Chapter 23: Just a Kiss

As the dancing in the Main Hall persisted, Draco and Hermione's lips touched softly and gently under a weeping willow tree near the school's walls. Having asked him to rescue her she now felt it was apparent he had done so in more than one way. Her fingers were intertwined with his at their sides; words had yet to be spoken.

Hermione giggled at the repetition of these detached, open-mouthed kisses and smiled at her kisser. Draco smiled and continued. Ever since last week when he saved her life new things were happening to him. He had never given these gentle, meaningful kisses before, nor had he ever received them. The best most stimulating part of it was this was Hermione Granger.

Draco pulled slightly away from her lips, he had been waiting this whole week to know what she had been thinking and feeling ever since the week of last and at that very moment, "first of all I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my lips," Hermione grinned up at him and opened her eyes, "I've never been kissed like that before,"

Hermione POV

"It's just a kiss," she laughed.

"There's no such thing as just a kiss,"

She blushed. "Well, not since last week,"

He smiled, "last week a lot of things changed,"

"Yeah," Hermione agreed with an exhale of reality.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked.

"Draco I spent all exam week thinking about you, and how great you are and how great you made me feel last week. And at first I thought of how great it would be to spend the summer getting to know you with out pressure's of family's and friends to influence our decisions but then I remembered I am going to be in Rome the entire summer,"

"Hermione, I'm-,"

She interrupted him, "But even then I thought about it," She said, "I don't care if we don't get to see each other this summer…well I do but,"

"But Hermione, I-,"

"Like Pierce said," She said, not letting him get a word in till she said her piece. Meanwhile he decided to let her do so and leaned against the tree, "Seventh year will be the best. But I think together, we can make it better than the best," Hermione smiled even knowing a long summer could always alter these plans but laughed when she saw him leaning against the tree, "I'm sorry,"

"Why? I think making seventh year better than best is a great idea, especially if we can do it together," He smirked.

She sighed in relief, "It will be hard to keep 'this' a secret,"

He sighed and got up from leaning against the tree. He took her hands in his and looked at her, "Hermione, if we want to have a relationship, a friendship, or just be sex partners," Hermione's eyes widened at the last suggestion wondering if it really would go that far. Sex with Draco Malfoy? "We'll have a whole summer to define what we want and decide if we want to keep it a secret or not and get used to it if we do," Those words got Hermione's mind off an even bigger issue of sex and back on track where she was wondering what he meant.

"But Draco that's impossible," She said shaking her head.

"It probably would be if I wasn't coming to Rome on the Ancient Ruins trip,"

Hermione was smirking in disbelief, "we're going to be together in Rome?"

"Well," he sighed with a shrug, "why not? I've nothing better to do," Hermione giggled with a wide-eyed smile and squeezed his hands. She giggled and wrapped her arms around him. He laughed and spun her around slowly until he noticed some thing in the corner of his eye. Although this was a great moment of revelation some thing was possibly just about to ruin it. "Some one's watching us," Draco said although the figure didn't look like a young curious student. Hermione glanced at the object and she had a feeling she knew what it was. Draco gently put Hermione down, took one of his hands and reached down into his pocket where his wand was, but even before he pulled it out there was a loud screeching noise and the figure began to run.

Hermione quickly emerged from under the tree and began to run after it, "come on Draco," she whispered loudly.

Draco didn't wait for an explanation as to why she was running towards some thing unknown and ran after her. Of course, her trio of herself Ron and Harry was always famous for running after trouble. She probably only followed to advise them not to break many school rules or do any thing else to her that was stupid. Their need of wanting to know what every little thing was probably just grew on her. They dashed as fast as they could, still hearing music from inside the school as they chased the dark figure all the way to a big rock which they hid behind by the edge of the lake. The figure was now seen clearly and was drinking from the lake. The figure was pale grey, had two bulging round eyes on top of its head, and four spindly legs with enormous flat feet.

"It's a mooncalf," Hermione smiled at the beautiful creature, catching her breath. Draco sighed in relief. "Every full moon, mooncalves emerge from their burrows and look for mates to perform complicated dances on their hind legs as a mating call under the moonlight in insolated areas," Hermione explained, "It was probably looking for another mooncalf to perform a dance for and probably thought that's what we were when you spun me around,"

"We haven't learned about mooncalves from Hagrid yet," Draco said, putting his wand back in his pants, "how do you know all of that?"

