Best Scene Excerpts
Best Scenes
All excerpts posted with the author’s permission.
Best Kiss
1. Gravity, chapter 5 - by floorcoaster
“Please,” he said quietly and she looked back at him. “Did I-I mean, was there something-” Just then a cheer went up from down the hall, in the ballroom.
“It must be close to midnight,” she said.
“Hermione, talk to me.” His gut was a mass of twisted nerves, axons firing spasmodically. If she did, if there was something bothering her other than the amusement park, if he’d hurt her unknowingly, if there was something he could make right, then nothing in the entire world would stop him.
She hesitated, as though she seriously wanted to tell him, but was still fighting with herself about it. She shook her head and sniffed. “Let’s just-get this over with. Okay?”
Draco nodded and stood, feeling as though someone had slammed into his lungs, forcing all the air out, and he couldn’t draw another breath. He offered his hand to her once again; this time she accepted it. And quick as a wink, his hands were suddenly sweaty and his mouth had gone dry. An awful, pleasant swirling sensation burst into furious motion in his stomach. She inched closer to him, and he saw that her breathing was ragged and shallow. Then she stopped, still too far away. He would have to go the rest of the way to her.
He took one step to close the distance between them. Hermione was staring directly forward, at his chest. He reached up and took her chin in his hand, gently tilting her head up toward his. She looked at him, and her eyes were clear, now full of that other something he’d seen before when he’d kissed her hand. And he still didn’t know what it was. They just looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes were swirling, searching his. They showed a hint of fear, but not fear of him, per se. She blinked, and then swallowed.
He thought he should probably say something-something witty to ease the tension, or suave to increase it. But he didn’t think either of them would be able to hear over the hammering of his heart, or the questions in her eyes.
As he brought his face closer to hers, she kept her eyes locked with his, as though she were anchoring herself to him. When his lips were an inch from hers, she shut her eyes tight, took a shallow breath, and a pleasant sigh escaped her lips.
Draco paused in his descent, smiling to himself before gently, lightly, covering her lips with his. Her lips were soft and warm and they shot a fire through him that he felt in the deepest part of his soul. He felt, almost imperceptibly, the remaining distance between their bodies lessen. He didn’t move right away though he knew-something was screaming at him-that he should. It took every ounce of strength he had to pull away from her seconds later.
When they parted, she was looking at him with such depth of emotion that he was sure she would drown him. Slowly, she put distance between them, never breaking their eye contact. He couldn’t move, as he wasn’t sure his knees would support him.
“It should work now,” he said hoarsely, also unsure of his voice.
She nodded and walked away, until she was well beyond where the invisible boundary had been, and then turned around to look at him. Neither spoke, they only looked at each other, Draco fighting hard the urge to go to her and take her in his arms and continue what they’d started, now that he trusted his legs again.
Then she disappeared back into the ballroom. Draco stood rooted to the spot.
ooo
2. The Bracelet, chapter 29 - by Akashathekitty
He said goodnight to Baddock and turned to look at her only to find her much closer than he’d expected, gazing at him with her big golden eyes in sleepy wonder. It startled him. Somehow, their whole position suddenly seemed much more intimate. She lowered her eyes and shifted slightly, making him clench his jaw as he fought down a most forbidden reaction.
Preoccupied with his internal battle to deny his physical awareness of her, he didn’t actually realize that he was rubbing her back until his hand automatically shifted to find another sore spot and she moaned. He felt the burst of pleasure as the muscle was coaxed into relaxing, and he shivered as his heart sped up. It felt so good. The ring must be magnifying her emotions, because there was no way that a simple rub could feel that good.
Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind telling him to make her move off him, he moved his thumb in slow, deliberate circles, applying pressure where needed, and her eyes drifted closed on a sigh. He rapidly found that this was addictive. He didn’t want to stop in spite of the voice growing more insistent that this would end badly. He really should be tormenting her, not rubbing her back, but this felt much better than the constant unhappiness that was nagging at him during the day and keeping him awake at night.
He shifted his hand again, and, this time, it was he who couldn’t stifle a moan. It wasn’t only feeling good, it was feeling… extremely erotic. He shouldn’t be entertaining this with her, but it wasn’t as if he was really doing anything. It was just a couple of his fingers rubbing her lower back. It didn’t really make sense why it would seem like such a forbidden thing to do. He had endured several hours of her on his lap, snuggling against him, without any side effects that couldn’t be fought down, so why did now seem different?
Then he realized - it was because she was aroused by it. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her lips slightly parted as she dreamily enjoyed his touch. The realization almost made him moan again. His touch was promoting these feelings of pleasure and a slowly building need.
How come?
He didn’t voice his question. Instead, he did the unthinkable; he bent forward and pressed his lips against hers. He didn’t know what prompted him to do so, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He didn’t know what he was expecting, either, but it certainly wasn’t the explosion of sensations that he felt. She gasped, and he expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. She pressed into him and returned the kiss with a fervor that left him breathless.
He had never been so aroused in his whole life. His own enjoyment and hers mingled until he didn’t know or care who felt what anymore. It went beyond anything he’d ever experienced and he hadn’t even tasted her yet. He continued to gently rub circles on her lower back with the one hand while he steadied her with the other hand on her thigh, and then he carefully used his own lips to pry hers apart. She was so willing, so accommodating, and her lips immediately parted under his. He tried to stifle his moan at her enthusiasm, but wasn’t entirely successful. Before either of them had a chance to have second thoughts, his tongue darted in to stroke hers.
There was another burst of feelings, almost like a blinding light, and he couldn’t keep his lips and his tongue from getting more demanding, couldn’t keep his control from slipping at the intensity of it all. She didn’t back down. He was losing himself in this sensual vortex, his heart pounding in his ears, deafening him to anything but the little sounds and sighs she made.
He slowly stroked the outside of her thigh. From her response, he suspected that she liked this kind of subtle petting much more than groping, even if she was in the same place as he was, trembling with unfulfilled need. He didn’t dare grope her. He didn’t dare touch the places he wanted to touch. He would lose the little control he had.
She whimpered and eagerly responded, driving him insane, urging him onwards. He reveled in every little sensation coming from her. He didn’t need her little whimpers and sounds to know just how strongly she felt everything. He could feel it for himself and that, too, spurred him on.
As her hands came up and caressed his chest before she tangled them in his hair, holding him to her, he drew her even closer if that were possible. He knew she could feel the proof of his own need - she had to be able to feel it - but it didn’t matter to him right now. Nothing mattered but the searing kiss and how to get more of it.
Suddenly, he was yanked back by his shoulder and the kiss was broken.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Blaise hissed.
Draco blinked, momentarily disoriented, but then it slowly dawned on him what he’d been doing and, as he regained some of his senses, he was appalled. Was the girl part Veela or something, since she was able to draw even him in like this?
He chanced a glance at her to see that she had come to her senses as well, her eyes big and horrified and her mouth forming an O.
Well, at least she thought it was a bad idea as well.
ooo
3. Tainted Love, chapter 29 - by kerri240879
Draco lifted his head slightly, and looked back at Hermione’s eyes. They were following his every move, her eyes widening when he smiled slightly.
"That wasn’t a kiss before, Hermione. It was a point you had to prove to Blaise."
Draco drew her closer again, and allowed her to see the intent in his eyes when he spoke again.
"You proved your point. Now I’m proving mine."
Hermione had seconds to think about what he was saying, and then Draco brushed his mouth over hers. She felt him smile against her lips, and then he kissed her again, this time proving his point beyond all doubt.
His lips clung to hers, firm and damp with water as they moved against hers. She felt his teeth sink gently into her lower lip, then the tip of his tongue sweep out over the bite, as if he was soothing the slight pain.
She shut her eyes, and leant into him, parting her lips under his when he swiped his tongue across them once more. Draco sank back into the water, taking Hermione with him as he deepened the kiss, and tasted her for the first time.
He wouldn’t wax on poetic and say she tasted like rainbows and star bursts and magic. She simply tasted of Firewhisky. He slid his tongue over hers gently, and then went back to kissing her. If it was one thing he knew, it was that he hated having a tongue barrel into his mouth, like a heat-seeking missile.
He preferred to taste when he wanted to, and use his whole mouth to seduce. From what Hermione had said about Terry Boot, he knew she felt the same way about kissing. But what he hadn’t factored in, was the clenching that was going on in his stomach.
He felt almost serene as he turned them in the water, and bought Hermione closer to him yet again. She was pressed flush against him, and he could feel every inch of that soft skin along his chest.
It was Hermione who broke the kiss, her small gasp skittering across his cheek as she turned her face away. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes heavy as she stared at Draco through lowered lashes. Draco allowed a small smile to grace his lips.
"Seduction, at its very best…" he said quietly against her temple.
Hermione licked her lower lip, her breathing hitching when she saw Draco’s eyes darken. Even as she went to leave his embrace, he bought her back against him, and lowered his head once more, leaving no room for argument.
Seduction was a game Draco knew well. But this was a question of who was seducing whom. Her innocence was obvious, even as the feeling of her in his arms slowly began to drive him mad. He should have stopped at one kiss, but couldn't remember why he hadn't.
He sucked her lower lip between his, her small gasp causing him to groan lightly into her mouth and deepen the kiss even further. Turning her once more, he sat upon the ledge, and bought her onto his lap.
One hand continued to hold her waist, anchoring her against him. The other began a slow trail down her spine, and then back up again. It was only when she was starting to shake in his arms that he broke the kiss, and pressed his lips to her throat instead.
Hermione couldn’t contain the small groan that escaped her lips, her head falling backwards even as her back arched. As he had promised, she felt her resolve begin to break when he nibbled on her pulse. But when she felt his fingertips dance across the bottom of her breast, she eased herself gently out of his arms. Draco let her go, and watched as she climbed out of the bath with molten eyes.
Hermione paused before she left the room, and glanced back at Draco. They stared at each other for a long moment, before Hermione broke the silence, and left Draco with something new to think about.
"I see why they call you the Prince of Slytherin. You were right. Seduction is an art form, Draco…one at which you excel. But I don’t know the rules, or the game, that you play. I’m not sure if I want to…it’s scary and exciting, all at the same time.
"I won't lie to you. You've affected me in a way I've never been affected. Viktor was new. Terry was an...experience. Seamus was safe. You're an excellent teacher, in showing the difference between kissing a sixteen year old boy…and kissing a seventeen year old man. And that makes you...dangerous."
It was only when she had left that he realised he was tied in knots over that kiss. And the rules of the game, that he knew so well, had just changed.
ooo
4. Pas De Deux, chapter 2 - by Eilonwy
"Oh, did you now? How very clever." His voice was now low and silken. "Prizes for cleverness to Hermione Granger, Head Girl and pride of Gryffindor House." He shifted his hold on her, moving his hands down her arms to her shoulders, which he pressed relentlessly against the wall. She knew that marks from his fingers would be there by the next morning.
"And I suppose you did it wandlessly? When?"
She said nothing, only shut her eyes against his wrath.
"I said WHEN? Tell me, you bitch!" He shook her and her head snapped forward and then back, hitting the wall. Catching a handful of her hair, he wrapped it around his hand, pulling hard.
"When we stopped for tea," she blurted out. "You had your back to me. I'm sorry! It was a rotten trick."
"You're sorry," he parroted. "Sorry. I see. Care to explain why you did it?"
Suddenly Hermione did want to explain. Wanted to very badly, in fact. She pulled herself up with as much dignity as she could muster, attempting to wrench herself out of his grasp, and looked him right in the eye. She would not be intimidated anymore. She wouldn't give him that sort of power!
"Yes. I would be delighted," she replied icily, her eyes suddenly hard as flint. "You had it coming after what you did to me, you contemptible little piece of troll shit! Deliberately flaunting all your many conquests in my face night after night, and then topping it all off by kissing me because you felt SORRY FOR ME, like I'm some sort of pathetic charity case! And then wiping the contamination off your mouth! Don't think," she breathed, her voice ragged, "don't think for one minute that I don't know what your game is, Malfoy! You're out to humiliate and belittle me, cut me down to size. And why? Besides the fact of my very existence in this school, that is. Because I had the temerity to kiss you and then embarrass you a bit in front of your little toadies, after you'd insulted me yet again in front of the entire class!" She stopped to catch her breath and then whispered, "Got a newsflash for you, Malfoy. No matter what you may tell yourself, you liked it."
