Disclaimer: My imagination is very big, I can make up many scenarios to put these characters through to mess up their lives, make them better, torture them, piss them off, get them laid, anything. Too bad I didn't come up with the characters in the first place. Oh well, I shall be content in twisting their world to my will (however warped and perverse it may be).
0000
Chapter 8: The Morning Ritual
0000
Hermione awoke the next morning with a pounding headache and light shining into her eyes. She sat up in bed—not her bed—and held her head in her hands, closing her eyes, trying to remember what had happened yesterday.
When she opened her eyes her Adonis was in front of her.
"What do you want?" she asked scathingly, trying to push him away.
"Well, well, Mrs. Malfoy, you aren't so bright in the morning are you?" he asked disdainfully.
"Ugh…" she said, then quickly frisking her body to make sure that all of her clothes were still intact. "Thank Merlin," she said softly to herself.
"Yes, thank Merlin that I am a nice guy and didn't take advantage of you while you were drunk," Draco mused.
"What?" Hermione asked, slightly annoyed.
Draco put on his best feminine voice. "Draco, I don't just want to sleep tonight," he emulated her.
"Oh, dear Merlin," Hermione said, grabbing her head again. "Please tell me I did not say that."
"I can't," he said smiling.
"Shit."
"Language, language, Mrs. Malfoy," Draco said.
"Stop calling me that, you prat!" she yelled. "And go get me a drink of water!"
Draco just continued to sit on the bed in front of her.
"Please?" she asked nicely.
"That's better," he said, walking over to his kitchenette to get her a glass of water.
"So what really happened last night?" she asked.
"Nothing happened. You got drunk off of wine," he looked over to her. "Which makes you the cheapest drunk that I have ever met," he smiled, putting the glass under the faucet and turning it on.
"You should've known that from when we got married," she said.
"That's why I went for wine. Anyway, you left your keycard in your room and Blaise and Ginny were still out so you couldn't get into your room. You begged me to stay in my room. You wanted me to seduce you but me, being the gentleman I am," he stopped momentarily as Hermione scoffed. "I let you sleep on the bed and I slept on the couch." He finished the last part as he sat back down on the bed and handed his wife the glass of water.
Hermione put the glass to her lips and started drinking it.
"So when are we going to shag?" Draco asked. Hermione wasn't expecting that and she spit out her water, all over him.
"What?" she asked, wiping off her mouth with the back of her hand and wiping it on his covers.
"I was just wondering. I mean, you can't shag anyone else, and I know that you aren't the prude that everyone thinks you are."
"What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"You had to see you last night to understand," he said.
"Please remind me never to get drunk again."
"Remind yourself, next time I probably won't be as gentlemanly," he smirked, getting off the bed and crossing the room to get dressed. "And you never answered my question."
"What question?" Hermione asked, gulping down the rest of her water.
"When are we going to shag?" he asked slowly.
"I don't know," she said. Holding out her glass to him, wordlessly telling him that she wanted more water. He grabbed the cup from her and walked back over to the kitchenette.
"Well, it is inevitable, so I was just wondering how long you can wait until you're horny enough to want to have sex with me," he said nonchalantly.
"I've waited two years," she whispered to herself. Apparently it wasn't as quiet as she would've hoped.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said guiltily, trying to cover up for what she had said.
"Two years?" he asked. He dropped the glass of water on the floor with a thump and it spilt everywhere. He distractedly walked back over to the kitchenette to get a towel. "So you haven't…"
Hermione nodded her head.
"Since we…"
She nodded again.
"So I was your only…"
She nodded again.
"Then who's Brad?" he asked suddenly.
"What?" she asked completely surprised.
"Brad, the guy you have all the pictures of in your sketchbook," he explained.
"Oh no. You looked through my sketchbook?" she accused angrily.
Draco shrank away a little then made a small nod as an affirmative.
"Brad is…Brad is…Brad…" she stuttered, trying to find the words. She looked up at Draco. She noticed suddenly how the light fell across his golden blonde hair, how she had to fight an urge to run her hands through it. She looked into his eyes and noticed that they were a shade of gray that seemingly pierced through her, adoration and fury. Love and hate. "Brad is you," she said, voicing her epiphany.
