Nine

Day: 1147; Hour: 2

"Adams did not create the Pepper-Up Potion."

"Yes, he did. He published it in New Potions and Remedies in 1792, and in Ways to Survive University in the beginning of 1793!"

"Dolagan published it in The Brewery in January of 1792, and his patent was published on it in 1791. They found his journals after his death, it spoke of the Pepper-Up which he began to create in 1787!"

"Your dates are wrong!" Hermione huffs, jabbing a finger in the air toward him. "All the books I've read have cited Adams as the creator of-"

"Then your books are wrong. What, do you borrow from the bloody Bullshit Section of Jokers Comic Shop? There-"

"What?"

"Shop in Wiltshire," Dean tries to get out before they recommence their yelling.

"Read up, Granger. It was Dolagan. I'd bet anything on it."

"You're so thick, Malfoy! You're like...like the people who think Edison invented the light bulb, and refuse to believe anything else even though-"

"I thought Edison did invent the light bulb?" Colin asks, cutting her off.

"Grah!" Hermione yells, shaking her hands at the two men across from her, almost running into Dean on her way from the room before he darts out of the way.

"Witches," Colin mutters behind her.

"That witch," Malfoy growls.

Day: 1151; Hour: 14

Malfoy slams her back into the fridge hard enough that the sugar bowl jolts off of it and crashes onto the counter. His hands are up her shirt, cupping her breast, the other fingering the clasp at her back. His mouth was moist and wanting, his body pressed hard against hers, smothering her lovely.

Her initial reaction to him asking her if she had found out about whom, exactly, created the Pepper-Up Potion was to panic for a second, before quickly changing the subject...By snogging the hell out of him. She had quickly found her hands filled with a very demanding, very aroused blond, and the situation had spiraled out of control from there.

She wasn't even aware he had unsnapped her bra until he pulled it off so easily with her shirt. The whole reason she had allowed him to shuck the shirt was because she knew she would be at least minimally protected from complete upper nudity. She blushes, flustered, realizing just how bright it was in the kitchen with the lights on. Her fear and insecurity weigh like a ball in her throat as he tosses her clothes to the ground. She was already moving her arms, ready to make a break for a bedroom in the most dignified way possible, when he is back. He presses himself against her again, covering her with his chest, and she breathes out harshly at the feel of the cotton against her nipples.

He ravages her mouth before leaving for her neck, going off the noises she makes to relocate the spots he has not yet remembered by heart. He burns a trail to her collarbone, licking and scraping his teeth, and she wakes from her daze again the closer he gets to her breasts. Her embarrassment joins the flush of her arousal against her chest, neck, and face, and she wraps her fingers around his shoulder to stop him.

"Malfoy, I...I really don't th- Oh. God." She packs her air up to stop herself from moaning, but it escapes anyway, long and deep from her throat.

Malfoy was not the first man to touch her breasts, but he was the first to clamp his mouth around her nipple like his current actions. She breathes out hard, grasping his hair in her fingers as he sucks, tugging gently with his teeth before he flicks the tip of his tongue against it. It is a whole new sensation that she did not think she was possible of in that area, and later she will blush at the memory of pushing into his mouth and moaning his name.

"Touch me, Granger," he whispers roughly, straightening to kiss her shoulder, her jaw, her lips. She was confused for a second, aware of her hands already being on him until he thrusts his hips forward and she gets the idea.

Jesus, she thinks. It was something she has done before, but this was Malfoy, and that made all the difference. Her hands feel uncoordinated and disobedient when she unbuttons and unzipped his pants, and he kisses her before she can start to doubt herself. The backs of her fingers slide against the skin of his hips and legs as she hooks them under the band of his trousers and shorts, shoving them down as far as she can. His arousal springs up between them, freed, and she can feel his groan to the bottom of her stomach when she wraps her hand around him. It is primal, and sets off something inside of her that has her pumping the length of him before she can question how best to go about things. His hips rock with her, allowing her to set the rhythm. When he tangles his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back for better access to her mouth, she feels absolutely devoured in the best way possible. Like she was drowning, before realizing she could breathe under water.

He drops a hand, wrapping it around hers and guiding her up to the head of his penis, gathering the moisture there before sliding her hand back down. He leaves her at it, flattening his hand against her stomach and tucking his fingers under the waist of her jeans, fingering the band of her knickers. He's running out of breath, leaving her lips to kiss and breath open mouthed against her shoulder. She takes the opportunity to kiss his neck, the first time she had done so to him, and finds she rather liked how responsive he was. He moans, snapping his hips faster, his fingers wrapping tightly around her hip while the other moves back to her breast.

