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Red Summer of 19	By : bk11 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 2142 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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
- 1-Red Summer of 19
- 2-part 2
- 3-part 3
- 4-part 4
- 5-part 5
- 6-part 6
- 7-part 7
- 8-part 8
- 9-part 9
- 8
- 9
Disclaimer: Don't own them. J. K. Rowling does.

Title: Red Summer of 19

Email: bkeleven11(at)gmail(dot)com

Rating: R
Notes: Um, I'm all scared to write notes now because you guys have some weirdo tendency to comment on said notes. Let's see . . . the fish in this section, I'm not sure of at all. I mean, it's a real fish and all, but I doubt it's the "right" kind used for the dish I'm writing about. I was tempted to call up my pop and outrightly ask him what the name of the fish is, but I didn't cuz I was afraid he'd say something like, "Why? You cooking? WHY? WHY??? Are you up to no good with fish? WHY?" And then I'd confessed that I needed the detail to write a Harry Potter story, and he'd have a stroke because of the nature of the story, and I'll forever be known as the girl who gave her father a stroke over fish. . . . And dudes, back off, this story isn't autobiographical like you think it is. I didn't kill nobody, and my mother is happily off somewhere griping about her stupid Nissan. ;P

But hey! Thanks to all reviewers and special Biggo thanks to grandfilth for the on-the-side encouragement . . . josie for kicking my ass with her own stream-of-con review that simultaneously scared me (don't go messing with a paranoid's brain, girly) and made me laugh because I couldn't figure out if she was bashing me or not. ;P . . . Plucky, you WILL be converted! . . . song-blue-carolina and JenniferJae for taking me seriously about the porn thing :) . . . And Michelle, wow. You're awesome. And are too nice.

Thanks to everyone else. I really appreciate all the comments. It's okay if you want to talk about fish in your reviews, we can talk about fish. I'm a big fan. :D

- - - - -

Part 9

- - - - -

She remembers:

She was running hard and fast, feet slipping around the gelatinous gloop-mud, stomping and splashing. Mud in her face, her eyes, her mouth, and through the blur of gray sleet, mud was all that she could see.

�Are you still there!� she yelled. She threw her voice forward as hard as she could, hoping that the wind would lash some of it back for Pansy to grasp. And for the first time in her life, panic became a hot-colored thing that slammed into her face and nearly shoved her into the gloopy ground (mud in her face). She couldn�t hear Pansy�s answer (she couldn�t hear Pansy�s steps) over the rain.

Against instinct, she whipped her head around, legs still moving, running blind. �PANSY!� she screamed through the haze.

Pansy was ten paces behind--had been ten paces behind the whole time. Her face was red (it made Hermione wonder if hers was comparable), her breaths coming out in short pants, and her expression held a sort of . . . helplessness. �I�m here!� she called back. �I�m coming!�

�Hurry! A little bit more!�

A little bit more until Disapparation.

A little until safety.

A teeny bit until it�s alright.

Hermione whipped her head to the front, legs still fighting against the slickness, eyes unseeing of whatever the fuck it was that laid behind the dark gray haze.

And they kept on running.

And then . . . �HERMIONE!�

She turned around and slipped. She closed her eyes before her weary knees popped against the ground and something about heavenly bodies and equal reaction between masses popped in her head. And it made her cry as her right knee--skinned against a jagged stone--started bleeding freely. But it wasn�t even the knee�s fault. She scrambled over frenetically to Pansy in that unsafe sort of way that Harry told her never to do, and found Pansy�s paleness against the ground, face absolutely buried in the thick black water. And behind them, the fire was coming closer.

�Pansy! Get up.�

�I can�t,� she whispered brokenly. �Just go, Hermione.�

�No!� she cried, horrified. �I can�t just--"

�Fuck the cannots and the should nots, Granger!� Pansy yelled. And Hermione heard all of it that time. �You will, because . . . because. . . .�

This was meant to be. . . .

from the beginning.

Hermione shook her head and started scraping around in the mud for Pansy�s arm.

�Are you stupid?� she screamed, slapping Hermione�s face. The loud crack of it overshadowed the sting of the rain. �Get the hell out of here!� Pansy grabbed a handful of mud and threw it in Hermione�s vicinity.

�Pansy!�

�Go! Just fucking go!�

�Pansy!�

And then . . . �Didn�t you hear me, you fucking Mudblood, get the fuck out of my face!�

And that spurred Hermione�s legs into action. And she didn�t turn back.

- - - - -

Turns out that he doesn�t like he-who-they-call-Danny:

Draco doesn�t like him at all.

