Hermione skipped breakfast altogether when Malfoy offered to grab food from the kitchens and meet her in the library. She wasn't sure she was ready for another run in with Ron, who was still hurting. Ginny would have picked up on the fact she hadn't spent the previous night alone immediately.
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to make of Harry's break up with the youngest Weasley. She hadn't been observant in anything but her own love life, or the lack thereof since the term started.
These were all reasons that she told herself were real, but she knew they weren't.
Thing is, all of their classmates had questions. Whether they were about Lucius Malfoy, or Antonin Dolohov, she didn't have a clue. Malfoy mentioned he had overheard some fifth years in Hufflepuff discussing her relationship with an arrogant Slytherin, and she smirked.
She'd selected the spot, hidden among the Restricted Section where they wouldn't be found. "Did you see Ron?" She asked him, leaning across his lap to steal a piece of toast from the plate. He took the opportunity to slide his palm beneath her shirt, skimming against the bare skin of her back. "Malfoy." She barked.
He sighed, dropping his hand. "Yes, I saw Weasley." She waited for him to continue, crossing her legs beneath her. "He's calmed down, I'd say."
"You're serious?"
"He asked me if you were alright, and he apologized to me for calling you such a foul name." Draco told her quietly. He'd leaned his head against the book shelves. "He regrets it, and I know you'll forgive him, but maybe you should let him suffer a while longer."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course you would say that."
"What the hell do you mean? I'm not angry because of whatever reason you think I've hated him for. He's an arse to you, and he made you cry. So yeah, I'm pissed." Hermione crawled towards him with a soft smile. She came to sit between his legs, where they were stretched across the carpet.
"I know you're angry." She told him. "And if you hadn't punched him, I would have." He smirked at her words, grabbing her hand and bringing it up to his lips. "I'm glad he's remorseful. If he wasn't, we wouldn't move past this."
"Do you regret it?" He asked her suddenly, pulling her forward into his lap.
"Regret what?" Hermione tilted her head to the side, crossing her legs.
"Kissing me back. It's the reason your friendship with that prat is in danger, isn't it? Do you regret it?" He hesitated as he said the words, as if her answer might hurt him, and it only made her angry.
"You're not asking me that." She replied, grabbing his tie. "You don't get to ask me if I regret anything with you, Draco. Do you know why? It's because I'd do it all over again, no matter how much it hurt to get here." He swallowed. "Why are you asking? Do you regret it? Did last night change something for you? Was it not enough?"
"Enough." He cut her off. "Stop going off on a ridiculous tirade when you know I don't feel that way." She crossed her arms across her chest. "I'm asking because I nearly broke your friend's nose. Not to mention, I'm not against killing anyone who hurts you." She protested, only for him to cover her mouth. "And you knowing that I'm an arse, and what I did during that war, and what I am willing to do after, it makes me wonder how you can stand to look at me at all."
"Don't ask me if I regret it again." She told him, wrapping his tie around her knuckles. "And don't pull away either because let's face it, we're better together."
He glanced down at her iron grip on his tie, smirking to himself before his arms came around her waist. A squeak left her as she found her plate in the floor pushed aside as he laid her on the ground. "We're better together." He repeated, watching her eyes go wide. "I believe that."
"If you think for a second I'm going to shag you in the middle of the restricted section, you'd better," she was cut off by his lips pressing to hers. "Malfoy." She gasped, feeling him bite down on her lower lip, slipping his hands beneath her white button up.
"I think you need to let go. You're far too wound up, Granger." His voice was low as he moved his lips to her ear, hot breath fanning across her earlobe. She shuddered against him, her fingers fumbling to undo his tie. "There's time before Potions." He whispered to her, his right hand sliding up the outside of her leg.
"This is a library." She hissed into the silence, throwing his tie into the floor beside them.
"Yeah, and I've always wanted to fuck you in the library. All the fucking time I spent in here just because you were here."
"I didn't know that."
"Disillusionment charm, Granger." He mumbled, unbuttoning her shirt and watching in awe as she shrugged the thin oxford off.. "I never got tired of seeing you, even though I felt like a complete creep." He let out a throaty groan as her palm slid into his trousers, flicking the button open and pulling his zipper down.
"Were you thinking of me like this the entire time you were here?" She teased him, enthralled as his eyes darkened.
"Sometimes." He replied, lowering his mouth to to her throat. "Sometimes all I could imagine was bending you over the goddamn table. Other times all I could think was how much I regretted taking the Dark Mark." She stared at him, telling herself that she wouldn't grow teary eyed.
"I wish I'd known sooner." She whispered as he spread her legs apart, moving between them. "I would have believed you."
"I know you would have." He replied, slipping her pretty knickers down her legs and hiding them in his robe pocket with a smirk. "Even if I had told you the truth, it was dangerous. I couldn't have put a secret like that on you."
He entered her slowly, slower than he had the night before and his name slipped out as a whimper. She clawed at his back, clinging to him as he put her through the most exquisite kind of torture. "Draco."
"Quiet, Hermione, unless you want to be caught." He nipped at the shell of her ear, bringing her knee up, pressing farther into her. She choked on her moan.
