Don't own it, don't make money, it belongs to J.K.

AN: I thought I'd already reassured you all- promised, in fact- that Draco and Hermione would be together in the end, but maybe I hadn't, based on the number of reviews where you're all acting VERY concerned about it. Then again, maybe that just means I'm writing so well that you're really caught up in everything and have actually forgotten my reassurances? That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Discuss.

Oh, and read. Discuss and read. Or read, then discuss. Whatever.

WARNING LEMON

The peace was broken by a kiss, but it wasn't Draco who finally disturbed their moment of shared pain and understanding.

It was Hermione who kissed him- standing before the locked door of the dining room, his arms still wrapped around her, her hands hanging onto his shoulders. She lifted her face from his shirt front, where she'd been drowning in that wonderful smell, and kissed him. Her lips met his sweetly, at first, and then grew more demanding as her fingers plied his arms, dug into his shirt for want of something to cling to.

He gave in to the kiss easily- he could never turn her down- and let her lead him. What do you want to do, he asked her with his parted lips and quick breath. And when she answered by opening her mouth against his and leaning back against the door, he responded her happily. Pressing his body to hers, he felt her hands leave his shoulders and move to his shirt front, begin working the buttons there.

"Hermione," he breathed and she shushed him by kissing him again, directing his jaw with one hand while the other pushed beneath his open shirt, began tugging it from his shoulders. He shrugged out of it with her help, leaving just his t-shirt underneath, and in the next instant that was gone as well. He groaned as she transferred her mouth from his lips to his chest, then his neck. With an effort, he held her away and looked down at her, though his arousal pressing between them made it hard for him to think.

"What are you-"

She interrupted him by pulling off her own shirt and starting in on her pants. He tried to get the question out again as he watched her slide her jeans to the floor and kick them off.

"Making good on my…suggestion earlier," she murmured and decided to help him with his pants.

Oh. That suggestion. That lewd whisper in the aisle at the Ikea. He caught her hands, hesitant to let her go on, reluctant to make her stop. If she really wanted to fix their words just now with sex; if she wanted to avoid any sort of mature discussion that would only end in more tears…who was he to stop her? And did he even have the willpower to make her stop?

He decided that was a debate that would have to wait for another day. Especially when she was already standing before him in her under things- her green, lacy under things- and clearly wanted him out of his own jeans.

So, he let her hands go back to their work and took her face between his fingers so he could kiss her properly. She moaned into his mouth when she finally freed him of his pants and he shivered and wrapped his arms around her. In another second, they'd stumbled back from the door and he'd hoisted her up and around, onto the table behind them.

The brand new table she'd made a certain remark about to him. Earlier. In the store.

She shimmied forward to the edge of the table and he leaned her back, arching over her as she hooked her legs up around his waist. He bent his head and fastened his mouth over one hardened nipple, running his tongue over the lace of the bra, soaking the fabric.

Hermione thought it was the most erotic thing she'd ever felt. She arched her back and tried to press herself further into his mouth. He moved to the other breast and she gave a mewling sigh as his hand snaked behind her back, giving her the extra leverage she craved. She ran her hands over his shoulders, constantly pushing him away and pulling him near, and she finally decided she couldn't take any more.

She brought both hands to his head and tugged him back up to her, crushed him against her as she sought out his mouth again.

"Draco," she mumbled against his lips, "now, please."

He slid a hand along her arms as they latched about his neck, then traced it down her waist, her stomach. Gently, he slid his fingers below the band of her knickers and pressed down against her center. She moaned again and kissed him harder, tried to lift her hips to meet his. He held himself off, despite her legs crossing themselves more tightly around him.

He smiled into their kiss and then slid two fingers against her again, and into her. She was beyond ready and he took his fingers away, swiped them across her clit a few times. Her eyes flew open and she stared straight into his.

"Will you bloody get on with it?" she growled, squeezing her thighs about him, and he was certain he'd have to get through the next few minutes without any oxygen.