When he wakes up, he wakes up in a cold panicky state because the moment he regains consciousness is the moment he remembers what had happened. During that initial moment, there is a part of him that goes, �Scoooooore!� but then the part of him that goes, �Fucking HELL!� is significantly louder. He doesn�t spring up off the bed and scream his lungs out, nor does he roll over, prepared to make obligatory small talk before he gets the hell out of there.

He does roll over, though. When his peripheral vision tells him that she�s not there.

His left arm is tingly because he had slept on it. The left side of the bed is cold and empty. He sits up and his tingly hand skims gently across the wrinkled sheets. And then he blearily looks out the uncovered windows. She doesn�t have much of a view, just a big blocky oak. The sunlight boldly slices into the room and illuminates a piece of paper unwittingly.

�Good Lord,� he mumbles. �Note.�

He picks up the piece of paper, which rests on the side table, and sees her neat girlish scrawl.

Had to go to work.

And then, almost as an afterthought: Sorry.

He finds it rather odd that, after spending seven years in shared classes, he can�t even recognized her handwriting. So he commits the scrawling words to memory and folds the note before replacing it on the table.

The rest of the note tells him that she is at work until five.

He decides that, even though she isn�t here, things are rather awkward. So he spends two more minutes in her bed before he swings his feet off of it and leans down to grab his discarded trousers. He quickly dresses, finding it immensely uncomfortable being naked in a dingy motel room with slicing sunshine through windows. It is like living out one of his worst nightmares. His nightmares fall into two categories. The first is falling to death, or being chased into gory death. The second is learning that he is actually a woman.

Somehow, behind nude in a motel room makes him feel like a woman. Not even a hot woman. An ugly girl with glasses and a bad complexion. It is rather . . . depressing.

He takes his hands and feels around his face, his neck, his clothed stomach, his clothed ass. And it�s all there. He doesn�t know why he�s stupid enough to be somewhat shocked (maybe she hacked your body parts up when you were sleeping, dumbasssss). Maybe he is a bit surprised because he had woken up too fast and, contrary to what he had reasoned, thought too slowly . . . and now is the point of the morning when he finally realizes that it hadn�t been fake or staged or a dream he never dreamt of. And the crick in his neck and right arm makes him painfully aware of this.

Dressed in wrinkled clothes, he wanders into her bathroom. He gets one glance at a pink toothbrush on the counter, and that was a mistake because all of a sudden, his mouth reeks with staleness. He smacks jaw up and down as he spends one ridiculous minute wondering whether it is okay for him to use her toothbrush. He finally crudely reasons to himself in the mirror that, after all the body fluids that had been exchanged the previous night, a bit of stale saliva would be a drop in some vast ocean.

Besides, aren�t toothbrushes self-cleaning?

He stalls himself from the toothbrush for a bit by standing over the toilet and unzipping his trousers. Then he flushes. Then he slowly washes his hand while he sings the birthday song to himself (it isn�t his birthday, but the twenty seconds it takes to sing the birthday song were the crucial twenty seconds to make all the germs die). Then he wets toilet paper with hot water and cleans off the chrome-looking handle of the toilet.

Though if you were to ask him about why he is obsessively doing this, he�d tell you it was so she wouldn�t have any DNA to pin on him later--when he had already flown the scene of the crime. He wouldn�t say something about unpureness or muddy stuff . . . at least he hopes he had come to the point where he didn�t have to say such things. Though maybe the truth is that there is some deep-seeded reversal in their roles due to the little insignificant events of their pasts that would make him feel so bad if he were the one to contaminate her.

And it doesn�t make completely sense to the rest of the world. And he�d tell you that that was alright, because he understands some of it, and it�s really not up to the world to be understand his reasoning.

The toilet handle shines.

That makes him feel good.

And after one ridiculous minute, he picks up the pink handle and slathers on a lot of toothpaste. Just so she wouldn�t be contaminated with his spit later.

Or maybe he should stop by the store? Buy her a new one?

The whole time he�s using it, foam too much and unable to be contained leaking out all the corners of his mouth, he feels dirty. He feels like the biggest scum. And he can�t think.

- - - - -

He loved fish:

He loves fish.

He sat in this Chinese restaurant once, called Hong Kong Garden. It had been the first time, when she was fifteen, and he was already an old man she was embarrassed of. It wasn�t even his birthday, or his daughter�s, or his wife�s. And he had awkwardly pushed up his glasses at the menu, looking at the characters on it and comparing it to the English translation, �steamed whole fish with ginger, green onions, with oil and soy sauce,� and he remembers squinting despite the fact that he could understand each word in the Latin alphabet and none of the characters in Cantonese. He remembers thinking, well, surely in Cantonese, the words did more justice to the food than the ungrammatical English translation.

