Disclaimer: Yeah yeah, I own no rights and I'm making no money off of this story. Obviously.

A/N: Someone mentioned they were confused about the time and the way everything is clipped so I thought I'd fill you in. When I go from Draco to Hermione it doesn't mean that it's the same day or the same scene, unless it's obvious that this is what I've done. Often time it's different days or times altogether. Also, this is "reviewer appreciation" chapter. I will respond to all reviewers! (lol, yay?)

Hermione:

"Have you forgiven me yet?"

"No." He grabbed his box of cigarettes from her hands and put it in his pocket. "And ask first, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Don't be so grumpy, prick."

He sighed and she turned from him, annoyed. He had been in a foul mood for the three days she had been back. At first it had been understandable. Now it was irritating.

She had tried to stay away but she was wanting of company. Her disgust with herself for sleeping with Ron felt overwhelming, like it was leaking from her pores. Malfoy asked no questions and she hid in his silence.

"Can I-"

"Shut the fuck up."

She winced and pushed a clump of hair behind her ear. He didn't look at her and she waited for words to come. It wasn't normally like this. She wasn't the one who talked and asked questions-she was the mute. When had the roles become reversed?

"Malfoy, I…I'm not sure what I did to upset you."

He turned his head and looked at her, directly, for the first time all afternoon and it sent a prickly feeling down her arms and legs.

"I'm not sure what you did either."

"Then…can we just…start over?" He snorted and lifted his cigarette to his lips. She looked at his chest as he inhaled; it curved inwards and then filled out as he exhaled.

"Start what over, Granger?"

"I don't-"

"We're not boyfriend/girlfriend. You're not my 'soul mate'. You aren't even my friend." He stood and tossed the half finished tube to his right. He shrugged down at her cruelly. "You are nothing to me, honestly."

She didn't want to appear hurt in front of him. She wasn't even sure why she was hurt in the first place. Everything he was saying was true-they used each other for company and that was it. She stood and her legs were shaking.

"Malfoy, listen."

"Stop saying my name. Just stop." He pushed his hands up through his hair and turned from her.

"I don't…please."

Her stomach felt sick. She could feel herself loosing him and it made her feel violently ill. This whole time she thought he needed her-that she was doing him a service, but it was the other way around. He helped her feel nothing…or rather, he helped her feel anything at all. He turned to face her again and where his hands had been hair now fell sloppily.

(A clump of hair was molded to his face, dark from rain. She stepped forward and pushed it out of the way.)

She shook her head of the memory and grabbed his hand. She wanted him to stay, because if he left she would have to face her shame, all on her own. He shook his head and pulled his hand free.

"I can't do this with you anymore. I don't even like you."

"Shut the hell up! Just shut the hell up, Malfoy."

His eyes widened and then grew dark and angry.

"Excuse me? What right do you have to tell me to stop talking? I've done nothing."

She punched him, in the middle of his chest, as hard as she could. He barely braced himself. Instead he smiled and slapped her across the face. It rang out and filled in all the spaces between them. She stepped back and cradled her cheek in her hands. She cried, for the second time in front of him, but this time he just watched her.

"I don't pity you. I never will. And if that's why you keep me around, you might as well just fuck off."

She looked up and stopped crying. She messily wiped her hands under and over her eyes, hoping she didn't already look swollen and red.

"I don't want you to pity me."

"Then what do you want?"

She shrugged and tucked her head down. He made an angry impatient noise and when she looked up again he looked tired.

"Let's just go back to my place."

She shook her head. Apparated out.

-X-

The blankets were over her head but she was still cold. She tried to remember what she did with her time before she started spending it with Malfoy but couldn't. It had only been two months but, for some reason, she considered him…a friend. A friend she slept with, but a friend all the same.

Draco:

He held her when she cried, he paid for the majority of her cigarettes, and he cooked for her. Oh, he fucked her as well.

But what, really, was he doing? It had been three months since he lost his magic and in that time he had been living like a Muggle and smoking with Granger. Neither of which would help him get his magic back.

The thought of going on a date repulsed him. Small talk, paying for an extravagant meal, taking a girl home…the process of falling in love was tedious, like a un wanted chore. He didn't want to court someone; he just wanted to be by himself.

A loud crack filled the air and Granger stood before him. He sighed, angry that his night was ruined.

"Go. Away."

She moved slowly, sitting down on the other side of the couch and not looking at him. If only he had magic. Then he could put wards up to prevent her from coming over.

"Can we talk?"

"I'd rather nail my scrotum to a chair."

She cracked her neck and then each finger individually.

"Sixty days ago…I think it was sixty…that makes it two months, doesn't it? I don't know. Anyway, sixty-"

"I'm not having this discussion with you."

