Disclaimer: Not my characters. Not profiting. I wish I am, though. Which tells me to quit.
A.N. I am sorry this took so long, but I have school, and the alcohol was out of my system. While writing, I realized that the chapter would be too long, and it would be much better pacing if I dedicate a chapter on their first real encounter. I have the next chapter lined up already, so it would not take long to finish it and upload it. Then again, I could end it here.
Special Thanks to those who comment on the previous chapter LandOfTheLivingSkys, Guest, dutch potterfan, and RomanceObsessed.
Carry On, Hermione Ch. 5
Hermione could not tell if Malfoy wanted to be friendly or if he wanted to be condescending towards her. Knowing Malfoy's past, he was trying to be condescending to her in the snidest way possible.
That was something she was not looking forward to the experience. On the other hand, Hermione's veela side was thoroughly enjoying the moment. Her heartbeat was fast. Her arousal was slowly increasing as they stare at each other in semi-darkness.
"So tell me why you're dangling on a balcony instead with your friends," Malfoy said. "I know that they are annoying as hell, but there's no need to kill yourself over your stupid friends."
"We are on the ground floor, Malfoy." Hermione drawled. "I would have to be much higher for it to be a threat to my life."
He ignored her point and moved on to his next insult.
"Are you trying to run away instead? I would not do it if I were you. The woods around this place are far from friendly."
The woods did look scary at night. Hermione did not doubt that there would be dangerous creatures out there. It was a good thing that Hermione did not plan to go near it anytime soon. Instead of acknowledging anything his statement, Hermione fired back.
"Malfoy," Hermione said. "I just want a place to sit down and rest my feet without getting bothered right now."
A peaceful rest that he a doing a great job disrupting in more than one level. Hermione felt torn between her head and her heart. Her head was annoyed by the banter, but her heart, or her loins, wanted to strip him naked and have her wicked way with him. However, she would not tell him that.
"That's still avoiding your friends." Draco drawled. "Otherwise, you would be here with either Potty or Weasel or anyone from your lot."
Hermione paused. She tried to figure out the right words to say.
"It was a bit stuffy inside." Hermione started carefully. "There are also a lot of people who I barely know trying to ask about my personal life."
That was a bit of a lie. The only ones who were trying to found out about her personal life were the reporters, particularly the ones from Witch Weekly. Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur made sure that they avoid the reporters even though in Fleur and Ginny's mind, there was a chance that one of them was Hermione's mate.
Draco inhaled on his cigar. She could tell that there was a retort coming. She knew that she should leave now to avoid any confrontation, but her veela side wanted to stay. Admittedly, she was curious as well. What made her veela side pick Malfoy as her mate in the first place?
"I'm surprised." Draco finally said. "The people I know who don't like the press snooping around are people who have something to hide."
He inhaled on his cigar and gave her a smirk.
"What could Gryffindor's perfect little princess be hiding?"
Hermione thought of her heritage. She thought of Anthony and Charlie. Any of those secrets would give reporters many things to write for their next article. She was not eager to tell Malfoy about either of those secrets as well.
"Everybody has their secrets, Malfoy," Hermione said, trying to sound blasé about it. "Mine is just my measurements and how much money I spend a year on Ben & Jerry's. That does not mean that I would tell the whole Wizarding world about it."
"Is Ben & Jerry's some sort of homosexual kink shop I don't know about?" Draco asked.
Hermione quirked an eyebrow.
"No. It's a muggle company that sells ice cream."
His smirk dropped slightly as if he was disappointed.
"I was hoping for something a little bit more interesting than that."
"I'm sorry that I'm not entertaining enough for you, Malfoy," Hermione said. "Maybe you should go back to your Slytherin friends. I'm sure that you would find their presence more satisfying."
"No, thanks. I would rather not spend my night glaring and gossiping about the people around me. Especially when there are a lot of ears on the wall."
Hermione had no reply for that. It would seem that the Slytherins were gossiping about people around the room. An activity, she was sure, would lead to more enemies than friends.
Malfoy's group of friends were not exactly popular since the Battle at Hogwarts, especially Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson.
Many people did not like Malfoy because of his role in the Hogwarts's invasion. People were also upset with him with his role during the war. However, some people could empathize with the pureblood lordling and what he did. No one approved of what Malfoy did, but even members of the Order agreed that his actions were understandable if they squint hard enough.
The press, however, has no love for Pansy Parkinson. Her only offense during the war was that she tried to get Hogwarts to give up Harry Potter to the Dark Lord. Unlike Malfoy, however, nobody could empathize with her. Everybody was scared of the Dark Lord like she was, but she miscalculated. She made too many enemies, while Harry made too many friends. When she tried to convince the Hogwarts population to give up Harry Potter, the students at Hogwarts chose to protect Harry and stood against her.