That was the reason he ordered that dish. Not the most well thought out reason, but it was the truth. He ordered it because he felt a little sorry for it. And he liked fish. Hermione didn�t. But then, she was almost a vegetarian.

When the fish came, it had a head on it. Hermione squealed and made a huge embarrassing episode in front of the waitress. He sort of wanted to smack her to shut her up. And he had to wonder, was that instinctual? A knee-jerk need to physically react to stress? He wanted to hit Ronald Weasley the first time he had met the boy during that one Christmas. He didn�t; he had said really nice amicable things and genuinely liked Ron immediately. But the initial feeling was the same feral, �My baby girl, keep off boy!�

It was almost exhilarating, eating something with a head still on it in front of someone who was sooooo above savagery. And he liked it. He liked it a lot.

He liked it so much that a month later, he brought home a whole fish, (cleaned, because he couldn�t actually clean it, himself) and used a wire mesh to steam it over the stove in an awkward novice sort of way. And at those beginning moments, he never felt like more of a Westerner. He suspected that it was supposed to be bamboo steamers over an open fire? Or maybe they used hot metal instead of hot coals, like himself? He should�ve asked the waitress.

And he cooked it. And he was so proud. He showed his wife, and she laughed and was proud too, and he gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

He showed Hermione after he had five months of practice at it (the five months she was away at school). He had hacked off the head because he knew how much she didn�t like it and set down the plate in front of her and showed her what he had accomplished. Maybe a part of him was still stuck in the Stone Age, wanting to be some sort of hunter-gatherer for his offspring.

Maybe he just wanted something to share with her.

She didn�t like it much. He could tell. Or rather, she did like it, somewhat, just not as much as he did. She ate it, though. That was something. Though she didn�t care enough to ask for the name of the fish (tilapia).

And more months and years later, right before she left for San Diego, she changed her mind. He remembered her coming home one afternoon, lamenting a broken purse strap. And he was in the middle of steaming the fish. He had said, �Gimme twenty more minutes, hon. We�re having fish for dinner.�

And like that girl of fifteen, she had scrunched up her nose and shook her head. �No thanks, Dad. I�ve already eaten.�

But then, twenty minutes later, like a girl of twenty-three, she stood on her tiptoes and used his shoulders to push herself up to see the fish, nearly pushing her own father into the flames (must be some deep animalistic need to commit patricide) and had said, �Twenty minute�s up, old man. Where�s the fish?�

And he hurriedly finished it. And she didn�t even care that he had forgotten to chop off the fish�s head (if he had asked, she would�ve told him that she had to hack off tails and heads of fishies every single day. It wasn�t so fun because the spine and bones held on for dear life in the face of her trusty knife and fork . . . if he had asked, she�d tell him that she felt bad about wasting those bits, so she ate them herself. And she liked it. Eyeballs too!).

She ate her father�s fish even though she was full, and she never even realized how much that had meant to him.

- - - - -

Draco is at the glass door of McGuire�s fifteen minutes later:

He had blearily left her room the first time only to get a peek at the blinding sun, remembering something, and then rushing back against the locked door like a crazy person. He pushed his body against it and slammed his ear to it, listening. Turned out that he had twisted it close on his way out, and there was no way to get back in.

Except for the cracked window conspicuously off to the side.

Like the deranged nut he is, he tore off a dry branch from the nearest bush and used it as a fulcrum to pry open her cracked window. Like the deranged nut he is, he flipped over clumsily onto her carpet, muttered a low, �fucking shit, man!� and quickly used his jelly legs to stumble into her bathroom. Then he spent some time digging through her trash. In there, he had found a few crumpled tissues, a candy wrapper, and . . . two or three used condoms.

One thing that many people didn�t know about Draco Malfoy was that he wasn�t good at panicking (okay, that was a lie because the whole world knew that he wasn�t good at freaking the hell out). He loses his head and he runs into walls like an ADD hamster. When Potter and twin-Weasley pummeled the shit out of him in Fifth Year, Draco panicked, and didn�t even get a good counter in. He just . . . froze and silently ran into mental walls.

He flushed the condoms down the toilet, and he couldn�t help but feel like all the toilets in the world were somehow his confidants. He had flushed many indiscretions down them, and he was grateful that they�ve all kept their mouths shut, so far.

He had spent the next few minutes painstakingly washing her sink and her toilet handle before washing his hands.

