Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Long Term	By : ara51089 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 3400 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter; all is copyright to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this fanfiction.

Chapter List
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AN: So while chapter one was mostly expository set up, chapter two goes back to give us the real story. After this, most of chapter three is done but it might take me a few days to get finished up and posted. Hope you enjoy

Chapter Two

“Ron, darling, really, it’s not that big a deal,” Hermione insisted, taking the kettle off the burner, “We work in the same department now but we hardly ever cross paths.”

“I still don’t like it,” Ron said stubbornly, polishing off his plate of sausage and potatoes, “Malfoy’s always been a prat. What if he tries something?”

“Ronald, please,” Hermione chastised gently as she sat and poured them both tea, “we all graduated from Hogwarts over 5 years ago. We’re adults now. And even if he is a prat, it’s nothing that I can’t handle.”

“Granger, have you finished editing that paper from Polissi?”

Hermione looked up from her paperwork to see Draco Malfoy leaning against the jamb of her open office door.

“Yes, do you need it?”

“I have to drop it off with the supervisor.”

Hermione opened the drawer of her desk, pulling out the desired stack of parchment. She stood and held the packet out to him. Draco took it from her slowly, gazing evenly into her face. She began to feel self-conscious under his gaze and felt the familiar rush of adrenaline, preparing her to retaliate against whatever he threw at her. Even as heat rose to her face, she set her jaw and kept her face calm and neutral, waiting for his next move.

“How’ve you been, Hermione?” he said, finally looking away.

She faltered for a moment, closing her eyes as the unneeded adrenaline coursed through her. If she’d kept her eyes open, she’d have seen his eyes travel from her face down the rest of her body. When she looked up however, his eyes were back on her face.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling softly, “And you?”

“Lovely, just lovely,” he smirked gently, “Are you going on lunch soon? We should catch up—my treat.”

Hermione was so taken aback by the offer that she almost blurted out yes from sheer shock. She stopped herself and really thought about what he had said. Instantly, Ron’s face blossomed in her mind, red-faced and furious.

“Oh…no, I’m going home to have lunch with Ron today,” she said, “But thank you, it’s very generous.”

“Maybe some other time,”

She watched as he smirked again before walking down the hall towards the supervisor’s office. Hermione turned back to her desk and sat, trying to get her mind back on her paperwork. Her hands trembled slightly and her heart was still racing from the adrenaline. I think I’ll keep that little encounter with Malfoy to myself, she thought, there’s no reason to get Ron all upset over nothing.

Over the next few weeks, Draco stopped by Hermione’s office at least once a day and offered to take her to lunch each time. Hermione found it harder and harder to keep declining; the more she chatted with Draco the more time she wanted to spend with him. Each morning she had the same argument with herself:

It’s just lunch! There’s nothing wrong with going to lunch with a coworker.

The coworker is Draco Malfoy. Ron would be furious.

Ron is so irrational, he’s always been way too jealous for no reason. He doesn’t have to know about it.

You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from your fiancé!

Every morning Hermione came up with half-excuses for why she might not make it home for lunch: a meeting might run over, she might have to work some over time, she might be going to lunch with Celia and Angelina, on and on they went. But she never found the courage to actually use any of them and she felt like a child being deprived a delicious candy: she was frustrated with Ron for having such a jealous disposition and annoyed with herself for letting him stop her from doing something she wanted to do.

She was startled out of her thoughts at a loud rapping on her office door. Looking up at the small glass window, she saw the blond top of Draco’s head. She stood, determined to open the door and say “Yes, let’s go to lunch!” Throwing the door open, she almost began to speak before she saw Draco hold up a large, white plastic bag.

“Hungry?” he smirked at her enlarged, surprised eyes; after a moment, she smiled.

“Starving,” she said, pulling open the door to allow him entrance.

Closing the door most of the way, Hermione turned to face the office; with a few waves of her wand she conjured a second chair and cleared the desk of all its paperwork. As Draco withdrew the boxes of food from the bag, Hermione leaned over the desk, scrawling on a piece of scrap parchment.

Dear Ron,

That meeting I mentioned did run over today so I’m just going to go for takeout. See you this evening; I’ll make a stir fry out of last night’s left overs!

Love,

Hermione

Biting her lip as she glanced over the lie, she crossed the room to where her small delivery owl sat perched on his stand. Draco watched intently as she attached the note to his talon and instructed him to go to she and Ron’s shared flat. When she turned to the desk, he raised an eyebrow.

