Author's Note: I own no person, no place, no thing – except the plot! If you recognize it, it probably belongs to Ms. Rowling or some other awesome super-human.

Chapter 15 Boys Will Be Boys

Hermione woke up in the dark of the bedroom of the Inn that she and Draco were staying at, to the delicious feel of the back of her dress being unzipped.

"Mmmm…" she moaned sleepily, and heard Draco chuckle somewhere behind her. Hermione rolled onto her belly and burrowed her face into the pillow, belatedly remembering that she was wearing makeup, and hoping she didn't ruin the cover. But then Draco pulled her arms through the straps of her dress, and lifted her hips off the bed to guide the dress down her legs. She gasped in delicious anticipation of what Draco might have in mind, and, uninhibited by the generous application of champagne, rose up on her elbows to lift her chest of the bed.

"Untie my corset, please?" she asked him in what she hoped was a seductive, not sleepy, voice.

Draco took in a shaky breath. Hermione's prone form nearly glowed in the moonlight, and he ached to take her, but he knew she was pretty well intoxicated and utterly exhausted. Now was just not the ideal setting for their first time together. When he did make love to her, he wanted her one hundred percent present every step of the way. So, with a determined set to his jaw, Draco untied her corset and pulled it out from under her body, then slid her garter belt and stockings down her legs and off her feet. He stood off the bed and rummaged through her overnight bag for a sleep shirt, and tried very, very hard not to pay attention to the softness of her skin as he tugged the shirt over her head, around her arms, and down her back. She'd started snoring again before he'd pulled the shirt out of her overnight bag. Then Draco untied his dress shoes and pulled his own clothes off. He crawled into the large, soft bed next to his sleeping girlfriend, and pulled her onto her side so he could snuggle in against her. Draco dragged the quilt over their bodies, and soon fell asleep to the rhythm of Hermione's even breaths.

/…../

The first thing Hermione noticed the next morning was the sound of the suite door being unlocked and opened, and a familiar drawling voice saying, "I can't believe you're still hiding under the bed covers, Little Girl. Get up, you lazy thing."

Hermione pulled the quilt off of her head and sat up, squinting against the bright autumnal sunshine pouring in through the windows. Draco was striding towards the bed, with two steaming mugs in his hands and her brand new camera dangling off his wrist. He chuckled as he closed in to hand her one mug.

"Good morning, my little woodland creature. Been nesting, have we?"

Hermione reached up to feel the chaos of her long hair looping and swooping crazily above her head.

"Bollocks," she groaned. "This is a prime and painful example of why I have to braid my hair before I go to sleep. It'll take ages to get this mess out." She accepted the mug of coffee from her boyfriend, who then clambered up onto the bed next to her and settled back into the pillows. He'd obviously already been up and showered for a while, and Hermione started to wonder how long she'd been asleep.

"What time is it?" she asked as she sipped her coffee, pleased to find that Draco had already added the perfect amounts of cream and sugar.

"A bit after eight. I was quite rudely awoken just after six by your band mates and Pastor, who felt it necessary to drag me down to the sitting room for a manly chat about your former band mate, your highly suspicious new car, and the nature of my intentions towards your person. Very entertaining morning, thus far," Draco said companionably as he settled his coffee mug on the bedside table and pulled the camera off his wrist.

"What? Oh no, Draco, I'm so sorry!" Hermione immediately started apologizing, but Draco just waved his hand in the air.

"It's not really a big deal, Love. I could see that conversation coming from the moment I met your friends. It's funny, you know, that there seems to be only two reactions you inspire in men: lust, and protectiveness. I successfully managed to convince them that I'm currently subscribing to the latter, not the former, and I am fairly certain I left them quite ashamed with themselves for thinking you're the type of girl who'd accept the gift of a car from a man she's been dating for a week. So, with that all settled, you and I can go about our merry way, with none the wiser as to my nefarious intentions towards your aforementioned person."