And then she smiled.
It was the smile that did it. Draco could feel the anger pulsing right between his eyes. Her face swam before him, an indistinct blur of large brown eyes and masses of chestnut hair framing a small, pale face. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. He wanted to slap that triumphant smile right off her face. He wanted to…he wanted…
Curling his fingers in her hair, yanking it hard so that she winced, he slammed his mouth down on hers. This had been coming for a long time. He had been wanting her since she had first kissed him, only…he hadn't wanted to want her, and certainly not so badly. Had tried very hard not to, by distracting himself with a slew of other girls. He could have laughed at the irony of it-her assumption, engineered by him, that all those girls had been paraded in front of her for her embarrassment, when really, it was his attempt at his own salvation. And yes, true, he'd couched that kiss in terms meant to hurt and humiliate her-the anger and pride-driven part of him had certainly desired that-but the truth was, he'd also needed to touch her again. Needed it like breathing.
And so, finally, he did.
She squirmed under him as he pushed her against the wall, chest to chest, and he could feel her breasts pressing against him. Gods, he wanted to touch them! Instead, he concentrated on the soft, sweet mouth he was devouring even as she tried to shove him away. He was far stronger than she, and eventually, her efforts grew more feeble and her hands dropped to her sides.
"Hermione," he whispered, nipping at her lower lip, tickling it with the tip of his tongue, drawing it into his mouth and suckling it. His breathing had become shallow and he could feel that hers had too. Her eyebrows were drawn together as if she were in pain, her eyes shut, even as her mouth became more pliant and willing. Gradually it opened to him as tears slid silently down her cheeks, and she kissed him with everything she had, her tongue moving against his in a wayward dance.
Now his hands did slip down her sides to her waist and then slowly up the front of her chest until they reached her breasts, his fingertips moving in small, light circles, drawing ever closer to their centers. He felt her take a sudden breath and then go very still as he cupped them. They were nicely rounded, he discovered, and just the right size to fill his hands. Their tips were erect, and she moaned softly when he moved the pads of his thumbs over them experimentally. Burying his face in the side of her neck, he sucked on the soft skin below her ear as his fingers continued their meandering, teasing caresses.
Ripples of deliciously shivery heat were radiating from his touch straight to her core. This was not what she had bargained for. And yet she wasn't stopping it, even though she knew-she knew-she could, if she truly wanted to. It wasn't what she had bargained for, but then, nothing about Malfoy was, she supposed. This was a…a truce. Nothing had really changed, not fundamentally. Just a truce.
She slid her fingers into his soft hair and brought his mouth back to hers.
He tasted of chocolate and peppermint.
ooo
5. Communication Breakdown, chapter 3 - by spadul
“Granger!”
I stopped waving my hands madly. I must be going absolutely crazy, because I cannot remember waving them enough to have to stop.
“What. Was. That?”
It was then that I actually took the time to notice him and the state he is currently in. His breathing is deep and ragged, and he has this horrible look on his face. Blimey, I think he may murder me.
And out of all the things to completely push me over the edge during the past few days, this was it. I could feel the anger bubbling in my chest. I could feel it, and it was ready to erupt. I just needed one more push. One more bloody push, Malfoy. We all know you have it in you.
“How else were you going to learn, Malfoy? You kept saying that I swotted, and I do not bloody swot! And really what else was I going to do? I’m so sick and tired of having to try to prove myself to you, like I’m something less than human, and I have to work that much harder to measure up to something that I already am. Do you understand that? Can you at all be a human and feel human feelings for one moment long enough to understand what I’m saying to you?”
“No.”
“No? No? And why the bloody hell not, Malfoy?”
“Because it doesn’t matter, that’s why.”
“I’m telling you right now that it matters. It really does, Malfoy.”
“I know all that you were going on about matters, I’m not completely daft. It just doesn’t matter anymore, Granger, if I understand or not. Why does it matter so much? Why can’t you bloody just move on and let it be? Stop trying to figure me out. Stop trying to prove me wrong. Stop saying ‘piss it’ and ‘blimey’. Just stop. Stop everything and just live, why don’t you?”
“And you’re living?” Thanks for the push, Malfoy. “How in all carnation are you living anymore than the rest of us?”
He put his hands over his face. “Just let it rest, Granger.”
“Tell me how!” I shouted, so loudly I’m sure it echoed throughout the entire cave.
“Fuck it,” he muttered. And then there was no space between us any longer. He was suddenly there. I could feel his body against mine, and this time I was sure I hadn’t moved an inch. And his hands were on my face, his calloused hands holding my face in place.
And there it was. He was living. His mouth was on mine and I was frozen to the ground with complete and utter shock. I didn’t have time to analyze who this was for this time and what it was that was happening, because his mouth was moving against mine with a hunger that put starvation to shame. And his hands: his stupid, sodding, ruddy hands. They were in my hair, on my back, on my side, hovering almost shyly over my bottom.
I didn’t even have time to notice his hands holding onto my sides firmly and pushing me back against the cave wall. I couldn’t even notice one hand hook around the thin material of my cardigan. I couldn’t even notice the other hand that was now securely settled at the nape of my neck, angling my face towards his.
And I couldn’t even notice, that despite and my anger, despite my hate, I was kissing him back with as much gusto as I could muster.
And so I just let myself completely go. I lose myself in this kiss. I revel in the feel of his hand pressing onto the skin of my back. I revel in the drum of his heartbeat that I can feel in my own chest. And I lose myself so completely that I don’t even notice when his lips leave mine and his mouth travels down my jaw line and to the stretch of skin at the base of my neck. I lose myself so completely that I don’t possess enough will power to bite back the soft moan that escaped the confines of my throat.
I did notice, however, when his body seemed to harden and his ministrations stopped abruptly. And I did notice how incredibly awkward and naked I felt standing there in my dirty clothes with him pressed firmly to me. And I did notice the shaky breath he inhaled before he straightened up completely, his height making mine shrink in comparison. And I definitely noticed that he hadn’t moved away from me yet.
And I only slightly noticed that a very distant part of me hoped that he wouldn’t.
ooo
6. Beautiful Disaster, chapter 16 - by ashleyfanfic
“I mean, it’s extremely hard to shop for someone who has the means to buy themselves anything they want, so I really hope you like it. It’s for a pocket watch, which I know you have, and I thought…”
Her rambling was cut off by his lips on hers. She was surprised and stared at his closed eyelids for only a moment before she melted into his embrace. Her arms moved to his shoulders, then to link behind his head.
He pulled away gradually and watched as her eyes fluttered open slowly. “I love it. Thank you.”
ooo
7. Basketcase, chapter 17, - by attica
Hermione’s burning eyes widened as she felt his lips on hers, his hands caressing the sides of her face forcefully.
At first, it had been shock. Just pure, utter shock. She hadn’t expected it (who would’ve?), and she didn’t think she would have ever expected it at all in her life. If someone had told her that Draco Malfoy was going to kiss her in the near future, much less this way, under these circumstances, she wouldn’t have believed it. She would’ve shaken her head and then thrown it back and laughed. Hysterically. After all, why would she have wanted to believe it? Kissing him had been her worst nightmare for days.
But she now realized that thinking about it was far different than actually experiencing it. In fact, due to the fact that she was emotionally distraught, angry, and in love with him… it was actually quite nice. Of course, if only her heart wasn’t beating so hard like a detonating-and-seconds-to-explosive-doom conga drum as well, because she very well figured she could do just fine without that.
She just didn’t know what he was doing kissing her. She was utterly mystified. But how could she ignore the passionate pressure he was putting against her lips? And the way it sent her heart into nearly fatal convulsions? It was like the greatest heart attack ever! However, due to her still-revolving shock, she was holding her breath. But as his warm, soft mouth molded against hers, she felt the same passion and yearning that she had tightly bottled up slowly trickle out, and her mind was suddenly shrouded by a dreamy, thick mist.
Sadly, there was just no contest between his kiss and Hermione Granger’s rigid, chaste ways. After all, she knew it was wrong. It was completely, utterly wrong. She even played around with the idea of giving him a good slap. But her body remained frozen, receptive to his kisses though she herself was not responding due to her dizzying shock. She couldn’t move. It was as if she had grown roots to the marble floors.
This was Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy was kissing her…
Her heart was going into overdrive, pounding and pounding, and there was a white noise roaring in her ears. Then, suddenly, as if all of the binds around her chest had loosened, she felt herself sigh into his mouth and begin to kiss him back. It was all his damn fault. Why did he even have to kiss her? A snide remark would’ve been just fine - hell, a hug would have been much more necessary! But what was he doing here, kissing her, Hermione Granger, Muggle-born Extraordinaire? What had she done to deserve such a terrible, terrible thing?
And what was she doing, kissing him back, liking it?
Draco snaked his arms around her waist, pressing her closer against him, feeling a creeping fever that was flushing out every single hint of an objection inside him. He felt her fingers weave into his hair, and, with relief, felt her answer with a bizarre blazing passion that could only rival his.
Inwardly he felt himself chuckle. Well, who knew the Mudblood could kiss? Certainly not him. In fact, in the far distance of his mind, he thought that he could really get used to this. Kissing her.
But, in reality, he didn’t know why he had kissed her. He didn’t even know how badly he had wanted to or for how long until he had finally done it. It was sad to say, but he, Draco Malfoy, a sculpture made entirely of ice and certainly appeared that way in his icy conduct, suddenly found that he had a weakness: kissing Hermione Granger. It was ridiculous, no doubt sinful and forbidden, and even pathetic… but it was true. Oh, blimey, it was true.
It was funny to think about, how they had just been engaged into an explosive argument about God-knows-what and she had been chippering on with her psychobabble again. Undoubtedly, they were the king and queen of insults and fire-backs of biting wit. But now that was all pushed back among the insignificant things of life, like squirrels or rubber bands.
And they were shocked to find that the line that had been thickly, clearly drawn out in the beginning had been inscrutably blurred, then erased, and now gone.
ooo
8. The Story in the Soil, chapter 12 - by OrbThesela
“Shut up Malfoy, I didn‘t agree to conversations.”
Smirking at her reply, he pushed his mouth onto hers, snaking his tongue inside her mouth. Hermione brought her hand up to the back of his head, digging her fingers into his hair and tugging on it sharply, causing him to groan into her mouth.
ooo
9. Forbidden Love, chapter 16 - by Gryffindor_princess21
They were too busy glaring at each other to notice that they were inches from the other’s face. Hermione blushed and turned away, not sure of what to do. Draco started at her not to intimidate her but because he was once again too lost in admiring her. He reached his hand to touch her face and was surprised that she didn’t slap it away.
She closed her eyes at the touch, warmth flowing through her body as he stroked her face gently. She felt something towards the boy standing in front of her, a feeling that no other boy had given her and she felt like she was in the clouds. True, she was surprised it was Draco Malfoy that was making her feel this way, but her instinct was telling her not to slap the touch away.
They had come a bit closer to each other. Draco stopped stroking Hermione’s face and she opened her eyes in confusion-why had he stopped? Draco took another look at her and leaned forward to meet her lips with his. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t push him away this time, and he felt ecstatic.
The kiss was sweet and intense and natural, making Draco feel weak at the knees. As he pulled Hermione towards him, he deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist. He felt Hermione wrap her arms round his neck, drawing him closer to her and their tongues met.
Draco smiled against Hermione’s mouth when he heard a faint moan from the back of her throat. Both of them had forgotten where they were as they were melted in each other to notice anything. Their minds were in overdrive as they lost themselves in the romantic kiss they were sharing.
What the hell are you doing? Why are you kissing her? She doesn’t even like you!
Shut up, Draco told his conscience as he continued to kiss Hermione, getting lost in her scent of strawberries. So what? I’ve wanted to do this for ages and this is the first time that she hasn’t refused to kiss me! And is so much better than the one under the mistletoe.
