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Lessons and Obsessions	By : LennaNightrunner Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 84546 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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CHAPTER SIX: X-FACTORS

Hermione received an owl at breakfast on Tuesday morning
stating that her second �lesson� would be held on Thursday evening. This worked
out perfectly for her because the Gryffindor team had Quidditch
practice at that time. No doubt Malfoy had some
knowledge of the other teams� practice schedules, and had his own team practice
on different nights, so it would be convenient for him as well.

Though she did not look over at him after reading the
letter, Hermione was sure Malfoy was watching her. It
felt to her as if it must be obvious to everyone that something was going on
between them, though logically there was really no indication. Ron looked at
the letter curiously as she read it, but did not dare to ask about it, as they
were still on shaky ground about what he had said to her at dinner on Sunday.

�Another letter?� Ginny asked,
raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

�Yes, it�s�� Hermione cast a quick burning spell nonverbally
and the letter was turned to ash in a matter of
seconds, �it�s from my parents. They check in a lot lately, with Voldemort still at large and Dumbledore� gone.�

�So you burn them so they won�t give your parents away?�
Ginny tried to sound casual, not quite believing Hermione�s story.

�Hm?�
Hermione looked distracted. �Oh! Yes, exactly.�

Ginny did not pursue the subject.

*****

Waiting for Thursday evening to come was almost unbearable
for Hermione. While she doubted that Malfoy would go
very far with her during this next lesson, she still longed to be alone with him,
whispered to, touched by him. While she still did not regret or feel guilty
about what she had done so far, she was slightly ashamed of herself for being
so hopelessly unable to resist him. The fact that him calling her a mudblood didn�t bother her was a bit unsettling. She cautioned
herself against becoming too reliant on him: she was glad the Order had taken
him in, but she still didn�t trust him.

Hermione managed to get through the next three days of
lessons without spending too much time daydreaming about Malfoy.
She forced herself to get the week�s homework done before bed on Wednesday so
that she could fully enjoy her time with him on Thursday. Well, she�d be less
distracted, in any case: fully enjoying herself was difficult between being
nervous and inexperienced and being afraid that this was all an elaborate joke.

At dinner on Thursday, Ron didn�t even ask what she planned
on doing while they were at practice because she always spent that time
studying; either in the library, the Common Room, or her bedroom. Anyone who could
not find her in one of those places would assume she was in one of the other
two, so no one would think she was up to something. Hermione tried not to be
too depressed by the revelation that she spent so much time alone doing things
that no one was interested anyway, so no one would think it was strange for her
not to be around.

Ginny was equally silent on the matter, though Hermione�s
nervous fidgeting did not go unnoticed by her. With Harry gone, Ginny wondered
if Hermione was lacking a friend to talk to. Sure, Ron was Hermione�s friend,
but he wasn�t all that perceptive about when people needed help. Ginny resolved
to keep an eye on this.

Hermione arrived outside the Room of Requirement at 8:00, as
she had been instructed to in Tuesday�s letter. She could see no doorknob or
outline of a door from the place she knew it should be, but she knocked on the
wall there anyway. After a moment, a door-sized portion of the wall opened
inward, and Malfoy ushered her inside wordlessly.

Draco had pushed the sofa off to the side of the room so
that he could lie on the carpet and enjoy the fire. He had taken his shirt off
so that he could soak in the heat of the fire and feel the carpet against his
skin. He wore only his black uniform slacks: his shoes and socks, robe, shirt,
and tie, etc., lay in a pile on the sofa. His skin was warm and slightly
flushed from the twenty minutes he�d spent in front of the fireplace.

As soon as he�d let Hermione in, Malfoy
returned to his place on the carpet by the fire, sitting in front of it with
his arms on his knees, staring into it. He did not speak to her. He seemed to
be in a brooding mood, laconic and unsmiling. But he looked over at her when
she hesitated by the door as if to ask what she was waiting for, so she took
off her shoes, socks, and jumper so that she wore only her uniform skirt,
shirt, and tie. She had taken her robe off before dinner but hadn�t had time to
change fully.

The enormous carpet felt wonderful on her bare feet as she
walked over to the fire. She sat a few feet away from Malfoy,
to his side and slightly farther away from the fire, waiting for him to speak.
As she waited, she looked him over quietly.

This was the first time Hermione could remember seeing Malfoy not wearing a shirt or robes that went to his
wrists. The sight of his bare arms, lean yet well-toned, would have been
unsettling enough, but seeing him completely bare-chested was breathtaking. He
really was attractive, even if his features were often marred by an evil smirk
or a scowl. He had recovered some of his health over the summer and the
beginning of the school year, and the tired, care-worn boy she remembered from
the previous year was almost gone.

