A Real Edge

Draco sat watching her from across the Great Hall. They had stopped experimenting with what butterflies soft kissing could create and had walked up to the castle with his arm slung warmly, possessively, finally over her shoulders. They were going to have dinner before studying for their last exam. He’d asked her to eat with him, but she wanted to “break it gently to Harry and Ron,” as she’d said with a kiss.

She looked up, smiled, and Draco felt those dark brown eyes melt his insides. Harry and Ron did not look particularly surprised by anything she’d been saying.

“Hey! Hey, Malfoy,” he was suddenly jarred back to reality. It was Blaise. Blaise was grinning and holding a great fat book, like he’d just gotten back from the library.

“Yes?” Draco asked.

“So, how’d it go?” Blaise smirked. “Went well, didn’t it? I told you.”

Draco stared at Blaise for a moment, taking in the face that was so like his own, but with the minor faults of being darker and less aristocratic. If Blaise was this excited about it, why shouldn’t he be? Draco grinned back at Blaise. “Ya,” he said, smacking Blaise’s shoulder in an uncharacteristic display of brotherly affection. “It went well. You told me.”

Blaise grinned mischievously back at Draco for a moment. Then, he said, “well?”

“Well, what?” Draco asked, narrowing his eyes but unable to suppress his smile.

Blaise kept leering at him, his smile now shaped by incredulity and his eyebrow rising suggestively. “Well, you know, did you guys…kiss?”

Draco smirked confidently at Blaise. “We might have.”

“So, did you get any-”

“Blaise,” Draco scoffed accusingly. “You’re supposed to be her friend.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want details,” Blaise grinned.

“Well, as much as your horny little mind revels in that kind of detail, I’m not going to give it to you,” Draco said decisively.

Then Draco turned, to continue studying Hermione from across the Hall, and in the same moment, Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode plopped irritatingly across from him, blocking his view. “Draco,” Pansy pouted. “Is what Blaise saying true? About you and the Mudblood?”

Draco noticed Millicent -- who may not have been half as attractive, but certainly had twice the amount of tact -- nudge Pansy solidly in the side. Millicent looked at Draco apologetically. He knew Pansy wasn’t trying to be malicious, not entirely. She had learned months ago not to insult Hermione Granger. Except for the occasional slip, Draco had been the only person to use the word for ages. “Parkinson,” he sighed heavily, “I’ve told you countless times not to call her that.”

“Old habits die hard, don’t they Draco?” Blaise asked waspishly.

Draco turned on Blaise. “I used it as a term of endearment, all right?”

“How sweet,” Blaise teased sardonically.

“So it’s true?” persisted Pansy.

“Yes, it’s true,” confirmed Draco.

“Does this mean the two of you will finally stop taking over our common room?” Millicent asked peevishly. “Your screaming has been so loud I’ve had to study for N.E.W.T.s in my room. I hope you’re prepared to hire me as a personal Healer if I don’t make enough N.E.W.T.s to get in at St. Mungo’s.”

“We do not scream,” Draco spat disgustedly.

“Sure,” said Millicent. “So you’ll finally leave? Maybe go up to the Astronomy Tower?” She and Blaise started sniggering while Draco glared at each of them in turn.

“Actually,” Draco drawled pleasantly. “I’ve got Hermione coming down tonight. Arithmancy exam, you know, last of Hogwarts.”

“Aw,” simpered Pansy, “the two lovebirds are so romantic.”

“Shove it,” Draco said simply. Instead of just craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Hermione, as he had been throughout the conversation, Draco actually stood up so he could see above Pansy and Millicent.

“What is it?” Blaise asked.

“She’s not there,” Draco answered. He scanned the Gryffindor table. Her seat was empty but Harry and Ron were still there, talking and eating voraciously. “Where is she? Were you three purposefully distracting me?”

Blaise stared at Draco for a moment. “She probably just went down to the dungeons. Arithmancy, remember?”

“Well, I’d better get down there too,” Draco said, getting up to go.

“What?” Blaise drawled with a sly grin. “Not going to get any studying in before you meet her to, you know, get an edge?”

“Ya, right,” Draco returned, and walked swiftly away from the Slytherin table, out of the Great Hall, and down toward the dungeons. He walked through the common room and toward his private room, to get ready for when Hermione came. Draco pulled the door open silently and froze. It was like twenty fantasies coming true at once.

Hermione was lying on his bed, her outer-robes gone. She was lounging in her comfortably-fitting uniform. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling toward the far wall, obviously not expecting company anytime soon. Draco understood why she was there, lying on his bed. He would have done the exact same thing if he’d been waiting for an indeterminate amount of time in her room. He might even have done it before today, before those words and kisses that had changed everything. Still, understanding why she was reveling in such personal territory, and enjoying the situation, judging by the serene smile on her lips, did not keep Draco from being completely stunned and mesmerized.

