Vienna

Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

AN:

I'm back…..

Okay so I know you guys must all hate me by now, but I really am sorry that it took me so long to update! I had a massive case of writer's block, and if you add that to being a full time working student, I never had any time to just sit and write. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and I'm so grateful to those who stuck with this story. I promise I wont give up on this story; it will be finished.

And, of course, a super big shout out to my beta, Anna. She's the best.

So after a ridiculously long note….

Enjoy!

Chapter 13: Six Years Ago

Draco Malfoy

I was… happy.

Actually, now that I think about it, I was too happy.

The mid-July sun beat down heavily from its place in the afternoon sky, and warmed my front while the sand underneath me warmed me from behind... Everything was just so perfect.

Hermione moaned next to me as my fingers weaved through her hair and massaged the top of her neck. Her head was resting on my stomach, and her silken curls tickled the exposed skin.

"Mhmm," she said, "that feels so good. Don't stop."

"I wasn't planning to, love." Her hand came to rest just above my bathing suit and she started to move her fingers in a circular pattern against my skin, making by body shiver involuntarily. Noticing this, Hermione turned over so that we were facing each other and stared up at me from underneath her thick eyelashes.

God, she was so beautiful.

Every time I looked at Hermione since that night of the storm two weeks ago, something inside of me would stir, like a whole new part of me was being awakened. It was an… odd feeling; terrifying yet exhilarating all at the same time. I never wanted to be away from her, and when I was, my whole body hurt, and there was some kind of tugging from inside of my chest like something was trying to pull me back to her.

Without her, it was like half of me was missing… the good half, too.

Did I love her, or was this merely a lustful attraction, driven by the need to be close to someone after a devastating war and powered by teenage hormones? I wanted to love her, to be not only physically closer, but mentally and spiritually closer to another person than I have ever been in my life. I craved it, and I was so close that I could almost taste it.

And I was pretty damn sure that Hermione was starting to feel the same way.

The intensity of the passion in her burning gaze made my heart melt in my chest, and I could feel myself harden slightly. Now was not the time for this.

She seemed to notice too, and in what I assumed was an effort to torture me, lowered her lips to my abdomen and started a trail of feathery light kisses that burned my skin all the way up to the base of my neck, never once breaking eye contact. With our faces level and our noses touching, she lowered her head again captured my lips in a smoldering kiss.

Oh boy was I screwed now.

"Hermione… love…" She focused her attention on my chin, and started kissing along my jawbone. "We can't… not here…" For the love of Merlin, did I want to, but what I really meant was, 'either you stop right now or I won't be able to control myself and will have to take you right here on the beach in front of all these people.' Apparently, though, she wasn't having any of that as she reclaimed my lips and moaned into them eliciting a moan from me as well. It only encouraged her. I propped myself up on my elbows to avoid her attack of kisses, and pulled away slightly.

She stopped and sat down in front of me, playing with the sand by my feet, swirling it around and flicking some at me. "You're no fun," she pouted, looking up at me with her puppy-dog eyes and sticking out her lower lip. Fuck, she was so Goddamn sexy; did she have any idea of what she was doing to me?

I reached out and grabbed her delicate hand and rubbed circles around her palm, laughing a little bit, "Trust me, love, nobody wants to more than I do." By now I was throbbing, "How about we get off this beach and somewhere more… private… and have some real fun." I wiggled my eyebrows a little and her angelic voice rang in my ears as she giggled.

Ever so slowly, she pulled her hand out of mine with a sly smile on her lips. Leaning forward, she started to crawl towards me like a lioness stalking her pray until we were face to face again. She placed one quick peck on my lips before jumping and running away so quickly that I couldn't catch her.

"Oi," I called after her while scrambling to my feet, "that was not fair!" She stopped, briefly, to turn around and stick her tongue out at me while I continued to chase her. "Cute, love… that was really mature of you."

Laughter floated from behind her as she ran, but I was gaining ground, and soon I was only a few feet behind her. I was so close, yet every time I reached out, my fingers would only graze her back. By now, she was laughing so hard that she had to stop running, and she fell to the ground in a fit of giggles, clutching her sides.

I stopped too and kneeled down in the sand next to her, my own body racked with laughter. When we were together, everything became so much lighter, freer, and I just felt this overpowering sense of invincibility – a feeling like nothing could ever go wrong – that enveloped me in a blanket of security and hope. It was like I was seeing everything for the first time; everything I looked at became sharper, colors brighter, sounds clearer, and hell, food even tasted better.