The second time he left, he noticed a black bottle on the ground. He didn�t touch it or pick it up; he just dropped to the ground and pushed his head into the carpet, to get a good look at the label. And to himself, he let out a short laugh before he got up and left the pepper-spray as it was, undisturbed.

And now, his Corolla sits next to a fire hydrant, and he doesn�t care. He pushes open the door and it jingles like it did before. Though this time, it bothers him severely, especially when he sees brown curly hair swing around to reveal a shocked tan face. It bothers him because he suddenly feels claustrophobic. All eyes on the blond asshole in the entryway! That�s what it feels like.

And then she recovers from her shock and smiles uneasily.

And God, this is so unlike him, but his chest feels a bit clogged and warm and constricting and silly and helium-filled when he sees her pretty eyes and her opened Oh-shaped pink mouth. He covers this up by cockily waving a bit and smirking as a redhead points him to a booth. The redhead had the sense to give him one of Granger�s tables. The redhead grins at him warmly and also looks up and down at him before handing him a menu.

Granger is standing in front of him soon smelling of burger grease and fried onions. And it makes his stupid chest feel all nutso again. He idly wonders if he should see someone about this new affliction.

He should�ve ran. And it isn�t that he can�t run. He is actually very good at it. But something compelled him to take another look before he did his running thing. See her in her new element; he should make a new memory composed of an ugly-assed uniform and a tired smelly girl with an even sheen of sweat on her face--a pretty girl. Put that new memory on top of the one of the brown-hair-brown-eyed-brown-tinted-skin-brown-sweater-blah-everything girl who tried so hard to say the right things that always came out wrong, said the things that made him really hate her--a-not-so-pretty girl.

�Hi,� she says shyly.

�Hi,� he replies. And God, he can�t help but lean in a little closer to smell the grease on her apron.

�Um,� she breaks eye contact to watch her fingers wandering over the tabletop. �How are you?� And then she laughs self-consciously. �Sorry. I mean . . . would you like something to drink?�

He can�t help but smile back. �A Coke?�

�For breakfast?�

He nods. �Yeah, for breakfast. Why not?�

�Okay.� She starts to write it down on her pad, but realizes how dumb she looks before she chuckles nervously and pushes the pen and pad into the pocket of her apron. And here is when she leans down so that she can face him. �You look really good this morning.� She says it with a blush.

He lowers his voice when he replies with, �Um, thank you.�

She looks visibly pleased before she straightens herself. �I�ll be back with your Coke. And you can order then, alright?�

�Yes.�

�Bye, Malfoy.� The sound of his name is like being doused with a bucket of ice water, in the Artic, naked.

�Bye . . . uh . . . Granger,� he says softly, suddenly remembering the brown girl with crystal-clear clarity. And she replaces the pretty girl�s memory all over again. She�s about to leave, but he remembers something and quickly says, �Hey, Granger?�

�Yeah?�

He swallows. �I like your hair.�

She smiles happily and turns to disappear behind swinging doors. And then he sees a guy with bleach-blond highlights and a similar apron staring at Hermione. And then he realizes that this guy had been staring at her ass when she had bent over the table. Draco would later learn that this guy�s name is Danny.

He immediately wants to hurt Danny.

- - - - -

Her dad met a woman two years later:

Her name was Terry. She worked as marketing analyst for a butter substitute company. On their first date, her dad paced the floor of his living room, nervously adjusting his tie and raking his graying hair back with his fingers.

�What if she doesn�t like me?�

She grinned. �How is that possible, Dad?�

He gave her a crabby look. �Pretend you�re not my daughter. What little flaws should I work on?�

�Dad!� She stood up to straighten his tie herself. �There�s nothing wrong with you! You�re perfect. You�ll wow her.�

�I don�t want a repeat of the Tina episode.� Tina was a woman of hard lines and a prim bun that her father had gone on three dates with (because he had been scared to say, �no�).

�It won�t be. Because this isn�t a blind date. You already know this Terry woman. And you say she�s nice.�

�What if I�m wrong?� he asked nervously.

�You�re not,� she said soothingly. �You�re a good judge of character.�

�That�s what pretty girls say to losers, you know. That and, �you have a nice personality,� or worse, �You�re very funny, but you�re not my type�. What the girl means is that you�re very funny looking.�

She laughed. �Dad. Have you always been this neurotic?�

He looked at her strangely. �Where do you think you get it from? From your mother? I think not. You got all the icky parts from me.�

At the mention of her mother, she frowned and reached over to hug him. �She�d want for you to move on with your life, you know. I�m sure of it.�

He kissed her forehead. �Thanks, baby.� And after a still moment, he patted her hand and said, �You turned out pretty good. I mean, there were doubts,� at this he grinned, �But all in all, I must say that my skills as a parent are just . . . well . . . incomparable, really.�

And then the doorbell rang.