"Huh?" Draco asked. Whatever answer he had been expecting, this was definitely not it.
"You, Brad is you. I never realized it until now." Her face glowed with the sudden realization and she seemed to be in a glory daze.
"I'm sorry, but can you please explain how someone can be me when I don't even know who it is," Draco asked.
"Brad. He is this guy who I dream about," she stopped at the huge grin plastered across Draco's face. "I draw him because…" She couldn't finish, then he would know what it was that she thought in her dreams. Brad was her one true love, how could Draco be her one true love? "Because he is handsome. But I can never remember what his face looks like, only his hair and his eyes. Just looking at you now and I noticed that it's you that I dream about."
"Well, well, Mrs. Malfoy. I never knew you dreamt about me," he said.
"You are so complacent," Hermione said.
"And you, my lady, are so scrupulous it's annoying."
"Now that we know each other's idiosyncrasies, can we please get out of here?"
"Why do you want to leave?" he asked sardonically. "You didn't want to leave last night," he added.
"I was drunk last night. Can we please just do something besides sit here and do nothing?"
"I can think of plenty of things we can be doing," Draco said.
"Enough with the innuendos, I am going back to my room to take a shower and get dressed!"
"You are the least amiable, docile, and lucid person I have ever met!"
"And you are just an annoying patrician."
"I happen to like being a nabob, thank you very much," Draco said.
"Whatever, I'm leaving!" Hermione said angrily.
"Farewell, my lady. And the next time you intend to reprove me, remember that I know myriad vocabulary words as well."
"Agh…" Hermione said as she left his room and headed back to 206 in the dress that she was wearing the night before.
0000
Hermione arrived at her room and knocked on the door. Ginny arrived a moment later, wearing nothing but a button-up shirt.
"Oh no, Ginny. You didn't," Hermione scolded.
"I didn't do anything," Ginny said innocently.
"You are so pedestrian, Ginny," Hermione said, pushing her friend to the side and noticing the naked man sleeping in Ginny's bed. "Yeah, didn't do anything except Blaise," Hermione said as she walked into the bathroom to take a shower.
"And what about you and Malfoy. You didn't do anything last night?" Ginny said through the bathroom door as she heard the water turn on.
"No, we didn't," Hermione said angrily. "And we're married…TO EACH OTHER!"
"I'm not married yet, Hermione," Ginny said protectively.
"But you should still be true to Oliver," Hermione scolded from the shower.
"Hermione…I'm having second thoughts," Ginny admitted.
"WHAT?" Hermione yelled.
"I don't know if I want to marry him anymore. I've realized what you did. There is no spark between us and I don't think that we would be happy together."
Blaise, who was lying awake on the bed looking up at his new-found lover, smiled. He hoped that she would leave her boring fiancé for him. Now it seemed as though his plan was working.
"Ginny, you do not make a promise to someone that you do not intend to keep," Hermione was still reprimanding from the bathroom.
"I had every intention of keeping my promise, but I have found that there is something better in life than a star quidditch player. I have realized that I am not in love with Oliver anymore. I never have been, I just thought I was because I had no basis of comparison."
"Ginny, just think about what you are saying, are you really going to leave Oliver for Blaise?" Hermione asked.
"I might," Ginny said softly.
"What?"
"I don't know, Hermione. But right now I am unmarried and I don't want you to get in the way of me having fun on this vacation."
"Fine, but don't come crying to me when you are broken-hearted because Blaise left you for some other girl," Hermione said definitively.
Draco made his way down to his wife's room. He intended to spend another day with her. He wanted her to know he really had changed and he did really love her, even if she couldn't find it in her heart to love him.
He hadn't even had the chance to snog her since the day before on the elevator. He wanted to kiss her again, but first he had to get her alone.
He got to her room and Alohomora-ed the door. He opened it and looked inside, only to find Weaselette yelling at the bathroom door and a naked Blaise lying on her bed under a sheet looking up at her.
Then he heard the yelling coming from the bathroom.
He only caught the end of the conversation, something about Blaise leaving Weaselette for someone else. He cleared his throat and both Ginny and Blaise looked over in his direction.
"And that would be my lovely wife yelling from the bathroom?" he asked.
"Yes. She is being really bitchy today, what did you do to her?" Ginny asked angrily.
