Disclaimer: I do not own any of Queen JK's characters, only my story.


"MALFOY"

I cannot believe that the ferret is at my doorstep. More importantly, I cannot believe that I called his arse delicious. That is absolutely unforgivable. I must be crazy, CRAZY I tell you. Such thoughts must never ever be thought by me, ever. That is a crime against nature itself. I turned my face away in disgust.

To be fair, he is extremely good look-.

SHUT THE FUCK UP BRAIN!

"Hermione, please… Help me get him inside. I can't hold him for much longer. I'm not exactly the strongest of people, and neither is he the lightest." I turned back to find Harry with his pleading face on. Curse the bastard! He knows I cannot refuse his pleading face. I felt my resolve crumble.

"Harry, why did you bring him here?" I stared warily at the two of them.

"Please, just let me put him down on the couch and I'll explain everything, I promise. Just let us in. I can't hold him for much longer."

He brought out the face again. We both knew I wouldn't be able to resist it for much longer. He usually acted like the older brother in our sibling-like relationship, overprotective and caring, but it was at times like this that I am reminded that he is actually the younger one, if only by a few months. I considered just walking back inside and slamming the door shut, but one more look at his face sealed the deal. I grabbed ferret-boy… man's arm once again and led the two of them to my couch and turned off my TV.

"We got him inside and off your shoulders, now spill. What is the bigoted arse doing here on my couch at midnight?" I took a sip of my beer. My nose turned its attention to the Lasagna on the coffee table. Instantly my mouth watered and I started to regret my decision to let them in.

"Hermione, I need you to do me a favour."

Yep, definitely regretting my decision now. I stared back at him expectantly.

"I know what I'm about to ask you is pretty big, but I need you to let him stay with you for a while."

"WHAT?" I can barely believe Harry is asking me to do this. He wants me to keep… him… with me… at my home… living with me…

"Hermione please. I know I'm asking a lot from you but you're the only one I can turn to for this. We've tried other places but they didn't work out."

Even though I'm freaking out inside, I don't let it show, a skill I picked up after the depression from my parents death. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at hiding my emotions in front of others whenever necessary.

"Harry, what makes you think this will work out? We hate each other."

"He's tolerable now, friendly even, I promise. I had a chat with the lad. He turned over a new leaf after the wa-"

"But I hate him anyways. It wasn't just his allegiance that made me hate him, Harry. His personality is just as bad. I don't care how much he's changed, old habits die hard and the two of us made a pretty strong habit of hating each other. I'm sorry Harry, I just cannot agree to this." And I won't even give in to the face this time. I am a person who is smart enough to learn from my past mistakes. "Besides, where in Merlin's arse is this even coming from? Why are you even asking me to do this?"

"A few days ago, his face appeared from my fireplace while I was working on some papers, sometime in the evening. He said he had captured Dolohov and wanted me to come detain and arrest him. I rushed over immediately and found him with is wand pointed at a stunned Dolohov under a full-body bind curse. Apparently, he was returning from the supermarket that evening, he walked back into his house to find that Dolohov had killed Narcissa. In a fit of rage, he let out a few spells and hexes at his mother's murderer, left him with boils all over his body and his face vomiting eels. Lucky for us, he kept himself sane enough not to kill him, and inform us instead." Harry reached over and grabbed a can of beer lying around. Meanwhile, I considered Malfoy's story. Somewhere deep inside, I couldn't help but feel sympathetic for the guy. Harry caught on to this wave of sympathy, and I instantly regret my emotion. I've slipped up very few times in my life, but I know for sure that I'll regret this time the most.

"See, you sympathise with him." Harry's smile widened, that did not bode well for me.

"Many people have lost their parents before. We fought a war three years ago, do you remember? Or have you forgotten that?"

