Prepare yourself. It's the new chapter. The next chapter will most likely raising the rating of this, so if you aren't prepared to read a M fic then I'm terribly sorry!

Hermione's POV only. I like this one rather a lot.

Chapter 12

If it weren't for the insane boost of strength she got by something as simple as not falling to the floor as Draco put his arms around her to draw her close, Hermione may have just turned away from him. However, she did receive a boost of confidence as he touched her, for some ungodly reason, as his arms encircled her shoulders.

She almost smiled at how familiar his slightly too harsh to be loving arms were, and how firmly he pressed her against him. Her cheek was pressed against his collarbone and through his shirt she could feel his heart beating. Not fast, but incredibly hard. It sounded so real, so tangible and precious, that she wasn't sure what to make of it.

In fact, she wasn't sure what to make of anything that went on in her head when she got around Draco.

For a long moment he held her, quietly, only his breath sounding above her and his chin laying square on the top of her head. She instinctively felt as if he was searching for something, and she didn't feel like she should deny him. There was something subtly different about him when they were alone.

"Malfoy," She breathed into him and he grunted in reply. "Are you okay?" Her voice was much quieter than she wanted it to be, and softer too.

He released her roughly, holding her at arms length. Apparently, her question wasn't important enough to be answered right away, because he ignored it. "Have you always been this small?" He questioned, his voice was curious as if he'd just noticed the fact, but his face was carefully placed to represent, well, nothing. She wanted to roll her eyes at that blank mask of his.

"I don't understand." She replied honestly.

As if to prove his point he first shook her slightly, causing her to flop backwards and forwards in his hands, before yanking her towards him, making her fall into his arms. His chest was hard against her nose as she landed into it and she managed to let loose an unwanted and undignified grunt before he laughed weakly above her. "For a Gryffindor you certainly aren't very big. Brave maybe, but brave wouldn't help you against anything when you fall down so easily." He informed her, gazing down at her, his gray eyes holding hers almost playfully.

When she went to take a step back -possibly for her sanity- she found that he was holding her by her upper shoulders, and his fingers were tight against her skin. He wasn't going to let her go. For a moment he seemed to be arguing with himself internally to the point that it became obvious on his face, as his eyes darted around and his forehead creased. She almost smiled.

To release him from his spell of sorts, she gave a small grin. "And we're you always so tall and brutish?" He glanced back down at her as if just remembering he was holding her where she couldn't get away with a tweak of his eyebrow. "Oh? Brutish you say?"

She nodded. "Brutish. As in are you always this rough?" She angled her head towards him hands and his eyes twitched to them then back, and his fingers buried into her arm tighter. She gasped.

"Yes." His voice was hardly above a whisper and it made her shiver. "It's a habit. I could better demonstrate it in the bedroom if you'd like." He gave a very Malfoy smirk and she wondered how he could possibly have such power over the smirk. So much power that he could make it hostile when he wanted, malicious, charming, and even suggestive it seemed.

As if on cue with his words, he took a step towards her, and she retreated as far as he would allow, before he was so very close again before she could blink. And then she was back against her door. Her bedroom door. She sucked in a deep breath. "No, don't." She said as she released the breath.

He merely gazed down at her. Suddenly she felt very, very cornered. Both literally and mentally. With her back against her door and Draco so close that she couldn't move, and her heart hammering in a way it logically shouldn't being cornered by her enemy, she felt like a crazy person.

"Don't what?" He asked.

She blushed. He couldn't possibly expect her to answer that. "Don't do it."

"Don't do what, love?" He chirped, suddenly sounding like he'd learned a precious piece of evidence for whatever underhanded goal he was headed towards. He leaned his lips to her ear, and placed kisses along her jaw that were as lazy as his slow, pointed drawl. "Tell me what to do."

"I don't understand."

A single laugh escaped his lips, as if it accidentally broke free from his mouth. "For someone as brilliant as you, you never seem to do that."

"Do what?"

"You aren't helping yourself here. Understand of course Hermione."

Hermione?

That's when it happened. Her knees buckled and suddenly his arms were the only thing holding her up. He had her pinned against the wall or she would have fallen straight back, so instead she settled for sliding down a couple of inches before he caught her. His hands squeezed too hard, like he didn't know how much pressure to exert before he chuckled. "No need to faint, it isn't that serious." He grinned, his own eyes reflecting more than she'd ever seen. More emotion playing on his face than she knew was possible. He looked scared and angry and confused and the last part, she didn't want to notice, but she did anyways: he looked quite aroused. His eyebrows were pinned together his face was beginning to turn shiny, and he was biting his lip.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe that was just what she wanted to see on his face, regardless of how crazy it sounded. Or In general them as a whole sounded. She knew how stupid it was to fall for him, but then again, she wasn't falling for him. Hell no! No way she was. She bit her lip. Oh hell who's she kidding. She'd never been a good liar.

"Can I lay down?" She asked and he nodded.

"I take it this is your room?" He nodded towards the door before pulling her weight towards him and steadying her with his left hand, then opening the door with his right. Draco Malfoy was going into her room. Maybe she was going to faint.

"Nice room." It was the same compliment he gave the rest of her place. It was at this moment she took the rest of the time it took to walk to her bed trying to figure out if that was some sort of hidden insult before his voice, husky in all rights, interrupted her thoughts. "I'll give you fair warning, now that I've seen your bedroom, the place that many presumably naughty things will and have gone on, I feel both compelled to vomit, and to ask you a personal question."

She snorted before sitting on the bed. Without permission he made way and sat beside her. "You'll do neither." She informed him.

He shrugged. "Oh well."

"How's you're mother been, since you've returned to you're new manor?" She asked, trying to change the subject from all the 'naughty' -or nonexistent- things that went on in her room.

"Well, you saw her the other day you tell me." He let loos a smirk, angling himself toward her on the bed. She almost smiled at him. He seemed so different.

"She seemed happy."

He laughed and then immediately frowned. "That's her act. A way of keeping her pride. However, I'm sure she was a bit chipper that she thought her son had just laid the one and only Hermione Granger."

She gasped. "Laid me?"

"Yes" He smirked. "Took you to bed. Buttered your.."

"I know what that means Malfoy," She spat. "But surely you told her that we didn't!" She gawked at him, her jaw and eyes wide in companionship.

"Certainly I did." He jerked his head in a nod as if it reassured his words and she looked at him sceptically.

"I bet."

"What do you take me for Granger? I'm no liar!" He said, his words coming out quiet.

His eyes held hers and she rolled her eyes with a smile. "You aren't?"

He chuckled. "I'm many things, but a liar isn't one of them."

"A coward?"

"Measurably I suppose." he agreed. "On certain occasions."

"Rude and pompous."

He smirked. "Dashing and charming." He added.

She scowled at him playfully. "Misleading and presumably crazy."

He shrugged. "It's what I do best."

She went to speak again, but as she turned her head towards his his gaze stopped her, and his hand came to her chin, pulling towards him until her lips met his own and her brain shut down. Hermione Granger's brain shut down. Of all people and she allowed her eyelids to melt closed as his warm lips pressed roughly against hers.