"I didn't do anything," Draco said.
"Well, maybe you should have. She would have been less tense. She hasn't been laid in two years!" Ginny said irately to Draco.
"Fine, I'll fuck her. Is that what you want me to say?" Draco asked irritably
Ginny was stunned at the audacity of Draco's comment. But she nodded anyway. "Yes, please," she said softly and embarrassed.
Hermione stepped out of the bathroom wearing a towel at that moment and cut through the tension in the room by saying, "What's going on out here?"
"Hurry up and get dressed, Hermione. I'm taking you out to breakfast," Draco said distractedly, still staring down the Weaselette.
"Fine," Hermione said in an irritated tone, crossing to her dresser to get clothes, then going back into the bathroom to get dressed.
"What the hell was that about?" Blaise asked.
"What was what about?" Draco asked.
"Hermione just agreed with you. She has been fighting with everyone all morning, then she just agrees to go to breakfast with you?"
"I don't know, it's like she's having mood-swings or something," Draco said.
"She must be on her period," Ginny mused.
"Shit!" Draco said.
They all laughed.
"So, why do you want to take me out to eat all the time now?" Hermione asked her husband.
"I don't know, is it so bad that I want to spend time with my wife?"
"It's not bad that you want to spend time with your wife, its bad that you want to spend time with me."
"Why is it bad that I want to spend time with you? I already told you Hermione, I love you. I want to spend time with you."
Hermione flinched at his words of love. He didn't know what love was, he didn't love her, he just thought he did. Love wasn't just something that was mildly said. He only said it because he had to. Because they were married.
Dear lord, she was married at the age of nineteen. She didn't think that marriages happened that young these days.
"You don't love me, Draco. You may come to with time, but you don't," Hermione said.
"I have come to with time. It took me three years to realize it at school. It's been two years since I have told it to you. I know what love is, Hermione. I know that you cannot possibly love me after all the horrible things that I have done to you in your life. That is why I am trying to make it up to you."
"And you think that taking me out to eat and buying me stuff is making it up to me?" she asked bitterly.
"I am not only doing that to help you forgive me. I want to spend time with you, show you that I have matured. You don't think I have, but I have. I know that you can never believe that and I know that you can't know how I feel. I know that it will take time for this relationship to ever work out. But for now we have to live with the consequences of our actions, and I for one am happy with this arrangement."
"Draco, I see that you have matured. But just because you have matured doesn't mean that you know anymore about love than you did when you were seventeen. Can you please just refrain from saying that you love me from now on," Hermione pleaded.
"But I do, Hermione."
"Please?" Hermione asked again.
"Fine. But only to make you happy," he said quietly.
"Thank you," she said, leaning across the table to give him a kiss.
After breakfast, Draco and Hermione went back to the Green Dragon. They stayed downstairs in the casino, Draco decided that he had gone long enough, and he wanted to try his luck again. He pulled a quarter out of his pocket and stuck it in a slot machine. Nothing.
Why must he have such horrible luck? Hermione just looked at him and laughed.
"What?" he asked, wondering what she thought was so funny.
"Your face looks so funny when you are denied something you want," she explained.
"Well, I don't like giving up something to gain nothing," Draco said.
"You do it like this," Hermione said. Taking her one and only quarter out of her pocket and putting it in a different slot machine. She pulled the lever and three cherries came up. 200 quarters.
"See, I just made forty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents," Hermione said happily as she picked up the quarters from the machine.
"How did you do that?" Draco asked.
"I have always had good luck," Hermione said dismissively.
"Here, do it again," Draco said, handing her a quarter of his own.
She put the quarter in the slot machine and pulled the lever. Nothing.
"Hmm, I guess your money isn't good for everything," she said.
"What the hell?" Draco asked.
"I don't know," Hermione said, putting one of her newly acquired quarters in another slot machine and getting three triple bars. 500 quarters.
"How the hell are you doing that?" Draco asked again. Hermione laughed and collected her quarters in a large cup.
"I have unnaturally good luck. Just look who happened to get drunk and marry me," she said happily as she kissed Draco.
"Mood swings," he muttered into the kiss.
After Hermione had gambled a little more and made a net gain of about a thousand dollars, she and Draco went back up to her room.