�That�s her,� he muttered. �Is my tie straight?�

�Perfect.�

�Okay. Here we go.� He squared his shoulder as if he was heading into battle and swung the door open to reveal a nice looking woman nervously wringing her own hands. Hermione liked her instantly.

- - - - -

It was supposed to have been a fluke:

This is how it was supposed to have gone. He finishes his Coke, plows right on through his heart-attack breakfast, and then there�s supposed to be a smothering hug between old friends (who were never really friends) before they went their separate ways and never spoke of it again. Blame it on that time of the month. Blame it on something in the water. Blame it on the full moon.

Instead, he waved goodbye after he finished his heart-attack breakfast and promised that he�d come around after five. So they could talk. Really talk.

She supposed it was one of his new things. She heard the stories, you know. The ones that Ron told about how Draco Malfoy was a self-preservationist at heart. Always a selfish bastard. She heard the stories that the ones that have never even met him tell (he�s become something of a legend, which is probably why he�s not living it up in England--he probably left to get a moment�s peace). These stories consist of words like, �heartless� and �cruel� and �cold.� These are the stories that quickly criticize his father, Lucius Malfoy, for being such a horrible person. And then these stories turn around and quickly criticize Draco Malfoy for standing idly by as his father died at his feet, �how could he do that? To his own flesh and blood?� Also, these stories condemn him for leaving, �his poor mother! He just upped and left, didn�t care whether the old woman died or lived.�

Harry Potter though, became something of an enigma in his old old age of twenty-three. He used to tell stories about how he felt bad for Draco Malfoy, that no matter what the motives behind his actions were, �well, they were the right actions, weren�t they? In a way, wouldn�t we all be dead if it weren�t for him?� Ginny once told her that he knew a lot more than he let on, that he knew exactly why Draco Malfoy stood in front of all his judges and masochistically took all their condemnations. Ginny also said that Harry won�t tell because he probably thinks he�s breaking some promise. And we all know how Harry Potter is with his noble promises.

At five thirty, he is at her motel room door. There is something sordid about Draco Malfoy being at her motel room door for the second time in two days. He doesn�t even get to knock before she swings it open (she had been anticipating him, and he is half an hour late) and sees his face already twisted in displeasure. Perhaps it is a trick of the sun. Maybe he is just squinting.

�Er . . . hi,� he says slowly.

She actually waves her hand a bit in greeting. She feels like an idiot for doing it, but she continues it all the same. �Hi.� Then she moves out of the entryway and swings her arm to signal him to come in. On the floor, she spots a small black bottle and with wide eyes, she stoops down quickly to scoop it up.

�What�s that?� he says, leaning on his toes to get a look.

She half-smiles and sneaks her hand behind her back. �What�s what?�

He sort of laughs and points to her hiding hand. �That thing you�ve got behind your back,� he explains.

�I haven�t got anything behind my back.� And she awkwardly pushes her weight onto the dresser, sitting on it and sandwiching the pepper-spray between her body and the wall. Then her hand comes out from hiding, showing him that she had nothing to hide. �So . . . what do want to talk about, anyways?� she says, changing the subject.

If he had been Harry or Ron, he wouldn�t leave her alone about whatever was behind her back. So it is rather weird for her when he says, �About . . . yesterday--"

�What about yesterday?� she immediately starts in, defensive, though she isn�t sure why she�s so defensive. She could�ve easily anticipated what he was going to say, right down to the syllable. About yesterday . . . it shouldn�t have happened . . . let�s just say goodbye and move on.

He sighs loudly and plops down on her bed. �We--"

�I know what happened yesterday,� she interjected strongly. �What�s your point?�

�What?� He squints his eyes at her and rakes a hand through his hair. �Did I say something wrong?�

She crosses her arms. �No.�

�Then why are you so angry at me all of a sudden?� He pushes it out fast, before he even got a chance to think about it. And he really should�ve known better than to ask such a question. There are many reasons why she could be mad at him, though perhaps they were at the point where it starts being unfair that she always had the luxury of having the �you are a fucked-up asshole� card in her back pocket.

�I�m not angry,� she says simply.

