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War Bride Part 2
Again, I'm missing the last couple of paragraphs, so if anyone has a copy, I would dearly appreciate it. In this version, the replacement paragraphs are in brackets and should be understood as a temporary ending that will hopefully be replaced with a more complete ending, soon.


War Bride Part II

Disclaimer: Harry Potter (the boy-wizard, as opposed to the Harry Potter, Sr. and Jr. of Troll infamy fame) and the other denizens/artifacts/spells/etc. of the Wizarding and Muggle worlds are the creations of J.K. Rowling. No profit is made from this work, which is intended as a commentary on the original, not as a derivative work. No infringement on the rights of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Publishing, et al is intended. To the extent permissible by law, I retain the rights to my language/text/story.

Pairing: HG/DM
Rating: NC-17
Genres: Romance, Drama, Humor, Smut
Spoilers: Through HBP

War Bride
Part II - In Which Hermione is Guilty of Living in Denial
by
Margot Le Faye

More or less HBP compliant. Only, fluffy. Honest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second orgasm of Hermione’s life followed within ten minutes of the first, accompanied by a salient lesson in human biology. She would have to give up on keeping certain things even. While her first orgasm primed her to have another, Draco’s had taken the edge off. He was able to give her three more before he had his second, final climax...while she had her fifth. Nails digging furrows down his back as her core clenched around his wickedly skilled fingers, her screams swallowed by his kisses, Hermione decided that she could live with the inequity.

“Bloody hell,” she groaned a few minutes later, lying limp in Draco’s arms, when the last tremors of her pleasure had subsided. At some point in the proceedings, robes had been tossed aside, jumpers had been unbuttoned, belts unloosed, and skirts hoisted. Hermione blushed crimson when she spied her knickers dangling from the edge of Professor Flitwick’s desk.

“Oh, Merlin! I cannot believe we did that!’

“Well, give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be happy to prove we did, by doing it again,” her companion drawled, running his hands down her back, in a gesture that managed to be soothing, possessive and arousing all at once.

“Prat,” she said, with no real heat. The smug bastard probably could do it again. But her thinking was a bit clearer than it had been at the start of their snogging session, and she decided it was probably a very bad idea to let him. Hermione reluctantly pulled out of his arms, stood up on legs that were not as steady as they should have been, and began to gather her wand and the bits of clothing she’d lost, her knickers first of all.

“My housemates are probably wondering where I’ve gone off to,” she said, retrieving the undergarment and quickly Scourgifying the professor’s desk, where it had lain.

“You mean they won’t automatically assume you’re at the library?” Draco said, not doing anything more energetic than rolling to his side, head braced on his hand, watching her.

“Not without my bookbag. What about your housemates?”

He shrugged carelessly and gave her a lazy smile, before saying lightly, “They’ll just assume I’m either at the quidditch pitch or in a broom closet with my la--um.” He had the grace to look abashed as he realized he could not complete that sentence without offering insult. “Looking after my broom,” he ended lamely. Hermione was not fooled.

“I am not your latest conquest and there will be no broom closets,” she said coolly, Scourgifying her rather wet pants and drying them thoroughly before stepping back into them, then quickly straightening her skirts. As she methodically went about righting her clothing and removing all traces of their activities from her person and her garments with a few cleansing charms, Draco made no move to imitate her actions, merely sat where he was, regarding her through hooded grey eyes. His expression was contemplative, as if he were weighing her words. She decided to leave him in no doubt. “This...whatever this was...isn’t going to happen again, Malfoy,” she warned him. “The next time you attempt to drag me off into a deserted classroom, I will hex you into the next millennium.”

“Will you, then?” he asked casually, expression now closed, unreadable as he finally bestirred himself to lazily flick his wand in a cleansing spell that rid him of the results of their rather heated encounter. Hermione flushed, spun on her heel and left the classroom.

