Chapter 55 - A New Life
The next morning, as promised, Draco showed up promptly to help Hermione with her move. Not that there was much to be done though, as she hadn't exactly decorated her temporary home with any personal touches. She was packed and ready to go when Draco arrived for her, unable to contain her excitement at finally being with him after so much of...well, everything that had torn them apart.
Now, it seemed, the war was really over. She'd known that was the case, of course, but with all the interviews and picking up the pieces of her life once everything had settled down...well, it was only now that the truth of it was finally hitting Hermione.
And she welcomed it with open arms, just as she did Draco when he walked in.
"Missed me that much, did you, Granger?" Draco teased, though he hugged her back willingly.
Hermione snorted. "Shove off, Malfoy."
"Well, if you're rather I would—"
"Don't you dare," Hermione muttered, and then she pulled back to smirk at him. "Or would you rather I took a step back?"
Draco growled, catching her chin with the tips of his fingers. "You do that, and I might have to cast a binding spell on you."
Hermione's breath hitched at how...kinky that sounded. "You wouldn't dare..."
"Wouldn't I?" Draco baited.
Swallowing the lump in her throat that was more excitement than nervousness, Hermione whispered, "And it would be tight and uncomfortable, I image. That's about the only spells you Slytherins know, after all."
Draco quirked an eyebrow. "Uncomfortable—no. Tight though..." He grinned, leaning forward until their foreheads touched. "I don't think you'd complain."
Hermione took a shuddering breath just as Draco leaned in. She really hoped that he would kiss her, and was surprised when he didn't. Opening her eyes, she noticed that Draco's own were closed, his expression one of...something almost like peace, which she couldn't recall ever seeing on him—and especially not so completely.
"Draco?" she whispered.
"I'm just...trying to believe that this is really happening," Draco replied. "That you're really...going to be mine."
Her heart beating rapidly, Hermione brought her hand up to brush his cheek. "I've been yours for a long time now, Draco. I thought you knew that."
Draco shook his head lightly. "It'll still take me time to believe it." He let go of her at last, pulling back and looking a bit more like his usual cocky self, his confidence back up again. "Besides which, moving in with your lover is a pretty big step, isn't it?"
Hermione couldn't help but chuckle. "I think you're my boyfriend, Draco Malfoy. Not quite my lover."
"Yet. That's in the details though," Draco said, waving it off nonchalantly. "I thought it was to be expected that it was part of the deal."
Hermione gaped, unable to believe that he could actually talk about it so matter-of-factly. It was...almost vulgar, actually, but the worst part of it was that she wasn't put off by Draco's attitude in the least.
Quite the opposite, actually.
"Leave it to a Slytherin to take advantage of every situation," she muttered under her breath, as Draco led her outside and grabbed hold of her hand so as to apparate.
"What was that, Granger?" Draco asked, grinning impishly and clearly having heard it.
Hermione shook her head. "Nothing. Just wondering if maybe I shouldn't have held off on you for a while longer."
Draco shrugged. "Too late to think about that now."
And, so saying, he apparated them both out of Diagon Alley.
The lakehouse was just as Hermione remembered it, but then of course it would be. The war hadn't touched such a remote location, after all, but it still felt like such a long time since Hermione had last been there. That had been in entirely different circumstances though, back before she had fully admitted her feelings for Draco, before they had fully committed to one another.
Things were different now though, so it was with no little confusion that Hermione wondered why he had brought her to the place where they had first met, back when he had been brooding and she had come upon him unexpectedly, only to fall half into the lake and lose her wand like an idiot in the process. If he had hexed her back then, things would be almost entirely different now.
"Remember this place?" Draco asked, as though she could ever forget.
Hermione snorted. "I didn't think you were a sentimentalist, Draco."
"I'm not," Draco was too quick to say, enough that Hermione knew he might be at least half lying. "I figured that you were, though. Aren't girls usually the sentimentalists in a couple?"
Hermione grinned. "I suppose so, though I spent too much of my time being a know-it-all focused on logic, so I didn't have much time for sentiment."
"Now that the danger's past and it's all over, maybe you can make some time," Draco smoothly suggested, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her close.
Smiling, Hermione leaned in to his touch, glad to have him near. "Seems like I'll have a lot of time, moving forward. At least until I decide what to do with my life."
Draco stiffened a bit. "Did you have anything in mind?" he asked, already wondering what that might consist of and if it would take Hermione further away from him. After all, unlike him, she was wholly accepted by the world, and besides which her ability as a witch made her a candidate for everything from a Hogwarts professor to an Auror. He didn't relish the thought of others having a monopoly on her time.
Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "Not really, at least not yet. Everything has just sort of...passed by in a whirl, really, that I couldn't concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Now, all I'm thinking of is to be with you, but, in the future, I do have to make my own way in the world now that I'm an adult."
