Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: the fly-on-the-wall has told Hermione and Draco that they're unfit to narrate this story.
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Where I left you hanging. (Hehe, sorry)
When Draco stumbled into the mudroom with Hermione in his arms, he removed her coat and other outer clothes (no not like her pants and shirt, I mean like ski pants). She was asleep by that time, so he brought her to her room. He wasn't sure what to do, but he knew that her body temperature was dangerously low.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Departure of Walls
Draco looked around, panicking. 'What am I supposed to do? We never had to take some sort of healing course in school, everyone just went to Pomfrey,' he thought. Draco got some blankets out of Hermione's closet and piled them on top of her.
"Hermione," he whispered in her ear as he shook her gently. "Wake up, Hermione."
Hermione slowly opened her eyes and looked up to see Draco standing over her for the second time today. Unlike this morning, however, this time she smiled.
"Draco, how did I get here?"
Draco looked uncomfortable. "I er. carried you home after you collapsed. Hermione, you look like a ghost. You were so cold."
"I still am cold," Hermione whispered.
"Do you want me to get your aunt?" Draco asked, finally realizing this should have been the obvious thing to do as soon as he walked in.
"No, I think she went to the ski lodge already," Hermione answered, sounding close to falling asleep.
"All right then, I'll just go to my room. Call if you need me."
"Draco! Wait. don't leave. Stay here with me please," whispered Hermione.
Draco stopped walking and spun around to face her. 'Did she just ask me to stay?' he questioned. 'She must be joking, right?'
"Did you just ask me to stay?" he asked.
"Do I need to repeat?"
"No, sorry, I just couldn't. never mind," he answered as he dragged one of the chairs in her room across the floor to her bed and sat down. He looked at her pale face, wondering what to say. He started drifting off into LaLa Land (hehe, Carolyn) when Hermione started talking.
"Draco?" He turned to her. "Thanks for helping me, I don't know what happened, I guess I probably should have taken off my frozen socks before trying to walk back home. How could I have been so stupid? I knew that keeping frozen socks on would be worse than just taking them off."
"Hermione! It's okay! It's over, done with. Not worth worrying about!" Draco half smiled at her, before realizing what he was doing and cleared his face of emotions.
But Hermione had noticed, and she was smiling back.
"You should smile more often, Draco."
At that he smirked the traditional "Malfoy Smirk" and then started laughing.
'Draco Malfoy is laughing, I must be sick,' Hermione thought, before she too started breaking out into fits of giggles.
Soon, they were both absolutely dissolved in laughter. Draco's face, normally so pale he could have been mistaken for a ghost, was bright red and he was smiling. Not smirking, smiling. A genuine smile, one that spread all the way across his face and showed his teeth. Hermione was also red from laughing, and her temperature had risen to the normal temperature.
She was feeling much better, so she threw off all but one of the blankets and got out of bed to walk to the bathroom. After returning, she saw that Draco was still sitting in the chair, facing away from her, apparently reading something he had picked up off of Hermione's nightstand.
Hermione slowly crept up to him, making sure the old floor didn't creak and covered his eyes with her hands and yelled, "BOO!"
Draco was so frightened, not only did he drop the book he was reading, but he also jumped three inches off the chair. and screamed like a girl (no offence to girls, I'm a girl too, and I've been known to scream like that for stupid reasons).
This time, Hermione wasn't being held up by her bed. She literally collapsed, laughing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Neither of them noticed when someone ascended the stairs to their floor. Then someone knocked hard on the door. When he heard Hermione fall to the floor, he forgot about knocking and quickly opened the door, afraid of what he was going to find.
They turned to face a very surprised Mr. Granger.
"What's going on up here?" he demanded.
Hermione got her breathing under control before answering, "Nothing Dad. I just scared Draco here out of his wits." At that they both dissolved into giggles again.
Mr. Granger shook his head and turned around and left, closing the door behind him. This only made Hermione and Draco laugh harder.
"Hermione," Draco said after controlling his laughter. "Hermione, I. I think I care about you too."
Hermione smiled at him. 'Could this be the beginning of a great friendship?' she pondered. "Come on Draco, lets go downstairs, I don't want to make my dad come back up here again wondering what in the name of Merlin we're doing."
He smiled and offered her his hand, which she took and lead her down the spiral staircase.
Hermione suggested that they just lounge on the blue couches until Aunt Mandy or Draco's Aunt Jackie got home. Draco agreed, he wanted to make sure there was no permanent damage done to Hermione because she took her ski boots off.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
While sitting on the couches:
"So, Draco, where did you spend Christmases as a child?" Hermione asked him, suddenly.
