A/N: Apologies for accidentally pasting chapter 7 of Stopover 2 over chapter 7 of this fic. Serves me right for wanting to make quick edits to two chapters of two stories at the same time…
Look out - lemons below!
Suitably showered and decently attired, Draco and Hermione bussed back to the Granger home. Once inside, they discovered a firmly locked study door, a vibrating china hutch with Crookshanks quivering behind it, and a bedraggled-looking Jean, slouched at the kitchen table with a brandy. A shivering Pigwidgeon sat on the table, wrapped in a flannel facecloth and perched lopsidedly on a half-hot hot rock.
Bird droppings patterned the floors and surfaces of the kitchen and hallway in ample quantities. A rhythmic thumping sound could be heard in the background.
'Oh! Hello, dears,' Jean said as happily as she could muster. 'I managed to lock the black owl in the conservatory. Draco, as our guest I hate to ask, but would you mind' –
'Not at all,' assured Draco. 'I'll sort him out right away.'
Hermione gripped his arm, her eyes round with worry. 'Be careful,' she whispered.
He nodded, and brandished his wand.
He followed a path of bird droppings to the conservatory. It didn't escape his notice that the thumping sound was getting louder.
'Wait!'
Draco whirled around. It was Hermione, creeping up behind him, clutching her wand and some owl treats. 'I thought you might need back-up,' she said in response to his raised eyebrows.
He wasn't sure whether to be comforted by her concern, or insulted by her assumption that he needed assistance with one measly owl. He parked the thought for later contemplation.
He led the expedition to the conservatory, where he discovered the origin of the thumps. A massive black owl was banging his head against the glass conservatory door. Draco presumed it knew it didn't have a hope of breaking out, so it was just doing it to intimidate the household.
Draco smiled. 'Fluffy!' he called cheerfully.
The black beast ceased its headbanging, looked up and fluttered calmly to a bamboo-framed sofa which, unfortunately, had now seen better days.
Hermione boggled. 'Fluffy?'
'It's Blaise's owl,' Draco said. 'He named him 'Fluffy' when he was a tiny little fuzzy owlet. I've known him for almost as long as Blaise has.'
He entered the conservatory. Fluffy gracefully settled on his outstretched arm and meekly stuck out its leg holding the now rather sorry-looking letter.
Relieved, Hermione handed Draco the owl treats. 'Enjoy your reunion!' she said, and headed back to the kitchen to read her own missive.
Draco fed Fluffy some treats and surveyed his prison cell. The owl was nothing if not thorough in his application of destructive force. Every cushion that once adorned the bamboo furniture had the stuffing literally ripped out of it. Nearly every potted plant in the room had been overturned and smashed, with plants and potting mix scattered over a liberal distance. The only pot plant that survived Fluffy's carnage was a tall, heavy palm tree, but going by the gouges in the soil and the claw marks on the pot, he'd given it a jolly good go. Bird droppings covered the floor where the soil didn't make it. He wrinkled his nose at the mess and the smell.
He shook his head at Fluffy. 'These people are my friends,' he gently chided.
Fluffy crunched on a treat and didn't give a toss.
Sighing, Draco unsealed Blaise's letter and read it.
A few minutes later, Draco entered the kitchen, clutching the letter. 'I'm sorry about the state of your conservatory,' he said apologetically to Jean. 'I'll fix the furniture. And the pots. And the plants. And the floor.'
Jean reached for the brandy and refilled her glass.
'How's Blaise?' asked Hermione, looking up from her letter.
'Yeah, he's good,' Draco replied, sitting next to her. 'He's invited us to stay with him in Italy for the rest of the holidays.'
'Ooh, that sounds lovely!' said Jean, looking and sounding a little woozy.
But Hermione was biting her lip.
'Is there a problem?' Draco asked.
'Well…' Hermione proffered her own letter. 'Molly Weasley's invited us to spend the rest of the holidays at The Burrow.'
'Ooh, that sounds lovely!' echoed Jean.
'Ah.' Draco exhaled.
They looked at each other cautiously.
'You know I won't be welcome at the Weasleys,' he said.
'You are welcome! Look, Molly invited you!' She rattled the letter.