"Ugh, honestly, you boys are so ridiculous-"

"Men, darling, we're men."

"Fine, Draco! You MEN are so ridiculous. I am not some simpering damsel in need of protection! There is no evil dragon about to devour me!" Hermione protested, but was cut off again by Draco's scoff of indignation.

"Hello? What do I look like to you? A pygmy puff? I mean, granted, I agree with you that I am not evil, but on the other two counts you are entirely wrong." Draco smirked at her, and she realized belatedly what she'd said, and giggled.

"Really, Draco, despite my unintentional play on words there, you know perfectly well that I am capable of protecting myself! And besides that, you and I both know that I'm safer now, especially with YOU, than I've been in bloody years!" Hermione said fiercely as she snuggled up against him and rested her head against his shoulder. She heard Draco chuckle again, and looked up to see him extracting some of her wild hair from the stubble on his cheek and chin.

"Agreed, my dear, but who's going to protect the dragon from the damsel's attacking mane?"

Hermione laughed again and reached up to smooth her hair back away from his face. Then she remembered something he'd said, and said, "So I have a former band mate? I take it Shaun and Renny sacked Sutton?"

"Indeed, they talked to him last night after you lot were finished playing, and he left sometime in the night. They mentioned that he's none too pleased with me, not that I care, and that he was fairly clear that he's going to get back at you for losing him his job." Draco rolled his eyes, and Hermione snorted dismissively.

"The idiot was drunk before we even got on the stage last night. I imagine we're more likely to find his car wrapped around a tree than to find him lurking in the shadows around my flat, waiting for me to arrive." Hermione sipped at her coffee and noticed the silver camera lying in Draco's lap. She boldly reached for it, enjoying the feeling of her boyfriend's body tensing up underneath her questing hand.

"Why did you have the camera out? Did you take photos this morning?" she asked, turning the device on to view the pictures.

"No. Fortunately for my lazy, unappreciative girlfriend, Sue noticed it sitting on the table after we'd come up to our room last night, and brought it inside so it wouldn't get ruined. There should be a good bit of photos on there; the woman barely put that thing down last night."

Hermione found the button to view the photos, and Draco brought his head down close to hers to see the images. Within a few moments, she'd flicked through to one of her and Draco, standing together after the wedding ceremony. He was whispering something in her ear, and she had just broken into amused laughter.

"Mmm, I remember that moment. I believe I was mentioning how much I'd like to get you back up to this room and out of that lovely red dress. You did look quite ravishing, by the way," Draco said as he rested his chin on the top of her head.

"Thank you, dear Dragon mine, you clean up very well yourself. It's much more natural on you, though. I look like one of the Stepford Wives. My ribs are actually sore from that damned corset," Hermione grumbled good-naturedly. She advanced forward a few frames, and smiled at the photos of Draco dancing with Rosie and Ellie.

"You're really good with them, Draco. That's a facet of your personality I find very attractive," Hermione said.

"Hermione, how many times do I need to point out to you that everything I do is attractive?" Draco asked as he snuck his hand under the quilt. He ran his fingertips up and down her bare leg, suddenly making Hermione very aware that she was sitting in a large and comfortable bed in nothing but last night's knickers and a loose sleep shirt.

"You know," he said in a low, husky voice, "I had a really good time last night."

Hermione's eyes nearly popped out of her head in response to his innuendo, and she quickly did a mental sweep of her body for signs of any activities she could not remember engaging in. Draco took in her expression and burst into laughter.

"Gods, Granger, do you really think I took advantage of you while you were snoring?"

Hermione's face flushed, and she poked his arm. "You arse, I don't snore."

"Hmm…" he said as he pushed the button on the camera to continue advancing the images. "You do snore, at least when you're exhausted and half-pissed. But don't worry, Love, you snore very adorably."

