DMHG fanfic: Maybe When I Loved You
Wrote this for the dmhgficexchange and it was recommended in another community. Posted here to make it easier for other people to read.
Maybe When I Loved You [NC-17] for [info]drcjsnider
Title: Maybe When I Loved You
Author/Artist: [info]aerna
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: HP not mine, yada yada, not making money out of this
Warnings: Severely challenged writing. Only the second fic I've ever written for D/Hr. But there is porn! At the end! Gratitious porn!
Author/Artist notes:Tried for original but ended up mish-mashing common plots together. Hope you like.
Summary: Draco awakes to find a surprise, not to mention, dead visitor in his room
***
The last thing Draco Malfoy wanted to wake up to was a Weasley. Especially when the aforementioned Weasley happened to be dead.
“Wake up, Malfoy!”
“Weasley?” Draco knew that voice. The voice of a boy he had taunted in his schooldays, a boy who was supposed to be dead if the Daily Prophet’s headline was to be believed.
“HARRY POTTER SIDEKICK DEAD IN TRAGIC AUROR MISHAP”. It was just yesterday; Draco remembered the picture of a stony-faced Harry Potter and a grief-stricken Hermione Granger splashed across the front page. One detail particularly struck him, the still visible tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Draco hissed at the apparition, pulling his blankets close to him. Weasley’s spectre’s appearance seemed to bring an added chilliness to the room, or perhaps it was just the goosebumps he felt pricking up on his skin.
“Aren’t you supposed to be smart? Coming second to Hermione all these years in Hogwarts and you can’t see I’m a bloody ghost?” And it seemed Weasley was just as annoying dead as he was alive.
“Why are you here then, prat, instead of in your weasel warren or visiting your lady love?” Draco’s question seemed to hit home as the ghost’s face visibly fell.
Ronald Weasley sighed.
”Much as I hate imposing on your delightful hospitality, Malfoy, I haven’t got a choice. My spell led me here.”
“Spell?”
“Semper Aeternum.”
Lovers forever. A binding spell. “I never knew you harboured such feelings for me, Weasley, but I can assure you the feeling isn’t mutual.”
“Not on you, git! I cast it on myself, a few nights before I was supposed to get married.”
“To Hermione.” Draco was still feeling a tad confused.
“Yeah. You know, the spell works differently when performed by one person than with two.”
Well. Draco had never pegged Weasley as a romantic. Semper Aeternum was a spell that was listed under Category 2 Restricted Spells. Spells that could be dangerous but weren’t necessarily illegal. Those spells had long ministry advisories linked to them which could best be summed up as ‘magic users are advised to bloody well know what they’re doing before they attempt it and had better not be drunk”.
“So I wanted this to be a sort of secret gift, my gift to her that I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have agreed to if I told her.” Ah, yes, Weasley bumbling into love with sheer Gryffindor bravery. Besotted couples could cast it together and basically, it linked one life to the other. Should one party die, the other would drop dead at the same time. Gave a whole new ring to ‘can’t live without each other’ all right.
But cast alone...”You knew what you were getting into, right, Weasley? Oh, wait. You’re a Gryffindor. You don’t friggin’ care.”
”I do care, Malfoy!” Ron’s thundering was quite a sight to behold as the room basically seemed to react to his anger, the curtains shaking along with Draco’s bed. Draco had to grab at his pillows to keep them from tumbling off the bed along with his sheets, blanket and possibly his bony behind.
“Sorry.” Ron mumbled, as if he’d been caught talking too loudly in the library. “I, well, modified the spell a bit. The original would have had me follow her around as a ghost but I don’t think she’d appreciate having her dead ex-fiance mucking about all the time.”
Draco nodded. The solitary version of the spell was a blessing, an incantation powerful enough to work from the grave because it would only come into effect once the caster died. With love as the primary force behind it, it could grant boons or even keep a deceased spirit from leaving the mortal plane until the recipient’s death. In most cases, the latter was the spell’s primary aim but that could be changed if the caster so desired. Malfoy could relate. He reckoned if he were Weasley, he’d rather stay dead than follow his still-living fiance everywhere like a spectral puppy dog.
”What did you wish for, Weasley?”
The ghost gulped. So far as it was possible for a ghost to gulp. “I wished...I asked that if I died before she did, that she would never be lonely. You know how dangerous an auror’s job is, maybe I had some sort of feeling this was going to happen. I don’t know. That if I couldn’t be there to love her, take care of her, then someone would take my place. The best possible person in the world for her.”
Draco’s blood ran cold as Ron looked right at him. “And for some bloody reason, I woke up dead. With you.”
*****
It was a very good thing Draco Malfoy’s room was sound-proof. At least his parents and the house elves didn’t have to hear him rounding on a very dead and very exasperating Ronald Weasley.
”You’ve doomed me, you imbecile!” Draco was livid. The spell, once cast, was near impossible to thwart. Widows or widower wizards had been driven mad by the spectres of their dead spouses following them everywhere, immune to exorcism unless of course the ghosts chose to leave of their own accord.
“You think I wanted it to be you, ferret? You were the very last person I thought it could be. So for some reason, the magic’s decided you’re the best, not worst, person for her.”
Ron walked right up to Draco till they were nose-to-nose, ghost to breathing human. “And you’re going to be nice to her. And court her.” He paused.
“Or I’ll never be able to leave and you’ll be stuck with me for all your miserable life.”
”Having children with Granger or having you haunt me for the rest of your life. Such difficult choices. Why don’t I just have my parents adopt Potter so I can call Scarhead brother. Add to my misery already!”
Shaking his head, Ron decided to do something typically ghostly but certainly unnerving for Draco - Ron decided right then and there to pass right through the blond Slytherin.
Shuddering, Draco said, “Don’t do that, Weasley! It’s like being dunked in tepid pond water. Bloody disgusting that felt.” Seeing the sudden grin on the apparition’s face, Draco regretted his outburst.
”I’ll keep walking over you, under you, through you, behind you until you get the point. Remember, I’m dead.” Pointing to himself, he added, “And I don’t need to sleep, eat or rest. Think about it properly, Dray-coe.” He purposely dragged the Slytherin’s syllables as long as he could get them.
”And since we’re going to be partners in your wooing of Hermione Granger, I think we might as well stop the surname crap. Call me Ron.”
”Weas-” “Ron or I walk through you a hundred times.” “Okay, Raww-nnn.”
***
Thus began Operation Get On Granger’s Good Side. Though Draco insisted that Hermione was the supposed premiere witch of her age and needed no assistance on the romance front (though her being with Weasley, no Ron, put the lie to that), Ronald was stubborn. “Yeah, she could pick any wizard she chose but I want the best, you see. And you were. The spell thought so.” Draco had never felt so depressed at being called the best at something.