" –Days ago, we met and I was really repulsed by you. But at the same time, you-"

"I really wish you'd leave my house right now."

" –Gave me a sort of…I don't know…wall," she smiled, and he was reminded of that stupid church wall. "To hide myself behind. And-"

"Seriously, I'm not listening."

" –The more time I spent with you, the easier it got to be around someone like you. And I think that's because-"

"Don't you dare say it. Just-"

" –We're the same."

He breathed in sharply and his chest hurt. He wouldn't look at her. She moved a little closer and sighed impatiently.

"I can leave if you want."

One, three, five minutes went by before he groaned and stood up.

"There's leftovers on the stove if you want."

She smiled faintly at him and got up in front of him. Her lips touched his gently and she rested her forehead on his chest.

"Thank you." She mumbled.

July

Hermione:

"No. Not here. Seriously."

She looked wildly around for someone to spot them but Church had been over for hours. They were alone. She felt his lips nip and tug on her ear, her throat, her shoulder, until she felt as though she would burst. She sat on his lap and kissed him, biting his bottom lip a bit too hard.

"Ouch." He touched his lip and examined his finger for blood. "Bloody vixen."

She smiled and traced his face.

"This is a very bad idea." She whispered.

He nodded, grudgingly. She noticed blond scruff on his cheeks and chin. It scratched under her fingers.

"We've always been a bad idea." He gave her a wicked grin. Her heart flipped in her chest and she tried to hold it with her hands, as if she could stop it. "But Granger, I dare you to tell me to stop."

"I don't…" His fingers moved beneath a leg of her shorts and underneath her knickers, which were already wet and warm.

"Don't lie to me." He hissed and he pushed one finger into her slick folds.

She was instantly gone. She felt her whole body relax under him and she gripped his shoulders, hands knotting in the material of his shirt, as he moved one, two fingers in and out of her. Her head tilted back and she moaned in pleasure. Her need was growing; he filled her with heat.

"Oh…please…" She began to tug at his pants, only getting them down enough to see his boxers tented in arousal. He stopped her, moving his thumb over her nub and biting down on her collar. She lost it, loosing herself in a wave of pleasure. "Draco…"

His head snapped up at the sound of his name. His eye were black, his lips parted in disbelief. In a quick succession of smooth movements he had tore her shorts off and she didn't even know his pants were that far down, but he buried himself in her to the hilt.

She couldn't breathe and there were hundreds of millions of stars surrounding her as he rocked his hips rhythmically against her own and oh, oh, oh, she was so close again.

"Hermione" Not that horrible abbreviation but the whole thing, four separate sounds put together and she had never heard it from him before. It was so personal and she felt herself come apart, him following shortly after.

Neither moved; it was so hot outside…too hot for Ireland. Her skin felt loose on her and she tightened her grip on his shirt. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and sighed.

Draco:

There was something strange about hearing the shower run and knowing it wasn't him who was in it. The water hit the shower floor loudly and he wondered how long she would be in it.

Back at the Malfoy Manor there were so many rooms and bathrooms that he never heard the water running unless it was his own doing. Even his father and mother showered on opposite sides of the house. For Granger to be showering less than ten feet from where he sat seemed oddly…intimate. He wasn't sure he could wrap his mind around the fact that he was ok with it. But he was.

The water turned off and he held his breath. Was she going to change? Leave? He played with his thumbs and tried to think of other things than her naked body, wet and dripping.

She came out a minute later, wrapped in his black towel that he had used just that morning. It hadn't looked that good on him. She had a puzzled look on her face and her hands were tightly grasped around one edge of the towel.

"Where…what should I wear?"

He had ruined her shorts…and her knickers. It was a valid question. She could just apparate back to her room but he felt that since it was his doing he should fix it somehow.

He stood and looked around the room.

"Erm…you could…" He scratched his chin. He needed to shave. "Wear my clothes."

He led her into his room and picked a pair of trousers off of the floor. They were soft and worn and much too long for her but he handed them over.

She held the fabric in her hands and smiled faintly.

"Guess I'll have to go commando." She joked. "I'll, uhm, return them to you later."

She made a move to leave and he cleared his throat.

"You could stay for dinner. If you'd like."

Hermione:

"Let's have a picnic."

"No."

"Well why not?" she huffed and shoved him gently.

"I'm not your boyfriend and we aren't going on a date."

"But it's so nice outside. Seriously, we're going."

She tried to tug him up but he was too heavy. He crossed his arms stubbornly and remained in bed.

"Stop being so lazy!" she whined.

"You apparate into my bedroom at ten in the morning and then call me lazy. Great persuasion skills, Granger."

She bounced on her knees, making the bed shake. She looked down at him, their faces close.