Meanwhile, Hermione ran her fingers through Draco’s hair sending goose bumps down his spine.
Why am I kissing Draco? Her mind asked as she tasted those sweet lips of his. And since when did I call him Draco anyway?
Oh cut the silly questions already. You concluded before that you did have a crush on him.
Yes I did admit that. He did kiss me in the broom closet and at the ball and something was pulling me towards him but I was kind of afraid of that feeling…gosh those kisses were sweet but this is so much better.
Draco suddenly pulled away but still held her close to him, her head against his chest. She could hear his heart beating madly and she could feel hers doing the same thing. She looked up at him in confusion as if asking ‘why did you stop?’
He gave her a little breathless smile.
“I was running out of breath. Sorry about that.”
“Of course,” said Hermione and in an instant realised she herself was panting just as much. She hadn’t realised that she was running out of oxygen, and she felt somewhat faint.
Draco held her steady, even though he too felt a little dizzy. They stood in the middle of their common room for what felt an eternity, simply holding one another. Finally they broke apart but Hermione wished Draco could have held her all night. She looked at him, unable to think of anything to say.
“Um…well goodnight,” she said somewhat lamely as she slowly made her way towards her bedroom door.
“Merry Christmas, Hermione.”
Hermione froze, her hand on the doorknob. That was the first time he had ever called her by her first name in a nice way. She turned back to him, a smile on her face.
“Merry Christmas to you too, Draco.”
ooo
10. Through Trial and Error, chapter 3 - by little_murmurs
She smiled, wide and bright and slightly breathless as she curled her fingers around the back of his neck. She tilted her head inquisitively and said in a warm, low undertone, “Shall I kiss you, Draco Malfoy?”
His grip on her tightened, “Yes.”
She did not move closer but instead picked up her wand and pointed it at the door; there was a dull click as the lock slid into place and she replaced her wand on the desk. Work etiquette be damned.
“‘Yes’ what?”
He scowled at her evident amusement, his response a brusque, “Yes, please.”
“Manners are so important,” ghosted against his lips before she kissed him, slowly, sweetly and then more thoroughly, her hands eagerly resuming their previous task of unbuttoning the top of his robes. His mouth was soft and warm beneath hers, and he tasted faintly of tea and peppermint humbugs. His fingers continued to make short work of her robes’ clasps and when he touched the bare skin of her back she couldn’t help but gasp. He broke the kiss at that - eyes dark and mouth curved in a dangerously self-satisfied smile - to cast a speculative glance at the desk.
“It seems like a fairly solid piece of furniture,” he raised a provocative eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Hermione slipped her arms around his neck, “that there is only one way to find out.”
So they did.
ooo
11. From the Dark Tower, Part VII - by floorcoaster
He couldn’t look at her the same after that night. She knew him better than any person alive, had heard from his own mouth the terrible things he had done, and yet still spent time with him. It was unfathomable.
Now his feelings toward her had changed drastically. His heart burned whenever he saw her smile or heard her laugh, and he longed for their time together on the tower.
When it came two nights later, however, he was stiff and awkward around her. He tried to be normal, but suddenly he was questioning everything he did or said, and his words felt like cotton in his mouth.
She asked him what was wrong and he stared at his hands, unable to speak. The warm air in their protective bubble smelled of freshly cut grass and he breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh scent. He sensed movement and when he lifted his head, she was sitting very close to him, her eyes bright and intense.
They stared at each other until he realized he was barely breathing. He swallowed hard and then she hesitantly reached a hand up to touch his face. Fire and ice shot through him as she trailed her finger from his temple to his chin. Then she rested her palm against his cheek and he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. He’d never felt so much for a person as he did her, never felt so close, like their souls were overlapped. Beyond filling holes inside him, her presence in his life created new spaces where only she belonged.
Then her lips brushed his and his eyes flew open. She was a hairsbreadth away, watching him, fear and concern and hope mingled in her eyes. He brought his hand up to cover hers, still resting on his cheek, and then he wrapped a finger in a lock of her hair. Their eyes met again briefly, and he slid his hand around her neck and pulled her to him, closing the miniscule yet potentially insurmountable distance between them. That conquered, he buried his hand in her hair and kissed her.
He’d kissed girls before, and plenty, but this was unlike anything he’d experienced or dreamed about. It went beyond a melding of lips and tongues, it felt as though their spirits had fused. She was a part of him, just as he was of her. He realized he loved her, and his ministrations intensified. Though she showed no signs of wanting to end the kiss, he held on to her desperately, not wanting to end the connection between them for anything in the world.
When she absolutely required air, he moved to kiss her cheeks, her nose, her neck. She sighed, a mixture of contentment and desire and he returned to ravish her mouth. She kissed him back with fierce abandon and was soon pulling him down onto the stone floor. He’d barely noticed the change in position until he put his hands out to keep from crushing her.
He broke the kiss then and opened his eyes. She was flushed, her eyes swirling, her hair fanned around her head.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, then met her waiting lips.
ooo
Best Declaration of Love
1. Class Reunion, chapter 8 - by mister_otter
The kiss held all the melting sweetness of candy shared under the morning sun, flavored with a sharp tang of potent desire. It occurred to Hermione to say, "you have a wife,” but she realized that no one knew that better than he. She had the feeling that, after what had happened between them last midnight, he had weighed the consequences carefully and come to an irrevocable decision.
As if he'd read Hermione's mind, Draco spoke. "I've never strayed, in case you're wondering." His lips were moving down her neck as his fingers unfastened the buttons of her shirt, one by one. "Been tempted--hell, yes. But it never seemed worth the bother, really. Until now. Minnow...it's always been you. Always. Will you have me?" His voice, already low, had dropped to a whisper as he buried his face between her breasts. “Please.”
Gods above, he knew how to seduce. Even if she'd been unwilling, that sensual, longing-infused plea would have changed her mind in one heartbeat...
"Draco ... yes," she murmured back. With lightning speed, she moved from her chair to straddle his lap. Draco slid down in his seat in order to place her directly atop his erection; his hands slid around to unhook her lacy bra and her breasts popped free. Hermione closed her eyes, threw back her head and moaned as his mouth closed over one breast for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. But this time, she didn't plan to stop him.
Until a creaking of the ancient floorboards alerted her that they were not alone. Hermione's head turned as Draco raised his from her breast.
Luna Lovegood Scamander stepped around the corner of the book shelves, her blue eyes widening with a look of knowing innocence at the scene before her. "Hmm ... the star charts indicated someone was going to be lucky today," she said, "but I had no idea this is what they meant."
ooo
2. The Dragon's Bride, epilogue part 6 - by Rizzle
“On second thought, I think I do want to hear this. Explain to me why I should just forget about the past. That’s what you’re after isn’t it? And then I welcome you back with open arms? I think that’s what you were hoping for? Harry said as much. ”
Draco decided that the truth would suffice, to begin with, anyway. “You belong with me.”
She blinked twice, very quickly. He could see her slapping hand was starting to twitch too.
“After five years…thinking you were dead or dying or worse and with no way to reach you after those pathetic three postcards you sent me. After all the agony you put me through, that is all you have to say to me? That?!”
“That night in Knockturn Alley… I told you there was no turning back. Fida Mia started something but we bloody well took it to a whole new level and then we fucking sealed it. Granger. I’m not going to join you in pretending that what we had was some sort of stupid fling, you felt what I felt. Give this time. Please.”
“Evidently you didn’t feel it as strongly as I did,” Hermione replied, in low, clear tones. She jabbed a finger over her heart. “I’m the heartbroken one, remember! I didn’t do the leaving, you did. Don’t you speak to me about time!”
He nodded. “Yes, I know. I’ll get to that in a minute. Right now please consider that you can’t realistically stay angry at me forever. Now that I’m back, we can’t stay apart forever either. You know it will eat at us. It is already.”
She snorted. “Like hell it will. I rather realistically got over you, Malfoy! I moved on with my life. It’s not my fault you haven’t!”
He took a silent step toward her. “I don’t doubt that you did move on. Your resilience is astounding. It’s one of the many things I love about you, Granger. But you’re lying to yourself if you think you’ve got over me.”
Hermione couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did he really have the audacity to think that he was actually being reasonable? If his easy, effortless admission of love nearly undid her, his massive, undented ego just about did the trick. Hermione recognized she was in serious danger of going to pieces right in front of him. She despised him all over again for it. This was not supposed to be happening. It had taken her so very long to steel her heart.
She turned away from him in an effort to regain some composure. He apparently mistook this for indifference.
“Alright,” he said, and she was oddly pleased to hear the tremor in his voice. “Let me put a scenario before you. Put yourself in my shoes five years ago. Imagine you’re in love with me.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but he stopped her. “Wait, just hear me out.”
“You fall in love unexpectedly. Something you didn’t expect you were even capable of. You despise the world and all the people in it and you trust no one, least of all your own family, whom you think has betrayed and abandoned you. But this new love…it’s…” Draco paused, searching for a word, “it’s remarkable. It’s a whirlwind, passionate, fragile, completely illogical, as badly timed as you can get, but it’s also true. Head over heels, up to your eyebrows true. Then something happens and it’s because of you, directly and indirectly. Something terrible happens, and that someone dies. Badly.”
“Only I didn’t die. You saved me, remember?” she reminded him, in a whisper.
Draco’s eyes were searing, colourless crystal in the moonlight. “Barely, Granger. I saved you just barely. You drowned in my arms. I felt the life go out of you. You have no idea what that did to me. You died because of me.”
“But you promised you wouldn’t leave without telling me!” She realized she was shouting. Hurt and fear was pouring out of her and with it came an almost intoxicating relief she hadn’t expected. She was incapable of stopping it. She didn’t want to stop it. Goodness, when exactly did he get that close to her? They were standing barely a breath apart. His frowning, intense face hovered over her. Ginny’s home haircut had grown out a little. His fringe was long enough to keep out of his eyes. The hair at the back was still short and choppy though. There was a thin, white scar across his left cheekbone. And another along his jaw on the same side. Her mind reeled off at least a dozen more, new details about him, small little revelations that transfixed her.
“You knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep when you asked me,” he hissed.
Some small part of her brain was also registering the fact that Draco Malfoy was probably ten times scarier than he was before. But anger often made you braver. Even if it tended to be foolish bravery. “Oh, so now your five year absence is my fault, is it?”
“I did what I had to do to enable me to come back to you. I couldn’t have stayed before. It simply wouldn’t have worked.”
“You don’t know that!” she said to him, letting the full measure of hurt back into her voice. “We could have been happy.”
He shook his head, emphatic. Hair fell over his eyes and he impatiently pushed it back with his fingers. “No, we wouldn’t have been. I couldn’t have been with you the way I can now.”
Honestly, she could have just stared at him. She could have sat there and soaked up the sight of him alive and well. That summed up the depth of her feelings for him. The relief to know he’d survived whatever he’d put himself through was making a rather belated arrival. It was like getting punched in the stomach.
Oh no. She was really was going to cry now. At this point, her hand, as it had on so many other occasions in the past, decided to mutiny. It reached up and laid her palm against his cheek. He flinched as if she’d branded him. His breathing became staggered. Apparently satisfied with whatever it was that she’d discovered, her hand returned once more to her side.
Her mouth, on the other hand, was still firmly in league with her brain. Maturity gave a sharper edge to her tone. “So that’s what you have to say to me, then? That was it? Are we done now, Draco?”
His eyes had turned shiny. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned away and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Yes, I guess we’re done.”
ooo
3. The Fallout, chapter 15 - by Sage
"I wouldn't have taken you for the type to leave in a rush after sex."
Hermione stares down at her shirt in surprise, her hands temporarily halting from turning it right-side out. He sounds uncaring and accepting of the fact, but curious all the same, and she certainly hadn't been expecting the statement.
"I don't really have a type." She whispers back, folding the shirt between her fingers.
His is smirking, she knows. "The indefinable Granger."
