The Indiscretion

Hermione was having trouble keeping a straight face. Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince, Heir of Wizarding Britain, Bastard Extraordinaire, had freckles. After two weeks in the sun, his skin was barely even the slightest shade darker. If she hadn't known it for a fact, having seen it personally, she never would have guessed that Draco had been spending all day sweating with his scythe under the hot sun...except for the freckles.

They certainly weren't of a Weasley-quantity of freckles. They only spread across his cheekbones and over the bridge of his nose, but there lay the sprinkling of pale brown dots. Draco was kneeling before her, waiting for her to protect him from the sun. His eyes were closed and thick blond lashes lay against his cheeks gently. Hermione wanted to run her finger across his nose just to make sure the freckles were real, but got herself together in time to maintain their routine and get everyone working out in the field.

All of the initiates were now trained well enough at working the field that Hermione didn't have to watch them closely anymore. Some were even starting to help with the binding of the fronds into bundles, which left Hermione with time on her hands. She surreptitiously cast individual Protegos on each of the children and sat on a flat rock to watch Draco.

Still smiling over his darling, freckled nose, Hermione chastised herself. It was stupid to like them so much. It wasn't as though Draco had done anything intentional to grow them so that, when he looked up at her the way he did, he would look even more boyishly handsome. Also, on a diet of only proteins and plants with very little bread, Draco had become downright chiselled.

He was working with her longer scythe today, and it was making him sweat already. Hermione could tell that Draco enjoyed the increase of power. He was working like a machine, clearing away the plants nearly four times as fast as the others. He was probably ready for the next level; Hermione would test him tomorrow.

But today she would just watch him work, with the reluctant quiet of her mind that said that this man was to be her husband for all her days...why shouldn't she leer at him? His arms and back rippled with the rhythm of his swing. It was... glorious. Hermione was so lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice when Paruin walked up beside her.

"It is nice to see you enjoying the sight of your soon-to-be husband." Paruin raised her eyebrows at Hermione and smiled.

"You just want me to make his babies so you can bring him to your bed, Paruin." Hermione chuckled and swept her gaze over the other initiates.

"I don't see why we both can't be right." The older woman laughed and pressed her hands against her lower back, trying to ease her ever-larger swollen belly. "I find it hard to believe that the dragon has become even more..." Paruin finished with a growl deep in her throat.

Hermione laughed. "As delightful as a visit from you is, what are you doing down here? Surely there must be something more pressing for your time than Draco's diminishing body fat."

"Ah, yes. I'd forgotten in light of the scenery, yes?" Paruin smiled, giving Draco a last long look. "The council needs you this afternoon, to discuss your proposal for the library expansion. Tiden has been able to set aside today for the meeting."

"Excellent. I will have the initiates meditate after lunch." Hermione nodded and smiled. Finally! She'd been working on getting more room for the books she'd been making and the books she would make.

***

"It's not French, Malfoy!" Hermione threw down her quill and pulled her hair back from her face, groaning hoarsely. "Stop squeezing your throat like that." Hermione's afternoon had not gone as smoothly as she had hoped, and Draco was having some sort of block with his latest set of vocabulary. She hadn't had this much trouble since Ron and Harry and the OWL exams fifth year.

"Forgive me, Lady, I have been speaking French as long as I've been speaking English. I find it rather difficult to stop," Draco ground out through his clenched jaw.

Hermione was clear that when he called her 'Lady' at moments like this, he meant 'most heinous of all know-it-all cunts.' "Well, there is more to this world than London and Paris, and you need these chants at the fourth plateau!" Hermione stood abruptly and stomped over to Draco's side of the table. She touched her thumb under his Adam's apple and felt a jolt.

Draco took in a stammered breath and turned his eyes up to her. Hermione rolled her eyes, exhaling deeply while shaking out her hand. Draco's eyes darkened as they rested on her, but she again put her hand to his neck. "Close your eyes, Malfoy." Hermione glared at him, clearly indicating that she wasn't interested in any funny business.

"Draco," he insisted.

"What?"

"We agreed, Hermione, that we were on a first name basis, yeah? Or did you forget our little snog on the mountaintop." Draco looked at her stonily, and Hermione shivered. He could barely suppress his smirk. Of course she hadn't.

Hermione stared at him, her jaw working noiselessly as she tried to control her temper. She was in charge here, but she did not want to waste any more time. She sighed heavily and said, "Fine. Close your eyes, Draco."

"Of course, Lady." The smug bastard finally smirked at his tiny victory and made a big show of closing his eyes slowly, licking his lips. He was tempted to touch her softly, but held back.

Pressing her thumb into his throat, she instructed, "Now chant until I tell you to stop." He did, and it was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that Hermione almost wondered if he'd been able to do it the whole time. She pulled her hand back gently so that he could get used to manipulating his throat on his own. When her thumb finally came away, Draco's hand shot up and grabbed hers as if it were a Snitch.