Hermione gazed at Malfoy�s chest
unabashedly, taking in every inch of skin and muscle, wondering what it would
feel like to press her bare chest against his. It looked so warm at that
moment, and inviting. She had never really touched him, except to kiss him. Not
his bare skin, anyway. It would be an act of vulnerability, she thought, rather
than sexuality. Malfoy probably wouldn�t like that.
Hermione could not detach her feelings from her desires so easily. She wanted
to touch Malfoy in ways that had nothing to do with
sex. But that wasn�t what she was here for, and she needed to stop overanalyzing
and focus on that fact.

Draco noticed her staring and looked over at her. He smirked
at the expression on Granger�s face and silently motioned for her to sit on his
right side. When she had settled next to him, his smirk slipped away and he
went back to staring into the fire.

He did not put an arm around her or lean against her, but Hermione�s
stomach quaked from her close proximity to his bare skin. She did not touch him.
He seemed to be in a dark mood already, and she wasn�t stupid enough to rely on
the fact that he�d said before that he didn�t want to hurt her.

After a few more moments of sitting in silence, Malfoy looked over at her and rolled his eyes, noting how
frizzy her hair was. It was always the wildest at the end of the day, when the
effects of brushing and hair potions had been exhausted. Without saying a word
(and it was uncharacteristic of him to miss an opportunity for a snide remark),
Malfoy reached his left hand out to stroke Hermione�s
unruly hair into submission. As he did so, however, she glanced at his arm,
gasped, and pulled away slightly.

Draco was confused for a moment, until he saw what Granger
was looking at: his Dark Mark, a faded red scar, like an intricate birthmark,
spanning almost the entirety of the inside of his left forearm. Defiantly, he
finished taming her hair, then looked at her, raising an elegant eyebrow as if
to challenge her to comment.

�Does it frighten you, Granger?� Draco asked in a low voice.
�Are you afraid that I�m a bad man? I�ve hurt people,� he said
matter-of-factly.

�No�� Hermione whispered, covering his left hand with her
right and stopping him from withdrawing it. �I�m not frightened of you.�

And strangely, it was true. When she saw the Dark Mark on Malfoy, it did not inspire the fear it might have if she
had seen it on someone else. Instead, Hermione felt pity. Pity
for him because he had always been taught to hate, because he had been punished
for his father�s failings, because he had been threatened with death for both
himself and his mother if he did not do as Voldemort
commanded. Hermione knew that Malfoy was by no
means a saint, but he had not killed Dumbledore, or anyone that she knew of,
and that meant he was also not entirely evil.

Draco could not read the expression on the girl�s face as
she held his hand in her comparatively minute one. She was staring at him,
thinking hard. Her eyes were sad, but the gaze was also somehow sensual, very
personal and penetrating. It was so intense that he had to struggle not to look
away. Then Granger did the last thing Draco would ever have expected her to do:
she brought his arm to her lips and kissed it, on the Dark Mark, right on the
head of the snake that formed the grotesque skull�s tongue. He was shocked, so
much so that he did not move his arm away or ask her
what she was doing.

Hermione kissed the warm skin of his arm again, slowly,
reverently, sympathetically. Not out of respect for the Mark or what it stood
for, but in acknowledgment of his suffering, to show that she knew what he was
and what he had done and still felt he deserved forgiveness. She kissed each of
the skull�s empty eyes in turn, its toothy mouth, every inch of the tattoo that
could never be removed save perhaps after Voldemort�s
death.

Draco was unnerved. He did not like the depth of this
gesture and the unflappable courage and compassion Granger was exhibiting. He
did not need her to forgive him, to pity him! She kissed his arm as if she
could make the Mark disappear by the sheer power of her acceptance of him. It
was somehow chaste and sexual at the same time. Sexual in a way that Draco was
not comfortable with, which required him to be vulnerable.
All he could do was stare at the girl who seemed to be trying to heal him with
a blessing from her lips like an angel.�
Like a mother making a child�s scrape �all better� with a kiss. How
could she even presume to try to erase everything that Mark had cost him?

He wanted to yell at her to stop, to get her dirty lips off
of his skin and get out of his sight. He didn�t want her condescending kisses,
making him feel like he wasn�t worthy of them, like she was better than him.
She made him feel naked, and he hated it. And he hated that he couldn�t make
himself hate her, too. It used to be so easy to hate her. He couldn�t
move his arm away and he couldn�t move his other arm to push her away from him.
He was paralyzed.

And then the kisses moved to the inside of his wrist, and
Granger was no longer an angel but a living, breathing girl who was showing him
that he was not her master anymore, not in this moment. She kissed and nipped
at the extremely sensitive skin of Draco�s inner wrist and his eyes closed
halfway in pleasure, his anger melting and fading. He wanted to explore the
things that mouth was capable of.� She wrapped her lips around the place his
pulse was most easily felt and suckled gently, the heat from her mouth causing
Draco to shiver in spite of himself. She had probably read about this in a book
somewhere. She was too smart for her own good.