He looked at her before answering, "Hermione, my Christmases were not nearly as wonderful as this one when I was a child. I don't think you want to know all the details."
"Draco, please?" Hermione asked. "Please, I promise not to tell anyone."
Draco sighed, "I guess, but you have to promise not to tell."
"I promise."
"Well, when I was little, I used to look up to Father. He used to be the best person in my life. But he was mean. Often, he would make Mother cry for trying to protect me. I'd plead to him, "Father! Stop! You're hurting Mother," but of course, he never stopped.
"Christmases were tree and Santa-less. I must have been the only child in my neighborhood who didn't believe in Santa when I was three. How could there be a Santa in such a cruel world? Mother insisted that there was indeed a Santa Claus and she attempted to pull off the whole presents-under- the-tree one year, but he hurt her. So I begged her to not let Father hurt her, whatever it took.
"After that, there was no Santa. There were no gifts. Remember in second year when I stayed at school? That was my best Christmas up until now. Father would force me to come home so that others would see him as a good parent.
"I didn't know any other way of life, it was horrible Hermione. It is horrible. I'd never wish it upon anyone else. Until I turned 13, I was just fine with doing whatever pleased my Father. In our third year, do you remember when I had to make that potion with Potter and Weasley? Well it was then I realized, life wasn't just what your parents forced you to do. It was much more than that, I could tell, and I was missing out on it.
"It was then I decided to change. However, I couldn't just do it immediately, no I'd have to be gradual about it. People would talk if the evil Malfoy who hated muggle-borns decided to turn his life around and be a better person."
By this time, Hermione was crying. 'How could he live such a terrible childhood?' she thought.
Draco looked up at Hermione, shocked to see her face in tears. He stood up and joined her on her couch and wrapped a comforting arm around her. "Shh. Hermione. it's okay," he whispered comfortingly. He lifted her chin with his hand and stared into her eyes for a moment before he leaned forward and their lips met.
Hermione was a bit surprised at this, but she didn't pull away. Draco, however, did and after a few seconds, Draco broke the kiss and stared at her in shock. "I'm sorry," he said, as he jumped up and ran up the spiral staircase to his room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that day at dinner, things were a bit odd. Hermione and Draco would glance up at the other from time to time. The adults noticed their odd behavior, but didn't say anything. At the end of dinner, both decided to go upstairs to their rooms.
Hermione picked up the book Draco had been reading when she had scared him out of his mind. It was her Arithmancy book. Curious as to why Draco would be reading her book, she walked over to the door to go ask him. Then she remembered he didn't want to talk to her right now. She sighed and replaced the book on her nightstand.
After deciding to put her pajamas on, she shuffled into the bathroom. Putting toothpaste on her toothbrush, she ran it under the faucet and started brushing her teeth. A few seconds later, there was a knock on the bathroom door. Assuming it was her mum, she walked over to the door and pulled it open.
There stood none other than Draco Malfoy. He stared at the toothbrush in her mouth for a few seconds before saying, "I'm sorry, Hermione, should I come back later?"
Unable to answer verbally, she shook her head and glanced at him questioningly, as if to ask why he was standing at her bathroom door. He got the hint and explained, "Er, sorry, but the sink in my bathroom isn't working, and you know, I'd fix it, but it's a muggle sink and I might crack it or something and then Jackie would be angry at me and."
Before he could finish, Hermione cut him off with violent gestures in the air and motioned for him to come in and close the door, which he did. As she spit out the toothpaste and picked up the dental floss from the counter, Draco was squeezing his toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
Hermione, while flossing, looked at the mirror over the sink to watch him. "Why are you brushing your teeth when you could use magic?" she asked. Draco, unable to answer, held up one finger in the universal sign for "wait a minute."
After spitting the toothpaste out into the sink and filling his cup (he had brought one of those little paper cups with him) with water from the faucet, he answered, "I always brush my teeth, it makes my mouth feel much cleaner than the dental spells they have, and besides, it only takes five minutes at the most."
Hermione nodded and threw away the used floss. "My parents are dentists, that's why I always brush my teeth. What would they think if I told them I no longer needed to brush my teeth? They'd probably think I was insane and tell me to go brush them anyway. Also, I've been thoroughly brushing my teeth for as long as I can remember, so it's sort of a tradition."
Draco nodded, "Yes, I had to too, before I got my wand and went to Hogwarts. Remember, we're not supposed to use magic in the muggle world." He looked down at the sink, avoiding Hermione's gaze and was silent for a few moments.