Once again, Hermione resolved to put all thoughts of what had happened between herself and Draco Malfoy out of her mind. And, once again, she failed miserably. The inalterable truth was, two passionate interludes leading to the first--several--orgasms of her life had changed everything. It was impossible to go back to thinking of Draco Malfoy the same way she had before he’d taken such shocking liberties. She remained convinced that their attempts to defy the mistletoe charm were responsible for the extraordinarily intense attraction between them, and decided it was really too bad the headmaster hadn’t thought through the possible consequences of adding that bit to the charm before he’d unleashed it upon his hapless students. But, at base, it didn’t matter why they’d ended up snogging so heatedly. The fact was, they had, and it had changed the way she viewed Draco Malfoy, forever.

Oh, she still considered him an arrogant, narrow-minded, insufferable prat who couldn’t be arsed to think for himself while his father and Voldemort were around to spoon-feed him his opinions, saving him the bother of working out what he believed, for himself. However, she had learned that he was an arrogant, narrow-minded, insufferable prat who was capable of great tenderness, of humor, of an absolutely gentlemanly attention to his partner’s pleasure and who possessed the ability to keep his mouth discretely shut about what he might rightfully term his conquests. Of course, that latter bit might have been due to simple self-preservation. Neither Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, nor any of Draco’s mates in Slytherin were apt to look too kindly on his consorting--in several senses of the word-- with Harry Potter’s best Mudblood friend. Still, though Malfoy was widely known to have dated a number of pureblood witches--Pansy Parkinson having been unable to entice him into a more exclusive relationship for the nonce, whatever her expectations of his honoring their families’ understanding post-Hogwarts--there had never been the hint of a whisper of any bragging in the Quidditch locker room. Hermione’s opinion was that the boy definitely had quite a bit to brag about, were he so inclined.

He was also, as she had long known, one of the few students outside of Ravenclaw who could be called her intellectual equal. She had taken top grades in her year, but Malfoy was always right behind her. It was one thing to know, on an intellectual level, that Draco Malfoy was a smart boy. It was quite another thing to interact with an intelligent Draco Malfoy on a level other than bickering, scrapping and exchanging colorful insults--not to mention the occasional hex, jinx or slap.

The Draco Malfoy who couldn’t seem to stop himself from kissing her breathless every chance he got, who smiled at her with appreciation rather than condescension, and who touched her with something achingly close to reverence...she knew, of course, he was the same prat she’d disliked for years. But, she had come to believe he was something more, as well.

And the question was, did he, similarly, perceive more about her than he would have let himself see, before? Had she emerged from the racist limitations of muddy blood and inferior birth, in his eyes, so that he saw her, finally, for the strong, brave, competent witch she was?

Hermione Granger never had been and never would be, a fool. She knew that for men--Wizards and Muggle alike--the perceived “inferiority” of a partner due to race or class or any of a thousand other reasons was no bar to intense, passionate, even romantic encounters or relationships. There was no logical reason for her to believe his attitude toward her had changed in anything other than his view of her as a potential sexual partner.

The illogic of the heart insisted, on a purely primal, cellular, instinctive and intuitive basis, that he had changed, and was changing. She felt, in her bones, that it could be no other way.

Sadly, she was smart enough to acknowledge there was every chance her bones were being led astray by the headmaster’s unfortunate Mistletoe charms.

And so, the cleverest witch of her age made the practical choice to avoid getting in any deeper than she already had done, and resolved to ignore any of Malfoy’s overtures, in future.

Three nights later, the next time he attempted to drag her off into a deserted classroom, Hermione really did try to hex him into the next millennium. But, as she’d warned him of her intent ahead of time, he was prepared and managed to get her wand away from her before she got off her first spell. Once he’d gotten her into the classroom, it took him a good ten seconds to distract her from her purpose and get her to kiss him back, her hands buried in his silver-blond hair as he stood her against the wall, snogging her passionately while loosening her robes. He’d managed to pull them down from her shoulders, stifled a groan of frustration when he found she wore muggle street clothes beneath her Wizarding garments, but pressed on, undeterred. Hermione broke for air.

“Malfoy!” she gasped in indignation as he managed to bare one rosy-tipped breast. Then, an instant later, “Malfoy!” she moaned in a very different manner as said rosy tip was suckled delicately into the silken heat of his mouth.