Step One included a brief condolence card and flowers to the Weasley home. Showing up at the funeral would have been bad form so they, Malfoy and unwanted spectre, stayed away. Instead, he sent Harry and Hermione condolences via owl. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they hadn’t bothered replying. But being the Gryffindors they were, Harry sent a simple “Thanks, Malfoy” scribbled hastily on parchment.
Hermione, of course, sent a long missive. Draco couldn’t make the words all clearly as some of them seemed slightly smudged. The gist of it was that she was “grateful for his wishes and that it meant a lot to her, that it was some sign that some good had come out of the War if petty house rivalries could be put aside on occasions of personal loss”. It was a little verbose but obviously heartfelt. Draco even felt a little guilty at having only written no more than a few sentences.
Step Two, partially formed out of a desperate need to stall, was to give Hermione space to grieve. Hermione was working in the Department for the Care and Regulation of Magical Creatures but was on a month-long leave. Precisely a good time for Draco to start working in the department across from hers, the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Oh, the blow to his ego. Arthur Weasley had been taken aback by Draco’s application to join, considering the Malfoys were as rich as Croesus and didn’t need to work, especially not under a Weasley. They’d chatted amiably enough, Ron whispering hints as to Arthur’s favourite topics though Draco’d be damned if he knew what kom-pew-tes were and why the In-te-net was fascinating. Funnily enough, no one could see Ron’s ghost apart from Draco and somehow, seeing the wisful glances Ron kept giving Arthur as he hovered near, he couldn’t help but feel a pricking of sympathy. He knew what it was like to miss a father.
Once he saw that Arthur had let his guard down a little, Draco decided to go in for the kill. Clearing his throat, he looked Arthur in the eye yet saying softly, “I felt, sir, that I didn’t want to leave it too late.”
”Too late for what, young man?” Mr. Weasley looked warily at the man who looked far too much like his father, minus the long , flowing hair and cane.
”To do something good before I died. Doing something that mattered, being the person I want to be.” Draco paused, for effect. “A good man, sir.”
He’d hoped to dear Merlin that he sounded as sincere as he hoped he did.
The silence that greeted him was both sickening and a relief. He’s going to tell me to bugger off and I can tell his son to do so as well...
His thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a choked sob. Or maybe not. Damn, I’m good.
Draco started work the very next day.
***
So it happened as he’d stepped out of the lift. The meeting with Granger. He’d gotten out and there she was, waiting for the next elevator down.
She glanced up at him. He nodded. They both looked away.
“Well, she doesn’t seem hateful towards you, so that’s a good sign.” Ghostly Ron observed.
“Yeah, doesn’t mean anything though. This isn’t Hogwarts, you know. We’ve all grown up.” Malfoy briskly walked to his desk, one he’d gotten rather fond of. It was nice, the routine.
The perks of being Lucius Malfoy’s son was the department had gotten a bit more notice and funding was a little less tight. It helped that a certain senior Malfoy had seen fit to make a generous donation to the Ministry as ‘help towards the restitution of the post-War wizarding world.’
“If my son has to be in the Ministry, I’d hope he’d choose a more dignified profession.” Malfoy had been less-than-subtle with his distaste at Draco’s choice of department. Still, he privately thought it was a rather cunning way to make the Malfoys look more favourable in the public eye, even if he had to risk being dubbed a Muggle-lover. But Lucius knew his son and decided that his son would probably marry a Mudblood before he’d declare himself a lover of all things Muggle. A good thing, then, he wasn’t privy to his son’s arrangement with a certain Weasley.
Said Weasley was now hovering around the table (he found he couldn’t drift too far from Draco without being magically hurled right back near him). Ron said, “We’ve all grown-up, yeah. Would’ve been nice to grow old, too. but can’t do anything about it now.”
Draco smiled to himself. Ron hadn’t always been so accepting and the first month of having Draco for a ‘roommate’ had been utter hell for both of them. It had taken two weeks of constantly being in each other’s faces for them to call a truce and attempt to tolerate each other for some semblance of amicable cohabitation. Though Draco did make Ron stay outside the bathroom or toilet when he needed to use them.
When they’d finally gotten around to having decent conversations that didn’t involve heated insults, Ron has started talking about Hermione. Draco decided that he could pretty much declare himself a graduate of Granger-o-logy, conferred by the Ronald Weasley Academy, though he needed practical experience to pass.
He knew Hermione’s habits, worked near her and was in a position to see her everyday. Right. Now the third part of the plan - Operation Getting to Know Her Without Looking Like A Stalker.
****
Maybe it was chance. Providence. The blasted spell. But for some reason, Draco and Hermione's departments found themselves working together for a fair amount of cases. There was the one where pureblooded wizards resorted to using their house elves to steal from Muggles, for instance. The War had left quite a few Death Eater families stripped of their galleons or primary breadwinners.
Malfoy knew he had been lucky that his own family had escaped rather lightly. They still had their fortune, land, holdings and his mother's actions had earned her some measure of the Boy Who Lived's gratitude.
Lucius Malfoy, however, had seemed doomed to a life sentence in Azkaban at the least but someone had stepped in to absolve the elder Malfoy. That person was none other than the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Harry Potter was our hope," Shacklebolt agreed. "But the Ministry, for all practical reasons, had another plan, in case he perished before Voldemort. A plan that would have destroyed most of the Death Eaters as well as the creature who would have enslaved us all." Looking at Lucius Malfoy, he nodded. "Lucius Malfoy conceived it and it was a plan I agreed to because of what he chose to give up to make it succeed. His manor and his own life."
Lucius Malfoy knew that he was no longer assured good standing with his Dark Lord. And should Voldemort reign, he had no guarantee that he could protect his family from the madman's wrath. It had come too late, the realisation that the path he had chosen was flawed, dangerous, and ultimately the wrong one. Following the Dark Lord would not bring glory and renown; it meant cowering in his shadow, a slave in master's clothing. But he was determined that if he could not save himself, he would save Narcissa and his only son.
He had many hidden portkeys in the Manor that would transport his wife and son away as soon as the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord were assembled, again, at the Manor for a victory celebration. And once his family was spirited away, he would let loose the final, desperate ancient enchantments Malfoy Manor held.
"When hope departs, when death approaches, in only one thing can faith be had. The final end." All Lucius would have to do was mutter the incantation and the entire Manor would instaneously combust, killing everything and everyone in a vortex that would tear apart flesh, sucking away magic and all corporeal substance within the manor grounds. There would be nothing left. The Unplottable Manor would be taken off the map...permanently.
