A/N: Hello, my lovely readers! There are so many more of you since the last time I updated! Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this silly bit of fluff; your reviews have all made me laugh and smile and generally feel so, so good about sharing this with you all. I was so nervous, but I'm so glad you all have enjoyed it! Unfortunately, we are coming to the end of this, so thank you all for taking the time to join me on this adventure! This is the last full-length chapter, but it will be followed with a short epilogue on Friday. Thank you once more for all the love. I truly appreciate it. As always, TheOtterAndTheDragon is a lifesaver for beta reading this entire fic in the span of a couple of days. She's a saint.

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Hermione woke with a groan. Her head throbbed like a bad hangover, but even her slowly awakening conscience knew that she hadn't indulged in much alcohol the night before. As she slowly regained her cognitive processes with the dawn of the sun, the night before became clear. She and Malfoy had— oh dear.

Despite her embarrassment, she had to admit that she felt rather relaxed. Of course, it helped that she was still wrapped up in the cocoon of Draco's embrace as he slumbered away behind her. His delicious warmth seeped into her and helped drive away the chill of her flat's cooling charm, and she snuggled deeper into him. As her bum brushed across the apex of his thighs, she felt his grip around her waist tighten, and he grumbled something into her mess of curls.

Hermione laughed quietly and turned to face him. He relinquished his hold on her and threw the arm over his face, turning her quiet laughter into full-blown giggles.

"The sun can fuck right off," Draco mumbled into the crook of his arm. When Hermione kept giggling, he uncovered one eye to glare at her. "You think that's funny, do you?" She bit her lip and nodded.

The next moment, Hermione was flipped onto her back, and Draco was straddling her hips. "Do you know what Malfoy men do to women who laugh at them, Granger?" He quirked his brow imperiously at her. When she didn't answer, he shifted his weight and moved his palms to her side where he gently clasped her ribcage. Her eyes widened in understanding as he cracked a merciless grin and said, "We tickle them."

Draco dug his fingers into her sides, tickling her mercilessly. Despite her attempts to buck him off or pull his hands off her sides by the wrists, he wouldn't budge. Soon both were breathless with laughter, and tears ran down Hermione's cheeks. Though he was driving her spare with his tickling, Hermione briefly wondered at how open and free he looked in the morning light, his grin of glee stretched wide across his face as he tickled her. He was, in a word, beautiful.

Draco must have sensed that she was slightly distracted by his tickling because he paused for a moment and stared down at her. Her breath caught in her throat when the morning light spilled across his face, brightening his normally dark and guarded eyes. "Is it still funny?" he murmured. She shook her head and her grip on his wrists tightened minutely.

This time, Hermione wasn't sure who broke the distance between them. One minute, she was staring up into his eyes breathlessly, and the next moment they were pressed together in a kiss that made her glad her panties were Merlin knew where. Draco shifted his weight and looked into her eyes before he moved to push into her. Just before he did, a whoosh sounded from the Floo and Harry's voice echoed through the flat.

Draco groaned and dropped his head to Hermione's forehead. Both of their breath whooshed out over the other's face. "I hate him," Draco groused. "Morning sex. He ruined morning sex."

Hermione laughed and shifted out from under him. She was reaching for her shirt on the floor when her bedroom door banged open. With a yelp, she toppled to floor, spread eagled and butt naked in front of her best friend.

"Hermione, I have to ta— SWEET MERLIN WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES?!" Harry shouted. If she wasn't so embarrassed, she probably would have laughed at the way he flapped his arms about and smacked them into his glasses to cover his eyes. She tried valiantly to keep her blush in check, but it spread beyond her control. Draco, ever the gentleman, had used the sheets to cover himself and left Hermione exposed on the floor while her best friend babbled on in front of her.

To make matters worse, the door was pushed further inward, and Blaise Zabini poked his head around the doorframe. "I heard that there was a distinct lack of clothes in here and no one invited me." His pout was interrupted by the widening of his eyes as he took in the very naked Hermione and sheet covered Draco in front of him. Hermione tried to cover her bits with her arms when Blaise cleared his throat. "Well, it looks like Theo is going to be washing my laundry for a month." He looked over at Draco. "It's about time this happened, mate."

Hermione looked at Draco sharply. "What does he mean by that?"

Draco had the decency to look embarrassed. "Well, he's my best friend. Remember how I told you that I was fascinated with you? He had to hear me talk about you all the time at Hogwarts. He knew before I ever had any idea."

Blaise rolled his eyes and looked at Hermione, careful to keep his eyes above her shoulders. "He can be a right git sometimes, but his heart is usually in the right place. Though," he eyed Draco pointedly. "Right now, he's being quite a tosser because the girl he supposedly fancies is naked in front of two men, and he still hasn't offered to either help her cover up or kick our arses."