He barely managed to gasp her name as he shoved her knickers out of the way before she was forcing him down to her with her legs, and angling her hips just right so that he slid home into her warmth. He didn't still for long- he was getting better at that, not treating her like a china doll. But this…it was rougher, quicker than anything they'd done before. Far more passionate, too. In fact, it felt real to him.

Like she was truly there, with him, beneath him as he thrust in and out; as she kept her arms about his shoulders, one hand gripping his hair, the other leaving tiny scratches. As she pulsed around his own pounding ecstasy from the feeling of her legs about his waist to the way that lace bra rubbed between them.

It was exciting, and it wasn't an act- some play with prearranged roles meted out in a darkened bedroom. This was Hermione, letting him- begging him to screw her into her new table because she was too scared to admit she might love him, too. It was her asking his forgiveness for giving him hope that she could move past herself and return his feelings. It was many, many things. But most of all, it marked a change between them. It marked a moment she was allowing him to dominate her, even if it was to make up for some perceived wrong; and it marked her accepting him as an equal- both in the house, and in her bed. She couldn't do anything else, after all. Not with her legs around him like that and him pinning her in place quite firmly- even if the table was shaking a bit by now.

His lips found hers again, both her hands went to his hair, tangled there. He leveraged her up further against him, went deeper. Seconds later, she was crying out into his mouth, the sounds of her orgasm gone down his throat. He followed her a minute later and collapsed over her, legs shaking despite his best efforts.

"My god," he whispered into her hair.

She tilted her head some, kissed his chin.

"Good?"

He nodded, unable to answer, and buried his face in her neck. She snuggled against him briefly before drawing her legs down, easing them straight and then letting them dangle off the table. Draco propped himself up on his forearms and gazed down at her. The afternoon sun didn't face the windows of the dining room, exactly, so it had grown somewhat dim, but it was still bright enough to see. He thought she might be glowing and told her so.

She rolled her eyes and swatted at him.

"Get off."

Draco didn't argue. He knew when playtime was over- even if that had just been so real it hurt. He slowly pushed away from her, hissing lightly as he left her warmth and softness.

He handed her clothes to her and then pulled on his own in a perfunctory manner. She blinked several times as she sat up and then rubbed her face. Her hair was a mess, her lips were red, her cheeks flushed…

"We look it," he informed her.

"I know," she replied and though her voice held a trace of regret, her eyes were smiling. "Just avoid the living room. Or wherever your father is."

"He already knows we're-"

"Yes, but he doesn't need to know we just did…that on this," she said, waving her hands at them both and then the table.

Draco gave her a long look, debating whether she looked truly ashamed or not. She didn't really look any way except thoroughly fucked, he finally decided, and that was charming enough. She was standing there, fingers fiddling with the hem of her shirt, buttons on her jeans undone, that green lace peeking out at him and creamy skin behind that…he pulled his shirt off again after having just put it back on and crossed to her quickly, taking her in his arms again.

"Draco!" she gasped and pushed at him some. He ignored her protest and started kissing her again. If she wasn't going to let them talk about it, if she didn't want him to even mention emotions, then he wouldn't. Not anymore. He'd find some other way to convince her that what he was feeling was real, even if it meant letting himself be used, physically, and kissing her as though his life depended on it, time and again- as he was right now.

When she gave in a few seconds later and wrapped her arms about his neck again; he lowered them to the floor quite gently, and made proper love to her; covering the ache in his heart with the knowledge that if nothing else, he had this much. He had her, in his arms, returning his kisses with a fervor he never thought he'd see.

Under his tender ministrations and her soft sounds, the afternoon moved on.

Lucius heard a soft moan echo down the hallway and threw his book down, glaring at the entryway of the living room. With a disgruntled look upon his face, he stood up and walked to the door, gazing down the hall towards the still closed doorway of the dining room. He didn't hear any more moans, but he thought he might detect some light shuffling noises. Fighting to remove clothing, no doubt. He swallowed hard at the thought.

