Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own HP. Sigh. I also don't own Cosmopolitan. The stuff in this chapter came straight from the April issue (my mom started reading it and was like, what the heck is this magazine?). Gotta love it.
**************************
Sunday slipped past Hermione, and Monday dawned all too soon. She groaned while rolling out of bed.
"Oh crap!" Hermione cried as she rolled a bit too far and fell off the mattress. "Ughhhhhhhh." She groaned. Hermione leaned her head back, crashing it into the nightstand. Her clock fell off the edge and slammed onto her head. "OWWWWWWWWWW!" she yelled. "That hurt." Hermione rubbed her head. "Oh shit!" she cried, glancing at the clock. "Class starts in twelve minutes!"
Hermione scrambled up and pulled off her pajamas while pulling on some acceptable clothes at the same time. "Great. The one day I oversleep is the day I look terrible." She bushed her teeth and shoved random parchment and books and quills into her bag. "Crap crap crap!" Hermione said, pulling on her robes and fastening them quickly.
She raced out the door, checking her watch. "Great, six minutes." Hermione tore down the hallways, twisting up her hair and sticking a quill in it as she went. The shorter wisps fell out and into her eyes. "This is just GREAT." She thought. "Snape will kill me if I'm late."
Hermione turned the corner without watching where she was going. In her haste she ran directly into someone walking in the opposite direction.
"Oh my God Professor McGonagall I am SO sorry." Hermione quickly gathered up the spilled contents of her bag. "I-I'm late to potions and I just wasn't watching where I was going, really, I'm so sorry."
"It's alright, Miss Granger. Just please watch out in the future, if you could." She continued on her way.
"Great." Thought Hermione. "That was real good." But she really didn't have time to yell at herself; the three minutes she had to get down to the dungeons was currently a bit more pressing.
Hermione sighed and continued her speed-run down the hall. She descended the steps as quick as possible and burst into the classroom door seconds after her watch beeped for eight.
Suddenly Hermione stepped on the hem of her robes and gave a cry as she toppled to the floor. Snape's voice immediately filled the room.
"MISS GRANGER! I WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH A DISRUPTION TO MY CLASS! I WOULD EXPECT MORE FROM A STUDENT LIKE YOU! TWENTY-FIVE POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR FOR SUCH AN INTERRUPTION."
Hermione sat up, wincing. "For God's sake, the class didn't even start yet." She muttered.
"I heard that." Snape sneered. "See me after class to schedule a detention." Hermione sighed and stood up, limping over to her seat next to Harry. From across the room she heard Malfoy sneer,
"Very nice, Granger. Graceful." All his Slytherin friends laughed. Snape began to talk, and Hermione let her head fall forwards onto the table. This day totally sucked, and she'd only been up for sixteen minutes.
~~~The Great Hall- Dinner~~~
Hermione slammed her books onto the table and dropped into her seat. Her robes were disheveled and her frizzy hair was falling out and sticking up.
"Bad day?" asked Harry.
"Ugh." Was all Hermione could manage. "Where's Ron?" she asked.
"Over there." Harry said, pointing to where Ron sat with Dean and Seamus.
"Still?" asked Hermione, her mouth full of apple. "He dumped me two weeks ago. He should just get over it and take the uncomfortable awkwardness like a man!" She ran a hand through her unkempt bun. "I mean, shouldn't I be the one who's avoiding him? He hurt me, ya know?" she shoved some more food in her mouth. "I mean, what is his problem?" she asked through her mouthful of bread.
"He got hurt too." Harry said. "He really liked you, you know."
"Yeah I know." Said Hermione. "Look at him. Trying to act like his life is
normal. Over there with his little friends. It disgusts me."
"Hey, chill out." Harry said. "Yeah, maybe he could deal with it better. But this is just what he does, I guess."
"Well this is what I do." Growled Hermione. "So either make fun of him or get lost." Harry rolled his eyes. They both turned to look at Ron, who was indeed joking.
"You okay today, Hermione?" he asked. "You seem a bit, well, different."
"I'm fine." She said quickly. "Just uh, tired and stressed and sick of dealing with thiswholeRonthingyouknow?" she shoved some more food into her mouth to shut herself up.