All this had become fodder for the Daily Prophet and helped re-establish the Malfoy name as one still held in high regard with the Ministry, and popular opinion. To Lucius Malfoy's credit, the pureblooded wizard chose to keep a lower profile than before rather than bask in the adulation. He and his wife spent most of their time in the family's holiday villa in the South of France, coming back to Wiltshire once a month or so.
Draco could have joined them, perhaps he would have, but for a certain deceased redhead.
"You wouldn't have made a bad Auror, Draco. That investigative work you did on the Arington case was pretty good. Wouldn't have thought the poncer was making good money putting a befuddlement charm on crystal balls and fleecing people during readings." Ron commented, peering over Draco's shoulder as the latter was finishing up a few reports. In response, the blond snorted.
"The Aringtons were purebloods. Our families knew each other, and it was just a coincidence I knew their eldest son was good at divination...and particularly nasty charms." Which was the truth, Draco had just thought himself rather lucky to have the inside knowledge to close what might have been a tricky case rather quickly.
"A Malfoy modest? Never thought I'd see the day." Draco's head shot up from the parchment. Her. Hermione was looking at him, her head cocked to the side, bird-like, peering at him as if he was a particularly juicy worm. Or book passage.
"Hello, Hermione." They'd started going by first-name basis after the first case they'd worked on together. The corner of his mouth turned up in a lop-sided sort of half-smile as he said, "Yes, so modest even while we're talking to ourselves."
"You seem to do that a lot." She said, off-handedly. Draco could feel his jaw drop somewhere around the vicinity of his toes.
"How... I mean, ha-ha, guess you probably think I'm going nutters, right?" Merlin. He had to learn to stop talking back to Weasley when people could see them. Or more like, seeing him talking to thin air.
She was shaking her head profusely, letting out a quick . "No, I didn't mean to pry or anything or insult you! It was just a joke, please, I'm sorry. Just I notice you doing that a lot, sometimes, once in a while...well, it just slipped out. Oh, God, I'm so stupid."
He laughed. "Granger, Hermione, I could call you all manner of things. But truthfully, not stupid. Never stupid."
She smiled. He smiled back.
And Ron couldn't resist adding commentary as he stepped between them. "Nice save, Draco. I think maybe there's hope you'll ask her out for a date real soon. Like before she reaches retirement age."
Draco remembered, just in time, to bite back his retort. Turning back to Hermione, he looked at her appraisingly. She wasn't carrying any files, she didn't seem to be in a hurry to tell him they were supposed to go to some inter-departmental briefing. So she was here because?
"Err, I was wondering if you'd like to go grab some lunch. I'm starving and..."
Well, he supposed her friends were elsewhere but he didn't need to know the reason why she'd just decided to pop by and choose him as a lunchmate.
"Sounds good to me! Let's eat." He grabbed his coat, took her arm and marched them deftly out of the department.
"There was something I felt like talking to you about anyway."
*****
So, over a cup of tea and a goodly portion of ravioli, Draco Malfoy wondered how to break it to Hermione Granger that he saw dead people. All right, one dead and very redheaded person. Who had made it his life's, no, death's mission to ensure his best girl got shacked up with his formerly worst enemy.
"Hermione, I don't know how to say this but..."
He noticed her lips pursing rather thinly. "Is it about not wanting to be seen with me?"
"No!" Draco's face entire demeanour was passing comical, seeing how his eyes were near-bulging out and he'd nearly flung his fork out in a panic.
"Have you, do you, ever think about Ron?" Draco almost smacked himself. He could imagine her snarky rejoined: why, of course I think about my poor dead fiance, who died in an altercation with a rogue muggleborn Wizard who hadn't gone to Hogwarts but taught himself magic, days before our wedding.
"I miss him." Hermione said, quietly. "I miss him every day."
She put down her own fork and looked up at the sky, sighing. "We were together almost every day at school and after. And now, I have to get used to an entire life without him. It's hard."
Looking back at him, she managed a wan smile. "But I'm trying. Really, I am."
"I think about him too." At that, she stared at him, a rather incredulous look on her face.
"Well," Draco itched to loosen the tie around his neck, feeling as if the words would strangle him breathless. "I don't just think about him. I talk to him. All those times you see me talking to myself? That's when I'm talking to Ron."
She just stared at him a long while before she spoke in a dangerously low voice. "If this is some sort of joke, it isn't funny, Malfoy."
She has to believe me! "I'm not, I'm not having it on with you, Hermione. I can see him, even if you can't." Looking to his side, he muttered, "Well, help me out, you idiot?"
"She can't see me, Draco." Ron's arms were folded.
"Tell me something only you would know, daft git!"
"Oh...OH!" Ron bent over and whispered something into Draco's ears, all the while Hermione looking at what looked to her a possible cause to owl St. Mungo's. For a straitjacket.
"Remember, Hermione, the day Ron proposed? He took you back, back to the lake where he found Harry. Found his way back to you."
Hermione nodded, dumbfounded.
"He said, I'm sorry I left you then. I was sorry ever since. I was such a git, Hermione to leave you there when you were crying and calling for me. And I didn't know how I'd ever make it up to you."
Draco watched as Hermione's eyes started becoming suspiciously luminous, shining bright with tears that threatened to fall. He didn't want to make her cry, but he knew he had to get on with it. Even if his own throat was starting to feel tight, and his eyes seemed to need to blink a lot as he spoke:
"So I came here to tell you, to promise you that I'm not going to leave you like that again. That I'd come running right back if you called and I'd never, never abandon you when you're crying."
Hermione was crying in earnest now and though he itched to touch her, squeeze her hand at least, Draco knew it wasn't his place yet. Ron stood right behind her, looking as though he too was having some sort of inner struggle. He looked at Draco and said,"Just repeat what I'm going to say to you, mate. Because it's as near as I'm going to come to telling her this myself."
Draco nodded.
Ron looked at her, this beautiful, headstrong, fantastically intelligent witch he'd fallen in love with before he'd even known. This was his last, perhaps only chance to tell her everything he'd never said; all the things he thought he'd have all the words to say.
"But I'm sorry, Hermione, that I couldn't keep that promise. I died. I left. But if I could march right back into my body and come home to you, I would. I think we did us all a favour by not letting you marry my corpse, yeah?" Draco repeated Ron's words, one phrase at a time.
Snorting through her tears, Hermione managed a weak little chuckle.
"I would do anything for you, Hermione. Anything. But I couldn't not die, and I'm sorry for that. But I want you to know I love you. I may not be here with you but my love, my love remains. I want you to be happy. So just keep living your life and keep being that amazing, incredible swot you are."
