"Remind me again why we can't just Apparate?" Draco groaned as he stood by the security counter, arms spread wide, suspiciously eyeing the man waving a metal detector around his body.
Hermione shushed him with a violent gesture, and smiled innocently at the security guard, who had straightened up and given her a funny look. The guard softened slightly, swiped the detector over Draco's belt buckle, and announced, "You're good, sonny."
Draco jammed his feet into his shoes and rejoined Hermione, who was giggling into her hand. "Oh, shut up."
"Sure, sonny," she replied, giving him a mischievous look. Draco scowled at her. "I've told you why we can't Apparate," she explained, hurriedly straightening her face. "I can't move from England to New York without a record of it somewhere, can I? Imagine how fishy that would look. There needs to be some way for the Muggles to know that I've switched countries."
"It's too much of a hassle," Draco said impatiently, shoving his way through a crowd of simpering women and emerging with a strong smell of perfume clinging to him. Hermione threw a disapproving glance back at the women, who were gazing after Draco.
"They all want you," she told him knowingly. "I'm getting evil stares."
"Really?" Draco looked back, smirked, and wrapped his arm around Hermione's waist, drawing her closer to him. Audible moans and dark muttering followed them around a corner.
"Enjoy making people jealous?" Hermione teased, smacking at his hand, which had crept around her hip for show. "I can see your ego inflating."
Draco gave her a severe glare, tossed his white-blonde hair jokingly, and strode on. Hermione wanted to tell him exactly how much it irked her to see women staring hungrily after him, and how she wanted to jinx each and every one of them. He did cut quite a figure; tall and well-built, eye-catching hair which fell perfectly into his face, handsome features, and those penetrating gray eyes. . . .
Hermione gave herself a mental slap and hurried to catch up with him.
~*~
"How is it any different from a broom?" Hermione asked in disbelief, staring at her best friend, who was determinately avoiding looking at the window.
"It's higher," Draco said carefully, not glancing at her either. "And I'm not in control of it."
"I promise that we'll make it to New York safely," Hermione told him, not quite managing to keep the grin off her face. "I've never been in a doomed airplane yet."
"Shut up," he said for the second time that day. "How much longer is it?"
Hermione shrugged. "Few hours."
"Ugh," Draco groaned. "Talk to me. Tell me something to keep my mind off of the fact that, should the engine suddenly stop working, we'll plummet thirty thousand feet and die in a huge fireball."
"I have my wand in my purse, and if the engine suddenly stops working, I will charm it to work again."
"Oh, good," he said in relief, chancing a look out the window. He shuddered. "Not that anything changes the fact that we are thirty thousand feet in the air."
"Stop being such a baby," Hermione said teasingly. "We'll be perfectly fine. Here, why don't you—um—take a nap or something?"
"Because I'm not tired."
"Oh."
He was unusually terse, and Hermione decided to drop the subject. They spent the rest of the flight in a slightly uncomfortable silence, broken only occasionally with polite remarks. Hermione was dreading the arrival. She was certain that everything between her and Draco was going to disappear, and she was hoping that the horrible flight wasn't an indication of what the future would be like.
Draco was white about the lips as the plane touched down on the runway, but he said nothing, merely stood up and retrieved Hermione's backpack from the overhead compartment.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Hermione followed Draco out into the airport, but once there, he let her lead the way to the baggage claim and then out onto the streets. Hermione flagged down a taxi, Draco shoved the luggage in the trunk, and they clambered into the backseat.
"Um—one moment," Hermione said desperately to the driver, digging through her purse for the scrap of paper with her new address on it. "It's right here—"
Draco turned to the driver and rattled off the address. Hermione stared at him as the cab pulled away from the airport.
"How did you—"
"I'm good at memorizing addresses," Draco said nonchalantly, shrugging, and turned to look out the window at the passing buildings. Hermione was beginning to feel very frustrated with him. Why was he being so stiff and untalkative? Was he mad about the move, too?
By the time they pulled up in front of Hermione's new apartment building, she could practically feel steam emerging from her ears. It was merely not wanting to make a scene in front of the taxi driver or her new neighbors that kept her silent until they had entered her apartment and shut the door.
"What's the matter with you?" she demanded, dropping her suitcase on the floor. "You've barely spoken to me the whole trip. Are you upset about something?"
Draco sighed. "Yes and no."
Hermione tapped her foot petulantly on the floor.
"I'm not angry with you," he elaborated. "I'm just kind of in a bad mood."
"'Kind of'?" Hermione yanked off her coat and threw it on top of her luggage. She couldn't remember ever having been this angry with him, and even though her anger was somewhat unjustified, it felt cathartic. "Please tell me how 'kind of' is enough for me to sit in silence through a whole plane trip!"
"Hey, you could have said something, too," Draco complained, looking a bit taken aback by her sudden anger. "Is it my duty to initiate conversations or something? Because it would be nice if you'd told me beforehand."
"I didn't say anything," Hermione said heatedly, "because I didn't want you to yell at me. It's not fun trying to hold conversations with someone who gives you monosyllabic responses."