"Um, maybe you should start getting more sleep or something. You look kinda wired." Harry said. They both turned to look at Ron again.
As Harry and Hermione watched, a tall, large chested girl with perfectly straight honey colored hair sauntered over to where Ron was sitting.
"Who's that?" scoffed Hermione.
"Um I don't know." Harry said quickly. "Hey you know, I have to go to the library to look for a uh, um, you know, one of those, uh you know, books. You wanna come with me and help me find it? C'mon." Harry pulled on her arm. "Come on. Yeah, let's go to the library. C'mon, let's go."
"Harry! Stop pulling on me. Who's that girl?" she asked again.
"Um I don't know." Harry said. "C'mon, library, now."
"Harry." Hermione pulled her arm out of his grasp.
"Hey! Look at that pork!" cried Harry, shoving some into her mouth. But the pork soon fell out of Hermione's open mouth as the girl leaned over and started to French Ron.
"I'm sorry, Hermione." Harry said quietly. Hermione blinked a few times.
"What the hell?" she asked. "What-who is that girl?" she demanded. Harry sighed.
"Her name's Sara." He said reluctantly. "Ron went out with her last night."
"I'm guessing they had a pretty good time." Hermione said sarcastically. They watched as Sara stood up and left with a little wave to Ron. "So they go out and suddenly she's Frenching him in front of the entire school? What's going on here?" she asked. "Was he going to tell me?"
Ron looked over and noticed Hermione watching him. A guilty look came over his face and he stood up and headed over to where she was sitting.
"I'm sorry, I have to go." Hermione stood up and grabbed her bag off the table.
"You should talk to him." Harry said to her.
"I don't want to talk." Her anger had faded and now Hermione could feel tears forming in her eyes. "He broke up with me because I wouldn't sleep with him, after he told me he was falling in love with me, and now two weeks later he's found some new girl and they're making out in front of the rest of the school. I need to go. Really, I just need to go and think. I'll be okay, but I can't be here."
"Okay." Harry said. "But… you should talk to him. Really." By this time Ron had reached their table.
"Hermione, I-" he began.
"See you later." She said, quickly hurrying away.
"Hermione, please, wait! Let me explain." Ron said. Hermione turned around to face him.
"I'm waiting." She said. Ron took a deep breath.
"I know what that looked like." He began. "And I'm sorry about her. I should've told you I was seeing someone new."
"Yeah, you should've." Said Hermione.
"I'm sorry, really." Said Ron. "I don't meant to hurt you. It's just, we both need to move on, don't we?" he asked.
"You're moving on after two weeks? When we almost-"
"It had to happen sometime." Ron said.
"Fine." Said Hermione.
Suddenly, she didn't want to confront Ron. She didn't want to scream at him for making out with a girl so soon after his lips last touched hers, she didn't want to make him feel bad for not sharing his plans with her, she didn't want to ask if he had even meant it when he said he was falling in love with her.
She just wanted to cry. Or hit a pillow. Or throw darts at his picture. Or something.
"Fine, Ron. But I have to go now so good-bye." Hermione spun around, hoping that Ron and Harry hadn't seen the tear falling from her eye.
~~~Hermione's Room~~~
"UGH!" she cried, throwing her bag onto her bed. It slammed into her nightstand and knocked off all her magazines and stray pieces of parchment. Hermione sighed and collapsed onto her bed, letting her tears fall. Hadn't Ron loved her, sort of? Hadn't she loved Ron?
"I would've had sex with him that night. If it hadn't been for my stupid past, it would have been so perfect." She thought. Hermione rolled over and let her tears fall onto her pillow.
"I'm never going to get him back competing against that girl." She thought. Could the lessons with Malfoy even help? Right now, she was hurt, yes. But on some level she understood that Ron was moving on. He wasn't being very brave about it, but yes. His life was going forward. Her hopes of winning Ron back were basically dead now. That girl had been beautiful, with straight hair and perfect curves. From that one glimpse Hermione knew this girl was probably an expert in the bedroom, too.
But that was what her lessons were for, weren't they? Sure, she was embarrassing herself with Malfoy, and she still wasn't sure where she got the courage to undress him two nights ago, but it had to pay off eventually, right?