She was smiling, even through the tears, and the way she was looking at him as she smiled nearly took Draco's breath away. It didn't matter that she was looking at him as if he were Ron, no. It was a look full of so many things - love, longing and joy interpersed with bits of sorrow that tore at his own heart.
And then Draco felt it, that slight chill that seemed to permeate the air when Ron was around begin to dissipate. He looked at Ron, whose face shone with his own ghostly shades of tears, but was grinning at the same time. The shade's outline was starting to fade and Ron himself seemed to be glimmering in and out of view, like a shimmering mirage.
"I've got to go now, Honey-Mione. Yeah, I know you hate that stupid nickname but I've only called you that once. And yeah, this one more time. So, just, be well. Be happy. I'll always love you. But I'm not the only one who could love you. Who could ever not love you?" Ron paused to make a sidelong glance at Draco.
"I'm probably going to sound like Dumbledore or something, but yeah, love's a powerful thing. And like hope, you'll find it if you look. Even in the most unlikeliest places. Goodbye, love."
Though she couldn't see him, Hermione lifted up a tentative hand and waved, mouthing "I love you".
"I love you, too." It was so easy, the way it rolled off his tongue and Draco wondered if he'd be able to say those words for himself someday.
"Well, mate," Ron's ghostly hand on his shoulder still felt like some clammy ether but Draco managed not to grimace. "I think I'm done here. And I'm going to tell you one thing I forgot to mention."
Bending low, he whispered again in Draco's ear,"When I cast the spell, I also asked that whoever she ended up with be able to love her more than I ever could. So, yeah. I knew you had it in you even from the start. Honest."
"Whatever you say, Weasley." Draco smiled, with a mixture of sadness and relief.
"Later, Malfoy. Much later, I hope. Else, we might both end up back here trying to talk some sense into another gormless bloke."
"Hey!" Draco's protests were only met by Ron's hearty laughter as the ghost slowly faded out of sight. For good.
"So," Draco said, hesitantly. "You believe me, then."
Hermione only nodded, the tracks of drying tears still seen on her face. Slowly, her hand came up to wipe the last of them away.
And that was when Draco took out his handkerchief and slowly erased every last remnant from her cheeks. Gently, deftly he wiped away the tears down her right cheek, then her left, then the ones leaking out the side and beneath the rims of her eyelids.
There was a different look in her eyes now, one of recognition and understanding. He wondered if she saw what had been reflected in her eyes just moments before.
Ron was right, you see. Draco had, did love her. And he hadn't known until the very day she had shown up right in his very sitting room, a prisoner.
Not her. No, no, not her.
He'd thought that if he'd looked away, then it wouldn't be Hermione captured. That if he didn't look too close, maybe it'd be some other witch.
The stunning, sudden realisation that he'd loved her since sixth year hit him right in the face. That awful sixth year where he'd been blackmailed into killing Dumbledore and he'd been a horrible bunch of nerves, she'd somehow seen his despair. He knew it from the way she'd look at him, not with loathing or dismissal as the other Gryffindors did.
And they'd had that one moment where she'd found him, sneaking back to the dungeon after hours . He didn't know what to do then, curse her? Erase her memory? Granger was quick enough with a wand for him to know he'd be risking a lot to even try. Merlin knew he was too tired from lack of sleep and worrying about everything. All she'd said was, "Go get some rest, Malfoy. You look awful." Then she'd turned her back and walked on, as if she hadn't seen him.
She hadn't judged. She hadn't called him names. She saw him, weak and broken. And she'd let him alone. It was one of the few nights he'd managed to get a decent sleep. He'd felt a true coward, then, and for the first time, truly felt small next to her. Not for her brains, nor her talent - no, she bested him with a courage he knew he couldn't match.
So he tried to muster up as much of his courage as he could, as they walked back together, to take her hand. And she let him.
***
He would remember every little first.
The first time he held her hand.
The first time they'd gone to dinner (his attempt at cooking was a disaster, but it was OK. They went to McDonald's instead)
The first time they'd kissed (he'd been aiming for a peck on the cheek but she'd swiftly met his lips with her own )
The first time he'd spent the night (all they did was snuggle on the couch and they'd fallen asleep)
The first time - her first time.
I don't want to wait, she whispered. They kissed frantically, in between taking each other's clothes off. He'd been her first, not Ron, and he hoped by all that was holy that he'd be her last. She'd made him sit first and proceeded to delicately take him into her mouth, licking and sucking the tip of his penis until he'd decided he had enough torture. And then she was on his lap, straddling him because she'd read somewhere it would hurt less the first time if she did it that way.
It was heaven, to feel her slowly envelop around him. It was hell, just sitting still and waiting till she'd carefully taken him all the way in as he'd kissed her neck, her jaw, her soft lips as she moaned. You feel so good, she sighed. She moved on top of him a few times until he gently flipped her onto her back and started to thrust ever-so-slowly.
The first time they fucked. Really fucked.
They'd had a fight in the morning and this time, he wasn't going to hold back as they 'made up'. He'd held her down and fucked her right into the mattress, the first time he'd ever been any kind of rough in their lovemaking. She came in three minutes.
The first time she told him she loved him.
"I think, no, I know I love you." She was looking at him slightly dazed, as if she'd come to a sudden epiphany. "I love you! Yes, I do!" She was crying all of a sudden as she put one hand on either side of his face and drew it down to hers. Her forehead against his as he finally could say the words of his own accord: "I love you too, Hermione."
You asked for: Rating R (although anything between pg - nc-17 is fine) My ideal fic is a post-war Draco and Hermione romance - either canon and EWE (I would like DH to be considered - although you don't have to make Draco as much of a coward as JKR did) - and some sort of plot line that involves something outside of the Romance. Draco and Hermione working together or against each to accomplish something, Draco and Hermione trapped some where and needing to get out, etc. Sex and fluff are fine as long as they fit the plot of the story. Draco should be sarcastic and witty and conflicted is fine too - as long as he doesn't go emo. Hermione should be strong and smart and sarcastic too. You are going to have to explain why she is no longer with Ron. This can be part of the story or happen before the story - but don't make Ron a jerk or asshole or whatever. I like mature language as long as it fits the story. The story must have some sort of conflict that needs to be resolved - a conflict beyond just the romance. I don't care if Draco/Hermione are together all the way through the fic or if they get together in the fic, but I want them together and reasonably assured of a happy future at the end of the fic.
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): No affairs, no non-con, no EMO Draco, no completely goody-goody Hermione, no Draco with Ginny or Pansy (in fact if you can leave Ginny completely out of the story - or seen but not heard that would be wonderful), no weird sex stuff, neither Draco or Hermione involved in slash or three-somes, no kids (unless it is the kids mentioned in epilogue - even then they shouldn't be focus of the story), and no babies. No telling the story from Crookshanks or any other animal's point of view.