"Pleasepleaseplease." She begged and pouted. He kissed her and then closed his eyes.

"No."

She sat back on her bum and frowned. It was quiet as he pretended to fall back asleep. She continued to stare at him angrily until finally he opened one eye. Seeing that she was still determined he groaned and sat up.

"Fine."

Draco:

He watched her talk; noticed the way she gracefully moved her hair about and how her hair bounced lightly above her breasts. Occasionally she stopped what she was saying and smiled, casting her eyes down, only to continue a second later.

He tried to murmur the occasional, "Oh." And "Hmm." Whenever he felt it was necessary, but really it didn't matter what she was saying. He just liked listening to her, in the way that he had enjoyed listening to the servants chatter while they cooked and cleaned back at home. It was peaceful and everything that was said wouldn't matter in a hundred years, but for that moment, Granger really loved whatever she was discussing. He tuned in.

" –And really, the entire time it had been Crookshanks! Harry was so embarrassed." She beamed at him, waiting for him to get the joke. He laughed politely and then reached foreword for a lock of her hair. She looked quizzically at him as he ran his fingers over and through it. "What are you thinking?" she asked him.

"I like it when you talk gibberish."

Hermione:

She held the map out in front of her, unfolding and turning it in every direction before sighing and putting it back in her pocket. The castle before her was large and she couldn't make her way around it or through it.

"Draco, can you-"

"I don't want to be here."

She tapped her foot impatiently and handed him the map. Grudgingly he opened the map and took a quick glance at it. She watched his eyes sweep the lines and swirls before he folded it-the wrong way- and stuffed it in her hand again.

"Tell me why we're here and I'll tell you how we get to the top."

"Blarney Castle was built nearly six hundred years ago by one of Ireland's greatest chieftains, Cormac MacCarthy-"

"Don't recite, Granger." She hummed and waited for him to look down at her again.

"Basically, Malfoy," she tried a sneer out herself and hoped it fit. "People come here to kiss the Blarney stone."

"The-you mean to say you're going to kiss a stone?"

"Yes."

"That's most foul." He shook his head. "Hundreds-millions of people have already…and then you'll expect me to kiss it, I'm sure."

"It brings good luck."

"Absolutely not." He tried to turn but she held onto his hand.

"Please stay." She watched his face soften and then try to mask it with indifference. She smiled up at him as thankfully as she could. "So…?"

"That corridor. Then we'll take the steps up and around another corner."

He didn't let go of her hand as they wound their way up to the top.

-X-

"That wasn't so bad and you know it."

"I was literally only being held up by a rope and someone I don't know. To kiss a stone."

"But now you're lucky!"

He kissed her cheek and let go of her hand.

"God." He said. She looked at him, confused. "You've got stone breath."

Draco:

For a July night, it was cold. For a July night in Ireland, it was warm. Nevertheless, Draco rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to decide what he would do. The pub smelled like comfort and alcohol. He hadn't drank in so long.

He didn't have a reason to, really. Granger…Hermione, kept him occupied and at night, when she left or when he arrived home on his own, he was too tired to do anything but sleep. He had no urge to walk into the bar, all of a sudden. He turned on his heel and started to walk in the other direction. And then he smelled her; that disgusting smell that had been dragged up from the earth's core. She beckoned to him from the alley down the street and he couldn't walk away. He followed her, deeper and deeper, until there was nothing but the night between them.

"Dracooo Malfffoyy." She hissed and he cringed at the sound of his name.

"Please." He said, simply. He wished he had walked into the pub and withered away.

"Tell me, Draco, are you in love?"

"It's been three months, how can one fall in love in only three months time?"

He regretted speaking harshly towards her immediately and cowered in his spot. Her next words were biting and cold, like freshly cut meat, dripping with blood.

"I grow impatient with your lack of progress. It is as though my warning has done nothing. You still do nothing, love nothing, and give nothing. And yet, here you are, alive but dead."

He took a step back and fell back. He looked up at her and wished for it to just be over.

"By my next visit…" and then she disappeared.

He didn't move for a very long time.

-X-

"So it's sort of like a date?"

"Yes."

It was strange, but Draco didn't mind the idea of going on a date with Hermione. She was annoying and loud, rude and presumptuous, but she was also a challenge. He liked challenges. Mainly crossword puzzles on The Daily Prophet and Quidditch, but all the same she was a challenge.

"So…do I get to dress up?"

He nodded and watched her face try and digest the idea of them in dress clothes, on a date, together.

"Unless that's too much." He said.

"No…no that's nice." She smiled and looked down at her hands, which were picking at his couch.

"Stop that." He slapped at her hand. "Don't be nervous, it's just a date. It's just us."

She looked sadly, anxiously, up at him.

"But don't you see? It could never be that simple. It never has been."