Clandestine Whispers

>>>>>19 Blessed Reunion

Now relieved that the adventure was over, and a mutual feeling of gladness to be alone together between them, Hermione and Draco walked to stand at the mouth of the cave, which was behind a waterfall. Throwing off his overcoat, sheathed sword, dagger, and Hogwarts tie, Draco tightened up his boots and went to stand underneath the waterfall. Hermione stood there, watching. His arms lifted, head faced upwards, and eyes closed, he looked very content. The sleeves of his shirt were now loose, the top button unbuttoned, and he didn't seem to mind the water soaking all of him other than his waterproof boots. Hermione was glad to see him so happy; but there was something she needed to get out into the open.

"Draco...I've been thinking over everything that happened to us. Me and you. I..." There was a pregnant pause. Draco now stood, arms at his side, eyeing her questioningly, one eyebrow raised in a way that Hermione had grown to love. But this time it did not comfort her. "You what, Hermione?"

"You seemed different for some time, Draco, you really did! I liked you, I forgot your past self, the person that was always hating me, always bothering me and my friends, the person that called me Mudblood. I forgot him. But then he came back, Draco. I saw him again, more powerful than ever before! And I hated him. I loathed him with a dark passion unlike anything I've ever felt. And I've got to wondering whether the Draco I liked was ever actually honest. He may not have been imaginary, but pretty damn well close, because his existence was very frail, and obviously fragile. You can't just think that, now that we've worked together and that I helped you get through destroying the dark power you were, don't think that just because we defeated one obstacle that we're back on a friendly basis. Because we're not. We are definitely not. There was a moment that has stayed in my mind...forever since, Draco."

Hermione eye's were now rimmed with tears, and her voice quivered with emotion. "That kiss, Draco. It was so special to me. Such a short-lived miraculous thing, but something I never forgot. You didn't it mean though, did you?" Her voice now rose slightly in anger.

"You never meant it, not the kiss, not the friendship, none of it! It was a fraud! You're a fraud, every thing good about you I liked was a fraud! I bet you never even considered kissing me again! Not once did the thought pass through your mind that you wanted to kiss me again, did it?"

Walking up to stand closer to Draco, Hermione glared at him accusingly, her gaze like arrows of fire. Grabbing ahold of her wrists and violently tugging her to stand beneath the waterfall with him, Draco's gaze was more piercing and more sharp than ever. But it was not a cold gaze, not hateful. It was a gaze of the most utter seriousness.

His voice firm, gaze remaining fixed on Hermione, Draco said, "And to think I thought you knew me by now. But of course not. Everything I thought assured that you understood me, everything that I thought made you become the one person who finally accepted me for what I am...you thought it was a fraud. Just because it was a different side of me, a good side, as you call it...that doesn't mean it was fake! Because it wasn't. None of it. I mean everthing I say, everything I do, and I refuse to do or say it otherwise. The only times I didn't speak my truth thoughts were the times I chewed off on you and your friends. True, I had a hard time fighting against my conflicting selves, my good and bad. But everyone does. I'm not the only one. But he is me, that good part you liked. And I am not a fraud."

Her voice firm, Hermione, her tone defiant, said, "You never let me get close enough to truly know you, Draco. No matter how much you depended on me to react towards you with something other than confusion and hate, it's not that easy with you, Draco. You're an undecipherable code. And only you, the code itself, have the translation to the code. So don't expect me to just automatically know you after what we've had together! If we ever had anything."

And here she stopped, pausing, and then, not letting him answer, blurted out angrily, "What about the kiss? Did you ever think about kissing me ever again?"

Draco's gaze softened, and pulling Hermione closer, to press against him, he whispered, "All the time. Every moment since, it has been my heart's clandestine wish."

Her eyes glowing with a radiant joy, Hermione smiled, and replied, "Your wish is my command."

They leant in towards each other, and their mouths met. Both were finally following their inner yearnings. Hermione was totally oblivious to the water soaking her clothes and skin, unbenknownst that her hair, now wet, sprang wildly from her scalp in a rare flurry of curly ringlets.

