A/N: I’m not sure if anyone’s done this yet—I hope not. Another Draco/Hermione fic from me! Hurrah… What he’s drinking
isn’t really red wine—red wine isn’t that alcoholic, no? Anyway, this was done in about a few minutes, so forgive me if it isn’t
totally great. I got the lyrics from http://www.lyrics.com/, so blame them if there are any mistakes. ::grins:: And this may remind
some of Perished Dreams. It did me, anyway. Hail Thea, who is kind enough to give constructive reviews besides being one of
the best authors breathing. Thanks to Danette, who offered to be a beta-reader for one of my series, and Remmirath, whom I
thought was mad at me but thankfully really wasn’t. J

Rating note: ::looks uncomfortable:: If my mother ever reads this I’m dead… I’ll just warn you, I guess. OK. Well, the sex here
isn’t that explicit at all, it’s only hinted plus a little snogging, I just sort of needed that to fit the fic to the song. ::frowns:: I think it
needs a bit more adjustment, don’t you? The part with the ‘you told me you’d fallen in love’ thing doesn’t happen at all. ::grins
wryly:: If I knew better I’d swear never to write another fic like this again… Hey Remmi, d’you think our teachers would enjoy
reading this? Sir Magno would have me imprisoned for slander of his favourite writer’s characters…

Incomplete

by Meriadoc
 
 

A silver-haired galleonaire of a man, about three-and-twenty years of age and to many a fellow who made himself agreeable
nowhere, reclined in the high-backed armchair of his lavishly decorated bedroom, facing a crackling fire in a marble grate. At
present he held in his hand a wineglass, in the other a bottle containing immensely costly liquor. With a depressed sigh he tilted
the bottle to the glass, making ruby liquid pour out of its lips in a cerise river. The combination of the darkness of the room and
the faint light the hearth and the few twinkling candles caused made the crimson-coloured wine that swirled in the man’s crystal
goblet look like something he had seen and had had drawn out of him innumerable times in his life; blood.

He sighed again and brought the glass to his lips, tasting the liquid, and tilting it to drink. It was with an acquired taste—he had
never especially liked the flavour of the fluid—and a want to drown and numb the great tumult his mind and heart were currently
in that he parted his lips and let the wine flow in. As the solution passed and burned his throat, his eyes gaze wandered over his
room, taking in the textured scarlet wallpaper and the darkened oak furniture, and rested on the luxurious canopy bed and its
embroidered red-and-gold drapes. Another pang of pain shot through him as he, helpless, let the disturbing, almost intolerable
recollections of so many evenings past obtrude in the solitude of this would-be peaceful night.

The man, setting down the now drained wineglass on a very expensive piece of Louis XVI furniture, ran his hand through his
silvery hair and closed his platinum eyes, as if doing so would block out all thought. Still, in his mind’s eye, he saw her
heart-shaped, smiling face, her silky brown hair, her impossibly beautiful resplendent brown eyes. His fingers tingled at the
memory of her peach skin and chestnut hair’s soft feel, which unfortunately not even a million attractive raven-haired,
powder-faced women could erase.

It seemed almost mocking, really, that a Muggle-born girl whom he had most willingly hated, despised and abhorred for more
than ten years should be the one plaguing him, him of all people! —He, who was head of the most prestigious wizard family in
the magical world and whose name was used many times in conjunction with the phrase ‘eligible bachelor’. For years, no, a
decade and more, those in her intimate acquaintance, as a dark-haired man and a pauper of a wizard, and his sense of her
family and its being degradation, had prevented either from wanting the other’s society. That was until one night, one cruelly
beautiful night a twelfth month ago that he never knew would change his life and views of wizards and their inferiors forever…

His eyes fluttered gradually open, and his vision was blurry, unable to make anything out past flickering lights that
resembled stars, and a mass of scarlet above him. His head was uncommonly heavy and aching, a sure sign that he had
indeed been drinking. He blinked many times to help his sight. At last he could see that the red sea above him was the
drapes of his own canopy bed, and the blinking lights the few torches in brass brackets decorating his dark bedroom.
As he made to sit up and rub his head, he felt the weight on the bed shift very slightly as movement issued from the
other side of the antique piece.

He, who was unaware of the presence of another in his berth, instinctively turned his head to look at whom it was. His
silver eyes widened in indescribable astonishment as the sleeping, naked form of his own childhood enemy came into
view.

Then, as a river would come flowing out of a dam, recollections of the previous night came flooding in, making the
aching of his head even worse. A ball—masquerade ball, that is—stars—Hogwarts—wine—a kiss…

The more dominant part of his brain immediately scolded him in a manner brutally familiar. Had Lucius Malfoy lived
to see this, he would have most obviously not borne it very pleasantly. Fortunately he hadn’t—he had died along with
the Dark Wizard Voldemort, to the delight of many, including his son. But still—what had he done? A Muggleborn, of
all the women he could have had, a Muggleborn! Indeed it was peculiar, and, in the haze that engulfs one after more
than one glass of wine, he could not even begin to comprehend his decision of taking her home and—and bedding her…
Not that it hadn’t been a pleasant experience, of course, he thought with a brazen grin, and with something bordering on
attachment, looked over her pale, delicate nude figure, which was entangled in his crimson-coloured covers and lying
on its side to face him. The girl he had grown to call Mudblood had grown up quite pleasantly, it seemed…

Suddenly the woman beside him stirred, as if sensing his gaze on her body. Her eyes quivered open, as had his, and a
pool of unfocused warm brown could be seen under her long lashes. Her lips, red as the silk sheets that adorned his bed
(in retrospect that could have just been the wine they had drunk staining her mouth), parted slightly to let out a small
post-waking purr. Watching her, he felt the desire to cover those lips with his, and the primitive sensations she seemed
to have awoken in him last night returned most abruptly. He doubted, though, that she would be so willing to return his
passionate… actions as she had the night before, as she had been under the control of alcohol then. Or so he thought.
He took to the unavoidable task of surveying her body (who that was there could help himself?), knowing that once she
was fully woken she would want to flee from Malfoy Manor as fast as possible.

