him that he tried to push out so forcefully it nearly shred him to pieces. It was a betrayal to all he'd known, his entire lineage, to care for a Muggleborn so strongly, even if she was uptight and rightly vocal about her intelligence, as if the entire world didn't know she was wonderful!
Then came the overwhelming feelings to protect her and hate her at the same time. It'd been easier when they hadn't snogged. Once that happened, it was the collision of suns to tear worlds apart. She hated him at the same strength he hated her. He pressed his lips against hers just the way she kissed his. Two fires danced in the gasoline of their counterparts, they were.
Nothing changed between them. The love was there. Draco knew it always had been. For him, at least. He loved her with every part of his soul. Yet, they couldn't let go of their anger. Choices they made in the opposite direction of each other.
But the swell of life that she grew each and every day was proof there was much more invested between them than the average teenaged couple. He tapped his wand against her lower abdomen when Hermione started to rouse from her sleep. Draco froze. A sweat came to his neck. Suddenly, he felt the need to explain himself for being there so near, without invitation. It was his child, but her body.
A few moments later resulted in low sighs once more and Draco finally exhaled.
He tapped his wand, gentler than before. "Revelare," he murmured.
First there was just the subtle glow of her peachy skin. It shined as it would in healthy sun on a summer day, perhaps at a beach, as the light grew and grew into a beaming shine darkened only by a faintest spot buried inside her. It wiggled and danced alive, kicking little limbs out and bouncing its head to an imaginary beat. Draco touched the dark ball.
The dark ball swirled and played happily within the protection of his mother's belly as Draco hovered closely in watch. He touched his finger down to the ball and it suddenly stopped. Draco blinked hard. The dark ball interacted with his finger like it was conscious! He gasped as the dark ball swam close to him with interest, suddenly reacting happily and bouncing against the bulge in its private pool.
It knew. The tiny child knew he was its father. Draco swallowed back a few shallow sobs. His head fell into his palm while the ball danced with glee below his touch, inside his beloved wife, so in love with its parents, so blind to just how rotten its father truly was.
He wept as his child reveled. Tears pooled in his palm and dribbled down to the floor. A puddle of dark gray fibers appeared below, but his care was elsewhere. His thoughts, elsewhere.
What was he doing? How wrong was he to do this?
A warm hand touched his face, and he jumped back with a gasp. He looked through his blurred vision for a thing he yearned the most. Two shimmering brown eyes gazed at him filled with love. They sloped in sadness at his tears.
Her fingers ran across his cheek. "I know, Draco. I know."
"I've royally messed up. Messed up everything because I'm selfish. Can't let you go on without me, but I can't keep you close either. It isn't right, is it? Bloody torture to keep you down here in the dark like a prisoner. All because you were cursed to carry my child like a host to a parasite. All for something so worthless as I."
Hermione clutched his face as he wept some more.
"A serpent kills everything close, with venom and suffocation. I can't even look at you without seeing what's been done. I suffocate you here in this stupid house while my venom consumes you from the inside," Draco said. "You're Hermione Granger. Any wizard out there can give you better than I can."
He didn't know why words kept flowing out of his mouth without thought; they took on a life of their own. It tore his heart from beneath his ribs to even think of her without another, but if there was someone who'd love her better and protect her, she had to go.
Draco buried his face into her silky silver pajamas, dotted with his dark tears.
He quivered in violent spasms as she wrapped around his body tightly, so tightly he couldn't push her off. She'd turned into a snake. Legs locked tight and arms wrapped around, head on his shoulder. Hermione held him as he cried into her, cradled him in warmth as his fear kept him frozen cold.
"I can't do this," he cried.
Hermione whispered softly to his ear, "Yes, you can."
"It's so easy for you to say. You've got a whole army behind you. I've got one after me."
"That's not why you're sad," she said.
Eventually his tears stopped. He breathed, ragged, but enough to get by. She loosened her grip around his body and slid down into his lap. Draco pulled the blanket around her and rubbed her shoulders vigorously, ignoring her look, embarrassed he'd cried. Again. In front of her.
He was a weak man.
Draco wiped his cheeks. "And why does my pregnant prisoner of a wife think I'm sad?"
"Because you love things. Now you have something to lose," Hermione answered. "You love me, and our unborn baby and we can be taken away by so many things. It's been so easy to be a wild boy when you have nothing to be taken away, nothing to be lost in rages of war. Now you've got everything on the line. It's scary. You'd rather find a way to peel your heart out of your chest and not love us anymore. It's easier to live that way."