A thousand dollars in quarters takes up a lot of room. Hermione and Draco's arms were full of brimming cups and Hermione had tied off her sweater and filled it with quarters as well. Four thousand or so quarters is a lot of weight. Roughly eighty pounds worth.
When she got back to her hotel room, she emptied all the quarters into her suitcase. It was filled nearly to the brim.
"Well, if you can get a thousand dollars out of two, then maybe I have underestimated exactly how lucky you are, and how lucky I am," he said.
"You? Lucky? Because you're with me? A mudblood, a Gryffindor, a bookworm, a…"
"The most beautiful woman that I have ever seen in my entire life," he said, giving her a kiss.
"I'm not beautiful," she said shyly.
"Don't even start that whole 'I'm not beautiful, oh feel sorry for me' thing, Hermione. You know you are beautiful, otherwise you would not be getting eighth place in a beauty pageant," he said.
"That reminds me, what score did you give me for formal?" she asked.
"Why should I tell you?" he asked.
"Because I want to know," she said.
"Well, I may tell you for a price," he said.
"Oh, and what price shall that be?" she asked.
Draco made a quick glance at the bed and then caught her gaze again. Hermione caught on the subtle hint. She hit him on the shoulder.
"I am not giving you sex for you to tell me," she said.
"Fine, settle for a quick snogging session than?" he asked.
Hermione held her fingers under her chin and put her pointer finger over her lip, seemingly in thought. "Oh all right then," she said suddenly as she walked up to him and quickly gave him a peck. He grabbed her waist and pulled her close to him. He caught her lips again and deepened the kiss.
Hermione gave in immediately. Maybe it wasn't so bad in thinking that she would have a horrible marriage with this man. His kisses were intoxicating enough. She suddenly and briefly wondered what it would feel like to sleep with him again. He was her first, he was her only, he was the only one she would be able to make love to for the rest of her life, and everyday that life got shorter. So she should live for the moment, shouldn't she? At that moment a quote from a poem by Horace popped into her head. "Whilst we are talking, envious time doth slide; this day's thine own, the next may be denied."
She decided that she should "Carpe Diem," and she deepened the kiss more, thrusting her tongue inside his mouth and he let out a groan.
She smiled as she pulled his shirt from his pants, but his hands stilled hers and he broke the kiss.
"I thought you said you didn't want to," he said a little breathlessly.
"I changed my mind," she said.
"Well, that's not like you, Mrs. Malfoy," he said evilly.
"Shut up, prat," Hermione said as she stopped any more argument with her lips against his.
"Gladly," he said roughly against her lips and he pulled her waist against him. He then maneuvered them around so that she was standing at the foot of her bed. He then pushed her backwards and stood over her.
She grinned slyly from the bed and he was on top of her in a second, kissing her again as he straddled her. Hermione moaned into the kiss, she remembered this body sinking into hers before. The one time that she had felt safe, the one time that someone had seemed to be interested in her.
Everyone else only seemed to like her because she was smart and she would help them with homework. Most of the boys at school hadn't even ever acknowledged to her that she was a girl. It seemed as though she was one of the guys, never to be looked at as something that would be desirable. But that one time, the time when Draco Malfoy had said that he found her attractive, she couldn't help but feel something towards him. He was the first male in Hogwarts to think of her as something more than bookworm Granger.
Then she found out that he had used her, that it had been for a bet, that none of it mattered to him. He hadn't actually found her desirable, he had wanted to win a stupid bet with his friends. He had wanted to use her, to tell her that she beautiful because he wanted her in bed, he wanted to take away the only dignity that she had by making her give up her virginity to him.
Why had she been so stupid. And was she being stupid now, was she doing something now that she shouldn't be doing. Was she making a mistake this time? Was he using her now?
She was pulled back into reality as Draco pulled away from her lips and started working down her neck, kissing and nibbling his way down. He growled, "You are thinking about something besides me, I have to change that."
"I was thinking about you," Hermione said breathlessly.
"Well, I don't want you thinking at all except about what I am doing to you," he said possessively.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Ginny yelled as she walked into the room.
"Fuck, Ginny," Draco complained, sitting up.
"No, fuck me Draco," Hermione breathed, pulling him back down.