She blushes, though she doesn't know why, and looks down at her own nudity. She raises her shirt to cover herself, working to turn it in or out, as long as it's wearable, and leans her head to the right to look for her pants. Though she doesn't want to leave yet, she doubts sudden conversation means he wants her to any less -- just as it always has been.
"Does it bother you? That I surprise you all the time, I mean." Because she does not want him to think she cares if it bothers him that she leaves after sex -- despite that she already knows it doesn't.
There's a smile in his voice when he replies. "It depends on my mood."
She huffs a breath of laughter, but it stops when she feels a brush of skin against her back. His knuckles graze and follow the curve of her spine, and then it is his fingertips that dance softly across her bottom.
"Are you done with me tonight?"
She blinks at the wall, at the cold December colors outside the window, and suddenly feels as detached as winter is from the warmth of humans. She has never heard it put in such a way. As if she was simply using him, and disposing of him whenever she is through. She did in a way -- in the sort of way that sex is about using one another -- but she never actually wants to be done with him, and there is a different there.
She did not use him as some sex toy, or...or...or whatever sort of thing she could use him for that would make her feel this strange coldness freezing up her intestines. If he breathes too harshly, she fears they might splinter and shatter, like the icicles from the windowsill.
"I'm just saying because... Well, I may not be sixteen anymore, Granger, but I'm not old enough to be done in one shot either..." He trails off, leaving it open and hanging in the air between them. His invitation. His now known acceptance of her staying beside him in his bed.
She breathes, three, four times, concentrating solely on the way the air fills her up and then deflates her. She thinks of asking him if he wants her to stay, even though it's obvious now that he does, but only because she wants him to somehow get that this has never been her choice. That she always assumed her position to be the one that isn't welcomed to stick around.
Instead, she says nothing, and looks back over shoulder at him. It is a strange angle, and she can only make out his chin and chest, but his breathing is even and his pose only slightly stiff. He has put himself out there now in a way that she never would have dared, and even if she had somewhere else to be, she wouldn't leave now.
ooo
4. Cake, Plan C - by emm718
“I’m not your girlfriend anymore.” Her eyebrows rose emphatically
“May I remind you that you,” he threw out his forefinger at her, directing the blame appropriately because he’d be damned if he was going to accept the role of the bad guy when it was only her and him speaking, “demoted yourself, I had merely accepted your wishes.”
“Because you didn’t love me,” she spat deprecatingly.
“How do you know?”
“Because you don’t love anything!” she screeched, throwing her hands in the air.
“Oi!” he scoffed, considerably affronted, “That is not true!”
“Really? Prove me wrong. Name something you love.” She folded her arms over her chest and her visage became incredibly serious and smug.
He didn’t even need a moment to think, “I love the Chesterfield.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “It’s just a sofa.”
“I. Love. It,” He bit out through clenched teeth, enhancing his point by poking his thumb roughly into his sternum with each word. “It’s unique and comfortable and we have loads in common. For example, the Chesterfield and I both enjoy farting.”
She rolled her eyes, because she couldn’t see his point, and as far as she was concerned his entire diatribe was silly and senseless.
“If the Chesterfield wanted new throw pillows, I’d buy them. If it needed a new view, I’d move it. Whatever it wanted I would give it. I want it to be a mountain for my children and to comfort them when they are restful. And when it’s careworn and lumpy I will cherish it still for all the memories it gave me.”
He was absolutely off his rocker. “What!?” she yelled in her confusion. She really did not see what the Chesterfield had to do with their relationship, or lack there of. It was almost as if he was comparing his outrageous affection for the furniture to that of another human being. Suddenly comprehension dawned on her, “Oh,” she whispered, blinking rapidly in astonishment. “You love the Chesterfield.”
“Yes.”
“Y-you love me!” A smile broke her face and her brown eyes lit up until they were sparkling with tears.
“I do.”
Tingly happiness surged her nerves, making her warm and mindless, and before she could control herself she flew to him, throwing herself into his arms.
Draco wobbled dangerously, but managed to steady himself as he wrapped his arms tightly around her body. All he cared about in that moment was swallowing her into himself again.
“I love the Carlton House desk,” she murmured before she crushed her mouth to his.
“I know.” He smiled against her mouth.
She nuzzled his nose and pressed her forehead against his brow. “Let’s go to Home and make some more things to love.”
ooo
5. Customer Service, chapter 17 - by Sunny June 46
“Why do I have to make that decision? What do you want?”
“Well, before now I had my heart set on a nice, quiet evening of hot, sweaty, steamy -”
“Malfoy!”
“You asked!”
“I’m just not that kind of girl. I don’t go at it in, in, in offices with - oh god, with my BOSS!”
“Well what kind of girl are you then?”
“You’re my boss! There are rules against this kind of thing! Oh god! I am that kind of girl!”
“Well that’s good news for me . . .”
“You!”
“Me?”
“You seduced me!”
“I did no such thing! You seduced me!”
“Pff, I should think not!”
“Of course you did! What, with you traipsing around in those little skirts, bending over filing cabinets showing off your as -”
“Malfoy!”
“- sets, what’s a cold blooded man to do? You knew exactly what you were doing. You know I have a thing for rears - your rear, specifically. I’m sorry Granger, but you seduced me!”
“Your misplaced blame aside, I believe we have made an egregious error.”
“A what?”
“A mistake, Malfoy! We have made a mistake. I have made a mistake.”
“How is this a mistake?”
“We hardly even know each other!”
“What are you talking about? We’ve known each other for sixteen years!”
“Well then we don’t even like each other!”
“I do believe the very palpable animal magnetism between us does away with that theory.”
“Ugh! Well then . . . you’re just in it for a fling!”
“If I were in it for just a fling, as you so blatantly call it, then I would have called one of my vapid bimbos, as you like to call them. Have you any other flimsy reasons why you and I shouldn’t be together Granger?”
“Not off the top of my head . . .”
“Well that’s grand. I can’t think of any either.”
“So . . . where does that leave us now?”
“Marry me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Well of course I did - but did you hear yourself?”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
“Well what do you mean by saying that! I mean, where did that come from? What gave you the idea to say that in the first place?”
“I find your inability to say things in explicit terms both endearing and frustrating.”
“Draco!”
“Oh, you’re pulling out the big wands now. This must be serious. So what’ll it be Granger? Yes or no?”
“Of course it’s a no!”
“Of course it is.”
“What are you getting at saying it in that tone?”
“Just that you never take risks. You’re as dull as a history of magic lecture. No sense of adventure.”
“And marrying you would be just the adventure I need to turn my hum-drum life around?”
“Sure. So . . . how about it?”
“How romantic. How about it? Thanks Malfoy, thanks a lot.”
“Oh come off it! You’d never be satisfied with Prince Charming. You need Prince I’m-Gonna-Piss-Your-Ass-Off-Every-Sodding-Day-And-You’re-Going-To-Love-Me-For-It-Because-I-Keep-You-On-Your-Toes.”
“And I suppose you think you’re him?”
“Darling, I am that man and more. Marry me.”
“You know I don’t do well when ordered about.”
“Marry me.”
“You’re just saying this so I’ll sleep with you. You’ll leave me tomorrow.”
“No on both accounts. Marry me.”
“Your persistence will get you no where.”
“Marry me.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re perfect for each other and you know it. Don’t fight it. Marry me.”
“Why is the Wizarding World’s most self-professed bachelor proposing marriage to the lowly, homely muggleborn?”
“Because you are neither lowly nor homely and because the bachelor is tired of being second to Harry Potter. I want something he’s never had.”
“Which is?”
“You.”
“So I’m just a pawn in your little feud with Harry?”
“No, you’re the reward.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. Marry me.”
“You’ve asked me no less than nine times. You really mean it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, let’s look at it from my perspective. I need a quill and parchment.”
“Why?”
“To list the pros and cons of course!”
“Oh . . . of course!”
“Come on Granger, haven’t we exhausted this discussion enough? It’s dead, six feet under - let’s shag already.”
“No Malfoy, I’m not going to shag you until I’m certain that this is something we both want.”
“I want you, you want me. We’ve established cause for want - now let’s get to it!”
“No! Malfoy, wait - ugh! Malfoy, get off of me . . . not yet!”
“Argh, you’re driving me insane woman!”
“Let’s look at the facts one more time.”
“Argh! Not again! Why are we beating this into the ground?”
“Draco Malfoy, I am nothing if not thorough!”
“Well let’s hope that trait applies to all aspects of your life.”
“Listen to me one more time and then maybe you’ll find out . . .”
“You coy little she-devil! Mmm, I love it when you placate me so . . . Kiss me again.”
“No, now listen up! Fact number one: I’m not getting any younger. And neither are you.”
“I hardly think we’re old, Granger. We’re twenty-seven . . . well I’m almost twenty-seven. I hardly think I’m pushing old age here.”
“Nonetheless, my biological clock is ticking away and if we get married now, my five year plan states that I can’t have children until I’m thirty-two and by that time the risks of birth defects are double what they are now.”
“Tick, tock, tick, tock.”
“Stop that! You are so insensitive!”
“Moving on.”
“Number two: now that the merger with Lumos-Tel is going to go through, we are going to be incredibly busy in about a month. We won’t have time for such frivolities like dating and having a social life.”
“Dating is hardly frivolous, Granger.”
“Oh you know what I mean. We won’t have much time for courting. I know I’m going to up to my ears in paper work and you’ll be traveling all across Europe doing public relations and whatnot. And I don’t do long distance . . .”
“Right - no long distance. Go on then.”
“Okay. Number three: you have an aversion to commitment. If this doesn’t happen now, it probably won’t ever happen again - and then where would I be? I’d have wasted two or three precious child-bearing years only to be left with -”
“Granger, you’re rambling.”
“Sorry. Number four: I don’t exactly have men beating down my door petitioning for my hand.”
“Well that would because I’ve set up an extensive array of men-with-intent-repulsion spells and wards outside your flat. Even if there were some, they wouldn’t be able to come within a two kilometer radius of your apartment.”
“Malfoy! How could you?”
“Quite easily, actually. The spell is -”
“NUM-ber five: I hardly ever act so rashly. It is completely out of my character. I wouldn’t even sleep with Ron until we had been dating for two years -”
“And you’re surprised when things didn’t work out with The Weasel? I don’t know any self-respecting man who would’ve waited that long. I almost admire his perseverance . . . almost.”
“Be that as it may, I am not one to act without thinking things through accordingly. Analyzing every angle. . .”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
“Oh . . . you’re right, I suppose. Number six: I’d have to put up with an awful lot of unwanted publicity. As the future Mrs. Malfoy, I’ll have a public role to fill. I’ll have to learn how to evade those blood-sucking journalists over at the Prophet.”
“I’m sure you could just find dirt on all of them and blackmail them into leaving you alone.”
“I resent that! I only did that once and it was for a very good cause.”
“And self preservation isn’t a worthy cause? Granger! You and I have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Which brings us to number seven. We have nothing in common! You are a petulant, sexist child and I am a mature woman who exudes nothing but professionalism and grace. I can’t honestly say why I’m attracted to you.”
“You wound me, Granger.”
“Get over it. You told me yourself that I aggravate you to no end.”
“And I infuriate you. Hoorah! Something in common.”
“All right, number eight: you don’t love me.”
“You don’t love me.”
“But we will someday?”
“Sooner than you think, perhaps.”
“I’m not sure if I can be with someone who doesn’t love me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing then that I love you.”
“You love me?”
“Sure.”
“Malfoy, this is serious!”
“I mean it, Granger. I’ve known you too bloody long to waste my time courting you. I know you. You know me. We’ve had sixteen years of getting to know each other and at least ten years of foreplay. We’ve been dancing around like this for years - this absurd mating ritual of ours. I hate you; you hate me, blah, blah, blah. We may not have been in each other’s lives every single day since school, but we have spent time enough together that cannot be neglected. The war, for instance - granted, the typical animosity was there but you can’t deny that things changed. We both changed. Granger, this is as serious as it gets.”
“Oh Draco . . .”
“Right, well don’t go all mushy on me now! You’ll ruin the mood.”