/…../

Several hours later, Hermione parked her car outside Draco's flat, and waited with him for the building's maintenance supervisor to use his skeleton key to unlock Draco's front door. Within a few moments, they had Hermione's spare keys in hand and were dashing back down the steps towards her car. As they parked in front of Hermione's building and unpacked the car to bring their luggage inside, neither of them noticed the shadowy figure standing against one of the buildings across the street.

/…../

The next couple of weeks passed for Hermione and Draco in a heady mix of anticipation and agony, Heaven and Hell. Heaven was being together, sharing their interests and history. Hell was being together, trying desperately to keep from acting like a couple of randy teenagers for the sake of their developing relationship. They were trying to stick with the One Month Plan, hoping the excitement and raging, hormone induced giddiness that lapped at their nerve endings would die back in that time.

Every morning Draco watched Hermione as she popped a tiny disc of a pill out of a round foil packet of similar pills in various colors, and counted down the days. He'd been thinking about putting in a vacation request to Wanda, because he had a feeling that once he and Hermione finally did get together, it would be days before he'd be interested in coming up for air. Possibly weeks.

In the meantime, Hermione taught Draco the basics of driving, to the point where he was comfortable with taking her car in the mornings to the Library on days she didn't need to go anywhere. In the evenings he would come straight back to her flat, and they'd either make dinner there together, or go out to meet with their growing circle of friends.

Draco was surprised and delighted beyond words to discover that Renny was an avid motorbike enthusiast. Renny, sensing Draco's extreme interest, offered him riding lessons and even consented to help Draco select a motorbike that would best suit his riding style. Hermione was delighted by Draco's childlike enthusiasm and made no protests to his new hobby. She had a feeling riding would be a reasonable substitute for flying, which she knew Draco missed dearly.

On a dreary Tuesday afternoon two weeks after the wedding, Draco drove Hermione's car to the outskirts of town to meet Renny for a riding lesson. Hermione heard her mobile ringing just as she slipped on her running shoes, and walked out to the kitchen to answer.

"Oh good, I'm glad I managed to get you before you left! Ellie's got a sniffle and I just don't want to take her out in this weather, but Shaun's at work until seven tonight," Sue gabbled as one of her girls whined in the background.

"No worries, Sue. You want to meet up tomorrow instead?" Hermione asked as she mentally changed her plans for the afternoon. She really needed to go for a run; cooking and eating with Draco every night was way too much fun, and her belly was getting a distinct roundness from all the indulgence.

"Tomorrow works great! Shaun will be home from work by three, can you meet at four?" Sue asked. Hermione agreed, and gave the girls her love before ringing off. Then she sighed in disappointment. Draco wouldn't be home until seven or so either. Hermione didn't particularly care to run alone, but remembering the giant lasagna she'd assembled for tonight's dinner, she decided to gather up some of her old Gryffindor bravery and duck out onto the Park's running trail alone.

She didn't see the shadowy figure who'd been waiting for her to exit her building, and she didn't notice him follow her along the typical path she strode down as she warmed up her legs. Hermione didn't realize that someone had taken time to notice she ran on a consistent schedule. She had her head firmly in the clouds, daydreaming about Draco and their complete lack of plans for the coming weekend, and that fact that it had been very nearly a month since they'd first gotten together, and that her packet of birth control pills proved irrefutably that within just four days, she would have no more arguments to keep Draco from attacking her and dragging her to their bedroom – and how odd it was that it really was THEIR bedroom now, as he hadn't spent more than a few minutes at his own flat since they'd come home from young Renton and Lindy's wedding.

Maybe she should make a formal request that he move in with her. They'd already made space for his clothing in her closet and bureau, and his toothbrush looked quite happy next to her own. He still had a couple of months left on the lease for his flat, but honestly they didn't need the added space, and it wasn't like they couldn't afford to just go ahead and buy the lease out or break it.

She was so busy making plans for her future with Draco that she didn't notice the very large, very angry man who stepped up behind her just as she rounded a corner that led her trail through a tight copse of trees and thicket. It was a deceitful bit of landscape, green and lush in the daylight, and bright and warm at night when the Park's lights came on. But in the half-darkness of the autumn afternoon, the thickets were dark and impenetrable. The large hands that grabbed her from behind were disappointingly familiar, as was the man's scent.

