A/N: First and foremost, I'd like to thank those who reviewed and added as favorite. I was happy to see the notifications on my phone when I woke up the next day. Reviews really do make my day no matter how crappy that day turns out to be. It makes me smile a whole lot more :)

Not much in this chapter. Enjoy it anyway.

i do not own harry potter no matter how i wish.

Hermione moved to the center of the bed, hoping to feel Draco's warm body. Instead she was met with a tangle of blankets and pillows in place of him. She pulled the pillow close to her and hugged it tightly, smelling Draco's lingering scent on the covers. She opened her eyes and scanned the room, but he was nowhere to be found. It was probably just after dawn since it was still a little dark out from the looks of it from his window. She sat up on his bed and gave a long, good stretch. She wrapped the blanket around her naked body and found a note addressed to her just beside the pillow.

Love,

As much as I hate leaving you here to wake up on your own, I have some chores to accomplish today so I'll be out a little while to tend to the farm. I'll see you in a couple of hours or so…make yourself at home.

D.

She smiled after reading his note, remembering that he had said 'I love you' last night. He did, didn't he? She still couldn't believe it. It was like a wonderful dream, but she was awake and she knew for sure that it really did happen. She had made love to Draco Malfoy.

Regardless of her apprehension about their relationship because of the fast progression, she didn't have any regrets to losing her control last night. Everything seemed—no, felt right to her. She had been with Ron for a very long time, but not once did she feel a fraction of what she felt with Draco. Maybe deep down she knew that Ron wasn't right for her because in the years that they have been together, she had never surrendered herself fully to him. She loved Ron, but she knew she held on to him for all the wrong reasons, feeling obligated to stay with him since they had been together for so long and the pressure from everybody that they would end up together like Ginny and Harry. She was always guarded and insecure with him, yet with Draco she could totally lose herself. Draco gets her, he understands her and he can relate to her in the few short weeks that they were together. She didn't believe in all that divination crap, but she could totally say that they were soul mates and that they were destined to be together. Maybe fate did bring them together. Why else would she come to this place, unknown to most, and bump into him who has been missing and nowhere to be found? Ironic isn't it? She thinks that maybe there is something to this destiny nonsense.

Hermione stood up, blanket still wrapped around her, and for the first time really looked at Draco's simple room. She never had a chance before; not with her being busy ripping his clothes off of his body. It was really small, his own personal area. Sure, it was a basement filled with old stuff, but Draco was able to set up a comfortable corner for himself. How did he ever survive living in this stuffy room for two years? This was like being homeless compared to living at the manor. Hermione brushed the thought off, clearly Draco was doing well here. She walked to the bookshelf first, running her fingers through the creased spines of the classic novels she recognized as her early favorites. She moved on to his desk which was plainly kept neat and in order. There were a stack of papers, a book he was probably reading, a clock that was unassembled which he was probably trying to repair and a picture frame with a picture of him with the Toulson's and another with Eva. Hermione took a closer look. It seemed to be taken during the town fair. They were outdoors and he had his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist.

Looking at the secretive smiles they were giving each other, her conversation with Gwen the afternoon before, flashed in her mind. What if she was right? What if there was something between them? Just the thought of it gave her stomach an unpleasant lurch. She hurriedly replaced the picture and accidentally knocked the pile of papers on the floor. She carefully picked the scattered papers on the floor when she saw the quill that was inserted in between the pile. A quill? That was strange; what use is a quill to Draco? And that was when she realized something. The messages she had been receiving from him were all written with quills on parchment and not on regular paper with a regular pen. What the hell was going on? She took a deep breath as she tried to put back everything in place.

Hermione sat on the bed, all gears spinning in her head. A part of her mind was telling her to go snoop some more but she was afraid of what she would find. That was when she noticed his trunk at the end of the bed. That was the last piece of property that he had and surely she would find answers there? She stood in front of it as she wrapped her arms tightly around her blanket-clad body to stop herself from opening it without having to think it through first. She paced in front of his trunk as her mind came to life on their own.