Draco's kisses were unique; the wondrous sensation was unlike any other kiss Hermione had ever experienced. She knew that he put his all into everything he did; his kisses were precise, meaningful, and done with great passion. And it felt natural to kiss him, it felt right; and feeling this rightness of the situation made her feel extremely glad and excited. When Hermione had temporarily dated Terry Boot in her fifth year, all the kisses had been awkward, artificial, ungenuine, and, on some part, forced. Once she had had to kiss Ron in a game of Wand, Broom, or Ghost--a sort of warped wizard version of Truth or Dare. That kiss, although it had been gentle and fluttery, it had also been very embarassing, alarming, and quick.

Unlike the cold skin Hermione had grown to associate with Draco, his lips were not cold; on the contrary, they were very warm, and also soft and smooth. Her heart beating fast, flushed with excitement, Hermione leaned even more into the kiss as she felt Draco's fingertips brushing up and down her back, giving her skin a tingly, fiery sensation. She desperately hoped that, although their lips did seperate slightly every once in a while, that since the it was only fractional and momentary, that this all counted as one kiss. Because if this was one, there would surely be more following it.

Fearfully wondering about what the result could be, Hermione slowly, nervously opened her mouth. Draco eagerly took the invitation, and slid his slippery tongue inside. Although it took some getting used to, Hermione adapted and eventually her surprise vanished and their tongues lanced back and forth. She knew that, out of the few kisses she'd gotten in her life, this was the first one that had ever involved tongues. Hermione also knew that she would eventually get out of breath, and had mixed feelings of relief and dismay when the French kiss ended. For a few moments, Draco seperated his mouth from hers and took a few deep breaths only to move back in again, barely getting a chance to mumble, "this still counts as one kiss" before Hermione impatiently continued it. They went on like this for some time, when finally there was an unspoken agreement that their lungs needed air, and it ended. Their lips had been touching for a long time, and in that sense, they thought the kiss had lasted long. But in the sense of the pleasure they got out of it, it had seemed to last much too short, and both were eager for more.

They both stood there, breathing hard, staring into each other eyes. For so long, they had worked hard to be something together. But neither of them had really known how; it had been difficult, their feelings had been tested. And now, their hearts were reunited again.

Hermione never thought that she would ever be able to drown into anyone's eyes except Harry's. Her first month of her fifth year before dating Terry Boot she had had a crush on Harry, and had always been amazed at his emerald eyes. But she had gotten over it surprisingly quickly, because nothing had happened, he'd never found out, because of Ginny, and it hadn't felt right. Now, here she was, drowning into another boy's eyes. These eyes were a blue-grey color, and reminded her of the ocean waves on a stormy night. There seemed to be a magnet that pulled them together. Hermione couldn't pinpoint her feelings for Draco, was afraid of what they were called, but knew that whatever they were they made her feel content while with him unlike she ever had with anyone else, regardless of his mysteriousness and occasional biting remark.

A shiver ran up Hermione's spine as Draco's hand slid part way beneath her shirt, his skin brushing against the now very wet, smooth skin of her lower back. Then, seeing her stiffening of nervousness, he stopped, and withdrew his hand. Wrapping both arms around her waist and pulling her so close that she felt every contour of his body against her, Draco had just barely begun to touch his lips to Hermione's again when suddenly a scraping sound of shoe against cave floor met their ears, and a small voice exclaimed, "Oh! I'm sorry, I d-didn't know... I thought...I didn't know anyone was here, sorry, I-I'll leave now."

This all came out in a rush of frantic, barely intelligible words. Hermione immediately recognized who it was, and pulling away from Draco suddenly, she backed away, and held her head down, facing away, looking down at the floor. She nervously gnawed her knuckles, feeling almost faintish, her knees wobbly. On the contrary, Draco turned towards the voice, furious at the interruption. Now once again piercing and cold, his gaze fell upon the crouching figure of none other than Ginny Weasley.

His voice sharp with anger, Draco shouted, "Weasley!" And he began to walk towards her menacingly. Standing up defiantly, Ginny held her head high as Draco approached her. However, she began to slowly take steps back, as Draco, pointing an accusing finger at her, said, "If you tell anyone about what you just saw, I will personally track you down and--and--"

Refusing to listen to the rest of his threat, Ginny turned around and ran quickly out of the cave back the way she'd come through the tunnel. Draco stood there, still as stone, his brows furrowed, his fists clenched. His gaze pierced the tunnel; he knew she wouldn't return. He regretted admitting that there wasn't much he could about this particular dilemma.