The loosened tie -- everyone had wanted to look sharp for the exam proctors -- that rested around her throat contrasted strongly with the covers on his bed. The colors, red and green, were complementary, but red seemed so foreign in his room. Then, Draco’s eyes were drawn to far more interesting things.

Hermione stretched.

His eyes traveled down the length of her body, from that wild hair sprawling across his pillows, over her chest and torso, and down to her feet. His eyes settled on her toes. Her stocking-clad feet were drawing all of his attention. Her shoes were sitting neatly on the ground near the bed and as Draco watched, her toes curled. Her toes curled and her feet rubbed against each other as she stretched. He could hear the soft brushing of cotton. Draco suddenly had twenty more fantasies blazing toward the front of his mind. It was like whatever tension she’d released by rubbing those little feet together had jumped across the room, straight to his groin.

He watched, utterly fascinated, as she settled again, her body relaxing after the stretch. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice was saying Stop gawking, you idiot! You must look like Neville Longbottom, seeing a girl for the first time. For God’s sake, you’ve seen girls naked before this, so shove your eyes and tongue back in your damn head! But it was no use. The only word the rest of his brain had heard was naked.

He watched, still fascinated, but with growing horror, as Hermione’s eyelids opened slowly. She smiled at the wall for a second before he caught her eye. She stared at him and then shot up into a sitting position, her blissful smile gone and her cheeks reddening furiously. “Oh God, I’m sorry Draco,” she mumbled quickly. “I just got carried away and I thought you were busy talking to your friends. I decided to wait for you in your room because I’d never actually been in here before…” she trailed off. She stared at him more closely, seeming to recalculate the expression he was wearing. Draco knew she must be noticing the heat in his face. He managed to get his mouth shut before she said, sounding rather pleased, “You were ogling me, weren’t you?”

Draco did not answer. He closed the door, walked over, and joined her on the bed, pulling off his shoes and throwing off his outer-robes as well. He drew close to her, sitting cross-legged on his bed.

“Tell me how it is you managed to get your own room when you aren’t even Head Boy,” Hermione demanded suddenly.

“We Slytherins,” he drawled softly, taking hold of one of her hands, “know how to get what we want.” He held her hand up to his mouth, kissed her palm, and then grabbed her chin to bring her mouth to his. They kissed just as softly as they had outside, in the warm summer air, and even though they were now in the dank cold of the windowless dungeon, when her tongue flicked across his upper lip, Draco felt himself growing just as warm as he had been outside.

He drew away, just to pull off her tie and unbutton her shirt slowly, enjoying the half-hidden view of her light skin, just a barely noticeable shade darker than his own, and a practical skin-toned bra. Draco leaned in and pushed the shirt down, letting his mouth graze smoothly over her shoulder to the curve of her neck. He felt her head fall to the side, allowing his lips room to apply more pressure to the spot. Draco pulled away again, reached down into his pocket and then pointed his wand at her. With a flick, her shirt and bra went soaring away from her body, to the desk in one corner of his room.

After a long moment, Draco drug his eyes away from perfectly formed breasts -- every bit as perfect as how he’d often imagined them -- and the little peaks that were hardening despite the fact that the air of his dungeon room had been growing steadily warmer, to see how she was reacting. Hermione’s face was flushed, but not with embarrassment.

It seemed that there was only one reason she had barely moved since he had been deliberately undressing her. She was waiting for her turn. The moment he brought his eyes to hers, she pressed her mouth hard against his, kissing him more forcefully than he’d ever kissed her. Draco pulled her in tightly, feeling his body respond as she drew his lower lip into her mouth. His arms tightened more and more, and he’d probably have been crushing her if her arms hadn’t been between them. He felt her fingers moving desperately against his shirt, pulling off his tie and trying to unbutton the very first button.

She wasn’t accomplishing much. She seemed to be having a difficult time dividing her attention between his shirt and his lips, which she had begun to nip at with so little control that Draco winced in pain, so he loosened his grip around her, to help with the buttons. The moment he gave her that small bit of space, Hermione stopped attacking his mouth, took a firm grip of the collars, and yanked his shirt open. Buttons went popping off, some pinging against her chest before falling to the bed.

“Hermione, what the…” devil has gotten into you, he had wanted to say, but stopped when Hermione, tugging his shirt out of the way, had risen slightly, and pressed herself against him. He could feel nipples poking into his chest and pressure against a very alert part of himself as she lowered her body back down, taking a seat on his lap.

“Draco,” she breathed, smiling down at him (with her on his lap, she was now slightly taller) “if there’s one thing I’ve learned at Hogwarts, it’s when not to ask questions.” With that, she kissed him again, this time shoving her tongue into his mouth to run along the bottom of his front teeth. Draco grew agonizingly hard when she squirmed a bit, readjusting as she curved her back to reach his neck. She began biting there, with even less restraint than she’d used earlier. Draco hissed in pain when he felt her teeth break his skin.