He looked down at his brilliant, intuitive wife and scowled at how easy she read him. He was the Slytherin. Wasn't he the one supposed to read people?
"Is that why you wanted the annulment? To protect your heart too?"
Hermione touched his cheek. "I'm not afraid to love you, Draco. I don't care that it's hard or that I have to suffer for a while to ensure that you live. I won't support your side. That much I will not. But I won't risk your life for anything. My husband is meant to live to see his child be born and love us until he cannot anymore. I am terrified, I really am, that it will be all taken away from me. That you will die without me there to save you. That the world will fall in shadow, you a prisoner in a privileged palace, me dead. But… I'd risk it all for you, Draco."
His heart warmed. He nuzzled his cheek against hers and stole a feisty kiss.
"I love you Mrs. Malfoy," he smirked. "But, my tricksy Gryffindor, you still did not answer the question."
She shifted in his lap. Hands clamped down onto his shoulders in a tight squeeze. He braced for something awful, something she'd want to restrain him from. Was she in love with Blaise? Did she want his money? Did she want to go back to Hogwarts?
He thought and thought of all the reasons that Hermione would want an annulment, none of them positive in any light. Pulse jumped inside, pounding violently.
"Can you promise me something first?" Hermione bit her lip. She was nervous.
Oh Merlin, it was something terrible. Awful. Viktor Krum wanted to marry her, didn't he? The Bulgarian was on his way to take her on some luscious getaway in the tropics. That was it! He was losing his wife to the world's most eligible Quidditch player.
Draco kept his cool, despite the rage boiling in his hands.
"As you wish," he said carefully.
"Whatever you want to do, because I won't be able to stop you, just, don't leave me tonight. Leave in the morning. Just stay the night with me."
He sneered. "Oh, Granger. You are so selfish. A piece of Malfoy flesh all to yourself? I might not survive until morning."
She was not amused. Her eyes turned stiff.
"Promise."
Draco sighed. "Alright, alright. I promise. Now tell me this secret before I turn all the house elves into dancing Bludgers."
It was low to threaten the elves since it was his wife's pursuit in life to grant them freedom. All the time of being so kind and thoughtful was exhausting. He wanted to intimidate someone to get something easier rather than working at it. There was much too much on his plate already.
Hermione bit her lip, a sign of discomfort. Draco felt his pulse pool in his ears as tingles leeched through his body. Hot surges of adrenaline. It tightened his hold on her shoulders. Whatever it was, Hermione was afraid to tell him and that often meant something much more than another guy. She was baffled when he was bothered by such 'insignificant' things as she put it. No, it was much bigger.
Draco pulled her chin upward, forcing her eyes into his. "Something is wrong. I can feel it. Now tell me. Is someone hurting you? Is it blackmail? You've got to tell me these things, Mione. We're married. Our fates are one now."
"It's…it's your father, Draco."
His mind went blank. "My father? What about my father? I want to know about the annulment!"
"He's the one who threatened me with annulment," she sighed. "If I didn't take his bribe and annul the marriage myself, he'd do it himself and toss me out into the streets, obliviated. I only read up to make sure he wasn't within the power to do so. I admit I am not well versed in the laws of magical marriage as I am with Muggle marriage."
His father? His father. Of course he'd do this! It was Lucius' main goal in life to provide a 'clean' lineage. Draco clenched his fists. The man was impossible to change, even in the face of definite change. He had to. Their heir was being born from a Muggleborn. There was nothing to change that.
If he wanted to play that game, he would. There would be a request put in on his own marriage. Perhaps, a curse. No, a definite curse.
Draco started to rise, but Hermione's gripped his body and held him down.
"Your promise," she said. "Remember. You promised. Tonight."
As magic flickered in his hand ready for use as his Malfoy fury coursed through him, Draco fingered his wand. It all ached for his father. He needed to show the man he'd become, the man he was for Hermione. She deserved nothing less.
Her bad side, though, was a stinking place to be. He was eternally gracious for not being on it now for the other day's outburst. He'd been harsh beyond reason. Hurt her without a doubt. There was so little room left for him to maneuver on her good side before the Gryffindor nature reared its ugly head.
"Alright, then. Come on. Let's get to bed," he said. "We've got a busy morning ahead of us anyway."
"Do we?" Hermione rose from the floor. A larger bump than before filled her belly. Draco's eyes protruded out his skull nearly as he saw it grow before his eyes. She didn't notice. "What's in the morning? Breakfast in bed, I hope. I never sleep well done here in this place. Feels like a dungeon."