Draco sniffed. "If there's anyone who deserves a break, I'd say it's—"
"We don't all have inheritances waiting for us, Draco," Hermione cut in. "And while your offer to let me stay with you helps me enormously now, don't even think about providing for all my comforts yourself. No self-respecting, modern day witch would stand for it!" She shook her head. "I have to contribute as well, I wouldn't have it any other way. Right now, I don't know exactly how that is, but I am looking into it."
Draco set his mouth in a grim line, a bit disconcerted that she seemed to have shut down all the arguments he would otherwise have brought to the table. He realized that, unlike his mother, who had been born to privilege and had married into privilege and wealth, Hermione wasn't the same. She was headstrong, fierce, and independent, and if he tried to keep too tight a hold on her, as he wanted to, he'd only end up driving her away.
It was frustrating for him, to say the least, as he had so recently acquired an obsession with keeping things under his control—especially when his entire world had spiraled out of control during the war. But, if he wanted to keep Hermione with him, Draco Malfoy saw that he was going to have to...compromise.
His Slytherin nature already had him metaphorically turning in his grave for having to admit to that.
"Whatever makes you happy," he murmured, surprised at how much he meant that.
Hermione surprised him out of his thoughts by pecking him on a cheek. "You make me happy, Draco. Now how about apparating us into the lakehouse. I assume you have wards and passwords yet up?"
Draco smirked. "True enough. Besides, now that I think it of, I can make you happier there."
"Draco!" Hermione gasped in shock, but not exactly denial. The more he alluded to it, the more aroused she became.
In the next moment, Draco had apparated them once more.
Getting settled into the lakehouse went much more smoothly than Hermione had thought it would. Perhaps because they were alone and because she no longer felt as much of an outcast as she had before, none of the reminders of the Malfoy family's loyalties and evident wealth intimidated her any more. When Draco offered her the same bedroom as before, she settled in quickly, and made the closet her own. Some of the clothes that were already in there she left as they were, not thinking that the green, black, and silver colours would necessarily look bad on her. Besides which, much as she loved her Gryffindor colours and minimalist fashion style, there was no sense in keeping from trying something new.
And so, when it was time to go down to dinner, Hermione descended the stairs wearing a silvery-gray house robe, enjoying Draco's heated gaze on her as she came down. Beneath the robe, she still wore a bra, tank top, and a pair of undies and cotton shorts, but she might as well have been naked. Draco's expression left no doubt of where his thoughts were headed, and Hermione would be lying if she didn't admit that those same thoughts had been on her mind all day.
She wanted him. Now, after all they had been through and all they had passed, she could think clearly enough for herself to know that she had no doubts about being together with Draco Malfoy.
She loved him, and now she wanted her first time...
Draco himself was dressed in a black suit, as always, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up as he set the table. Hermione didn't ask whether he had prepared the food himself, knowing that he was capable of it and could cook as well as order out. Besides which, the amount of effort didn't matter, as it wasn't the surroundings that she cared about.
It was the wizard himself.
Her wizard, she realized.
"I see you've pulled out all the stops, as muggles say," she observed, taking his hand when he held his out to escort her to her chair. "Thinking to woo me, are you?"
Draco smirked. "I have you here alone, Hermione. I think we're already past that."
Smiling, Hermione took a seat. "Still, it sets the mood just right. You really didn't have to go through all this trouble though, Draco."
"Already ready for me, Hermione?" he teased.
Her blush told the tale better than words could, so Hermione refused to answer. Instead, she thoughtfully fingered her glass of wine as Draco took a seat across from her. "You know, it just occurred to me that we're both rather well-behaved."
Draco quirked an eyebrow. "I've been accursed of many things in my lifetime, Hermione, but never that. How so?"
Hermione shrugged. "I just thought to how many people our age have already messed around. True, there were spells around Hogwarts that made it impossible to sneak into rooms the same way that muggles do in boarding schools, but by the time we were fifth and sixth years, we already knew how to get around those. I've heard more than my fair share of exploits, and I just thought of how I never heard of any exploits with Slytherins. Did any of the snakes in your house bring people down to the dungeons?"
Draco snorted. "You make it sound like we were down there torturing them or something instead of what others our age did, but I get your meaning. As it so happens, most of the time we stuck to people in our own house—or others did, anyway, you already know my life story in that regard—and as for location, I think we were so used to the dungeons that we didn't mind the doom and gloom.
"I never asked or cared in any detail though, so I suppose the rest is up to your imagination."
Hermione grinned, feeling a bit bored. "I have a very vivid imagination, Draco," she said.
Draco smirked, lifting up his glass in a toast. "I do too, Hermione. You'd better—"
Whatever he was going to say next was abruptly cut off though, as a large, silver fox patronus suddenly appeared over the table between them.