He looks at her carefully. And then his face hardens, and he shrugs. �Fine.�

�Fine.�

He loudly expels a long breath and falls melodramatically onto his back. �What is your problem, Granger?� he says to the ceiling. �You�ve got something you want to say? Say it. There�s something you don�t want for me to say? Tell me already, so I won�t say it.�

Maybe she wasn�t quite at anger before, but she feels it bubbling up fast now. �But that�s a paradox! Y-y-you don�t say it, but it�s already out there, because I-I-I say it,� she sputters out, leaning forward so that the pepper-spray smushed between her back and the wall falls onto the dresser with a hollow clunk. Neither of them comments on it.

And quietly, he says, �I can�t really win with you, can I?� Maybe if he had been a different sort of boy, those words and that expression on his face would�ve splintered her heavy heart. �Would it matter if I told you I am sorry?� he goes on. �I know I keep saying it. It�s because I don�t think you really know what that entails.�

�Maybe I don�t want to hear it.�

Maybe you don�t deserve it.

�That�s your right.�

Maybe you�re not wrong.

She starts swinging her legs back and forth, lightly smacking the dresser with back of her shoe. He flips over onto his stomach, with his head to the side, playing with a stray piece of thread that had come unraveled from her lavender bedspread. His legs hangs off and curve over the edge of the bed, knees on the floor, ass up in the air for her to kick. And no words can really describe the feeling she has right then. The situation was weird, she�d later tell herself, but then she had gotten so used to �weird� that it sorta became �normal� as much as an unsettling thickness in her pits of her gut could be normal. And what really happens between two people destined to . . . not be friends?

Somehow, she later tells herself that there were no words to explain exactly how she had felt right then, swinging her legs, watching Draco Malfoy play with a piece of thread on her bed the day after the night they had spent together.

She doesn�t even know what to tell herself to call it. There�s an abstract need to give it a name, and sometimes she indulges in that need.

Fuck-ing. Screw-ing. Mess-ing a-round. Mis-take.

But what�s in a name? A misdemeanor in a pretty rosy guise would forever be an �oops,� so . . . she doesn�t really know where she was going there.

After the longest pause, she says, �What do you want, anyways?�

�Nothing!� he says exasperatedly. �Just . . . fuck!� And he�s worried because it suddenly feels like he�s about to have a freaking out bit. How embarrassing to freak out in front of Granger. �I don�t know! I just thought it was the right thing to do, not leaving it at that . . . and I�m here, aren�t I? Isn�t that enough?�

�Calm down, Malfoy,� she says, posture a bit slumped. �I get it, okay? It was a mistake.�

�The biggest,� he agreed.

�Got that out of your system?�

He sat up and nodded.

�Great.�

And then there is awkward silence again. He plays with the same piece of thread on her bed. She examines the crack in her ceiling with a hard piece of metal pressed into the small of her back. Then he suddenly gets up and points to the door with both of his hands, like a big dork. �I should, uh, go?�

And she doesn�t know what word to pin on that feeling she got when she absolutely knew that this was it. �See you around,� she says.

And though she swears later that it never happened like this, but she grabs him and presses her mouth to his (though she would also swear that she saw him move, too, not towards the door, but towards the dresser). There is no style, no finesse, no passion. Just something to fill the awkward void.

His hands wrap around her slick neck and he gently pulls her forward until her butt slips off of the dresser. Her arm blindly reaches out to grab a hold of something so she doesn�t trip and end up flat on her face. She ends with her arm around his shoulders and her forehead against his neck and one of his hands had wandered over the seat of her skirt and it was just too weird. Except . . . not.

She stands there for a while, breathing, swaying a bit under her own weight, leaning against him, not so sturdy himself.

And it was sort of nice, too.

And then, �So, I�ve been wondering. . . .� he says, smoothing his hands gently up and down the curve of her spine.

And she just knows he�s going to say something stupid, or offensive, or tasteless. �What?� she asks warily.

He grins. �When did you stop being the big V?�

(Simon Biladeau, after seven months of dating, during her jaded twentieth year in existence when she didn�t particularly believe all that much in the sanctity of marriage and that elusive thing they called �true love�)

(approximately seven months after her mother�s funeral)

�Shut up, Malf--"

He laughs and kisses her. His hands searchingly skims up her arms, down her arms, over her hips, looking for something. It makes her prickly skin stand on end and gives her an insane need to burst into tears--not the bad kind--the kind at weddings or ballet recitals.

�As long as it�s not Potter or Weasley, I�m good,� he says when he pulls away. He searches her eyes for denial or confirmation. �It wasn�t Weasley, was it?�

And this time, she laughs at him, shaking her head.