This, at least, was something Draco could handle. He wasn�t
quite used to Granger�s sudden sexual forwardness, nor had he forgotten the
frightening intimacy of the last few moments, but at least she was
communicating with his body again, not trying to speak to his heart or soul or
whatever was in there.

Not wanting to allow Granger to feel that she had upset the
balance of power between them, Draco suddenly snatched his wrist away from the
girl, pushed her down onto the carpet and moved to hover over her pinned form
in one fluid movement.

�I hope for your sake that you learned that from a book,
Granger,� Malfoy snarled lowly, his face mere
centimeters above Hermione�s, �because I won�t tolerate other people touching
you.�

Hermione stifled a squeak of surprise as she was pinned to
the soft carpet. Her momentary assertiveness was crushed by Malfoy
reestablishing his control over her.

�I overheard one of the other students,� Hermione choked
out, both excited and frightened at the same time. Malfoy
seemed to be in a strange mood, and he was even more unpredictable than usual.
If there was one thing Hermione feared, it was unpredictability.

�Am I to understand that you�re listening at doors now?� Malfoy asked warningly, toying with his prey mercilessly.

�It was an accident!� Hermione stammered desperately. �The
other girls in the dormitory thought I was asleep when they were talking!�

Draco looked at Granger suspiciously, intimidating her for
his own amusement. He did not actually believe that anyone else had been
touching the Head Girl: the Gryffindors were
generally oblivious to her attractiveness, she wouldn�t be interested in many Hufflepuffs, the Ravenclaws would
probably have been warned by the girl who saw them together that she was
involved with him somehow, and the Slytherins were
too afraid of being labeled mudblood-lovers to look
at her.

He did not tell her he believed her, but he rolled off of
her, so that he was lying on his side next to her with his head propped up on
his right hand. She slowly turned on her side so that she was facing him,
mirroring his pose. Draco reached out his left arm, ignoring Granger as she
glanced at his tattoo again, and determinedly loosened and removed the girl�s
tie, casting it aside. He then unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt so
that the top of her cleavage was visible. He was pleased to note that a hint of
green and silver could be glimpsed through the opening.

Hermione did not move as Malfoy
altered her clothing. At least he wasn�t using magic this time. His unusually
silent state was unsettling her. It made her feel like she ought to be able to
get him to open up to her, but at the same time he seemed almost dangerous. She
wanted to remain distant from Malfoy, but it was so
hard to keep emotion uninvolved when they were spending so much time alone
together. Hermione had to admit that she might be beginning to feel a form of
attachment to Malfoy, which was unfortunate and
absurd because he was such a cruel prat.

��Is something wrong?� Hermione finally asked timidly, when
the silence was too much to bear.

Draco looked up at Granger, his eyes glinting in the
firelight. He hoped she didn�t want to have a big emotional moment with him. He
was used to girls falling for him. He had hoped that Granger hated him enough
that that wouldn�t be a problem, but he was still prepared for the possibility.
Part of him liked it, because it would mean that she would experience some of
the torment he felt from his obsession with her. He didn�t want to answer, but
he was the one who had summoned her here, and he didn�t want her to leave. He
just hadn�t counted on being in such a foul mood while she was there.

�Everything�s wrong, Granger. You know that.� Malfoy shrugged dismissively. Hermione had to admit that it
was a foolish question in light of everything that had been happening in the Wizarding world lately, not to mention everything that had
happened to Malfoy personally. Hermione paused, not
knowing how to proceed.

�I used to think that nothing would have made you happier
than to see Voldemort in power again.� Hermione
looked down at the carpet as she said this, part of her afraid that Malfoy would react badly if she tried to get him to talk
about this, the other part burning to know all that Malfoy
had gone through: what it was like to be a Death Eater, whether one could ever
really reform. Hermione believed deeply in the ability of people to change
their ways, but she had never seen much evidence of it actually happening.

Draco stared at Granger for a moment. He had indeed been
talking about the Dark Lord being in power, but he hadn�t expected the girl to
pursue the subject. It was a wonder that her curiosity hadn�t gotten her into
any real trouble yet. He decided he would humor her, since he didn�t much feel
like thinking of what else to do. It was all past, anyway. Technically he was
on �her side� now. He would be honest.

�I really did want the Dark Lord to come back into power,�
Draco continued without stopping for Hermione�s incredulous look, �but I would
have preferred for my service to him to have been on my own terms.�

Hermione felt that his willingness to answer her questions
was a sign that it was all right for her to keep the conversation going.

