A/N: I had to edit a few things out of this chapter to make the content appropriate for this site. However, it still has some adult material in it. SO IF YOU AREN'T MEANT TO BE READING, DON'T READ IT. Though I don't personally really care, if you've found my story, you probably know what you're doing.

Also, I'm so disappointed in you lot. I know at least fifty of you are reading, but only two of you reviewed! It's heartbreaking. So thank you to Kabij and tfobmv18 for reviewing.

This chapter is dedicated to Kabij who is a sweetheart. By the way Kabij, either your email is not working or I'm in your spam box or you're ignoring me. Either way, you're lovely.

Chapter 18: Bliss and Realizations

When I woke in the morning because of the bright sunlight filtering through my curtains, I found myself sore beyond belief, unable to breathe and unable to move.

What the fuck?

Slowly, I was regaining my sight and found a body with blonde hair holding me down to the bed. As if I were some bloody pillow. The nerve of the man! I kicked him, I struggled, I even yelled in his ear but all to no avail. He remained stubbornly "asleep". I could see him smiling with his eyes closed, no longer able to pretend he was dead to the world. The bastard.

"Silence, witch!" he eventually said to me, quite amused with the situation. "Can't you see I'm trying to sleep here?"

"Get off! You're crushing me!"

"Don't exaggerate, sweetheart," he mumbled, snuggling his face to my very bare chest. How had that happened? And then the memories of last night flooded my mind, making me blush a putrid red colour. "You like it."

"No... I'm naked, Draco. Get off."

"Really?" he asked, kissing each breast slowly, making me shiver. "I hadn't noticed." He looked up at me and smirked at my overly flushed face. This was really not going as I had planned. Who knew sex made men so confident? He removed his weight off me all the same but pulled me back into his arms when I made a dash to go get dressed.

"Get your paws off me you filthy animal!" I kicked at him. "What have you done with my agreeable boyfriend?"

He laughed at my obvious attempts. "I've hidden him away. Might have killed him... can't quite remember, to be honest." He pressed his face into my neck and gently placed a few lovely kisses here and there. "I really hope you weren't expecting him back, love."

When I felt his lips sucking and kissing their way all the way to my ear, I muttered a shaky, "Mm...No..." He chuckled and that just made my speed up further. He gently bit down on my ear lobe and I moaned, perhaps a little more loudly than I had intended to. "You can keep him. Lock him up in a trunk and keep him prisoner if you must."

"I'd rather keep you," he said, smiling. And then he kissed me and it was like I was a brand new girl all over again. No, that's not exactly true... I felt like that desirable girl from last night in the bed of the most attractive wizard in the world.

And he was all mine.

I pushed at him to get off me so I could have him any way I'd like, but the look on his face when I'd caught him moving away from me was of shock... and rejection. The man was fucking delusional.

He was probably about to make his way out of bed to lick his unnecessary wounds in the privacy of our shower, but I'd pulled him back down before he could escape me. I pushed him onto his back and found his expression of shock and confusion priceless. I couldn't help smile evilly at his expression when I straddled him. The boy was putty in my hands and I liked it.

"This is pay back, Malfoy," I said, before biting his lip and grinding against his bare groin. He moaned and I just couldn't help get just a little bit wetter at the sound. When his hands found themselves at my hips, I found bliss followed immediately, so much that my eyes rolled to the back of my head.

Draco:

Pushing Hermione's buttons had paid off. Fucking hell it had paid off, so, so well. She pushed me over to my back and straddled me so deliciously and wasted absolutely no time getting to it. We both moaned at the blissful contact.

The witch was on a mission. I looked up at her and the sight made my blood boil to the extent where I just had to haphazardly thrust back. Impressions be damned, I needed her.

She rested her hands on my shoulders, her wild, soft hair falling down over the both of us like a curtain. Her mouth was slightly parted, eyes half lidded in pleasure... I'd never been attracted to anyone this much before. So who the fuck cared if she was a muggle born?

When it ended all too quick for my liking, she collapsed against me covered in a sheen of sweat, flushed so perfectly. She lay over me, her legs still locked around my waist, catching her breath. Not that I'd have ever led her move off me if she'd tried at that moment.

