The next morning, Hermione fumbled around with her wand again, which self-importantly shrieked that it was one hour past half past six. She groaned and rubbed her eyes. Maybe her revision schedule was a little too ambitious?
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she winced as a twinge throbbed low in her belly. Just wonderful, Hermione grizzled to herself as she heaved herself up. Her monthly must be on its way.
Oh well. At least she didn't have to shower and change at the speed of light like yesterday. But her Runes revision is going to be sorely lacking.
At breakfast, Hermione ate toast and sipped tea with her Runes texts fanned out on the table in front of her. Consequently, no one could sit within a metre of her.
Draco was always aware whenever Hermione was nearby. Even if she was sitting at another table. Every morning, his stress levels rose until he could see that she was okay. Not in pain. Not confused. Not phenomenally pissed off. Today, she seemed... fine. Just tired. She smothered a yawn with her hand while scratching a note on her ever-present parchment.
He felt himself yawning in response.
"Oh, don't start," Blaise snarled, pouring another cup of coffee. "If you don't want to yawn your way through breakfast, you should go to bed at a decent hour."
"Sorry I woke you," Draco snarked. "Some of us have exams to think about."
"You're not the only one," Blaise snapped and left the table.
Draco stared moodily at his coffee. It wasn't like he didn't try to go to bed at a decent hour. He tried his best to stay away from Hermione. But she was addictive. He was starting to crave her like a thirsty man craves water. And so, despite his healthy sense of self-loathing, he continued.
To see her. To touch her. To taste her. To fuck her.
To possess her.
Then - obliviate her.
Neville caught up with Hermione just as she was about to enter the Potions classroom. "I've decided to do it," he announced breathlessly.
"Wonderful!" Hermione exclaimed. "Do what, exactly?"
I'm quitting Potions and taking up Care of Magical Creatures instead!"
It wasn't often that Hermione could be silenced, but this was one of those rare occasions. While staring at Neville like a stunned mullet and trying to come up with a suitable response that didn't start with a Gryffindorish "Are you out of your bloody mind?" Blaise stuck his hopeful head into the gap between the pair.
"Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear," he smarmed - trying to look apologetic but he was still an opportunistic Slytherin so it didn't really work - "that Longbottom won't be needing your tutoring time after all, Granger."
Granger turned her gobsmacked head to him. "Uh" –
"In which case, I was hoping you might be able to throw a couple of hours of tutoring time my way for Muggle Studies? We've just started on Shakespeare and I swear it's worse than Muggle idioms! I mean, what in the name of Merlin does 'To be, or not to be:' mean?"
Hermione's eyes briefly met Draco's, who was standing behind Blaise. They were cold, and a chill ran over her body. What's got his knickers in a knot? she wondered, bewildered.
"Um..." Hermione's head whirled. "I... guess? How about after dinner this evening, and you can show me the worst of what you don't understand."
"Yes!" Blaise leapt into the air and held his hand up to Draco for a high five, but Draco just swept past him into the classroom. Settling for a second-rate palm slap with Longbottom instead, Blaise beamed at Hermione and said "You've saved my life! I am in your debt." Then he floated into the classroom on cloud nine and settled himself next to a quietly seething Malfoy.
So, Draco couldn't see Hermione tonight. Blaise put paid to that. Bloody cockblocker.
He tried telling himself it was just as well. The more time he tried to spend with Hermione, the higher the chances were that someone would see them.
If someone saw them and told Hermione about something she had no recollection of, it would be the beginning of the end. For them.
For him.
He'd be bloody lucky to avoid Azkaban, given he was still on probation from the Ministry for his involvement in the war.
Stealing a young woman's memories.
He was the lowest, most loathsome piece of shit ever to crawl upon this earth.
He left the Slytherin common room, where he'd been sulking in a silent rage and terrifying the First Years since the end of dinner, and headed down to the Quidditch grounds.
He grabbed a practice broom and flew around the pitch in circles until he went cross-eyed.
The next morning, Hermione woke at half past six on the button, fully rested and refreshed. Lovely! She was on top of the world again.
