In The Arms of an Angel

The next morning Hermione woke up to find a sleeping Draco curled up against her, his arm draped over her side, his hand hanging loosely above her stomach, and his impressive morning wood pressed against her backside. She liked the feeling of safety that his being there gave her; she could count on one hand the amount of times she'd woken up with a man in her bed this way and it always made her content whether there had been sex involved or not.

She gingerly crept away, careful not to wake him up before going to her bathroom to get ready for the day. When she came out a half hour later, a towel wrapped around her body and another around her hair, it was to find Draco awake and staring at the ceiling. "Hey," she said as she picked up her wand to place a sticking charm to the towel on her body.

"Hey," he responded as he turned to watch her bend over and rub the second towel all over her hair. When it was mostly dry but still damp she brushed it out and liberally applied an anti-frizz serum from the root to the tip of her hair. Once that was done she pulled out a bottle of frizz-controlling hair spray for curly hair that left no trace of being there, other than the lack of frizz. When she finished with that she brought the towel to her hair once more to dry away the excess product and put it all up in a loose bun.

"That's a lot of effort to put into your hair," Draco remarked with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

She turned around to mock-glare as she answered, "So you're telling me that Draco Malfoy has never spent any amount of time primping his hair?"

"Not for at least a couple of years," he told her in all seriousness.

She rolled her eyes at him, "That would be about when I started."

"So, do you make it a habit of wearing jewelry in the shower?"

"What? Oh, yes," she answered as she touched the pendant of a lion that fell from her neck, "I've charmed this necklace to never fall off of my neck or allow anyone to take it off."

"The Gryffindor lion means that much to you, Hermione?" he asked with a slight sneer, his dislike for the house having never totally left him.

"No, the charms that I put on it mean that much to me." Draco gave her a confused look, so she told him the rest after a deep sigh. "Ron and Harry each have a similar chain and an identical pendant. Each pendant is charmed so that if one of us is in mortal danger the pendant's of the other two of us will heat up to warn us and we can apparate directly to whichever one of us is in trouble."

"Really? That's some pretty impressive magic, Hermione. Have you needed them before?"

"Yes, we have," she answered quietly as she turned to rummage through her wardrobe to find some clothes for the day.

Draco had the urge to go to her and hold on to her and kiss the expanse of her bare neck and shoulders to comfort her, but he didn't give in to it, the state of the lower half of his body making him not want to leave the relative safety of the blankets. Also, he wasn't sure if she would welcome such a bold move.

When she had decided what to wear she placed the clothes on the chair in front of her vanity and flopped on the bottom of her bed as he mentally cursed the sticking charm that kept the towel closed. She looked up the bed at him, a sly smile creeping over her face, "You know, Draco, you can't get showered and ready for a day of shopping by sitting in my bed all day."

He gave her a calculating look before deciding that she knew exactly why he had yet to leave the bed. He replied, "I never agreed to this shopping you speak of. But if I were to go with you how would we be getting there?"

"Portkey... the entire floo system is being monitored closely and I don't think I can apparate all the way to America."

"But if the floo is being monitored wouldn't portkeys be as well?"

"I never said that it would be a legal portkey."

"What! No, Hermione, I am not going to let you create an illegal portkey so I can get some new clothes."

"And a wand."

"Or a wand." She looked up to him, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling. "Hermione, I said no."

She scrunched up her face at him and he couldn't help but think how adorable she was. "But Draaaaacooo," she whined.

He immediately covered his ears, "Stop it right now, Hermione. You're giving me horrible flashbacks to Pansy right now."

In an instant her face went rigid and she glared at him. "Don't you ever compare me to that bitch," she told him, her voice low and menacing.

He looked at her shocked for a moment, having not expected such a violent reaction, before he decided modesty be damned and crawled down the bed to where she was still laying down on her back. He sat on her upper thighs where the towel ended, his still hard length tenting the pajamas he was wearing. He leaned onto one hand resting next to her right shoulder while his left hand caressed her face. "I'm sorry if I said something wrong, I was just kidding," he told her.

She turned her face away from his touch. He rested his forehead on the side of her face, his breath tickling her ear, "Come on, Hermione. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Draco, there are things that have happened since you've been gone, and not many of them are good. When everyone thought you died, Pansy went kind of crazy. She blamed you for your death instead of Voldemort and joined his ranks, lock, stock and bond. Your Aunt Bellatrix became her idol. She Crucio'd Crabbe to insanity for not helping you complete your task. She tried to go after Goyle but he killed her first. So now Crabbe is in St. Mungo's and Goyle was treated to the Kiss. It happened at Hogwarts; there was more than enough evidence to convict him." She didn't move once while she told him the news of his childhood friends.

