Today is Draco's birthday, so here you have another chapter! Right now I have no time to write/translate, but once I've done my exam (in two weeks) I'll have a lot of free time and I think I will post new chapters more frecuently.

Chapter Eighteen

Denial

His lips were ravishing hers. Draco couldn't fight his smile when he saw Hermione giving up and getting carried away. He pressed her more between the passage wall and his body, slowly lifting her jumper and tracing mindless patterns on the skin of her waist with his fingers.

Hermione sighed over his lips, Draco's hands were giving her goosebumps. One of her hands tangled deeper in his blond locks and the other went down his chest, wrinkling his white shirt.

Draco tilted his head a bit, deepening the kiss and trying to control himself so he didn't rip off her clothes in one go. He knew that Hermione wouldn't react well to that, it was a better idea to slow down, breaking down the walls she had built in a gentle way.

Hermione regained consciousness when both of his hands landed on her back, trying to unhook her bra. She pulled away as much as she could from his lips.

"Draco, stop... I don't want this" she mumbled, gasping for air.

"Of course you want, liar. You want this as much as I do."

Hermione looked away and sighed.

"I told you I have feelings for you. I can't be in this kind of relationship. I tried, but I just can't do it."

He moved his hands, holding her face.

"Are you sure about it? You never had a friend with benefits before, I think that you are a little confused."

Hermione bit her lower lip for a moment, trying to calm down and think. Draco was right, her experience with boys was limited to Ron, and with him it had been a serious relationship from the very beginning, once they shared their first kiss.

"I really like you, I think you are the girl I've liked the most since I came to Hogwarts. It's nice talking to you and you drive me wild, but I'm not in love with you. Don't you think you feel the same way about me?" he added, staring at her with an intense look.

She smiled, it felt good to know that she was the girl who he had liked more in his entire life. When Draco saw her lips curving, he arched a brow and hit his forehead with one hand.

"The year the Veelas came doesn't count, though. Those girls were better than any other human" he said, snickering.

Hermione's smile faded away and he laughed out loud.

"I was just kidding... well, not really" he murmured with a teasing voice, kissing her again.

She grunted and punched him on the chest.

"I'm not sure, Draco... I think I feel something else. I'm always nervous when you are close and my heart starts pounding... and I think a lot about you" she admitted in a low voice, trying to get away from him.

"Those things also happen to me. It's okay to feel like that when you like somebody, but it doesn't mean that you are falling in love."

She looked into his grey eyes again and frowned, confusion entering her mind.

"And what if you are also falling in love with me?"

Draco rolled his eyes before giving her an answer.

"I'm not, believe me. But I want to stay like this, we can have fun together until we are satisfied and it doesn't have to end in bad terms. We can still be friends when it's over."

"I think that, if we don't stop now, one of us will suffer in the end... and I suspect it will be me" she said, making a face.

He rubbed her jawline with the tip of his nose.

"We have a lot of chemistry, you can feel it too. Do you really want to give up on this?" he whispered, running his hands up her legs and stroking her thigh under the skirt.

She nibbled at her own lip again when her skin crawled. Draco knew what he was doing to her body and he was taking advantage of it.

He was smiling like he could read her mind. His lips were on hers again, starting with a soft kiss but increasing the intensity more and more. Draco still had no idea why he didn't like kissing other girls, but he loved to kiss Hermione.

She couldn't take it any longer. His lips and the citric smell of Draco was making her dizzy, and being so close to him after so many days keeping her distance was too tempting.

All her body was burning, wanting to be touched by him. Hermione turned off her brain and chose to try again, perhaps Draco was right and it wasn't love what she was feeling.

She took her wand out with one hand, pointing at herself and mumbling some words.

"The contraceptive charm?" Draco asked, searching her gaze.

She nodded, her cheeks blushed and her breath heavy.

Draco smiled and kissed her desperately, taking off her clothes piece by piece. He had managed to convince her, and now he would make Hermione forget of all that nonsense she had said about feelings.

When all their clothes were on the floor, he lifted her up using his arms and she put her legs around his hip instinctively, not breaking the kiss.

The torch went out but none of them said anything, they didn't need the light. They kept hugging and kissing each other in the middle of the dark as their bodies fused together.

Draco made sure the corridor was empty before leaving the statue. Hermione followed him a few seconds later, he helped her jump down and straightened her robes with a twisted smile on his lips.

"You are so soft, I love your skin" he whispered, touching her neck softly.

Hermione threw him a look of hatred and moved away, looking around.

"Someone can see us, Draco. Don't touch me like this in public."

"Where were you going when I caught you? The library?" he asked, raising a brow.

Hermione nodded, though after what had happened between them she wanted anything but study.

"What if we go outside and read for a while? It's not snowing anymore" Draco suggested, moving his feet towards the library.

