One Person Two Many

One Person Two Many

Chapter Three

She put all of that out of her mind as she answered his question.

"Yes," she said. "But on one condition. Stop calling me Granger. My name is Hermione, and I would prefer to be called that."

Draco looked momentarily surprised at her request, then said, "Fine, Hermione. Feel free to call me Draco."

"Ok, Draco," she said, trying out the sound of his first name in her mouth.

"So," he drawled, taking a step close to her, "what do you and Harry do when you hang out?"

"We - er - I mean..." she stopped talking as Draco leaned in again. She closed her eyes, anticipating...

She opened her eyes. Draco had stopped mere millimeters from her face and was just staring at her.

"What is it?" she asked, somewhat surprised by his behavior.

He didn't respond, at least not with words.

*******

"'Mione, are you ok?" asked Ron.

"I - what?" she said.

"Are you ok?" he repeated.

"Oh, sorry, Ron, I'm fine," she replied.

"You've been daydreaming ever since I got back from Quidditch earlier," Ron stated.

"I'm fine, Ron, really," she said.

The portrait door opened and in came Harry, still dirty and looking very tired. He saw Hermione and immediately brightened up as he went over to her. He stopped to the side of her chair and leaned down to kiss her hello. Hermione unconsciously recoiled.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked concernedly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry. I've done a lot of work today. I'm just tired. Actually, I think I might head up to bed now. Goodnight," she said.

Harry and Ron watched her go up the stairs to the girl's bedrooms.

Ron shook his head as Harry sat in the chair Hermione had vacated. "I don't know what's wrong with her, mate. She's been sitting there daydreaming ever since I got back here from practice."

*******

Hermione opened the door to her private room and collapsed on the bed. She couldn't believe that she had spent the afternoon in the Slytherin dungeons, alone, in Draco's room, with him. She turned to lie on her back, settling her head on her fluffy pillows. Draco's pillows in his room weren't fluffy; they were hard and uncomfortable to lie on. Of course, she reflected, her attention hadn't really been focused on that at the time.

Slowly, as she lay there, the implications of what she had done began to sink in. She had cheated on Harry. Harry, her first love. Harry, the one she had been friends with ever since she was eleven. Harry, the one who had saved her life on more than one occasion. It startled her when she felt something dripping down her cheek, she hadn't realised that she was crying.

Once her tears were finally exhausted, she understood she only had one course of action. She had to go see Draco the following day, and tell him that what happened today could never happen again. Then, before Draco's temper exploded and he told the whole school, she would have to find Harry and tell him everything, in the hopes that he would forgive her.

*******

Hermione had a terrible night's sleep. Tormented, she tossed and turned for hours before falling asleep at four in the morning from exhaustion. As a result, she woke late. She quickly dressed, ran through the common room and out the portrait door. She couldn't face going into the hall for breakfast, so she ignored the angry rumbling of her stomach and headed towards the secret entrance of the Slytherin rooms that Draco had showed her. Taking a deep breath, she turned towards Draco's room and hoped that he was there. Pausing outside his door, she realised that she hadn't planned what she was going to say to him. As she reached her hand to knock, the door swung open.

"Grang- Hermione," Draco said, looking startled that she was outside his room.

"Morning," she said.

Draco stepped back inside his room, "Come in."

Hermione came in and sat tentatively on his bed. "I need to say something to you, Draco."

"Alright, speak," he said, kneeling so his face was on the same level with hers.

"We, no, I can't do this, Draco. I can't cheat on Harry. It's, it's just not rig-" she stopped speaking, not by choice, but because Draco's tongue was in her mouth.

She pushed him off, her anger surfacing. He glared at her briefly, then turned and sat cross-legged on the bed, facing her.

"No. We can't do this. I don't want to cheat on Harry, he's never been anything but a fantastic friend to me and it's not right to repay him by, well, by having an affair with his worst enemy. I won't do it to him," she said firmly.

"But you want to," Draco replied. "You don't want to hurt him; I'm not stupid, I can see that. But you do want to be with me. I can see it in your eyes, and I felt in the way you held my yesterday."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but snapped it shut again. The thing was, Draco was right. She did like him; she liked being around him, being with him. A horrible feeling rose in her stomach. It was the realisation that she was in fact in love with both Harry and Draco. She knew that even though she had only spent one day with Draco so far, as opposed to seven years around Harry, she could feel, as he did, that they had something special. She looked at him, their eyes meeting and holding for a long time. Hermione was the first to look away; his eyes were too tempting to look into for long. Intending to leave, she got up, but Draco caught her arm and turned her to face him.

"We haven't solved this, Hermione," he said.

She just shook her head, tears starting to well up in her eyes, "I don't want this to happen. I wish I wasn't in this position."

"You are, though. Your actions are in your hands, and yours alone. You have to make the decision."

She looked into his eyes again. She could see the passion in them; it was almost like seeing a fire flickering behind his eyes. She made no attempt to resist as he put his arms gently around her and drew her close. Still looking into his eyes, she nodded.

He sat down on the bed, pulling her down next to him. For a moment she hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind. Draco stretched out on his back, and Hermione snuggled in next to him, their arms around each other as they looked at the ceiling, each lost in thought.

Draco withdrew his arm from around her, and twisted so he was on his side, facing her. His hands tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears, and gently caressed her face. Hermione closed her eyes as his face came gradually closer to hers.