"Hermione, I'm sorry about. earlier. I shouldn't have done that," Draco began, but Hermione cut him off.
"Draco! It's okay," she smiled. "I honestly didn't mind."
Draco, realizing what she was saying, smiled back and hugged her.
~But when you're holding me like this~
~I'm carelessly lost in your touch~
~I'm completely defenseless~
~Baby, it's almost too much~
~I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly~
~Falling in love~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A/N: see? See? Finally. I told you they'd hook up eventually.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
My Reviewers:
Krissy: Um. Snape's wife is some unknown character. Lol I don't know yet. They're hiding because Voldemort was after them.
Solar: thanks. Keep r/ring
Kira Bolton: Yep. They're good.
Toria: I told u no one was going to die! Unusual is good. Predictable is boring.
Deedsla the Insane Monkey: lol thanks. Keep reading/reviewing!
Mykah Leigh Malfoy: Regular reviewers rule! It makes me think I'm good enough for them to come back =) Also, I did say no one was going to die.
Ellie: Ch.4 - Yummy? Oh the pancakes. I thought you were talking about D/Hr. I was like um. Ch.5 - sweet as something really sweet. Lol.
Cinnamon: Welcome back! I haven't heard from you in a while. Of course Snape knows, remember, he let Hermione sleep over when she was little.
PassionPolice237: long screen name... can I just call you "Mandy"? Ch. 3 - I stopped that! Ch.5 - She did. its just she didn't take off her frozen socks.
Mikia: okey dokey. Will do. As long as u keep reading!
Beatrix Tribal: Me too! I got so fed up with waiting - I decided to write it myself.
Jaded: God is good. Besides, I need some fluff or it wouldn't be a romance story!
Hobbit Shortness: Intense is a good word. Defenestration is a better word. I'm not going to make Snape evil though. Hehe. Lovely Snapie. thanks =)
Blue eyes: hmm. I don't know yet. Should I make her mother a muggle? No. Muggle-born maybe, and that's how she gets in Gryffindor. lol sorry I'm just wondering. Fluff is boring without drama. Drama is boring without danger.
Sarah: Thanks! =)
Till next time.
-DI
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See button? Click button! Type in name! Review! (Please!)
A/N: the fly-on-the-wall has told Hermione and Draco that they're unfit to narrate this story.
~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Where I left you hanging. (Hehe, sorry)
When Draco stumbled into the mudroom with Hermione in his arms, he removed her coat and other outer clothes (no not like her pants and shirt, I mean like ski pants). She was asleep by that time, so he brought her to her room. He wasn't sure what to do, but he knew that her body temperature was dangerously low.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Departure of Walls
Draco looked around, panicking. 'What am I supposed to do? We never had to take some sort of healing course in school, everyone just went to Pomfrey,' he thought. Draco got some blankets out of Hermione's closet and piled them on top of her.
"Hermione," he whispered in her ear as he shook her gently. "Wake up, Hermione."
Hermione slowly opened her eyes and looked up to see Draco standing over her for the second time today. Unlike this morning, however, this time she smiled.
"Draco, how did I get here?"
Draco looked uncomfortable. "I er. carried you home after you collapsed. Hermione, you look like a ghost. You were so cold."
"I still am cold," Hermione whispered.
"Do you want me to get your aunt?" Draco asked, finally realizing this should have been the obvious thing to do as soon as he walked in.
"No, I think she went to the ski lodge already," Hermione answered, sounding close to falling asleep.
"All right then, I'll just go to my room. Call if you need me."
"Draco! Wait. don't leave. Stay here with me please," whispered Hermione.
Draco stopped walking and spun around to face her. 'Did she just ask me to stay?' he questioned. 'She must be joking, right?'
"Did you just ask me to stay?" he asked.
"Do I need to repeat?"
"No, sorry, I just couldn't. never mind," he answered as he dragged one of the chairs in her room across the floor to her bed and sat down. He looked at her pale face, wondering what to say. He started drifting off into LaLa Land (hehe, Carolyn) when Hermione started talking.
"Draco?" He turned to her. "Thanks for helping me, I don't know what happened, I guess I probably should have taken off my frozen socks before trying to walk back home. How could I have been so stupid? I knew that keeping frozen socks on would be worse than just taking them off."
"Hermione! It's okay! It's over, done with. Not worth worrying about!" Draco half smiled at her, before realizing what he was doing and cleared his face of emotions.
But Hermione had noticed, and she was smiling back.