Soon enough, she regained complete consciousness and sat up abruptly, rubbing vestiges of sleep from her eyes. He
wiped from his face the expression he was sure divulged the affinity that he had (though a bit reluctantly at first) begun
to feel and replaced it with the impassive, indifferent, almost indolent facial cast he had come to perfect over the years.
At length surprise at where she was covered her face, and as she looked around, she caught sight of the man she had,
well, detested since she was eleven, even before (her birthday wasn’t till a few days after their first meeting).

As expected, mortification quickly overcame her. ‘What—’

She found her words smothered by a very deep kiss. He had, as was apparent, given up the fight to control his… urges.
His hands found their way around her uncovered waist and were relishing the feel of her bare skin when, to his
surprise, her lips nearly equalled the passion that his had issued. Her arms, surprisingly warm, slipped around his neck
and pressed him forward so that his chest touched her breast. He was most enthusiastic to return her embrace…

At present, the man in the memory shook his head, wisps of platinum blond swishing about his forehead, knowing looking back
was of no use. Indeed it pained him more, to remember how that day had ended…

Thereafter the two lay on their sides, panting, facing each other. A smile of indulgence adorned his face, and a look of
mixed uncertainty and a definite hint of bliss was on hers. They had not talked at all, and neither felt too much like
wording the qualms they felt. In want of something to accomplish, for a moment they just looked into each other’s
eyes, as if the answer to their obvious predicament could be found in the soft cesspools of brown and silver.

The wrongs of their company weighed on them like boulders—of course the pressure on him was a bit lessened by the
late demise of his father and mother, but still there was what his other associates would say. His right hand found his
left forearm, as if gripping the Dark Mark, which had fortunately disappeared along with the cruel wizard (or whatever
Voldemort had been) that created it. This went on unnoticed by the girl, whose troubled mind was fixed on her own
problems. What would her friends’ reactions be? She cared too much for them to ignore what they would think.
Doubtless they would disapprove… What on earth had gotten into her anyway, going home with her one living
enemy…

Neither knew when the hatred had given way to affection, for they were both well aware that it wasn’t just lust or
chemistry. It was strange; she found that she indeed loved him—even just one night spent in his arms was enough to
prove that, despite the many doubts and misgivings. The question of the moment was; did she love him enough? To risk
the severance of her and her friend’s intimate familiarity, the repulsion of her relations (he was, after all a wizard who
found them beneath him), and most especially; the wrath of young witches world-wide? She was unsure.

To his chagrin, with her, uncertainty of her own emotions led to refusal of his unasked question. She left, needless to say, a firm
understanding between them that said neither was to inform anyone of this, and if they saw each other they would act as spiteful
as they always had.

The fire in his room slowly died for lack of any fuel, the ashes of the firewood sitting in a messy pile in the marble grate. He did
not trouble himself by calling for a house-elf—the cold of the night was not even close to the ice he had taken to caging his heart
in. Foolish, he was—for twenty-two years he had succeeded in not loving anyone at all, not even his parents, who had in fact
taught him to confine any affinity to himself (hence his conceit), and who were, to put it bluntly, just so horrid to him that he
found it impossible to even grieve for them after their deaths. Now he scolded himself—just because his Lucius had died he let
his emotions go wild… What a disgrace—a pureblood wizard like himself pining for a Mudblood! Ridiculous. Maybe Father’s
mania against emotions wasn’t so pointless after all.

With a final swig of the bottle (the contents of which had been almost entirely consumed during his reverie), he led himself to the
bed, having spent another bleak, lonely day of his otherwise colourful existence. He lay down, eyes fastened to the fabric ceiling
of his canopy bed. The deeply intoxicating liquor, other than making him feel extremely dizzy and nauseous, had had no effect,
and not served its (supposed) purpose of ‘numbing the pain’. He closed his eyes to sleep, but his mind, his ever troubled mind
was wide awake…

The most painful part, to him at least (he was uncertain as to whether the event had caused her any), was that as she made to
leave him, she had assured her old adversary that the feelings of repulsion towards him that she had had since so long ago
remained unchanged, contrary to his. Of course he couldn’t expect her to give up everything he knew she had worked so hard
to gain, like acceptance in the Wizarding World, just to be with him. It was after all entirely his fault that she had taken a dislike
to him in the first place, what with the names he called her and the manner in which he acted towards her allies. But still, the
spite she had for him was not enough to dissipate the affection he had born for her.

Thus he, the son of a well-known, unbelievably wealthy wizard, handsome and lusted after by innumerable witches,
acknowledged one of the sharpest students of his year, seemingly uniting all the best material qualities in the world, had lived his
twenty-three years on earth without too much to distress him…

…Except a simple Muggleborn witch.
 
 
 

::Sighs:: It seems that in every one of my fics there’s a memory scene like the one in this story. It’s pretty… bad. Once again I
apologise if it’s not very nice—it’s my first ever songfic, after all. OK, so it wasn’t much of a songfic, but you’ll forgive me. I
think it’s rather stupid that I didn’t put in how Hermione ended up in Master Malfoy’s bed, but I cannot be arsed to put that in
now. In a hurry to put this up. Email me at serle_blue@yahoo.co.uk if the review function isn't working (I've been having trouble
with it myself).Thanks, really, for reading. ~Meriadoc