“Typical. Just like a man to avoid emotion.”
ooo
All excerpts posted with the author’s permission.
Best Kiss
1. Gravity, chapter 5 - by floorcoaster
“Please,” he said quietly and she looked back at him. “Did I-I mean, was there something-” Just then a cheer went up from down the hall, in the ballroom.
“It must be close to midnight,” she said.
“Hermione, talk to me.” His gut was a mass of twisted nerves, axons firing spasmodically. If she did, if there was something bothering her other than the amusement park, if he’d hurt her unknowingly, if there was something he could make right, then nothing in the entire world would stop him.
She hesitated, as though she seriously wanted to tell him, but was still fighting with herself about it. She shook her head and sniffed. “Let’s just-get this over with. Okay?”
Draco nodded and stood, feeling as though someone had slammed into his lungs, forcing all the air out, and he couldn’t draw another breath. He offered his hand to her once again; this time she accepted it. And quick as a wink, his hands were suddenly sweaty and his mouth had gone dry. An awful, pleasant swirling sensation burst into furious motion in his stomach. She inched closer to him, and he saw that her breathing was ragged and shallow. Then she stopped, still too far away. He would have to go the rest of the way to her.
He took one step to close the distance between them. Hermione was staring directly forward, at his chest. He reached up and took her chin in his hand, gently tilting her head up toward his. She looked at him, and her eyes were clear, now full of that other something he’d seen before when he’d kissed her hand. And he still didn’t know what it was. They just looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes were swirling, searching his. They showed a hint of fear, but not fear of him, per se. She blinked, and then swallowed.
He thought he should probably say something-something witty to ease the tension, or suave to increase it. But he didn’t think either of them would be able to hear over the hammering of his heart, or the questions in her eyes.
As he brought his face closer to hers, she kept her eyes locked with his, as though she were anchoring herself to him. When his lips were an inch from hers, she shut her eyes tight, took a shallow breath, and a pleasant sigh escaped her lips.
Draco paused in his descent, smiling to himself before gently, lightly, covering her lips with his. Her lips were soft and warm and they shot a fire through him that he felt in the deepest part of his soul. He felt, almost imperceptibly, the remaining distance between their bodies lessen. He didn’t move right away though he knew-something was screaming at him-that he should. It took every ounce of strength he had to pull away from her seconds later.
When they parted, she was looking at him with such depth of emotion that he was sure she would drown him. Slowly, she put distance between them, never breaking their eye contact. He couldn’t move, as he wasn’t sure his knees would support him.
“It should work now,” he said hoarsely, also unsure of his voice.
She nodded and walked away, until she was well beyond where the invisible boundary had been, and then turned around to look at him. Neither spoke, they only looked at each other, Draco fighting hard the urge to go to her and take her in his arms and continue what they’d started, now that he trusted his legs again.
Then she disappeared back into the ballroom. Draco stood rooted to the spot.
ooo
2. The Bracelet, chapter 29 - by Akashathekitty
He said goodnight to Baddock and turned to look at her only to find her much closer than he’d expected, gazing at him with her big golden eyes in sleepy wonder. It startled him. Somehow, their whole position suddenly seemed much more intimate. She lowered her eyes and shifted slightly, making him clench his jaw as he fought down a most forbidden reaction.
Preoccupied with his internal battle to deny his physical awareness of her, he didn’t actually realize that he was rubbing her back until his hand automatically shifted to find another sore spot and she moaned. He felt the burst of pleasure as the muscle was coaxed into relaxing, and he shivered as his heart sped up. It felt so good. The ring must be magnifying her emotions, because there was no way that a simple rub could feel that good.
Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind telling him to make her move off him, he moved his thumb in slow, deliberate circles, applying pressure where needed, and her eyes drifted closed on a sigh. He rapidly found that this was addictive. He didn’t want to stop in spite of the voice growing more insistent that this would end badly. He really should be tormenting her, not rubbing her back, but this felt much better than the constant unhappiness that was nagging at him during the day and keeping him awake at night.
He shifted his hand again, and, this time, it was he who couldn’t stifle a moan. It wasn’t only feeling good, it was feeling… extremely erotic. He shouldn’t be entertaining this with her, but it wasn’t as if he was really doing anything. It was just a couple of his fingers rubbing her lower back. It didn’t really make sense why it would seem like such a forbidden thing to do. He had endured several hours of her on his lap, snuggling against him, without any side effects that couldn’t be fought down, so why did now seem different?
Then he realized - it was because she was aroused by it. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her lips slightly parted as she dreamily enjoyed his touch. The realization almost made him moan again. His touch was promoting these feelings of pleasure and a slowly building need.
How come?
He didn’t voice his question. Instead, he did the unthinkable; he bent forward and pressed his lips against hers. He didn’t know what prompted him to do so, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He didn’t know what he was expecting, either, but it certainly wasn’t the explosion of sensations that he felt. She gasped, and he expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. She pressed into him and returned the kiss with a fervor that left him breathless.
He had never been so aroused in his whole life. His own enjoyment and hers mingled until he didn’t know or care who felt what anymore. It went beyond anything he’d ever experienced and he hadn’t even tasted her yet. He continued to gently rub circles on her lower back with the one hand while he steadied her with the other hand on her thigh, and then he carefully used his own lips to pry hers apart. She was so willing, so accommodating, and her lips immediately parted under his. He tried to stifle his moan at her enthusiasm, but wasn’t entirely successful. Before either of them had a chance to have second thoughts, his tongue darted in to stroke hers.
There was another burst of feelings, almost like a blinding light, and he couldn’t keep his lips and his tongue from getting more demanding, couldn’t keep his control from slipping at the intensity of it all. She didn’t back down. He was losing himself in this sensual vortex, his heart pounding in his ears, deafening him to anything but the little sounds and sighs she made.
He slowly stroked the outside of her thigh. From her response, he suspected that she liked this kind of subtle petting much more than groping, even if she was in the same place as he was, trembling with unfulfilled need. He didn’t dare grope her. He didn’t dare touch the places he wanted to touch. He would lose the little control he had.
She whimpered and eagerly responded, driving him insane, urging him onwards. He reveled in every little sensation coming from her. He didn’t need her little whimpers and sounds to know just how strongly she felt everything. He could feel it for himself and that, too, spurred him on.
As her hands came up and caressed his chest before she tangled them in his hair, holding him to her, he drew her even closer if that were possible. He knew she could feel the proof of his own need - she had to be able to feel it - but it didn’t matter to him right now. Nothing mattered but the searing kiss and how to get more of it.
Suddenly, he was yanked back by his shoulder and the kiss was broken.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Blaise hissed.
Draco blinked, momentarily disoriented, but then it slowly dawned on him what he’d been doing and, as he regained some of his senses, he was appalled. Was the girl part Veela or something, since she was able to draw even him in like this?
He chanced a glance at her to see that she had come to her senses as well, her eyes big and horrified and her mouth forming an O.
Well, at least she thought it was a bad idea as well.
ooo
3. Tainted Love, chapter 29 - by kerri240879
Draco lifted his head slightly, and looked back at Hermione’s eyes. They were following his every move, her eyes widening when he smiled slightly.
"That wasn’t a kiss before, Hermione. It was a point you had to prove to Blaise."
Draco drew her closer again, and allowed her to see the intent in his eyes when he spoke again.
"You proved your point. Now I’m proving mine."
Hermione had seconds to think about what he was saying, and then Draco brushed his mouth over hers. She felt him smile against her lips, and then he kissed her again, this time proving his point beyond all doubt.
His lips clung to hers, firm and damp with water as they moved against hers. She felt his teeth sink gently into her lower lip, then the tip of his tongue sweep out over the bite, as if he was soothing the slight pain.
She shut her eyes, and leant into him, parting her lips under his when he swiped his tongue across them once more. Draco sank back into the water, taking Hermione with him as he deepened the kiss, and tasted her for the first time.
He wouldn’t wax on poetic and say she tasted like rainbows and star bursts and magic. She simply tasted of Firewhisky. He slid his tongue over hers gently, and then went back to kissing her. If it was one thing he knew, it was that he hated having a tongue barrel into his mouth, like a heat-seeking missile.
He preferred to taste when he wanted to, and use his whole mouth to seduce. From what Hermione had said about Terry Boot, he knew she felt the same way about kissing. But what he hadn’t factored in, was the clenching that was going on in his stomach.
He felt almost serene as he turned them in the water, and bought Hermione closer to him yet again. She was pressed flush against him, and he could feel every inch of that soft skin along his chest.
It was Hermione who broke the kiss, her small gasp skittering across his cheek as she turned her face away. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes heavy as she stared at Draco through lowered lashes. Draco allowed a small smile to grace his lips.
"Seduction, at its very best…" he said quietly against her temple.
Hermione licked her lower lip, her breathing hitching when she saw Draco’s eyes darken. Even as she went to leave his embrace, he bought her back against him, and lowered his head once more, leaving no room for argument.
Seduction was a game Draco knew well. But this was a question of who was seducing whom. Her innocence was obvious, even as the feeling of her in his arms slowly began to drive him mad. He should have stopped at one kiss, but couldn't remember why he hadn't.
He sucked her lower lip between his, her small gasp causing him to groan lightly into her mouth and deepen the kiss even further. Turning her once more, he sat upon the ledge, and bought her onto his lap.
One hand continued to hold her waist, anchoring her against him. The other began a slow trail down her spine, and then back up again. It was only when she was starting to shake in his arms that he broke the kiss, and pressed his lips to her throat instead.
Hermione couldn’t contain the small groan that escaped her lips, her head falling backwards even as her back arched. As he had promised, she felt her resolve begin to break when he nibbled on her pulse. But when she felt his fingertips dance across the bottom of her breast, she eased herself gently out of his arms. Draco let her go, and watched as she climbed out of the bath with molten eyes.
Hermione paused before she left the room, and glanced back at Draco. They stared at each other for a long moment, before Hermione broke the silence, and left Draco with something new to think about.
"I see why they call you the Prince of Slytherin. You were right. Seduction is an art form, Draco…one at which you excel. But I don’t know the rules, or the game, that you play. I’m not sure if I want to…it’s scary and exciting, all at the same time.
"I won't lie to you. You've affected me in a way I've never been affected. Viktor was new. Terry was an...experience. Seamus was safe. You're an excellent teacher, in showing the difference between kissing a sixteen year old boy…and kissing a seventeen year old man. And that makes you...dangerous."
It was only when she had left that he realised he was tied in knots over that kiss. And the rules of the game, that he knew so well, had just changed.
ooo
4. Pas De Deux, chapter 2 - by Eilonwy
"Oh, did you now? How very clever." His voice was now low and silken. "Prizes for cleverness to Hermione Granger, Head Girl and pride of Gryffindor House." He shifted his hold on her, moving his hands down her arms to her shoulders, which he pressed relentlessly against the wall. She knew that marks from his fingers would be there by the next morning.
"And I suppose you did it wandlessly? When?"
She said nothing, only shut her eyes against his wrath.
"I said WHEN? Tell me, you bitch!" He shook her and her head snapped forward and then back, hitting the wall. Catching a handful of her hair, he wrapped it around his hand, pulling hard.
"When we stopped for tea," she blurted out. "You had your back to me. I'm sorry! It was a rotten trick."
"You're sorry," he parroted. "Sorry. I see. Care to explain why you did it?"
Suddenly Hermione did want to explain. Wanted to very badly, in fact. She pulled herself up with as much dignity as she could muster, attempting to wrench herself out of his grasp, and looked him right in the eye. She would not be intimidated anymore. She wouldn't give him that sort of power!
"Yes. I would be delighted," she replied icily, her eyes suddenly hard as flint. "You had it coming after what you did to me, you contemptible little piece of troll shit! Deliberately flaunting all your many conquests in my face night after night, and then topping it all off by kissing me because you felt SORRY FOR ME, like I'm some sort of pathetic charity case! And then wiping the contamination off your mouth! Don't think," she breathed, her voice ragged, "don't think for one minute that I don't know what your game is, Malfoy! You're out to humiliate and belittle me, cut me down to size. And why? Besides the fact of my very existence in this school, that is. Because I had the temerity to kiss you and then embarrass you a bit in front of your little toadies, after you'd insulted me yet again in front of the entire class!" She stopped to catch her breath and then whispered, "Got a newsflash for you, Malfoy. No matter what you may tell yourself, you liked it."