"Together?" she asked, a little shocked.

He shrugged.

"Sure. Everybody knows we are classmates and that we get along now. I don't see the problem."

Both of them picked a book and walked to the castle grounds, sitting under a tree far away from the Black Lake.

"I never thought you'd like reading so much. I thought you were a brainless boy like your friends before I really knew you" Hermione mentioned, looking askance at him.

She heard Draco's chuckle.

"And I thought you had your nose stuck in a book the whole time."

She stuck out her tongue.

"You are nicer than I expected too. You were always bad-tempered and with a dark face the last few years, but you smile a lot around me."

"We are very different, I think you won't judge me because you are also doing things that you wouldn't normally do... so I feel free when I'm with you, and I can just relax" he said in a quiet voice, his eyes focused on his book.

Hermione frowned. Draco was also feeling things he hadn't felt before... no matter how much he denied it. She looked at the lake and pursed her lips.

"What are you going to do with the mermaid?"

Draco looked up, his face like stone.

"I will go to the restricted section tonight, with Pansy. I need to know why that thing is chasing me."

"When Dumbledore was alive, he had an agreement with them. I remember he could speak their language. But now he's not here anymore, so the merpeople think they can do what they want... maybe we should tell a professor about it."

"And let everyone know that a mermaid bewitched me? No way, I don't want people to know that. I'll figure this out" he grunted with a deep voice.

She sighed, looking down at the book about the meaning of dreams.

"So you are Weasley's friend again?"

Hermione looked at Draco, that was an unexpected question.

"Why do you say that? Don't tell me you are jealous" she asked with a mocking voice.

"Of course not, I'm just curious. Besides, I know he's doing quite well with the Slytherin girl. Everybody in my house is always talking about them and I'm fucking sick of it."

Hermione tried so hard not to laugh, it was so funny when Draco talked like that. She was not used to it, none of her friends were like him, so raw and honest with his words.

"We talked recently, and we decided to be friends again. Being around each other is getting easier each day" she answered with a sigh.

Draco nodded and said nothing else, getting lost in the book he was reading.

"Hermione?"

She looked up and found the surprised look of Harry not very far from them. Draco glared at him and she got to her feet.

"See you tomorrow, you have to tell me what you find out."

He nodded, still looking at Harry with disgust as Hermione walked away from him.

"What were you doing with him?" Harry questioned his friend once she was next to him.

"Nothing special, we get on well and we're starting to be friendly with each other" she said, waving a hand and entering the castle.

"If someone told me that you would be Malfoy's friend this year, I would have bet thousands of galleons against it" he said, giggling.

"He is not as bad as he pretended to be all these years, Harry."

"He's still a huge prick to me" he answered with a grimace.

They climbed the stairs to their common room together, talking about what they were going to do during the Christmas break. Harry would go to Ron's house, but Hermione had nowhere to go... her parents lived in another country and didn't remember her, the only family she had left were her friends, and she didn't know if it was a good idea to go to her ex-boyfriend's home.

"Talk to him, I'm sure Ron won't mind if you come" Harry proposed before getting close to the fireplace, where Ginny and Ron were chatting.

"I found it!"

Draco hissed to shut up his friend and walked to her, lighting the book she had in her hands with his wand.

"Right here, Draco. Granger was right" Pansy whispered, pointing at a paragraph.

His face got darker with every word he read.

'Merpeople love the pain of others. Any human with emotional issues is at risk of being influenced by their magic. There are not many registered cases, but unhappy or miserable people can easily fall under their spell. Merpeople will try to catch them and eat their human hearts filled with sorrow and resentment, which will increase their power. This way, they will be able to ascend hierarchically in their species.'

"Well, I'm fucked up" he murmured, closing the book and putting it back to the place Pansy had found it.

Both of them sneaked out from the restricted section and went back to their common room as fast as they could, hiding behind tapestries and columns to avoid the professors who were patrolling the corridors that night.

Once they were finally safe, Pansy grabbed one of Draco's shoulders.

"What makes you feel so much sorrow or resentment that a mermaid can detect it and come for you? Do you know?"

"I guess it's the relationship with my parents. They were never really fond of me but, when they sold me to the Dark Lord like my life didn't matter to them, it hurt me. I had to do a lot of things to protect their arses and they didn't even thank me for it" he said, walking to the male dorm's stairs and avoiding her gaze.

"You have to stop feeling like that or you'll end up in the bottom of the lake, with your heart ripped out."

Draco gave her a death stare and entered his dorm without saying goodbye.

We're halfway now... eighteen more chapters to go!

I'm on Twitter now. I want to meet dramione fans so I can talk about it with someone (my friends don't like the ship :( and I have no one to talk about them) If you are into the dhr twt fandom, find me! My username is the same as here.