"Cast," she dissolved into a mess as the pad of his thumb brushed against her clit. "A Silencing Charm, you prick."
"More fun seeing you struggle to stay quiet, love." She moved her hips against him. "Because I know you're dying to cry out, to tell me how good you feel when I'm buried inside of you."
"It's amazing." She murmured, pulling him down and sucking on the spot where she'd already left a mark on his neck. She welcomed the distraction from what was waiting for them when they left this space, stepping into reality once more.
"So wet for me." Draco's voice made her burn hotter, cursing as he drove into her. "So goddamn tight, and it drives me crazy."
She was a mess beneath him, digging her fingers into his hair while he took her on the floor of the library of Hogwarts. She'd never be able to study again without imagining the way he felt inside of her, making her feel impossibly full.
Draco yanked the cups of her bra down, exposing her breasts, and her hardened, pink tips. He bent his head, taking one into his mouth while his hair fell in his face. "Merlin." She hissed, struggling to keep her eyes open to take in the erotic sight.
"I want you to come for me, Hermione." He told her. "I want you to remember who's doing this to you, who takes you right over the edge."
She gasped as his thumb found her clit once more, his eyes a dark gray while he rubbed in low circles. "Draco, please." She found herself whimpering, begging for him to let her go. "God, let me."
There was no way to tell if it was the way he was thrusting into her, or the way he rubbed the bundle of nerves in just the right way that made her break apart. She closed her eyes as he pulled out of her, bending to kiss her sweaty forehead. "You're amazing." She muttered as she redid the buttons on her shirt.
"And you're the best thing that ever happened to me." He was wearing a lopsided grin as he said the words. Her cheeks were flushed as he pulled her from the ground. "Shit," she tilted her head as he cursed, raking his fingers through his hair.
"What's wrong?" She asked him, running her fingers over his bicep, and he flinched as she touched the mark he tried to hide.
"I forgot the charm." He mumbled, his cheeks tinging pink along with the tips of his ears.
"Oh, no." She gasped, watching the horror go across his face.
"There must be something Madame Pomfrey can give you so you can't get pregnant." He spoke quickly, stumbling over his own words. He was not at all the same, collected man who turned her mind into a mess with his words.
"No, Draco, I don't think there's anything she can do. You'll be a great father." She could only hold her straight face for three seconds as he stared at her, his jaw slack and his eyes wide. Hermione held her stomach as she burst into laughter.
"You're kidding. This is not a joke!"
She wiped away the tear where her eyes had watered from laughing so hard. "I've been on the potion since I've become sexually active, Draco. Since the end of fifth year."
"Then Theo was the,"
She cut him off, holding her hand up. "Do not finish that sentence as I really don't think you want to hear the words out loud."
"That bastard." He grumbled. "This wasn't funny, Granger."
"I thought it was. You should have seen your face."
"What else would you expect? For me to drop down on one knee and propose so you wouldn't have to deliver my bastard child?" She was still smirking as he growled the words at her.
"Well, you are sort of a traditionalist."
Draco didn't give her knickers back after they left the library. Nor did he allow her to clean the mess beneath her skirt with a wave of her wand and she wanted to kill him.
But he'd done what he set out to do, which was to distract her from what she was hiding from. It would have been easy to tell Headmistress McGonagall she needed a few days to process what had happened in Australia, or she could have said she was sore. But they were lies. The only way she could process the horrific ordeal they'd been through was to push forward. She was sore, but after the twelve hours she'd had, she wasn't thinking of her aching muscles.
Draco held her hand, his fingers slipping through hers in an effort to squelch her nerves. She looked up to him as they approached Potions, and they entered the room together.
Ron's eyes hurt her the most. He looked as if he weren't surprised they had finally come together. She knew that was okay. Ron had already noticed the two of them had this sort of magnetic pull to the other when it came down to it.
Draco had been right; her friend wasn't angry at all anymore. Under his eyes were dark, as if he'd spent the entire night awake while she had slept mostly peacefully with Draco at her side.
He wasn't angry, but he was inexplicably hurt. She would have known the look of a heart broken mess.
Hermione let go of Draco's hand, whispering to him. "I'm going to sit with him today." He nodded, taking his own seat beside Theo.
Hermione watched him tear his eyes away as she walked towards him, felt their classmates turn their heads to see the greatest row this side of the century. But that's not what Ron did. He pulled a chair out for her. "Do you mind if I sit here today?" She asked him.
"You can sit here everyday if you might forgive me." He replied, and his throat was hoarse. It broke something inside of her as she slumped into her seat, the cold chair meeting the back of her thighs.
"I'm getting rather good at that." She told him, opening her textbook as Professor Slughorn revealed their next assignment.
"I know we usually save this for Valentine's Day, but I think it would be a good way to end the month." She blanched in her seat, watching as her professor's eyes went from Draco to herself. Ron tensed beside her, ultimately relaxing after muttering to himself. "Our next potion assignment will take place at the end of the week. We will be brewing Amortentia. Who you are seated next to will be your partner for the lesson."
"Mione," Ron whispered to her. "If you didn't have bad luck, you would have no luck at all." She laughed, tried to anyways, but her voice broke in her throat.
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