~~*~~

Harry and Ron sat, attempting to warm up their hands in a small, tiny fire. An unopened bag of Marshies Magic Mallows lay beside the large flat boulder they shared as a bench. Neither wanted to talk about the recent events. They didn't want to have to relive it all.

Ron wondered why Draco had been so silent around them all. Usually he would be spitting insults and annoying the hell out of everyone. But today, he was different. Maybe it was because he was tired from all that had happened to him, and missed his father. Hmph, yeah right. Like Malfoy could ever miss anyone. I bet he's just planning some way to get revenge on us for helping him. Or else he's angry that he didn't succeed on getting his dark power and killing us all. Stupid Malfoy. Prat. I hate him. And now he's faked an injury and dragged Hermione off to use the First Aid kit on him! I bet he's calling her Mudblood even now. I hope Hermione has the good sense to whap him one over the head with the First Aid Kit and then shove him in the water.

He looked up at the sound of gravel crunching, and was disappointed and simultaneously relieved that it was Ginny. He hadn't wanted her to go after Malfoy and Hermione, but she'd insisted. He was glad she was back, but would have liked if it had been Ginny and Hermione.

Ginny sat down on a rock across the fire from Ron and Harry. Ron glanced over at Harry; the Boy-Who-Lived had managed to live again. Ron was worried about Harry; so far he had been very dismal and uncommunicative this year. Harry, his knees curled up to his chest, was staring into the fire. He seemed totally oblivious to his surroundings and company, and ignored the soot and grime at the edge of his glasses, as well as the bruise on his arm, and cut on his cheek.

Then Ron glanced over at Ginny; she sat, shivering, lips pinched together tightly whether in coldness or something else he wasn't sure. She kept on glancing back and forth from the fire to the tunnel through which she'd went after Hermione and Malfoy. Ron stayed silent for a few more moments, and then asked his sister, "Ginny, what were Hermione and Malfoy doing? Why are they still in there? I thought you were gonna go fetch them."

Ginny looked to stare at him blankly. She remained silent. "Ginny?" Ron began to be fearful of Ginny's unspoken answer of what they were doing and why they were still in there. "Fine then, Ginny. I'm going to go see what it is they're doing myself." He stood up, and began walking towards the tunnel. But Ginny stopped him in his tracks.

"Wait, Ron!"

"What?" he turned around.

"Um...you...you forgot the bag of marshmallows!"

"You don't want any?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, we'll all eat some when I come back with them, alright? I'll be back soon. Stay here."

Ginny frowned, crumpling back down onto her rock, as Ron picked up a torch and walked into the tunnel. Putting her head in her hands, she wailed to herself, "What do I do?"

Unbeknownst to her, although seemingly seperated from the real world, Harry had heard the conversation between Ron and Ginny, and had wondered to himself at Ginny's odd demeanor when she returned from not fetching Hermione and Malfoy. He wondered silently to himself at her self-directed question. Why did she need to do something? Something had happened back in the cave with Malfoy and Hermione, that much was obvious to him.

~~*~~

After Ginny left, Draco turned around, still angry. But upon seeing Hermione sit down at the ledge of the cave, her legs half in the water, still soaking wet, some of his anger left him. He walked over towards her and sat down next to her; she moved to sit farther away from him, refusing to look at him at all.

Draco's anger disappeared altogether, and he became frustrated, confused, and dismayed. Why was she doing this? He reached an arm over to try and brush away a stray ringlet of hair from her face, but she lifted her hand up to block him. Turning his reaching into a grabbing motion, Draco firmly took hold of her wrist, and scooted closer, and then grabbed Hermione around the waist to pull her to sit next to him.

Still holding her wrist, he asked,"Hermione, what's wrong?"