Draco seemed to shake his shock off and he pulled the comforter off and tossed it to Hermione, who quickly covered up.

"Is it safe to look now?" Harry whined, still covering his eyes.

"Yes, four-eyes, it's safe to look," Draco rolled his eyes.

Harry glared at him. "Forgive me for not wanting to violate my best friend's privacy."

Hermione broke into the conversation. "Hello, best friend here. No offense Harry, but you probably should have thought about that before you barged into my room so early in the morning." She stood up and bunched the duvet around her like an oversized gown. "Can we reconvene in five minutes? You said there's something you needed to talk about, and I'd prefer to talk to you while clothed."

Harry nodded, two spots of crimson adorning his cheeks. "Right. We'll be in the living room."

He and Blaise backed out of the room, and Hermione leaned her head against her closet door with a groan. Draco came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. With a kiss on the shoulder, he asked, "You okay?"

Hermione turned in his arms to look up at him. How much more could change in twenty-four hours? She felt like she had whiplash. "I just wasn't exactly prepared to tell him that we're shagging, and I especially didn't want him to find out by walking in on us naked."

Draco frowned a bit but quickly covered it with a small laugh. "Well, it looks like it's a little late for that now. What are you going to tell him?"

Hermione stared up at him, unsure what to say. The night before, she had been adamant that this was going to be a one-night thing. Now… now she'd spent all night with him, talking, laughing, and shagging until the wee hours of the morning, and she'd woken up with him in her bed. She hadn't bolted like she had with all the other men she'd hooked up with after Ron. Instead, she'd looked forward to his sweet kisses and his sleepy voice greeting her in the morning. Bugger, she thought. One good shag, a confession of a childhood crush, and she'd gone and caught feelings.

She looked at Draco. "What do you think we should tell him?"

Draco met her eyes. "Well, I'd like to kind of see where this might go?" It was more of a question than a statement, like he was seeking her permission.

The remaining potion in her system gave her no choice in trying to censor what she was thinking. "I'd really like to see where this goes. After last night, I don't think I can be done with you just yet."

Draco's eyes widened, and he huffed out a laugh. "I could really get used to you being so open and honest about everything. Makes my job a lot easier."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Trust a Slytherin to take advantage of a potion-induced circumstance." She pulled out of his embrace and threw his oxford at him. "Put some clothes on, you tosser. We have to go talk to our friends."

She ducked into the bathroom and pulled her shirt over her breasts. She examined herself in the mirror and sighed a little. One night and she already looked more content than she had in a while. It unnerved her a little bit, but she tried to take it in stride. She needed to let loose, and Draco seemed to be in it for a while. They could figure it out together.

She emerged from the bathroom a few moments later, having dressed and glamoured the love bites on her neck and collarbone. She wasn't sure why she bothered—Harry had already seen her in all her glory that morning—but she'd done it just the same. It made her feel better.

Draco wasn't in the bedroom, so she left the room and found him and Blaise in conversation leaning against one of her bookshelves. Harry looked both uncomfortable and bursting with important news. Hermione looked at him expectantly.

"I think you said that you had something important to tell me earlier, Harry?" He stared back at her with wide eyes. For a moment, Hermione thought he might actually bolt out of her flat, but he shook his head and stood.

"Hermione, you're my very best friend in the whole world." He paused. "Well, you and Ron both are, but seeing as Ron is being a prat and shagging his way through half of England at the moment, you're my very best friend, and he's been relegated to number two."

Blaise snickered next to Draco, and Hermione looked between the two of them. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on when Harry cut her off.

"You see, the thing is, Blaise and I have come to an understanding."

Hermione looked between the two of them. "An understanding?"

"What Potter means to say is that we're shagging now," Blaise drawled. "It's a recent development," he added, winking at Hermione with his reference to their conversation during their speed date.

Hermione stared at Harry with her mouth agape. He shrugged at her and rubbed the back of his neck. "You've got to admit that he's kind of hot."

Blaise scoffed. "I am more than hot, you tosser. I am pure-bred Italian beauty. You're lucky I let you in bed with me." Despite the harshness of his words, Blaise looked at Harry with affection.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Okay. You guys are shagging. That's okay." She glanced at Harry, who looked unsure. She quickly crossed the room and hugged her best friend. "Harry, I'm happy as long as you're happy. You're my best friend; you have to know that!"

"I know. It's just kind of new, you know?" Harry muttered.

"I know. Not any less new than me shagging and—" she glanced at Draco before she continued. "—potentially dating Draco Malfoy." She refused to look at Draco as she talked to Harry. She wasn't sure she could handle the smug smile on his face. His words from the previous evening rang in her ears. Malfoys are very good at getting what they want. And I've wanted you for a very long time.

Harry glanced sceptically at Draco. In a stage whisper, he asked, "'Mione, are you sure? He's kind of a git."