"That's it, Granger. Just like that," he groans, his voice sending vibrations along her tongue. He's leaning heavily into her, and she can feel his heartbeat hammering in rhythm to hers against her chest and in his throat.

He bites her shoulder, just enough for a little discomfort, and she bit the place where his neck and shoulder meet in return. He comes hard the moment she does, the tendons raised in his neck as he tries to hold his voice back, a long guttural moan escaping between his teeth and her skin. His muscles tense under her palm on his shoulder, the ones in his arm bunching solid against her. She can feel the wetness on her hand, spraying out on her stomach, and she thinks she should be disgusted but she isn't.

He pants against her, sagging heavily for a few brief seconds before turning his head to lick at her neck. His thumb circles lazily around her nipple, and she isn't at all sure about what she should do with herself. He reaches down, tugging her wrist to pull her hand away from him, and she blushes as he pulls back.

Lifting his shirt over his head, she traces the lines of his chest that she hasn't seen since he was lying injured in her bed. She watches them move with him, against his skin, and lifts her eyes to his, staring down at her with a look she can't place. His eyes are dark, mouth red, and his face flushed, and she can see that she has left a mark on his neck from her teeth. Too hard, she thinks, though he doesn't seem to mind...yet.

She thinks he will toss the shirt, but he bundles it and wipes her stomach off instead. She wondered what he thinks when he's looking at her body, but tells herself it doesn't matter, given the obvious arousal he has just had for it. He takes her hand, lifting it, and closes his cloth-covered hand around it, wiping it off as best he can. She thinks the gesture is as sweet as it can be considering the situation.

"I...I really don't know if I-"

"Yes, yes. I know." His lips lift in a half-smile she had never seen on him before, his voice husky, and then he was kissing her again.

It is several minutes later, when she had reached the point that borders on incoherency, when she finds him pulling down her pants. Her naked self so very close to his naked self nearly sends her into panic, but he tears his mouth from hers and drops to his knees before she can run away from what she thinks was about to happen.

"Wha- What are you doing?" The strange deepness of her voice, mixed with the squeak her vocals just tried to push it into, makes it unrecognizable to her ears.

She tried to shut her legs, her face positively flaming with embarrassment, but he holds his palms firmly against the inside of her thighs and refuses to let them budge. Jesus, no one has seen down there since she was four, but her and her doctor for yearly physicals.

"I'll give you three guesses." He looks up at her, removing her foot from one leg of her pants, and moving to kiss her inner thigh.

"Oh, no. No, no, I really don't think-" He pushes his thumb into her folds, circling her clit and cutting her off with her own moan.

"Relax, Granger, you're going to like this. I promise."

She smacks a hand over her face, leaning against the fridge to support herself. His breath is hot against her and he pulls his thumb away, sliding a finger on either side to part her. She could nearly cry from her embarrassment over it, and she thinks she may be dying or about to set herself on fire.

"Oh," he breathes, and she squeezes her fingers harder against her face, shutting her eyes. "You are so wet for me, Granger, aren't you?"

He speaks more, but it is muffled as he presses his mouth into her, and she can feel the air against her as he sucks in deeply. She bucks at the first contact of his tongue, yelping out against her palm, her eyes wide open now. He lifts a hand to press it against her stomach, his mouth growing less cautionary and more as she knows it; fierce and taking what it wants. He certainly doesn't seem to mind where he is, or how it looks, smells, or tastes down there, and he was doing a bloody good job of making her forget to mind it as well. He sucks and laves at her, circling and swiping her clit, and leaving it only to broadly lick at her opening. He runs around it, teasingly flicking the tip of his tongue inside, coaxing her body into giving him more.

It is seconds or minutes before her hand on her face has forgotten to cover the vanished traces of her mortification, and instead covers her mouth to stop from being so loud. She sobs out his name, over and over, her hips moving against his face and her other hand pulling unconsciously at his hair. The heel of her foot from the leg he has drawn over his shoulder will likely bruise him later, but she can't find the mind to care about a single thing other than where he was taking her.

"I...I just want..." She moans, smacking her head against the fridge when she throws it back, so close, so close, so close, to dropping off the edge of the world.

She buries her hand deep into his hair, her nails scratching against his scalp as she balls her hand into a fist. He sucks her clit into his mouth, swiping it roughly, and presses his hand hard into her stomach. She comes with a loud, deep cry, bones locking and toes curling against the floor and him, as her mind shuts down and power explodes from her gut. She has never come so hard before, and she was almost scared of how powerful it was, fearing she might blackout or crumble down on top of him - but without the presence of mind enough to actually care if she did.

