A/N: Lot's of smut here. This chapter is relatively tame, but future chapters will have much more (ahem) detail. Not for the light-hearted. Their relationship is founded on secrets and lies but the question is whether Hermione can still love him when she finds out everything he has done... The plot is dark, but I prefer happy endings so there's a good chance for one.

Expecting around 7 chapters, and a few are already written. I'll post as I polish them up. Planning to delve more into Pansy's character, so although she seems shallow here, she has a backstory and will have depth.

Pansy kissed his cheek, and she felt the jealousy rise up within her, white-hot and threatening to expose itself. Hermione hadn't been with Draco very long, and this witch, this beautiful, seductive, silk haired vixen who had been with him for years was placing her lips ever so close to his mouth.

And he was allowing it.

"Come over for dinner soon," Pansy said in just above a whisper, like she was saying something confidential. "You haven't joined us in a long time. We miss you."

She turned to Hermione and, for a split second that felt like an eternity, sized her up from head to toe like she was unraveling a complicated mystery. Questioning, Hermione assumed, why Draco would be with her at all. She had been polite, Hermione would give her that, but she suspected it was a well-crafted facade, hiding a layer of bigotry and general distaste.

During that fraction of a second, the rest of the bustling alley melted away and she was standing only amidst Draco and Pansy, the two most hateful bullies at Hogwarts. She wondered what on earth she was doing with them; marveled at how severely her life had changed in the last six months that this was now a normal afternoon.

And then the moment was gone, and before Hermione could object or form any opinion on the matter at all, the other witch leaned in and kissed her cheek exactly as she had Draco's a moment before. Soft plump lips landed too close to her own and remained a fraction of a second too long. Perfume flooded her senses, and instead of pulling away Hermione leaned in a fraction of an inch.

Pansy smiled against her cheek and then looked her in the eyes almost warmly.

"Bring her with you, Draco," she said without looking away from Hermione. Did she have dimples?

"Unlikely," he snapped, then grabbed Hermione's hand. "But please, give Theo our best."

He tugged her arm, breaking Hermione's sudden fixation with Pansy's long, dark eyelashes. The perfume, Hermione thought, it must be some sort of magic. There was just no way other logical reason that she would feel so strangely around the witch.

—

"You don't socialize with Pansy and Theo much anymore," Hermione stated over lunch. "You used to be good friends."

Draco studied her. "Yes." He wiped his lips with a napkin and placed it back on the table. "Things change. People change."

Not that much, she thought suspiciously. He professed himself a different man and surely he was, as evidenced by their relationship, but a sudden and drastic change like his seemed unlikely to be completely authentic. "I don't want you to lose your friends because of me."

"I appreciate your concern," he replied, and then with a veil of indifference, "I keep them at a distance for my own reasons."

The shape of Pansy's lips were etched into her mind. Draco kept everyone at a distance, including Hermione, his girlfriend of six months. There were too many secrets between them, too many topics avoided. She felt like she barely knew him at all. Did they know him? Pansy and Theo? After all their years together at Hogwarts, she thought they must.

She took a sip of her tea, the fragrance soothing her nerves. "Pansy invited us both to dinner. Maybe that's a sign that they've changed as well. For the better."

Draco gave her an odd look, perhaps amused or annoyed, or a bit of both. "It wasn't a dinner invitation."

"Drinks then. Or-"

"They don't have good intentions toward us."

She considered his words for a moment. "You think they mean to harm us?"

He looked like he was about to say something and then changed his mind. "Just... Do me a favor and stay away from them."

—

"I saw Theo today in the lift."

Draco's mood changed instantly, walls between them reconstructed and reinforced with one simple little sentence. He set his glass of wine on the side table next to his wingback chair. "Oh?"

Hermione watched him carefully, gauging his reaction. "He said to tell you hello. And to ask you to return his owls."

Draco's hand tightened around his glass. "Yes, I'll be sure to do that."

"He's making an effort to reach out to you. To be kind to me. Maybe it's time we-"

"I'd prefer that you stay away from him and Pansy."

She pursed her lips. "Theo and I work together."

"You're on different floors. It shouldn't be a hardship."