She sat up with a sigh and began to pick up what had fallen off her nightstand. After she had it all piled up she noticed her Cosmopolitan on the floor. Hermione rolled over and snatched it up. She skimmed her eyes over the cover stories.
"How to tell if he's good in bed." She said aloud. Well, it would be a nice distraction. She opened the magazine and began reading.
"He notices if you're cold." She read. "Also if he pays attention to the little things. If he's an experienced traveler, has good vocabulary, good social status, is a good dancer, has the drive to win, and likes to cook." "Does any of that apply to Ron?" Hermione wondered.
She pulled out a piece of parchment.
RON:
Notices things: sort of
Travels: Went to Egypt, Romania????
Vocab: Not really
Social Status: Umm, we're all not exactly popular
Dancer: Let's NOT go there (winter formal, ugh)
Drive to win: Totally
Cook: Not if his life depended on it
Hermoine had to admit, it wasn't too impressive. But did all these things really matter? Ron and her were best friends. He knew her, she knew him. Wasn't that what was important? She sighed. Suddenly, an idea popped into Hermione's head.
MALFOY:
Notices things: He was sure to point it out when I fell over in Potions
Travels: Extensively, so I hear
Vocab: Over heard him use the phrase, "cataclysmic acquiescence" to describe his acceptance to go with Pansy to the winter formal
Social Status: Umm, popular, I guess
Dancer: Pansy seemed to have no objections
Drive to win: Obviously
Cook: ????
"Woah, scary." She thought. Malfoy kinda racked up the points there. Whatever. "What matters is if you know the person well and you feel a connection to them, not some list in Cosmo." She assured herself.
Hermione flipped through the magazine again, pausing on "75 Sexy Moves He'll Never, Ever Forget." She skimmed over the list.
"God, I could never try any of these." Thought Hermione. "Where do the people get the bravery to do this stuff? Would guys even like this?" Truthfully, the only reason she made her mother go through all the trouble of owling the magazine to her was because it was great for a laugh.
But maybe she could ask Malfoy about it. She could see if guys would like this stuff. These little tricks would certainly help her get Ron back, if they worked.
"I'd leave that other girl behind in the dust." She said, smiling slyly.
"Woah, wait." Thought Hermione. "What's with me right now? Why am I turning into a competitive psychobitch? Do I really want Ron back THIS much? Okay, maybe I do. I just need confidence to be with him. Confidence to forget about Chuck and move on. And I could get that with Malfoy. Yeah, so if I ever told Harry or Ron about this, they'd never believe I did it. I don't know where I find the nerve to go to those lessons. Maybe I've just changed more than I know. Maybe I'm a different person. I mean, having sex with someone certainly takes away a bit of your shyness around guys.
Maybe I'm just in love. Doesn't love make you do crazy things? Maybe I'm angry. No, I'm not angry. I just need to try this. And if the lessons don't pay off, then I'll know I tried everything. But I can't move on until I put in my best effort. And learning from Malfoy would be the best effort I can make.
So I'll try it. It's not like it can hurt me, really. My best effort, nothing more." Hermione smiled. Maybe this day wasn't quite as terrible as she's thought.
**************************
I know, I know. I suck at ending chapters. Don't hurt me *ducks under computer table*.
But I hope this cleared up some stuff for those of you who wondered about Hermione suddenly being all ready to make out & stuff with Malfoy. Hey, she's just a fool in love.
And I'm not making this NC-17 *hides again* cuz I got some reviews asking me not to, and to be honest I think I have too much of a plot planned for this to make it all graphic.
BUT………. For my fellow smut lovers, I'm working on a new Dr/Hm fic that will have:
A plot
An NC-17 rating
Some nice sex scenes for ya
So I hope you'll check it out…. I'll tell you when I'm putting it up.
Thanks to my lovely reviewers….
***hermione-angel, Marilyn Stabs, mimi, Krista, goldenstar555, Sakura1287, AllyCat739, Sucker for Romance, ShadowGoddess, Alanna Roseguard, Mione G, HTML Queen, Wilwarindiel, Coffee, Hellbound, reybello2162, blackroseangel69, Shadow Angel, Seyna, Buffy Anne Summers, dracomalfoy'sbestbitch, and angelflare1234***
Disclaimer: I don't own HP. Sigh. I also don't own Cosmopolitan. The stuff in this chapter came straight from the April issue (my mom started reading it and was like, what the heck is this magazine?). Gotta love it.