Draco scoffed, and Hermione laughed. "We're seeing where it goes. But he's quite good in bed." Draco puffed up his chest while Harry groaned.

"Hermione, I love you, but please don't ever reference you, Malfoy, and sex in one sentence ever again. You might very well put me off sex forever."

Blaise interrupted. "Granger, I'm afraid this is where I threaten bodily harm."

Draco stepped up to Hermione and wrapped his arms around her waist once more. "Let's just all promise never to talk about sex again with each other, and we'll all die happy people, yes?" He planted a sweet kiss to the side of Hermione's face.

Blaise rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose at the display in front of him, pretending to vomit into Hermione's sink.

Harry chuckled and shoved him lightly. "Be nice, or you'll be sleeping on the couch when we get back to my flat." Blaise raised an eyebrow at Harry, and the bespectacled wizard quickly tried to back-pedal as his cheeks stained crimson and he pleaded for help from Hermione.

She laughed and held her hands up. "You're on your own with this one."

"That's not— I meant—" Harry stuttered. "Be polite or you'll be sleeping on the sofa, and I'll kick you out to the mercy of all the women following you about."

"I'm not interested in being polite or heterosexual, you specky git," Blaise drawled, peeling himself off the wall he had been leaning against. In two quick strides, he crossed the room and wrapped a hand around the back of the still stammering wizard's neck and drew him in for a heated kiss.

Hermione and Draco managed to pull themselves away from Blaise and Harry's blissful canoodling to grin at each other. Draco broke the awkward silence while they tried to give the two men some privacy. "It looks like they might be a while."

Hermione giggled and curled into his side. They enjoyed each other's warmth as they ignored their friends snogging across from them. He shifted a bit more, so he could look down at her, and Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Did you mean what you said to Potter?"

Her eyebrows drew together, trying to remember what she'd said to Harry in the whirlwind of revelations that morning. "What part?"

Draco looked briefly uncomfortable before he rushed onward. "The bit about seeing where things go. Us dating." He gestured between the two of them.

Hermione bit her lip, trying to figure out how to best phrase what she was thinking. In the end, she decided to just go with honesty. "I think so. I don't know where it's going. It might end up a total disaster. But I'd be lying if I said I wanted to you leave and never come back. The sex was way too good for that." She grinned at him cheekily. "But yes, I mean it. Let's see where this goes."

Draco nodded, an uncharacteristically large smile spreading across his face. "Right, we're seeing where this goes, girlfriend."

She laughed happily, leaning into him. "Look at all of us, breaking barriers and dating across houses. The other professors will never believe that not one, not two, but three new couples consist of Gryffindors and Slytherins."

Draco looked puzzled. "Okay, I know about us. Potter and Zabini. Who else?"

Hermione looked up at him. "You won't believe this."

He looked down at their intertwined fingers. "Try me, Granger."

"Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson."

Draco looked thunderstruck. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Nope. I was shocked, but they left the speed date together. It looks like everyone is pairing off happily now."

"Yeah, but we ought to pry them apart before they die of asphyxiation." Draco chuckled as the two men finally came up for air, Harry's face several shades darker. He had, Hermione noted, finally stopped sputtering and stood blinking owlishly at Blaise. Hermione covered her mouth with one hand and squeezed Draco's hand with the other to contain her laughter.

Harry finally tore his gaze away from Blaise and looked Hermione in the eyes. He cleared his throat. "Hey, Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"You know how I was more relieved than upset when Ginny broke up with me?" His gaze darted back and forth between her and Blaise, who looked calm and collected beside him. "Well, I think I'm gay." Harry looked sheepishly down at the floor, then up at Blaise from beneath his lashes and huffed a laugh. "No, scratch that. I am definitely gay."

Blaise's face lit up with a wicked grin, and he wrapped his arm around Harry's waist. Hermione blinked, trying to get used to seeing Harry wrapped up in the embrace of a man. It'd take some time, but she was happy for Harry if he was happy.

Hermione smiled up at Harry. "Well, since you two so rudely interrupted our morning, you can help me cook breakfast, Harry."

He groaned, but he shuffled into the kitchen and set about gathering ingredients for pancakes. Hermione looked at Draco and Blaise, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable standing about her flat with nothing to do. She took pity on their discomfort. "You two, just relax and talk or some rubbish. Or find a book to read." She waved at the shelf full of books before she joined Harry in the kitchen.

It was nice, she decided, having others around the house on what was usually a lonely Saturday morning. She didn't usually have company other than the Daily Prophet and a cup of tea. It was almost hard to believe that she'd been sitting on the very couch Blaise now sat on moping over her love life nearly two weeks ago.