"Tell me why you want me to stay away from them and I will," Hermione replied, lifting a book from the shelf and opening the front cover. He kept all his first editions in the study. After a minute of silence she asked, "Are you afraid they will spill your secrets?"

He blinked, then stood up and approached her, disarming her with an innocent look. "Are you afraid I have secrets?"

"Do you?"

"We all do." He twists his ring with his thumb. "We all have things we would rather not talk about. Don't we?"

Her visit with Ron last week popped to mind, which she had failed to mention to him.

"I've seen you at your worst," she replied, putting the book back in its place, "and I've forgiven you. Is there really anything left that you think I wouldn't forgive?"

"No." She thought that was a lie. "But there are always going to be uncomfortable truths, and things that have happened that don't require revisiting. Theo and Pansy... they are my past. You are my future. Is it unreasonable to want to keep them separate? Start fresh?"

His hand slipped around her waist and he rested his forehead against hers. When she didn't respond, he smiled and kissed her gently, lips parting over hers and encouraging her to do the same. Her body responded to him even when her mind said she shouldn't. His hands grazed her neck and slipped down her shoulder, leaving a tingle in their wake.

The way he kissed her always felt so incredible. His gentleness was such a contrast to what she had expected early in their relationship, and for a long while she had waited for the other shoe to drop. No one could be this perfect, especially not him.

She knew she loved him within weeks of dating, but still hadn't said those three words aloud. There was too much she still didn't know about him to allow herself that sort of emotional commitment. She strongly suspected he only showed her what he wanted her to see. He was so... kind. It was such a drastic change from the boy he once was.

A moan escaped her as he pulled her closer to him, the content of his tented trousers pressing against her hip.

How could she really love someone she didn't entirely know? She wasn't sure, but she did.

She loved him.

Intensely.

Distracting her completely (and intentionally) from her inquiry, he guided her to the wingback chair and nudged her to sit down, his fingertips dancing up her thighs and hooking into her knickers, then dragging them slowly down, over her knees, her calves, then off her feet.

She bit her bottom lip as he kissed a path down her neck, unfastening her robe and kissing each inch of skin he exposed until he was right there at her core, kissing and lapping at her.

It felt so good.

He always made her feel so good. So cherished. Did he feel it too?

Even if he was not in love, he was certainly skilled at making love, and she thought perhaps she could just enjoy that for what it was, however long it might last.

She was climbing to a delicious peak, so close, thighs trembling beneath his hands. The click of his belt said she would be full of him soon, and while his mouth still moved against her he held back the steady rhythm he knew she needed.

He was a tease, but he always left her satisfied, enjoying the way she squirmed as he brought her to the edge and then pulled her back, sometimes several times. When she would finally topple over the cliff, she knew it would be magnificent. Earth-shattering.

He leaned in and smiled against her lips, then entered her inch by lovely inch. She dragged her nails through his hair. He admitted once that he loved it when she did that, and since then she made it a point to do it more often. His hand moved between them and his hips rocked in a steady rhythm as he kissed her.

God he filled her perfectly, blissfully. She felt that incredible tightening low in her abdomen and held his shoulders, his name on her lips as he rubbed his hands in all the right places. Her voice was too high pitched for her liking.

The tension snapped, and he held her tight in his arms and rolled his hips as she quaked against him, staving off his own release as he maximized hers. It was incredible the way he took the time and effort to learn her, and had done it so intuitively, avoiding all the awkward questions and lessons she had endured in her last relationship.

He moved within her deep and quick just a few times with his head tucked into her neck, a labored breath and a whisper telling her he was right there as he spilled out inside of her. She clenched her muscles around him, milking him even though she was so so sensitive. She moved her nails across his neck.

He slowed to a still, his lips grazing her collar until they settled into a comfortable and satisfied silence.

"Stay with me tonight," he said in a gravelly voice.

She didn't like sleeping at the Manor, but she would do it for him. Scarily, she thought she might do nearly anything for him sometimes. It was a worrisome feeling that she tried to suppress, and sometimes she found herself resisting just for the sake of it, fighting that innate urge to make him happy. Tonight, the urge to sleep in his arms outweighed her concern.

"Alright."

—

There was a room in the manor that she had never been in, and she had a feeling there were secrets tucked away behind that door which he didn't want her to know about.

