Chapter 4

Draco sat up and yawned, stretching his arms up above his head. He looked over to see Hermione still fast asleep. He decided to let her sleep in a bit. He got up and made his way to the food baskets, pulling out two papayas. He stoked the fire, sliced the fruit and set it by the fire to cook.

'Hermione,' Draco whispered, leaning over her. She didn't respond. She seemed so innocent and angelical when she slept. Her hair draped lightly across her face, fluttering slightly with her breathing. Her eyes were closed, eyelashes contrasting with her pale skin.

'Hermione,' he said, a little more insistently, shaking her slightly. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him blearily. 'Breakfast's ready,' he said, pulling her up to a sitting position.

'Aw, breakfast in bed. How clichéd,' she said teasingly, tasting the juicy papaya slice he presented to her. 'Thanks.'

The two sat and ate in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Draco frowned a bit, troubled by something, their stupidity most likely.

'Hermione? Why didn't we just use incendio to start the fire instead of spending two hours twirling that stupid stick?' he asked slowly, berating himself for not thinking of it sooner. They had wasted so much time! What was the point in being a wizard if he didn't use magic when the opportunity presented itself?

'Well, honestly, I hadn't thought of that,' Hermione replied, eating the last papaya slice. 'But, now that you mention it, I think it's good we didn't. We need to be able to do things the muggle way, too. At least, we do out here,' she replied calmly. Draco gaped at her.

'Are you mad?' he asked quietly. 'How much time did we waste that we could have been using for better purposes? We could have used incendio for the fire, accio to get the fruit and food, and so many other things!'

'Think about it. What if our wands got broken or lost? What would we do then? If we had used magic for all that stuff, we wouldn't know how to survive without them. We would be completely dependent on them. Without them, we would die. Now that we know how to do things without magic, we can survive even without our wands. Sure, they make things easier but we don't really need them now. Our knowledge needs to be our greatest tool, not our wands,' she said.

Draco thought this speech over and had to admit that she had logic. He shuddered to think what would happen to him if his wand broke, or Hermione's. 'Okay. I guess that makes sense,' he said grumpily. 'Well, can we use our wands to make new clothes? These are getting really ripe,' he asked, plucking at his robes.

'I guess so, since we probably should make more than one outfit each so we don't have to make more later,' she said, pulling out her wand and twirling it between her fingers. 'What could we use?'

'Well, if we had needles and thread we could use the material of our robes to make more comfortable clothes. I wonder if that spell to change matches into needles would work on anything else,' Draco suggested, picking up a twig about the size of a matchstick. He gave the spell a go and, to his delight, it worked. The twig turned silver and sharpened into a point. He presented it to Hermione smugly.

'Terrific! Wait. Since we're using our robes to make the new clothes, what do we wear while we make them?' she asked uncomfortably. No matter the change in her feelings toward him, and the undeniable fact that he was hot, she didn't particularly want to be seen in her underwear.

'Oh, uh…I don't know,' he confessed, also ill at ease with being seen in his underwear, especially by this particular girl, the one he had come to care about. 'We could work on them separately,' he suggested.

'Or we could just suck it up and see each other. Face it. We're living together on a deserted island, it's inevitable that we'll see each other at one time or another,' Hermione pointed out, though it was a particularly awkward option.

'Uh, okay,' Draco said shyly. Blushing deeply, he pulled his robes over his head and spreading them out on his lap, leaving him in only his boxers, carefully avoiding Hermione's eyes.

Hermione did the same, though much more self-consciously. After all, she had a lot more to hide, and her bra and underwear felt like nothing at this particular moment. She felt the color rise in her cheeks as she stole a sidelong glance at the young man sitting alongside her, eyes downcast in embarrassment.

Draco's chest was muscled and lean and he had a solid eight pack. He was slender and well built. When he looked up at her, she blushed deeper and looked down again. He studied her in return, noting her taut stomach and hourglass figure. He didn't linger, it wouldn't be proper, but looked down once more.

After a few more moments of mutual embarrassment, Draco picked up another small twig and transfigured it into another needle. 'So, uh, what kind of clothes do we need out here?' he asked, trying to bring Hermione out of her shyness by asking for directions. Appealing to her efficient side helped pull her back to her senses a bit. She thought it over for a moment, considering the climate and their needs.

'Well, it needs to be loose enough to move around in but tight enough not to fall off with strenuous activities. It needs to be cool enough so that you don't overheat in the sun but warm enough so you don't freeze at night. For you, some shorts would be sufficient, I guess. That's all you really need, right?' she asked, looking him in the eye for the first time.

'Sure,' he said. He stood up and held up his robes. He cut off the bottom strip of fabric, as they had done when they arrived, and cut a slit down the middle. Then, using the needles they had created and some crushed fibers, he sewed up the sides of the slit to make leg holes. It wasn't a masterpiece but it was serviceable.