She shook her head violently, whispering hoarsely, "nothing...everything...I don't know!" Draco put his hand under her chin to try and turn her face towards his, but she turned her head away. He tried to move her to face him, but she lifted her hands to press them against his chest, saying, "Don't." He tried to peek through the curtain of wet hair that covered her face from view, but she pulled away. He attempted then to part the curtain of hair to see her face, but she grabbed his wrists, saying, "Keep your hands to yourself." He leant down and kissed the skin at the base of her neck, resulting in a gasp, and Hermione exclaimed, "stop it! You're..." Draco pulled back, staring at the mass of ringlets that seemed to guard Hermione's entire head like a swarm of bees.

"I'm what?"

He placed a hand on her shoulder, tentatively. Hermione flinched, but didn't move to shake his hand away. "You're...you're making it harder for me! This is torture!"

Not portraying his surprise and fear in any way, Draco whispered, "I know what torture feels like. It's hideous, and horrid. It seeps into your bones like poison, becomes a part of you. Day and night you fuss over this torture, trying to twist it so that it isn't torture anymore, doesn't hurt. But the pain goes on...and on...and on. And then...you begin to hate yourself, because if you didn't exist, the torture wouldn't exist. Then, your hate for the torture turns to love, because you want to punish yourself for living and thus being tortured...and deep down you know that letting the torture go on will kill you. What am I making harder for you? How is it torture? Tell me, Hermione. Tell me."

Slowly, Hermione let out a shaky breath, then turning to him, throwing back her mass of wet hair from her face, she looked up at him, her face tear-stained. "It's torture feeling about you the way I do, because I'm not sure what I feel, and because I know that whatever it is I feel is the opposite of what all my friends feel about you. Everyone except the Slytherins hate you. But I'm not a Slytherin. And I'm friends with people who hate you; or at least dislike you. But I don't hate you!"

Hermione sunk down to put her face against his shoulder, and then slid to press against his chest, tears falling down her cheeks as she sobbed, shaking. Draco kept his mask on. It was hard. Oh, god, it was hard. He bit his lip until he tasted blood in his mouth, and his head swam; he knew exactly how she felt. Finally, he composed himself, and, voice firm and encouraging, said, "go on. And?"

"And I go over everything that happened to us and I know that you're so extremely special to me, but I can't really say why other than that when i'm with you everything seems perfect and it's like nothing can go wrong. But at the same time I'm not sure if it's right to feel like that because you're the reason I have these conflicting feelings about whether to hate you or not. And I..." she whispered something so quietly that even Draco's keen ears didn't catch it. Leaning his head down, he whispered, "you what? Say it again. I didn't hear that." Hermione stayed silent, her body tilting every so slightly back and forth to a mute tempo inside only her own head. Draco didn't know what to do. He almost felt like exploding then and there. He almost lost it. He knew that whatever she had said was very important to her, because she'd said it so quietly and he'd felt it's importance. Also, it was important to him; he needed to know, was desperate, hungry, to know what it was she'd said. "Say it, Hermione. Say it." Still silence. Draco hugged her closer to him, stroking her hair, and then whispered fiercely, his voice uncontrolled and definitely quavering, "Please Hermione, say it, please, I beg you, c'mon say it. I need to know."

Hermione smiled to herself, and, moving so that she sat on top of him, her legs to either side of him, she whispered, "What I said was...I'd do anything if you promise me that you'll give me at least one kiss once a day. Because even though you're my source of conflicting emotions and torture, your mouth tastes good; your kisses make me feel...lo-"

"Why you two-faced half-arsed bloody git, Malfoy! Hermione, don't let him put those spells on you or whatever it is! C'mon over here and stay away from Malfoy, the stupid prat!"

Draco and Hermione turned to see Ron, red-eared as his hair, standing angrily a few feet behind him, his fists clenched tightly. Hermione glanced up at Ron in shock, and then glanced back at Draco, whom she still sat on. She stood up and was about to walk over to Ron when she felt an arm wrap around her waist and suddenly she felt herself pressed against Draco. She didn't know whether to struggle or not, didn't know whom to side with, her friend, who hated Draco, or Draco, who was very special to her and had made her feel better. She felt his cool soothing breath on her ear as Draco whispered to her, "This is your test, Hermione. Choose one of us, tell him everything, or make a compromise between him and you that involves me and your friends; but the compromise will continue the torture, I warn you."