After a while, she looked up at me from her place on my chest and smiled brilliantly after kissing me lightly. "You know, for a Slytherin Sex God, you're kind of really insecure," she said in her matter of fact tone, as if she'd just been discussing the weather or something as equally mundane. Had she really just said that or was I still making things up in my post-coital bliss? She laughed at my obvious confused expression.

"What?"

"I said...you're really insecure," she smiled.

"No, I got that bit..."

"Oh, then what's got your pretty little head confused?" she asked cheekily while moving on to kiss my neck. When I flipped her over onto her back again, she let out a little shriek of surprise before giggling that maddeningly lovely giggle of hers. I kissed her, couldn't help myself. The bruised, perfectly swollen lips of hers were just too tempting for a poor soul like me to resist.

"The next little bit. Something to do with being a God."

"Men. You're such egotists!"

I laughed at her expression. "Women. You're such..." She gave me a warning look. "Angels?" I tried. She grinned and nodded at my appropriate response. "In bed, of course."

She smacked my head rather hard and completely ignored my "ow" of protest, the bloody woman. In fact, she laughed at my pain and called my sad, hurt face adorable. The nerve!

"Back in school, they used to call you the Slytherin Sex God... the girls anyways. Always in the loo or Friday night sleepovers in the dormitories." Now that really was interesting news. It made my confidence and ego flare a little bit. "Though I'd always had my doubts. You looked too much of a frigid ferret to me to sleep around that much..."

"Hey!" And there she goes crushing my ego.

She raised her eyebrow. "Well, did you sleep around? Please tell me you didn't sleep with the hoards of girls that they claimed you did. A different one every night... they said you slept with everyone in our year and the sixths..."

"I was not a man whore, if that's what you're asking." I moved off her to rest against her side. She'd gotten over her aversion to nakedness for the moment, which I was fully prepared to take advantage of.

"Well, how many then?" she asked, raising herself onto her elbow so she could stare at me with her brave face. Why she was putting up a front was beyond me. Unless...she was afraid of the answer? I decided it couldn't hurt to bait her on.

"How many what?"

"How many... people have you slept with?"

I pretended to look thoughtful, as if considering her question carefully. "Only people, hm?"

"Draco..."

I laughed at her horrified expression and grinned at her responding scowl. "I'm joking, Hermione. Try not to have an aneurism. How many...hm...I'm not sure, really, such a long, long list, you know..."

"Draco!"

This time she hit me and I laughed for a whole five minutes. Eventually she joined in too. "Seven, including you," I finally admitted after we'd calmed down. Her eyes widened a little in surprise. "Too many?" I asked, but she shook her head no.

"Who?"

Were we really going to have this conversation and right after such perfect sex too? "Does it really matter?" I asked, my voice softening because I could tell she was honestly afraid.

"Yes, obviously, or I wouldn't have bothered asking, silly." He poked her finger into my chest.

"Well, if it matters so much, who have you slept with then?" I asked, mimicking her actions and poking her in the chest.

"Victor Krum, Ron and you," she said without skipping a beat. "Now you," she encouraged. My mouth opened a little in surprise at the information. I hadn't thought she'd actually tell me. I could feel the beginnings of jealousy begin to form at the back of my mind, but I told myself not to let it irk me... it shouldn't, after all. They were all gone. Krum was married to some bimbo or another and Ron... well, he'd never be a problem ever again, would he?

"Well... Pansy, Astoria and Daphne Greengrass-"

"But they're sisters!" she interjected.

"I know..." I responded, giving her a knowing look. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as if attempting to comprehend the news. When I laughed at her eventually, giving her a wink, she glared and gestured at me to continue the list.

"Right. The Greegrasses, Lavender Brown, Padma Patil, Mary Shoonmaker who was in Hufflepuff, and you," I kissed her cheek. "You were the best, no doubt about it."

She scoffed. "No need to console me, Malfoy. You slept with all the houses..." A blank look crept onto her face.

"I've no reason to lie to you. If you weren't the best I'd tell you, just so you'd get adventurous and work harder," I winked at her again and she blushed. "Overachiever, you are. But really, Pansy wasn't all that great in bed. Made all these high pitched noises that gave me a damn headache." She giggled at that and I couldn't help but smile. "I slept with the Greengrasses when I was drunk and barely remembered it after. Padma Patil was a bore and I was...inexperienced. Wasn't a pleasant experience for either of us, if you know what I mean."