While Harry manned the pancakes, she returned to her bedroom to clean up her mess from the past few days. She realized that she'd left her jeans from the speed date in a crumpled mess on the bathroom floor. When she picked them up, a small glass vial slipped out of the pocket and shattered on the floor.

"Oh, bugger," she muttered and dropped to the floor to gather up the larger parts. She couldn't believe she'd left an empty vial in her pocket, but she supposed she had been rather preoccupied recently.

As she picked up the larger pieces, she scolded herself for being so wrapped up in Draco that morning. She couldn't believe that she was already acting like a lovesick teenager and cooking him breakfast after one night together. She even swore she could smell his cologne, though she knew he hadn't used her bathroom to get dressed that morning and his cologne wasn't in her flat.

She finished picking up the rest of the glass from the floor and reached under the vanity to retrieve the cork from where it had rolled. After stretching her arm as far as it would go, she finally retrieved it. She sat up and grabbed the rubbish bin, intending to throw it out with the glass when she spied the label stamped into the cork: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

Her heart went into overdrive, and she froze. The vial hadn't been empty; it had been full of the Amortentia fumes that she and George had bottled together. With frantic hands, she held the cork up to her nose desperately to try and confirm what she already thought. She could just barely make out smells where the fumes had seeped into the cork.

She didn't immediately recognize any of the scents, so she inhaled deeply, trying to place them. Slowly, she could pick out three distinct smells. The first smelled like ink just before it dried on paper. The second smelled like spicy cologne, deep and masculine. The last was harder to place, but she recognized finally recognized it as the sharp scent of leather conditioner.

Hermione collapsed into a sitting position on the floor. One night. She'd been with Draco one night, and she was, if the potion was anything to go by, in love with him. She knew she'd been treading a dangerous line at dinner, but she hadn't anticipated falling in love with him after some lovely words, a bloody good shag, and a night spent wrapped in his embrace. Bugger.

A few moments later, Harry tapped on the bathroom door. "Hermione? I'm ready for you to scramble the eggs. You okay in there?"

With shaking hands, she opened the door and yanked Harry into the bathroom. She flipped the lock and leaned against the door.

Harry studied her face. "Okay, what happened? You look like you accidentally walked in on Moaning Myrtle trying to hit on a firstie again."

"It smelled like him, Harry."

He looked puzzled, trying to place what she was talking about. His eyes widened when he spotted the cork and shattered glass in the top of her rubbish bin. "The Amortentia?" She nodded mutely, and Harry sputtered out a laugh.

Her jaw dropped open. "I'm sorry, but what exactly is funny about this situation?! I just found out I'm in love with Draco bloody Malfoy after one decent shag."

Harry shook his head. "Hermione, I think you've been half in love with him for a while. I think you're just now realizing it after going on a date with him and getting a good round in bed with him."

She spluttered. "I have not been half in love with him!"

"Hermione, you keep a shoebox of articles about him on your bookshelf, and you used to watch him at Hogwarts. You were quite literally the only person to defend him when I was on a mission to catch him in his evil act. There's nothing wrong with it. Just give it a go and see how it goes. What can it hurt?"

She stared at him aghast. When had her clueless best friend become so good at accepting what she hadn't wanted to see was right in front of her this whole time? She dropped her head against the door with a groan.

"It'll be okay. No one is saying it's a done deal. People fall in and out of love all the time. Just look at Gin and me." He shrugged. "If it helps, I think you're a good match. He keeps you on your toes."

Hermione looked at him. "Do you think I'm absolutely mental?"

Harry laughed. "Love makes us mental."

She made a sound in the back of her throat in agreement. "I think I need a few minutes. I'll be out soon." Harry nodded and squeezed her shoulder as he slipped out the door. When she was alone, she took a fortifying breath. She'd faced man-hungry snakes, noseless dark wizards, and nights on the run. She could handle falling in love much too quickly with the beautiful blond prat.

She steeled herself and beelined straight to the kitchen where she took up her spatula and began scrambling eggs with a vengeance. She wouldn't tell him yet. Oh, no way. He'd have to work for that. No way would she give him the satisfaction; his head was already big enough that she was surprised it fit in her flat. The thought made her chuckle.

It wasn't until she heard a throat clearing while she transferred the eggs to a plate that Hermione realized that she'd been lost in her thoughts. Draco stood at the entrance of her kitchen with an old shoebox in his hands and a slightly puzzled expression on his face. He held up a handful of newspaper clippings at her—the newspaper clippings that largely featured his goings on since the Prophet had been reporting on him a few months prior. Heat rushed to Hermione's cheeks as she laid the spatula down. Maybe she'd have to tell him sooner than she thought.

"So, Granger. It appears that you've been keeping tabs on me. Any particular reason why?" Draco drawled with a hint of mischief. His eyes glinted with barely concealed mirth.

She stared down at the floor before she responded. "Let me explain…"