Sutton.

"Damn," she thought, then "double damn!" when she smelled the chloroform soaked pad in his left hand that he tried to slap over her nose as his right hand pressed a wide strip of tape over her mouth. Hermione rolled her eyes in irritation even as she stopped breathing and let her body go lax in Sutton's arms. He nearly dropped her in surprise, as he hadn't even wrapped his chloroform hand over her nose yet, and was only supporting her weight with the one hand on her mouth.

Hermione's arms rose up to follow her as she slipped down to the ground out of his grip. Sutton growled, "Get back here you fucking whore," and snagged her ponytail roughly, yanking her back up before she could scrabble away from him.

Hermione was completely disgusted now, and beyond furious. How many times was she going to have to fight against men that outweighed her by ten stone just for the privilege of breathing oxygen? Sutton dragged her by her ponytail and her two wrists towards a particularly thick clump of shrubbery, and Hermione saw to her equal dismay and delight that he had hidden away a blanket, some rope, and a roll of tape that probably matched what covered her mouth. At least he was only planning to tie her up and possibly rape her – no knives or other weapons were present. Of course rope and tape made for pretty efficient murder weapons, but Sutton had never struck Hermione as a murderer. A bully, yes. Potentially violent, definitely. But not a killer.

"You fucking think you can come along and act all innocent, you bitch, and you cost me my fucking job, my reputation in the church, and my band. You're a God-damned cock-teasing whore."

Hermione couldn't help but be amused as Sutton railed against her and her whorish ways. Honestly, men were so unoriginal. The best negative description words they could ever come up with to insult a woman were always 'bitch' and 'whore'. If she had a Galleon for every time she'd heard this waffle… well, she'd have a lot of Galleons, to be sure.

How the man had known about this tucked away little hidey-hole in the bushes, probably well-used by snogging teenagers, and how he'd managed to secure chloroform and time her entrance to the foot path to ambush her felt, frankly, a little too well thought-out to be the work of a first-time offender. Sutton was probably more used to seducing drunk or easily impressed college girls, but he'd been too practiced with the palm-full of tape and pad soaked in chloroform. She made a note of this, so she could remember to mention it to the police when they arrived…

She sighed, which, with tape over her mouth, came out through her nose as an exasperated snuffle. The tape simply had to go, as she had a few things to tell Mr. Sutton before she was finished with him.

Sutton dragged her to the center of the spread blanket and forced her down, then stood over her to gloat as he watched her eyes widen in fear.

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise. Was he really going to make this so easy for her? She was totally free, albeit with her mouth taped shut and laying on her back. But she was completely unbound as her attacker stood over her within easy groin-smashing distance. She took in his smirk of triumph, and widened her eyes further in what she hoped was an expression of sheer terror – attackers loved that shite – and then watched in almost boredom as he predictably leaned over to climb on top of her.

As soon as Sutton's weight was primarily shifted towards his hands and not his feet, Hermione shifted her own position, turning from frightened virginal prick-tease to near-fluid warrior in the briefest flash. She rolled to her right and knocked his arm out of her way, then grabbed it as she changed the direction of her roll to slide on top of his back. She flattened him to the ground and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket in the process. Sutton screamed in pain and rage. Hermione reached up and quickly ripped the tape off of her mouth, then just as quickly reached down and punched him in each kidney, hard. Sutton gasped as his back arched in pain, but his voice was effectively stolen by Hermione's well aimed fist.

"You stupid arse, you think you can just take me for a little non-consensual shag between two non-friends and I'm not going to fight back? You're dumber than you look, Mr. Sutton," Hermione said coldly as she reached over to the rope, then quickly shifted around to tie his feet together. She tucked her fist into his right kidney again when he tried to buck her off his backside.