Maybe When I Loved You [NC-17] for [info]drcjsnider
Title: Maybe When I Loved You
Author/Artist: [info]aerna
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: HP not mine, yada yada, not making money out of this
Warnings: Severely challenged writing. Only the second fic I've ever written for D/Hr. But there is porn! At the end! Gratitious porn!
Author/Artist notes:Tried for original but ended up mish-mashing common plots together. Hope you like.
Summary: Draco awakes to find a surprise, not to mention, dead visitor in his room
***
The last thing Draco Malfoy wanted to wake up to was a Weasley. Especially when the aforementioned Weasley happened to be dead.
“Wake up, Malfoy!”
“Weasley?” Draco knew that voice. The voice of a boy he had taunted in his schooldays, a boy who was supposed to be dead if the Daily Prophet’s headline was to be believed.
“HARRY POTTER SIDEKICK DEAD IN TRAGIC AUROR MISHAP”. It was just yesterday; Draco remembered the picture of a stony-faced Harry Potter and a grief-stricken Hermione Granger splashed across the front page. One detail particularly struck him, the still visible tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Draco hissed at the apparition, pulling his blankets close to him. Weasley’s spectre’s appearance seemed to bring an added chilliness to the room, or perhaps it was just the goosebumps he felt pricking up on his skin.
“Aren’t you supposed to be smart? Coming second to Hermione all these years in Hogwarts and you can’t see I’m a bloody ghost?” And it seemed Weasley was just as annoying dead as he was alive.
“Why are you here then, prat, instead of in your weasel warren or visiting your lady love?” Draco’s question seemed to hit home as the ghost’s face visibly fell.
Ronald Weasley sighed.
”Much as I hate imposing on your delightful hospitality, Malfoy, I haven’t got a choice. My spell led me here.”
“Spell?”
“Semper Aeternum.”
Lovers forever. A binding spell. “I never knew you harboured such feelings for me, Weasley, but I can assure you the feeling isn’t mutual.”
“Not on you, git! I cast it on myself, a few nights before I was supposed to get married.”
“To Hermione.” Draco was still feeling a tad confused.
“Yeah. You know, the spell works differently when performed by one person than with two.”
Well. Draco had never pegged Weasley as a romantic. Semper Aeternum was a spell that was listed under Category 2 Restricted Spells. Spells that could be dangerous but weren’t necessarily illegal. Those spells had long ministry advisories linked to them which could best be summed up as ‘magic users are advised to bloody well know what they’re doing before they attempt it and had better not be drunk”.
“So I wanted this to be a sort of secret gift, my gift to her that I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have agreed to if I told her.” Ah, yes, Weasley bumbling into love with sheer Gryffindor bravery. Besotted couples could cast it together and basically, it linked one life to the other. Should one party die, the other would drop dead at the same time. Gave a whole new ring to ‘can’t live without each other’ all right.
But cast alone...”You knew what you were getting into, right, Weasley? Oh, wait. You’re a Gryffindor. You don’t friggin’ care.”
”I do care, Malfoy!” Ron’s thundering was quite a sight to behold as the room basically seemed to react to his anger, the curtains shaking along with Draco’s bed. Draco had to grab at his pillows to keep them from tumbling off the bed along with his sheets, blanket and possibly his bony behind.
“Sorry.” Ron mumbled, as if he’d been caught talking too loudly in the library. “I, well, modified the spell a bit. The original would have had me follow her around as a ghost but I don’t think she’d appreciate having her dead ex-fiance mucking about all the time.”
Draco nodded. The solitary version of the spell was a blessing, an incantation powerful enough to work from the grave because it would only come into effect once the caster died. With love as the primary force behind it, it could grant boons or even keep a deceased spirit from leaving the mortal plane until the recipient’s death. In most cases, the latter was the spell’s primary aim but that could be changed if the caster so desired. Malfoy could relate. He reckoned if he were Weasley, he’d rather stay dead than follow his still-living fiance everywhere like a spectral puppy dog.
”What did you wish for, Weasley?”
The ghost gulped. So far as it was possible for a ghost to gulp. “I wished...I asked that if I died before she did, that she would never be lonely. You know how dangerous an auror’s job is, maybe I had some sort of feeling this was going to happen. I don’t know. That if I couldn’t be there to love her, take care of her, then someone would take my place. The best possible person in the world for her.”
Draco’s blood ran cold as Ron looked right at him. “And for some bloody reason, I woke up dead. With you.”
*****
It was a very good thing Draco Malfoy’s room was sound-proof. At least his parents and the house elves didn’t have to hear him rounding on a very dead and very exasperating Ronald Weasley.
”You’ve doomed me, you imbecile!” Draco was livid. The spell, once cast, was near impossible to thwart. Widows or widower wizards had been driven mad by the spectres of their dead spouses following them everywhere, immune to exorcism unless of course the ghosts chose to leave of their own accord.
“You think I wanted it to be you, ferret? You were the very last person I thought it could be. So for some reason, the magic’s decided you’re the best, not worst, person for her.”
Ron walked right up to Draco till they were nose-to-nose, ghost to breathing human. “And you’re going to be nice to her. And court her.” He paused.
“Or I’ll never be able to leave and you’ll be stuck with me for all your miserable life.”
”Having children with Granger or having you haunt me for the rest of your life. Such difficult choices. Why don’t I just have my parents adopt Potter so I can call Scarhead brother. Add to my misery already!”
Shaking his head, Ron decided to do something typically ghostly but certainly unnerving for Draco - Ron decided right then and there to pass right through the blond Slytherin.
Shuddering, Draco said, “Don’t do that, Weasley! It’s like being dunked in tepid pond water. Bloody disgusting that felt.” Seeing the sudden grin on the apparition’s face, Draco regretted his outburst.
”I’ll keep walking over you, under you, through you, behind you until you get the point. Remember, I’m dead.” Pointing to himself, he added, “And I don’t need to sleep, eat or rest. Think about it properly, Dray-coe.” He purposely dragged the Slytherin’s syllables as long as he could get them.
”And since we’re going to be partners in your wooing of Hermione Granger, I think we might as well stop the surname crap. Call me Ron.”
”Weas-” “Ron or I walk through you a hundred times.” “Okay, Raww-nnn.”
***
Thus began Operation Get On Granger’s Good Side. Though Draco insisted that Hermione was the supposed premiere witch of her age and needed no assistance on the romance front (though her being with Weasley, no Ron, put the lie to that), Ronald was stubborn. “Yeah, she could pick any wizard she chose but I want the best, you see. And you were. The spell thought so.” Draco had never felt so depressed at being called the best at something.