**************************
Sunday slipped past Hermione, and Monday dawned all too soon. She groaned while rolling out of bed.
"Oh crap!" Hermione cried as she rolled a bit too far and fell off the mattress. "Ughhhhhhhh." She groaned. Hermione leaned her head back, crashing it into the nightstand. Her clock fell off the edge and slammed onto her head. "OWWWWWWWWWW!" she yelled. "That hurt." Hermione rubbed her head. "Oh shit!" she cried, glancing at the clock. "Class starts in twelve minutes!"
Hermione scrambled up and pulled off her pajamas while pulling on some acceptable clothes at the same time. "Great. The one day I oversleep is the day I look terrible." She bushed her teeth and shoved random parchment and books and quills into her bag. "Crap crap crap!" Hermione said, pulling on her robes and fastening them quickly.
She raced out the door, checking her watch. "Great, six minutes." Hermione tore down the hallways, twisting up her hair and sticking a quill in it as she went. The shorter wisps fell out and into her eyes. "This is just GREAT." She thought. "Snape will kill me if I'm late."
Hermione turned the corner without watching where she was going. In her haste she ran directly into someone walking in the opposite direction.
"Oh my God Professor McGonagall I am SO sorry." Hermione quickly gathered up the spilled contents of her bag. "I-I'm late to potions and I just wasn't watching where I was going, really, I'm so sorry."
"It's alright, Miss Granger. Just please watch out in the future, if you could." She continued on her way.
"Great." Thought Hermione. "That was real good." But she really didn't have time to yell at herself; the three minutes she had to get down to the dungeons was currently a bit more pressing.
Hermione sighed and continued her speed-run down the hall. She descended the steps as quick as possible and burst into the classroom door seconds after her watch beeped for eight.
Suddenly Hermione stepped on the hem of her robes and gave a cry as she toppled to the floor. Snape's voice immediately filled the room.
"MISS GRANGER! I WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH A DISRUPTION TO MY CLASS! I WOULD EXPECT MORE FROM A STUDENT LIKE YOU! TWENTY-FIVE POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR FOR SUCH AN INTERRUPTION."
Hermione sat up, wincing. "For God's sake, the class didn't even start yet." She muttered.
"I heard that." Snape sneered. "See me after class to schedule a detention." Hermione sighed and stood up, limping over to her seat next to Harry. From across the room she heard Malfoy sneer,
"Very nice, Granger. Graceful." All his Slytherin friends laughed. Snape began to talk, and Hermione let her head fall forwards onto the table. This day totally sucked, and she'd only been up for sixteen minutes.
~~~The Great Hall- Dinner~~~
Hermione slammed her books onto the table and dropped into her seat. Her robes were disheveled and her frizzy hair was falling out and sticking up.
"Bad day?" asked Harry.
"Ugh." Was all Hermione could manage. "Where's Ron?" she asked.
"Over there." Harry said, pointing to where Ron sat with Dean and Seamus.
"Still?" asked Hermione, her mouth full of apple. "He dumped me two weeks ago. He should just get over it and take the uncomfortable awkwardness like a man!" She ran a hand through her unkempt bun. "I mean, shouldn't I be the one who's avoiding him? He hurt me, ya know?" she shoved some more food in her mouth. "I mean, what is his problem?" she asked through her mouthful of bread.
"He got hurt too." Harry said. "He really liked you, you know."
"Yeah I know." Said Hermione. "Look at him. Trying to act like his life is
normal. Over there with his little friends. It disgusts me."
"Hey, chill out." Harry said. "Yeah, maybe he could deal with it better. But this is just what he does, I guess."
"Well this is what I do." Growled Hermione. "So either make fun of him or get lost." Harry rolled his eyes. They both turned to look at Ron, who was indeed joking.
"You okay today, Hermione?" he asked. "You seem a bit, well, different."
"I'm fine." She said quickly. "Just uh, tired and stressed and sick of dealing with thiswholeRonthingyouknow?" she shoved some more food into her mouth to shut herself up.
