CHAPTER FOUR
a/n: I love everyone! This will be my last update for a while I think. I am about to start HSC exams (huge exams at the end of high school that determine what uni you get into…screams). I hope you're all enjoying the story and I hope the next chapter is interesting.
Disclaimer: I'm on a roll with these…J.K. Rowling owns Harry and crew…I own the plot only.
"Oh Fuck," they both said simultaneously upon seeing the bed.
Hermione was the first to recover.
"Well Draco, I am perfectly aware that at some point, before September 23rd we will have to sleep together. However I don't intend to even share my bed tonight and gentleman that you are, I'm sure that you will be chivalrous and take the couch."
"Chivalry's dead sugar, get used to it. There is no way I am spending the next few weeks on the couch. We share the bed."
"Uh huh right." At this, Hermione grabbed Draco's wand from his hand, hurried into the bedroom and sealed the door.
"Have a nice night honey, maybe next time you'll think again before you're an arsehole to me and I'll let you share the bedroom. Until then, enjoy the couch."
"Bitch! Let me in. I'm doing this as a favour to you, remember?"
"Yeah, make me share the room by calling me a bitch. That'll work." Hermione turned away from the door and began to examine the bedroom properly. Like, the living room, the bedroom walls were painted an oyster colour. The double bed had linen with the same colour, just a darker shade, with pale blue pillows. There were two wardrobes, and an extra set of doors which led to a tiny terrace with a stone wall around it. From the balcony, Hermione could see the forbidden forest and a curl of smoke, which must come from Hagrid's cottage. Satisfied with the room, Hermione began to unpack her trunk. Once that was done, she realised that if she wanted to clean her teeth properly, she would have to leave the bedroom and go to the bathroom. Meh, I'll just use a spell. You don't get the minty effect but its better than losing the bed for the night. She pulled on her pyjamas and climbed into the bed. She fell asleep quickly, but not before noticing that the bed wasn't in fact a queen size as she had originally thought, it was only a double. Thank god Draco's out there for the night. I don't think I could handle sleeping so close to him at this point in time. Especially because the sight of his face both depresses me because he hates me for who I am, and makes me want to stab him in the eye with a quill because he is such a dickhead.
Meanwhile, Draco was finding it a little more difficult to get to sleep. The couch was fine, only a little less comfortable than a bed, however he was seething in anger at the fact that the 'Granger bitch' had locked him out of their bedroom and stolen his wand. I suppose I was a bit of a dickhead, bit locking me out of the room for the night is going too far. I now have a cast iron reason for hating her. And of course a great opportunity to think of some revenge. Draco's thoughts turned to revenge strategies, he decided on one and then fell asleep.
Malfoy Manor, 12:00am, September 2nd (just).
"FUCK THEM!" Lucius threw his brandy glass against the mantelpiece where it shattered into thousands of miniscule pieces. That stupid mudblood bitch and her fuckwit friends. Screwing my life around and then stealing my son from me. Which brings me to my next point, the stupid blood traitor bastard, formerly known as my son. Having spent the past hour trying unsuccessfully to figure out where in the castle the couple were, he had come to the conclusion that Dumbledore's protective spells were too powerful to penetrate from outside the castle, and decided to get drunk instead of continuing. In his desperation, he had fallen back on the old stand by, muggle liquor. Sure it was unclean and made by worthless excuses for human beings, but vodka, for example, was much stronger than anything wizard made. The supplies of vodka had run out early in the night and now Lucius was (or was until he smashed his glass) drinking brandy. Lurching to his feet, he staggered out of his private study (actually now the whole house was 'private' since Draco was gone, and Narcissa had been killed in the final 'showdown' with Voldemort). He managed to make it to his bedroom without falling, and went inside closing the door behind him. He had taken to locking his bedroom door, still afraid that despite all the protective spells, one day an auror might actually make into his house. He tried for a few minutes to fit the key into the hole, before realising the reason he was having so much trouble was that he was actually trying to lock the door with his smallest finger, and the key was lying abandoned by his feet. He leant down to get the key, smashed his head against the door and slowly crumpled to the floor, where he passed out peacefully. However the next morning, when he woke up scrunched against the door, looking as though he had fallen asleep in the middle of a summersault, and hung over, he wasn't quite as calm.
Hogwarts, 7:00am, Hermione and Draco's Apartment.