He put them on but them kept falling low on the hips, too low to keep them on for very long. Finally, getting aggravated, he thread a thicker strand of fibers through holes he cut around the top and tied them closed in the front as a drawstring. Now he had loose shorts, about knee length, with a drawstring at the top so they wouldn't fall off. Much better than robes.

'Perfect,' he said. He tossed the remainder of his robes in an spare basket, in case they needed them for something later. 'Your turn, Hermione.' Hermione stood up and held her robes up against her.

'What should I have? Shorts and a tank top or something?' she asked, thinking of what kind of shirt she should wear. He nodded his approval. She made her shorts much the same as Draco had, only about six inches shorter, to about mid thigh.

For the shirt, she cut the sleeves off of the robes entirely and cropped the bottom to about her navel. To make it tighter and less breezy, she cut a wide strip out of the back and re-sewed it closed again so that it fit snuggly. She put the outfit on and smiled, satisfied with her efforts.

'Okay. So these outfits will last awhile, right?' Hermione said, putting the scraps left from her robes in the basket with Draco's, sitting back beside him. 'I don't think we have enough material left for anything else,' she said disappointedly, looking at the meager remainders of their Hogwarts attire.

'Well, these should last us for as long as we need them to,' Draco said bracingly. 'Eventually, we'll figure out something else, another material we can use. We're both highly intelligent and frugal people. We'll think of something else later.'

'Okay. But right now, I fancy a swim. You coming?' she asked, bearing toward their small stream. Draco followed behind her, smiling at the playfulness of it all. Hermione pulled off her new clothes, apparently over her embarrassment, and splashed into the water.

Draco copied her, pulling off his new shorts, and waded out to meet her. There was another moment of embarrassed silence before Hermione splashed water at him. He splashed back, laughing, and Hermione swam away teasingly. He chased her upstream until she disappeared behind the curtain of long streamers draping down from the weeping willow. He hesitated, then pushed them aside.

Hermione was spread out on the rock on shore, the sun bathing her shining skin in dappled light. She looked like an angel, so beautiful, so perfect was she. Draco was momentarily stunned by her beauty. She looked up, and slid back into the water, swimming out to meet him.

The hanging tendrils meant that the light came through in thin shafts, seeming like a cage of light surrounding them, an ethereal paradise. The water was cool, the air was warm and the mood was perfect. Hermione swam in lazy circles around Draco, smiling at him, her wet hair framing her face with dark curls.

Draco, on impulse, grabbed her hand and pulled her around to face him. They were close enough to the shore to stand comfortably, with the water at about chest height. He held her hands tightly and gazed intently into her honey colored eyes, trying to convey a message unbeknownst to both of them.

Hermione stared back, baffled again as to the meaning hidden in that deep shade of cobalt blue. They held her captivated, enthralled. Neither moved, both too enraptured by the other to think at all. They were letting their instincts guide them now.

Slowly, Draco let go of Hermione's hands, and she let them drop to his chest. He placed his hands carefully on her hips and pulled her closer. She didn't protest, and he took it as a sign to continue. He slowly, almost imperceptibly, leaned forward, beginning to close the gap between them. His heart was pounding like a drum, he was so nervous.

Hermione caught the movement and her breath caught in her throat. She wasn't scared, just hesitant. She had turned down so many others. Was she sure this the one she wanted to let in? This unexpected someone that had somehow managed to capture her guarded heart in just a few days? She knew the answer to that question.

Hermione leaned forward a bit as well, getting a fraction closer. She closed her eyes expectantly, Draco leaned in a tiny bit more, and stopped. After a few tense seconds, they moved simultaneously, tilting forward the tiniest bit until their lips connected.

All thought was extinguished. Draco was euphoric, the feel of Hermione's soft, sweet lips against his blissful. Hermione's hands slid from Draco's chest up to his shoulders and then around his neck, pulling him closer yet.

After a moment or two, they pulled away. Hermione took a deep breath, trying to still her heart. She failed. She kept her eyes closed, hoping to capture that feeling and lock it in her heart forever. She never wanted to forget that moment.

Draco looked at her. Her chest was rising and falling gracefully, her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open. He decided she was more beautiful now than she had ever been before, if that was possible.

Hermione opened her eyes to find Draco looking at her. They stared into each other's eyes for another instant before he dropped his gaze. He let go of her quickly and took a step back, much to Hermione's displeasure.

'I, uh, hope that was okay,' he mumbled, looking down and going red in the face once more. Hermione chuckled a bit, making him look back up at her. She was smiling at him.

'Draco, of course that was okay,' she said. 'That was more than okay, that was perfect.' Draco smiled at her. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his again, a sweet slow kiss just like their first.

'We should probably go stoke the fire,' Draco said when she pulled away. She nodded. 'We'll just dry off a bit first,' he said, climbing up onto the sun drenched rock and patting the space beside him.

They lay in the sun until they were mostly dry, then made their way slowly back to the campsite, giving each other small pecks all the way. They went about the rest of the day in a sort of blissful daze. There was no question about it; everything was perfect.