Hermione was not particularly interested in how the press depicted Pansy. However, judging from the few headlines in the Daily Prophet's page six, Hermione glanced through, Pansy was not the Prophet's favorite socialite.
There were rumors of her leaving men's apartments in early mornings, followed by articles of her stalking one of Malfoy's girlfriends. Reports point out that Pansy was not offered a seat to organizations and charities the Parkinson family was a part of for generations. Moreover, when she was invited to functions and events, there was always a brief mention of how she misbehaved.
She had no doubts that Malfoy's friends talked about her behind her back. What surprised her was that Malfoy admitted that he wanted to distance himself from his gossiping friends. An activity, Hermione remembered, that he really enjoyed while they were at Hogwarts.
"It's surprising." Malfoy started. "I would never expect someone who has a squeaky clean reputation like you would avoid the press."
"Maybe the reason I have a squeaky clean reputation is that I avoid the press." Hermione drawled.
Malfoy gave her a teasing smirk that made the butterflies in Hermione's stomach flutter.
"Still, you and Weasel over there broke up, but you both managed to keep your reputations. Even after Weasel started hooking up with that tart."
Hermione was irritated by how Malfoy referred to Ron and Lavender, but she did not comment on it. Instead, she chose to make a snide remark.
"I think it helped that no one gave any interviews with that bug Rita Skeeter and her followers. Don't you just hate when some ferret tell your personal business to the press?"
Malfoy smirked and inhaled on his cigar. No doubt, he knew she was referring to the time he gave an interview to Rita Skeeter about Hermione's relationship with Harry during their Fourth year.
"Hey, can you blame me? You and Potter were so close that everybody in Slytherin was surprised you end up getting together with Weasel instead of Potter." Malfoy said, smirking. "I think the whole world was surprised when Potty got together with Weaselette while you end up with Weasel."
It felt odd to hear your mate pairing you up with other men. She felt oddly hurt and flattered at the same time.
Pursing her lips, Hermione replied by asking the first question that popped on her mind.
"How about you? You and Pansy were so close that I'm surprised that you guys aren't engaged right now."
Malfoy inhaled on his cigar, but Hermione could tell that he was doing it to hide his grimace. The cigar was on its last leg. He threw his cigar across the balcony and lit up another cigar before he replied.
"Yeah, Pansy thought so too."
Malfoy did not elaborate, but Hermione suspected that there was more to the story. She kept quiet, and soon enough, the silence pushed Malfoy to tell her more.
"We were never really officially together back in Hogwarts. I consider her a good friend, and we had fun. She was a bit clingy and had a thing for leather, but we had fun." He never elaborated on what fun meant, but Hermione did not want to know.
"Pansy, on the other hand, thought that I would propose to her any minute back at Hogwarts, and she still thinks that way." He inhaled on his newly lit cigar. "I try to tell her that I see her as a friend and nothing more she just laughs it off and says to me that I'm only in denial. I even tried introducing her to my girlfriends, but she just tells them that I am 'sowing my wild oats' with them and soon enough that I would propose to her."
"That's…. scary," Hermione said.
Hermione knew from their Hogwarts days that Parkinson could be very possessive with Malfoy. Still, Hermione would never expect that that Pansy would say something so disrespectful and delusional. Who in their right mind would tell a woman that she would marry her boyfriend? The scariest part was Hermione could see herself doing the same thing.
She had bouts of jealousy every time she saw an article about Malfoy and his latest conquest. She always measured them up to see if they were better than she was. She imagined that they were snotty and high maintenance when she never even met them. All of Malfoy's girls could be perfectly nice women.
Hermione hated to admit it, but a part of her wanted things to work out with Malfoy in the end. She entertained the thought that maybe; just maybe, Malfoy went up here to hit on her. He would ask her out on a date, and she would say yes. Their first day would be somewhere casual, maybe a park or even in a quaint restaurant, somewhere people would barely blink to see the two of them together. Another and another followed their first date. The thought was foolish now that she really thought about it.
Malfoy went blabbered on about Pansy. Yet, Hermione suspected that he was talking about his bachelorhood. Draco made it clear that he was enjoying his bachelorhood. Not when he was exploring what the world could offer.
Malfoy found out that women were eager to date him because they all thought that they could be that one woman who would turn his life around. He recounted how one woman tried to make him fall in love with her by sending him a gift after gift. Another one tried to be a mother figure to him. While another wanted to take him to exotic places without realizing that he already went to everywhere, she wanted to visit.
It was too much for Hermione to handle right now. Especially when he started detailing how girls were practically throwing themselves at him for his money, good looks, and bad boy image.
"Malfoy, is there any particular reason that you're bragging to me about the women you slept with?"
Malfoy looked at her innocently. "What? Can't I talk to an old school mate?"
