So I'm wishing I had held out on the other chapter to post today. For April Fool's. Because it had a happy ending. But here's the evidence it's all a lie because-
Come on. Me? Give some kind of calm, fluffy, no-drama/angst/soap opera material to a story?
Well I'm sorry to all those that had given up hope, that the best parts of the story were over.
I'm sorry for all y'all that want fluff and fun and zomg-oh-no's-you're-going-to-meet-my-parents-and-we'll-fuck-in-the-laundry-room-and-they'll-think-you're-charming.
Cuz too bad. The ending on this one is for real, and the drama will continue for several chapters more. If I get myself some romance and a boyfriend I might have their 'make-up' scene actually be breakthrough for their relationship.
She had come to him, asked him to change her. She didn't even know who she was yet and she asked him to change that.
It had been too ironic, asking him so much after he had told Draco she shouldn't be changed, that he could only hurt her.
And now here she is, lying in his arms after he had walked away from her and made love to an old, old friend.
It was early, too early to rise.
He had never expected such a sight, not even when it became obvious to him that this girl would somehow infiltrate the fort he'd been holding down. That she'd be curled up against him, her arms wrapped around him, just barely barely barely touching the bare skin of his lower torso, her bare head curled upon his chest.
He'd woken when her cold hand had slid under his shirt.
And in his sexual tension he was watching her movements closely, only holding onto a thread of the idea that she was not his plaything.
He wasn't sure how she looked bald, half an inch of stubbly hair shadowing her head. He supposed she would look cute with a boy cut, not far in the future, with a freckled nose and upturned lips…
Malfoy's head, tilted slightly so as to see her face directly, imagining she was awake and doing something characteristic, debating him or chastising him or just laughing…
And when she curled into herself, letting out a yawn and snagging the fabric of his shirt inbetween her teeth, pulling it, Malfoy's eyes darkened.
By all means, he knew when they had fallen asleep so peacefully that they would not be able to wake together.
He knew that one of them would leave before the other could awake.
But as Malfoy closed his eyes and tried to control his thoughts, biting his lip as he imagined he could find a girl this early in the morning, wondering if he could find Pansy so she could explain the note she had left so cryptically- even if he, himself, had left her quite so cryptically as well-when he realized her weight had shifted and was leaving a very soft, hardly perceptive kiss upon his cheek.
As his eyes opened quickly, he watched as hers, wide and mostly asleep, seemed to drift shut very, very slowly, her lips stretching very very slowly, silently wishing him a good morning, a thank you for the good night.
Unsure of how to respond, Malfoy remained still as she let her head fall into the crook of his neck and shoulder.
Her intimacy, from any other girl, would have been a sign of how easy they would be, how easily they would fall to his affection.
Unfortunately, Hermione was no different, and Malfoy did not want to think of her as a conquest.
Because, he rationed as he resisted the urge to bend down and place a kiss upon her head, this girl was not supposed to change. She had been everything she needed and he wanted before she had ever been influenced by him, her perfect rival.
And her words yesterday, pleading him to change her and looking so proud for reiterating the principle he had tossed so carelessly, asking him to change her had meant that surrendering some kind of relationship with her would affect her, would change her from the girl that Harry wanted so badly that he had to warn him to keep his way.
Whether or not Draco himself wanted her, wanted her just the way she was, was undeniably irrelevant.
This… significant relationship, for indeed that's what it was, a coincidental meaning they held for one another that may or may not be mutual-was not supposed to change them, to develop them from the characters they had built for themselves.
But as Hermione seemed to melt into him, falling back asleep, he was sure, he reminded himself that for all Hermione knew, she had spent the last month in his arms like this, every morning rising with him.
Conveniently, she was the same person she had been before she began to see anything in Draco.
She hadn't changed. There was no gradual change. It had always been potential between them, that they should be able to hold one another like this.
And in final knowledge that he had not been to blame, had not changed her or forced her, Draco slid deeper under the covers, slid his arms further around this same girl, delivering a kiss to her earlobe, smiled a matching disposition to the subconscious one she was wearing, unaware of these comforting revelations of her counterpart, this comforting grip of reality she had given to her enemy.
-
She tried her best to breathe very, very softly through her nose.
Watching how softly his eyelids were closed, Hermione allowed her own to wander the embrace she shared with the unconscious Malfoy. Sliding her hands from his embrace, he shuffled and frowned as her cold hands grazed his arm and Hermione flinched, trying not to vocalize her disturbance when his arm wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her back down to her torso. And as he smiled, that perv, as her body fit against his, Hermione nearly discarded her tact and woke him up to chastise him.
But his grip on her loosened to the point where his neck could arch so very slightly downwards to plant a kiss on her brow.
And he was still quite asleep.
Watching with awe as his head slowly nuzzled into the pillow, Hermione reminded herself this was not a situation in which she would want to deal with the Head Boy awake.
Taking advantage of his slack grip on her, Hermione rolled herself over him, suffering the least amount of bodily contact possible.
Assured that they were fully dressed, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and walked to the door that would lead to the common room.
Wincing as the door creaked, she was not surprised to feel the door jolt out of her hands as his own slammed against the door a foot above her head, so aware was she of the disturbed presence behind her.
Turning to face him, her eyes just barely open, still wincing apologetically, Hermione looked up at the frowning, infuriated, dismayed face of Draco Malfoy and cringed with a new found fear.
As his eyes began to open slowly, as if awakening, his face released into a much more passive, much more frighteningly characteristic disposition.
Quirking an eyebrow, he spoke softly, as if not willing to be so loud he would truly awake, so untrusting of the outcome of this encounter he was.
Surely when she was done he would wish to crawl into bed and awaken with the vague reminiscence of a pleasant dream.
"I frighten you?"
Glancing from one eye to the other, hoping to find a glitch in his façade, Hermione answered without hesitance.
"Aren't you supposed to?"
Dropping his hand from its point of pressure on the door, Malfoy's other arm reached around Hermione to twist the doorknob she was backed up against, making sure to curl his arm against her, touching her waist and arm, pressing her body against hers as he slowly opened the door behind her, slowly started shuffling her out of his room.
As he watched the slow cringe on her face as her back arched away from his close touch, watched her face turn away from his gaze, biting on the very inside of her lip as she apprehended his next attack, as she felt the wind of the opening door behind her, her eyes opened in near shock, looking to his stoic features for a hint, Malfoy decided he would not hold himself back any longer.
Finally looking down at her, Malfoy raised his hand once more- to point out the door over her shoulder, much to the chagrin of Hermione, whose further cringe made it apparent what she believed him to have raised his hand for.
"Stop coming back," he said in a voice so raw he knew he wouldn't try to sleep after this struggle to awaken, "unless you're willing to break down your superficiality and stay."
Why didn't she have anything to say? They wondered as the door slammed shut in her face.