Claiming Hermione

Hermione kicked her legs lazily in the air as she lay on Ginny’s bed Saturday morning. Ginny clearly had something on her mind that she needed to get out. Hermione was pretty certain she could guess the subject and helped her along…

“How’ve things been going with Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Really good, actually. Um, that’s sort of, um, what I wanted to talk to you about.” Uh huh, thought so. Ginny’s face was steadily getting pinker, hiding the freckles on her nose. She looked around the empty room as if to make sure that it was still empty and then just came out with it. “I think I might want to…you know…um, do it with him.”

“Really? Wow, Gin…that’s pretty fast isn’t it?” Hermione hadn’t quite been expecting that.

“Well, not today! But, I mean, maybe before he graduates.” Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She knew Harry pretty well and knew he was more on the conservative end of the spectrum. With his life, and all the people he’d lost, he was careful with his affections. And while Hermione suspected he was head over heels for Ginny, they’d only been “official” for about a week. That was a little soon.

“What’s got you thinking about this?” she asked trying to understand.

Ginny turned a deeper shade of pink and looked at her hands. “A bunch of things, really. The war. I know we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen, but I can’t help thinking that as soon as Harry leaves here, he going to go looking for Voldemort or something. To try and end it. And, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve loved him forever, and now that we’re together, I just, sometimes I feel like my guts are just going to…to.. explode!” She threw her arms up to demonstrate.

“And, I just don’t want to, maybe, lose him and never know what that’s like with him!” Hermione gasped. It was an unspoken, and very strict, rule to never suggest that Harry might not win.

“Hermione, I can’t pretend that it’s not a possibility. Anyway, I just want to give that to him. And who knows, maybe it will help. And, God, Mione, I love him so much!” Hermione was reminded of her sex and love philosophy that she’d spouted to Malfoy only last week. She didn’t think Ginny would care to hear it.

“Don’t you ever, you know, think about it?” Ginny asked quietly. Hermione thought of her fantasy a week ago. Who was she kidding? There had been many repeat performances of that particular scenario in the space of just one week.

Had it really been only a week?

Her near-fatal snake bite and subsequent rescue via Malfoy.
Ron’s engagement and getting drunk with Malfoy.
Following commands to repeat naughty words that Malfoy whispered in her ear.
Waking up in the iron tug of Malfoy.
Her shoulder being licked, kissed and bit by Malfoy.
Wanking to fantasies of Malfoy.
Spending hours, silently, in the HCR with Malfoy.
Spending the last eight! nights alone with Malfoy.

Malfoy! Malfoy! Malfoy!

Maybe she needed to spend some time away from the HCR for a while.

“Of course, I think about it.” She answered, treading carefully. Hermione may know a lot about many things, but sex was not on the list. Yet. She knew most girls dreamed of happily ever after, and love at first sight, and true love, and “the one”, but she wasn’t one of them. Ginny, she suspected, was. “I know everyone thinks I’m a prude, but I’m not afraid to have sex, or anything, I’m not holding out for my wedding night…I just don’t know who I’d want to do that with. You’ve got Harry, so naturally, you’d think of him.”

Ginny got a mischievous grin on her face. “Mione, you know there are a lot of guys here who have a thing for you. How come you never go out with any of them?”

A dark blur whizzed past the dorm window making both girls turn their heads. Hermione climbed off the bed and went over to the watery window. The Quidditch captains were all making up for lost time despite the rain. Slytherin had the pitch at the moment. In another hour, Ginny would be out there with Harry and the Gryffindor team. She spotted Draco facing towards the castle, hovering near the goal posts. She let out a resigned sigh.

“Oh Gin, I don’t know. None of them interest me.” She leaned on the window frame, weary of this topic her friends kept bringing up, and watched Draco. “Can you honestly see me trying to have a real conversation with Terry or, God, Seamus, or that simpering Hufflepuff?” She grimaced and then looked back at Ginny.

“Can you imagine your first time with one them? I bet the lot of them are virgins too. I think I might want someone experienced…” Hermione halted realizing Ginny could take that as an insult towards Harry, who was decidedly not experienced. Not as far as she knew anyway.

Ginny didn’t seem to notice though, and grinned wickedly. “Well, you do have the Slytherin Sex God at your disposal. You can’t get much more experienced then that! You could be part of his tutoring program.” She giggled.

“Ginny!” Hermione squealed and reached for a pillow to smack her with. The girls fell into a fit of laughter and flying pillows.

**************************************************

Sunday afternoon was as soggy as the day before. It felt like the grayness was blurring the days of the week together. Draco held practice right after breakfast and the team grumbled unhappily. Even Draco was a little sorry for it as his muscles ached and he was utterly exhausted. He climbed into his bath, closed his eyes and thought about Harry Potter.

After practice on Saturday, Draco was lost in thought, trying to devise a scheme to help Goyle learn to better anticipate where he needed to be, when he almost ran over Potter where the Gryffindor team was waiting to take the pitch.

“Malfoy.” Potter nodded to him in greeting. Draco was caught off guard, which he loathed, and examined the black haired captain. Potter raised his brows slightly under the obvious scrutiny and gave Malfoy a small smile. “Your team seems to be shaping up nicely. Sanders was a good addition.”

It was true. The fifth year Slytherin girl was a brilliant goalkeeper. Draco made an odd face. “Yeah. Thanks.” He said, pushing the words out as if they might turn around and bite his nose. He quickly walked away, feeling like the ground had just titled sideways.