"Um, maybe you should start getting more sleep or something. You look kinda wired." Harry said. They both turned to look at Ron again.
As Harry and Hermione watched, a tall, large chested girl with perfectly straight honey colored hair sauntered over to where Ron was sitting.
"Who's that?" scoffed Hermione.
"Um I don't know." Harry said quickly. "Hey you know, I have to go to the library to look for a uh, um, you know, one of those, uh you know, books. You wanna come with me and help me find it? C'mon." Harry pulled on her arm. "Come on. Yeah, let's go to the library. C'mon, let's go."
"Harry! Stop pulling on me. Who's that girl?" she asked again.
"Um I don't know." Harry said. "C'mon, library, now."
"Harry." Hermione pulled her arm out of his grasp.
"Hey! Look at that pork!" cried Harry, shoving some into her mouth. But the pork soon fell out of Hermione's open mouth as the girl leaned over and started to French Ron.
"I'm sorry, Hermione." Harry said quietly. Hermione blinked a few times.
"What the hell?" she asked. "What-who is that girl?" she demanded. Harry sighed.
"Her name's Sara." He said reluctantly. "Ron went out with her last night."
"I'm guessing they had a pretty good time." Hermione said sarcastically. They watched as Sara stood up and left with a little wave to Ron. "So they go out and suddenly she's Frenching him in front of the entire school? What's going on here?" she asked. "Was he going to tell me?"
Ron looked over and noticed Hermione watching him. A guilty look came over his face and he stood up and headed over to where she was sitting.
"I'm sorry, I have to go." Hermione stood up and grabbed her bag off the table.
"You should talk to him." Harry said to her.
"I don't want to talk." Her anger had faded and now Hermione could feel tears forming in her eyes. "He broke up with me because I wouldn't sleep with him, after he told me he was falling in love with me, and now two weeks later he's found some new girl and they're making out in front of the rest of the school. I need to go. Really, I just need to go and think. I'll be okay, but I can't be here."
"Okay." Harry said. "But… you should talk to him. Really." By this time Ron had reached their table.
"Hermione, I-" he began.
"See you later." She said, quickly hurrying away.
"Hermione, please, wait! Let me explain." Ron said. Hermione turned around to face him.
"I'm waiting." She said. Ron took a deep breath.
"I know what that looked like." He began. "And I'm sorry about her. I should've told you I was seeing someone new."
"Yeah, you should've." Said Hermione.
"I'm sorry, really." Said Ron. "I don't meant to hurt you. It's just, we both need to move on, don't we?" he asked.
"You're moving on after two weeks? When we almost-"
"It had to happen sometime." Ron said.
"Fine." Said Hermione.
Suddenly, she didn't want to confront Ron. She didn't want to scream at him for making out with a girl so soon after his lips last touched hers, she didn't want to make him feel bad for not sharing his plans with her, she didn't want to ask if he had even meant it when he said he was falling in love with her.
She just wanted to cry. Or hit a pillow. Or throw darts at his picture. Or something.
"Fine, Ron. But I have to go now so good-bye." Hermione spun around, hoping that Ron and Harry hadn't seen the tear falling from her eye.
~~~Hermione's Room~~~
"UGH!" she cried, throwing her bag onto her bed. It slammed into her nightstand and knocked off all her magazines and stray pieces of parchment. Hermione sighed and collapsed onto her bed, letting her tears fall. Hadn't Ron loved her, sort of? Hadn't she loved Ron?
"I would've had sex with him that night. If it hadn't been for my stupid past, it would have been so perfect." She thought. Hermione rolled over and let her tears fall onto her pillow.
"I'm never going to get him back competing against that girl." She thought. Could the lessons with Malfoy even help? Right now, she was hurt, yes. But on some level she understood that Ron was moving on. He wasn't being very brave about it, but yes. His life was going forward. Her hopes of winning Ron back were basically dead now. That girl had been beautiful, with straight hair and perfect curves. From that one glimpse Hermione knew this girl was probably an expert in the bedroom, too.
But that was what her lessons were for, weren't they? Sure, she was embarrassing herself with Malfoy, and she still wasn't sure where she got the courage to undress him two nights ago, but it had to pay off eventually, right?
