Chapter 4

"Be ready the day after tomorrow by 9am, we're going to St Mungo's"
Those were the first words Malfoy said to her since Nott's wedding, a few days ago. They've been avoiding each other ever since, up until he hurried into the parlour, where Hermione sat drinking tea and watching rain.

"Excuse me?" she jerked, as if he woke her up from deep slumber.

"The letter came this morning. You have to go on an exam, they have to check your... reproductive system to see if you're pregnant." He looked uncomfortable talking to her about it and she rolled her eyes. She hated conservativness of the Purebloods.

But then she remembered. The gynecological exam in Wizarding world looked very similar to Muggle world, although they used wands instead of instruments. The problem was, they used different methods on virgins and on sexually active women.

Malfoy saw the change in her mood and realized something was terribly wrong.

"What is it? We'll just say we're still trying and buy us some more time for... that."

"No, Malfoy, I..." She stuttered, suddenly getting even more nervous. How to say something so private to the man she barely even knew? But he would find out sooner or later, right? So she took a deep breath.

"Malfoy, I'm a virgin. They'll know."

He blinked and she saw a wave of insecurity washing over him. That was one of the rare moments when she could see and comfort herself that he didn't marry her just to spite her and fuck up her life. He was far from happy too.

"You just have to make everything difficult, don't you? Why hadn't you just fucked around in school?" He barked, agitated, and in all her nervousness she found his questions somehow funny.

''Are you really mad because I didn't sleep with anyone?" she laughed disbelievingly.

"See you tonight, Granger." He said it in a cold tone of finality and she didn't find even one thing funny anymore. She knew that this day would come, although she hoped to delay it as much as possible.

She didn't know what to do with herself. She tried to be reasonable, tried to rationalize the situation and just prepare mentally, thinking about it as if it was going to the dentist. Although she wouldn't expose and give her body to the dentist. She didn't believe in all the crap about falling in love after sex, or strengthening the relationship. That might be true for some other people, in this case she wanted to get away from her own skin, far, far away. She just hoped it wouldn't last too long and that it wouldn't hurt too much. She tried to comfort herself, but didn't succeed. For someone who wanted to have sex only as an act of love, this was a very harsh blow. She felt like she was betraying her own body. After one session of overthinking which didn't help her in the slightest, Hermione just decided to survive until the bedtime and try not to focus too much on it. She left the peaceful parlour and unfinished cup of tea, suddenly feeling too qeasy to drink it, and went to the kitchens to visit Kate and be in some nice company for a change.

"If you had a possibility to run away anywhere from here, where would you go?" They were sitting in one of many unnecessary drawing rooms and Kate pretended to clean while Hermione pretended to read, only to have some quality time together.

Kate looked a little confused with the question, but answered with confidence which could be seen only on people who had already thought about it.

"Switzerland, the cottage of my grandparents. Then we would call my parents and sister and we would all live securely until all of this calms down. Nobody would find us." Hermione nodded, acknowledging a good plan behind those words.

"How about you?"

"I... I really don't know. I altered the memory of my parents and sent them to Australia for security, and now they live a happy life without me." Hermione explained, trying to distance herself from the dark burden of her emotions.

"Oh, that's terrible! If there was a way, I would bring you with me! Everyone would love you!" Then Kate proceeded to talk about her family and Hermione listened, trying to forget her own fucked up life and concentrating on the memories of the girl.

Unfortunately, as she feared, the day flew by fast and after dinner she went to bathe, left without any hope of avoiding the inevitable. She even tried to meditate there in the bathtub, lying with her head resting very, very near the water. And she didn't care. She didn't care if she drowned. She took a deep breath and went under water, fantasying that she was still a little girl, and when she would resurface, she would find her mother smiling kindly at her and holding a big fluffy white towel which would swallow her tiny body. She was so deep in her memories that when she resurfaced, she half expected to see exactly the picture her tortured mind created. But what she saw surprised her. There, on the doorway, stood Malfoy, looking worriedly at the bathtub. She wiped her wet hair from her eyes and saw him coming closer, looking slightly manic.