Hermione opened her eyes and stretched out, taking up the whole bed. She had had a fantastic nights sleep and was feeling great. She got up, gathered her robes and her wand together and prepared to have a shower. She unlocked the door and opened it cautiously. Draco was still asleep on the couch, wearing his robes from the day before. She tiptoed past him and made it to the bathroom without waking him up. The bathroom had a large bath, a shower, as well as two sinks with large mirrors. She emptied her toiletries onto the shelves of one of the vanities, before stripping off and hopping into the shower. She sighed with relief as the hot water hit her body and washed off the grime of yesterday's train ride. It obviously would have been a lot nicer to shower before sleeping in the nice clean bed, but having a shower would have greatly diminished her chances of having the nice clean bed. She washed her hair, and got out of the shower. Drying her self off with a towel, Hermione dressed and with a few choice flicks of her wand, her hair was dried, straightened and put into a high pony tail. She cleaned her teeth and, savouring the minty taste, left the bathroom. Draco was waiting, already changed on the couch for her to come out of the bathroom. He smirked at her, before asking, "Did you sleep well, darling?"
"Fantastically, the bed is so comfortable. How was the couch?"
"Passable, should we head down to breakfast?"
"Sure, I'll just put my things away." Why is he being so nice? I would have expected insults, and maybe a few hexes to dodge, but he's being polite.
She hurried out of the bedroom, after putting away her pyjamas.
As they left the apartment, Draco slid his arm around her waist, and let his hand rest on her hip.
"You know there isn't anyone around so you don't need to do that yet."
"I'm just getting ready, what if someone comes along. I just want us to look like a real couple."
"Whatever." They had reached the great hall and Hermione tried to slip out of his grasp saying "I'll see you after breakfast," however Draco obviously had something else in mind. His arm stayed firmly attached to her waist and he began to steer her along to the Gryffindor table, where he sat her down, before claiming the seat next to hers.
"Draco, what are you doing?"
"Just spending time with my lovely wife of course. I'm joining you for breakfast. Oh look here come your friends."
Harry, Ron and Ginny walked up and sat across the table from Hermione and Draco. Harry narrowed his eyes at the sight of Draco, but said nothing simply glanced at Ginny and began to eat. Ron and Ginny both greeted Draco tentatively before Ron asked,
"So Malfoy, how come you're eating here with us? Any reason or you just wanted to …(pause)…eat with Hermione?"
"Well of course I wanted to eat here with my Hermy. Also I have a feeling if I sit at the Slytherin table, I am going to be subjected to much worse than a fork stabbed in my leg by Pansy. She can be pretty vindictive." Ron laughed easily, and even Harry cracked a smile. Hermione however was preoccupied with her thoughts. Why the hell was Malfoy sitting with them, why was he being so nice and why in gods name was he calling her Hermy? Suddenly she caught her name again and decided to tune into the conversation.
"So as I was saying to Hermy last night in bed…"
"What!" Hermione and Harry both interjected at the same time.
"I was just about to tell them about our conversation dear, you know, the one about how you think a majority of teenage wizards have no stamina at all. I have to say I proved her wrong last night didn't I?" Draco smirked, winked at her and whispered in her ear,
"This is what you get for stealing bedroom honey". Harry, Ron and Ginny were now looking at her with disgusted, surprised and interested faces. Ginny leaned forward eagerly to ask,
"Two things Hermione, one how much do you happen to know about stamina, and two, did he really?"
"Ginny! I'm not answering that. Harry wait…" Hermione trailed off as he got up from the table and practically ran from the great hall.
"I had better go and you know…" Ron trailed after Harry, grabbing a piece of toast on the way.
Ginny took one look at Hermione's face and edged down the bench until she reached a group of sixth year girls and joined their conversation.
"Now look what you've done you asshole. You know that Harry was freaking out about this already, now you go and make things a million times worse. So what, you spent the night on the couch, now you have contributed to the continuing breakdown of one of the most important friendships in my life, which started to breakdown when your psychotic father decided to try and kill me. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to try and find my best friend and try and reason with him. And I just want you to know, that if we weren't in the middle of the great hall, I would definitely have poked your eye out with my wand and kneed you the place you used to expertly last night in showing me your stamina." All this was said in a fierce whisper, which Hermione ended by smiling prettily at Draco and kissing him on the cheek.
"Bye Dray, see you in potions," she called out before walking out of the great hall and dashing to the Gryffindor common room where hopefully she would find Harry and Ron.
"Resolution". The portrait swung open and Hermione climbed through. To her relief she saw Harry and Ron sitting in armchairs buy the fireplace.
"Oh my god guys I am so sorry about this morning. Draco was being a real loser because I…er…took all morning in the shower and he didn't get a chance. That was his payback."
"Wow, he sounds like a stand up guy Hermione."
