After a few minutes of darkness Hermione found her bedroom at Hogwarts coming into focus. She was still sitting in the same place as when she had cast the spell and a glance towards the clock on the wall revealed two hours had passed since then. Hermione sat for a few minutes as she tried to reconcile that she had experienced months' worth of memories in just two hours.
Looking down at the book sitting in front of her, Hermione started to think about the story she had lived through. Despite her reservations at the first steamy scene, Hermione had to admit she had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. All in all Hermione had enjoyed experiencing life as a medieval Queen and she had definitely enjoyed the Queen's affair with the handsome knight.
Hermione wasn't totally surprised that she had cast Draco as the leading man in the story as she had to admit since starting seventh year she had developed a bit of a crush on her fellow head. The problem was now she had to live with the blond for the rest of the year, knowing she had memories and some sort of experiences of being intimate with him. Hermione knew that Sir Draco hadn't been the real Draco but there were enough similarities between the two to make sure she struggled to separate the two in her head.
Then there was the fact she was now wondering if the real Draco was anything like his knightly counterpart. Despite trying not to, Hermione couldn't help but wonder if the real Draco was as good a kisser as Sir Draco and whether his touch was electrifying as the knights had been. Hermione also couldn't help but wondering if the real Draco happened to look as good naked as Sir Draco. She knew that Queen Hermione had been physically identical to her and everything she had seen of Sir Draco matched the real Draco, leaving her to think that maybe everything was the same with him as well.
Dragging her thoughts away from a naked Draco, Hermione placed the book on her nightstand and stood up. Walking over to the door, Hermione opened it quietly and poked her head out of her room. After what she had just experienced Hermione knew she wouldn't be able to look at Draco without blushing, so she was hoping to avoid him for as long as possible. Seeing and hearing nothing in regards to the blond boy she lived with, Hermione crept out of her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs.
When she got to the common room it was in darkness, apart from the dying fire in the fireplace, so Hermione didn't bother to turn on the light as she made her way to the kitchen. After grabbing a glass of water, Hermione headed back into the common room on her way back to bed. Just as Hermione was passing the sofa the lights in the room suddenly lit up, revealing Draco sitting on the sofa. Hermione squealed at the unexpected sight and dropped her glass of water, causing the glass to shatter and water to splash all over her feet.
"What the hell are you doing sitting in the dark?" Hermione hissed as she whipped out her wand to clean the mess at her feet.
"Sorry." Draco replied, sounding anything but. "I was distracted."
"Too distracted to put a light on? What were you doing?" Hermione questioned. "On second thoughts, don't answer that." She hastily added as a few thoughts of what Draco could have been doing in the dark entered her head.
"That's a shame. I was just going to tell you how I've spent the last few hours." Draco said with a smirk.
Hermione immediately felt her cheeks heating up at the sight of Draco's smirk. It wasn't his everyday smirk, it was the exact same smirk Sir Draco used whenever him and Queen Hermione had been getting frisky or he was suggesting something risqué.
"Do you not want to hear what I've been doing?" Draco asked, chuckling at the sight of a flustered Hermione.
"No, I do not." Hermione huffed, turning away and heading towards the stairs.
"Are you sure, My Lady? It might prove interesting." Draco called after Hermione
Hermione froze as Draco called her something she had gotten used to hear Sir Draco call her. Slowly turning around she glared at the blond, who was still sitting on the sofa. "What did you just call me?"
"My Lady." Draco responded. "Or would you rather I call you, Your Majesty. Although personally I prefer My Lady, I did tend to use that one more often."
"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked.
"Your little immersion book." Draco said. "It's a funny story really, I was just sitting here minding my own business when suddenly I found myself zoning out and the next thing I knew I was a Knight, meeting his new Queen. I then kept on zoning out and ending up back in the kingdom of Slytherin, where I was having a racy affair with Queen Hermione."