His lip curled before he could stop himself.
Hermione's expression hardened. 'You don't want to go.'
'Well, we've got Blaise's invitation to consider,' he protested, dodging mightily.
She sneered. 'You're such a coward. And a snob.'
Draco's temper approached ignition. 'Blaise did want to kill me not too long ago,' he said in a deceptively light tone. 'If I refused to see him, would you still call me cowardly?'
She let out a loud breath. 'Ron won't be there,' she argued. 'It'll just be Molly, Arthur, the twins, Harry, maybe Bill and Fleur' – she stopped, her eyes wide.
Draco's eyes flashed and he crossed his arms. 'Yeah. And don't forget Weaselette, of course.'
Hermione turned pale. She'd never had to look Draco's previous life in the eye before.
Her heart hurt.
Not because of what he did with Fleur and Ginny; that was in the past. But she realised that if she and Draco were to have a future together, she'd have to spend time with her dear friends without Draco, and her time with Draco without her friends. The two never coming together.
What kind of life would that be?
She felt traitorous tears approaching from within.
In as even a voice as she could muster, she said 'Well, how about I stay at The Burrow, you stay with Blaise, and we'll meet up some time before college starts?'
Draco, oblivious to Hermione's mood, snorted with derision. 'Don't be ridiculous' –
'S-sorry, I just remembered something important I have to do!' stammered Hermione, bolting out of her chair and backing out of the kitchen. 'I-I won't be here for dinner after all, Mum. Sorry.'
Draco stared at the doorway, now bereft of a Hermione. A 'pop' of apparition confirmed her disappearance.
What the -
Jean topped up her brandy again. 'I think you just fucked up, dear,' she slurred.
'Mrrraow,' came doleful agreement from behind the china hutch.
Bewildered and annoyed, Draco set about making things right at the Granger household. He scribbled a quick note to Blaise, telling him there'll be a reply in the coming days. He opened the conservatory door to the garden and let Fluffy fly free.
Next, he spent a considerable amount of time cleaning and fixing the owl-abused items and surfaces around the house. After that, he knocked on the study door and told Andrew it was safe to come out and headed to the kitchen, where Jean was slouched over the kitchen table, asleep, with Pigwidgeon, also asleep, perched in her hair.
He cleaned the bird droppings and debris from the kitchen, coaxed a timid Crookshanks out from behind the china hutch, and retired to his bedroom to think.
While spell-casting wasn't a particularly physical activity, he did find that the energy he spent in putting the house to rights had tempered his temper, shall we say.
Lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling with Crookshanks rumbling on his chest, he saw a resolution to what earlier looked like an unresolvable problem. They could do one week at Chez Weasel, and one week at Blaise's. This Solomon-esque solution was sure to appeal to Hermione's sense of fair play.
He could tolerate a week of Weasels. How hard could it be?
But she wasn't angry when she left, was she?
He'd heard that hitch in her voice before, and it made him tense up every time.
She was trying not to cry.
If she missed the colony of Weasels that much, maybe he should let her go for the two weeks. He'd miss her like hell at Blaise's, but he could always avail himself of the Zabini's impressive drinks cabinet and drink himself into a stupor every night.
Now, where could she have gone?
He closed his eyes and thought hard of a place she loved to go to, where she felt safe and secure…
He opened his eyes, dumped Crooks on the bed, and stood up.
Hermione ran her fingers along the wrought-iron filigree of Hogwarts's entrance gates. She knew that with a simple Alohamora, she could traipse up the drive and take solace in any number of venues in the school, but…
I'm not a little girl anymore, she thought.
The winged boars, sentinels of the gates, looked on impassively.
She rubbed at her tear-stained cheeks.
I can't choose, she realised despondently. If Draco refuses to have anything to do with the Weasleys, or Neville, or Luna, that's the way it will have to be.
Maybe it won't be so bad.
Another tear slid down her cheek.
Why can't he just try?
The sound of footsteps from behind made her jump. God, how embarrassing, to be found bawling outside the school gates.
'I thought you'd be in the library,' a quiet voice said.
'That was my intention.'