Step One included a brief condolence card and flowers to the Weasley home. Showing up at the funeral would have been bad form so they, Malfoy and unwanted spectre, stayed away. Instead, he sent Harry and Hermione condolences via owl. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they hadn’t bothered replying. But being the Gryffindors they were, Harry sent a simple “Thanks, Malfoy” scribbled hastily on parchment.
Hermione, of course, sent a long missive. Draco couldn’t make the words all clearly as some of them seemed slightly smudged. The gist of it was that she was “grateful for his wishes and that it meant a lot to her, that it was some sign that some good had come out of the War if petty house rivalries could be put aside on occasions of personal loss”. It was a little verbose but obviously heartfelt. Draco even felt a little guilty at having only written no more than a few sentences.
Step Two, partially formed out of a desperate need to stall, was to give Hermione space to grieve. Hermione was working in the Department for the Care and Regulation of Magical Creatures but was on a month-long leave. Precisely a good time for Draco to start working in the department across from hers, the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Oh, the blow to his ego. Arthur Weasley had been taken aback by Draco’s application to join, considering the Malfoys were as rich as Croesus and didn’t need to work, especially not under a Weasley. They’d chatted amiably enough, Ron whispering hints as to Arthur’s favourite topics though Draco’d be damned if he knew what kom-pew-tes were and why the In-te-net was fascinating. Funnily enough, no one could see Ron’s ghost apart from Draco and somehow, seeing the wisful glances Ron kept giving Arthur as he hovered near, he couldn’t help but feel a pricking of sympathy. He knew what it was like to miss a father.
Once he saw that Arthur had let his guard down a little, Draco decided to go in for the kill. Clearing his throat, he looked Arthur in the eye yet saying softly, “I felt, sir, that I didn’t want to leave it too late.”
”Too late for what, young man?” Mr. Weasley looked warily at the man who looked far too much like his father, minus the long , flowing hair and cane.
”To do something good before I died. Doing something that mattered, being the person I want to be.” Draco paused, for effect. “A good man, sir.”
He’d hoped to dear Merlin that he sounded as sincere as he hoped he did.
The silence that greeted him was both sickening and a relief. He’s going to tell me to bugger off and I can tell his son to do so as well...
His thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a choked sob. Or maybe not. Damn, I’m good.
Draco started work the very next day.
***
So it happened as he’d stepped out of the lift. The meeting with Granger. He’d gotten out and there she was, waiting for the next elevator down.
She glanced up at him. He nodded. They both looked away.
“Well, she doesn’t seem hateful towards you, so that’s a good sign.” Ghostly Ron observed.
“Yeah, doesn’t mean anything though. This isn’t Hogwarts, you know. We’ve all grown up.” Malfoy briskly walked to his desk, one he’d gotten rather fond of. It was nice, the routine.
The perks of being Lucius Malfoy’s son was the department had gotten a bit more notice and funding was a little less tight. It helped that a certain senior Malfoy had seen fit to make a generous donation to the Ministry as ‘help towards the restitution of the post-War wizarding world.’
“If my son has to be in the Ministry, I’d hope he’d choose a more dignified profession.” Malfoy had been less-than-subtle with his distaste at Draco’s choice of department. Still, he privately thought it was a rather cunning way to make the Malfoys look more favourable in the public eye, even if he had to risk being dubbed a Muggle-lover. But Lucius knew his son and decided that his son would probably marry a Mudblood before he’d declare himself a lover of all things Muggle. A good thing, then, he wasn’t privy to his son’s arrangement with a certain Weasley.
Said Weasley was now hovering around the table (he found he couldn’t drift too far from Draco without being magically hurled right back near him). Ron said, “We’ve all grown-up, yeah. Would’ve been nice to grow old, too. but can’t do anything about it now.”
Draco smiled to himself. Ron hadn’t always been so accepting and the first month of having Draco for a ‘roommate’ had been utter hell for both of them. It had taken two weeks of constantly being in each other’s faces for them to call a truce and attempt to tolerate each other for some semblance of amicable cohabitation. Though Draco did make Ron stay outside the bathroom or toilet when he needed to use them.
When they’d finally gotten around to having decent conversations that didn’t involve heated insults, Ron has started talking about Hermione. Draco decided that he could pretty much declare himself a graduate of Granger-o-logy, conferred by the Ronald Weasley Academy, though he needed practical experience to pass.
He knew Hermione’s habits, worked near her and was in a position to see her everyday. Right. Now the third part of the plan - Operation Getting to Know Her Without Looking Like A Stalker.
****
Maybe it was chance. Providence. The blasted spell. But for some reason, Draco and Hermione's departments found themselves working together for a fair amount of cases. There was the one where pureblooded wizards resorted to using their house elves to steal from Muggles, for instance. The War had left quite a few Death Eater families stripped of their galleons or primary breadwinners.
Malfoy knew he had been lucky that his own family had escaped rather lightly. They still had their fortune, land, holdings and his mother's actions had earned her some measure of the Boy Who Lived's gratitude.
Lucius Malfoy, however, had seemed doomed to a life sentence in Azkaban at the least but someone had stepped in to absolve the elder Malfoy. That person was none other than the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Harry Potter was our hope," Shacklebolt agreed. "But the Ministry, for all practical reasons, had another plan, in case he perished before Voldemort. A plan that would have destroyed most of the Death Eaters as well as the creature who would have enslaved us all." Looking at Lucius Malfoy, he nodded. "Lucius Malfoy conceived it and it was a plan I agreed to because of what he chose to give up to make it succeed. His manor and his own life."
Lucius Malfoy knew that he was no longer assured good standing with his Dark Lord. And should Voldemort reign, he had no guarantee that he could protect his family from the madman's wrath. It had come too late, the realisation that the path he had chosen was flawed, dangerous, and ultimately the wrong one. Following the Dark Lord would not bring glory and renown; it meant cowering in his shadow, a slave in master's clothing. But he was determined that if he could not save himself, he would save Narcissa and his only son.
He had many hidden portkeys in the Manor that would transport his wife and son away as soon as the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord were assembled, again, at the Manor for a victory celebration. And once his family was spirited away, he would let loose the final, desperate ancient enchantments Malfoy Manor held.
"When hope departs, when death approaches, in only one thing can faith be had. The final end." All Lucius would have to do was mutter the incantation and the entire Manor would instaneously combust, killing everything and everyone in a vortex that would tear apart flesh, sucking away magic and all corporeal substance within the manor grounds. There would be nothing left. The Unplottable Manor would be taken off the map...permanently.