Hermione shrugged and began to walk back to the willow tree as she still peered over her shoulder at the mooncalf, "I had tea with Hagrid one day while Harry and Ron practiced for Quidditch, and I asked him about what he was currently teaching his Magizoology class,"

"That's a seventh year class for people who want to be Magizoologists," Hermione nodded, "So you don't like Quidditch?"

"I don't really understand the rules," Hermione admitted as she passed through the vines and sat by the tree.

"Well we can't have that, I shall have to educate you on the game," Draco said sitting in front of her, "I could even wait and take you flying when school starts again," Hermione was always afraid of flying. Her two past wizard boyfriends had been Quidditch players and both had promised that; yet some how she never got the chance to fly with Harry or Viktor. She had a feeling though, that Draco probably would take her and no matter how afraid she was it would probably subside with the fact he saved her life and even if some how she did fall he would catch her again. But apparently Draco could see her doubt, "or not?"

Hermione nodded, smiled and changed the subject, "I bet you'll lose if you try to challenge me to a thumb war,"

"There's where you're wrong, it's not just a muggle children's game, I know it quite well," Draco insisted. They joined right hands and began to try and capture each others thumb. He held down her thumb down for a minute and let go, "now tell me your greatest desires,"

Hermione held down his thumb and smirked, "tell me a secret," she challenged.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"Almost," Hermione said as they went at it again, "but any one can see your desires. No one knows what's in your heart,"

"Alright, you scare me."

"I scare you?" she laughed and he held her thumb down.

"In the best, most desirable way- you scare me. I was so scared to want you and now that I do I'm just scared to screw up like I always do. And I love the way you scare me but it makes me nervous because usually I end up saying or doing something really stupid so I spend all this energy coming up with ideas to be smart so that you won't think I'm stupid and those ideas inherently backfire therefore making me look even more stupid. It's a vicious circle that didn't matter with the other girls because they were so stupid and didn't even notice or care if I was stupid. Hermione, I'm just scared that unlike any of the other girls, you'll find me stupid. Or even that you'll look at me in any way or form of the past and just know, oh he's stupid." Draco gave a deep breathe when he was done, he'd never admitted that to any girl or even any one.

What he just said almost confused her, but after a minute she got it and almost laughed, "Draco, you have to be the smartest guy I've ever met. Even when I loathed you I never thought you were stupid. Some times you'd know an answer before I did in class and it would scare me to think some one I hated so much knew some thing I didn't. But now you don't scare me because I finally don't feel like you'd laugh at my lack of intelligence if you noticed it. And if I'm relieved of such a fear, you should be too,"

Draco hugged her tightly and sighed in relief, "you still haven't told me you're greatest desires,"

Hermione bit her lip, pulled away from his hug and smiled, "isn't it obvious?"

Draco looked into her eyes to discover just what was so obvious. When he saw her glance down at his lips then back to his eyes, probably as quickly as possible he knew. He smiled and moved closer to her, but only rested his forehead on her forehead as he still held her hand from the thumb wars. He took a deep breath out, "What's gonna happen if I fall in love with you this summer Granger?"

Hermione blushed, but even with the moonlight shining through the vines it was too dark to tell. "I don't know…" she admitted, "but I wanna find out,"

Draco laughed out of both happiness and a sort of relief and at that moment fulfilled her greatest desires with not just a kiss. While Draco and Hermione kissed another act of infatuation was occurring. Not far from them, a male mooncalf approached a dancing female mooncalf. They brushed there faces against each others under the full moon. The beautiful mooncalves gracefully made for a place where they would make their own burrow. So they strode to this place, past two students of Hogwarts who were already romancing, to mate.

A/N:

Hello Readers!

I would like to thank every one who has been reading and reviewing, I really appreciate positive reviews. Some of you long-time readers might know this has been a story for a long time but it was not until now I decided to go back, edit, and continue writing the entire story. I'll try to pace it a bit quicker now that I've put every thing the way I want to put it. So where does it go from here? It would seem as if every thing is perfect and working out fine but what kind of story would it be if it did! Read to find out! The next chapter will be up in no time at all and I hope you will review, continue reading, and enjoy my story! Thanks.

-Angiil