�But I thought� I mean, it seemed like you really wanted to
follow him.�

�That�s because I really did. Why wouldn�t I? He stands for
everything I believed in.�

Hermione was shocked, and was about to protest, when she
noticed a nuance in Malfoy�s statement. �What do you
mean, �believed�?�

�Allowing your followers to rot in Azkaban while you
threaten to kill their wives and send their sons on suicide missions isn�t
exactly what all purebloods think of as ideal leadership. Why would I want to
follow a hypocritical halfblood? For all I know
Dumbledore�s got more pure Wizarding blood than the
Dark Lord.�

Draco�s lip curled up slightly as he said Dumbledore�s name,
but he halted the sneer. He didn�t like that old bleeding heart muggle-lover any better now that he was dead, but a part of
him was grateful that Dumbledore had talked Draco out of killing him. At the
time, he had thought it was just to save his own na�ve skin, but the old fool must
have known that if Draco hadn�t done it, someone else would have. Then there
must have been another reason for it. As little as Draco wanted to be thankful
to Dumbledore for anything, the old man had talked him out of becoming a
killer. Draco had to admit that he didn�t much care for the idea of committing
cold-blooded murder. He had no desire to become a pale, sickly, snakelike thing
like the Dark Lord.

Hermione held back her protests about the absurdity of the
whole �pureblood� way of thinking and asked another question instead. �Why do
you still call him the Dark Lord? Snape did that,
too.�

�Habit, I suppose. As far as Snape
goes, I have no idea whether or not he�s really loyal. Perhaps no one really
knows.�

Hermione didn�t want to continue down this line of thought,
because she would have to remember Snape killing
Dumbledore, and she didn�t want to think about Dumbledore�s death. It was still
too awful to contemplate for very long.

Draco noticed that Granger had gone silent and was staring
intently at the carpet. He realized after a moment that he had reminded her of
Dumbledore�s death, and she was probably about to start crying over it right in
front of him. He had to say something.

�I never liked the stupid old git,
but I�m glad I�m not the one who killed him.�

Hermione looked up at Malfoy with
a confused expression, her eyes shining with half-formed tears. She did not
know whether to smile or yell at him. He had almost said something nice. Finally,
she wiped her eyes and said softly,

�I�m glad you weren�t the one, too.�

****

A/N: Thanks to all of you who�ve made it this far with me! I
know it doesn�t seem like much has happened, but it�s been a lot of work and
there�s still a lot more to come. I�m so grateful for the constant feedback and
reviews all of you have given me. Everything from basic encouragement to
constructive ideas about major issues in the story has been extremely helpful.
Thanks so much!

ilke�I�m glad you thought it was hot! That is certainly a
compliment, coming from you :D. I�m also very psyched for your upcoming chapter now (even though I
was already).

LunaSeay�Welcome to Lessons and Obsessions! (Can I welcome someone
to a fic? You are welcomed to the experience of
reading the fic, at least, lol).
I�m so glad I�ve got you hooked! Sorry about the �slowly evolving involvement
of Draco� (nice wording), but I promise he will become more and more involved,
both physically and emotionally. The emotional stuff I hope sort of came out in
this chapter, and the physical stuff will begin to emerge in chapter seven.
Never fear! I�m also glad you liked the house colors thing. I was struggling with
that for a while which is why it took me some time to post chapter five. Thanks
for reading!

PotterEntourage�Hi! Your feedback
is always appreciated, of course! I really love that you like my Malfoy. That means a lot to me because I always worry about
whether I�ve got him right. I agree about the �mudblood�
thing, but I think (or hope) I did a decent job showing that it didn�t have the
usual venom behind it; that he was using it to prove that he could, not to hurt
her feelings. But I�m glad you liked it! I hope you continue to do so!

kazeist�I�ve already paranoidly tracked
you down about this, but I�ll paraphrase: you should not fear that my Hermione
will become �broken.� I don�t want that to happen to her. I think she�s stronger
than that. Draco�s cruelty will begin to let up a bit as he becomes more
involved with her. I hope to achieve something of the dynamic that you mention.
I can�t promise no one will ever feel any emotional pain, but I won�t introduce
cruelty for no reason. Thanks for reading and for providing really constructive
feedback!

Coipje�Glad you liked it! There
will be more in the future, though I�m sorry chapter six was lacking in smut.
Thanks for the continual reviews!

Dreamweaver�Yes, Draco will become more and more active as
this goes on, and I think you will sense that this chapter was the first
thunderclap of the emotional front of the storm that will come upon these two.
The physical stuff will begin to heat up in chapter seven. I hope you like it
so far! Thanks for the reviews!

DracosSlave�I�m so glad you like
it! I want to be Hermione, too! Although I have to admit it seemed like Draco
was having a lot of fun, too. I�ve updated finally, and I hope to post chapter
seven in less than a week if I can manage it. Maybe over the
weekend. I don�t like to keep people waiting! Thanks for reading and
reviewing!

DuchessCullen�Thank you! Here�s an
update, and I�ll try to give you another one by this weekend! Thanks for
reading and reviewing!
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Lessons and Obsessions