When she comes down enough to gain some bearing on where she was at in the world, her body is still tingling and shaking with the aftermath, oxygen burning her as she gulps in air. There is a very wet mouth breathing hard at the bottom of her neck, and she drowsily opens her eyes, blinking to rid her vision of the blurriness.

The blond hair at the corner of her sight moves, his face appearing in front of hers. He simply stares at her for a handful of her rapidly decreasing heart beats, and his hand covers the one still laying limply over her mouth. He pulls it away, moving it to her side. "Next time, Granger," he whispers, "none of this. I want to hear you."

Next time, she thinks, trying to concentrate on it before giving up. Her mind was too lazy now to try to process the meanings of his words. He lowers his head, his kiss just as lazy as her mind, and it takes her much longer than it should to know why he tastes differently.

He pulls away before she can do it herself, unsure of how she feels about just having tasted herself. He steps back from her, his erection bobbing with his movement, and she looks at it, wiping her mouth. He is a decent size - she had come to find this out when she touched him - though she doesn't know if he is larger or more average. It is big enough she knows, and that's more than good enough for her.

She thinks he may try something else now that he is hard again, but he reaches down to pull up his clothes instead. He leaves them unbuttoned and grabs her bra and shirt as she pulls her own pants up, already covering her breasts with an arm.

"Thanks," she whispers as he hands them to her, wincing as she departs quickly from the room and remembers saying the same the last time they had gotten so physical. At least she was referring to something else this time. Though, for all that he has just given her, he could take it for whatever he wanted it to mean and it'll fit.

She cannot believe she actually just let him do that to her, and she was blushing hot red before she even makes it to the bedroom. Not that he minded, and not that he hasn't probably done it to several other woman - he has obviously done it a time or two before. But it was quite mortifying to know it was her this time.

At least she hadn't tasted wretched, from what she got off his mouth, though she can't be sure with only the traces of it. It was Malfoy, after all - he would have likely stopped and taken to doing something else if it was that bad. And it had felt positively mind-blowing, so who was she to complain, really?

She groans with memory, finding clothes to head for the shower. If she concentrates on the way it felt, she decides, over how he went about making her feel that way or the way she had rubbed herself all over him in the process, it wasn't exactly regrettable. In the least.

Day: 1164; Hour: 3

"Hermione. Granger."

She does her best to look innocent as she looks up to the doorway of the dining room, and feels her face contort into the look of shock she had been practicing all night. "George! What happened?"

He narrows his eyes, his face shined and covered in seasoning. "I know you did this."

"What? I did not!" But she is starting to laugh, because it's funny. "I'm sorry, it's just...you look ridiculous."

"I look like one of Fleur's bloody turkeys!"

The giggling she was trying to suppress breaks out into hysterics. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Oh, give it up!" He takes a step forward and she immediately jumps up from her chair, tripping over her feet as her laughter makes her clumsy.

"I would never-"

"Don't you know better than to mess with a Weasley twin? Hmm? Revenge!"

"Hey! Hey, this is my revenge for my hair that was red for months!"

"Most of my body is covered in butter and seasoning!"

"It'll wash off." She cackles as he wobbles toward her, his feet sliding over the floor.

"George?" The question is met with several snickers from behind him, and he glares at the woman across from him, raising his finger.

"Retribution, Granger! It's coming."

Hermione promises herself to leave the house within the next two days, before Fred arrives and whatever plan George is probably scheming up this very moment turns that much more diabolical. For now, she laughs right along with the rest of them.

Day: 1168; Hour: 13

She had been flustered since she walked in and found him sitting at the table, and all she can think about is the last time they were in a kitchen together. He doesn't notice her nervous movement though, or at least she doesn't think he does, and she tries to act as normal as possible.

"I hate these things. They always stay cold in the middle, no matter how long you keep them in the microwave."

"So cut it in half," Malfoy mutters, busy reading the newspaper he has somehow acquired. Hermione will steal it from him later, she thinks, so she can catch up on what's going on outside of their protected little circle.

Hermione looks back to the microwave, watching the food spin in the dull yellow light. "But it's in the box."

He makes a sound like a sigh and a growl; aggravated. "So take it out of the box."

"But it says to put it in the little box in order to cook it. And the little box has this little insulation thing that's supposed to cook it better."