Hermione gaped at the Slytherin, unwilling to accept what he was saying. At first she thought he was just winding her up by claiming to be in her book, after all he had looked at it earlier and knew what it was about. But as soon as he mentioned being in the kingdom of Slytherin, Hermione knew he was telling the truth. Without actually being in the story he would have no idea about the names of kingdoms.
"What did you do?" Hermione demanded as she found her voice. Storming over to the blond she stopped in front of him and pointed her wand at him. "What did you do to the book? Did you mess with the spell so you would be the lead character and join me when I cast the immersion spell?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Granger." Draco snorted. "I'm not that desperate that I'd manipulate your immersion book just to experience some action."
"How do you explain ending up in the story with me then?" Hermione asked, still glaring at the blond. "And how do you explain being cast in the lead role?"
"Firstly, I have no idea how I ended up in the book with you." Draco replied, pushing Hermione's wand out of his face. "And secondly, you cast me in the lead role all by yourself. Clearly someone has a crush on me."
"I do not." Hermione lied, not even convincing herself let alone the smug boy in front of her.
"Who can blame you really? I am rather impressive, even if I do say so myself." Draco smirked.
"Such an ego." Hermione rolled her eyes at the blond Slytherin. "You're really not that impressive at all."
"You weren't saying that earlier." Draco said, giving Hermione a smouldering look. "In fact throughout the book you were more than impressed with me."
"That wasn't you, it was the character." Hermione muttered, turning bright red at the implication behind Draco's words.
"Whether it was me or the character in the story, it was still my name you were screaming." Draco retorted, seemingly unfazed with Hermione's argument. "And if you're really unsure whether I can measure up to my knightly self, I'd be more than happy to re-enact a few of the steamier scenes."
"That won't be necessary." Hermione protested, ignoring the flush of desire that ran through her body at the thought.
"Anytime you do fancy some re-enactment, just say the word and I'll be there." Draco winked at Hermione and chuckled slightly as she blushed bright red yet again.
Turning away from Draco, Hermione sat down on the chair nearest the fire. She was totally mortified that Draco had been sucked into the book with her and had experienced everything she had but the whole thing was confusing her. The whole point of the books was for one person to live the story, not two.
"This makes no sense." Hermione muttered. "How did you even end up in the story? Are you sure you didn't tamper with the spell?"
"I swear, I never touched it." Draco said truthfully. "I admit I flicked through the book, but I never touched the spell. Surely the seal was still intact when you opened it."
"Yeah, it was." Hermione nodded, distinctly remembering breaking the seal for the spell herself.
"So we've established it wasn't my fault." Draco stated. "I didn't ask to be included in your dirty book. Not that I'm complaining in any way, I had a great time."
"What exactly happened?" Hermione asked the blond. She couldn't help but be pleased he had enjoyed himself in the story but now really wasn't the time to be thinking about that. "Were you in the book all the time?"
"No, I kept coming and going." Draco answered. "I was in the story a lot, but every now and again I would fade out and end up back here."
"What did you do when you ended up back here?"
"Not a lot." Draco shrugged. "It didn't take me long to realise I was in your book and I knew as the leading man I would be in the story more often than I was out of it, so I just sat and waited until I zoned out and headed back into the book."
"Could you remember things that had happened in between visits to the book?" Hermione asked, wondering how long it took for Draco to be so immersed in the book that he automatically knew what was happening.
"Whenever I went back into the book I had memories of everything that had happened since the last scene. The longer the story went on the easier it was to remember things." Draco explained.
Hermione nodded, Draco's experiences seemed to mirror hers somewhat but it still didn't explain how he had ended up in the book with her in the first place. Hermione knew she had cast the spell properly so she began to wonder if the spell itself was faulty.
"I have to admit, your casting was great." Draco said, brining Hermione out of her thoughts.
"What because you were the knight I was sleeping with?" Hermione asked.
"Well that was great casting, although it really wasn't necessary. All you have to do is ask and I'll willingly take you to bed." Draco smirked as Hermione lowered her head, clearly embarrassed by his openness. "But we can discuss that later, I was talking about your other casting choices."