Hermione was a good girl, and she had no intention of letting matters proceed beyond a certain point. Draco, for a wonder, respected her limits. He contented himself with suckling her breasts and slipping a hand beneath the lacy edge of her knickers, fingering her to glory. A few minutes later, he taught her how to use her hands to bring him off. As with everything else in life, Hermione Granger proved herself an extraordinarily quick study. This time when they lay in a tangled, semi-clothed heap on the floor, they were in a far greater state of deshabille, and Hermione was far less happy, than the first time it had happened.

“We absolutely cannot continue to carry on this way,” she fretted. “It’s so...tawdry.”

“You mean because we’re not dating,” Draco said sagely.

“Actually, I meant because we’re snogging on the floor of a bloody classroom,” she said waspishly. “Not dating is a given. If our housemates realized what we were getting up to, there’d be open warfare.”

“So much for Dumbledore’s brilliant plan to promote house unity with those godforsaken mistletoe charms,” Draco said. For once, Hermione was forced to agree. “However,” Draco said thoughtfully, “I may have a way around the empty classroom issue. Provided you’ll admit you want to snog me, and not force me to haul you off unexpectedly, again.”

Hermione opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t want him to snog her, closed it because she realized she’d be a hypocrite for letting such a lie pass her lips, and ended up saying, rather meekly, “All right.”

Draco smirked evilly, then made up for it by kissing her enthusiastically. As they righted their clothing, he explained his idea, and told her where and when to meet him, next.

She was nervous, of course. Draco had set that Saturday night for their rendezvous, and she had to admit that the Room of Requirement--which of course he knew all about, having been the one to lead the raid on the DA meetings, the previous year--was an inspired choice for what they had planned. Well, in so far as they had plans beyond snogging each other on something more comfortable than a classroom floor. She certainly didn’t.

Malfoy, as it happened, had very precise plans. They involved a chaise lounge that wouldn’t be as intimidating for Hermione as a bed, kissing her until she was too dazed to think about the fact that the chaise lounge was wider and longer than what they slept on in their dormitories, divesting her of her robes and anything beneath them, then licking, sucking and nibbling his way over every inch of exposed flesh on her body before he introduced her to the joys of cunnilingus.

Hermione was not first in her year for nothing. Once she got over her shyness at being completely naked in front of him--which, given the absolutely smoldering look he’d given her nude form before he hauled her into his arms and began snogging her with more enthusiasm than ever, hadn’t taken long--Draco’s attempts to teach her about cunnilingus turned into an advanced class on the art of sixty-nine. He was more than happy to award her full marks.

There had been another moment of shyness--not unmixed with awe--when she’d first seen what she’d only felt before. Malfoy’s cock, large, rampant, the tip weeping for her. Logically, she knew that her own body was perfectly capable of accommodating an organ that large. On a more primitive level, the thought both terrified and excited her.

Not enough, though, for her to make the attempt. Pleasurable as being skin-to-skin with Malfoy turned out to be, skilled as he was with tongue and fingers, lovely as it was to climax in his arms...she wasn’t quite ready to go from admittedly heated snogging to full-blown shagging. Somehow, going that far was going too far. Right now she could tell herself she was only flirting with the enemy. Letting things progress much further would be surrender, would be betrayal.

And really, this was close enough to betrayal to plague her thoughts as soon as the heat of the moment passed.

As she lay tangled with him in a boneless heap once more, Hermione realized that while the chaise lounge was vastly to be preferred to a classroom floor, the situation remained tawdry. They weren’t just hiding their actions from their professors, but from their friends, as well. It was all somehow very scandalous. Wicked. And disturbingly exciting.

But still, not something that any girl in her right mind could let continue.

“Malfoy, lovely as this has been, we really do need to stop.”

“I think we’ve progressed to the point where you can make free of my first name, pet,” he said lazily. “It’s Draco, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“All right then, Draco. This cannot continue.”

“Whyever not?” he asked, his tone not at all mocking, his expression one of serious inquiry. He wasn’t, she realized, taking this lightly. He wanted to know her objections to their continuing with...whatever it was they were doing.

