A/N: Sorry, my lovelies. Sometimes bad things happen in the world beyond FF. This time it happened to me.
To those of you who thought last chapter was filler – ask yourself this: did it reveal character or forward the plot? The answer was yes. In a big way. We've had a fundamental shift in both plot and characterization. It's getting our characters to admit it that's the problem.
Short chapter, but still a natural breaking point in the story, so I'm going to let it stand. WARNING: Full frontal nudity in this chapter, sexual situations and innuendo. It's fairly mild, but I am a mom, so if you're not old enough, please go read elsewhere. For the rest of my lovelies, enjoy.
-Elvee
Snatch
Chapter Twenty
"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ron's reaction was so predictable she ignored it, instead studying Draco's face. He had a black eye, a broken nose and two splits in his lip. Putting her arms around him he flinched, and she found the fabric of his shirt was stiff with blood. She pinned Harry with a hard look, "Didn't you heal him?"
Harry had the good grace to look sheepish, but Ron spluttered, "Heal him? 'Mione hewas torturing you!"
Her hard glare met Ron's pinched, angry face. "He tried to save my life, Ronald Weasley!" She gave the blond's pale face a measuring look, brushing his hair out of his eyes, finally asking softly, "Draco, when's the last time you ate?"
Malfoy shrugged and ran his tongue along his split bottom lip, not meeting her eye. "Bread and water yesterday."
"Bread and..." She closed her eyes and took a deep calming breath. "I don't believe you two! No healing? No food? Chained up in manacles! Honestly!" Ron's mouth gaped open like a fish, struggling for something to say. Harry frowned but remained silent. With one last hard look at each of them, she called for Dobby. Thankfully the elf had grabbed her wand, but the beaded bag was nowhere to be found. She cursed under her breath, the loss of Draco's money and her potions stock was a hard blow. "Okay, let's have a look at you," she told Draco. "Go ahead and strip."
Ron clenched his fists, "Oi!" He pointed at Malfoy, yelling, "Put that back on! Malfoy is not taking his clothes off in front of you!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath, floating an errant curl above her forehead. "Ron, just..."
Grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling upward with a smirk, Draco chose that moment to pipe in, "It wouldn't be the first time she's seen me naked, Weasel."
"Draco, please don't start..." Hermione begged.
"WHAT!" Ron roared, his face turning a blotchy pink.
Draco's bloody shirt fell to the floor and he started on the buckle of his belt, still smirking. "After snogging, it just seemed like the natural next..."
"You SNOGGED the Ferret!" Ron turned bright red.
"That's enough." Hermione tried to intercede as she flicked her wand to pull Ron in the room, shut the door and throw up a silencing ward.
In the meantime, Draco let his pants fall to his ankles, exposing himself. Apparently, only some of his clothes made it out of the Malfoy summer home. "That wasn't the best of it though, was it Hermione?" He leaned over and planted a soft kiss on her cheek as she was finishing up the ward.
Hermione glared at Draco, leveling her wand in a threatening fashion. It didn't stop him from running his mouth. "We shared magic." He had balls, she had to give him that.
"YOU SHARED MAGIC! WHAT THE HELL, 'MIONE?" Ron's face had gone straight into a livid shade of purple and spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled. Harry grabbed his elbow as he tried to launch himself at Malfoy.
Malfoy smirked, "Twice actually."
"It's not what you think. I..." Seeing she wasn't getting through to her friends, Hermione groaned and hissed at Draco, "Would you shut up?" He did stop talking, but the damage was done, and he had the audacity to smile – an actual, genuine smile- at her. She narrowed her eyes at him in warning.
"Ron, mate. Calm down." Harry soothed. "I'm sure Hermione had a good reason to..."
"They shared magic, Harry! That's like... like..." Ron turned puce and wrinkled his brow in hatred.
"Like sex?" Draco asked. "Yeah, it is remarkably similar."He leered at Hermione.
For his part, Ron attempted to charge, and Harry scuffled with him to keep him away from the bed. "Lemme go! I'm gonna rip his bloody arms off!"
Blushing, Hermione still had the presence of mind to bark, "Enough!" With a flick of her wand Ron went stiff as a board. "Harry, get him out of here." Vanishing Draco's shackles, she roughly turned the blond in front of her around and found four long deep gashes in his back. "Dobby, prepare a warm bath, bring needle and thread and food for Malfoy."
Harry gave her a long, measured look before speaking, "'Mione, I don't know what's been going on. First you disappear for weeks, next thing we know you're being tortured in some house in Germany, and now you're defending him." He motioned at Malfoy, sitting quite nude and smug on the edge of her bed. "Ron might be overreacting, but you do owe us an explanation."