"Hmm..." was her only response.

"Lavender Brown was sixth year, actually and I was just desperate to forget...everything that was happening at the time. It was after Potter tried to kill me, so it was...painful. Not that she cared. I rather think she was trying to forget that Weasley ignored her, or at least, that's what she kept saying. It was a scarring exprierience actually. Did you know she called me Weasley?" Hermione grinned, understanding what that must have been for me.

"And the last?"

"It was here, in New York, actually. I was ah... not in the right mental state of mind. She took advantage of me, I only found out later because she kept owling me like a mad woman." I shuddered at the memory.

"I guess that's not so bad," she finally said. "I've got to get going, love. Going to be late for work." And with that, she was gone for the day with just a kiss and the scent of her on the sheets to go by.

/

For weeks we just went at it like rabbits and I felt like this is how we always had been. We were so consumed with ourselves, so full of it, so in love that we barely had time for anything else anymore. Work, cooking, sex, sleep and that was the cycle for days on end.

It was definitely something I could get used to. How had I lived without this my entire life? And who knew Hermione bookworm perfectionist Granger would be a damn minx in bed?

These days all I had on my mind was her and her body, her smile and her moans... it was perfection and I couldn't ask for anything else. I honestly didn't need anything else in my life. This would be enough. Who would want to be emotionally and mentally gone if there was this to be had? This was therapy in itself.

The only downside to it was my writing had gone a little bit down the drain. It was a sacrifice that I was willing to make, though. But it wasn't as if I had much else to do anymore when Hermione went to work and she encouraged me to get it done so that she could read it. I wasn't sure if I wanted her to read my latest project. Tones of her were all over it, the book was practically about her.

Apathy: Love for the Broken.

It had started out as the musings of a man on the mend but lately, when my life had been so colourful and happy... well, it had seeped into my writing and framed itself into my masterpiece. Was it a masterpiece anymore?

Professor Snape had been the one who encouraged my writing. He had said I had the aptitude for such things. He was right, of course. The man had almost been as omniscient as Dumbledore had been and that was really saying a lot.

"You have to work with what you have, Draco," I remember him saying. "The makings of a good work aren't to be forced, you impertinent child. They can only be influenced but not wholly dictated by what you want. Don't force yourself on it, let it come to you how it will."

The man had been an annoying genius in almost everything he had deemed worth his time. So I supposed I'd give him my faith and take his old advice before he had left me alone in the world.

Apathy would just have to be colourful for a while.

Hermione:

For everything that had happened these past few weeks – boring work, my parents showing up for vacation, Zara and her insanity, Draco in my bed... something just felt off.

I couldn't put my finger on it. Was it that I was finally happy and had no stress on my mind from anything whatsoever? Or was it because Draco still wouldn't tell me what his damn book was about? He was a secretive bugger and that did bother me a little bit once in a while.

But even when I'd spent hours contemplating this at my useless job, since I had nothing better to do anyways, I'd decided that no, these couldn't possibly be the reasons why I lay in bed at night with something nagging at me, Draco cuddled against my back. There was something... something that I was missing and it wouldn't let me fully enjoy everything that was going on in my life. What could possibly be wrong? I had a boyfriend who loved me, a job that was "prestigious", a best friend who was lovely and my parents adored what I was doing with my life. Why wasn't I thrilled?

Then one night when Draco and I had finished doing the deed and he'd just fallen asleep against my still warm neck, it hit me.

My parents, smiling, sitting on their regular pink worn out couch, sipping a cup of tea.

The memory filled me – but I had two memories. One shown to me by Tom Riddle and the other... well, I'd just been there a few days ago, hadn't I? Hell... this wasn't good. It wasn't good at all. I'd completely forgotten about my task, mission whatever the hell it was when Draco and I had finally...

Draco pinning me, kissing my neck and pleasure I'd never felt before...closer than I'd ever been to a human.

Shit. So that prediction had come true as well. I hadn't thought about what any of these things could mean. I hadn't thought about the dream world... well, since I'd gotten back from St. Mungos, actually. No one could possibly blame me of course... I'd had a lot of my plate.

But it was time to go back to the dream world, that was for sure.

A/N: Review if you want an update! Or if you care... I'll give you cookies!