"Yes, but not many people of the wizarding community have lost their family members after the war, a time when everybody thought their loved ones were safe and sound. And there are even fewer who I can trust enough to keep a murder witness safe." Malfoy scrunched his face and rolled his head, as if he was stirring, and we did not want to wake him up. Harry leaned in closer to me and spoke in a softer voice. "We have tried putting him in the witness protection facility. He ran away from us today afternoon, fooled the security personnel so well that three hours had passed before they realised he was missing. We spent nearly four hours after that looking for him before I finally found him passed out on the couch of a muggle nightclub halfway across London. By then he had narrated his whole post-war life story to bunch of muggles who now know about us and magic. The rest of my Auror team is currently out there finding and obliviating them."

I looked back and forth between Harry and Malfoy, both irritated and amused at the course of their day.

"Meanwhile, we searched Dolohov's memories and found many leads to the remaining of the Death Eaters. Starting tomorrow, all of our teams get deployed to go capture them. Including the main witness protection team. But we need some place to keep him safe, at least until Dolohov's trial. He is an extremely important witness to Narcissa's murder, and I need someone who can keep him safe, understands his pain, doesn't have as much work and has a free room to keep him." He turned his head and glanced at the bedroom next to my own.

"I have my bookstore." I made a last-ditch effort to get out of this, though I knew it was in vain.

"You hired Rebecca to work for you. She can manage stuff."

"Who quit on me today."

"Good, then he can take her place and help out when you have to go to the store." See, I was right.

"Ughh…"

"Hermione, please…" He chose the perfect time to bring the face out again. I took one last glance at the two of them before finally giving in.

"Fine… I'll take Mr. Pompous git, but only on my rules."

"Sure, just let him know what happened when he wakes up. I'm sure he'll agree." Harry smiled from ear to ear.

"I highly doubt that." I frowned.

"I must really be off now. I have to check on my team and then head home. Ginny will be worried, I promised I'd call her as soon as I reached home. Bye, and thank you once again Hermione. I definitely owe you a big one." He walked to get Floo powder from the cabinet.

"That you do." I waved goodbye as he disappeared behind the green flames.

I turned back to stare at the drunk Malfoy on my couch. I decided to leave him there and deal with him in the morning. Right now, all I needed was a good night's rest…

*GROWL*

And some food.

I took the cold Lasagna, shoved it into the microwave and set the timer for 2 minutes. After it was done, I took it and decided to eat in my room. What I didn't notice was the blonde head that slumped down next to my shoulder. I whipped around as soon as I felt him behind me, just barely remembering to put down the bowl before I did so.

"Malfoy, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Granger" He still seemed to be asleep, or at least drunk, because his eyes were closed and his shoulders were slumped as if he was completely tired and just ready to pass out. He was still able to identify me, surprisingly.

I backed up against the counter as he advanced towards me with his sleepy steps. He stopped right in front of me as I placed my hand on his chest. Wrong move. I almost lost concentration while my hand touched his chest. Why was I feeling this way? I gathered up my wandering thoughts and tried to get him off me. Why didn't I have my wand with me at these times?

"Malfoy, w-what are y-you d-doing?" Well, that plan went right down to the dumps. And it sure didn't help, when Malfoy leaned over and kissed me full on the lips. I felt myself surrendering to the feeling, the shock leaving my mouth wide open for him to slip his tongue. He was sloppy, like he was still drunk, but somehow it felt good. But it shouldn't, and it took me a few seconds to come to that realisation, and a few more before I could push him off.

I seemed to have pushed him with a little more force than necessary as he went crashing, his drunken reflexes not helping him one bit as his head hit the side of the couch and his unconscious body hit the floor. I stared at him for a few dumbstruck seconds before I grabbed my bowl of Lasagna and sprinted around the far side couch to my room and slammed the door shut, locking it from the inside with a few wards.


I'm really really sorry I didn't update sooner even though I promised, but work for my internship came up and I had to go. I promise, I'll update sooner next time, and this time, it's a keeper. On another note, how do you feel about the story until now. Review and let me know, they really help. Please. (Harry's pleading face)