"You'd have had one by now if you two hadn't acted like Neanderthals! Wait downstairs. I'll get him sorted and be down in a few minutes." With a curt nod, Harry released the petrification spell and dragged a glaring Ron through the door. She flinched at the slamming door. Hermione sagged back into her pillows, pinching the bridge of her nose. That couldn't have gone worse if she'd tried to feed them to one of Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts..
She felt the depression change on the bed as Draco shuffled next to her. He grabbed her hand and ran his thumbs over her knuckles. "Weasel. Predictable as always."
She pursed her lips and glared at him. "Why do you do that, Draco? Why do you always do that?" She blew out a long breath and mentally counted to ten. She tried to remember he hadn't eaten decently in days and was probably in pain from his wounds. But, of course, this was Malfoy. He didn't need a reason to rile Ron up. She counted to ten again and felt his lips brush over her knuckles.
"I know what I want for my favor." He said softly.
She gave a sound of disbelief, then asked, rather put out, "You want a favor now? You're a berk, you know that, Malfoy?"
He placed his free hand on top of hers and pressed. "I want you to be my girlfriend."
She sighed. "No. We said no sexual favors."
He smirked and got a very Slytherin twinkle in his eye. "Ah, but I didn't ask for sexual favors. I asked you to be my girlfriend." He brought her knuckles to his lips again and planted a very slow, breathy kiss over them that sent a shiver chasing up her spine.
She squeaked, "What's the point of being involved if we're not," she was going to say having sex, but she didn't want to give him any ideas. Hearing the squeak in her tone, she cleared her throat. "Involved?" She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it fast.
He pulled the back of her hand to his lips again and smirked over it, saying, "If you're my girlfriend, you can't date the Weasel."
She tried to snatch her hand away petulantly and snapped, "Oh, for crying out loud!" He thought Ron was what? In love with her? Liked her? Ron was her best friend. Her eyes widened and she burst out laughing. She finally managed to stutter between laughs, "Ron's not... He wouldn't..."
Malfoy's eyes darkened and he grabbed her shoulder. "Use that terrifying brain of yours, Granger. He is and he would." His hand was gripping her just a bit too tight. It didn't hurt, not exactly, but it wasn't a friendly touch, either.
She stopped laughing and asked the most logical question she could think of, "And why would you care if he was interested in me?"
"So, your life's ambition is to marry the Weasel and squeeze out enough kits to make the next Hogwarts Griffindor quidditch team? How very... pedestrian of the brightest witch of our age." Draco drawled.
She narrowed her eyes to slits. "Don't answer my question with a question. Ron isn't interested in me. Anyway, I never said I was marrying anyone," she finished smugly.
He was distracting her by tracing his thumb over her bottom lip. "Wrong, Granger. Just a few days back you said you were going to marry me."
She batted at his hand and laughed derisively. "That marriage would have been a sham! I would have been halfway around the world in hiding within twelve hours of our vows. That marriage – if you want to call it that- was specifically designed to engineer the downfall of the Malfoy line: no consummation, ergo, no children, ergo, no heir. Despite popular belief, I am not the Virgin Mary."
"Who?"
Of course he would miss the muggle religious reference about immaculate conception. "Never mind. That plan is blown to hell. Don't worry, Malfoy, you're once again free to auction the cold side of your marriage bed to the highest inbred bidder."
Draco's expression darkened. "I never said anything about marrying..."
"We're getting side tracked." She put a finger over his lips, silencing him. "Don't worry your pretty head. I'll find another way to deal with Lucius. And you're dissembling, which means you're hiding something instead of answering my question. If you won't tell me the real reason you want me to be your girlfriend, the deal is off."
"For shame, Granger. I never thought I'd see the day a Griffindor wouldn't hold up her end of a bargain." She made to protest, but he spoke right over her, "You owe me a favor. I just called it in. Are you going to honor our agreement or not?"
She bit her lip, torn between honoring their agreement and damaging her friendship with Ron even further. He would blow his top if he thought she was dating Malfoy. Then again, a Slytherin could ask for any number of much more unpleasant favors instead of just posing as his girlfriend. He could ask her to break into Gringott's or for a Chinese Fireball egg. Yes, it could be much, much worse.
After all, the idea of being his girlfriend wasn't that terribly distasteful. Too bad its only for show, she thought almost before she could catch herself at it. Oh, get a grip on your wand, girl. So he can kiss, so what? So what if he's beautiful naked? Draco Malfoy was a purebred, pureblooded prat. It isn't like he'd actually want to be the boyfriend of a bushy-headed know-it-all. You're nothing but a mudblood to him.