"Harry, I know sarcasm when I hear it. Look I'm sorry; I know you hate this idea but Draco has changed and I do love him. I know he has occasional lapses into immaturity, though he is a seventeen year old boy. Harry I don't know how I will be able to make it through the year without your friendship and if you aren't talking to me for much longer than I'll have to resort to desperate measures. For example, poking you repeatedly in the arm until you talk to me." At this, Hermione began to stab her finger into Harry's arm until he spoke.
"Look Hermione, if you think he has changed, then obviously he has been treating you well, because I know that you wouldn't marry him if he was still fucking you around. But I'm going to make my own judgements about whether or not her really has changed in general, and until then I'll have to trust you."
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" Hermione gathered Harry in her arms and hugged him, before tugging Ron over to join them. Harry pulled his head free, looked Hermione in the eyes and asked,
"Hermione do you really REALLY love him?"
She hesitated, looked at Harry and said "Yeah, I do."
"I HATE YOU MALFOY! JESUS CHRIST why am I cursed with a complete fuckwit for a husband!"
"Oh that's rich coming from you! My wife is an over emotional, OVER-REACTING DRAMA QUEEN!"
"So I'm over reacting if I get upset that you lied about me to my best friends and gave them the impression that I'm some kind of INSATIABLE SEX MANIAC! Next time I'll know not to over react, I'll just smile and giggle and play with you under the table, would that be okay? Not too much of an over reaction I hope?"
Hermione had returned to the apartment to collect her book bag and had found Draco lounging on the sofa waiting for her, with a familiar looking book bag in his lap. After refusing to relinquish her books, Draco had sat and smirked on the couch until Hermione just blew up. Since he wasn't one to take that kind of abuse sitting down, he stood up and began shouting right back at her. Now they were both standing glaring at each other over the sofa. Draco had been momentarily silenced by the thought of Hermione playing with him under the table, and Hermione was so worked up from the previous bout of screaming that she was trying to catch her breath. She decided that the best thing to do was to leave, so she reached over, snatched her book bag from Draco's hand where it was still loosely clasped, and left. She caught up with Harry and Ron about half way to transfiguration. They arrived just on time and took their seats at the back of the room.
"Everything OK? You look a little flustered," Ron muttered to her as they sat down.
"Yeah, nothing to worry about. Just had an argument with Draco about what happened at breakfast. He did admit that he was being a dick."
"Well, acceptance is the first step towards recovery."
"Ha ha Ron." The trio continued their banter all through transfiguration and Hermione was able to forget for a while that she was married to Malfoy. However after transfiguration was potions, and Hermione and Draco had agreed that whenever they had a class together that they would sit together. She sighed as she entered the dungeon and looked around to see if Malfoy was in the room yet. He had taken up a desk at the back corner of the room, so Hermione waved goodbye to Harry and Ron and went to sit with Draco.
"Hello there wife of mine, care to play with me under the table?" Draco drawled.
"Yeah, because that's going to happen. Seeing as we have to appear a happy couple, perhaps you could refrain from being a complete git in public, so I'm not tempted to main you."
"Sure thing honey, I'll just pretend you're someone else shall I?" Hermione opened her mouth to reply, however Snape called out from the front of the room,
"Mr and Mrs Malfoy, if you would be so kind as to pay attention, I would be greatly indebted to the both of you."
"Actually Professor, its Ms. Granger. I don't plan on changing my name. You were just talking about the lavender fumes we should expect today while making this attraction potion."
"So you were paying attention. However I don't recall asking you, so 5 points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn Ms. Granger."
The rest of the potions class passed in an uncomfortable silence between Draco and Hermione. Hermione decided that it was Malfoy's fault that she had lost points to Gryffindor, and so shot him glares surreptitiously each time she looked in his direction. However, at the conclusion of the lesson, Hermione had a bright idea, and slipped two vials of their perfect attraction potion into her bag.
That night, after dinner Hermione and Draco returned to their room, where they stood for a minute, staring at the bed together.
"Don't you think it's a little weird," Draco said after a minute, "and possibly perverted that Dumbledore organised this apartment and only gave us one bed. Do you think he likes the idea of us two sharing a bed."
"I don't know but I don't like to think about it. It freaks me out a little. Also Dumbledore knowing that we will have to have sex as well, that's even weirder. Speaking of which, I thought it was best to get it over and done with. I took two vials of the attraction potion we made today, I figured it would make it easier if for a couple of hours we actually liked one another. It would probably make it more natural. Well as natural as it could be. Any objections?"
"No I suppose not. However I hope you're not planning on sleeping in the bed alone again. One night on the couch I can put up with, but not when there is a perfectly good bed in the next room."
"Fine. I'm going to have a shower. Goodnight."
a/n: I didn't really like the end of this chapter. As I said before I probably wont update for a while b/c of exams I will have to see how stressed I am. Review please!