After showering, she dressed and headed to the Library to get a good bout of Charms revision completed. Feeling most satisfied with herself, she headed briskly to the Great Hall for breakfast – or, at least, she tried to – but a green-tied blonde bloke sidled up and took her to one side.
"What's up?" Hermione asked warily over the stampede of many feet into the Hall, considering the strop he was in for most of yesterday.
Draco looked very shame-faced. "I wanted to apologise for my uncooperative mood yesterday. I wasn't in a good place."
Hermione could sympathise. There probably wasn't a soul in the castle (except maybe the First Years) who didn't have some rough nights to get through. Or days. And Draco had experienced more than his fair share of evil shit.
Not that other people felt that way. Like Ron.
"No harm done," she smiled. "But you know if you ever want to talk" -
"To find you. I know," Draco smiled briefly. Except there was no damn way he would ever give her insight into even an iota of the swirling black nightmares jostling for space with arithmancy equations and Quidditch plays in his head.
"What about Zabini?" Hermione asked. "You were pretty rotten to him yesterday."
Colour stained Draco's cheeks. "It's sorted," he said vaguely.
"You mean, you punched each other in the arm until someone called pax?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
Boys.
"Well, let's head inside," Hermione suggested, segueing into the crowd and leading him by the hand. "I've just finished a most productive revision session on Charms and I feel like having a poached egg with hollandaise sauce on toast. Maybe even two!"
Draco smiled to himself and followed her in to the Hall.
But that same evening, Draco was going to be disappointed again.
When Hermione sat down at the Gryffindor table for dinner, three girls immediately jumped into place before and either side of her. Ginny was the ringleader.
"You." Ginny pointed a fork at Hermione. "None of us have seen hide nor hair of you in yonks."
Hermione opened her mouth to question the logic of that statement, but Parvati got in first. "You've been spending all the spare time you have in the Library and it's not good for you. You need a break."
"In fact, one time I went to the Library and I couldn't even find you!" Luna added. "The spriggans must have been hiding you from inquisitive eyes."
The others knew better than to ask Luna what she meant. And since Hermione was certain that she'd been in the Library every evening since term started (unless she was on Prefect duty), Luna was probably not looking with all faculties.
"So tonight," Ginny continued, "is going to be a girls' night in. Just us four. Fully catered!"
"Fully catered?"
"Well, we've pooled together what we've got left from our last trip to Hogsmeade. And George gave me some Firewhisky as a 'commiserations for going to back to school' present, which I've been saving for a rainy day," Ginny said smugly.
"But" –
"We're not taking 'no' for an answer, Granger!" Parvati said firmly. "Honestly, you look exhausted. Just have one evening off with us. Might do you a world of good."
Hermione briefly met Draco's eyes as he passed by their table. "You're not going to accept any answer but 'yes,' are you?" she sighed.
"Nope."
"In that case, how can I possibly refuse?"
"Yay!" the girls cheered, and Draco slipped out of the Great Hall.
Despite the niggle in the back of Hermione's mind about the amount of revision time she was losing and when she could make it up, she had a lovely time with the girls that evening. Sitting cosily in the Gryffindor Seventh Year girls' dorm room, the young ladies passed around goodies from Honeydukes and got progressively tipsier and tipsier on Ginny's Firewhisky.
Conversation, naturally, turned to the usual topics that come up when a group of teenage girls congregates: boys and sex.
"So," Ginny demanded, with all the confidence of someone sporting an engagement ring on her hand: "how far have you ever gone with a boy, and who was the lucky fella?"
Amidst giggles, Parvati fessed up to getting to third base with Dean Thomas (the ladies squealed in approval); and Luna rather matter-of-factly delivered a rather erotic tale of skinny-dipping in the Black Lake with an apparently well-endowed Neville Longbottom.
Ginny, of course, had been there, done that and bought the t-shirt with Harry Potter, so she had to be shushed after she'd monologued for fifteen minutes about all the naughty things they did during a hotel stay in Muggle London (with Hermione pressing her hands over her ears for most of it – she loved Harry and Ginny both, but she didn't need chapter and verse on what Harry's penis looked like and which way it curved when erect).