That room was on her mind as she laid awake in Draco's bed, staring at his naked shoulder. It was dark, but the moonlight shone through the window in a way that made his skin seem otherworldly. Life had changed so much she could barely believe she was there, and what's more, that she remained with him even though she was certain he was hiding not one, but many things from her.

He was a conundrum.

And she liked solving puzzles.

It seemed so doubtful that his secrets were life-altering. He wasn't a killer or a psychopath, he just liked his privacy. He liked it so very much that he dodged questions and gave vague answers, and sometimes lied about where he was going and how he spent his day.

Perhaps he was a compulsive liar.

Fear drove many of his actions, but she didn't consider him a coward. No, he had a calculated aversion to certain types of risk and a penchant for others. It could be that he feared to lose what they had, and she did as well. What they had was good. So good in fact that they hadn't gone a single day without seeing one another in months. But as close as they had become, there was a barrier of distrust between them. Questions unasked, answers untold.

His mark. He kept it carefully concealed, even though she knew it was there; she could feel the magic when her hand touched his arm just right.

Missy, her favorite of his elves, had told her once that he spent hours alone in that room in the east wing, and after saying it the poor elf swiftly attempted to punish herself for her indiscretion. Hermione tried to get into the room once when Draco had left on an errand, but the usual unlocking spell didn't seem to work. She considered another attempt, but wandering the manor alone at night sounded like a truly dumb idea. If her rising didn't wake him, the old paintings or his house elves would surely rat her out.

Why couldn't she take their relationship at face value? She asked herself as she tucked herself back under the blankets. The right thing to do would be to ask him about it, but she feared his response would be a lie.

With his body warm beside her, she eventually fell into an uneasy slumber.

—

He was in a good mood the next morning. Missy brought them tea and breakfast in bed, at his request. With a smile that left her flushed, he fed her a bite of his papaya and, shortly after, breakfast was forgotten entirely.

She liked the way he looked, hovering above her, hair falling into his face, muscles flexing with the strain of his weight and his movements, half-lidded eyes watching her reaction as he moved inside of her.

Being watched so intently still made her uncomfortable sometimes. What did she look like beneath him, with her flushed skin and frizzy morning hair, trying not to make awkward faces as her muscles seized up? However she might look, he seemed to enjoy it immensely. A strong reaction on her part sometimes resulted in his hips stuttering, slowing, his eyes closing tight like he might come just from looking at her and listening to her. It was a good feeling, to have that effect on him.

When he met his own ending, his face was usually tucked away in her neck or between her breasts. But sometimes, like that morning, he would stay hovering above her and lock his eyes onto hers. With his lips parted and brow creased, his breath would halt entirely for one, two, three heartbeats and when he exhaled his eyes would close involuntary as he shuddered. His head would drop forward, because he liked to kiss her at that moment, riding out the last few seconds of bliss.

He was beautiful.

And once again, thoughts of his room in the east wing seemed unimportant. He was probably brewing potions practicing wandwork or any number of harmless things. Acting suspicious and risking all they had built just wasn't worth it.

—

He had befriended Harry first. It started with a taunt about quidditch that resulted in a not so friendly game of 'catch the snitch', and then turned into a rematch, a weekly competition, and finally drinks at the Leaky bought by the loser. The two men didn't exactly like one another, but they had developed a strange camaraderie that left Ron absolutely fuming. Hermione eventually found herself chatting with him weekly at the pub, finding that they had more in common than she would have thought. Their friendship was slow-growing and uneasy at first, but his jokes made her laugh, and his sharp mind made for stimulating conversation which was often lacking in her group.

Ron's objections to Draco's presence had only made him look petty. If Harry and Hermione could set the past aside, why couldn't he do the same?

At the pub one evening, she found herself sharing a pint with the snarky blond while Harry and Ron were cajoling with some old classmates who had walked in. Lavender was with them, one of many reasons she decided to keep her distance. Nerves wracked, she told Draco all about her presentation before the wizengamot later in the week. She had tried to talk to Ron and Harry about it and they were supportive, but somewhat (er, completely) disinterested. She, on the other hand, could think of little else.

"Have lunch with me after. I want to hear all about how you impressed the old sods."