She thought for a moment, before she spoke. “It isn’t that I don’t want to snog you,” she admitted, at which he immediately favored her with an evil smirk and tried to kiss her again, but she wasn’t through speaking. “Look, you’re rather good at this sort of thing, and physically speaking, it’s quite lovely. But the fact is, no matter how much I want to snog you, I shouldn’t snog you. It’s not as if this...whatever it is we’re doing...can ever be anything beyond snogging.”

“Ah. Dating, again. Impossible, as we both agree. At least for now.”

“Oh?” she eyed him curiously. “You can foresee a time when either of us would be all right with being together before our respective friends?”

“I can foresee any number of things, Hermione,” he began slowly. “I think, the way things are going in our world, at present, that we will never be able to casually date the way so many of our schoolmates do.”

“No Hogsmeade weekends and handholding over cups of hot chocolate at Madam Puddifoots?” she smiled ruefully.

“If Madam Puddifoot’s is your idea of a proper date, I know you less well than I supposed,” Draco said. “Trips to the British Museum would be more the thing, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” she admitted, and couldn’t help adding, rather wistfully, “None of those, either, then?”

“Not yet. Not now,” Draco acknowledged, sitting up on the chaise lounge and Accioing his robe. “But just because I can’t see my way clear to being with you in public, doesn’t mean I believe we should abandon what we’re doing...what we have.”

“What we have?” she repeated, brows raised as he drew on his robe. “What is it you think we have?”

“Potential,” he said unhesitatingly. “Possibilities. Being with you...I’ve had to look past the fact that you’re Muggleborn, haven’t I? Had to see you as you, Hermione Granger, whatever your bloodlines. I won’t pretend to be comfortable with that, and I will tell you now, the fact that I’ve discovered that you are beautiful and sensuous and damnably appealing does not mean that I am ready to change my views on your antecedents. I still think it is better to be pureblood than...than not. I have simply come to accept that there may be--must be-- individual exceptions, and that you, clearly, are one.”

The lovely glow she’d felt when he’d called her “beautiful” was depressingly shortlived, as Draco managed to pay her exquisite compliments and insult her in the same breath. Without a clue that he was doing the latter, of course.

“How magnanimous of you,” she said dryly. Her tone cut him on the raw.

“Merlin, Hermione, you really have no idea just how magnanimous it is, do you?” he said crossly.

There followed a predictable altercation, after which Hermione flounced out of the Room of Requirement, determined never to return to it for an assignation with Draco Malfoy, again.

As it happened, Hogwarts proved to be full of places that were perfectly suitable for assignations with Draco Malfoy, planned or otherwise.

The next one wasn’t. At least, not by Hermione. Draco, of course, was the one to do the planning. Not immediately. He spent a week trying to tell himself to give it up as a bad job and find another witch to amuse himself with before coming to the conclusion that there just weren’t any witches at Hogwarts he wanted as badly as he wanted Hermione.

The realization was not a happy one. Hermione was ignorant of the worst of it, of course. So far as she knew, thanks to some extremely strong concealing glamours, she had merely gotten carried away with a Slytherin, which, though uncharacteristic and unlikely, was hardly fatal.

Getting carried away with a Death Eater was entirely another matter, infinitely more dangerous, all too likely to prove fatal for someone...and all unknowing, that was exactly what Hermione had done.

The Dark Mark twisted and writhed on Draco’s forearm like a live thing, never letting him forget for a moment whose he was, what he was pledged to do. Even in Slytherin, it wasn’t safe for the Mark to be revealed, so there were spells, enchantments, glamours, hiding it from all eyes, even Draco’s.

But it was there, he could feel it, he could never forget it.

Except, fleetingly, in Hermione’s arms.

Which was dangerous to him. He ought not forget what he was supposed to be doing, especially not in order to pursue a Muggleborn witch who happened to be the best friend of the very enemy Draco’s own lord wanted dead.

He ought not have done a lot of things. But in the end, he’d had no choice about any of them.