She sat up with a sigh and began to pick up what had fallen off her nightstand. After she had it all piled up she noticed her Cosmopolitan on the floor. Hermione rolled over and snatched it up. She skimmed her eyes over the cover stories.
"How to tell if he's good in bed." She said aloud. Well, it would be a nice distraction. She opened the magazine and began reading.
"He notices if you're cold." She read. "Also if he pays attention to the little things. If he's an experienced traveler, has good vocabulary, good social status, is a good dancer, has the drive to win, and likes to cook." "Does any of that apply to Ron?" Hermione wondered.
She pulled out a piece of parchment.
RON:
Notices things: sort of
Travels: Went to Egypt, Romania????
Vocab: Not really
Social Status: Umm, we're all not exactly popular
Dancer: Let's NOT go there (winter formal, ugh)
Drive to win: Totally
Cook: Not if his life depended on it
Hermoine had to admit, it wasn't too impressive. But did all these things really matter? Ron and her were best friends. He knew her, she knew him. Wasn't that what was important? She sighed. Suddenly, an idea popped into Hermione's head.
MALFOY:
Notices things: He was sure to point it out when I fell over in Potions
Travels: Extensively, so I hear
Vocab: Over heard him use the phrase, "cataclysmic acquiescence" to describe his acceptance to go with Pansy to the winter formal
Social Status: Umm, popular, I guess
Dancer: Pansy seemed to have no objections
Drive to win: Obviously
Cook: ????
"Woah, scary." She thought. Malfoy kinda racked up the points there. Whatever. "What matters is if you know the person well and you feel a connection to them, not some list in Cosmo." She assured herself.
Hermione flipped through the magazine again, pausing on "75 Sexy Moves He'll Never, Ever Forget." She skimmed over the list.
"God, I could never try any of these." Thought Hermione. "Where do the people get the bravery to do this stuff? Would guys even like this?" Truthfully, the only reason she made her mother go through all the trouble of owling the magazine to her was because it was great for a laugh.
But maybe she could ask Malfoy about it. She could see if guys would like this stuff. These little tricks would certainly help her get Ron back, if they worked.
"I'd leave that other girl behind in the dust." She said, smiling slyly.
"Woah, wait." Thought Hermione. "What's with me right now? Why am I turning into a competitive psychobitch? Do I really want Ron back THIS much? Okay, maybe I do. I just need confidence to be with him. Confidence to forget about Chuck and move on. And I could get that with Malfoy. Yeah, so if I ever told Harry or Ron about this, they'd never believe I did it. I don't know where I find the nerve to go to those lessons. Maybe I've just changed more than I know. Maybe I'm a different person. I mean, having sex with someone certainly takes away a bit of your shyness around guys.
Maybe I'm just in love. Doesn't love make you do crazy things? Maybe I'm angry. No, I'm not angry. I just need to try this. And if the lessons don't pay off, then I'll know I tried everything. But I can't move on until I put in my best effort. And learning from Malfoy would be the best effort I can make.
So I'll try it. It's not like it can hurt me, really. My best effort, nothing more." Hermione smiled. Maybe this day wasn't quite as terrible as she's thought.
**************************
I know, I know. I suck at ending chapters. Don't hurt me *ducks under computer table*.
But I hope this cleared up some stuff for those of you who wondered about Hermione suddenly being all ready to make out & stuff with Malfoy. Hey, she's just a fool in love.
And I'm not making this NC-17 *hides again* cuz I got some reviews asking me not to, and to be honest I think I have too much of a plot planned for this to make it all graphic.
BUT………. For my fellow smut lovers, I'm working on a new Dr/Hm fic that will have:
A plot
An NC-17 rating
Some nice sex scenes for ya
So I hope you'll check it out…. I'll tell you when I'm putting it up.
Thanks to my lovely reviewers….
***hermione-angel, Marilyn Stabs, mimi, Krista, goldenstar555, Sakura1287, AllyCat739, Sucker for Romance, ShadowGoddess, Alanna Roseguard, Mione G, HTML Queen, Wilwarindiel, Coffee, Hellbound, reybello2162, blackroseangel69, Shadow Angel, Seyna, Buffy Anne Summers, dracomalfoy'sbestbitch, and angelflare1234***