Chapter Three: Second Date
Hermione woke the next morning thinking that she had just had a horrible dream. She rolled over in bed hoping to find Draco lying next to her, like he was every morning. This time he wasn't there, and then it suddenly hit her. It wasn't a dream, it wasn't a nightmare, it was real, Draco was dead and she was left to raise two children by herself.
Hermione dressed and headed out the door to find both children still asleep. She slowly headed downstairs to tell the servants of the Malfoy Manor. They had been with the Malfoy family since Draco was little and had refused to leave, even when Hermionehad finally convinced Draco that she didn't want servants in her house. As she walked she began to remember their second date.
Hermione woke that morning remember the kiss that she had shared with the boy she was falling for. She dressed and headed out to the common room to find Harry and Ron sitting in their corner talking. She walked up to them and stood right next to Ron.
"Anyone want breakfast?" she asked. The nodded and they headed downstairs. They made their way along the table toward a place to sit, and to their surprise, received no comments from the Slytherin table.
"I wonder what's up with Malfoy, if he didn't even make a comment today." Ron said sitting down.
"Well look at him. He must of done that dating thing and found someone." Harry said as all three turned to look at Malfoy. He had a glazed look in his eyes and was not paying any attention to the people around him. Harry and Ron cracked up laughing while Hermione just turned to her food.
That afternoon Hermione sat in the library finishing her homework that was due for Monday. She was trying to do anything and everything she could to make the day fly by. She just wanted it to be 6 o'clock and her standing by the lake with the boy she was falling for. She smiled happily and then turned back to her work.
Time pasted as she was consumed in her Transfiguration homework. When she first looked at her clock it was 3:07 but the next time she looked it was 5:35. Hermione quickly shoved her papers, homework, and books into her bag and took off up to the common room. She ran up to the dormitory and threw her stuff on her bed. Quickly she went through her trunk and found her knee length black skirt and a light blue short sleeve t-shirt. She put them on along with a pare of blue sandals. Hermione quickly changed her hair, eyes, nose, and skin tone before taking off down toward the lake.
Once she was at the door leading out to the grounds she slowed down to a walk. The sun was just beginning to go down and the light warm September air blew her hair around her face. As she got closer to the lake she saw a boy standing, holding a broom. The closer she got she saw he had on a pair of jeans, a green t-shirt and a normal black school robe. She strolled up to him with a smile on her face.
"Hi." She said looking at him.
"Hello." He said smiling back at her. "Well be better get going if we want to make it in time." He said. She gave him a curious look but followed him to the edge of the lake.
He mounted the broom and motioned for her to sit in front of him. She sat on it sidesaddle like and leaned against him. Hermione wrapped her arms around him and held on as he kicked off the ground. They soared upward fairly fast. Hermione hid he face in his chest as her hair blew around them. After a while they were just hovering over the lake.
"You can look now." He said with a slight laugh in his voice. Hermione removed her head from his chest and looked out over the lake. The sun was going down and it looked amazing reflecting in the lake below them. "Like it?" he asked.
"Oh my. It's beautiful." She said and turned to look at him. He smiled and took one hand off the broom. He lifted her head toward his and kissed her passionately. She ran her hand through his hair as she kissed him back. Once they pulled away she removed her arms from around him and leaned back against him. He wrapped his one arm around her and she held on to it.
The sun was about halfway down when he finally spoke again. "Do you think we should finally revile ourselves?" he asked.
"I guess so, but before you know who I really am I just want to let you know that I really like you and I think that we really have something with each other. You're a great guy and I can't believe that it took this long to find you." She said smiling at him.
"I know. It's so weird how we are both in the same year and it took us until they did this blind dating thing to find one another. You're amazing and I really like you as well." He said.
With that their both pulled out their wands and removed the charms they had placed on themselves. Hermione's hair became curly again, he nose shrank, her eyes became brown again and her skin tone darkened a bit. She turned to look at the boy she was with. His hair was now sliver-blond, his eyes were gray, and he was a slight but lighter color. Hermione's eyes widened, as she looked at the boy she flying with.
"Malfoy!" she spat out looking at him with pure horror. Her mouth hung open as she looked at him. The boy she was falling in love with was the one person she hated.
"Granger!" he shouted, "you've got to be kidding me!" He said turning his head to sky andgrowled really loudly.
"I'm not happy about this either, just take me back to the ground and I'll forget that it was you." Hermione said as she turned her back to him, at least the best she could since she was sitting sidesaddle.
"My pleasure." He said. He grabbed back onto the broom and went to turn it around. As he turned the corner a gust of wind caught them, as they were flying. The wind made Hermione lose her balance and she fell off the broom. Screaming she plummeted two hundred feet toward the lake below. Malfoy quickly turned his broom into a dive as if he was going after a snitch. He dived after her, but had to swerve quickly to miss the splash that she made as she hit the water.