Draco had taken the Dark Mark at the unprecedented age of sixteen, the past summer. At another time in his life, he would have been fiercely proud of that fact, would have been bragging about it to his friends, would not have hesitated to leave school and follow in his father’s footsteps.

But the conditions under which he had sworn loyalty to Voldemort were not the ones he had ever imagined. He did not come to his master in pride of place, the honored son of an honored lieutenant, part of a family that was notorious for it’s dedication to the dark wizard’s cause. No, Draco Malfoy had crawled to the Dark Lord as a supplicant, desperate to make up for his father’s failings, which had directed Voldemort’s rage at the entire Malfoy clan. Draco feared for his father in prison, for his mother at their isolated estate, was coldly aware that his own life might easily be demanded. Lucius had failed Voldemort, and their master did not take failure well.

It was desperation that had prompted him to act as he had, whistling in the dark, a need to reassure himself, that had caused him to drop hints to his friends on the train. But the unpleasant truth was, he was keenly aware that the task he had sworn to carry out for his lord was one that would daunt the oldest, most experienced Death Eaters. True, he had seen an opportunity, he had formed a plan. It might work.

But it probably wouldn’t.

And if it didn’t, he could expect to be tortured to death by his displeased master, most likely having first seen his parents eviscerated before his eyes.

Under the circumstances, giving in to his unprecedented, unlooked for, unexpected, wholly intoxicating passion for the Muggleborn witch who was squarely in the camp of his enemies was about as suicidal an act as he could commit without simply pointing his wand at his own head and uttering the Killing Curse.

Suicidal or not, he couldn’t stop himself. From the first taste of her lips, the first feel of her body trembling in his arms, Draco had been consumed by need for her. He’d tried to deny himself. His actions in dragging her off to a classroom the night after they’d been cornered by the damned--blessed?--charm had been motivated by sheer desperation, rooted in the belief that if he could just get a real taste of her, something a little more than just a kiss, he could satisfy whatever demon of curiosity/intrigue/fascination was riding him, satisfy himself that she was just another pretty witch, no more worthy of his attentions than any other--considerably less, in fact--allowing him to move on to more socially acceptable quarry.

The only thing getting a </i>real</i> taste of Hermione Granger did for Draco Malfoy was to make him crave more. She was an instant, terrifying, exhilarating addiction.

Whatever else Draco might be, he was at base a pragmatic young man. Given what he was up to on Voldemort’s behalf, he soon perceived that things could only go one of two ways: he would either succeed in the task his master had given him, winning the Dark Lord’s praise and whatever prizes he chose to claim, or he would fail, utterly. In which case the appalling death of his entire family would likely follow, post-haste. Well, his entire immediate family, at least. Doubtless, his Aunt Bella would be the one doing the honors, cheerfully dispatching sister, brother-in-law and nephew to prove her unswerving devotion to her lord.

Given those two probable outcomes, Draco decided that there was no reason to cease his pursuit of Hermione Granger. If he succeeded in the task that had been set for him, Voldemort would probably be delighted to let Draco claim her as a prize of war. No need to find some other, expensive, possibly inconvenient, reward. Hermione would not be happy. At first. But if Voldemort won--which, if Draco succeeded, would be inevitable--then she would eventually realize Draco had done his best to protect her, that she was lucky to have been spared the fate that would inevitably be dealt out to her friends. Sooner or later, she’d come round to the view that she was very much better off with Draco than she would have been without him.

In fairness, it must be said that Draco’s image of what life would be like with Hermione as a prize of war was nebulous, romantic, and not terribly likely to come to pass.

And that he was keenly aware of the fact.

Because the cold truth was, the truth he knew in his bones, the truth that weighed on his soul, made each day more difficult to get through than the next, made the moments of sweet distraction in Hermione’s arms all the more intoxicating, desperate, needful--was that Draco Malfoy was about positive he was going to fail.

If the greatest dark wizard ever known couldn’t get the best of Dumbledore, how in the hell did he, a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, stand a chance?