And then she smiled.
It was the smile that did it. Draco could feel the anger pulsing right between his eyes. Her face swam before him, an indistinct blur of large brown eyes and masses of chestnut hair framing a small, pale face. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. He wanted to slap that triumphant smile right off her face. He wanted to…he wanted…
Curling his fingers in her hair, yanking it hard so that she winced, he slammed his mouth down on hers. This had been coming for a long time. He had been wanting her since she had first kissed him, only…he hadn't wanted to want her, and certainly not so badly. Had tried very hard not to, by distracting himself with a slew of other girls. He could have laughed at the irony of it-her assumption, engineered by him, that all those girls had been paraded in front of her for her embarrassment, when really, it was his attempt at his own salvation. And yes, true, he'd couched that kiss in terms meant to hurt and humiliate her-the anger and pride-driven part of him had certainly desired that-but the truth was, he'd also needed to touch her again. Needed it like breathing.
And so, finally, he did.
She squirmed under him as he pushed her against the wall, chest to chest, and he could feel her breasts pressing against him. Gods, he wanted to touch them! Instead, he concentrated on the soft, sweet mouth he was devouring even as she tried to shove him away. He was far stronger than she, and eventually, her efforts grew more feeble and her hands dropped to her sides.
"Hermione," he whispered, nipping at her lower lip, tickling it with the tip of his tongue, drawing it into his mouth and suckling it. His breathing had become shallow and he could feel that hers had too. Her eyebrows were drawn together as if she were in pain, her eyes shut, even as her mouth became more pliant and willing. Gradually it opened to him as tears slid silently down her cheeks, and she kissed him with everything she had, her tongue moving against his in a wayward dance.
Now his hands did slip down her sides to her waist and then slowly up the front of her chest until they reached her breasts, his fingertips moving in small, light circles, drawing ever closer to their centers. He felt her take a sudden breath and then go very still as he cupped them. They were nicely rounded, he discovered, and just the right size to fill his hands. Their tips were erect, and she moaned softly when he moved the pads of his thumbs over them experimentally. Burying his face in the side of her neck, he sucked on the soft skin below her ear as his fingers continued their meandering, teasing caresses.
Ripples of deliciously shivery heat were radiating from his touch straight to her core. This was not what she had bargained for. And yet she wasn't stopping it, even though she knew-she knew-she could, if she truly wanted to. It wasn't what she had bargained for, but then, nothing about Malfoy was, she supposed. This was a…a truce. Nothing had really changed, not fundamentally. Just a truce.
She slid her fingers into his soft hair and brought his mouth back to hers.
He tasted of chocolate and peppermint.
ooo
5. Communication Breakdown, chapter 3 - by spadul
“Granger!”
I stopped waving my hands madly. I must be going absolutely crazy, because I cannot remember waving them enough to have to stop.
“What. Was. That?”
It was then that I actually took the time to notice him and the state he is currently in. His breathing is deep and ragged, and he has this horrible look on his face. Blimey, I think he may murder me.
And out of all the things to completely push me over the edge during the past few days, this was it. I could feel the anger bubbling in my chest. I could feel it, and it was ready to erupt. I just needed one more push. One more bloody push, Malfoy. We all know you have it in you.
“How else were you going to learn, Malfoy? You kept saying that I swotted, and I do not bloody swot! And really what else was I going to do? I’m so sick and tired of having to try to prove myself to you, like I’m something less than human, and I have to work that much harder to measure up to something that I already am. Do you understand that? Can you at all be a human and feel human feelings for one moment long enough to understand what I’m saying to you?”
“No.”
“No? No? And why the bloody hell not, Malfoy?”
“Because it doesn’t matter, that’s why.”
“I’m telling you right now that it matters. It really does, Malfoy.”
“I know all that you were going on about matters, I’m not completely daft. It just doesn’t matter anymore, Granger, if I understand or not. Why does it matter so much? Why can’t you bloody just move on and let it be? Stop trying to figure me out. Stop trying to prove me wrong. Stop saying ‘piss it’ and ‘blimey’. Just stop. Stop everything and just live, why don’t you?”
“And you’re living?” Thanks for the push, Malfoy. “How in all carnation are you living anymore than the rest of us?”
He put his hands over his face. “Just let it rest, Granger.”
“Tell me how!” I shouted, so loudly I’m sure it echoed throughout the entire cave.
“Fuck it,” he muttered. And then there was no space between us any longer. He was suddenly there. I could feel his body against mine, and this time I was sure I hadn’t moved an inch. And his hands were on my face, his calloused hands holding my face in place.
And there it was. He was living. His mouth was on mine and I was frozen to the ground with complete and utter shock. I didn’t have time to analyze who this was for this time and what it was that was happening, because his mouth was moving against mine with a hunger that put starvation to shame. And his hands: his stupid, sodding, ruddy hands. They were in my hair, on my back, on my side, hovering almost shyly over my bottom.
I didn’t even have time to notice his hands holding onto my sides firmly and pushing me back against the cave wall. I couldn’t even notice one hand hook around the thin material of my cardigan. I couldn’t even notice the other hand that was now securely settled at the nape of my neck, angling my face towards his.
And I couldn’t even notice, that despite and my anger, despite my hate, I was kissing him back with as much gusto as I could muster.
And so I just let myself completely go. I lose myself in this kiss. I revel in the feel of his hand pressing onto the skin of my back. I revel in the drum of his heartbeat that I can feel in my own chest. And I lose myself so completely that I don’t even notice when his lips leave mine and his mouth travels down my jaw line and to the stretch of skin at the base of my neck. I lose myself so completely that I don’t possess enough will power to bite back the soft moan that escaped the confines of my throat.
I did notice, however, when his body seemed to harden and his ministrations stopped abruptly. And I did notice how incredibly awkward and naked I felt standing there in my dirty clothes with him pressed firmly to me. And I did notice the shaky breath he inhaled before he straightened up completely, his height making mine shrink in comparison. And I definitely noticed that he hadn’t moved away from me yet.
And I only slightly noticed that a very distant part of me hoped that he wouldn’t.
ooo
6. Beautiful Disaster, chapter 16 - by ashleyfanfic
“I mean, it’s extremely hard to shop for someone who has the means to buy themselves anything they want, so I really hope you like it. It’s for a pocket watch, which I know you have, and I thought…”
Her rambling was cut off by his lips on hers. She was surprised and stared at his closed eyelids for only a moment before she melted into his embrace. Her arms moved to his shoulders, then to link behind his head.
He pulled away gradually and watched as her eyes fluttered open slowly. “I love it. Thank you.”
ooo
7. Basketcase, chapter 17, - by attica
Hermione’s burning eyes widened as she felt his lips on hers, his hands caressing the sides of her face forcefully.
At first, it had been shock. Just pure, utter shock. She hadn’t expected it (who would’ve?), and she didn’t think she would have ever expected it at all in her life. If someone had told her that Draco Malfoy was going to kiss her in the near future, much less this way, under these circumstances, she wouldn’t have believed it. She would’ve shaken her head and then thrown it back and laughed. Hysterically. After all, why would she have wanted to believe it? Kissing him had been her worst nightmare for days.
But she now realized that thinking about it was far different than actually experiencing it. In fact, due to the fact that she was emotionally distraught, angry, and in love with him… it was actually quite nice. Of course, if only her heart wasn’t beating so hard like a detonating-and-seconds-to-explosive-doom conga drum as well, because she very well figured she could do just fine without that.
She just didn’t know what he was doing kissing her. She was utterly mystified. But how could she ignore the passionate pressure he was putting against her lips? And the way it sent her heart into nearly fatal convulsions? It was like the greatest heart attack ever! However, due to her still-revolving shock, she was holding her breath. But as his warm, soft mouth molded against hers, she felt the same passion and yearning that she had tightly bottled up slowly trickle out, and her mind was suddenly shrouded by a dreamy, thick mist.
Sadly, there was just no contest between his kiss and Hermione Granger’s rigid, chaste ways. After all, she knew it was wrong. It was completely, utterly wrong. She even played around with the idea of giving him a good slap. But her body remained frozen, receptive to his kisses though she herself was not responding due to her dizzying shock. She couldn’t move. It was as if she had grown roots to the marble floors.
This was Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy was kissing her…
Her heart was going into overdrive, pounding and pounding, and there was a white noise roaring in her ears. Then, suddenly, as if all of the binds around her chest had loosened, she felt herself sigh into his mouth and begin to kiss him back. It was all his damn fault. Why did he even have to kiss her? A snide remark would’ve been just fine - hell, a hug would have been much more necessary! But what was he doing here, kissing her, Hermione Granger, Muggle-born Extraordinaire? What had she done to deserve such a terrible, terrible thing?
And what was she doing, kissing him back, liking it?
Draco snaked his arms around her waist, pressing her closer against him, feeling a creeping fever that was flushing out every single hint of an objection inside him. He felt her fingers weave into his hair, and, with relief, felt her answer with a bizarre blazing passion that could only rival his.
Inwardly he felt himself chuckle. Well, who knew the Mudblood could kiss? Certainly not him. In fact, in the far distance of his mind, he thought that he could really get used to this. Kissing her.
But, in reality, he didn’t know why he had kissed her. He didn’t even know how badly he had wanted to or for how long until he had finally done it. It was sad to say, but he, Draco Malfoy, a sculpture made entirely of ice and certainly appeared that way in his icy conduct, suddenly found that he had a weakness: kissing Hermione Granger. It was ridiculous, no doubt sinful and forbidden, and even pathetic… but it was true. Oh, blimey, it was true.
It was funny to think about, how they had just been engaged into an explosive argument about God-knows-what and she had been chippering on with her psychobabble again. Undoubtedly, they were the king and queen of insults and fire-backs of biting wit. But now that was all pushed back among the insignificant things of life, like squirrels or rubber bands.
And they were shocked to find that the line that had been thickly, clearly drawn out in the beginning had been inscrutably blurred, then erased, and now gone.
ooo
8. The Story in the Soil, chapter 12 - by OrbThesela
“Shut up Malfoy, I didn‘t agree to conversations.”
Smirking at her reply, he pushed his mouth onto hers, snaking his tongue inside her mouth. Hermione brought her hand up to the back of his head, digging her fingers into his hair and tugging on it sharply, causing him to groan into her mouth.
ooo
9. Forbidden Love, chapter 16 - by Gryffindor_princess21
They were too busy glaring at each other to notice that they were inches from the other’s face. Hermione blushed and turned away, not sure of what to do. Draco started at her not to intimidate her but because he was once again too lost in admiring her. He reached his hand to touch her face and was surprised that she didn’t slap it away.
She closed her eyes at the touch, warmth flowing through her body as he stroked her face gently. She felt something towards the boy standing in front of her, a feeling that no other boy had given her and she felt like she was in the clouds. True, she was surprised it was Draco Malfoy that was making her feel this way, but her instinct was telling her not to slap the touch away.
They had come a bit closer to each other. Draco stopped stroking Hermione’s face and she opened her eyes in confusion-why had he stopped? Draco took another look at her and leaned forward to meet her lips with his. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t push him away this time, and he felt ecstatic.
The kiss was sweet and intense and natural, making Draco feel weak at the knees. As he pulled Hermione towards him, he deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist. He felt Hermione wrap her arms round his neck, drawing him closer to her and their tongues met.
Draco smiled against Hermione’s mouth when he heard a faint moan from the back of her throat. Both of them had forgotten where they were as they were melted in each other to notice anything. Their minds were in overdrive as they lost themselves in the romantic kiss they were sharing.
What the hell are you doing? Why are you kissing her? She doesn’t even like you!
Shut up, Draco told his conscience as he continued to kiss Hermione, getting lost in her scent of strawberries. So what? I’ve wanted to do this for ages and this is the first time that she hasn’t refused to kiss me! And is so much better than the one under the mistletoe.