All eyes turned to Hermione.
"Uh, so… you and Ron?" Ginny asked, a tad nervously. Like Hermione, she wasn't exactly desperate to hear what her brother's dick was capable of doing. But: in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
"Yeah…" Hermione started, but trailed off. She tried again. "Well, there was an attempt," she began.
Parvati raised her eyebrows. "An attempt at what?"
Hermione blushed. "To have sex. With me."
"But…" Luna encouraged.
Hermione glanced at Ginny, and blushed even more. "He kind of… finished before it began," she muttered.
Ginny sat bolt upright on her bed, then collapsed onto her pillows, shrieking with laughter. "Omigods," she chortled, "that is the funniest thing" –
"Don't tell him you know!" Hermione pleaded, throwing a pillow at Ginny. "If his brothers ever found out he'll never have a moment's peace! And he'll throttle me for spilling the beans."
"I thought he'd gone all the way with Brown," Parvati mused. "But maybe not."
The girls briefly sobered and shared a toast to the memory of Lavender Brown.
"Anyway," Ginny continued, "that was Ron. Are there any other boys you'd like to tell us about, Hermione?"
"No!" she laughed. "Where would I find the time to shag anyone here?"
"True," the others chorused as one. Clinking their drinks again, they started their next discussion: 'Which Professor is the most shaggable and why?'
Down in the Slytherin dormitory, Draco lay on his bed, spelled the curtains together so tight that not even a dust mote could fight its way through, silenced the area and stared up at the canopy ceiling.
His restless mind floated to his most favourite memory of his times with Hermione. The time she gave her virginity to him.
Draco could barely believe his luck. After stuttering out a confession of his feelings for Hermione when they were both secreted in a dark corner of the Library, she blushed to the roots of her hair and admitted she found him devilishly attractive. And much nicer, personality-wise. No matter how attractive she found Draco, she told him, she would never even contemplate kissing him if he was still an arsehole.
Fair enough, Draco agreed, and drew her to him for their first kiss.
Some time later – who knows how long – they'd managed to make headway into each other's clothes, exploring each other in between heated kisses. But just as Draco's long fingers approached her clitoris, she clamped a hand on his wrist and shut down.
"...I'm a virgin," she muttered when Draco coaxed her back into conversation.
Of course. Draco drew her into his embrace and whispered over the top of her head "Would you like to go somewhere more comfortable? You dictate the pace and what we do. I'm happy just to be with you."
Hermione lifted her head, met his eyes and nodded shyly.
He took her to the Room of Requirement. The eye-watering tapestry of ballet-dancing trolls was gone, and a replacement was yet to appear. When Draco opened the door that formed across the castle wall, he was pleased to see that the room had provided a simple tableau of a four-postered bed, a small table with a box sitting on it, and altogether surrounded by dozens of lit candles, either sitting on the floor or on stands – the only illumination the room needed.
"It's amazing," Hermione whispered, looking around.
"Do you feel okay?" Draco asked, one of the many times he would pose that question tonight.
Hermione nodded, and removed her robe. "Very okay."
Draco kissed her, picked her up and carried her to the bed.
Draco had probably been with virgins before, but he was too caught up in his own self-gratification to care much. This time would be different.
He slowly undressed her, kissing every part of skin that lay exposed to him. When she was nude, he stopped and stared – she was simply stunning, from the way her curls tumbled over the pillow to her toes, and everything in between. He'd forgotten that he was still clothed, and quickly divested himself before slowly approaching her and lying between her legs.
With her permission, he tasted the core of her for the first time, and it was almost too much. His erection throbbed almost angrily, desperate to join in the fun. But he ignored it and used his fingers and tongue to bring Hermione to a body-tensing, trembling orgasm in which she gripped his hair and cried out his name.
He felt ten feet tall. Taller.
Much, much later, he lay on the bed behind her, bringing her body close to his. His erection nudged the small of Hermione's back, and she arched, causing exquisite sensations to run along his cock. Nestled in the crook of his arm, he gently moved her legs apart so he could rest his erection at the entrance to her core. It was slick with liquid from Hermione's orgasms, and he also added a lubricant for good measure. He would do everything possible to make it as painless as possible for her.