Hermione was taken aback, but Draco knew what it was. "It's alright," he said, "it's just—"
"Draco? Draco, if you're still at that lakehouse, I know now's not a bad time to contact you. This is already the fifth time this week, and yet you haven't come home. Draco, I know you have every right to be mad at your father—at both of us—for everything that's happened, but you already know the facts, the circumstances. Please, come home to me now, we're stronger together. And even if you're not coming back to the manor, at least come with me tomorrow, when I go to visit your father. Yes, I've gotten permission for both of us to go see him, Draco. Promise me you'll come—he is your father. And...know that I, that we l—"
But then the message broke off, Narcissa Malfoy never quite able to speak the word 'love', though of course Draco knew that was what she felt and what she meant. And while it was true that he had ignored her messages to him recently, that was because they all asked him to do the impossible: he fully intended to never return to Malfoy Manor ever again, the place having traumatized him enough. He hadn't admitted it to his mother though, his pride not allowing him to do so.
Now to have Hermione hear the message though...needless to say, it killed the mood.
"Draco..." Hermione began.
"It doesn't concern you, Hermione," Draco cut in, a bit surprised and instantly regretful of how cold and detached he sounded all of a sudden. He caught the hurt look on Hermione's face, and immediately wished that he could take back his words.
Hermione, though, recognized that indeed it didn't, and if there was one thing she knew, it was how to maintain boundaries.
Still though, the question echoed in her mind: Would Draco agree to go and see his father, now, after all this time? The last time they had seen each other was in a courtroom, after all, and before that at the Battle of Hogwarts when Draco had betrayed not only Voldemort, but, in a sense, his family and everything they stood for by siding with Harry and standing by her side. The truth was that, if only in that way, perhaps the matter did concern her, but it wasn't her place to intervene, never mind lecture Draco on what he should or shouldn't do.
And the truth was...Hermione didn't know what that was.
"It's your decision what you do, of course," she said at last, placing a hand on Draco's shoulder. Thankfully, he didn't move away from her, but instead leaned in to her touch and surprised her further by pulling her in for a hug.
"It may be, but I shouldn't have snapped like that," he said, which was as close to an apology as he could get to. "Sometimes I think I've got myself under control after all that's happened, and yet one mention of my father was all it took to bring it all back." He let out a breath, then added, "Guess I didn't put things as far behind me as I first thought."
"Neither of us have, Draco. It's too soon," Hermione murmured, embracing him in turn and offering him comfort through her touch. "It'll take time."
"Time," Draco echoed. "The one thing I hope we'll have a lot of, now."
Hermione smiled and nodded. She hoped so, too.
"Whatever you decide though, I'll support you," she said. "And that's the end of it, if you'd like. We don't have to discuss it now or ever, but...just know that I'm here for you, to help with whatever you may need."
Draco nodded, understanding what she meant, but still not ready to take her up on the offer of a shoulder to cry on just yet. It simply wasn't his way and, as it was, he'd already caved in and compromised enough of his usual personality with Hermione. It would be unlike him to pour his heart out concerning his family problems—and especially not regarding his father, whom had always hated Hermione in particular.
"Well, what I need right now is to get this evening back on track," Draco said, breaking out into a smirk. "And, just to make sure we're not bothered again..."
He took out his wand, mumbled an incantation, and so doing put up additional wards to make sure that not even patronuses could get through into the lakehouse. Hermione had to admit that she was impressed as those types of incantations were quite advanced, and even she hadn't perfected such a difficult ward to keep out patronuses. It was...very attractive.
As if to show her appreciation, she leaned up and placed her lips over Draco's, sealing it with a kiss that cut off anything else he might've said.
With them wholly alone, now maybe the evening could get started.
A/N: In this chapter, I decided to try something new, sort of to get back on track with the Dramione banter. So yes, things are overtly more sexual now, but I just felt that Dramione in this story have moved past the part of being formal and are even well-attuned enough to each other to be able to joke about their first time like this. It was interesting to see how far, in my own mind, they could go. I'll admit that the smut territory is kind of a muddle for me right now, even though, hint hint, it is right around the corner in terms of being present in the story. Pretty much, I make up the sentimental part of the human population who feel that physical intimacy should mean something, so you'll have noticed that I wasn't basing much on physical attraction between Dramione...
...until now.
So yeah, a new dimension to them for sure, but one that I sincerely feel fits their characters and relationship for this story. I'll give a Rated-M warning before I start writing the actual smut, but just be aware that for those who aren't into reading about Dramione fics with that content, that smut content IS up ahead, though maybe not for a few chapters or so.
Ahem, hem, hem, anyway, please do follow, favourite, and especially leave a review! Hope to have the next chapter up soon!