We held hands as our laughter quieted down, both of us lying on our backs, shoulders touching and with goofy smiles plastered on our faces. Hermione rolled over onto her stomach and started to play with a piece of my hair. She was biting her lip and her brows were furrowed. I knew everyone of her mannerisms by heart, and this look meant only one thing: here comes the questions.

"Draco?"

"Yes?" I turned my head towards the side so that I was facing her.

She hesitated for a few seconds, still twirling my hair in her fingers. "Why can't I meet your mother?"

Shit. It wasn't that I didn't want her to meet my mother, I wanted Hermione to be part of my life completely, I just didn't trust my own mother. Even though the war is over and the way people think have changed, I still wasn't sure she would be so… accepting. When it came right down to it, I didn't want her to ruin anything before it even started.

I was also terrified that she was going to tell my father, and I knew he wouldn't accept it.

How do I tell Hermione this without hurting her? I moved my focus again from her face to the clear sky. "It's not that I don't want you meeting my mother, love, it's that I don't want my mother meeting you." Crap, that came out wrong. She dropped my hair and looked away. "Hermione, no, crap!" I started to ramble frantically, trying to explain myself, "That's not what I mean. It's not you, you're perfect! I just don't trust my mother to see you the same way I do. Please understand, love."

"You know, you're going to have to tell her at some point, and she has just as much a chance of coming between us then as she does now. If we really want this to work, we can't go around hiding it from everybody. I'm going to tell Harry and Ron as soon as we get back. And besides, you've already met my parents and they accepted you."

A small snort escaped my lips, "Hermione, you're parents don't know me, or anything about me, for that matter."

My snort was rewarded with a gentle slap on the back of my head, "Don't you think I've told them something about you from when I was at school, you tortured and ridiculed me every damn second you got."

"You… you told them about me? And they still liked me?"

"Well, they weren't particularly pleased when I told them, but we talked it out and they're trying to understand. Be objective about it. They agreed to meet you – the new you – and form their own opinion. And," she said, giving me a punch in the shoulder, "they decided that you're not half bad. They only want what's best for me, Draco, and they could see that I'm happy with you."

I inched my body slightly closer to hers, our heads lying in the sand, so close that I could feel her breath on my face. "You're happy with me?"

"Yes," she whispered quietly, but just loud enough so I could hear her sweet voice, "truly and completely happy. I told you, Draco Malfoy, I'm yours."

Reaching over, I used one finger to trace down the side of her face, delicately, as her eyes fluttered shut and struggled to say open. As softly as I could, I placed one kiss on her forehead and let my lips linger longer than necessary. It just felt so damn good to touch her. It made me feel so… alive.

If I could live in this moment, just the two of us forever, then that would be perfectly alright. Being with Hermione was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I knew that I never wanted to be apart from her. My heart was racing inside my chest, my skin was tingling with the anticipation of her touch, and my stomach was doing summersaults.

And I couldn't think of any logical explanation for it, so logically, there was only one reason.

I… I loved her.

Rarely was there logic or reason in love, I certainly couldn't find any. It was all madness, random, life altering and completely wonderful madness.

I loved Hermione.

I was in love.

Me, Draco Malfoy, loved Hermione Granger.

God it felt so good to say that! I used to feel like there was this huge gaping hole inside of me, in place of where my heart should have been, and all I wanted was to feel whole. To love and be loved. But love, or any display of open affection, wasn't permitted in my family while the Dark Lord was in power. So I became cold and cruel in order to protect myself. I was feared because I guess if I was feared, I would never become close to anyone so it wouldn't hurt if I lost them, as death was something that I witnessed so regularly.

But my past was my past – no matter how not-so-distant it may be – and I had to stop thinking about; opening up those old wounds would only ruin things, and right now everything was just so Goddamn perfect.

Though I can't help but wonder how it happened. I mean, one minute I'm thinking that I'm going to have to go the rest of my life without ever knowing what true love feels like, and then in the blink of an eye I'm wondering how I was ever able to hurt her, no matter what I had been taught to do. When you're told to hate someone your entire life, it was always just easier to accept it, than to question it.

So what was making me question it now?

Right now what I really needed to do was to stop over thinking everything and let myself live in the moment. The more I thought about it, the better chances I had to screw it all up.

