A/N

Hello there readers! I've been sitting on this since last September and have recently had some more inspiration to help me finish it up. I have at least one more chapter finished and another few on the way. In total I suspect this will be under 5 chapters.

I love these characters together - I hope you enjoy my interpretation of them! I edit my work myself, so while I am happy to accept reviews on my grammar, please also know that I often choose to use such things as dashes and semi colons incorrectly - on purpose! I would love to hear your thoughts on this prologue.

Enjoy!

8/2017 update: I have slightly changed some of this prologue to better connect with the coming chapters.

Awakening: A Prologue

She wasn't exactly sure how she had ended up here, comfortably curled between their two bodies, content and satisfied. Blaise had settled behind her on his side, his arm resting around her waist, while Draco had fallen asleep on his back on her other side. When she began to look back at all their history together, it wasn't hard to see where it had all begun. Hermione chuckled quietly to herself as she thought about how blind she had been over the years.

Her attraction to them had started so long ago. Long before they were on good terms. Long before they began to study together silently in their little 8th year common room. Long before they began to stay up too late drinking, and closing down The Three Broomsticks on weeknights when they should have been sleeping. It started long before they grew up. She had thought at the time that she was an adult, but Hermione could see now that she had still been a child. They had all been children, learning who they were in a world that was no longer at war.

Hermione could remember her ride to Hogwarts for her 8th year as if it were yesterday. That was the day that she caught her first glimpse of the new Draco - Draco as she now knew him. Before that fateful train ride, she had last seen him huddled with his parents in the great hall after Voldemort had fallen. Draco had been dirty and bleeding, skin hanging off his bones, tear tracks painted down his cheeks and throat. That image was permanently glued in her mind, and at the time, Hermione felt as though she was looking in a mirror. The had barely hung onto their lives, and were seemingly broken beyond repair. But as she discovered over that summer before returning to school, she had not been broken beyond repair. And apparently, neither was he.

Within a month after that fated battle, Hermione had hightailed it out of the country. She and her two boys had accomplished the impossible, and child soldiers they were no more. As everyone had stood around wondering what was next, she stood drowning in grief and fear. So she headed to the other side of the world - as far from Britain as she could possibly be.

Hermione found her parents, reclaimed them as her own, and holidayed with them in Australia for four months- eating and sleeping, sunning and singing, crying and attending the therapy her parents had decided she desperately needed. She wrote to Harry, but was relieved to be away from the dark cloud she knew still hung over the lot of them at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Her parting with Ron had not been amicable, and she was thankful to finally be away from him for the time being.

That four months was an awakening, a shedding of the confines the magical community had imposed upon her. By the time she boarded the Express for her 8th year, she had been filled with a cocktail of freedom and rebellion. A sensuality and lightheartedness had settled deep into her bones, a veil had been lifted from her spirit, and she felt as though she was finally just beginning to find herself.

Just as Draco had mirrored her spirit in the aftermath of that fateful day - their lives crumbling rubble like the castle around them; he surprisingly mirrored her once more on September the first, four months since she had last seen him. She caught a glimpse of him from her compartment as he boarded the train, a pensive expression on his face. He was so much taller than she remembered, or was it just that he had finally gotten rid of all that was weighing him down? His hair was a bit shaggy and his shoulders full, no longer mere skin and bones.

She stared at him through her window, most likely with her mouth hanging open. A sharp shudder thudded through her. Draco Malfoy was attractive? When had that happened? She thought to herself. When he caught her staring a minute later, he didn't smirk at her like she would have anticipated. As it were, there was very little going on in her brain at the sight of him other than ironic cricket chirping. However, he didn't glare, and he didn't even ignore her. He respectfully nodded his head and gave her a small smile. Hermione's heart caught in her throat and butterflies welled up in her chest, and she looked quickly away. She did her best to school her face and and willed her pink cheeks to just calm the fuck down already.

That nod and smile - that was it for her. Their new beginning.

Hermione's relationship with Blaise had developed quite differently. He was naturally outgoing, loved to be the center of attention, and one of his favorite things to do was figure out new ways to make Hermione blush. Before the end of the war, Hermione would have told you that Draco was the outgoing arrogant bastard, and that Blaise was in fact the quiet, more studious of the two. But to her amazement, as she got to the know the both of them, she also had the privilege to see the demise of their smoke screens. She quickly came to the realization that Draco tended to be naturally more quiet, while Blaise grew fully into his personality of Great Britain's Most Eligible Flirt (as she later would frequently call him). After the war, Draco was able to drop his armor of loud, clamoring pure blood superiority, and Blaise was able to leave behind his need to stay safely and quietly in the background. The result of the two of them finally being able to be who they truly were in front of others was staggering to Hermione.

Once her and Blaise had moved past their status of 'former enemies' into the realm of 'acquaintances-turned-best-friends', they spent much of their time together in flirtatious banter. Blaise showered her in luxurious, seemingly outrageous compliments and spoiled her rotten with gifts. His excuse was that he had money to burn, and what better way than to burn it on a lucky few? For many years Hermione thought that it was just a game, a flirtation that he found amusing. She learned later on that he was every bit as authentic in his desire of her as Draco, and that he had been every bit as smitten with her as she was with him. (Although she had never allowed herself to truly indulge in such fantasies. After all - why would Blaise ever choose her when he had his pick of beautiful women?)

As she drifted to sleep beside her two lovers, Hermione chuckled quietly once more. Wasn't it fitting, that after a childhood spent warring with two boys by her side, she would find two men to spend the rest of her days with?