AN: So again it's been a few days but a busy weekend got in the way. Hope you all enjoy.
Thank you to my Beta Astarte_Lydianna for looking this over. She has 2 HP and a ton of Twilight stories that are definitely worth a read.
Disclaimer: All recognized characters and situations belong to J. K. Rowling. I make no money from this.
Hermione met Draco the next night and the next, and every night after that for two weeks. They talked about the subjects they were studying, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and the news from the Daily Prophet. They steered completely clear from talk of their families and the war.
Hermione thoroughly enjoyed some actual intellectual conversation. She had always loved Harry and Ron, but the chances of them sitting and discussing policies brought in by the ministry were about as likely as Hermione becoming captain of the England Women's Quidditch team.
Every night before she left Draco thoroughly kissed her. He allowed her to set the pace but once she initiated any kind of contact he could not hold back, he would kiss her with a passion neither of them had ever felt before.
"Draco I have to go" Hermione mumbled one night as he kissed and sucked her neck. He just groaned and continued with his sweet assault on her skin.
"Draco please, I need to finish my rounds and Neville will notice if I'm not back soon" she asked again, Draco shook his head and held her hands above her head as he backed her against the wall and thrust his tongue into her hot mouth.
Hermione couldn't help the moan that fell from her mouth at the feel of Draco's body against her. "Draco stop, we have to go" Hermione insisted.
Draco grunted and allowed her hands to lower but did not let go. He slid his fingers through hers; "I'll stop, if you agree to a date during the Hogsmeade trip this weekend"
"Hogsmeade. Aren't you worried about everyone seeing us?" Hermione questioned.
"No. But I can see you are." Draco looked hurt, Hermione felt terrible, but occasionally Ginny's voice came into her head, telling her that Draco was using her.
He dropped her hands and turned to leave. Hermione took a moment to tell the voice in her head to go away before catching his hand again and pulling him back, moulding her mouth to his.
She kissed him until she had to resurface for air before saying "I have to help with the younger students to start the day. Meet me at the Three Broomsticks at 1pm" before kissing him again and leaving.
….
Draco waited a few minutes before leaving the tower and making his way to the Slytherin common room. He took the corridors at a quick pace and after narrowly missing a confrontation with Peeves entered the cold dungeons and into the green covered common room.
"Draco, where have you been?" Pansy's screeched across the room. Draco internally groaned and walked over to the awful witch.
"Do you need to know everything about my life Parkinson?" he snapped.
"Come now Draco, don't be like that" she said, trying to run her hand up his leg after he sat down on the plush green couch. Draco threw her hand off. He used to enjoy Pansy's attentions, but now her touch made his skin crawl.
"Drakee your so tense, maybe I can help you relax..." her nasal voice made him cringe, she tried to run her hand up his leg again.
Draco grabbed her hand, his eyes flashing with his anger, "Take your hand off me".
Pansy got up and stormed out of the room and down to the girls' dormitory, narrowly missing Blaise.
"What's gotten into her?" Blaise asked, sitting next to Draco and grabbing up that days Prophet from the table in front of them.
"She's living in the past" Draco answered flippantly. He laid his head back against the large cushions and thought, just two days and he could spend an entire day with his beautiful girl.
The fact that he could think of her as his was incredible. He thought he would get over it, but every day after the almost accident he thought about her more, he was pretty sure he well on his way to being in love with her.
He wasn't even worried about everyone seeing them together. The way she had originally reacted to the idea concerned him though. She was worried about her friends' reaction obviously. He was a little worried too, but in all honesty if his friends didn't like it then they could lump it.
Draco felt his shoulder being shaken. "Draco….Draco, what the hell is going on with you" Blaise shook him from his reverie.
"What?"
"I've been talking to you for the last five minutes!" Blaise exclaimed.
"Ok, I've got something to tell you" Draco began "I'm sure you noticed that I'm not really here much at night" Blaise nodded. "I've been seeing someone, someone that our friends and family won't approve of. Someone you may not approve of." Draco told his best friend.
"Come now Draco, who would I not approve of, I mean it's not like its Granger or anything" Blaise laughed. Draco's face was stoic, he didn't say a word, and Blaise stopped, his jaw dropping "It's Granger?"
Draco nodded and waited for the tirade about to come his way.
"Well, okay. What's the deal?" Blaise asked.
"What?"
"Well you must be getting something out of this, what is it? I mean, she'll make you look a hell of a lot better to our world, is that it?" Blaise prompted.
"Watch your mouth Blaise Zabini, before I smack you in it." Draco threatened.
"All right, all right. But I don't understand, you hate Granger" Blaise conceded.
Draco shook his head.
"Okay, explain" Blaise asked and Draco went on to explain the incident with the bricks and the events after.
…..
Neville looked up from his Transfiguration homework when Hermione entered their shared common room.
"You're late" he commented.
"Err… yeah" Hermione didn't know what to say so she said nothing, sitting on the couch next to him to look at what he was doing.
"Hermione, why do you smell like aftershave?"
Hermione groaned internally, she hadn't noticed that the expensive aftershave smell had rubbed off on her. Draco's spicy scent was all over her.
"Hermione?" Neville prompted for an answer.
"Oh Merlin. Okay, the past couple of weeks I've been seeing someone" Hermione admitted.