“Did I miss some big meeting today?” he asked, opening his food.

“Ha, well, no,” she said, trying to hide the nervous quiver in her voice; she wasn’t sure if the extended private time with Draco Malfoy or the blatant lie she had just sent careening into her home that made her more anxious, “it’s just that if I told Ron I was having lunch with you, he’d probably be a little upset.”

Draco nodded slowly, his eyes heavy-lidded as he continued to gaze at her. To her relief he turned to his food.

“Please, eat, Hermione,”

Turning to her own food, she realized that the combined efforts of having lunch with Draco and telling the first serious lie in her relationship had left her feeling ravenous.

“Smells delicious, what is it?” she asked, opening the box in front of her.

“Pad Thai, do you like it?”

“I’ve never had it!”

Hermione’s nerves tingled again as he leaned close to her, describing the Thai stir fry and instructing her to squeeze the lime over the noodles. They talked about Asian cuisine for quite a while and Hermione was surprised when the conversation eased into more personal territory.

“So, Weasley’s never really gotten over the jealousy thing, huh?” Draco asked, scooping a heap of food into his mouth.

“Unfortunately,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, “He was pretty annoyed when I told him you started working here. I’m still holding out hope that he’ll grow out of it—it can be very overbearing at times.”

“Yeah, I mean, being upset that a chap—a chap that you’re fiancée didn’t even like in school—is working in the same place as her, that’s a bit crazy.”

“That’s true,” she agreed, spooning up a piece of chicken before looking at Draco through her eyelashes, “but what about that chap asking said fiancée to lunch every day?”

Draco smirked mischievously, chewing the last of his food. She’d become accustomed to that smile; it conveyed control and confidence, teetering on the precipice of cocky but not condescending or annoying. With that easy, self-assured half-smile he could make her feel at ease and on the same level or awkward and at the mercy of his judgment.

“That’s just friendliness, is all,” he said in a hushed voice, leaning forward, very close to her face, “A white flag of sorts. No hard feelings between old enemies and all that. And besides, he doesn’t know about those visits, does he.”

“No,” she admitted, unable to look away from him.

“Well, then. No harm, no foul.”

Hermione suppressed a shiver as she fully realized that she was alone in a very small room with Draco Malfoy with the door mostly closed, and he was leaning very, very close to her, and speaking in such a low, smooth voice, soothing and almost intimate…

Hermione jumped as her delivery bird shot back into the room and landed on the desk before them, satisfied with a mission completed. She grabbed the note clutched in his talon and looked at it: Okay, darling. See you tonight. Love you. ~Ron

Blinking rapidly, she looked up to see Draco standing, throwing his trash into the plastic bag the food had come in. The moment of strange closeness was gone, evaporated like steam. Hermione stood as well, holding half a noodle out to the owl, who happily snapped it up and flew back to his place on the perch. Stuffing her trash into the bag as well, she walked with him to the door and pulled it open.

“This was…nice.” She said, smiling.

“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” he said, nodding, “there’s a nice little sandwich bistro down the street.”

“My treat next time,” she said firmly.

He smiled softly as she closed the door; turning she leaned heavily against the door, her breath abnormally labored. This is a problem…

Later that night, Hermione stared absent-mindedly into the fireplace. Dinner had been served, the dishes cleaned and Ron had wandered sleepily off to bed some 20 minutes before, but Hermione sat up in her arm chair, the fire reflected in her glazed eyes, a half empty wine glass clutched in her hand. What am I doing? She thought, what in the world am I doing having lunch with another man, Draco Malfoy at that. This wasn’t just innocent lunch with a coworker. The nervousness, the flutters in her stomach, the shyness and adrenaline rush—she hadn’t felt this way since she was 14-years-old. She smiled gently at that thought. I haven’t felt like this since I first started developing feelings for Ron.

But this was more dangerous than some school yard crush: she was in a seriously committed relationship with someone else. They had a life together, a home, they were planning a future together. Now is not the time to have a crush on someone else, especially Draco Malfoy, she thought, taking a swig of her wine. It’ll pass, she decided. It’s just the thrill of it; the history between them charged their every interaction. And she couldn’t deny that there may be some unresolved sexual tension between them, residual feelings of merged animosity and attraction from their youth.

It’ll pass, she told herself, over and over, like a mantra, as she drained her wine glass.

AN: And there we have it! Please leave any comments, flames, feedback, or what have you. :)
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Long Term