Draco broke the awful silence that followed. 'Please turn around, love.'
Reluctantly, she did, forcing herself to meet his slate eyes with her ugly, puffy red ones.
He closed his eyes, as if in pain, before opening them once more. 'Hermione…' he whispered.
Three steps later, she was safe in his arms, with no daylight between them.
'I'm sorry,' he murmured against her hair.
'So am I,' she said, and sought his lips before the waterworks decided to start up again.
They sat together on a nearby fallen log.
In fits and starts, Hermione told Draco why she was upset. He listened in silence, feeling like a whopping great big bastard.
After all. It's just a week.
Might get some Quidditch games in.
So long as he slept with one eye open, making sure the ginger twins didn't permanently alter some part of his anatomy under the guise of one of their 'jokes.'
Draco took Hermione's hand. 'I was going to suggest that we spend one week at the Weasleys and one week at Blaise's, but if you want to spend both weeks there' –
'Wait a sec.' Hermione peered at him. 'You said 'we spend one week at the Weasleys.''
Draco sighed silently. 'Yep.'
She crawled onto his lap and hugged him. 'Thank you,' she murmured. 'And I'd love to spend a week at Blaise's place, so don't think you're getting rid of me that easily.'
He grinned, and they kissed a happy make-up kiss.
Soon, it became obvious that unless alternative arrangements were made, Draco and Hermione would soon be demonstrating to the local flora and fauna what it really meant to 'get back to nature'.
He freed his lips from her collarbone. 'I have an idea.'
With difficulty, he manoeuvred his phone past his erection and out of his pocket. He composed a text:
I've found Hermione, she's fine. But we'd like to have some time alone to talk through our disagreement in some privacy. I hope it will be okay if we make alternative arrangements for tonight.
He showed it to Hermione, who bit her lip, but nodded and said 'Send it.'
He sent the message to Jean's phone.
Five minutes later, Draco's phone beeped. There was a text and a photo attachment.
The text said:
Glad she's ok. Understand need for privacy. Will let Jean know when she wakes up. We'll see you when we see you. Andrew.
He seems to have a more rational view of the need for his wife's sex ed class, Draco noted.
He opened the attachment, and handed the phone to Hermione, smirking.
'Aww…' she cooed.
Andrew snapped a photo of Pigwidgeon, still perched in a sleeping Jean's coiffure, with Crookshanks shoehorned into her arms.
They apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, and exited onto London's Charing Cross Road. They hopped on the Line 24 bus, which took them to the top of Buckingham Palace Road. A few minutes later, they were back in their hotel suite, as if the past few hours never happened.
In the living room, Draco drew Hermione into his arms, acknowledging just how right she felt there. Even if she was a shorty.
'Do you want to talk?' he murmured.
She raised on her tiptoes and kissed him. 'We'll talk later.'
She took him by the hand and led him upstairs.
Hermione thought she wanted hard, fast, raw sex to exorcise the last few hours from her mind. But Draco assumed control and wanted the opposite.
However, when he laid her, naked, on the bed and entered her willing body so intimately, she remembered her mini-epiphany in the bathroom earlier that afternoon.
I need to accept there are things that Draco knows that I don't.
It appeared he knew her body better than she did.
Her pussy sealed around his cock, and she wrapped her slim legs around his waist, drawing him closer.
He hadn't moved since he entered her. Looking into his eyes, she saw love, rather than lust, reflected in them.
He spoke, and the words brought a lump to her throat.
'I'm arrogant, often insensitive, and sometimes I'll say the wrong thing. But never doubt me, Hermione Granger. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you. I never want to see you cry because of something I did or said. I love you. Always remember that.'
He kissed her with infinite tenderness. She felt her body react to his simple, but heartfelt words.
'What if you make me cry from happiness?' she whispered against his mouth.
He shook his head, smiling. And began to move inside her.
She knew it wasn't easy for him to say those words. He could have showed her with his body what she meant to him instead; she would have understood. But because he had to sacrifice some pride, she treasured those words all the more.
His movements inside her body were graceful, gentle and fluid. His silver gaze never left hers. She only had to lift her face a tiny fraction for their lips to meet. Her fingers wound through his hair, as did his fingers through hers.