"You should smile more often, Draco."
At that he smirked the traditional "Malfoy Smirk" and then started laughing.
'Draco Malfoy is laughing, I must be sick,' Hermione thought, before she too started breaking out into fits of giggles.
Soon, they were both absolutely dissolved in laughter. Draco's face, normally so pale he could have been mistaken for a ghost, was bright red and he was smiling. Not smirking, smiling. A genuine smile, one that spread all the way across his face and showed his teeth. Hermione was also red from laughing, and her temperature had risen to the normal temperature.
She was feeling much better, so she threw off all but one of the blankets and got out of bed to walk to the bathroom. After returning, she saw that Draco was still sitting in the chair, facing away from her, apparently reading something he had picked up off of Hermione's nightstand.
Hermione slowly crept up to him, making sure the old floor didn't creak and covered his eyes with her hands and yelled, "BOO!"
Draco was so frightened, not only did he drop the book he was reading, but he also jumped three inches off the chair. and screamed like a girl (no offence to girls, I'm a girl too, and I've been known to scream like that for stupid reasons).
This time, Hermione wasn't being held up by her bed. She literally collapsed, laughing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Neither of them noticed when someone ascended the stairs to their floor. Then someone knocked hard on the door. When he heard Hermione fall to the floor, he forgot about knocking and quickly opened the door, afraid of what he was going to find.
They turned to face a very surprised Mr. Granger.
"What's going on up here?" he demanded.
Hermione got her breathing under control before answering, "Nothing Dad. I just scared Draco here out of his wits." At that they both dissolved into giggles again.
Mr. Granger shook his head and turned around and left, closing the door behind him. This only made Hermione and Draco laugh harder.
"Hermione," Draco said after controlling his laughter. "Hermione, I. I think I care about you too."
Hermione smiled at him. 'Could this be the beginning of a great friendship?' she pondered. "Come on Draco, lets go downstairs, I don't want to make my dad come back up here again wondering what in the name of Merlin we're doing."
He smiled and offered her his hand, which she took and lead her down the spiral staircase.
Hermione suggested that they just lounge on the blue couches until Aunt Mandy or Draco's Aunt Jackie got home. Draco agreed, he wanted to make sure there was no permanent damage done to Hermione because she took her ski boots off.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
While sitting on the couches:
"So, Draco, where did you spend Christmases as a child?" Hermione asked him, suddenly.
He looked at her before answering, "Hermione, my Christmases were not nearly as wonderful as this one when I was a child. I don't think you want to know all the details."
"Draco, please?" Hermione asked. "Please, I promise not to tell anyone."
Draco sighed, "I guess, but you have to promise not to tell."
"I promise."
"Well, when I was little, I used to look up to Father. He used to be the best person in my life. But he was mean. Often, he would make Mother cry for trying to protect me. I'd plead to him, "Father! Stop! You're hurting Mother," but of course, he never stopped.
"Christmases were tree and Santa-less. I must have been the only child in my neighborhood who didn't believe in Santa when I was three. How could there be a Santa in such a cruel world? Mother insisted that there was indeed a Santa Claus and she attempted to pull off the whole presents-under- the-tree one year, but he hurt her. So I begged her to not let Father hurt her, whatever it took.
"After that, there was no Santa. There were no gifts. Remember in second year when I stayed at school? That was my best Christmas up until now. Father would force me to come home so that others would see him as a good parent.
"I didn't know any other way of life, it was horrible Hermione. It is horrible. I'd never wish it upon anyone else. Until I turned 13, I was just fine with doing whatever pleased my Father. In our third year, do you remember when I had to make that potion with Potter and Weasley? Well it was then I realized, life wasn't just what your parents forced you to do. It was much more than that, I could tell, and I was missing out on it.
"It was then I decided to change. However, I couldn't just do it immediately, no I'd have to be gradual about it. People would talk if the evil Malfoy who hated muggle-borns decided to turn his life around and be a better person."
By this time, Hermione was crying. 'How could he live such a terrible childhood?' she thought.
Draco looked up at Hermione, shocked to see her face in tears. He stood up and joined her on her couch and wrapped a comforting arm around her. "Shh. Hermione. it's okay," he whispered comfortingly. He lifted her chin with his hand and stared into her eyes for a moment before he leaned forward and their lips met.
Hermione was a bit surprised at this, but she didn't pull away. Draco, however, did and after a few seconds, Draco broke the kiss and stared at her in shock. "I'm sorry," he said, as he jumped up and ran up the spiral staircase to his room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that day at dinner, things were a bit odd. Hermione and Draco would glance up at the other from time to time. The adults noticed their odd behavior, but didn't say anything. At the end of dinner, both decided to go upstairs to their rooms.