Hermione stood there, thinking about it, afraid. She refused to have to choose between her friends, and who she felt could be her soulmate. No. But she didn't want to tell Ron, and she also didn't want to continue the torture. She didn't like any of those choices! But she knew they were all she had. She chose compromise.

"Ron, he didn't put any spells over me. Draco is my...friend; he taught me how to fly a broom, and I helped him get better at Transfiguration. We're on an equal basis now, and we've helped each other through a lot and have gotten to know each other. So I want you to promise me that for three days, if not a week, you, Harry, and Ginny won't insult Draco, and won't do anything to put down him, or my choice of being friends with him, alright? And Draco will do the same, vice versa. Compromise."

Ron stood there, and slowly, slowly, his anger disappeared, and his facial expression was one of thoughtfullness. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting for his answer, Hermione was able to stop holding her breath when Ron said, "alright. Compromise. Starting now. I accept." He looked over at Draco, as if challenging him to refuse the compromise. Draco reluctantly agreed, saying, "I also accept, Hermione. But I'm still calling him Weasley."

Ron nodded, saying, "And he's still Malfoy to me." And then, turning to point at Draco, he said, "But don't you go touching her like this anymore! I don't want to see any physcial contact other than hand-to-hand and maybe a friendly arm around the shoulder. But no hugging allowed!"

Hermione was sure that, just like her, Draco was also mentally laughing. Ron didn't know the whole of it; they'd had much more physical contact than hugging. Smiling, Hermione began to laugh, and managed to choke out through her laughter, "okay, Ron, no hugging!"

~~*~~

The next three days had Hermione laughing a lot more than usual. She still was very studious, of course, and both the broom lessons and study sessions had stopped, but commonly Draco and her would meet in the library and sit down together and talk.

It was very obvious that Ron had a hard time keeping the compromise. Several times he just barely stopped himself from calling Malfoy git, prat, fool, rat, and ferret. Draco was seen by them more and more now. The compromise did not seem to bother him at all; but Hermione knew that he was simply hiding it behind his mask of neutrality. The only time that mask was gone was when he was with her, alone.

They made sure that other Hogwarts students didn't notice the difference. They barely ever saw each other at school, and when they did, they faked it with glaring at each other, arguing in classes, and violently shoving each other around in the halls.

Harry, like Draco, didn't react much to the compromise, although in Quidditch matches he did fight even harder for the Snitch, resulting in more than one Gryffindor victory. And both boys fought even harder to keep up the enmity facade But although they still hated each other, with Hermione as a kind of link between them, it was harder for them to argue each other with the same vehemence.

As for Ginny, she got over the shock of realizing that Draco Malfoy was not dead. When Hermione asked her one night why she'd been so affected by the news of Draco's death, Ginny had told her the strange tale. She had wrongly accused Draco last year, blaming him for Neville's stage of depression. Later she had found out that one of Neville's relatives had died, and the boy had simply been too sad to feel like talking about it. Upon hearing of Draco's death, Ginny had become devastated at the thought that she wouldn't get the chance to apologize to Draco for assuming it had all been his fault.

Meanwhile, Hermione was extremely happy during the whole compromise time. She was more willing to spend time doing fun things with Harry and Ron rather than studying, and found herself having long night girl chats with Ginny much more. She and Draco's secret rendezvous' were filled with an intensity neither of them had touched on before. They found out many things about each other and themselves, and by the end of each hour spent with each other, they felt more light-hearted than ever.

However, the three days passed by extremely fast, and the fourth day, when Ron bumped into Draco, he vented out everything by insulting him as much as he could and in every possible way, and then lunged at him, managing to get a hit. Draco had a bruise on his jaw, as well as a black eye, for a few days after. Ron was humiliated in Potions when one Draco 'accidentally' spilled one of Neville's catastrophes on him, resulting in him having to rush to the hospital wing to get an indigestion pill from Madame Pomfrey.

But Hermione was happy that the compromise, however temporary, had worked at making everyone more open and accepting of each other. Ron was glad it was over with, relieved that, although he begrudged Draco some respect, he didn't have to be nice anymore. And Draco was happy because Hermione was happy.