Chapter 6

Hermione woke up and felt sore all over.

Her head, especially, was throbbing dully, so the sunlight drifting into the room felt much too bright, much too strong. She rubbed her eyes and massaged along the bridge of her nose, hoping to alleviate her headache. It helped slightly, but her brain still felt like mush.

She twisted her body to turn her back to the window when she discovered that she could not move. She was backed up against something solid, and something else equally solid was wrapped securely around her waist. Using her hands, since her eyes refused to let in any more light, she concluded that it was an arm around her middle. She was about to wrench herself free when she felt the arm tighten and an until-now-unnoticed nose rub against her shoulder. She also heard a deep groan. She stiffened. Where the hell am I? Who the hell is -- but even as she began to form these questions, a series of images flashed in her mind in response. No. Impossible. This is a dream! Please, tell me I'm dreaming!

"Malfoy?" Another deep groan. Merlin's pants! NO! No-no-no-no-no-no! This isn't real! That didn't happen! I couldn't have been that drunk! My mind's just playing tricks on me! Oh, shit! What do I tell Mum and Dad? Harry and Ron will go ballistic! They'll kill him and never speak to me again! They'll all hate me! I'd have to move to France or Germany or -- there's so much to pack! And Crookshanks hates travelling by anything other than the train, so I can't go too far away. And I'd have to tell the landlord to null my lease. How many months do I have left? Damn, I'll have to pay another two months to break the contract! Do I have enough money in the bank to cover? I'll have to put a list together of what expenses to expect, and then I'd have to find a new place to live. What if Crookshanks' favourite brand of cat food isn't available in the new place? Does the company ship overseas? And how am I going to ship all my books? What about -- Wait! Stop it! Stop it! Calm down! There's no point in panicking! It won't solve anything! But her breath became increasingly shallow all the same.

Finally, unable to stem the wave of panic, she wriggled until she was resting on her other side. A groan of protest greeted her, but its owner still would not move.

"Malfoy!" Finally, her voice was loud enough to make him release her. She sat up.

"Too loud." He was now on his back, the arm previously wrapped around her now covering his eyes. She began shaking him.

"Get up, Malfoy! We need to talk!" He turned his back to her and buried his head into his pillow. Levicorpus! Liberacorpus! Draco bounced onto the bed.

"Circe's teat! You fucking harpy! What the fuck!" He was awake now, and glaring at her through one half-opened eye.

"Tell me we didn't get so drunk last night that we went and got married!"

"Alright, you stupid bitch, we didn't get so drunk last night that we -- oh fuck!" Hermione sighed and buried her head in her hands, wondering what they should do.

"Gandalf's gilded gonads! What the fuck do we do now?"

"We go to the Ministry and get an annulment. Then we keep quiet and pretend nothing happened." Years of helping Harry and Ron solve problems had conditioned her to come up with solutions on the spot.

"We can't get an annulment! We've already consummated the marriage! And they can cast a spell to prove it!"

"Fine, we get a divorce!"

"They'd never grant us one. Have you forgotten the new Act? Only abuse by a spouse or failure to produce children would be grounds for a request, and even then, there's no guarantee that the divorce will be granted. It's entirely up to the whim of the Minister for Magic."

"Well, if we continue to live apart, then we'll meet the second condition."

"What makes you so sure you're not pregnant now? I don't remember everything from last night, but I somehow doubt either of us were in a sober enough state of mind to have remembered to cast the Contraceptive Charm, seeing as we were rash enough to get married and bonk our brains out."

"Fuck!"

"Yes, we did, and we are."

"This is no time for your witticisms, Malfoy!"

He sighed. "Listen, Granger, I know we've had a very bad history. I was an arrogant bully to you, and you weren't exactly congenial to me. But if these past few weeks have taught us anything, we don't bore each other to tears. I'll even go as far to say that we rather like each other. What say we give this our best shot."

"But what happens when we fight? You know what happened -- we ignored each other for two weeks! It won't be our only fight either, and one of these days, we could end up killing each other! We're both too opinionated!"

"We could always agree to a fierce round of make-up sex."

Hermione blushed furiously. "Be serious!"

"I am serious! It's the best way to alleviate any pent-up anger! Or would you rather we argue to the point of hexing and cursing?"

"We'd both end up in St. Mungo's for sure!"

"Come on, Granger, where's your courage? I thought you only believed Slytherins to be cowards."

"Alright. Fine. We'll give this a try. But I'm not living with your mother!"

"Don't worry, I don't think I want to live with my mother right now either. She'll kill me when she finds out I cheated her out of planning a lavish wedding for her only child. But we're not living in that rat-hole you call a house! It's too small even for just you! Besides, Giauzar needs a bigger space to move about."

"Giauzar?"

"My eagle owl."

"So that fake name you used belongs to your owl?"

"I wasn't going to name myself after some stray mutt."

"You could've chosen a different tyrant."

"I'm named after the constellation, thank you."

"Well, that explains all that hot air."

"Why you -- " He lunged and began tickling her. She squealed and tried to escape, but he was bigger than she was. He soon had her pinned under him. She recovered her breath to find him staring down intently at her. He locked lips with her.