His gentle movements made every part of her pussy feel languorous and tingly. When he shifted his pelvis to connect with her clitoris, the desire that strummed through her body almost shocked her.
His eyes darkened as she cried out. Keeping to the same rhythm, he lowered his blonde head to her breasts and licked one, starting from the underside and ending at a pink nipple.
'Oh, God…' Hermione breathed, lost.
He flicked his eyes up to her face, then pulled the nipple into his mouth and tugged with his teeth.
Her resulting cry rang in his ears and he drew in a breath at the feel of her muscles rippling around his cock in her infinitely wetter core. Slowly licking the nipple, he suddenly pinched the other one between his thumb and forefinger.
Her body bucked beneath his. 'Draco - dear gods, now,' she moaned.
He surged hard inside her, building up her pleasure to an almost unbearable level. She held him tight when she broke, moaning into his mouth when her entire body shuddered in release.
Draco let go, closing his eyes when his orgasm speared through him.
He lowered himself to the bed and drew her body against his.
They stayed that way for a long time.
Hermione felt fuzzy and light-headed. She didn't particularly like it, but she had little choice. She was sick of listening, or trying not to listen, to Parvati and Lavender giggle about cocks and positions and orgasms, and look down their noses (she suspected) at her virginal state.
She knew the pair were sexually active, but she suspected that most of their knowledge came from the Muggle romances she brought in. She couldn't imagine Ron with his 'iron-hard and throbbing tumescence plundering' Lavender's 'petal-soft folds of her womanhood.' Eww.
Anyway, she'd had enough, so by hook or by crook, she was bound and determined to lose her virginity before she went back to school. Not that she'd tell anyone. It would be her little secret.
Trouble was, the summer hols were drawing to a close, and she was still as pure as the driven snow. There were hardly any boys around her neighbourhood. It was like she got rejected in advance.
She had one shot left. The Dorchesters were coming over for a BBQ this evening.
As far as blokes went, Noah Dorchester wasn't bad-looking. He appeared to be going through a growth spurt, and his arms and legs seemed out of kilter with his torso. He had a prominent Adam's apple and a smattering of acne on his cheeks, but beggars can't be choosers, right? The number of times Malfoy's given her shit over six years about her hair stood testament to her beggar status. How he managed to come up with a unique and even witty insult every single damn time made her mind boggle.
She shoved Malfoy out of her mind. Arrogant dickhead.
On Noah's list of assets, he had nice brown hair and rather lovely green eyes. The braces had come off his teeth, so his smile was at least a seven out of ten.
Trouble was, he a pompous, slimy, self-centred plonker who favoured his own voice far above anyone else's.
Hence her fuzzy light-headedness. She figured three-quarters of a bottle of wine should have been enough to tolerate Noah's braying, but his voice still drilled a hole through her head.
Oh, well. No time like the present.
Hermione had a rather seductive speech planned, but when she cornered him in the utility room, she struggled to get a word in between his monologue on the subjects he was going to take next year at Eton, because that's where he went to school. Did she know that? Terribly prestigious school, didn't she know?
She sighed, and grabbed him by the v-neck of his cricket vest. In the infinitesimal pause he inadvertently granted her, she ordered 'Come up to my bedroom.'
Noah blinked, at a loss for words, possibly for the first time ever. 'Er. Why?'
She rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. 'That's why.'
Stepping back, she almost literally saw a light bulb switch on over his head. 'Oh, I say!' he brayed, leering at her.
She laid a finger on his lips. 'No talking,' she whispered, then led the way to her room.
She shoved Noah into her bedroom, then locked it and surreptitiously sound-proofed the room. It looked like Noah had never been in the bedroom of a girl he wasn't related to before, and he was gaping at her bookcases like he'd never even heard of a printing press.
He reached out to take a book, when he received a smart slap on the hand. 'Ow!'
He turned around to see Hermione glaring at him. 'No touching. Take your clothes off.'
For the second time, Noah struggled for words. 'Sorry, what?'
She crossed her arms. 'I want to have sex with you.'