In which case Hermione was in no danger at all from what they were doing. He could take things with her as far as she would allow, could lose himself in her arms, and eventually he’d get himself killed, leaving her free to find someone whose family hadn’t cocked things up so badly their own side was gunning for them while they’d get less than short shrift from the other side. He might hope she’d shed a few tears, think of him fondly, but given the manner in which he expected to die, he supposed she’d be more inclined to spit on his memory than revere it.

But as he would be safely dead and beyond feeling the sting of any castigations she might be inclined to levy against him, he supposed he could live with that. Or die with it, as it were.

And if first he could truly have her, truly call her his...somehow, dying didn’t seem so bad if only he could live long enough to claim Hermione.

As lose-lose situations went, the one in which Draco found himself had its advantages, he decided as he plotted how to get his reluctant Gryffindor back into his arms. And hopefully, ultimately, into his bed.

For her part, Hermione, never one to be caught unprepared, had taken steps to keep herself as safe as possible from Draco’s stealth attacks. There being safety in numbers, she never left Gryffindor tower without at least one other of her housemates, never went in to meals in the Great Hall alone, always walked with one or more of her friends between classes, and was sure to travel to and from the library only when there were plenty of other students traveling in the same direction she herself needed to go. On those rare occasions when she had to be about the castle on her own, she made sure her wand was out and ready, and kept Mad Eye Moody’s motto firmly in mind. She was constantly vigilant for the least hint that Draco was anywhere near her, or up to his seductive tricks. Hermione was a strong-minded young woman, and had decided she was not going to be taken in by the prat, ever again. She vowed she would not be dragged off into one more empty classroom, or convenient broom closet, or any other out-of-the-way nook or cranny of the labyrinthine castle. Nor was she.

Draco cornered her in the herbology shed, after a double class, and she was so determined to avoid him, so set on sticking to her principles that it took him a well-timed Expelliarmus before he could get near the girl and a solid fifteen minutes of his most persuasive, seductive, skilled and passionate arguments to win her over to letting him kiss her.

The arguments in question mainly consisted of forcefully hauling her into his arms and kissing every bit of her he could reach until she gave up and offered him her lips.

Matters proceeded much as usual. They were shortly lying on a bed of thick, soft grass, half-hidden by a trellis of mandragora--a magical plant used in potions of dream and illusion--their clothes in disorder, their senses in riot, their inhibitions well and truly flown.

Not flown too far, though. Hermione might have found Draco’s kisses as intoxicating as he found hers, but she was not yet so drunk as to have lost all sense of self. She wanted him rather badly, but unless and until they were a proper couple, free to acknowledge their relationship to the world, she wasn’t going to let herself have as much of him as he seemed willing to offer her.

Snog, yes. Shag, no.

Draco made the best of matters as he found them. He had not given up his ultimate aim: bedding Hermione Granger before he died. But he was taking the long view. For the duration of the school year, he could put Voldemort off with one excuse or another, promising that he was working on the problem of fixing the vanishing cabinets, and that he would soon have a way for the Death Eaters to attack Hogwarts. As long as classes were still in session, the Dark Lord would have to allow him the opportunity to work on the project. The prize was too great to stop Draco’s efforts on his behalf. Only if the summer arrived before the cabinet was repaired would Voldemort lose patience, and put an end to things, Draco being the first of the things he’d put an end to. Draco was fairly confident, then, that he had until next June before he’d have to make good on his promises. Plenty of time to persuade Hermione around to his point of view.

And so, there under the veiling trellis of sweet-smelling, amethyst-colored mandragora vines, ensconced in a private world of fecund earth and magical blooms, Draco devoted himself to making love to as much of Hermione as she would let him have.

She was a generous lover, if a cautious one. Still new enough at amorous pastimes to be a little shy of going starkers where there was, however small, a risk of discovery--the particular herbology shed in which they were dallying was not scheduled to be used again until the next day--she made up for that reticence by throwing herself into their love play with abandon.

[And this time, there was no pulling away, no recriminations, no deluding herself that she could keep away from the seductive Slytherin. This time, when they parted, it was with arrangements in place for a future meeting, and the knowledge that there would be meetings after that.

All in all, the school year couldn't have been going any better.

Predictably, it all went to hell in a handbasket during the winter hols.]