So I emptied my mind, forcing out all those nagging thoughts, and laid my head back in the sand, closing my eyes to bright sun. I could feel Hermione following suit, and laying her head in the crook of my neck, partially on top of my arms that were folded behind my own head, as I moved them to come down and wrap themselves around her delicate body. Strands of her hair tickled my chin and the slow and steady rhythm of her breathing lulled me until I had to fight to stay awake.

Almost every time I closed my eyes I would get this feeling that the next time I opened them, Hermione would be gone and everything that happened in the past couple of weeks had all been one dream. And that scared the shit out of me because now that I know what love feels like, I never want to know what it feels like to lose it.

I tightened my grip around her.

…

"Draco."

I turned over on my side.

"Draco, please?"

I could tell that the sun was still out, as I could feel it trying to warm my skin. A small shiver passed through my body, so it must have been later in the day, but that could have also been because I was only wearing my bathing suit.

Something poked my side, lightly, a few times and I tried to wave it away with my hand.

It didn't stop.

If anything, the extremely annoying poking in my side got stronger with each poke. And again, I tried and failed to shoo it away.

"Wake up Draco. Come on, look what I found."

In an attempt to move away from the voice and the poking, I rolled by body. The only thing I managed to do was to roll myself onto my stomach, my face in the sand. Somewhere, though, in my escape plan, I forgot to close my mouth. So when I face-planted into the sand, a whole lot of it ended up in my wide open trap.

Turning back over, I sat up rather quickly and proceeded to spit out all the sand that had gotten caught in my mouth out somewhere next to me. It tasted disgusting. There was sand everywhere, like someone had been taking handfuls of and just dumping it somewhere on my body; especially in my hair.

It took me a few moments to realize that someone was sitting next to me, and after rubbing the sleep from my eyes I could clearly see Hermione, hand over her mouth as her shoulder shook, trying not to laugh. All hope was lost when a small snort escaped from behind her hand, and she fell backwards and onto her side, laughing her little ass off.

"You," she finally choked out, "have to be one of the hardest people to wake up. Ever."

I grumbled something unintelligent while I let her laugh; she really did have most beautiful laugh that was music to my ears. "Are you done now?" I asked her irritably.

She didn't stop completely, but her laughter did die down somewhat, "No, give me another minute… You should have seen your face, Draco. It was absolutely priceless.

"That's really wonderful. Now would you care to share why you so rudely woke me up?"

"Oh you're so sensitive," she gave me a playful smack on the arm, getting up onto her knees. "I wanted to show you what I found! While you were out (I couldn't bear to wake you up, you just looked so peaceful) I walked down to the shoreline. It was the oddest thing; just lying there in the sand."

Excitedly, she turned around and picked something up off the sand and then placed it into my hands. At first glance, I had no idea what it could be, whatsoever. It was wet, I could gather that much, weighed down and darkened by the water. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what it was. "I give up, what is it?"

She grabbed it back, "It's my book, Emma, or well, what's left of it." She stroked the front of the book gently, like a mother would a child, and cradled it to her chest as a single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. "It was one of my favorites. My father gave it to me for my birthday a few years back, he found it in these hole-in-the-wall thrift shops in London. He knew how much I loved it."

"Oh, love." I raised my hand and used my thumb to wipe the tear off her face. "Is there really no hope of repairing it? Even with a spell?"

She shook her head, hair falling over her face so I couldn't see it. "No," she said sounding slightly crushed, "all the pages are missing. I don't think even I could fix that."

"What? Not even you? Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age?" I gave her a small poke in the sides, trying to do anything to see that beautiful smile of hers back on her face, "Surely there has to be some way?" She just shook her head again, her lips twitching upwards slightly. I pulled her onto my lap faster than she could pull away and hugged her close to my body, arms tight to her side so she couldn't move.

Kicking her legs, she tried to pull out of my grip, finally laughing. "Okay, okay! You win, I'm laughing, are you happy? Draco–" she yelled at me, but I cut her off by placing my lips over hers. She was slightly shocked at first, before she started to move her lips with mine, turning her body when my arms slackened so we were facing, and she was straddling me.

Her arms twisted around my neck and she tangled her fingers into my hair as I deepened the kiss, biting her lower lip softly as she opened her mouth and allowed my tongue an opportunity to dart inside. If it was possible, her grip on me tightened, leaving not a millimeter of space between our two bodies, almost as if someone had fused our skin together. The sheer contact was incredible. Addicting.