All this had become fodder for the Daily Prophet and helped re-establish the Malfoy name as one still held in high regard with the Ministry, and popular opinion. To Lucius Malfoy's credit, the pureblooded wizard chose to keep a lower profile than before rather than bask in the adulation. He and his wife spent most of their time in the family's holiday villa in the South of France, coming back to Wiltshire once a month or so.
Draco could have joined them, perhaps he would have, but for a certain deceased redhead.
"You wouldn't have made a bad Auror, Draco. That investigative work you did on the Arington case was pretty good. Wouldn't have thought the poncer was making good money putting a befuddlement charm on crystal balls and fleecing people during readings." Ron commented, peering over Draco's shoulder as the latter was finishing up a few reports. In response, the blond snorted.
"The Aringtons were purebloods. Our families knew each other, and it was just a coincidence I knew their eldest son was good at divination...and particularly nasty charms." Which was the truth, Draco had just thought himself rather lucky to have the inside knowledge to close what might have been a tricky case rather quickly.
"A Malfoy modest? Never thought I'd see the day." Draco's head shot up from the parchment. Her. Hermione was looking at him, her head cocked to the side, bird-like, peering at him as if he was a particularly juicy worm. Or book passage.
"Hello, Hermione." They'd started going by first-name basis after the first case they'd worked on together. The corner of his mouth turned up in a lop-sided sort of half-smile as he said, "Yes, so modest even while we're talking to ourselves."
"You seem to do that a lot." She said, off-handedly. Draco could feel his jaw drop somewhere around the vicinity of his toes.
"How... I mean, ha-ha, guess you probably think I'm going nutters, right?" Merlin. He had to learn to stop talking back to Weasley when people could see them. Or more like, seeing him talking to thin air.
She was shaking her head profusely, letting out a quick . "No, I didn't mean to pry or anything or insult you! It was just a joke, please, I'm sorry. Just I notice you doing that a lot, sometimes, once in a while...well, it just slipped out. Oh, God, I'm so stupid."
He laughed. "Granger, Hermione, I could call you all manner of things. But truthfully, not stupid. Never stupid."
She smiled. He smiled back.
And Ron couldn't resist adding commentary as he stepped between them. "Nice save, Draco. I think maybe there's hope you'll ask her out for a date real soon. Like before she reaches retirement age."
Draco remembered, just in time, to bite back his retort. Turning back to Hermione, he looked at her appraisingly. She wasn't carrying any files, she didn't seem to be in a hurry to tell him they were supposed to go to some inter-departmental briefing. So she was here because?
"Err, I was wondering if you'd like to go grab some lunch. I'm starving and..."
Well, he supposed her friends were elsewhere but he didn't need to know the reason why she'd just decided to pop by and choose him as a lunchmate.
"Sounds good to me! Let's eat." He grabbed his coat, took her arm and marched them deftly out of the department.
"There was something I felt like talking to you about anyway."
*****
So, over a cup of tea and a goodly portion of ravioli, Draco Malfoy wondered how to break it to Hermione Granger that he saw dead people. All right, one dead and very redheaded person. Who had made it his life's, no, death's mission to ensure his best girl got shacked up with his formerly worst enemy.
"Hermione, I don't know how to say this but..."
He noticed her lips pursing rather thinly. "Is it about not wanting to be seen with me?"
"No!" Draco's face entire demeanour was passing comical, seeing how his eyes were near-bulging out and he'd nearly flung his fork out in a panic.
"Have you, do you, ever think about Ron?" Draco almost smacked himself. He could imagine her snarky rejoined: why, of course I think about my poor dead fiance, who died in an altercation with a rogue muggleborn Wizard who hadn't gone to Hogwarts but taught himself magic, days before our wedding.
"I miss him." Hermione said, quietly. "I miss him every day."
She put down her own fork and looked up at the sky, sighing. "We were together almost every day at school and after. And now, I have to get used to an entire life without him. It's hard."
Looking back at him, she managed a wan smile. "But I'm trying. Really, I am."
"I think about him too." At that, she stared at him, a rather incredulous look on her face.
"Well," Draco itched to loosen the tie around his neck, feeling as if the words would strangle him breathless. "I don't just think about him. I talk to him. All those times you see me talking to myself? That's when I'm talking to Ron."
She just stared at him a long while before she spoke in a dangerously low voice. "If this is some sort of joke, it isn't funny, Malfoy."
She has to believe me! "I'm not, I'm not having it on with you, Hermione. I can see him, even if you can't." Looking to his side, he muttered, "Well, help me out, you idiot?"
"She can't see me, Draco." Ron's arms were folded.
"Tell me something only you would know, daft git!"
"Oh...OH!" Ron bent over and whispered something into Draco's ears, all the while Hermione looking at what looked to her a possible cause to owl St. Mungo's. For a straitjacket.
"Remember, Hermione, the day Ron proposed? He took you back, back to the lake where he found Harry. Found his way back to you."
Hermione nodded, dumbfounded.
"He said, I'm sorry I left you then. I was sorry ever since. I was such a git, Hermione to leave you there when you were crying and calling for me. And I didn't know how I'd ever make it up to you."
Draco watched as Hermione's eyes started becoming suspiciously luminous, shining bright with tears that threatened to fall. He didn't want to make her cry, but he knew he had to get on with it. Even if his own throat was starting to feel tight, and his eyes seemed to need to blink a lot as he spoke:
"So I came here to tell you, to promise you that I'm not going to leave you like that again. That I'd come running right back if you called and I'd never, never abandon you when you're crying."
Hermione was crying in earnest now and though he itched to touch her, squeeze her hand at least, Draco knew it wasn't his place yet. Ron stood right behind her, looking as though he too was having some sort of inner struggle. He looked at Draco and said,"Just repeat what I'm going to say to you, mate. Because it's as near as I'm going to come to telling her this myself."
Draco nodded.
Ron looked at her, this beautiful, headstrong, fantastically intelligent witch he'd fallen in love with before he'd even known. This was his last, perhaps only chance to tell her everything he'd never said; all the things he thought he'd have all the words to say.
"But I'm sorry, Hermione, that I couldn't keep that promise. I died. I left. But if I could march right back into my body and come home to you, I would. I think we did us all a favour by not letting you marry my corpse, yeah?" Draco repeated Ron's words, one phrase at a time.
Snorting through her tears, Hermione managed a weak little chuckle.
"I would do anything for you, Hermione. Anything. But I couldn't not die, and I'm sorry for that. But I want you to know I love you. I may not be here with you but my love, my love remains. I want you to be happy. So just keep living your life and keep being that amazing, incredible swot you are."
She was smiling, even through the tears, and the way she was looking at him as she smiled nearly took Draco's breath away. It didn't matter that she was looking at him as if he were Ron, no. It was a look full of so many things - love, longing and joy interpersed with bits of sorrow that tore at his own heart.