Malfoy hovered a few feet from the top of the water searching frantically for Hermione to come up. After about 30 seconds she finally surfaced a few feet away from him. He flew over to her and with a little bit of effort pick her up out of the water. Hermione was coughing and spitting out water as Malfoy flew both of them over toward the shore. He landed and picked Hermione up in his arms, the broom dropped as he walked her over to a rock and set her down.
Hermione's hair was soaking wet and dripping water down her face. Her clothes were soaked and she was shivering. Malfoy took his school robe off and wrapped it around her. He rubbed Hermione's arms trying to get her warm. Finally Malfoy sat next to her and pulled her close to him wrapping his arm around.
After a while Hermione finally spoke to him. "Why are you still here?" she said shaking.
"I just saved your life, and you ask me why I'm still here?" he said not looking at her but toward the lake as he rubbed her back.
"Normally you would leave. You would of let me drown and not cared." She said pulling the robe around her closer as she shivered madly.
"I don't know why I stayed. I guess, because what I said up there. I meant it and I guess just knowing who you are isn't a reason to ignore what my heart tells me." He said turning to looking her finally. Hermione looked up at him still shivering.
"I meant what I said too. We had fun before we knew who we were. I guess getting to know each other before we know who we are was a good idea." Hermione said with a slight smile. "Thank you." She said turning to look back at the lake.
"No problem. It kind of was my fault you fell. I turned the broom to sharply when you weren't holding on. I'm sorry." He said. Hermione sat in shock. Malfoy...Draco Malfoy... just said he was sorry, and to her nonetheless. After shaking the shock off she finally replied.
"It's okay. I guess nothing ever goes completely right, does it?" she said.
"I guess not, but I know something that does." He said.
He reached down and tilted her head up to look at him. He looked into her brown eyes as she looked back into his silver-gray eyes. He leaned down and kissed her. She moved her arms out from under the robe and wrapped them around his body. He wrapped his around her small body. He pulled away and kissed her nose and then forehead. She giggled and looked at him.
"When you're not an arrogate git, you're nice, and I like you that way." She said smiling. She hid her head in his chest getting it wet from her hair. After about a half hour they finally pulled part. Hermione was no longer shivering as bad and was quite ready to head back to the common room.
"We should get going." He said walking over to pick up his broom. "Do you want a ride back?" he said looking at her.
Hermione slid of the rock, there was a large wet spot from where she was sitting,and looked at him. "No, I've had enough of brooms for now, beside if I walk I'll warm up." She said smiling.
"Alright then. Night." She said mounting the broom.
"Night." She called after him as he took of toward the castle.
She began to walk toward the castle and watched him as she landed in front of the doors and walked inside with one last look back at her. She smiled to herself as she walked. The wind blew a little so she pulled his robe around her. She felt something in the pocket of his robes and pulled it out. It was his wand. He has a very nice wand, it was polished and in great shape. She stuffed it back into his robes and figured she would need to get it to him somehow.
She finally made it back to the Common room after a fairly long walk. She walked through the portrait hole to find it fairly empty except a few first years and Harry and Ron. They saw her enter soaking wet and walked up to her.
"What the bloody hell happened to you?" Ron asked looking at her.
"Long story." She said looking at them.
"Hermione, do you realize the robe you're wear is a Slytherin's?" Harry said. Ron gapped at her in shock.
"Now, you have to tell us." Ron said. So, Hermione began.
"We met at the lake like planned. Well, we were enjoying flying over the lake when we decided we better revile ourselves. Well I had ended up falling off the broom and falling about two hundred feet into the lake. He saved me and pulled me out. He wrapped me in his robes to get me warm. We were talking and then decided to head back. So here I am." Hermione finished her story.
"A Slytherin?" Ron asked. He still could not believe that she had gone out with a Slytherin.
"Who was he?" Harry asked looking at her.
"Oh well, he ended up being—" she started but then Neville came through the portrait hole and began talking to her.
"Um, Hermione you won't believe this, but I was just sent in here to get you. If I didn't I was going to behexed up. Um, Draco Malfoy says he has a message for you from Professor Snape. It's against his will to be at the bottom of the staircase outside the door, but he was made to come." Neville said looking at Hermione. Harry and Ron gapped at Neville.
"Fine." She said and turned to leave when Ron stopped her.
"You want one of us to come?" he asked her. She turned to look at him, but shook her head.
"No, I'll be fine." She said and walked out the door leaving all three boys looking after her. Hermione slowly made her way down the stairs and saw Draco standing there looking for her.
"You have a message for me from Snape?" she said smiling at him.
"No, I just needed a way to get a Gryffindor to get you out here." He said smiling back to her "But, you do have something of mine, and I need it back." He said.