"Are you insane? Were you trying to drown?" He yelled and she looked at him coldly.

"I was just...remembering something." She shifted her look from him to the towel laying near the tub and expected a full blow of new harsh words.

But he just sighed and gave her a towel, going into the bedroom to give her some privacy. She snorted invardly; privacy was something she would officially be stripped off tonight. She dressed in one of those satin nightdresses she had in piles in her closet, and the one she put on was blue. Blue as love. She now snorted loudly and went out, toweling her huge hair.

Malfoy gave her one of his unreadable looks and waved his hand. Her hair was dry. Well, there was at least that. She wanted to thank him but he got up from the bed and slowly walked in her direction and her throat dried up. There was that hint of panic she was now very familiar with and in her dazed state she thought that Malfoy looked like some oversized cat when he walked with leisure.

He got close enough and stopped when there was barely a foot of distance between them. She looked at him closely. He was very tall and lean. She reconed there wasn't much of muscle under his uniform, but somehow he still radiated with strength. And that scared her. She was, yet again, the weak one. But when she realized he still hadn't moved an inch, she clenched her teeth, careful not to look into his eyes and touched him. It was fairly innocent, just a feminine hand on his chest but she felt his heart beating faster and his nervousness encouraged her too. She unbuttoned his cloak and it flew carelessly on the floor. He stood still, like a statue.

But when she reached to the hem of his shirt, all the courage disappeared. She felt petrified and couldn't move even an inch more. I can't do it.

She finally looked at him helplessly, begging him with her eyes to just ease her pain and man up.

And he understood.

He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off and she saw pale skin of a man, a real man before her. Not the boy. Not Ron.

She blinked away the tears and instead focused on the scars crossing his delicately toned chest. That was Harry's work. Malfoy nearly died that day. Pity he didn't.

But then she saw outstreched hand with long pale fingers. The hand was familiar ar least. She took it and let Malfoy lead her to the bed. She knew what was coming, of course, so she just lied down.

She expected him to go on top of her but instead he circled the bed and lied next to her.

"...what...?" She turned to face him and whispered, not believing her voice. She expected to see disgust or hate in those eyes, at least some indication that he was resentful. Instead she saw emptiness, terrible, depressing emptiness.

"I can't... you're not inspiring enough." He whispered too and she somehow felt calmer listening to the voice. The voice was familiar, too.

"...Oh." She felt his hand searching dor hers and guiding it to the zipper of his pants. He just put it there and she understood, trying to touch him and massage him over marerial into erection. It was a weird feeling, doing that to the human she resented the most. His hand in the meantime slide to the hem of her nightdress and he touched her over the material, unexpectedly gently and she closed her eyes. She would maybe even like it if there was anyone else on the other side of the bed.

When she felt a scarily big bulge growing under her ministrations she felt him roll on top of her and heard the zipper opening and shuffling of the pants. She opened her eyes and saw his face only an inch away from her own, felt his body temperature warming her cold body up and looked at him with slight interest. He was biting his lip and touching himself, looking at the little part of exposed flesh of her breasts. She shifted to reveal her chest even more, taking it all as a necessitty and accepting it that way. He even glanced at her thankfully, funny that, and she saw his manhood now fully erect, standing dangerously close to her entrance. He touched her there now directly, and seeing her pitiful dryness he sighed.

"Lick." He said deeply, putting his hand directly in front of her face.

"Excuse me?!"

He sighed again and licked his finger, then proceeded to massge her nether lips and clitoris, trying to help her relax. That was not an option.

Seeing how his actions were futile he licked his middle finger again and tried to push through her entrance slowly. She felt some weird sensation of something not quite fitting right and tried to relax her muscles. He touched her some more, but finally gave up. He lined himself with her, balancing on his elbows so only their middles and legs touched and looked her in the eye.

"Just try to relax." And he pushed in slowly, and she felt ripping and pain of her hymen breaking. It was like someone was poking her with a knife. She cried out in pain and felt tears welling up in her eyes and looking at him she saw a different kind of pain on his face. It was emotional. She saw his face getting sadder and more pained while he watched her struggle and he did something outrageous. He kissed her.