Choirs of angels filled his ears with heavenly music as he boggled at her. In a trice, his shoes and cricket vest were scattered to the corners of her room, followed quickly by his t-shirt.
'Wait!' Hermione said as he gripped the fly of his shorts. 'Maybe we should take things a little slower,' she amended, biting her lip and looking at her toes.
As long as he got to attack her pink fortress with his turgid shaft (he secretly read his Mum's romance books), Noah didn't care. 'Whatever you say, angel,' he said, swaggering over to the bed, where she now sat.
He enthusiastically launched himself at her and pinned her to the bed. He devoured her lips with his, stabbing ineffectually with his tongue until she mentally rolled her eyes and opened her mouth for her first French kiss.
Well.
Hermione had no bloody idea why millions of people all over the world liked it. Her head was forced into the pillows by the power of his lunging tongue. He seemed so determined to conquer her throat with his tongue that he'd given up kissing her altogether. His mouth was just an open maw of uselessness. Saliva brimmed over her lips and drenched her lower face.
She wrenched her head to the side so she could breathe.
As she lay there, taking huge gasping breaths and rubbing saliva off her face, he smirked 'Took your breath away, did I?'
When she looked back at him in amazement, he swooped in for another go, mouth already open.
She stilled him with a hand to his sternum. 'I want to see your body,' she said as convincingly as she could muster.
Noah's eyes – and, for some reason, his nose – flared. He stood up, undid his shorts and yanked them down, hopping about the room to jettison them off his feet.
He has an okay body, Hermione surmised. A nice body, maybe? It seemed in proportion to the rest of him. His chest was lightly tanned, which surprised her.
After Noah escaped the evil clutches of his shorts, he stood before her in his underwear. Her eyes widened. His erection – of reasonable size - was straining against its confines, and there was a dark wet splotch at the end. She could practically see his cock pulse.
'I really want you, Hermione,' he said half-desperately, half-hopefully.
Well, d'uh, she thought.
She hopped off the bed. 'Lie down,' she tried to say in a sultry manner.
Half a second later, he was in place, watching her hungrily.
You can do this, you can do this, she said in her head, and removed her t-shirt.
'Oh, God!' Noah moaned, and plunged a hand into his undies.
Crikey, she thought, he's really beating away at it.
She took a breath, undid her shorts, and let them fall to the floor.
Noah's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.
Clad in her nicest matching bra and panties, she climbed onto the bed and straddled his erection. Hmm, it felt rather nice, rubbing along it. Noah uttered a loud groan. Notwithstanding the soundproofing spell, she put her fingers to her lips. 'Shh,' she said coquettishly, 'or I won't remove anything else.'
That shut him up. Rather effectively, in fact. A pity she couldn't utilise it on him outside the bedroom, when it was in most desperate need.
She leaned forward, but dodged his mouth when he proffered it up. Instead, she kissed his throat, collarbones, and moved her way slowly down his chest. She followed the line of hair that tracked from his navel and headed south, but stopped at his waistband.
She sat up, grinding lightly over his erection, playing idly with one of her bra straps.
Noah's face was red, and funny-sounding whimpers left his mouth.
Oh, well. Might as well get it over with.
She unclipped her bra, holding a hand over her front while she slowly peeled one strap, then the other, down her arms. His eyes bulged from their sockets. 'Hermione…' he moaned.
She peeled the bra away from her breasts, and dropped it on the bed. She brushed her fingers along the sides of each one, and –
'AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!' bellowed Noah, as his body bucked violently - and he made a rather large mess in the front of his undies.
'Argh!' screamed Hermione as she sat bolt upright in bed, shivering like a leaf.
'It's okay, love, it's okay,' came a quiet, calm voice next to her in the dark.
She reached out a hand, searching for Draco's touch. He pulled her into his embrace, rubbing a comforting hand over her back. 'It was just a dream,' he whispered against her cheek.
She clung to him. 'Oh, thank God,' she whispered in relief.
A/N: Aww, their first fight... but Draco gets a ten out of ten for making up!
I had some requests to document Noah and Hermione's 'premature' encounter. Hope you enjoyed it - but not as much as Noah did ;)
Thank you so much for reading my story, as always x