For some reason, that last bit hurt more than the first time he called her that.
She gritted her teeth. Malfoy would never change. Fine. She could play his stupid little game. Ron was her best friend, he'd forgive her in the end. He would have to, because he sure wasn't going to be happy when she told him. There was one last thing still bothering her, and though she could speculate, it was easier to ask. "You still haven't told me why."
"It'll drive the Weasel niffler-mad. He turns a rather entertaining shade of purple when he's barking, doesn't he?" Malfoy smirked. For whatever reason, she could tell he was lying. The cues were subtle and would go unnoticed to a casual observer, but they'd been together for a few weeks now and she was learning to read him.
"Liar." She called him on it and watched his face carefully. Something flitted across his features, but before she could figure it out, it was gone. He cut off her whirring brain with a kiss. He twined a hand lazily in the hair at the base of her neck, pulling her closer as he nibbled at her lips. It wasn't hard and desperate; this kiss had nothing to prove. It was gentle, languid and sexy. It was the kind of devastatingly soft kiss you melt into, and she did, tenderly running her tongue over his split bottom lip.
When they finally broke apart, he leaned his forehead to hers and whispered, "Sex may not be part of the agreement, but I'm ready whenever you are, princess."
It took her a moment to gather her scattered wits, then she quietly cleared her throat. "But, I'm a mudblood."
He planted a soft kiss on her cheek, and breathed, "You're a woman." He trailed another kiss down to her jaw.
She caught herself letting out a sigh. "For how long?" She managed to say, but barely. Her body was overloading her mind with humming pleasure as she tried desperately to out-Slytherin a Slytherin.
"Until I say so." He dipped lower, his tongue tracing the sensitive spot below her ear.
"No...no sex?" She tried to keep her voice firm, but it came out more as a questioning yip. She rolled her shoulders and shivered as he continued to suck and gently bite her throat.
He broke the suction from her skin and punctuated his words with little flicks of his tongue. "Not unless you want to."His hand brushed up from her waist to cup her breast. His thumb flicked lazily over the hard nub of her nipple through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
Her stomach, only fluttering to this point, clenched in need. Gods help her, in that moment, she'd never wanted anything more than sex with Draco bloody Malfoy.
Thank Merlin for house elves.
With a crack Dobby appeared with a towel draped over his arm, bowing low. "Mister Malfoy's bath is ready, Mistress." She caught the elf scowling at Draco for a fraction of a second. "Will he be requiring assistance?"
With an effort of will, she pushed Draco away and cleared her throat. "No," she squeaked. "Thank you, Dobby." The elf disappeared with a snap of his fingers. She tried to get a handle on her rampaging libido before continuing, "You should go take a bath. We've got to get you patched up before you see your mother."
He grinned like a firstie on Christmas morning, tightening his arms around her. "She's here? Why didn't you tell me?"
Hermione smiled. "I just did."
He tried to extricate himself from her arms to reach for his bloody clothes, "Well, where is she? I want to see her!"
Hermione pulled him back to look at her. "Think, Draco! Your mother doesn't need to see you beaten to a bloody pulp! She's going to need your strength." She smoothed her hand down his cheek and darted her eyes between his, waiting.
He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a hard breath, then nodded. "Yeah," he finally conceded. "Yeah, you're right." The kiss he gave her sent the butterflies in her stomach into flurries again. Draco never took his eyes from her. They had turned to liquid mercury, his pupils wide with arousal. She dropped her eyes to avoid the weight of his gaze. Of course, that wasn't the only thing, er, aroused. "So how 'bout it, Granger? Be my witch?"
She tore her gaze from his erection and forced herself to meet his eyes. She hesitated for the space of time it took to dart a glance at his lips. "Fine." She poked out her hand to shake, "Even?"
"Even." He bypassed her outstretched hand and pulled her into his arms again, sealing it with another scorching kiss. She ran her hands across his battered chest, finally mustering the strength of will to push him away, her pulse racing.
"Go get your bath. I'll check on your mother and make sure she's up to having visitors." As an afterthought, she conjured a towel. "And no streaking in the hallways. As angry as Ron is, he might just hex it off."
"We can't have that. Not yet," he gave a suggestive wink and stood, wrapping the towel around his waist.
When the door closed softly behind him, Hermione flopped back onto her pillows with a growl of frustration. What in the hell had she just agreed to? And more importantly, why? It almost seemed like he wanted her, but then he'd said he wanted her to be his girlfriend to rile up Ron. Which was the truth? Damn Slytherins. She growled again, louder this time.
Malfoy was going to be the death of her yet. That is, if Ron didn't kill her first.