"We were hardly friends during school, Malfoy. Why did you come to an occupied balcony when there are other unoccupied balconies around? Why did you disturb a perfectly good breeze with your disgusting cigar? Why are you here talking about your girl-"
Hermione paused. She sounded irrational and even… jealous. That really disturbed her.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I shouldn't have snapped at you that way."
Malfoy chose to say nothing about it. Instead, he put out his cigar and leaned on the balcony only three feet away from where she was sitting.
"You know you could just get up and leave if my presence is bothering you so much," Malfoy said.
Hermione wanted to reply that maybe he should have taken the hint when she said that he should go back to his Slytherin friends, but instead, she chose to stay quiet.
They let the silence take over the conversation. Hermione turned away from him and tried to enjoy the silence as much as possible. It was odd, she felt serene just sitting on the railings with Malfoy standing right next to her. Usually, she would worry about finishing her readings in class, but at this very moment, she felt serene.
"I just realized," Malfoy said, destroying the moment. "I've been talking about my conquests, but I haven't asked you about yours," Malfoy said. "I know that you and Weasel have been broken up for a while now. Do you have someone in your life right now?"
"No," Hermione said. It sounded a bit too quick for her liking, but she was eager to go back to the serene silence instead of starting another verbal fight with him.
"No? Not even someone to play around with until Potty gets his act together and pursue you?"
"Why do you insist that Harry and I would get together?"
Malfoy gave her a knowing smirk. Hermione did not like what it implied.
"Come on, Granger. I'm trying to be friendly once here." Malfoy said.
This made Hermione snort. He had a funny way of trying to be friendly with her.
"Fine, so I was hoping that I could ruffle your feathers when I saw it were you sitting at the balcony," Malfoy admitted. "But I think it's unfair that I talked about myself and my friends while you just sit there and snort at me. So what do you do these days?"
"I'm studying to be a medi-magic researcher at St. Mungo's," Hermione said.
Malfoy chuckled, which Hermione replied with an inquisitively raised eyebrow.
"It just seemed so typical of what you would do," Malfoy said. "Bright, moralistic witch graduates Hogwarts and signs up in a challenging course, either in medicine or in politics. She works hard, beats out everybody in the class, and makes the right connections. Said witch did all that hard work with the hopes of making the world a better place."
He said the last part with a mockingly dreamy voice.
"Oh shut it, Malfoy," Hermione said. Her face was red, with both anger and embarrassment.
"Oh, come on, Granger," Malfoy said. "Don't tell me that wasn't your plan when you signed up to St. Mungo's."
Hermione's blush was all the answer Malfoy needed.
"Let me guess you already have a specific ailment in mind to cure when you signed up." Malfoy guessed.
Shyly, Hermione nodded.
"Typical," Malfoy muttered. He lit up a cigar, not caring if Hermione did not like to smell his smoke.
"At least I'm actually doing something in my life." Hermione piped up. "I don't see you doing anything productive since the war ended."
"I am doing something with my life," Malfoy said. "I'm enjoying it."
He inhaled on his cigar and let out a large puff of smoke.
"Granger, I think the most disturbing part about you is that the war didn't seem to affect you."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but Malfoy interrupted her instead.
"The war seemed just nothing to you. You were just held back for a year, then you went on with your life."
Hermione slid down the balcony and marched toward Malfoy.
"I don't understand where you got this crazy idea that the war didn't affect me, Malfoy." Hermione hissed.
"Oh yeah? You still have all your friends and family. You are still pursuing the career that your dream job. You still have a sterling reputation. Heck, if anything, you are even more perfect now than ever before. You have an Order of Merlin while my father and I could barely walk down Diagon Alley without someone hissing at us."
Hermione realized that he was talking out of spite and jealousy. She knew that there was no winning this argument, so she let him say what he needed to say.
"Even though you're this insufferable, high-strung little outsider, everybody treats you as this perfect little princess. Why don't we change that?" Draco asked
He grabbed her arm and practically dragged her to toward the light where many people could see her. Making sure that her face was visible to anyone looking through the French windows, he placed a peck right on her lips.
The peck electrified Hermione. The peck was not even a half a second long, but she felt energized. It felt like she drank a gallon of coffee. She felt like she could run a marathon. She felt like she could memorize all the magical properties of the ingredients inside Professor Oliver's cupboard while doing jumping jacks.
"Let's see if your reputation changes after tonight."
Hermione glared at him. He may be her mate, but he was still immature and vindictive.
She pushed him away, which Malfoy was all too happy to oblige. He left her alone at the balcony, but Hermione already had enough fresh air. She walked toward her table, where her friends were waiving at her.
On her way, she spotted Malfoy with the beautiful woman who was eager to try if she could be that one woman who would turn his life around.
Hermione practically shook her head. Malfoy was an ass then, he was an ass now. No woman could change that.