Then, this morning, at breakfast, he could feel eyes on him and looked up to see Potter staring at him intensely, his brows drawn in a giant question mark.

Draco ordered up some Epsom salts to help ease his muscles. He knew what he had to do. What he wanted to do. He just wasn’t sure he could. He’d known for two years now, that he was unequivocally against the dark. But to say that he, a Malfoy, was with the light, with Potter, well, that was another matter. Most people assumed he already had the Dark Mark, though it wasn’t something anyone talked about. Not even the sons and daughters of Death Eaters talked about it. He had managed to be ambiguous about it all this time, but it felt like his time had run out.

**************************************************

After lunch on Sunday Draco found Granger on the couch with her legs tucked under her, nose in a book. He set his bag by the comfy chair and summoned Dobby for a hot chocolate before dropping into the squashy leather.

On Monday Hermione studied on the couch and Draco moved to the chair as soon as his Potions essay was completed.

Tuesday the desks were abandoned altogether.

Wednesday morning Ron convinced Hermione to hang out with them in the Gryffindor common room that evening, stating that he missed his bookworm friend and was getting jealous of her books. Hermione was touched by the sentiment that was groggily backed up by Harry and enthusiastically seconded by Ginny and Lavender, and she readily agreed.

Thursday, Draco scowled at her occasionally from his chair when she wasn’t looking. His mood went perfectly with the weather.

The winter holiday was still a fair way off, but as everything else was practically running itself and there was little else to discuss, a poll was taken at Friday’s prefect meeting to determine which prefects would be staying at Hogwarts and who would be going home. It was a very short meeting.

Draco was over his little snit from the evening before, and he and Hermione sat comfortably reading late into the night. Hermione’s mind wandered and her book was forgotten, laying open in her lap as she stared into the fire. She wanted to ask Draco why he was here every night with her. She knew how popular he was in his own house and wondered if they were missing him. If they asked him. But, she was also afraid to break the spell. If she brought it up, would he stop coming every night just to prove her wrong? So, she asked a safer question. “Safer” was debatable.

“Malfoy…”

“Hmmm?” he responded without looking up from his paperback.

“Are you going home for the holiday?”

He looked up then and let his hand and the book drop into his lap. His clear grey eyes stared hard at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Hermione started to think that breaking the spell might be have been safer after all.

“No.” he finally said in a tone that suggested this was a closed topic and lifted his book back up to his face.

Now it was Hermione’s turn to stare, for her, at the jacket of his book. A tiny line formed between her brows and she pursed her lips slightly. In her mind, she was running through a litany of questions she was dying to ask him, rewording and reorganizing them over and over, rapidly trying to figure out how to phrase even one so that he wouldn’t retreat.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that just yet.” His voice from behind his book, was quiet and somber.

Hermione’s stomach flipped at the opening he was giving her. Her heart rate might have sped up just a little. “Do you think you will ever go back?”

The paperback was tossed onto the floor near his bag as Draco leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his hands over his face. Was he really going to have this conversation? Now? With her?

“Yes. Eventually. The Manor belongs to me now and I’ve been doing what I can to make sure it’s well tended. The Malfoys have not always been the most…” he searched for the right word, “honorable of people, but there is a lot of history at Malfoy Manor. Wizarding history. Too much to forget about. And there has been some good done too, though I doubt many bother to remember that.” Draco looked off into the fire here, lost in some thought or maybe a memory.

It was a little strange to hear Malfoy, of all people, talk about honor. And the Malfoys’ honor, at that, or lack there of. Hermione thought she should maybe say something in reply, but couldn’t think of anything appropriate, or accurate anymore, so she just watched him openly and waited. After a while, he sighed and turned back to her.

“My mother loved to sit in the conservatory. It was full of plants she picked up traveling after my father went to Azkaban. She loved plants. And flowers.” He trailed off.

“She must have been great at Herbology when she was at school.” Hermione offered.

“She was alright. I think her love of plants came later. But she was brilliant at potions. She could have given Snape a run for his money. They knew each other, you know.”

“I didn’t. From school?”

“From my father. Snape would come over, and he and my mum would get into long debates over some potion and ignore everyone else.” Draco gave a half grin and a small chuckle. “Pissed my dad off to no end.” He had enjoyed those times.

Hermione smiled in response to Draco’s smile.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Going home Granger. Keep up.” Draco quirked an eyebrow and his mouth looked like it might smirk. She flushed a little.

“No.”

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Thanks to chickacherrycola LadyBlueEyes, tootsie, and Raerianna for the love!

Dreamweaver
I am totally going to borrow your mantra. My husband said me to yesterday, “I can’t believe you have a crush on a fictional character!” Gah! It’s so embarrassing. But, but, but…he’s wonderful. Other than being pathetically attracted to him physically in real life, I don’t think I could deal with his moody, angsty, snarkyness. I like ‘em like my man: happy, enthusiastic, passionate. Okay, Draco is passionate, I’ll give him that much. Wow, am I rambling. Thank you again for sharing with me! I luvs it!

luv2cusmile
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the story so far. Yes, it’s a rather slow build up, but hopefully will have an explosive climax. (Eee gads, I apologize for the bad pun…)

Forever His
Awwww. Thanks!

jessysgirl
Holy crap, Thank you!
(yeah, that made me smile)