Bloody hell.

With a shake of his head, he turned to the front door and went outside, taking the side path around to the back. No way was he walking anywhere near the dining room now. He'd spend the rest of the early evening out at the barn, taking the horses in, perhaps. Visiting the kittens. Anything to get away from the gentle sounds of Hermione's…he swore aloud that time and continued down the path, making a mental note to volunteer to sit with the children in the kitchen. That way he wouldn't have to wonder, the next day, if Hermione had been quite naked under his own son on the spot where his dinner plate sat.

The rest of the night passed without a word between the three of them as to what may or may not have gone on in the dining room- although Hermione spent an extra hour cleaning it, face flushed bright pink every time Draco walked past and offered to help. Lucius conspicuously didn't offer to help.

They sat in front of the telly relaxing afterward a light supper, watching Are You Being Served? reruns and all three of them sipping wine. Hermione had stopped caring whether two grown men got a little tipsy around her or not, especially once she'd started sleeping with one of them. That had defeated the purpose of worrying about what might happen with a little wine in her system. And now, sated and all thoughts of feelings far away, she was almost looking forward to the dinner tomorrow. It would be nice to have company, wouldn't it?

She said as much and Lucius merely raised a brow, downed the rest of his wine, and announced he was heading to bed. Draco watched him go from the corner of his eye and then glanced at Hermione as she flipped off the television with the remote.

"You're not worried about it?"

"Should I be?" she asked drowsily, slouching back in her chair.

"I suppose not…I'd just thought that maybe, with…" He gestured between them and she flushed and drank some more wine.

"I see what you mean," she murmured and stared into her glass. She pursed her lips and her cheeks turned a darker pink. "No, not necessarily. After all, it's my business- our business," she corrected hastily. Draco made a small noise and she glanced up at him.

"There. Is this the sort of talk you wanted?"

He smiled slowly at her. "It's getting that way."

"Oh? Well, what else would you like to discuss?"

Loads of things, he wanted to say, particularly how you think you'll miss me, how you apparently can't stand for me to leave. But he kept his mouth shut a minute longer, suppressing the urge. She caught his eyes on her and felt pinned down by that steely grey.

"Draco?"

"I heard you," he said. "And right now, what I really want to discuss…is whether you're too tired out from earlier to even consider me coming in to bed with you."

She decided her wine was very interesting and minutes passed. Finally she looked up at him again.

"As long as you don't lounge around in my bed until one in the afternoon, when everyone is due to start arriving, I don't have a problem with you…joining me tonight, Draco."

Her face suddenly looked soft- young and hopeful. He felt sure this was the real her again, tiptoeing from behind the mask. He set his wine glass down leaned over slightly, turning off the lamp on the side table, casting them into semi-darkness. His eyes still glittered at her in the half light.

"Then I suggest we turn in now, if you want any sort of decent night's sleep."

He heard her breath catch and then she stood up and made her way over to him. His heart leapt into his throat as she straddled him on the chair and bent her head close to his.

"In a moment," she murmured. "Just…I want…" To know this house with you in it, ran the rest of the thought in her head. To make it mine before it's invaded by people I haven't seen in ages. Help me, her trembling arms asked as they went around his neck.

His mouth covered hers in perfect understanding and he slid his hands about her waist, pulling her closer in the dim light, their shadows mingling on the walls.

AN: I'm just telling you right now…if you like boys, they are nothing like my Draco. NOTHING LIKE. And you're setting yourself up for disappointment, daydreaming about him. On the other hand, if you protest my summing up of the dismal man situation because you have one of the actual good ones, bravo for you. For the rest of us, it's probs not going to happen. Which is why I write Draco this way in the first place.

I'm just sayin'. I feel it is my duty as an older, embittered woman to point this out.

Also, fuck Zabini. You'll see mention of him next chapter, along with some of the Weasley dinner. Deal with it.