He looks a bit put off. �What�s so funny?�

She hovers her hands over her mouth and it only succeeds in making her snort. �You should�ve seen your face when you thought it was Ron!� she decrees triumphantly.

�Shut up, Granger,� he says testily.

�You know what I heard?� She doesn�t wait for an answer before she continues. �I heard that when you have sex with someone, you technically have sex with everyone they�ve had sex with, too.�

�What the fuck?� His face twists in displeasure because he doesn�t know what the fuck she is talking about (and worries whether it�s true, or if she�s full of crap).

Still laughing, she grabs the hem of his shirt and lifts it up and over his head. His face is red and all serious (looking down at her seriously, though he had stopped thinking about the repercussions of indirectly sleeping with Weasley), when she yanks the shirt off from around his head with a plop, and she suddenly forgets how to laugh.

�Hey,� he says, trying to bring her out of her reverie.

�Hi,� she says right on back before she clamps her mouth over his.

She had expectations once, a long time ago. It wasn�t supposed to be in the middle of the day. It was supposed to be in the dark, underneath bed covers, caressed by lavender candlelight, not onion-ring lavender sheets. It was supposed to be slow, not rush and frantic.

And he wasn�t the face she had seen. She imagined someone darker in complexion. Not Harry, but perhaps something similar.

Instead she got Harry�s antithesis.

Her shy hand hesitantly skim over the bumps of his spine with inexperience. She wonders if he notices. She�s scared that he notices. She hates that he notices, but doesn�t say anything about it. With more guts than she really had, she breaks away from his mouth to bite down on the skin of his collarbone--hard. Something caught between a whimper and a groan breaks the quiet afternoon and when her faltering fingers got tangled up in the button of his trousers, he bares his teeth in a soundless growl and whacks her hands away without thinking. �Let me do it, Granger.�

To cover up some of her embarrassment, she says, �C�mon. Hurry it up,� putting her fingers back onto his zipper.

�Listen here, lady,� he says, removing her hands again. �I can do this. I�m an expert. I�ve done this a million times before.� Upon seeing the angry-slash-horrified expression on her face, he quickly blinks and hastily explains, �I take �em off to shower and sleep and stuff. I haven�t had sex a million times.� It all sounds rather lame to his own ears, too, though he�s telling the honest-to-God truth.

She looks at him skeptically.

He grumbles to the floor and goes back to struggling with the button of his jeans.

�Hurry,� she says pleadingly. And the words hit him right in the center of his belly--hot and fast. Too fast. And he thinks that he has never wanted anyone as much as he unequivocally wants her. He�s shaking, he wants her so bad. Maybe that�s the reason he can�t bring himself to be a better version of himself.

He pulls the baaad thoughts out if his head and says, �I am fucking hurrying. You could do more than just stand there. Be productive, Granger.�

She looks down at herself, still in her uniform, knowing exactly what he was telling her to do. And she doesn�t like it.

She takes her girly hands and carefully clamps them around his wrists. They she quickly wrenches them away from his trousers. And while his head took the time to snap up in surprise, she shoves him hard enough so that he slams against the wall.

�Ow. That hurt, Granger.�

And she kisses him hard while her hands slaps his away again so that they could strip him down. She makes great use of her blunt fingernails, clawing at the smooth skin of his stomach, dipping in and yanking the rough fabric away from his hips, pulling down down down, taking all little liberties with his bare skin. And when she finishes, she looks at him. Really looks at him.

The way it was supposed to have gone was that he was supposed to . . . uh . . . cower (?) in his nakedness while she stood imposingly over him, still fully dressed.

The way it actually goes is that he raises his brows before staring down at the pile of clothing on the ground, bobbing his head up and down appraisingly, trembling a bit (she spotted his shaking fingers before he clenched them).

�That�s got to be a record,� he says, grinning.

�Oh, shut up!� she says impatiently before pushing him onto the bed. She awkwardly climbs on top and futilely pushes him towards the headboard by his arms. He only starts to move when he realizes what she is trying to do. Their mouths meet, his nearly missing hers, catching some of her chin, and it�s okay, because she has a nice chin. She can�t care less when he puts his hands all over her, though.

�Whe-Where,� he stops talking. He is horribly flushed and looks as if he is about to burst into frustrated manly tears. After he visibly swallows, he opened his mouth and tries again. �Where the fuck is the zipper?�

Leaning her forehead against his bare shoulder, she smiles blindly. She grabs his hand, and slowly brings it behind her neck, right against the topmost bump of her spine. He sneaks his fingers under the polyester blend fabric of her collar and finds the metal piece.