"Oh. Really? I always thought that you would get back with Ron" Neville replied, turning back to his homework.
"No Neville, that will never happen" Hermione firmly told him. "Don't you want to know who it is?"
Neville looked up from his homework and saw Hermione biting her bottom lip. She was really nervous about telling him "Do you want to tell me?"
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief; Neville was not going to force her to say it like the others would. She was so worried about telling her friends about the relationship, especially as she still wasn't that confident about what it really was.
"Thanks Neville" she said and went up the stairs to her room, in two days time Neville along with everyone else would know anyway.
…..
The next morning Hermione and Neville left their rooms together and went down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
They were discussing changes that needed to be made to the Prefect's schedule, as Qudditch was about to start and some of the Prefect's need to change routines to include practice.
Neither was really paying much attention as to where they were going, after seven years of walking the halls their feet pretty much took them. As they entered the hall Neville walked straight into Draco Malfoy.
"Sorry" Neville said before realising who he had bumped into.
"Watch where you're going Longbottom" Draco snapped. He realised Hermione was behind Neville and lost the scowl on his face quickly. Neville noticed the change in Draco's face before realising he recognized the aftershave he could smell.
His jaw dropped as he turned to Hermione. She grabbed him and dragged him down to the Gryffindor table.
"Please Neville. Please don't!" begged Hermione trying to stop him from losing control of his shock and blurting out to the entire hall that she was dating Draco.
Neville got control of his jaw and took a breath. "Malfoy, are you serious Hermione?" he whispered.
"Neville please, I really don't know how it started. Please just don't tell anyone."
"But Hermione, he's a death eater. You're Harry Potter's best friend. How can you possibly be dating Draco Malfoy?"
"Neville, he isn't a death eater. You know as well as I do that he didn't kill Dumbledore, Harry spoke up for him at the Ministry trials. Neville please, by the weekend everyone will know, please just keep it quiet until then." Hermione pleaded.
"Okay Hermione. But if he does anything to hurt you, I will hurt him" Neville put emphasis by stabbing his fork into a piece of sausage.
…
Saturday Morning
Hermione was lying in bed with the covers over her face. She repeatedly looked at the clock and put off getting up until Neville knocked on her door.
"Hermione, I'm going down to the Great Hall for breakfast, are you coming?" he called.
She answered with a yelled "yes" but still didn't move. She was absolutely dreading everyone's reactions to her relationship with Draco, although the prospect of the actual date excited her very much.
A while later there was another knock on her door. "Hermione, you didn't come down and we have don't have long before we have to help get everyone in the carriages"
"I'm coming Neville" Hermione called, and pulled herself out of the bed and into her little bathroom.
She quickly used the facilities and brushed her teeth. She then threw on a pair of jeans and a blue strap top, covered with a white thin fitted jacket. She spelled her hair so that she could leave it down without it looking frizzy and put on some mascara and lip-gloss.
A quick look in the mirror to check her reflection and she ran down the stairs and into the common room.
Again Neville had saved her from starvation by bringing her up a bacon sandwich and a glass of pumpkin juice. "Neville you're too good to me" Hermione said around a mouthful of sandwich and they left to meet everyone in the courtyard.
Neville joined Professor McGonagall collecting the permission slips off the third year students and Hermione began directing everyone into the carriages that would take them to the small wizarding village.
After all the students had been accounted for and Hermione had handed out detention to a pair of second years who had tried to sneak into a carriage she and Neville got into the last one and they made their way down to Hogsmeade.
Hermione still had an hour before she was supposed to meet Draco at the Three Broomsticks. She went to Honeydukes and Scrivenshaft's Quill shop to pick up a new quill.
She saw Ginny and Harry in Madam Pudifoot's having tea. He had come to see her, as they didn't get to spend as much time together now that she was back at school.
She made her way back down the high street and stopped outside the front door of the pub. She took a couple of deep breaths before pushing the door open.
Her eyes immediately looked for him, landing on a booth in the corner of the room. He was sat with two butterbeers and waiting for her.
A quick scope of the room showed her that most of their year was in the pub; 'no time like the present' she decided and walked over to him.
She sat down next to him and heard the entire pub go silent as Draco kissed her. She smiled and took a sip of her drink.
"I missed you" Draco whispered in her ear, making her grin from ear to ear. He took her hand and kissed it, refusing to let go.
Hermione tried desperately to ignore the whispering and staring all around her but found it got harder and harder as time went on. After she finished her drink she gripped Draco's hand and got up, leaving the pub with Draco right behind her.
"Sorry, I just couldn't handle all the staring, I hate it so much" Hermione explained once they got out of the pub.
"Okay, no problem. Would you prefer Madam Pudifoot's?" Draco asked.
"Oh no, I don't think we will be going there. Harry and Ginny are there" Hermione told him.
"So you don't want to tell the boy wonder then" Draco commented.
"Well I would prefer to tell him myself as opposed to springing it on him walking in there with you. But another problem is that wherever Harry is, the press is, I don't really think I want this to be in the Daily Prophet just yet" Hermione explained.
"Ah. Well I agree with you there" Draco, quickly pecked her on the lips. "Well how about we just walk around and see what we find?"
Hermione nodded and they began to walk down the high street.
AN: Looking forward to the reviews.