"Oh really? Besides the robes" she said walking toward him. He walked back behind a gargoyle so no one could see them. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
"You can keep the robes if you want, I have another one in my dorm, but there is something in the robes that I do need." He said moving one of his hands around her waist and the other inside the robes. She dropped her hand from around his neck and stopped his from going inside the robes.
"You're not getting it back that easily." She said smiling up at him and replacing her arm around his neck.
"Well, what do I have to do?" he said wrapping his arms around her pulling her toward him.
"Oh, just tell the whole school that you don't hate muggle-borns." She smiled a mischievous smile at him. His mouth dropped open his eyes widened. He looked at her.
"You're joking." He said terrified she was serious.
"And have you ruin your Malfoy reputation, I'm not that mean." She said. He gave a small little glare at her but then smiled.
"Okay, so what do I—" he started but stopped when he heard someone coming down the stairs from the Gryffindor tower.
"Hermione?" the voice called.
"Stay here." She said and let go of him and walked quickly from behind the gargoyle and looked down the hall toward the stairs heading down to the sixth floor. "What?" she yelled behind her to them
"What's taking so long?" Ron said.
"Making sure Malfoy doesn't come back. I told him if he ever comes back to the Gryffindor tower I'd hex him to next Tuesday." She said turning to look at Ron and Harry.
"Oh, okay. So what did he say?" Harry asked.
"I don't really remember. It wasn't that important. I was mad at him for wasting my time I spent more threatening to hex him then I did listening to him." Hermione said.
"Well are you coming back up? You still never told us who your date was." Ron said looking down at her. He was standing two stairs in front of Harry.
"Not right now, I need to go talk to Professor McGonagall about something. I'll be up there in a little while." She said beginning to walk down the hall. Harry and Ron turned around and headed back up the stairs into Gryffindor tower. Hermione waited until she heard the portrait close again before heading back to Malfoy. "Now, where were we?" she said wrapping her arms around his neck again.
"You telling me what I have to do to get my wand back." He said pulling her closer to him and smiling.
"Oh I don't know. I was thinking maybe I'd keep it a while." She said teasing him.
"You wouldn't dare." He said.
"We have potions as our first class on Monday. I could always throw it at the back of your head. You know I think I'll do that." She said trying to leave, but he held onto her.
"I don't think so. I want my wand back and I think I know what I can do to get it back." he said with the famous Malfoy smirk playing on his lips.
"Like what?" Hermione asked with a threatening sound in her voice.
"Yep." And with that he kissed her. She returned the kiss and deepened it. He pulled her closer to her and even picked her up. She gave a small giggle as she kissed him. He finally put her down and pulled away. "Did that… work?" he asked through breaths
"I think it did." Hermione replied and with that she pulled his wand out of the robes and gave it to him.
"Thank you." He said pulling it in his pants pocket.
"Well, I should be going back." Hermione said.
"Yeah, me too." Malfoy told her looking into her eyes. He kissed her again and then let her go. "Meet me tomorrow after lunch by the rock we were at tonight." He said beginning to walk backwards away from her.
"I doubt I can get away from Harry and Ron." She said.
"Oh, you can." He said almost tripping.
"Oh really?" she said trying to keep herself from laughing at him.
"Yeah they have Quidditch Practice tomorrow." He said with a smirk.
"Alright, tomorrow, after lunch, by the rock. Good-night." She said turning to head up the stairs.
"Night." He called back after her and ran off toward the Slytherin Common room.
Hermione walked into the Common Room smiling. Ron made a mad dash for her. He was determined to find out who her date was before she went to bed. Harry followed behind Ron and pulled Ron back off from attacking Hermione.
"Okay spill, who was your date." Ron almost yelled.
"I'm heading off to bed. I'm tired and sick of being wet. Goodnight." She said completely ignoring Ron and turning to Harry.
"But, but, but." Ron stuttered as Hermione turned and headed for the girls dormitories.
Hermione was walking up the stairs when she heard Harry say "She'll tell you when she wants to." Hermione smiled. She was extremely grateful to have a friend like Harry. She climbed into bed that night after drying off her clothes and Malfoy's robes. She lay on her stomach running her figure over the snake on the Slytherin house seal. The snake sparkled in the moon light that was coming through the corner of her curtains. She bundled the robes up and stuck her head into them. Even though they had been wet from her they the sweet smell of Butterbeer and musk on them. She fell a sleep dreaming of her night as she held Malfoy's robes close.
Tears ran down Hermione's face, as she could still smell the scent that had lingered on his robes that night. Both of their old school robes hugh in their closet upstairs. The memories were bitter sweet, but then again, most memories of a dead loved one uses are. Hermione finally made it into the kitchen where she was to tell all the servants that Mr. Malfoy was never coming home again.
(Author's note: I hope you like it... I'm still working on it, but I have a few more chapters to write before I get stuck. I hope to update soon. Thanks for reading.)