Hermione picked up the book Draco had been reading when she had scared him out of his mind. It was her Arithmancy book. Curious as to why Draco would be reading her book, she walked over to the door to go ask him. Then she remembered he didn't want to talk to her right now. She sighed and replaced the book on her nightstand.
After deciding to put her pajamas on, she shuffled into the bathroom. Putting toothpaste on her toothbrush, she ran it under the faucet and started brushing her teeth. A few seconds later, there was a knock on the bathroom door. Assuming it was her mum, she walked over to the door and pulled it open.
There stood none other than Draco Malfoy. He stared at the toothbrush in her mouth for a few seconds before saying, "I'm sorry, Hermione, should I come back later?"
Unable to answer verbally, she shook her head and glanced at him questioningly, as if to ask why he was standing at her bathroom door. He got the hint and explained, "Er, sorry, but the sink in my bathroom isn't working, and you know, I'd fix it, but it's a muggle sink and I might crack it or something and then Jackie would be angry at me and."
Before he could finish, Hermione cut him off with violent gestures in the air and motioned for him to come in and close the door, which he did. As she spit out the toothpaste and picked up the dental floss from the counter, Draco was squeezing his toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
Hermione, while flossing, looked at the mirror over the sink to watch him. "Why are you brushing your teeth when you could use magic?" she asked. Draco, unable to answer, held up one finger in the universal sign for "wait a minute."
After spitting the toothpaste out into the sink and filling his cup (he had brought one of those little paper cups with him) with water from the faucet, he answered, "I always brush my teeth, it makes my mouth feel much cleaner than the dental spells they have, and besides, it only takes five minutes at the most."
Hermione nodded and threw away the used floss. "My parents are dentists, that's why I always brush my teeth. What would they think if I told them I no longer needed to brush my teeth? They'd probably think I was insane and tell me to go brush them anyway. Also, I've been thoroughly brushing my teeth for as long as I can remember, so it's sort of a tradition."
Draco nodded, "Yes, I had to too, before I got my wand and went to Hogwarts. Remember, we're not supposed to use magic in the muggle world." He looked down at the sink, avoiding Hermione's gaze and was silent for a few moments.
"Hermione, I'm sorry about. earlier. I shouldn't have done that," Draco began, but Hermione cut him off.
"Draco! It's okay," she smiled. "I honestly didn't mind."
Draco, realizing what she was saying, smiled back and hugged her.
~But when you're holding me like this~
~I'm carelessly lost in your touch~
~I'm completely defenseless~
~Baby, it's almost too much~
~I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly~
~Falling in love~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A/N: see? See? Finally. I told you they'd hook up eventually.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
My Reviewers:
Krissy: Um. Snape's wife is some unknown character. Lol I don't know yet. They're hiding because Voldemort was after them.
Solar: thanks. Keep r/ring
Kira Bolton: Yep. They're good.
Toria: I told u no one was going to die! Unusual is good. Predictable is boring.
Deedsla the Insane Monkey: lol thanks. Keep reading/reviewing!
Mykah Leigh Malfoy: Regular reviewers rule! It makes me think I'm good enough for them to come back =) Also, I did say no one was going to die.
Ellie: Ch.4 - Yummy? Oh the pancakes. I thought you were talking about D/Hr. I was like um. Ch.5 - sweet as something really sweet. Lol.
Cinnamon: Welcome back! I haven't heard from you in a while. Of course Snape knows, remember, he let Hermione sleep over when she was little.
PassionPolice237: long screen name... can I just call you "Mandy"? Ch. 3 - I stopped that! Ch.5 - She did. its just she didn't take off her frozen socks.
Mikia: okey dokey. Will do. As long as u keep reading!
Beatrix Tribal: Me too! I got so fed up with waiting - I decided to write it myself.
Jaded: God is good. Besides, I need some fluff or it wouldn't be a romance story!
Hobbit Shortness: Intense is a good word. Defenestration is a better word. I'm not going to make Snape evil though. Hehe. Lovely Snapie. thanks =)
Blue eyes: hmm. I don't know yet. Should I make her mother a muggle? No. Muggle-born maybe, and that's how she gets in Gryffindor. lol sorry I'm just wondering. Fluff is boring without drama. Drama is boring without danger.
Sarah: Thanks! =)
Till next time.
-DI
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See button? Click button! Type in name! Review! (Please!)