Meanwhile, Hermione ran her fingers through Draco’s hair sending goose bumps down his spine.
Why am I kissing Draco? Her mind asked as she tasted those sweet lips of his. And since when did I call him Draco anyway?
Oh cut the silly questions already. You concluded before that you did have a crush on him.
Yes I did admit that. He did kiss me in the broom closet and at the ball and something was pulling me towards him but I was kind of afraid of that feeling…gosh those kisses were sweet but this is so much better.
Draco suddenly pulled away but still held her close to him, her head against his chest. She could hear his heart beating madly and she could feel hers doing the same thing. She looked up at him in confusion as if asking ‘why did you stop?’
He gave her a little breathless smile.
“I was running out of breath. Sorry about that.”
“Of course,” said Hermione and in an instant realised she herself was panting just as much. She hadn’t realised that she was running out of oxygen, and she felt somewhat faint.
Draco held her steady, even though he too felt a little dizzy. They stood in the middle of their common room for what felt an eternity, simply holding one another. Finally they broke apart but Hermione wished Draco could have held her all night. She looked at him, unable to think of anything to say.
“Um…well goodnight,” she said somewhat lamely as she slowly made her way towards her bedroom door.
“Merry Christmas, Hermione.”
Hermione froze, her hand on the doorknob. That was the first time he had ever called her by her first name in a nice way. She turned back to him, a smile on her face.
“Merry Christmas to you too, Draco.”
ooo
10. Through Trial and Error, chapter 3 - by little_murmurs
She smiled, wide and bright and slightly breathless as she curled her fingers around the back of his neck. She tilted her head inquisitively and said in a warm, low undertone, “Shall I kiss you, Draco Malfoy?”
His grip on her tightened, “Yes.”
She did not move closer but instead picked up her wand and pointed it at the door; there was a dull click as the lock slid into place and she replaced her wand on the desk. Work etiquette be damned.
“‘Yes’ what?”
He scowled at her evident amusement, his response a brusque, “Yes, please.”
“Manners are so important,” ghosted against his lips before she kissed him, slowly, sweetly and then more thoroughly, her hands eagerly resuming their previous task of unbuttoning the top of his robes. His mouth was soft and warm beneath hers, and he tasted faintly of tea and peppermint humbugs. His fingers continued to make short work of her robes’ clasps and when he touched the bare skin of her back she couldn’t help but gasp. He broke the kiss at that - eyes dark and mouth curved in a dangerously self-satisfied smile - to cast a speculative glance at the desk.
“It seems like a fairly solid piece of furniture,” he raised a provocative eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Hermione slipped her arms around his neck, “that there is only one way to find out.”
So they did.
ooo
11. From the Dark Tower, Part VII - by floorcoaster
He couldn’t look at her the same after that night. She knew him better than any person alive, had heard from his own mouth the terrible things he had done, and yet still spent time with him. It was unfathomable.
Now his feelings toward her had changed drastically. His heart burned whenever he saw her smile or heard her laugh, and he longed for their time together on the tower.
When it came two nights later, however, he was stiff and awkward around her. He tried to be normal, but suddenly he was questioning everything he did or said, and his words felt like cotton in his mouth.
She asked him what was wrong and he stared at his hands, unable to speak. The warm air in their protective bubble smelled of freshly cut grass and he breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh scent. He sensed movement and when he lifted his head, she was sitting very close to him, her eyes bright and intense.
They stared at each other until he realized he was barely breathing. He swallowed hard and then she hesitantly reached a hand up to touch his face. Fire and ice shot through him as she trailed her finger from his temple to his chin. Then she rested her palm against his cheek and he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. He’d never felt so much for a person as he did her, never felt so close, like their souls were overlapped. Beyond filling holes inside him, her presence in his life created new spaces where only she belonged.
Then her lips brushed his and his eyes flew open. She was a hairsbreadth away, watching him, fear and concern and hope mingled in her eyes. He brought his hand up to cover hers, still resting on his cheek, and then he wrapped a finger in a lock of her hair. Their eyes met again briefly, and he slid his hand around her neck and pulled her to him, closing the miniscule yet potentially insurmountable distance between them. That conquered, he buried his hand in her hair and kissed her.
He’d kissed girls before, and plenty, but this was unlike anything he’d experienced or dreamed about. It went beyond a melding of lips and tongues, it felt as though their spirits had fused. She was a part of him, just as he was of her. He realized he loved her, and his ministrations intensified. Though she showed no signs of wanting to end the kiss, he held on to her desperately, not wanting to end the connection between them for anything in the world.
When she absolutely required air, he moved to kiss her cheeks, her nose, her neck. She sighed, a mixture of contentment and desire and he returned to ravish her mouth. She kissed him back with fierce abandon and was soon pulling him down onto the stone floor. He’d barely noticed the change in position until he put his hands out to keep from crushing her.
He broke the kiss then and opened his eyes. She was flushed, her eyes swirling, her hair fanned around her head.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, then met her waiting lips.
ooo
Best Declaration of Love
1. Class Reunion, chapter 8 - by mister_otter
The kiss held all the melting sweetness of candy shared under the morning sun, flavored with a sharp tang of potent desire. It occurred to Hermione to say, "you have a wife,” but she realized that no one knew that better than he. She had the feeling that, after what had happened between them last midnight, he had weighed the consequences carefully and come to an irrevocable decision.
As if he'd read Hermione's mind, Draco spoke. "I've never strayed, in case you're wondering." His lips were moving down her neck as his fingers unfastened the buttons of her shirt, one by one. "Been tempted--hell, yes. But it never seemed worth the bother, really. Until now. Minnow...it's always been you. Always. Will you have me?" His voice, already low, had dropped to a whisper as he buried his face between her breasts. “Please.”
Gods above, he knew how to seduce. Even if she'd been unwilling, that sensual, longing-infused plea would have changed her mind in one heartbeat...
"Draco ... yes," she murmured back. With lightning speed, she moved from her chair to straddle his lap. Draco slid down in his seat in order to place her directly atop his erection; his hands slid around to unhook her lacy bra and her breasts popped free. Hermione closed her eyes, threw back her head and moaned as his mouth closed over one breast for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. But this time, she didn't plan to stop him.
Until a creaking of the ancient floorboards alerted her that they were not alone. Hermione's head turned as Draco raised his from her breast.
Luna Lovegood Scamander stepped around the corner of the book shelves, her blue eyes widening with a look of knowing innocence at the scene before her. "Hmm ... the star charts indicated someone was going to be lucky today," she said, "but I had no idea this is what they meant."
ooo
2. The Dragon's Bride, epilogue part 6 - by Rizzle
“On second thought, I think I do want to hear this. Explain to me why I should just forget about the past. That’s what you’re after isn’t it? And then I welcome you back with open arms? I think that’s what you were hoping for? Harry said as much. ”
Draco decided that the truth would suffice, to begin with, anyway. “You belong with me.”
She blinked twice, very quickly. He could see her slapping hand was starting to twitch too.
“After five years…thinking you were dead or dying or worse and with no way to reach you after those pathetic three postcards you sent me. After all the agony you put me through, that is all you have to say to me? That?!”
“That night in Knockturn Alley… I told you there was no turning back. Fida Mia started something but we bloody well took it to a whole new level and then we fucking sealed it. Granger. I’m not going to join you in pretending that what we had was some sort of stupid fling, you felt what I felt. Give this time. Please.”
“Evidently you didn’t feel it as strongly as I did,” Hermione replied, in low, clear tones. She jabbed a finger over her heart. “I’m the heartbroken one, remember! I didn’t do the leaving, you did. Don’t you speak to me about time!”
He nodded. “Yes, I know. I’ll get to that in a minute. Right now please consider that you can’t realistically stay angry at me forever. Now that I’m back, we can’t stay apart forever either. You know it will eat at us. It is already.”
She snorted. “Like hell it will. I rather realistically got over you, Malfoy! I moved on with my life. It’s not my fault you haven’t!”
He took a silent step toward her. “I don’t doubt that you did move on. Your resilience is astounding. It’s one of the many things I love about you, Granger. But you’re lying to yourself if you think you’ve got over me.”
Hermione couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did he really have the audacity to think that he was actually being reasonable? If his easy, effortless admission of love nearly undid her, his massive, undented ego just about did the trick. Hermione recognized she was in serious danger of going to pieces right in front of him. She despised him all over again for it. This was not supposed to be happening. It had taken her so very long to steel her heart.
She turned away from him in an effort to regain some composure. He apparently mistook this for indifference.
“Alright,” he said, and she was oddly pleased to hear the tremor in his voice. “Let me put a scenario before you. Put yourself in my shoes five years ago. Imagine you’re in love with me.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but he stopped her. “Wait, just hear me out.”
“You fall in love unexpectedly. Something you didn’t expect you were even capable of. You despise the world and all the people in it and you trust no one, least of all your own family, whom you think has betrayed and abandoned you. But this new love…it’s…” Draco paused, searching for a word, “it’s remarkable. It’s a whirlwind, passionate, fragile, completely illogical, as badly timed as you can get, but it’s also true. Head over heels, up to your eyebrows true. Then something happens and it’s because of you, directly and indirectly. Something terrible happens, and that someone dies. Badly.”
“Only I didn’t die. You saved me, remember?” she reminded him, in a whisper.
Draco’s eyes were searing, colourless crystal in the moonlight. “Barely, Granger. I saved you just barely. You drowned in my arms. I felt the life go out of you. You have no idea what that did to me. You died because of me.”
“But you promised you wouldn’t leave without telling me!” She realized she was shouting. Hurt and fear was pouring out of her and with it came an almost intoxicating relief she hadn’t expected. She was incapable of stopping it. She didn’t want to stop it. Goodness, when exactly did he get that close to her? They were standing barely a breath apart. His frowning, intense face hovered over her. Ginny’s home haircut had grown out a little. His fringe was long enough to keep out of his eyes. The hair at the back was still short and choppy though. There was a thin, white scar across his left cheekbone. And another along his jaw on the same side. Her mind reeled off at least a dozen more, new details about him, small little revelations that transfixed her.
“You knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep when you asked me,” he hissed.
Some small part of her brain was also registering the fact that Draco Malfoy was probably ten times scarier than he was before. But anger often made you braver. Even if it tended to be foolish bravery. “Oh, so now your five year absence is my fault, is it?”
“I did what I had to do to enable me to come back to you. I couldn’t have stayed before. It simply wouldn’t have worked.”
“You don’t know that!” she said to him, letting the full measure of hurt back into her voice. “We could have been happy.”
He shook his head, emphatic. Hair fell over his eyes and he impatiently pushed it back with his fingers. “No, we wouldn’t have been. I couldn’t have been with you the way I can now.”
Honestly, she could have just stared at him. She could have sat there and soaked up the sight of him alive and well. That summed up the depth of her feelings for him. The relief to know he’d survived whatever he’d put himself through was making a rather belated arrival. It was like getting punched in the stomach.
Oh no. She was really was going to cry now. At this point, her hand, as it had on so many other occasions in the past, decided to mutiny. It reached up and laid her palm against his cheek. He flinched as if she’d branded him. His breathing became staggered. Apparently satisfied with whatever it was that she’d discovered, her hand returned once more to her side.
Her mouth, on the other hand, was still firmly in league with her brain. Maturity gave a sharper edge to her tone. “So that’s what you have to say to me, then? That was it? Are we done now, Draco?”
His eyes had turned shiny. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned away and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Yes, I guess we’re done.”
ooo
3. The Fallout, chapter 15 - by Sage
"I wouldn't have taken you for the type to leave in a rush after sex."
Hermione stares down at her shirt in surprise, her hands temporarily halting from turning it right-side out. He sounds uncaring and accepting of the fact, but curious all the same, and she certainly hadn't been expecting the statement.
"I don't really have a type." She whispers back, folding the shirt between her fingers.
His is smirking, she knows. "The indefinable Granger."