"Do you always have to follow directions, Granger? I take the thing out of the box, cut it in half, and it cooks fine. It's perfectly all right to do things that work when the other option doesn't. Even if it says to do it the wrong way."

"But-"

"It must be terribly boring for you, your structured little life. No wonder you're so bloody uptight. If one thing goes wrong, it's such a big problem, because to you it just can't be any other way."

She narrows her eyes dangerously at him. "I was just talking about a Hot Pocket."

"Exactly. It's a fucking Hot Pocket. What does it matter if it says to put it in the cardboard thing?"

"It's just the principle that if they created it, they must know the best way to cook it."

"Fine. Eat the middle cold then." He shakes out his paper, dismissing the conversation.

"I do not have a big problem if something small interrupts the way I think something will be."

"Right. That's why we just spent two minutes arguing over a Hot Pocket."

"That's because you're a prat who thinks he knows how I am."

"That's because you're an uptight bitch who thinks I can't see something so obvious. You're probably going to die in five years from a heart attack or high blood pressure." He runs his finger over the top of the newspaper. "'Hermione Granger, Departed From Anxiety Over Cold Hot Pocket'. Life isn't meant to be a plan, Granger. It just happens. Metaphorically, you either shove that cold Hot Pocket down your throat or you cut it in half and make it work."

She glares at him for a second more before popping the microwave open and quickly pulling the hot edge of the food out of the container. She cuts it loudly, the knife banging against the plate to show her frustration, and then pushes it back into the microwave.

"Happy, Malfoy?"

He smirks down at the paper. "It's not matter of my happiness, Granger - it's yours."

Day: 1175; Hour: 11

"...and then three drops of the Belledonna, stir it clockwise a dozen times, and there you go. I think Grimmauld Place actually has-"

"Hermione." She jumps, turning from her conversation with Cho to look at Anthony across the table.

She can feel the tips of her ears heat up as she realizes the whole room is focused on her, and feels very much like she has just been busted speaking in class. Cho flushes as well, clearing her throat and turning forward in her chair again.

"I'm sure you can find other uses for that mouth of yours, Granger," Malfoy drawls, eyebrow arched, and it takes a second for her eyes to open wide in a combination of surprise and fear; because she knows the rest of the room will get his meaning just as clearly as she does. "Like keeping it shut."

Her heart does a strange hop/pound that has her breathing out in a rush and glaring at him, and he smirks at her in reply. Ass, she thinks, because she knows he had known exactly what he would do to her if he said that. It opens her mind to an avenue she can't believe she hasn't thought of before - like what if Malfoy did blurt it out in front of everyone? Or tell a few people about their encounters, which would spread through the rest of the Order and Ministry in about two days? She could deny it until her tongue fell out, but half the damage would still be done. People might be doing things together all over the map in their group, but it isn't quite as controversial as Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.

However, if he hadn't done it yet, she doubted he would. Malfoy was a private person, built with paranoia, to the point where he wants to know why someone would ask him what he had for dinner rather than just telling them - and he still wouldn't if they answered the why.

She watches his mouth when he talks, circling areas on the board. She tries not to think about it, though she knew she was inviting it by staring, but she recalled his mouth in all the ways she knows it. Talking, insulting, kissing, and...well. Just watching his tongue move past and against the lines of his teeth in speech, his lips moving, and stretching, and pouting, makes her think of all sorts of things that she should not be thinking of.

Especially here. She finds her body answering in a way she did not expect it to, recalling in detail just what that mouth was capable of making her feel when it isn't talking. This is not good, she thinks. She had become far more attracted to Malfoy than she had been in the beginning, despite that she had thought her attraction would stay the same or taper off. By the time she moves from his mouth to his hands, the length of his fingers, she had to stare down at the table just to get her heart rate under control. Oh, this is so not good.

Day: 1184; Hour: 8

She waits until Cho Chang and the three Aurors at the house have gone to bed or their bedrooms for their night, before looking for him where she always finds him at night. If Lavender decides to make her assumptions more public, Hermione doesn't need to give everyone else something to remember of it as well.

"No television, huh?" He doesn't answer, though she knows he usually doesn't with redundant or simpleminded questions. "I thought you had a mission tomorrow."

"I do."

"Shouldn't you be sleeping? It's four in the morning."

"I should be doing whatever I want to be doing, which I am," he snaps, and his apparent attitude makes her rethink her decision to join him.

"Okay," she says slowly, fidgeting with her bracelet. "Well, good luck with it, then."

She makes to turn around, but stops when he speaks. "Sunrise is in an hour."