"I was occupied with something."
"Really? You certainly didn't look very busy to me."
"Something I was thinking about," he said pointedly. "Privately."
"All I noticed was you being afraid about the plane blowing up," Hermione said spitefully. Draco's lips tightened, and his hand automatically went for his back pocket.
"What, are you going to curse me?" Hermione taunted. "Not good enough with words, are we? We have to resort to—"
"Hermione," he said quietly, and she froze almost as if he had struck her. He never, ever called her by her full name; it was always Mya. Slowly, as she stared, horrified, into his icy eyes, a feeling of guilt washed over her. She opened her mouth to apologize, but he cut her off.
"Look, forget it, okay?" he said tightly, and turned to his suitcase. He began pulling out miniaturized pieces of furniture, enlarging them and directing them to new locations around the apartment.
"Um," Hermione said tentatively. "Okay." She unlatched her own suitcase, removed a shrunken stack of clothing, and went through the rooms, pushing open doors until she found what appeared to be the bedroom. "Did you find the dresser yet?"
She turned towards the doorway to see the piece of furniture in question floating into the room. "Thank you." She began enlarging clothing, uncomfortable in the unfriendly silence. It seemed to press on her ears, closing in around her until she felt slightly claustrophobic. She glanced around the room. The walls were a washed out, sick sort of pale yellow, and the carpet was worn in spots. It wouldn't be hard to fix with magic, but this wasn't the kind of welcome she had expected. At least with Draco there—well, if Draco were speaking to her, it would be all right. Hermione sighed and enlarged a shirt. The silence waited.
It felt tangible now—as if she could reach out and pluck a handful from the air. She couldn't remember having felt anything like this ever before. Was this something unique to New York City, or was it merely Draco-initiated? Hermione stood abruptly, marched out into the hallway, opened her mouth to speak—and saw no Draco.
"Draco?" she called, hating the way her voice sounded fragile and uncertain in the stillness. "Where are you?"
No response. She was beginning to worry.
"Draco?" She walked through the tiny apartment, through the bare kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, even checking the closets. "Draco Malfoy, answer me this instant!" She stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by recently-enlarged furniture, her hands planted on her hips, beginning to feel furious. She was tired, slightly jet-lagged, her hair was coming out of its tight knot, and she knew she looked awful. She was not in the mood for playing around.
She heard a soft thump and whirled to locate the source of the noise. She scanned the room but saw nothing.
"You have on your Invisibility Cloak," she stated triumphantly, looking around beadily for more telltale signs of movement. Her mood switched suddenly from playful to angry again, and she stamped her foot on the floor in a childish gesture. "If you don't come out right now, I'll curse you!"
She received no response, had expected none, and felt something go out of her. She sank onto the floor in surrender, hugging her knees to her chest. "Fine, ignore me. Go back to London in your stupid cloak and leave me alone, if you're going to be like that."
The silence changed. Instead of being hostile it now seemed as if it were listening for more.
"I was going to apologize," she tried. The stillness sucked up her small words, demanded more, begged for an explanation. "It's my fault," she continued haltingly. Apologizing wasn't something that she did well. "I wasn't being understanding enough, with the airport and all the fawning women and the flying and all, and you're right, I could have initiated conversations, and I was really unnerved by the address thing, and I thought you were mad at me, and I really didn't mean to—"
She was silenced by a familiar, invisible hand over her mouth, and reached, groping, for a handful of invisible cloak. Draco appeared, hair slightly tousled from the material, kneeling beside her, a smile beginning to grace his lips.
"You're blathering again," he whispered, his mouth alarmingly close to her ear. It was a terrifying feeling, having him that close; different somehow than his usual proximity would be, and yet exhilarating. "Would you mind terribly," he breathed, tracing her cheekbone with the tip of his finger, "if I broke a promise of mine?"
"The one about staying only friends?" Hermione whispered, bumping her knee gently against his hipbone, feeling a surge of something coursing through her.
"Mm." Draco rested his lips against her hairline. "I've never been very good at keeping promises." And Hermione was swept into a kiss unlike one she had ever experienced before, all lips and hands and passion.
When they finally broke apart, reluctantly, gasping for breath, there was a bit of an awkward silence. Draco finally broke it by grinning, grasping her hand in his, leaning over, and whispering,
"You're adorable when you're upset."
~*~
Eternal apologies to everyone for not writing anything for such a long time. All I can say is, I'm lazy. :-) I'll try not to do it again.
Fluff: Wow. Thank you very much. I have a theory about the review thing, about some getting more than others: I think it is mainly marketing combined with luck about whose stories get read. I think that a lot of it is based on when you put up new material, because depending on what time of day it is, or even what day it is, fluctuating amounts of people will notice it. Then it depends on how interesting the summary is. It's a stupid system (if my reasoning is even right), and I agree completely, it's not fair! *deep breath* Anyways…off of my random tangent…
burgundyred: What's going to happen now, you ask? Heh heh heh. Even I am not completely certain of that yet!
PinkTribeChick: Thanks, Nutcracker was great! Hope you like this one okay, too. :-)