'Why are you even thinking about it? You know it's wrong.'

'Aren't you the least bit curious of finding out what's inside?'

'No!'

'C'mon, I know you want to open it…take a look for yourself. Draco will never know.'

'Should I?' At this point, her resolve was starting to break.

'Yes, it will give you peace of mind.'

'It still feels awfully wrong…'

'What have you got to lose?'

'My dignity?'

'Pish! All you have to do is open it. See if there's anything suspicious in it. If there isn't anything out of the ordinary, wouldn't you be glad that you were just being paranoid?'

'What if I find something?'

'Then it's a good thing you looked, credit to your instincts. This is your chance…you can't spend the rest of the time running away with your imagination. Innocent until proven guilty. He did say to make yourself at home. Just pretend that you're looking for a clean shirt to wear.'

Before she could come up with something to contradict her last though, she shut her eyes and pulled the trunk open. She half expected something to jump out, her guilt messing with her mind. She took a peek with one eye and opened the other when all she saw were muggle clothes, most of which were worn from use during farm work. She sighed in relief and laughed to herself.

"Silly me! Of course it would be filled with clothes! What was I expecting?"

Hermione was about to close the trunk when something at the back of her mind was telling her to ruffle through it. She already opened it, why not just make a thorough search? What else has she got to lose? She already lost her dignity (at least that's what she was telling herself) when she opened it.

She carefully ran her hand underneath the clothes when she felt more parchments at the bottom. Her heart started beating fast as her hand also grazed something familiar. She pulled out the items in question and widened her eyes at what she saw.

In her hand was a stick—a stick that was ten inches long and made of Hawthorne wood. It was his wand. Did he even know that it was a wand? She tried to shake away the negative thoughts that started forming in her mind when she saw the letters. There were probably dozens, written in an elegant cursive much like Draco's. She skipped the contents and went straight to the bottom to see whoever the sender was. She gasped, dropping his wand to the floor. It was from his mother…all of it. She missed him terribly was asking him to come home. She didn't want to keep this secret from Lucius anymore. Apparently she didn't know Draco's whereabouts, but he writes to her regularly.

She was hyperventilating now. He lied to her—had been lying to her from the start! Was this some elaborate plot to embarrass her? To pay her back for the punch she gave him on their third year? Whatever the reason was, she couldn't think straight anymore. She felt like she was drowning and she had to escape.

Hermione hurriedly put her clothes on and apparated without thinking. All she wanted to do was get away from this place as fast as she could. She was disoriented when she popped up a couple of feet from her cottage. She wasn't in her right mind to apparate and it was a good thing that she didn't get splinched but her clothes got tattered in the process; better her clothes than her body parts.

She ran to her door, so distraught that she didn't notice that her wards had been altered. She shut her door behind her with shaking fingers. She had trusted him fully, offered him everything, but he had been lying all along. How could she ever trust again?

She had her back to the door when she started to cry really loud with fat tears rolling down her cheeks as realization set in of what she had done the night before and what she discovered just minutes ago. She felt her knees go weak, feeling sick all of a sudden. She eased herself down the wall until she was sitting and wrapped her arms around her knees.

She heard footsteps come toward her. Prowlers were the first thing that came to her mind and that they may be coming to kill her because she had caught them in the act, but she was just too weak to care. They might as well kill her since this stabbing pain in her heart was unbearable. She had thought that nothing could hurt her after Ron, but she was so wrong.

She was waiting for the prowler to accost her, instead she found two feet in front of her.

"Hermione?" The next thing she knew, she was enveloped in a warm embrace.

A/N: Who do you think broke into her home? and what do you think will happen next? Share your thoughts and ideas and i might just insert them into the storyline (credits to whoever, of course). don't forget to review...my happiness is at your hands! :)