"I didn't exactly choose the cast myself, the spell merely used my knowledge." Hermione replied, trying not to dwell on Draco's tempting offer to take her to bed. "And I actually think a lot of the casting had to do with who was the leading man."
"And here was me thinking you had Snape pegged as some kinky bloke and one of your best friends as a slapper." Draco chuckled as he remembered some of the stuff he had learnt about the King of Slytherin and the Queen's maid. He actually knew much more than Hermione as his knightly self hadn't wanted to freak his lover out too much. "Not to mention you finally seemed to have noticed that the Weasel is like some sort of lovesick puppy following you all over the place."
"Ron is not a lovesick puppy and Ginny is not a slapper." Hermione glared at the blond, suddenly remembering why she found him so annoying.
"I notice you didn't protest about Snape." Draco chuckled. "Does that mean you do think he's kinky in the bedroom? He does live in the dungeons after all."
"You lived in the dungeons for six years, does that make you kinky?" Hermione retorted, immediately regretting her glib question when Draco grinned wickedly at her. "Don't answer that." She said quickly, holding up her hand to stop the blond before he spoke and embarrassed her any further.
"You spoil all my fun." Draco pouted. "I wasn't even going to say anything too bad."
"I don't care what you were going to say, I don't want to hear it." Hermione said. "And as I was saying, I think Snape was cast as the King because of you."
"How do you think that?" Draco asked puzzled. "What do I have to do with you casting Snape as the kinky king?"
"I reckon he was cast as the King because the two rival kingdoms were Gryffindor and Slytherin. Everyone was cast in a role within their own house, meaning he was probably cast as the King because he's head of Slytherin. I did cast all the other heads as the Kings and Queens, after all."
Draco looked taken aback at Hermione's logic but after thinking about it for a few minutes he nodded his head. "That actually makes sense. Clearly once we were cast everyone else slipped into roles appropriate to their houses and characters."
"Exactly." Hermione smiled, pleased Draco saw her logic. The last thing she wanted people to think was that she had thought about Snape in the bedroom and had him pegged as someone with kinks.
"That's probably why Weasley was cast as the dipstick knight who was in love with you and was too blind to see you weren't interested. That's definitely a case of art imitating real life."
Hermione nodded and reluctantly agreed Draco was right. She'd already established the reason Ron was cast in that particular role but it was different to actually admit it to someone else. Basically she was admitting she knew Ron loved her and that she just wasn't willing to do anything about it. Although if the story had taught her one thing it was that she needed to speak to Ron and let him down gently. Her character in the story had failed to deal with Sir Ron and in the end it had cost her their friendship and that wasn't something she wanted to happen in real life.
"So what about Weaselette?" Draco questioned. "Did you cast her as your maid because she's your closest female friend or is she really that loose in real life?"
"Ginny is quite happy with Harry." Hermione replied. "True she may flirt a bit, but that doesn't mean she'll jump into bed with every man she meets."
"I would hope she has more self-control than the maid." Draco commented. "Honestly, until she got together with King kinky, she was bedding everyone. Even Crabbe and Goyle got some action."
"Well it was just a story and luckily only you and I know exactly what happened." Hermione said. "I suggest we make a pact never to speak of this night again."
"No." Draco shook his head. "I'll agree not to mention it to anyone else, but I'm certainly going to keep mentioning it to you."
"Why?" Hermione queried.
Draco smiled before suddenly getting up and moving so he was leaning over Hermione's chair, their heads mere inches apart. "Because I enjoyed it and so did you. And if I keep talking about it, I can persuade you to try out the real thing."
"You really think that will happen?" Hermione questioned, trying hard not to lean forward and press her lips against Draco's.
"I know it will." Draco whispered, moving closer to Hermione.
Just as their lips were about to touch a loud knock sounded on the door. Cursing at the bad timing of their visitor, Draco pulled away from Hermione and stalked across the room to open the door.