A tickle traveled up her stomach. It was not butterflies. It wasn't. "Or mourn the loss of my career?"

He raised a brow. "Improbable."

"But possible."

"Last I checked, you had the Midas touch," he said with a smile. It still felt like a foreign expression; she was so used to his sneers and smirks.

He had perfect teeth.

Cheeks flushing, she looked down at his pint of butterbeer. Anywhere but his face. The liquid was half gone. He was on his second pint. His hand encircled the glass, disturbing the condensation. The pads of his long, thin fingers traced a pattern.

She looked up at Ron to sober her thoughts. He was laughing not six feet from her, completely oblivious.

Lavender's hand grazed his arm.

"Alright then. Lunch," she said, meeting his eyes. Long blond lashes.

"What time are you unchained?" He asked.

When she smiled, he looked down at her mouth.

"Shackles come off at noon," she replied, suddenly aware of how her bottom lip curved in over her f, rather like she was biting it for a split second. "If I'm on good behaviour."

"Often then." His Adam's apple moved up. Down. "Meet me at the Intermezzo at ten after."

—

Ron had every right to be suspicious, and she knew that some weeks later. Draco could see that they were unhappy, and he nudged, nay hacksawed a rift between them that was irreparable.

—

Lunch was delicious and decadent, and Draco was almost predictably wonderful, pulling out her chair and asking her well thought out questions about her presentation. It allowed her to reflect and celebrate her victory in a way that "how did it go! Good? great! Moving on," never quite achieved. Still, in spite of his innate charm, she knew there was more to Draco than he was allowing her to see. Darkness. Secrets. Well hidden prejudices.

"You can do better than that dumb oaf," Draco said without much bite behind his words. "You deserve more out of life."

"I love him," she said honestly.

"And I love Pansy." He gestured with his hand, palm facing upward, "As anyone should love their oldest friends. But...dating her was a horrible error in judgment."

Pursing her lips, she chose to latch onto the new topic he offered up to her. "Are you still friends with her?"

"Yes. Good friends, with both Pansy and Theo. They were married last August." The corners of his lips tugged upward into a smile. "She's happier with him than she ever was with me. Some people are just...better off friends."

She twisted her cloth napkin in her lap. "I don't know if that's possible for me and Ron."

"You think breaking his poor heart would destroy your friendship?"

She didn't answer. It felt like a betrayal to even have this conversation with Draco Malfoy of all people. Her silence, she feared, had given him the answer he sought.

"People are resilient," he said softly. "Don't assume responsibility for anyone's happiness but your own."

—

The seed was planted. Everything Ron did for the following two weeks had made her question whether they were really meant to be. And Draco was lovely, intoxicating, witty, and the conversations they had were far more engaging than any she had shared with Harry or Ron in the years they had known each other.

And in spite of their difficult past, she was certain there was a spark, and that he felt it as intensely as she did. Sometimes the way he looked at her left her speechless and weak-kneed, certain he was imagining the same meeting of tongues, sinful embrace. She felt like a horrible person for sharing those quick looks, having those wicked fantasies.

A few weeks later, Hermione arrived at the Leaky long after the others, delayed by unfortunate events which, after the fact, she rightly assumed had been his doing. When she didn't see Ron with the others at the corner booth, she went in search of him, finally stumbling upon him in the back alley. Kissing Lavender.

Ron didn't see her and she didn't make herself known. There was no point in causing a scene, especially with so many of their friends around. She stepped into the pub quietly and leaned against the wall, remaining out of sight as she composed herself with a few deep breaths. More shocked and disappointed than truly heartbroken, she walked to the booth and whispered to Ginny that she wasn't feeling well and then made a swift exit.

Draco followed her out the door.

"Granger, wait."

She stopped and turned, eager to leave but yet strangely grateful that someone had noticed her arrival and departure with more than a wave or a shrug.

"Is everything alright?" He asked.

"Yes. Everything is splendid."

He looked at her with disbelief, and she thought again about their conversations of Ron. Their recent awareness of one another.

"Did you..." she stumbled over the words and then stopped, swallowing them. She had no proof, and throwing out accusations could ruin her chance of finding any.

"Did I what?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I'll see you, Draco."

A/N: I appreciate reviews! Let me know what you liked and didn't like.