"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." ~Dale Carnegie

Chapter Twenty-six: Rubicon in the Distance

Hermione was not keen on this plan at all. "Aren't we going to get caught?"

"No. I used to this all the time, even in wizard hotels."

As a pureblood with such a secure financial status, she wondered why he had ever wanted to do this. Of course, she didn't exactly know what pureblood teenagers did for fun.

"I guess it was a thrill of sorts."

Her balance was off a little so she readjusted herself on the foreign bed. "But... we're squatting."

"We need proper showers and laundered clothes before we go to the muggle air-port or else we will stick out."

She couldn't argue with him there - to avoid attention in the hotel they'd had to use a cloaking spell. This hotel would send them away in a quick second if they'd walked in looking the way they had.

She wanted to look around desperately; she'd never stayed in a nice hotel in her life, wizard or muggle. She felt the bedspread beside her - the duvet was soft and plushy. She lied back slowly as Loki jumped onto the bed and padded over to her slowly.

Draco exited the steaming bathroom after his shower to discover Hermione curled up with Loki. He stopped and ran a hand through his damp hair, briefly noting that it desperately needed a cut, and studied her face.

Did she look at all like the Hermione Granger he remembered?

He had an urge to conjure his past feelings of contempt for her, but he could not remember why he had hated her so much.

She was smart and bookish... a swotty little teacher's pet. But... there's really nothing wrong with being smart. Being smart is the best thing you can be.

The whole scene - Hermione in the only dress the Worthingtons had packed for her (also the last semi-clean garment she had), her sunglasses discarded next to her and Loki curled against her chest, sunlight streaming through the window... Draco realized that there was nothing he'd rather be looking at.

He rubbed his bare chest with the towel to remove some rogue drops and dropped it on the carpet. This was the closest thing to a family he would ever get.

They awoke sometime later, Draco's chest pressed against Hermione's back and Loki still in Hermione's arms. Hermione received a jolt of paranoia when she realized how badly she needed the shower she was supposed to take after him. She moved her head slightly to smell herself.

"I smell," she said quietly, and made to get up. "And my hair is in your face..."

"Don't move," Draco whispered against her skin, holding her waist and preventing her from moving. "You smell fine."

She laid her head down again and scooted her shoulders back until his face was in her neck. "I do smell."

"You smell like the forest. I don't care right now." His arm tightened around her waist, forcing her legs and bum to fit against him as well.

Hermione murmured something and relaxed. She did not want to move either. This felt too amazing.

Sleep felt elusive now, as if she was comfortable enough to do it but too aware of the feel of his body circling her; his firm chest, hips pressed into her backside, his arms slightly heavy around her.

It had been a while since either of them had been in a bed this nice, with time to kill. They still had 24 hours before they had to be on that plane.

Draco had only one thought on his mind.

He breathed in and shifted so his arm was resting on Hermione's leg, near the edge of her dress. She knew what he was going to do almost immediately and found herself panicking as his fingers slipped under the fabric and began to pull it up. Did she have clean knickers on? She couldn't remember - clean clothes were so hard to keep track of.

She would have to raise up if he was to get the dress above her hips. She hesitated when he reached this point, but slowly lifted herself up so he could guide the edge of the dress up to her stomach.

Draco stopped then, releasing the fabric and cupping her bare stomach, slowly pulling her even closer. She realized then that he was shirtless, and it made her panic even more.

"Calm down, Hermione."

"I'm fine."

They settled, Draco drawing small circles in her stomach, working his way up closer to her chest, and down, to the edge of her underwear. He noted her intake of breath whenever he went higher or lower than the last time.

"Calm down, Hermione."

"I'm fine."

"Alright then," he said, and abruptly pulled her away from Loki and on top of him.

She struggled for balance for a few moments before both legs found their way on either side of him and she shakily centered her chest over his.

"Erm..."

"Sit up."

Hermione shook her head. Rubbing their minds together seemed infinitely easier all of a sudden.

His hands gripped her hips to brace her, but she wasn't moving.

"Hey... Hermione?" Draco sat up, forcing her to go with him, until she was straddling his lap. "Hermione?"

