Bon Appetite! - Chapter Nine

Hermione trudged grudgingly through the slippery mud. Rain poured down around her in torrents and the wind blew up through the clearing, sending her sopping hair up to slap her face and neck. She shivered and pulled her drenched cloak closer, achieving nothing, gaining no warmth.

Her eyes raked the forest floor relentlessly, searching in vain for the moonstones. She couldn't see a thing before her and only Malfoy's pale head radiating moonlight behind her. He had neglected to mention the fact that you also had to collect the stones on a full moon when he had given her his lecture on the procedure two days before. They had waited (thankfully not long) for the full moon, but even now, when the moon glowed brightly above their weary, rain soaked heads, the stones evaded their searching gaze.

The past two days hadn't been as bad as the first few. A silent truce had been formed and, both knew, though found it hard to accept, that their survival and chance of getting home depended on their civility and attitude towards each other.

Hermione had even gotten to thinking, that when not surrounded by his peers and people that he was expected to impress, Malfoy wasn't half bad. He had even cut the word "mudblood" from his vocabulary…though only after she had agreed to cease referring to him as a "ferret".

Hermione's thoughts were forced rudely back to the task at hand as another vicious gale whipped a strand of sopping hair across her wind burnt cheek.

"Malfoy!" She called.

After receiving no answer, she called again louder, but her words were swallowed up in the raging wind. Exasperated, she flew around and forced her way back to him through the mud. When she was not but a foot from him, she slid across a particularly slippery patch of mud, which sent her plummeting forward.

Malfoy threw his arms forward and steadied her quickly before she had time to hit the ground.

"Thanks," she said quietly, straitening up. Once again, her words were lost.

She saw him mouth 'What?', and instinctively, she leaned forward until her mouth was just next to his ear.

"Thank you," she said quietly, but he heard.

He nodded curtly.

Seeing as how he seemed to be able to hear her, she leaned forward again.

"We're getting nowhere," she told him. "What are we going to do if we don't find them tonight? We'll have to wait a whole other moon cycle!"

Draco nodded and gripped Hermione's shoulders, leaning towards her until his ice-cold, smirking lips just rested against her ear.

"I believe that that would be an accurate assumption," he stated coolly.

Hermione's breath caught in her throat at the feel of his thin lips on her ear and his hot breath brushing fleetingly across her skin.

"What?" She stammered, her mind going blank.

"If we don't find it tonight, it means an extra month together Griff…at least."

Hermione swallowed thickly. Was it just her, or did he put special emphasis on the word 'together'? It was just her, she decided.

Malfoy was silent but, Hermione noticed consciously, he was still gripping her forearms possessively.

Slowly, Hermione lifted her head, only to lower it back down again when she saw him staring intently at her.

She shivered as he ran a pale finger down her exposed neck to rest on her collarbone. Painstakingly, he retraced his path until the finger lay just below her chin. He lifted her head up to face him. His gray eyes bored into her brown ones. Quickly, she lowered them and tried to concentrate on the still raging wind and the pouring rain, tried to take her mind off the strange scene unfolding before her.

Malfoy shook her head with his finger softly.

"Look at me Hermione."

Startled at the use of her first name, Hermione lifted her eyes to search his gray ones.

Malfoy's thin hands moved up to rest on her shoulders. He shook her softly, then cupped her dripping cheek gently.

Hermione trembled fleetingly, mentally blaming it on the unbearable cold. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the vision before her, but it stayed as though seared onto her eyelids.

"Cold…," she whispered, nearly inaudibly.

Her eyes flew open and she tensed as she felt Draco's frigid lips forced upon her own. He softly stroked her wind burnt cheek and ran his hand through her sopping tresses. Hermione went limp and lifted her hands to clutch his shoulders, not responding and barely registering what was going on. He didn't go any further, and broke away quickly, his hand still on her flushed cheek.

Hermione gasped at the loss of warmth as he pulled away slightly. Her eyes darted all around. She could fell her heart beating mercilessly inside her chest. She gasped and shivered as another gust of wind raged past.

"Cold…," she whispered.