"Yes." She scratches at the curve of her ear, not quite sure where he's going with this.

"There's a lake, over that hill in the back of this house. Once the sun rises over the hill it'll hit that lake." He shrugs. "It's not exactly a bay, but I figured you might want to know."

His last sentence clues her in to what he's talking about, and she remembers their conversation on the grass after his fight with Seamus. "Thank you."

He raises an eyebrow and looks down from the wall to his knees, a hint of a smirk on his lips. "I seem to get that from you fairly often now."

She blushes. "Shut up."

She would have normally tried to quickly change the subject, but her mind is too busy still wondering how it is that Malfoy remembers a minute detail from a conversation they had months ago.

"Come here," he murmurs, and she returned her attention to him, his face toward her now.

It takes her several faltering seconds to get her feet to respond to her brain, and she feels a little jumbled on her journey to the couch. She halts, hesitant and unsure, before sitting next to him. He doesn't give her a second to be uncomfortable, leaning over and gripping the back of her head to kiss her. His mouth is harder than usual, and he kisses her like he's angry, though she doesn't think it's directed at her. His previous attitude meant he was angry already, and she supposed this was his way of channeling that out from the place he keeps it inside of himself.

She guesses Malfoy uses her to forget to think about things just as much as she uses him for it too.

It takes her a few minutes to calm the roughness of his lips and tongue, and the strength in which he grips her head. He relaxes slowly when she refuses to give into his anger and kiss him back the same, and then he takes his time about it. He's softer, exploratory, with little licks and nips. He's tasting her rather than trying to take something out on her, and his hand tangles in her hair, her heart thrumming wildly in her chest, pressed against his. He kisses her breathless, and then he kisses her more.

Later, when he has left and the sun turns the black lake water into rippling shades of gold and yellow, she wonders what she's gotten herself into.

Day: 1193; Hour: 18

There is an eerie silence within the walls of the house on Grimmauld Place, and Hermione knows something is wrong before Anthony ever turns the corner, rumpled, sleep-deprived, and as pale as Malfoy.

"What's wrong?"

"Cho," his voice cracks and he clears it. "She's been injured. Garrett is banged up. Smitts is dead."

"What happened? How bad is it?"

"I don't know. We never fucking know, do we? Won't say a God-damned thing." He is livid but grief-filled, which explains why his hair sticks up in every which direction - like he has been yanking at it for hours.

"Will Cho and Garrett be alright?" She does not know the latter, but feels it is polite to ask.

"Garrett's fine. Will be in a few days anyway. Cho... I don't know. She'll live, but...but it's going to take so long for her to find out how to move on with her life."

Hermione opens her mouth for more details, but her eyes find Moody thumping down the steps and she stops herself. He looks harassed, and it was one of the few times she does not look over the battle-weariness of his face, the marks of wars, and of a man who chose a harder life.

"Malfoy's missing."

"What?" Hermione breathes and chokes over the words, the hairs at the nape of her neck standing on edge. A thousand possibilities run through her, slamming off the walls of her brain for attention, and they cripple her dropped mouth and wide eyes.

"He was here just an hour ago." Anthony shakes his head, and Hermione realizes there is air and she can breathe it. He was missing from here, then. And she takes to thinking about calming down the pumping of her heart rather than concentrating on why she was thrown into such a panic attack over it.

"The plan failed. He's licking his wounds somewhere." Moody checks his watch, grunting. "He can do that after the war. You kids and your damn pity sessions are going to draw this out another year. Even in the face of failure, constant vig-"

"Well we weren't exactly made for war, Moody, and nor did we choose it. We all can't deal with the stress as well as others who have gotten used to it," Hermione snaps, and there is silence after her defense of them...of him.

"But it's where you are, and there's no room for excuses," Moody bites back, the two of them staring at one another until someone backs down. It is her, her gaze to the floor, her lips still pressed into a line and anger hot in her eyes.

Day: 1199; Hour: 12

Hermione has been to three safe houses in five days, and came up blond-less at each one. She doesn't exactly know why she's bothering to look, but there is something that tugs at her knowing what he must be going through. She can't imagine the guilt that must come with leading a team and having more than half injured, and one fatally. She does not allow herself to recognize anything more than the surface of her thoughts - that she does not want him to feel guilty over this, because he already has too much guilt inside of him.

It is not his fault; she would like to tell him. And she would say the same to a friend or a stranger, because it is the truth, and no one should put more on himself or herself than what belongs to them. If the boulder he's pushing up the hill grows too large, she thinks, he might just give up.