"Right, yeah." There was a sarcastic note in her mumbled reply.

Draco stroked her hips on either side in an attempt to calm her, but since her dress seemed to come with his hands, it only succeeded in hiking the thing up. When his bare hands met her sides, her heart skipped and something warm twinged in her body, flooding her with pleasure; that felt amazing. She ground her hips into him in response.

Suddenly she froze, realizing what she had just done."I'm sorry," she mumbled, hunching and shaking her head. "I can't see what I'm doing and... I'm not used to doing this. Things like this don't happen to me."

"I know," he said back, moving on to rubbing her back. "Is this too much? We don't have to."

"... I don't know." She couldn't help but feel overwhelmed, not just from the disorientation of being unable to see where her body was, but also from the warm sensation bubbling in her lower half. And while she was relieved to be physically enjoying his attention, she still felt out of control with the lack of the extra sense.

Regardless, she recognized that if she was going to be doing anything more than kissing him in the future, she would have to start somewhere.

"No, it's fine."

Draco lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. Had she not been blind, she would probably be staring directly at him now. With her face so close, her eyes looked huge, but they did not look as empty as he'd originally thought they'd looked. He could see the emotion there now.

His mind detached itself from his body and rubbed against hers.

This was more what she recognized - this feeling of being completely open to him. In this situation however, having her mind an open book did not really appeal to her. He could sense her arousal – that excited him – but her confusion and embarrassment as well.

:Stop thinking so much.:

"I just want things to be perfect."

"Nothing is ever perfect. We are flawed people, Hermione."

"... Yes, I know. It's still hard though."

Draco shrugged. "Just let yourself go. This is not something you have to think about. You don't have to worry about doing anything that will push me away - there is no possibility of that anymore."

She blushed at this admission and nodded, and Draco released her chin so he could pull her into a heated kiss.

After a few seconds Hermione pulled away, as she usually did.

"Thinking too much," Draco whispered. "If you think about it then it's completely buggered. Don't panic - just mimic what I'm doing."

"Yeah. Mmkay." She was being sarcastic again. Apparently she had been trying to convince herself more than he was trying to convince her.

:Love yourself, and be comfortable with what you do. That all it takes.:

:It's easy to say that.: Accomplishing this had always been Hermione's goal; she was a firm believer that loving herself was the only way she could truly be happy, though she pretended that succeeding in everything else would do the same.

"I thought you hated yourself."

Draco lied back down and put his hands behind his head. He enjoyed the view of Hermione straddling his lap for a moment before he answered. "That's different."

"It's the same."

"There are things about myself that I hate... and at times there is not a single thing that I like about myself. But I can always go back to the way I was before, where I can be content with certain flaws and be numb to the rest of them."

Hermione lied on top of him and fit her head under his chin. He spoke of this so lightly even though both of them knew better. "Do you really have all those feelings bottled up?"

Draco tried not to think of the dark, thick tar that had covered her mind and soul in that white bedroom. "That's just me, Hermione."

"No," she countered, scooting up a bit. "I'm not made of sunshine. I feel it too."

He hugged her against him. He had forgotten how alike they really were, though they seemed so different. It was as if they occupied both extremes - being nothing at all alike and yet being exactly the same.

"I think we have something here."

"Explain," Nora replied, eying him.

"It all makes sense. Think about it - they stole research about magical versus non-magical folk and a prophecy. Marty said that in order to do research on this, they need muggleborns to experiment on. Isn't it a coincidence that the Death Eater-controlled Ministry wanted to round up muggleborns more than anything, and some of these people are still declared 'missing'? And the investigation was discontinued only days before Hermione was presumed missing."

"My god..." Nora mumbled, her usual calm exterior faltering. "Are you serious? You think they want to experiment on her?"

Harry nodded.

Nora shook her head and scooted closer, lowering her voice. "Did you read about the techniques used to experiment with muggleborns?"

"No. I just know that their memories are erased afterwards... and that some never know what happened."

"They use the most terrible procedures - withdrawing buckets of blood at a time; performing magic on the nerves; sifting through memories where pure magic was emitted by accident. And... then there are the machines."

"The machines?"