He froze in shock for a minute. Crabbe and Goyle had never really been his friends; they had been told to stay by his side by their fathers who were afraid of his father, but as much as the girl had annoyed him, he had cared for Pansy. He wasn't in love with her the way he knew she was with him, but she was the closest thing he had had to a friend. It was hard to grasp what she had become, but he could see how it was possible. He was sadder for the loss of the girl he had known than for who Hermione said she had become; if it was the case it was probably better for her to not be around. "In that case, I'm sorry that I compared the two of you, I know that is something you would never do," he leaned into her even further, kissing the pulse point underneath her ear.

She turned her face and caught his dry but no longer horribly cracked lips with her own soft ones for a light kiss. She said, "Go get ready. We're going shopping."

"Hermione," he sighed.

"Not to New York. I'll glamourize the both of us and we'll go to muggle London. You won't get a wand, but you'll at least have some clothes of your own."

He closed his eyes slowly, "I suppose that's alright."

"Good," she told him as she pushed him off of her, "Now go. I need to get dressed and I'll make some breakfast."

Before they left on their excursion an hour later Hermione made sure to leave a note in the potions room next to the simmering Wolfsbane, knowing that Snape would be by soon and not wanting to worry him.

They spent the entire day out, having much more fun than Draco had anticipated. He had been in London for a while now but this was the first time he had been clean and semi-respectable looking. Hermione had fun buying him a new wardrobe, even if at least half of her suggestions were vetoed and he had convinced her to buy herself some new things. They talked about almost everything, with Draco telling stories of the time he spent at the Granger's and Hermione filling him in on everything that had been going on in the wizarding world over the past two years. He had been much more upset to hear of Pansy's downfall than when he was told of the death of his father not less than two weeks previous, having been "accidentally" kissed shortly after Draco's failure in the Astronomy Tower.

When they got home Hermione took off their glamours and sent Draco up with all the packages to sort out while she went to the kitchen to start dinner. She went into the room only to find a tall black haired young man eating a sandwich at her table. She smiled at him as he looked up at her and the next thing she knew he was spinning her around the room in a tight hug. When he put her down it was so that she was sitting on one of the countertops with him standing between her legs. He rested his hands on the junction of her legs so that his thumbs were right at her groin area while the palms of his hands were spread out over the sides of her ass.

When he leaned in to kiss her, she turned her face and asked, "Where's Ron?"

"The Burrow; he'll be here in a few hours. You know Molly would skin him alive if she wasn't the first person to see him back," answered Harry, as he nuzzled her neck, nipping at her ear.

She braced her hands against his chest and gently pushed him away from her. "Harry, we can't do this anymore. We talked about it."

"But he doesn't have a clue."

"And it's going to stay that way. We agreed, Harry. It's just better for everyone if this stops."

"It's not better for me. I want you, ‘Mione, and I know you want me, too.”

She sighed as she rested her head where his throat and chest met before pulling away and gently banging her head against the spot like it was a proverbial brick wall. "Harry, you're just listening to your sex drive, not your brain. You are a great friend and a great lover. You deserve someone who will give you their all. Even if circumstances were different I could never be that person for you. As it is Ron won't give up his crush on me no matter how much I try and dissuade him. If he found out about us, he would hate you. Sure, he'd eventually get over it, but in the meantime what would you do without him? We're not in Hogwarts anymore and you need to know you can trust him and count on him. Go find yourself a nice girl to love who will love you back."

"Don't you even think about bringing Ginny into this discussion." Hermione held up her hands in defeat on the subject of Ginny. "Hermione, I'm not looking for anything you aren't willing to give me. I just want you. In your bed, in the shower, on that table, I'm not too particular. Come on, the house is empty, it's just you and me here and we should put the time alone to good use."

At those words her head snapped up and she looked over Harry's shoulder to meet eyes with Draco, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs. His face had reverted back to his Malfoy Mask, but she was sure that she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Draco cleared his throat as he walked into the room and Hermione's hands flew up to keep Harry looking at her. "Now, Harry, I want you to remember that no one can enter this house without being invited. When you turn around you are going to see someone that we all thought was dead. But I trust him, and Remus and Severus have accepted him, and I hope you do the same."

Hermione let go of Harry, and he spun around to see who was interrupting him, only to slump back against her. "Malfoy?" he asked.

"Potter," Draco acknowledged as he moved steadily into the kitchen, his eyes fixated upon the two.

"You're not dead?"

"Obviously."

"But ... but ... how?" Harry stuttered.

"I'd rather not talk about it at the moment."