His eyes were still closed, but his face turned up into a victorious smile, broadening as his fingers came in between hers. Hermione rolled her eyes. It was not exactly misbehaviour, but it certainly wasn't following initiate protocol. Draco pulled her hand up against his face, which had a soft bristling of five o'clock shadow on it. He turned his cheek against the back of her hand, all the while chanting perfectly.

Hermione tried to pull her hand away, and Draco's eyes snapped open, staring at her as if she'd insulted him. He stared at her, still chanting, but his grip on her hand tightened. His other hand came to rest on her waist, exactly at the bottom of her ribs. Draco began to pull her gently toward him.

"No. Unhand me." Hermione dug in her heels, and from somewhere in the bushes, Acara began to growl. She prowled into the clearing where their table was and sniffed.

Draco looked at her like she was completely daft for behaving in such away, and he held her tighter. He stood, towering over her. His chanting never stopped, except now they were but a couple of inches apart. Draco looked down at her in combination of utterly jealous possessiveness and complete adoration. Draco smoothed his hand down to her hip and back up again.

Hermione swallowed. "Stop."

Draco's voice stopped, and he looked down expectantly. Both his hands were now working up and down her sides. His gaze was heating and began to wander from her face. On each pass, his hands would get a little more daring.

"Draco. Stop." Hermione turned her cold gaze up at him, even though her body was quickly responding, and Draco could see it all in her face. He shook his head and pulled her closer, licking his lips, getting ready to kiss her. That was until the fire shot through his body, starting at his hands. Hermione's eyes went from brown to churning lava. Draco screamed and fell onto the hard stone bench. "I had thought you were ready to move to the next level, but you have proven that you are not. You'll begin again tomorrow...one week's cleansing meditation, and instead of the fields, you can go to the quarries with Paruin."

Draco began shivering. He held his arms against his torso, and Hermione could tell that he was fighting back tears. Again, Hermione cursed her bleeding heart. Draco was an opportunistic bastard who would do whatever he wanted. Still, she hated to see anyone in pain.

"Give me your hands," Hermione ordered. Draco looked away from her, resisting. What a child! Hermione stepped forward and took his hands, weaving their fingers together. She pulled all of the heat she'd put in right back out and watched as Draco's body soothed in response. "You can't just do whatever you like, Draco." He sniffed. Hermione dropped his right hand and turned his face to look at hers. His eyes were watery, and she could see in the dimming daylight that he was humiliated that she was seeing him like this.

"You may speak freely."

"You touched me, you've been touching me." He set his jaw, angrily blinking back tears. "You have no idea what it does to me. We sit at this table, and I can't look at you. You're mine, and I can't even look at you!" Draco paused to take a cleansing breath. "I sleep in a room with children, and I lay awake thinking of your... of you and him... and I get one moment with you and you burn me, you bloody fucking cunt." Draco would have liked very much to punch something, but as he was sitting and Hermione was standing in his way. It looked like he had more to say, but he certainly wasn't going speak further.

"What do you want me to do? Allow your misbehaviour? I'd be doing you no favours, not to mention failing at my own task." Hermione crossed her arms and stuck out her chin.

Draco stared at her. His expression didn't change, not even his eyes. Inside, he was doing a high-stepped jig. This was classic hyper-swot mode. It was really only ever used on Potty and the Weasel, sometimes Longbottom, too. And now him, Draco Malfoy! How to proceed? Piss her off more for the sport of it? Play the puppy dog, and see if she'd go for it? Draco sighed, looking as downtrodden as he could manage. "Hasn't anything I've done, anything at all, changed your mind, even just a little bit?" Draco put his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. He resisted the urge to look up, knowing that the moment would be lost if he did.

Hermione squinted. Was he being serious or laying it on thick? She didn't really think Draco was just chomping at the bit for her validation, but Merlin only knew the sort of absurd ideas he had in that pretty blond head of his. He had searched the globe for her, given up his wand, done hard manual labour with minimal complaint, and promised to allow her to take other lovers... eventually. Draco certainly had done some things to compromise.

Dammit! Hermione did not want to feel generous toward Malfoy! But the sun was setting, and she seemed to hold his whole world in her hands. Bollocks.

Hermione pushed her fingers through Draco's soft blond locks. He looked up at her in surprise. She shook her head, still in disbelief of what was happening, what she was going to let happen. "If you and your father..." Hermione sneered at the thought of doing anything more with Lucius Malfoy, "...agree to retract the provisions that I oversee the first part of your training, I will go to the council and request that language lessons are less formal. You will still begin a week's cleansing meditation and go to work in the quarry as punishment for tonight's behaviour." Hermione sighed, enjoying the blond silk on her fingers, unable to keep herself from making a second pass. "You would spend tomorrow back in the colony and begin again the following day."

Internally, Draco was elated. Gryffindors were so easy! Sure, Draco would miss seeing Hermione all day, but that was nothing compared to being casual in the evenings. "It would be nice to see my father."

"Fine." Hermione moved away from Draco and gathered her things. "You will still sleep with the initiates tonight."