And then Draco felt it, that slight chill that seemed to permeate the air when Ron was around begin to dissipate. He looked at Ron, whose face shone with his own ghostly shades of tears, but was grinning at the same time. The shade's outline was starting to fade and Ron himself seemed to be glimmering in and out of view, like a shimmering mirage.
"I've got to go now, Honey-Mione. Yeah, I know you hate that stupid nickname but I've only called you that once. And yeah, this one more time. So, just, be well. Be happy. I'll always love you. But I'm not the only one who could love you. Who could ever not love you?" Ron paused to make a sidelong glance at Draco.
"I'm probably going to sound like Dumbledore or something, but yeah, love's a powerful thing. And like hope, you'll find it if you look. Even in the most unlikeliest places. Goodbye, love."
Though she couldn't see him, Hermione lifted up a tentative hand and waved, mouthing "I love you".
"I love you, too." It was so easy, the way it rolled off his tongue and Draco wondered if he'd be able to say those words for himself someday.
"Well, mate," Ron's ghostly hand on his shoulder still felt like some clammy ether but Draco managed not to grimace. "I think I'm done here. And I'm going to tell you one thing I forgot to mention."
Bending low, he whispered again in Draco's ear,"When I cast the spell, I also asked that whoever she ended up with be able to love her more than I ever could. So, yeah. I knew you had it in you even from the start. Honest."
"Whatever you say, Weasley." Draco smiled, with a mixture of sadness and relief.
"Later, Malfoy. Much later, I hope. Else, we might both end up back here trying to talk some sense into another gormless bloke."
"Hey!" Draco's protests were only met by Ron's hearty laughter as the ghost slowly faded out of sight. For good.
"So," Draco said, hesitantly. "You believe me, then."
Hermione only nodded, the tracks of drying tears still seen on her face. Slowly, her hand came up to wipe the last of them away.
And that was when Draco took out his handkerchief and slowly erased every last remnant from her cheeks. Gently, deftly he wiped away the tears down her right cheek, then her left, then the ones leaking out the side and beneath the rims of her eyelids.
There was a different look in her eyes now, one of recognition and understanding. He wondered if she saw what had been reflected in her eyes just moments before.
Ron was right, you see. Draco had, did love her. And he hadn't known until the very day she had shown up right in his very sitting room, a prisoner.
Not her. No, no, not her.
He'd thought that if he'd looked away, then it wouldn't be Hermione captured. That if he didn't look too close, maybe it'd be some other witch.
The stunning, sudden realisation that he'd loved her since sixth year hit him right in the face. That awful sixth year where he'd been blackmailed into killing Dumbledore and he'd been a horrible bunch of nerves, she'd somehow seen his despair. He knew it from the way she'd look at him, not with loathing or dismissal as the other Gryffindors did.
And they'd had that one moment where she'd found him, sneaking back to the dungeon after hours . He didn't know what to do then, curse her? Erase her memory? Granger was quick enough with a wand for him to know he'd be risking a lot to even try. Merlin knew he was too tired from lack of sleep and worrying about everything. All she'd said was, "Go get some rest, Malfoy. You look awful." Then she'd turned her back and walked on, as if she hadn't seen him.
She hadn't judged. She hadn't called him names. She saw him, weak and broken. And she'd let him alone. It was one of the few nights he'd managed to get a decent sleep. He'd felt a true coward, then, and for the first time, truly felt small next to her. Not for her brains, nor her talent - no, she bested him with a courage he knew he couldn't match.
So he tried to muster up as much of his courage as he could, as they walked back together, to take her hand. And she let him.
***
He would remember every little first.
The first time he held her hand.
The first time they'd gone to dinner (his attempt at cooking was a disaster, but it was OK. They went to McDonald's instead)
The first time they'd kissed (he'd been aiming for a peck on the cheek but she'd swiftly met his lips with her own )
The first time he'd spent the night (all they did was snuggle on the couch and they'd fallen asleep)
The first time - her first time.
I don't want to wait, she whispered. They kissed frantically, in between taking each other's clothes off. He'd been her first, not Ron, and he hoped by all that was holy that he'd be her last. She'd made him sit first and proceeded to delicately take him into her mouth, licking and sucking the tip of his penis until he'd decided he had enough torture. And then she was on his lap, straddling him because she'd read somewhere it would hurt less the first time if she did it that way.
It was heaven, to feel her slowly envelop around him. It was hell, just sitting still and waiting till she'd carefully taken him all the way in as he'd kissed her neck, her jaw, her soft lips as she moaned. You feel so good, she sighed. She moved on top of him a few times until he gently flipped her onto her back and started to thrust ever-so-slowly.
The first time they fucked. Really fucked.
They'd had a fight in the morning and this time, he wasn't going to hold back as they 'made up'. He'd held her down and fucked her right into the mattress, the first time he'd ever been any kind of rough in their lovemaking. She came in three minutes.
The first time she told him she loved him.
"I think, no, I know I love you." She was looking at him slightly dazed, as if she'd come to a sudden epiphany. "I love you! Yes, I do!" She was crying all of a sudden as she put one hand on either side of his face and drew it down to hers. Her forehead against his as he finally could say the words of his own accord: "I love you too, Hermione."
You asked for: Rating R (although anything between pg - nc-17 is fine) My ideal fic is a post-war Draco and Hermione romance - either canon and EWE (I would like DH to be considered - although you don't have to make Draco as much of a coward as JKR did) - and some sort of plot line that involves something outside of the Romance. Draco and Hermione working together or against each to accomplish something, Draco and Hermione trapped some where and needing to get out, etc. Sex and fluff are fine as long as they fit the plot of the story. Draco should be sarcastic and witty and conflicted is fine too - as long as he doesn't go emo. Hermione should be strong and smart and sarcastic too. You are going to have to explain why she is no longer with Ron. This can be part of the story or happen before the story - but don't make Ron a jerk or asshole or whatever. I like mature language as long as it fits the story. The story must have some sort of conflict that needs to be resolved - a conflict beyond just the romance. I don't care if Draco/Hermione are together all the way through the fic or if they get together in the fic, but I want them together and reasonably assured of a happy future at the end of the fic.
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): No affairs, no non-con, no EMO Draco, no completely goody-goody Hermione, no Draco with Ginny or Pansy (in fact if you can leave Ginny completely out of the story - or seen but not heard that would be wonderful), no weird sex stuff, neither Draco or Hermione involved in slash or three-somes, no kids (unless it is the kids mentioned in epilogue - even then they shouldn't be focus of the story), and no babies. No telling the story from Crookshanks or any other animal's point of view.