Hermione decided that the mounting tension, though mostly between Draco and herself, was becoming too much so she pushed Harry forward enough so she could hop off of the counter. She went over to the fridge and started pulling out food to make dinner with. Both Harry and Draco moved towards her to help.

"So Ron's coming here in a few hours? Do you know if he's planning on sleeping here or at the Burrow because Draco's in your room? So if Ron's staying here, someone will either have to share or stay on the couch."

"I believe he's planning on staying here ... we've got a lot to talk to you about."

"Good or bad?"

"Neither."

She nodded her head, still not facing either man as she went about the kitchen. "Then you three will have to discuss sleeping arrangements amongst yourselves, though I imagine it would make more sense to let Draco stay where he is and you and Ron double up if we're going to be up late."

Draco was quiet over most of the meal, listening to Harry and Hermione talk amicably, only being drawn into their conversation a couple of times. The majority of the time he spent dwelling upon what he had walked in on earlier. He hadn't heard any of their conversation but their body language told a story of two people who were comfortable with each other on every level.

From the way they had been acting since he had arrived, had he not been privy to that little scene he would believe they had the same relationship as always, but he had seen it and now it was nagging him in the pit of his stomach.

Draco had known by the second month he had been with Hermione's parents that he would never see her the same, if he ever actually saw her again. He may have been the rich pureblood while he had always believed her to be a poor (as all muggles were poor) mudblood; what he learned was that she had grown up with everything he never had. Two parents, who supported her in everything she did and were proud of her no matter what she chose to do. They may not have had the money he did growing up, but they were never lacking for anything.

By the time they had died he had heard so many stories of her growing up that he felt like he really knew her despite the fact that he had never really said a nice word to her once in his life. He had found a couple of her old diaries and after a couple weeks of internal fighting had read them. They were from the first five years at Hogwarts, as well as a couple of years before she found out that she was a witch. He had never realized how much he hurt her when he called her a mudblood or when so many others made fun of her as a know-it-all. He had started to feel compassion for her and ended up caring for her. It was more in an abstract sort of way like how one cares about the well being of an acquaintance; you don't want anything to happen to them and you'll be sad if it does, but you'll get over it fast enough.

But then he had met her again, only two days before. She was just like her parents, so warm and inviting, when given no reason to be nice to him. He had felt immediately at ease with her and opened his soul to her. It had felt good to get all of his emotions out. He really had been shocked at her reaction to him telling her of her parents and it endeared her to him even more. After years of looking down upon her and then a couple more years of understanding and compassion he now found that in two days he wanted her. He wanted to be there for her, he wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to have intelligent conversations with her the way he could no one else, barring Severus. He wanted to be the one she went to when she was upset, to be the one she went to when she was happy. He wanted to be hers as he wanted for her to be his.

And now there was Potter to contend with.

Suddenly there was a hand in front of his face, fingers snapping. "Draco?" Hermione's concerned voice questioned.

"Hmmm?" he asked, being pulled away from his thought train.

"We're going to go to the living room and watch the telly. Do you want to come?"

"Yeah, let me just clean up my plate."

Harry's face registered shock. First he found out that Malfoy was alive, and then for the man to help make dinner and clean up his dishes? He was living in bizarro world. He must be having a dream; a dream in which Hermione turns him down and Malfoy shows up from the dead. Okay, so it wasn't a dream.

He went into the living room where Hermione had chosen to sit in a chair and he assumed it was so she wouldn't have to sit next to him, not that he would try and make any advances on her with Malfoy in the room. Though, he didn't know when Malfoy had come into the kitchen, so there could be trouble there if the blond still had issues with him. It wouldn't do to have him go and blab to Ron. He would have to have a talk with him about it. But if he did, and Malfoy knew nothing he sure as hell would then. So he would leave it to Hermione to control. Over lunch Hermione had told him, with a small amount of help from Malfoy, how she had come across him and taken him in. When Harry had asked where the scar came from the other man had sidestepped the question. Harry shook his head, trying to get his thoughts to stop and instead focused on the screen on front of him.

When Draco entered the room, he looked around and opted to sit in the chair opposite Hermione. And so the three sat watching the television set in front of them, awaiting Ron's arrival.


* yup, so as always, thanks go out to the lovely heather for her beta skills. also thanks to donovan (yeah, i can't even smell sausage without feeling queasy, so i dont know if its an american sausage thing or just a suasage thing, lol), sheedy, crescentmoon, skydancer (it is stuffed pepper soup. i dont eat peppers, but my mom makes it and its really good. you have a few cans of tomato soup, in which you cook peppers that are stuffed with hamburger, rice and corn. yummy!) and to rpkathera for reviewing. see you again in three days with the next update!