He took her hand and gently kissed it before slowly feeding his cock inside her.
That was the best moment, Draco thought. When she reacted to his intrusion with a low gasp and whispered his name out loud.
Wrapping himself around her, he listened to her body and eased in when she moaned, and stopped when she tensed. Eventually, she found herself full with him and closed her eyes, feeling the stretch his erection demanded of her. She breathed in and out.
"Thank you," Draco whispered into her hair. And despite the strangeness of this foreign body inside her, she felt warm and safe lying in his arms.
She canted her hips experimentally, and Draco hitched his breath. Gods, that felt good.
"Move for me, Draco," she whispered.
Hardly daring to breathe, he slowly withdrew – and just as slowly, entered her again.
"Omigods," she moaned into the pillow, and encouraged, Draco repeated the moment. This time, she moved, too, in time to meet his thrust.
"Yes," Draco muttered, slowly increasing momentum until they moved in perfect sync with each other. He took Hermione's hand and placed it low on her belly with his hand on top, so she could feel his cock surging in and out of her body through her skin.
The effect was electric. "Draco, yes!" Hermione wailed, and he could barely believe it, but her cunt started to spasm around him.
"Come for me, love," he urged, managing to keep a lid on his base urges to fuck her body into the mattress. Not this time.
No sooner had he spoken when Hermione cried out and her entire body went rigid against him – then she orgasmed with intense ferocity over Draco's cock. It was, without doubt, the most powerful experience he'd had in his life. And although he was still young, it couldn't be denied that he'd had a lot of experiences. Ones he never wanted to go through again.
He spilled into her shortly afterwards, then slowly withdrew, finding her flushed, pleased face and kissing it all over.
Summoning his wand, he carefully scourgifed themselves, and asked if she wanted him to perform a post-contraception charm. She nodded, and she lazily watched his wand movements swoop over her belly. His fingers were so graceful. He could be a concert pianist.
"Wish we could stay the night here," Hermione murmured, and Draco initially agreed in silence. Except what would she think in the morning – waking up next to such a dissolute bastard such as he? She'd probably scream, curse him and bolt out of the door, thoroughly regretting that she lost her virginity to him. McGonagall might send the Aurors after him to ask him nasty questions about rape.
He felt his body cool and tense. Hermione noticed, and looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?" she asked. A question she asked him a lot.
He did his best to smile. "Of course, love," he replied, pasting on a smile. "This has been one of the best evenings I've ever had."
That last sentence was true, and he took her lovely face in both hands and kissed her like a dying man desperately wishes for just one more breath of air.
All good things, however, come to end, and it was time for Hermione and Draco to depart the Room. At the door, Draco drew Hermione into a hug and whispered "I really hope you're not too sore tomorrow. Feel free to hex me if you are."
Hermione laughed. "I'm sure I'll cope. Billions of other women have managed."
Draco smiled, and kissed her one last time. "Do you want an escort back to your room?" he asked.
"No," she smiled, " you've got such a long way back to your dorm and you have a higher chance of running into Mrs Norris and Filch. They're not really into going up stairs, now."
Draco nodded, then stretched out a hand to tuck a curl of hair behind Hermione's ear. "See you tomorrow, then?"
Hermione blushed prettily. "You know it."
Hermione stepped out of the door and Draco followed suit. He watched the door disappear into the grey stone, then took a deep breath, disillusioned himself, silenced his footsteps and followed Hermione at a short distance until she was just outside her door.
Hating himself, he raised his wand and obliviated her.
There's no way in Hades she would want to be with me, he thought sadly. A fucking ex-Death Eater. I should never have slept with her. Or took her virginity! What the fuck was I thinking? She needs someone like... well, not Weasley. Or McLaggen, that twat. There's bound to be someone that's better for her than me. She'll find him.
In the meantime, am I going to be able to stop myself from being with her again?
Salazar Slytherin, give me strength...
A/N: more to come