Sutton gasped again, then spat, "I'm going to fucking kill you, you-" but Hermione cut him off by jabbing her foot into the back of his head.

"Yes, yes, I'm a bitch. Or was it going to be whore this time? Either or, really, Mr. Sutton, is not terribly original. And honestly, you can't kill me. You had plenty of opportunity to do it before I landed you on your belly. I'll bet you didn't even bring a knife!" Hermione watched as he stiffened, and crowed in delight, even as she punched him viciously in each hamstring to force his legs to cramp in agony.

"You did bring a knife! Oh, let me guess! I bet you're so incompetent that it's still in your trouser pocket!" Hermione felt around the outside of the dazed man's trouser pockets, and surely enough found the outline of a rather large pocket knife before she rose up and stepped on the back of his neck with her left foot, and onto his grasping right hand with her right foot.

"I warned you, Mr. Sutton, not to touch me again. Draco so much as begged you to leave me be, but you didn't listen. You think I'm some skittish little kitten you can toy with? You know nothing about me, you miserable wanker. I'm a fucking soldier, and I'll not suffer for the likes of you." And with that, Hermione crushed the bones of his right hand under her heel. Sutton screamed and flailed in agony as she jumped over his prone form, picked up his left arm, and snapped his wrist. Then she kicked him in the head to shut him up, and stood back to assess the damage.

Quite nice really. The whole affair had taken no more than three or so minutes, and she hadn't even gotten dirty, thanks to Sutton's conscientious and quite romantic forethought to bring a blanket. Hermione bent to double-check that the large man was still unconscious, and then popped back out onto the running trail and summoned a good, loud scream.

/…../

Draco was nearly in front of Hermione's building when he saw the police cars, their flashing lights proclaiming, 'Foul Deeds Done Here!' for all to see. Knowing that Hermione should be coming back from her jog with Sue any moment, he quickly parked Hermione's car and made his way across the street, hoping to intercept her as she came up the trailhead. He was pleasantly - or not so pleasantly, depending upon how one looked at it – surprised to see his girlfriend standing with a blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders, talking to a female officer, who seemed to be making notes of what Hermione told her in a small book.

He was also surprised to see two officers supporting a stumbling, whining Jonah Sutton towards a waiting ambulance. While not handcuffed, he was definitely being restrained by the two burly officers. Draco looked closely at the man who he'd last seen several weeks ago, and realized that both of Sutton's hands were swollen, bruised, and definitely broken. Draco's gaze swung automatically back to Hermione, who'd just noticed his arrival. Draco pointed covertly at Sutton, then at Hermione, and raised an eyebrow. Hermione's quick nod of affirmation and her discreet 'OK' hand-signal told Draco everything he needed to know.

"Mr. Sutton!" he called as he paced quickly over to the officers and their prisoner. The officers glared at Draco, who held his hands out in a friendly gesture to them.

"I'm Ms. Granger's boyfriend, I'm not here to cause trouble. I'd actually like to give a statement as soon as possible. You see, I tried to warn Mr. Sutton several weeks ago not to touch Hermione again. Didn't I, Mr. Sutton? I told you she'd break your hands if you did, and now look at you," Draco drawled smoothly, and then stepped back as Jonah Sutton roared in outrage and tried to shake off the restraining officers. He smirked as Sutton was dragged into the ambulance and strapped to a gurney for his trip to hospital, and later, prison.

A small hand worked its way into Draco's open left hand, and he looked down to see his best friend, the most beautiful girl in the world, smirking and waving at the passengers in the back of the ambulance. He leaned down, gathered her in his arms, and snogged her senseless, with the police lights and sirens and chattering officers and neighbors all around them.

To Be Continued.

Author's Note: So, how are we doing? Please feel free to let me know. Or even better, let me know, AND invite all of your friends to come read/review/favorite/follow. I'm officially obsessed with the numbers. I'm watching them go up as I rub my hands together and laugh like a little kid at Christmas.

ajc