Quite suddenly, he pushed her away from him, pushed her down into the bed so she was lying as she’d been when he’d first entered the room. “You need to calm down,” he growled, touching the place on his neck. His fingertip came away slightly bloody. “Or you’ll pay,” he grinned down at her. She smiled predatorily back up at him, watching intently as he wiped the blood off on his pants and grabbed his wand, which had been sitting just beside him. Another flick and her skirt and panties had slid off and were flung into the corner, along with the rest of his clothes.

Draco took a brief moment to appreciate her, lying almost completely naked on his bed, before settling slowly on top of her. He pushed his knees between her legs, giving himself better access. Then, her eyes widened and she took a sharp breath of air as he slid down and something hard bumped against her lower belly. When his eyes were level with hers, he watched her get nervous for the first time as he pressed against the inside of her thigh. Hermione looked up at him, the muscles in her jaw tense and her brown eyes wide, clearly saying first time. “You’ve got to be careful,” she said quietly.

“Of course,” Draco whispered. Suspicion about her lack of experience had been the entire bloody reason he hadn’t been more aggressive than she had. He let himself relax against her but put most of his weight on one elbow and began brushing his fingers across her body. He started with her face, pushing the hair back from her forehead and running his fingertips over her lips. Then he moved down to her breasts, tracing the curves where they met her torso, cupping them, brushing a weathered thumb across their peaks.

Hermione’s breathing had grown steadily shallower as she’d begun to wiggle around, sorely trying Draco’s patience. “Draco, would you please hurry,” she asked frantically.

“If you insist,” Draco said at the same time as he his slid his hand down lower, across her belly and between her legs. As his fingers found her dampness and the spot that made her stop wiggling, made her reach up and lock her arms around his back as those still-stocking-ed feet rubbed persistently against the backs of his legs, he knew she was ready. He positioned himself, evening his weight back onto two elbows and then broke into the first layer of pain very, very slowly.

For a few seconds, Hermione didn’t move at all. She didn’t breathe or flinch or even blink. Her eyes were as wide as he’d ever seen them and her pupils seemed strangely dilated, even for the dark of the dungeon. When he pushed a little deeper, she blinked up at the ceiling and gasped. He could feel her hands clenching and unclenching against his back.

He waited, just halfway to being completely enveloped, forcing himself to focus completely on her face, not on the desperate urge to follow her earlier instructions and hurry. “Hermione-”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she gasped shortly, her words choppy as she began panting a little. “Just give me a second,” and after a few seconds passed, she blinked a few times and fixed her eyes on his.

Draco could feel her body gradually relaxing around his. Her legs wrapped more firmly around him, encouraging him. He drove in slowly, drove in all the way, watching Hermione’s eyes. Her face was taught with pain but she was braving it, trying to focus on him. Draco froze for a moment, giving her time to adjust and finally letting himself fully enjoy the feeling of being wrapped completely in Hermione -- from her legs around his hips to his lips, as he bent to kiss her. She responded to his kiss, sliding her lips across his, letting him know she was ready for more. He pulled away, smiled down at her, and said “it only gets better from here.”

He pulled out of her and began pushing slowly in again when Hermione suddenly thrust upwards, lifting herself slightly above the bed. “I thought I told you to hurry,” she said, smirking up at him.

Draco needed no further encouragement. He began pumping into her, at a moderate pace at first, while he was still able to control himself. But Hermione soon grew aggressive as she had been when she’d bitten him bloody. Draco felt his control slipping as her hand reached down his back, cupping his arse, felt his control slip even more when she began kissing him fiercely, all along his chin and throat. He shoved a hand down between them, to help her along if she needed it, because he knew he would be finished soon when she started whispering his name urgently. But Draco lost all control, began slamming into her without restraint, when he felt those stocking-ed toes curl against him.

He came just after her, hoarsely calling her name, and slumping against her. He whispered -- he didn’t know what -- against her shoulder for a while, as her fingers clasped loosely together at the base of his neck. He let the pleasure sweep through his body, leaving him feeling utterly exhausted. Finally, he withdrew, and flopped onto his back, pressing his side snuggly against hers, letting her use his shoulder as a cushion.

Draco closed his eyes and listened to Hermione turning on her side, to study him. He felt the corners of his lips twitch upward, knowing that those dark eyes must be gazing at him intently. He felt her rustle around a bit on the sweaty sheets of his bed and felt her chest swell a little as she took a breath to say “you see, this is just another example of what we leave to house-elves to clean up.”

Draco grinned in spite himself. This was so real, to have her complaining about those damn house-elves at such a time. He opened his eyes and turned his head, looking into her very serious, very content face. He kissed her quickly, just a peck, and pulled her tighter against him. “I love you, Hermione.”