Celebrations

Title: Celebrations
Author: Cowbell630
Summary: The aftermath of the final war and Draco and Hermione’s part in it.
Rating: R-NC17
Pairing(s): Draco/Hermione
Feedback: Greatly appreciated!!!
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!!


Chapter Two

Hermione woke up in a cold sweat. She could tell without turning around to face the window in her dormitory that the sun wasn’t up just yet.
Merlin, her head hurt! She’d get Ron back if it was the last thing she did.
She pulled herself out of bed, thanking her lucky stars that there were no classes today. There would probably be some sort of clean-up effort, though. The castle wasn’t destroyed by any means, but it had definitely earned its dents. There was a soft knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me.” Draco’s voice was muffled by the thick wood.
With a sick rush, the events of the night before came hurling back at her. She put her hand over her mouth with a soft “Oh!”
She must have stayed there for longer than she thought, because she soon heard,
“Granger? Are you alright?”
What could he possibly want?! She already felt like an absolute fool for letting those damned eyes of his drag her into that trap. Now that he’d added her to his list of conquests, she supposed he just wanted to gloat, or tease her. She couldn’t blame him, really.
“Come in.” She winced even as the words came out.
“Why don’t you open the door for me?” His tone was slightly suggestive, which infuriated her.
She stormed to the door, and flung it open, face contorted in anger and mouth already open to release her tirade, but his face just froze her up.
He was standing there, looking perfectly proud of himself, a goofy smile on his face. He held a tray, on which were pancakes, toast, eggs, a goblet of pumpkin juice, a small cup of coffee, two purple pills, and large pink calla lilies in a tall green vase. He was dressed, his hair was slicked back, and he smelled like spice.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “This is amazing,” she whispered, breathless.
Tears of embarrassment had already begun to well up in her eyes, now falling as tears of astonishment.
“Look, I wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn’t want you to think that last night…” His voice trailed off. It was the first time Hermione had seen him speechless since she’d slapped him in third year.
“Malfoy, everything’s fine.” She wove her hand through the air as if to swat away the emotion like a bug.
“Well, I knew you’d be hung over from last night… so I brought you some of my hangover pills,” he said, gesturing towards the purple pills with his head. “You might want to wash them down with the pumpkin juice, they’re rather big.” She smiled wanly, picking the pills up with the goblet in the other hand. She turned to go back into her room, motioning for him to follow her. He set the tray down on the desk, walking over to the girl sitting on the bed.
She tossed back the pills and set the goblet on her side table, grinning up at him as he came to stand in front of her.
“Are you alright?” He touched her face, and she was upset to feel herself want to flinch away.
“I’m fine, those are fantastic pills. Where did you get them?” He rolled his eyes at her.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Hermione. You know we can’t just pretend like last night didn’t happen.”
“It’s not that Malfoy, I mean I-”
“Listen… Hermione, I don’t want you to think that I took advantage of you last night… I know that you were smashed, but I was pretty smashed too, and I wanted to say that I’m sorry, because it wasn’t just something casual to me.. I just, I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
She was impressed at his apology. She was also surprised that she found comfort in his tone as he spoke.
“You don’t have to do that, Mal-.. Draco. It was mutual. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t do it right.” Now he was looking at her like she was an imbecile. It was quite unnerving. She looked at her feet.
“Hermione, you were perfect!” He took her face in his hands, tilting her head up to look at him. “I can’t believe you just said that! You were amazing…” He trailed off, his face a look of bafflement. Oh, but his lips looked soft. And he was dangerously close to her now.
The sun broke through her window as she leaped, wrapping her legs around his waist as she locked her lips to his. She could feel his erection, something she hadn’t counted on when she’d pounced, but considering all things, it wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to her.
His hands were firmly attached to her bottom. Ah, bliss unimaginable!
Draco felt dizzy as they held each other, realizing that if they kept this up, he wouldn’t be well convinced to leave the dorms for the next three days.
“Hermione,” he rasped, breaking away from her mouth, “we can’t do this.”
“What, so I’m only worth the trouble when you’re shit-faced?” She struggled with him until he set her down.
“Look, we need to help with the reconstruction. I mean, I know you’re hesitant to completely trust me, but give me some credit.”
Hermione felt incredibly stupid. After a muttered, “Sorry,” she made her way to their bathroom to shower.


Down in the Great Hall, it was obvious that hangover pills were not of common knowledge. The majority of the students had squinted eyes, and Neville was still a bit pink in the face.
There was a slight chill in the castle; the storm clouds forming outside were more than a slight threat of rain.
She looked briefly at Ron and Lavender. She had probably always known that she was too much for Ron- she’d annoyed him since first year, after all. She blamed her own selfishness for continuing their relationship- that and the weakness she felt after Dumbledore was murdered. If the entire world was falling apart around her, he was one thing she could cling to, now gone.
She still remembered when Draco had stumbled into the platform, looking very much the worse for wear.
*************************************************************
She was facing Ron, asking him a question when he’d arrived. ‘POP’ out of nowhere, and then there he was in her path. She was holding Ron’s hand, arms full of bags, and couldn’t move in time. Straight smack into Draco Malfoy she went.
There was blood in his hair, sweat on his brow and a wild look in his eyes.
“Malfoy? Malfoy, what happened to you?” Everyone was looking at him strangely, wizards were stopping mid walk to see what was wrong. The platinum hair was visible for yards.
“I- I don’t… It’s my father, he, he’s-” Hermione took Malfoy’s face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes.
“What? He what? Is he hurt?”
“He’s killed my mother.”
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, Ron, Harry and Hermione froze in horror.
“What?!” Hermione’s voice was taking on a hysterical edge. “Why?!”
“She… she didn’t want me to receive the Dark Mark. It’s all my fault, I tried to protect her-”
“Shh, it’s okay. Nothing’s your fault.” She looked wildly over to Harry, who had a grim look on his face.
Malfoy still looked dazed, so Hermione pulled his cloak tighter around him.
“Come on. Let’s get on the train.”
*************************************************************

She remembered with a very Malfoy-like smirk the way Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle looked at their group. She liked to imagine that the image of her comforting Draco was burned into Pansy’s mind.
She was in the hospital wing. She’d been too stupid to be hurt in the battle. She’d fallen a story onto the marble staircase below, forgetting the moving staircase in her rush to the Great Hall until she was midair. It would have been a simple task of mending her bones, if Crabbe and Goyle hadn’t been following her.
Ginny’s fingers snapped in her face, bringing her gaze to her sharp golden eyes.
“Bugger Hermione, snap out of it!”
“Sorry! What?”
“The professors are doing most of the repairs. They just want us to help clean up… wanna tackle the greenhouses with me?”
“Yeah, alright. Who else is coming?”
“Oh, it’s just us, darling. Just us.” Hermione made a face at Ginny as she was dragged out of the castle and towards the three greenhouses.

“Mermaid piss! Hermione, the bubotuber’s blown up on me! Can you finish while I go to Madame Pomfrey?”
“Er, of course, Ginny…” Hermione trailed off, a disgusted eye fixed on Ginny’s hand, which was blistering with pus-filled boils.
Pus was NOT her thing.
She turned back to the accident, using a scouring charm to clean up the mess. She went around the greenhouse reparing glass, getting rid of dirt, and upturning and reparing ceramic pots.
She never could do domestic charms well… there was dirt on her face, and the sweat from being in a greenhouse made the dirt on her face mud. The humidity ravaged her hair, and passing by a stray pane of glass, she squeaked in surprise, thinking it was someone else.
“Oh, bugger this!” She said angrily, storming out of the last greenhouse.