She blushes, though she doesn't know why, and looks down at her own nudity. She raises her shirt to cover herself, working to turn it in or out, as long as it's wearable, and leans her head to the right to look for her pants. Though she doesn't want to leave yet, she doubts sudden conversation means he wants her to any less -- just as it always has been.
"Does it bother you? That I surprise you all the time, I mean." Because she does not want him to think she cares if it bothers him that she leaves after sex -- despite that she already knows it doesn't.
There's a smile in his voice when he replies. "It depends on my mood."
She huffs a breath of laughter, but it stops when she feels a brush of skin against her back. His knuckles graze and follow the curve of her spine, and then it is his fingertips that dance softly across her bottom.
"Are you done with me tonight?"
She blinks at the wall, at the cold December colors outside the window, and suddenly feels as detached as winter is from the warmth of humans. She has never heard it put in such a way. As if she was simply using him, and disposing of him whenever she is through. She did in a way -- in the sort of way that sex is about using one another -- but she never actually wants to be done with him, and there is a different there.
She did not use him as some sex toy, or...or...or whatever sort of thing she could use him for that would make her feel this strange coldness freezing up her intestines. If he breathes too harshly, she fears they might splinter and shatter, like the icicles from the windowsill.
"I'm just saying because... Well, I may not be sixteen anymore, Granger, but I'm not old enough to be done in one shot either..." He trails off, leaving it open and hanging in the air between them. His invitation. His now known acceptance of her staying beside him in his bed.
She breathes, three, four times, concentrating solely on the way the air fills her up and then deflates her. She thinks of asking him if he wants her to stay, even though it's obvious now that he does, but only because she wants him to somehow get that this has never been her choice. That she always assumed her position to be the one that isn't welcomed to stick around.
Instead, she says nothing, and looks back over shoulder at him. It is a strange angle, and she can only make out his chin and chest, but his breathing is even and his pose only slightly stiff. He has put himself out there now in a way that she never would have dared, and even if she had somewhere else to be, she wouldn't leave now.
ooo
4. Cake, Plan C - by emm718
“I’m not your girlfriend anymore.” Her eyebrows rose emphatically
“May I remind you that you,” he threw out his forefinger at her, directing the blame appropriately because he’d be damned if he was going to accept the role of the bad guy when it was only her and him speaking, “demoted yourself, I had merely accepted your wishes.”
“Because you didn’t love me,” she spat deprecatingly.
“How do you know?”
“Because you don’t love anything!” she screeched, throwing her hands in the air.
“Oi!” he scoffed, considerably affronted, “That is not true!”
“Really? Prove me wrong. Name something you love.” She folded her arms over her chest and her visage became incredibly serious and smug.
He didn’t even need a moment to think, “I love the Chesterfield.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “It’s just a sofa.”
“I. Love. It,” He bit out through clenched teeth, enhancing his point by poking his thumb roughly into his sternum with each word. “It’s unique and comfortable and we have loads in common. For example, the Chesterfield and I both enjoy farting.”
She rolled her eyes, because she couldn’t see his point, and as far as she was concerned his entire diatribe was silly and senseless.
“If the Chesterfield wanted new throw pillows, I’d buy them. If it needed a new view, I’d move it. Whatever it wanted I would give it. I want it to be a mountain for my children and to comfort them when they are restful. And when it’s careworn and lumpy I will cherish it still for all the memories it gave me.”
He was absolutely off his rocker. “What!?” she yelled in her confusion. She really did not see what the Chesterfield had to do with their relationship, or lack there of. It was almost as if he was comparing his outrageous affection for the furniture to that of another human being. Suddenly comprehension dawned on her, “Oh,” she whispered, blinking rapidly in astonishment. “You love the Chesterfield.”
“Yes.”
“Y-you love me!” A smile broke her face and her brown eyes lit up until they were sparkling with tears.
“I do.”
Tingly happiness surged her nerves, making her warm and mindless, and before she could control herself she flew to him, throwing herself into his arms.
Draco wobbled dangerously, but managed to steady himself as he wrapped his arms tightly around her body. All he cared about in that moment was swallowing her into himself again.
“I love the Carlton House desk,” she murmured before she crushed her mouth to his.
“I know.” He smiled against her mouth.
She nuzzled his nose and pressed her forehead against his brow. “Let’s go to Home and make some more things to love.”
ooo
5. Customer Service, chapter 17 - by Sunny June 46
“Why do I have to make that decision? What do you want?”
“Well, before now I had my heart set on a nice, quiet evening of hot, sweaty, steamy -”
“Malfoy!”
“You asked!”
“I’m just not that kind of girl. I don’t go at it in, in, in offices with - oh god, with my BOSS!”
“Well what kind of girl are you then?”
“You’re my boss! There are rules against this kind of thing! Oh god! I am that kind of girl!”
“Well that’s good news for me . . .”
“You!”
“Me?”
“You seduced me!”
“I did no such thing! You seduced me!”
“Pff, I should think not!”
“Of course you did! What, with you traipsing around in those little skirts, bending over filing cabinets showing off your as -”
“Malfoy!”
“- sets, what’s a cold blooded man to do? You knew exactly what you were doing. You know I have a thing for rears - your rear, specifically. I’m sorry Granger, but you seduced me!”
“Your misplaced blame aside, I believe we have made an egregious error.”
“A what?”
“A mistake, Malfoy! We have made a mistake. I have made a mistake.”
“How is this a mistake?”
“We hardly even know each other!”
“What are you talking about? We’ve known each other for sixteen years!”
“Well then we don’t even like each other!”
“I do believe the very palpable animal magnetism between us does away with that theory.”
“Ugh! Well then . . . you’re just in it for a fling!”
“If I were in it for just a fling, as you so blatantly call it, then I would have called one of my vapid bimbos, as you like to call them. Have you any other flimsy reasons why you and I shouldn’t be together Granger?”
“Not off the top of my head . . .”
“Well that’s grand. I can’t think of any either.”
“So . . . where does that leave us now?”
“Marry me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Well of course I did - but did you hear yourself?”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
“Well what do you mean by saying that! I mean, where did that come from? What gave you the idea to say that in the first place?”
“I find your inability to say things in explicit terms both endearing and frustrating.”
“Draco!”
“Oh, you’re pulling out the big wands now. This must be serious. So what’ll it be Granger? Yes or no?”
“Of course it’s a no!”
“Of course it is.”
“What are you getting at saying it in that tone?”
“Just that you never take risks. You’re as dull as a history of magic lecture. No sense of adventure.”
“And marrying you would be just the adventure I need to turn my hum-drum life around?”
“Sure. So . . . how about it?”
“How romantic. How about it? Thanks Malfoy, thanks a lot.”
“Oh come off it! You’d never be satisfied with Prince Charming. You need Prince I’m-Gonna-Piss-Your-Ass-Off-Every-Sodding-Day-And-You’re-Going-To-Love-Me-For-It-Because-I-Keep-You-On-Your-Toes.”
“And I suppose you think you’re him?”
“Darling, I am that man and more. Marry me.”
“You know I don’t do well when ordered about.”
“Marry me.”
“You’re just saying this so I’ll sleep with you. You’ll leave me tomorrow.”
“No on both accounts. Marry me.”
“Your persistence will get you no where.”
“Marry me.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re perfect for each other and you know it. Don’t fight it. Marry me.”
“Why is the Wizarding World’s most self-professed bachelor proposing marriage to the lowly, homely muggleborn?”
“Because you are neither lowly nor homely and because the bachelor is tired of being second to Harry Potter. I want something he’s never had.”
“Which is?”
“You.”
“So I’m just a pawn in your little feud with Harry?”
“No, you’re the reward.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. Marry me.”
“You’ve asked me no less than nine times. You really mean it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, let’s look at it from my perspective. I need a quill and parchment.”
“Why?”
“To list the pros and cons of course!”
“Oh . . . of course!”
“Come on Granger, haven’t we exhausted this discussion enough? It’s dead, six feet under - let’s shag already.”
“No Malfoy, I’m not going to shag you until I’m certain that this is something we both want.”
“I want you, you want me. We’ve established cause for want - now let’s get to it!”
“No! Malfoy, wait - ugh! Malfoy, get off of me . . . not yet!”
“Argh, you’re driving me insane woman!”
“Let’s look at the facts one more time.”
“Argh! Not again! Why are we beating this into the ground?”
“Draco Malfoy, I am nothing if not thorough!”
“Well let’s hope that trait applies to all aspects of your life.”
“Listen to me one more time and then maybe you’ll find out . . .”
“You coy little she-devil! Mmm, I love it when you placate me so . . . Kiss me again.”
“No, now listen up! Fact number one: I’m not getting any younger. And neither are you.”
“I hardly think we’re old, Granger. We’re twenty-seven . . . well I’m almost twenty-seven. I hardly think I’m pushing old age here.”
“Nonetheless, my biological clock is ticking away and if we get married now, my five year plan states that I can’t have children until I’m thirty-two and by that time the risks of birth defects are double what they are now.”
“Tick, tock, tick, tock.”
“Stop that! You are so insensitive!”
“Moving on.”
“Number two: now that the merger with Lumos-Tel is going to go through, we are going to be incredibly busy in about a month. We won’t have time for such frivolities like dating and having a social life.”
“Dating is hardly frivolous, Granger.”
“Oh you know what I mean. We won’t have much time for courting. I know I’m going to up to my ears in paper work and you’ll be traveling all across Europe doing public relations and whatnot. And I don’t do long distance . . .”
“Right - no long distance. Go on then.”
“Okay. Number three: you have an aversion to commitment. If this doesn’t happen now, it probably won’t ever happen again - and then where would I be? I’d have wasted two or three precious child-bearing years only to be left with -”
“Granger, you’re rambling.”
“Sorry. Number four: I don’t exactly have men beating down my door petitioning for my hand.”
“Well that would because I’ve set up an extensive array of men-with-intent-repulsion spells and wards outside your flat. Even if there were some, they wouldn’t be able to come within a two kilometer radius of your apartment.”
“Malfoy! How could you?”
“Quite easily, actually. The spell is -”
“NUM-ber five: I hardly ever act so rashly. It is completely out of my character. I wouldn’t even sleep with Ron until we had been dating for two years -”
“And you’re surprised when things didn’t work out with The Weasel? I don’t know any self-respecting man who would’ve waited that long. I almost admire his perseverance . . . almost.”
“Be that as it may, I am not one to act without thinking things through accordingly. Analyzing every angle. . .”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
“Oh . . . you’re right, I suppose. Number six: I’d have to put up with an awful lot of unwanted publicity. As the future Mrs. Malfoy, I’ll have a public role to fill. I’ll have to learn how to evade those blood-sucking journalists over at the Prophet.”
“I’m sure you could just find dirt on all of them and blackmail them into leaving you alone.”
“I resent that! I only did that once and it was for a very good cause.”
“And self preservation isn’t a worthy cause? Granger! You and I have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Which brings us to number seven. We have nothing in common! You are a petulant, sexist child and I am a mature woman who exudes nothing but professionalism and grace. I can’t honestly say why I’m attracted to you.”
“You wound me, Granger.”
“Get over it. You told me yourself that I aggravate you to no end.”
“And I infuriate you. Hoorah! Something in common.”
“All right, number eight: you don’t love me.”
“You don’t love me.”
“But we will someday?”
“Sooner than you think, perhaps.”
“I’m not sure if I can be with someone who doesn’t love me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing then that I love you.”
“You love me?”
“Sure.”
“Malfoy, this is serious!”
“I mean it, Granger. I’ve known you too bloody long to waste my time courting you. I know you. You know me. We’ve had sixteen years of getting to know each other and at least ten years of foreplay. We’ve been dancing around like this for years - this absurd mating ritual of ours. I hate you; you hate me, blah, blah, blah. We may not have been in each other’s lives every single day since school, but we have spent time enough together that cannot be neglected. The war, for instance - granted, the typical animosity was there but you can’t deny that things changed. We both changed. Granger, this is as serious as it gets.”
“Oh Draco . . .”
“Right, well don’t go all mushy on me now! You’ll ruin the mood.”
“Typical. Just like a man to avoid emotion.”
ooo