"Yes. While muggles perform blood transfusions and organ transplants in a seemingly non-invasive way - in their eyes... the magical interpretations of this are a lot more painful. I'll just say that these procedures are not made for the subject to live through. I've seen the photos. I've seen the bodies."

Harry cringed. The situation just became way more serious. "But why not use any muggleborn off the street? Why Hermione?"

"I think you know the answer to that one." She ran a hand through her hair. "When you think about it... she's the highest class muggleborn in our world. She's somewhat of an idol for the rest. There are so many ways in which the Death Eaters would win if they were to use her."

"No." Harry downed his tea, finishing it off, and set it down. "This cannot be happening."

There was a knock on the door, and the tall form of Jesse stepped in. "The team has arrived in Cambodia."

Nora and Harry looked over at her, both noticeably trying to recover from the conversation they had just had. Jesse's face fell even more. "What happened?"

Harry looked over at Nora, silently asking permission to tell Jesse what they were thinking. She shook her head.

"Just discussing some theories. Are all the rest of the ingredients ready for the cure?"

Jesse looked at her feet. "The last of them will be here by the end of tomorrow. And according to the information Marty retrieved from the NASROP archives, the potion needs a week to brew. It should be finished about the same time as the Auror training finishes."

"Sounds good. It's about time we started making progress." She stood from her seat and collected her and Harry's cups. "We can't let Malfoy and Hermione have all the fun, can we?"

By the time they realized that they had things to do, the sun was setting. Hermione was the first to leave the bed, adjusting her dress and feeling her way through the darkness until she reached the door to the bathroom. Draco followed, walking into the bathroom ahead of her to turn on the water and set a towel for her. It seemed that since she still needed to shower, he should probably take care of the laundry.

Draco wrinkled his nose a bit against his will - the only time he'd ever had to do laundry was when he'd had to hand wash the drapes on Hogwarts' fifth floor in detention. How did he even go about doing this?

"Um, Hermione?" he asked as she slipped the straps of her dress off of her shoulders.

She jumped of course, forgetting that he was still in the bathroom. She turned in the direction of his voice. "Yes?"

"... How do you do laundry? I don't know any spells for it."

Hermione cracked a smile. "You spoiled boy. Don't worry about it - I'll take care of it when I'm done. I don't want you putting holes in anything."

Draco smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

She nodded and waited for the sounds of his feet leaving the tiled floor before she unzipped the back of her dress and slid it to the floor.

Later, Draco and Hermione left the room for dinner, Hermione donning the now clean dress once again. Draco spoke a few charms as he walked out of the hotel doors - a Confundus charm and a few others that Hermione had never heard - and they proceeded down the narrow cobblestone street.

Draco looked around happily – he was strongly reminded of being in Paris with his friends, exploring, nicking things, looking for the best places to see the city… He loved the looming, twisting buildings and the uneven roads, turning and colliding and spilling bustling cafes and bakeries into the street. The stores, positively bursting with people, glittered invitingly.

"Since there is an airport in this city, there is bound to be English-friendly restaurants."

Hermione shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never been here before."

Before long, they found a restaurant with a menu in English and crammed into a table.

"Lucky, lucky lucky. All this time in public can't be good."

"We don't really have a choice. After this, we need to stop by the grocery and get some more food and supplies for the trip."

"Do you still have the flight information?"

"It's in the duffel. Moving through the airport should be easy enough - as will getting around the muggle security."

Hermione shook her head. "It won't be as easy as you think. Cloaking spells only help us stay unseen - they don't help us with getting onto the plane. It is likely to be crowded. And besides, you are forgetting that you have to tote around a blind person as well - even with the cloaking spell, I am likely to bump into people."

"Not if I levitate you. I could levitate both of us."

"You know how difficult it is to levitate yourself."

Draco shrugged and moved away from the center of the table as a wiry, mustached waiter brought them bread and drinks. "We will figure something out when the time comes I guess."

Though she knew that they needed to be talking about this kind of thing now, Hermione smiled a little anyway. "Of course. In the meantime, we can just enjoy dinner."

Yes, in the meantime indeed. Come tomorrow, it was unlikely they would ever experience this again.