Nothing about the space was like the dungeons in Hogwarts where the Slytherin dorms laid. They were warm and cozy. This place was just, empty. Black, dreadful.
Draco yawned suddenly. All the darkness did was make him tired. He was already exhausted from everything and didn't want to continue on without a nice sleep with Hermione by his side, for sure safe and breathing. The fight to be had, would be had in the morning when he was bright eyed and sharp as a whip. That's what it'd take to convince her. His aunt's news was hard enough to accept, let alone realize that preparations had to made for his wife.
He grabbed her hand and levitated her up into the library. She swam in her silk pajamas. The long length dragged behind her feet as she walked the halls.
Draco noticed the difference in attire. "Are those, mine?"
Hermione blushed, breaking his gaze. It was so adorable when she did that. Draco held her hand tighter, pulling her up against his side.
"Were you missing me that much, darling?" He asked with a smirk. "You might've wrote. I would have sent something to keep you company until I returned. An enticing photo, perhaps. I know how you like those."
Her feet stopped completely. "Draco Lucius! That is absolute hogwash. I'd never!"
"You were in need of a little relaxation. Nothing to be ashamed of. All us teenage boys do it. Admittedly now it'll bring me much more excitement from mine knowing you might be doing the same thing. Do you scream out? Do you pull your hair like you do with me? Tell me how you do it. Oh, no. Tell me what you picture you get do it. Is it me?"
Hermione turned ten shades of red that gave Draco immediate pleasure. He ate it up as she pulled the collar of her shirt up over her cheeks. She marched passed him. Her bare feet slapped against the bare floor.
"I can't believe you! What if your parents hear?" She whispered.
Draco let out a hearty laugh. Tears even welled in the corners of his eyes.
Hermione stared in total disbelief. "What are you doing? Stop that. Stop it right now."
They were near the suite door. Leaves in the trim glowed as they came closer, opening the door to their parlor. Draco was unable to stop laughing for a full minute while Hermione ripped off the pajamas, popping buttons off as she grabbed, and stalked into the bathroom. He followed her out of habit and watched as she turned on the stream of hot water inside the shower. She made a show of the pajamas before she tossed them into the water and ruined the fibers.
It was a quite dramatic way, even for her. Draco found it all more hilarious when he came close and pinched the heat of her cheeks.
She grew flustered. Her hands pushed his chest away with a loud huff and she dove into her bed.
"You, Draco Malfoy, are a deviant!"
Finally, he was able to speak.
"You're worried my parents will know we have sex, when you're the one standing with my child inside you and my ring on your finger? Hermione, please. They may be thick, but they're not idiots. They know that we…shag."
Hermione's face flashed a deeper shade of red unseen to the naked eye before. "I know that. I just don't think they'd appreciate hearing how their son likes to, tease himself."
"Is that what you're so worked up about?" Draco laughed. "Because I do what all other guys in the world do? Come on, Hermione. Potter and Weasley do it, too. I bet your precious Krum is too dumb to know about it, but every other one does it. Girls, too."
She scrunched her face as if suddenly aware that every guy she knew was a subtle freak. It was funny and frightening at the same time.
"Potter and Weasley haven't shagged anyone though," she stated. "You, on the other hand, have! What would you need to do that for?"
Draco raised his eyebrows. "You've got to be joking. You and I were barely ever able to get together, but maybe once a week."
"I could have committed to once a week."
Wow. This conversation felt like it was head diving straight for an argument. Draco knew the warning signs, yet it was so absurd (were all girls so innocent?) that he had to continue.
"I couldn't have gone a day," he said. Below their comforters, Hermione flustered and ducked herself under. There was no winning the argument. "No guy can. At most, two. Listen, though. It doesn't compete with a girl. Not even close. I'd never choose myself over you, so why is this even an issue?"
Hermione peaked her head from the blankets. "Because!"
"Because why?"
"Just because."
Draco sighed. "Well it just so happens I can prove it. Let me show you, and you'll see it is nothing better than what we do together."
Hermione screeched an unnatural sound underneath the blankets. He grabbed hold of a bunch that looked like her leg and pulled it toward the edge. It kicked, inches from missing his groin, and retreated back into the blankets. Her body wriggled and rolled until she was a solid mass of comforter and sheet taut together. Draco lifted his wand and untangled it with ease.
She looked him straight in the eye. Finger pointed out in blame. "I do not want to see that."
He rolled his eyes. "Not on me, you prat. On you."