Getting back on that day he didn't know what possessed him to do that, but right then he just didn't want to torture her anymore.

He kissed her softly, his lips touched her with gentle pecks and she heard him say "breathe".

And she did. Shocked with his ministrations she forgot, even for a second, about the pain and breathed in and out a couple of times. It was still awfully uncomfortable, feeling him move in there, but she just tried to breathe deeply through it all. She felt him increase the pace slightly and it stang her but she just closed her eyes and prayed for it to be over. She felt his lips on her neck, felt his hand on her breast and the other one on her buttock, whatever, whatever it takes to be over.

"I'm sorry."

When she heard his whisper she opened her eyes just to see his worked up face scrunched on the brink of completion, and there it was, she looked at it unraveling and felt his member pulsing inside her and coating her with his juices. He collapsed on top of her breathing hard and rolled over, looking at the ceiling and blinking dazedly. He looked weirdly relaxed, as if he had just taken a huge burden of his back... and put it on hers.

When she breathed in the air filled with pheromones, sweat and sex, she felt even worse than before. And when the pain eased a little her stomach started to hurt. She felt dirty. She felt lower than the bottom itself. She felt miserable. And she was crying again.

Malfoy turned to her slightly and saw her trembling with quiet sobs, but luckily he had the decency not to mention it. Actually, he just watched her quietly, still keeping the comfortable distance between them and for some reason she felt slightly better.

"If you want to cry too, be free. I won't judge." She managed to utter cinically through her sobs, not even knowing why.

And he laughed. He laughed a full, childish, teeth-baring, face-scrunching snicker. All with the funny snort. And she was shocked with the change of his face. It looked almost alive.

"Go to sleep, Granger."

When she woke up the next morning, dizzy and with aching muscles which she didn't even know she had down there, she expected to be alone in the bed. She expected to feel shitty and in alarming need of shower, but she also expected to be alone in the room. And that was where she was wrong.

Malfoy was sitting at the desk in his black pants an shirt just thrown over his shoulders, messy and unbuttoned, and wrote furiously on some parchment. When she saw him she choked in mid-yawn and he turned to her, startled. He looked like he woke up just moments before, with eyelids swollen with sleep and hair weirdly sticking in different directions. When he saw her, equally messy, but finally awake, he gave her one lethargic look, devoid of any concern or resent. He just looked at her as someone who was simply there and he was used to it.
"The owl woke me up." He said in husky morning voice and she simply nodded, confused with his decision to talk normally.

"Do you know how to read Russian?"

"What?" And now she was startled, not believing her voice or brain to answer the question. He looked at her like she was an idiot.

"Russian language. Do you know how to read it, understand it?"

"N-no." she stuttered, still not knowing what was going on. He sighed tiredly.

"I really need some help with answering their letters. I ought to just teach you, yes?" He looked at her with some analytical intention, as if he was sizing up her abilities.

"Why Russian?"

"Well, in Germany, France and Italy I- we managed to make alliances, and Russians are very powerful and clever wizards, I hope to form a friendship with them. Both sides would very much benefit from that."

"And you will simply let me read your letters full of your sick ideology and plans how to conquer the world?" She hissed, hating him maybe even more than ever before.

"I'm not Voldemort, Granger,-"

"-could've been fooled."

"-I don't have an ideology. I simply need them on our good side." He finished, pretending not to hear her interruption.

"And you will give me the access to important information simply because?"

"Because, who would you tell? Who's there to ruin it?" He laughed coldly, not at all like last night. It was a terrible, empty laugh.

Really, who could I tell? Hermione asked herself, while quietly getting up and walking to the table.

"If I help you with that, you will help me back."

"Are you blackmailing me? You know I could-"

"Yeah, yeah, tie me up, rape me and torture me. The worst is already done. I don't give a fuck." she said it coldly, ignoring his pitifully disguised cringe at her words.

"You will teach me wandless magic."

"Deal."