Touching her was like… someone had set a bunch of fire crackers off underneath my skin and they were erupting all at once.

After so long of thinking this was the very definition of wrong, who knew it could feel so right? It gave new meaning to everything; to my life, my very existence. Up until now, nothing else had ever mattered.

Our tongues swirled around, each battling for the upper hand in the fight for dominance. It wasn't rushed, but slow and full of unsaid passion. We didn't need to say anything. Occasionally she would break the kiss to catch her breath and nibble on my ear or kiss and suck on my neck only to find her way back to my swollen-from-snogging lips.

"Draco?" she said, in between kisses, "Can we go out tonight?"

I kissed the spot behind her ear that I knew she loved, and she whimpered slightly in response. Stopping, I removed my mouth from her neck to look at her face, "What exactly do you mean 'go out'. Where in the bloody hell would we go?"

"Just into town; maybe have dinner. Come on, it'll be fun, we never do anything." She brushed the hair out of my face, pouting slightly. How could I say no to her? "All we ever do is sit on the beach and snog."

"I was under the impression that you actually liked the snoging?" Hermione let out an exasperated sigh, defeated, as I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. "Love," I said, wrapping my arms around her, so they rested at the small of her back, and pulling her closer to me, "I'm just joking. Of course we can go out, what kind of person do you think I am? Don't answer that. I know the perfect place in town; just meet me at the dock around seven. Is that alright?"

"Yes!" She squealed, jumping up. Grabbing the side of my face with both her hands, she planted a wet kiss on my forehead. "Thank you, Draco, Thank you!"

Before I could even react, she started to race back towards our houses, a ridiculously adorable smile planted on her face, and I couldn't help but smile seeing how happy she was. I took my time, standing up though, brushing the sand off myself and readjusting my clothing.

By the time I reached the house, all the lights were off, and I assumed that Berta had gone home, and my mother was taking her usual nap upstairs. The glass door slid open silently, and I crept inside, the old floorboards creaking silently from my step.

"You shouldn't be creeping around like that, Draco."

Holly SHIT, I swear I jumped ten feet in the air, "Merlin, Mother! Don't do that, you nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!" Me creeping around, HA, who's the one hiding in the shadows and scaring the bloody crap out of me?

She took a step out from under the archway she was standing under and into the light from the large bay window. The light reflected off her white-silk robe so that it illuminated only half her regal face and accentuated the sharpness of her features. As beautiful and warm as my mother was, she still scared me shitless sometimes. She was a little… intimidating. "I just want you to be careful, Draco. I'm not blind; I can see what's going on."

I froze. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said coldly, hoping she would take the hint.

"Oh don't give me that bull, darling, I'm your mother. You can't fool me." She took another step towards me and sat down on the couch in one fluid, graceful movement, "I also know what it feels like to be in love. Ah, don't interrupt me. I know what it feels like to be in love, but I can also see that you're running around half-cocked, and that if you aren't careful, you're going to get hurt. You're young, enjoy it!"

"You don't know what you're talking," I half growled at her.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, "Watch it young man. Just because you're legally an adult doesn't make you one. You're only eighteen years old, you're still a child, and even though you think you know everything about life, doesn't mean that you actually do. Tell me something, have you ever spun around in a circle really fast with your arms held out?"

"What? Uh... sure I have, but not since I was little."

"You should try it again sometimes because that's what it feels like to be in love. The faster you spin the more your heart starts to race, and your world spins and turns upside down. But if you don't keep your eyes fixed on something still, if you're not careful, you'll lose your balance and you can't see that you're about to fall."

What the fuck was I supposed to make of that, "Thank you for those unwanted pearls of wisdom, but I can take care of myself. Merlin knows I've been doing it for a while. Now if you'll excuse me," I walked past the couch she was sitting on and up the stairs, pausing when I was about halfway up, "I have to get ready to go out tonight."

"I'm only trying to look out for you." She called up the stairs after me.

Running into my room, I slammed the door. Loudly. "I don't need anyone to look out of me. And I don't want you to!"

"I love you too, darling!"

AN: So I know you all must hate me after making you wait so long, but I hope that I made up for it? Maybe... yea...? Leave me a review and let me know, please! Next chapter is in Hermione's POV in the present time, and it's more than half done too! Leave me a review and you'll get a sneak peak, plus the chance to ask any ONE question, that I promise to answer no matter what (as a special treat for my non-updating).