�Oh. Thank God,� he cracks, laughing ridiculously out of some reflex, sliding down the zipper in one long sweep.

With hot palms suddenly pressing against her warm skin, she whimpers and sniffs and pathetically presses herself against him, harder, squirming and grinding. And it--isn�t enough. It isn�t enough.

�C�mon,� she murmurs with her eyes closed and her throat exposed. �C�mon. C�mon. Hurry.�

�Granger,� he says, fingers working on the hook of her bra, �Fuck. You�re so . . . you�re so. . . .�

He never did finish that thought.

Somehow, she had ended being taught that sex was wrong unless it was . . . uh . . . love. You were supposed to bond heart to heart with your other half. You were supposed to be of one soul.

And while they�re on top of the covers, in the afternoon light, she stares at him as he maliciously laughs at her with just his eyes. And to be honest, it almost makes her sick to her stomach to imagine him as her . . . uh . . . love. She wonders . . . if she is bonded to this . . . person . . . would they kill each other before the day was done? And lastly, if they did share one soul, she wondered if he would hog the better half.

Often, she dreams of going back in time, to ask her mum, �Is this okay?�

Am I allowed to do this with him?

Is it okay that I don�t love him? That I don�t even like him that much?

Is it okay that I like it?

Am I doing something wrong?

With a sort of hopeless person�s hope, she holds onto him tightly and lets him bury himself in her. And she�s not going to lie, it was nice. It was very nice.

And later, she gathers enough nerves of steel to smother her face in her dirty sheets, smelling the residual scent of her misdemeanor. She picks up those proverbial balls off the ground, and hiding in bed sheets with her naked backside sweaty and completely exposed to him, she asks, �So . . . like, are we involved, now?�

She hears him snickering behind her. �Hello, Nineteen-Fifty-Five. Should I buy a wheelbarrow to carry all of your fatass books to lessons? Do you want to wear my class . . . scarf? Can I be the one to tell Weasley that I just did the nasty with his supposed soul mate?�

�Oh, shove off, Malfoy!� She tries to make it sound cranky, but she can�t help but hide her smile in her crumpled sheets. �It was just a question. You don�t have to be such a jerk.�

�What can I say? I�m an ass.�

�The biggest,� she affirms.

And then she feels his warm palm skimming over her bare back before he unapologetically pinches her rear. Then he pulls her close, using his warm palms to stretch out her legs so that they lightly rest on top of his. �I know about your spray-of-death,� he says softly into her ear. �You were going to hurt me.� She can feel his smile against her neck.

She tilts her head up a bit to find the black bottle still on the dresser.

�It�s okay,� he says. �I�m not mad. It�s sort of funny.�

She turns around to look at him. She finds him looking right back and gets embarrassed again. She covers it up by preoccupying her hand, brushing her knuckles over the red bruise forming on his shoulder, from where she had bitten him. �You should be scared,� she whispers. �I can hurt you with one very lethal finger.�

He reaches up and grabs her wandering hand, stilling it in his palm, staring down at her unwaveringly. �I�d let you hurt me a million times over,� he says seriously.

Then his face cracks, and he smiles shyly down at her, (so unlike him) and a little bit of heat worms its way out of her face and spreads down her chest, down her thighs, to the ends of her toes. And all the bits in contact with his start sweating. She hazily thinks that she�s melting the both of them because she�s a freaking radiator. All of these thoughts to distract her from the little alarm going off in her head. It�s saying, not good! THIS IS NOT GOOD, Hermione! Do you know who THIS IS? NOT GOOD!

Her jaw drops a bit as she stares at him incredulously. �Was that a line?� she squeaks. �Did you--did you just use a line on me?�

It�s almost comical how he immediately takes his palms and pushes her back as he simultaneously squirms away, towards the scary edge of the bed. �No!� he says. �I don�t do lines, Granger.�

�It was!� she says gleefully.

�NO!� he repeats. �You�re stupid!�

�Aw, that�s soooo cute. You�re soooo cuuuute!�

�Shut up, Granger!� His voice cracks from all the strain . . . and the stress. �I hate you. And you smell!� He says it as he rolls over on top of her and anchors her against the bed. He sighs because of all the new contact points between their bodies and urgently hopes he doesn�t say or do something to offend her because she got all . . . hot . . . in the four years he hadn�t seen her . . . and he is hoping to get laid again in the near future.

�You smell, too,� she says from somewhere below.

All in all, she should really watch out for herself, because he is one shady individual.

- - - - -

(10-09-04)
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Red Summer of 19