"Privacy please," Draco said, trying to shoo the young Weasley from the room so he and Hermione could continue their activities.
"Okay, okay. Just give me a couple of seconds," Ginny said, running across the room to her dresser to get some random clothes out of it.
Blaise stood in the doorway smirking at the couple on the bed. He always knew that they would end up sooner or later. It had to happen, there was no way around it. It was fate. They were complete opposites, and opposites attract. In this case, very strongly.
"Remember Hermione, scores are posted at five," Ginny said as she left the room.
"Now, where were we?" Draco asked before going back to making tiny nips at Hermione's neck.
Hermione started to pull Draco's shirt over his head. She almost had it over his head before there came a knock on the door.
"What the hell?" Draco asked.
Another knock.
"I'm coming," Hermione yelled at the door.
"No, you're just really excited," Draco replied saucily.
"Get off of me, I have to answer the door," Hermione said as she pushed Draco off of her, ignoring the vulgar comment that he had made.
"Fine," Draco said standing up and letting his slightly ravished wife answer the door.
Hermione opened the door to find none other than Luci Malice standing there.
"What do you want? I thought you weren't going to waste another breath with me," Hermione said nastily as she noticed who it was.
"I need to talk to you, Malfoy," Luci said. Then she caught sight of Draco. "Alone."
"About what?" Hermione asked.
"Follow me," Luci said, pulling Hermione out of the room.
"I'm sort of busy right now," Hermione yelled, pulling her hand out of Luci's.
"Give me two minutes, that's all it will take, then you can go back to fucking your husband," Luci said snappily.
Hermione looked back at Draco and he nodded.
"Fine," Hermione said, following Luci out the door.
"Okay, I'm going to make you one more offer, Hermione. You already have a foot in the door being married to a judge, and I know your little red-headed friend is involved with another one of the judges."
"Where are you going with this? I already told you that I'm not going to cheat."
"It's not really cheating, it's more like swaying the judges in our favor," she replied.
"Forget it, Luci. I'm not going to do anything that will jeopardize my participation in this pageant. Plus, you're asking me to cheat on my husband."
"Fine, but you'll be sorry when you lose," Luci said, turning around to leave.
Hermione stormed back to her room and pounded on the door—forgetting to grab her keycard again. A minute later, Draco opened the door and Hermione stomped into the room and fell face down on her bed.
"What's wrong?" Draco asked, closing the door and walking over to his wife.
"Stupid bitch…" Hermione muffled through the pillow. Draco was surprised at the sudden change in emotions towards her so-called friend.
"What's going on, Hermione?" Draco asked again more seriously.
Hermione sat up in the bed and looked at him, she noticed the sincerity in his question. "Nothing, she's just pissing me off," Hermione said, not looking him in the eye.
"Well, now that she had successfully distracted you from my attempts of seducing you with my good looks, do you want to go get some lunch?" he asked.
Hermione looked a little sad at the thought of not continuing their activities, but the moment had come and gone.
"Sure," she said, getting up from the bed and following Draco out of the hotel room, remembering this time to grab her keycard.
They went out to the restaurant that they had gone to the night that they had gotten drunk and married.
"Well, this place brings back memories," Hermione said sarcastically.
"Yes, memories of 4 days ago," Draco said.
"Table for two?" the waiter asked.
"Yes, a private booth please," Draco said.
"Yes sir," the waiter said, showing them to a table in the back. He took their drink orders and left.
"Should you really be getting anything alcoholic, I thought that you weren't going to drink so I didn't take advantage of you," Draco said to Hermione.
"I don't think I would mind at this moment if you took advantage of me," she said with a smirk.
"That's what you think," Draco said. "Plus, I want to sober when I shag you," he added.
Hermione just giggled as the waiter came back with their drinks. Draco held his up to Hermione's for a toast.
"To our four-day anniversary," Draco said, failing at his efforts of trying to suppress a smile.
"Hear, hear," Hermione laughed, clinking her Piña Colada against his Red Bull and Vodka.
A/N: So this is a very long chapter that only takes up about three hours of their time. It is fourteen pages on Word, I wrote it in a couple of hours. I just didn't really feel like posting it until now.
So, hoped you liked it, and don't worry, they shall shag soon…