Hermione offered quiet congratulations, smiling in all the right places and nodding along as Gabrielle showed off her ring and Ron beamed proudly at her side. It wasn't like she was surprised; such a thing was to be expected with how sickeningly in love the two of them were. And she found that despite him being her best friend and ex-boyfriend, she didn't mind all that much.

Sure, the timing was shite, but when had Ronald ever boasted good timing?

As soon as they crossed the threshold of the cabin, Hermione made a quick excuse about a wine-headache and slipped upstairs, ignoring the pitying stare from Pansy alongside Harry's pleas to hang around a bit. Malfoy lingered behind, probably nervous about the near catatonic state she currently found herself in.

Once inside their room, she shed the pretty dress she'd worn to dinner and wrapped herself in a cotton robe. She made a stop by the drink cart, snagging the whisky, and then made it onto the large balcony overlooking the forest.

She stared, unseeing, for some time, pausing only to take small sips of whisky. Merlin, everything had gotten out of hand and now, when she had to admit to her friends that Malfoy wasn't actually her new boyfriend and instead just her co-worker who she had bribed into spending the weekend with her, she would have new shame to contend with.

Footstops crossing the deck caught her attention, and she turned towards the newcomer with a vacant expression, letting out a relieved breath when it wasn't Ron.

"Granger," Malfoy drawled, taking the spot next to her at the railing, "didn't anyone ever tell you it's sad to drink alone?"

"Yeah, well—" She shrugged, unable to form any other coherent thoughts and took another drink before proffering it to him. He took it and drank as well, making a small sad turn of his lips after.

"I'm sorry your friend is a moron."

That earned him a laugh, and she turned to face into their large suite with an honest to goodness smile. "That he is. Honestly, I don't really care that he's marrying her. It's not all that surprising."

"He could have waited a week."

"Ah, he could have. But then how else could this weekend be dragged into the lowest circle of hell?"

Malfoy's face canted towards her, and his eyes tightened for a flash of a moment. "I thought you didn't care?"

"Not about them, not really. It's more…" Hermione paused, trying to name the emotions coursing through her. "I feel so behind. And it's not something I'm used to feeling. I was always first, always oldest, the most clever, first to finish everything. Now, Harry and Pansy are having a baby, and Ron and Gabrielle are getting married. Neville and Luna are enjoying their honeymoon phase so much that I've barely spoken two words to them all weekend—honestly, I forgot they were here."

Groaning, Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and snagged the liquor from Malfoy. "I'm just me. Single and spending my weekends avoiding my friends because they are all so bloody happy that I can't stand to be around the lot of them. Bugging you to pretend to be my boyfriend and eat lunch with me… Oh! And I'm thirty."

"Wow," Malfoy breathed, shaking his head. "What an utter load of unicorn shite."

"Excuse me?"

"Buck up, you're Hermione Granger! You could have settled for any number of wizards by now, but you didn't. And that's not because you weren't good enough but because you know your fucking worth. You know that any man who has yet crossed your path isn't worth the effort. You'll find him, and it'll be worth it then."

Something twisted painfully in her belly, and she looked up at Malfoy with a trembling jaw. Her lips parted, and she was so close to just bloody saying it… but wouldn't it just be right that his rejection of her would be the coup de grâce on this train wreck of a weekend?

Instead, she turned her stare elsewhere and gave a weak chuckle. "Yeah, maybe."

XXXXX

An hour passed, and Granger finally began to loosen up. Whether it was the whisky or the wine, she was laughing, curled up in the opposite corner of the sofa on the balcony with her hair tossed to one side and her cheeks a lovely shade of pink. The side of her robe had slid open and was creeping up her thigh, and it took all of Merlin's good graces to keep him from reaching out to palm her flesh.

"So," she managed between fits of laughter, "you're really not the most eligible bachelor of Wizarding London then?"

Draco responded with a snort. "I most definitely am, I assure you. I just am not the man whore the papers make me out to be; I buy them dinner and then send them on their way."

She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her legs and studying him like he was some unknown ancient rune she needed to decipher. "Why? You could presumably date any of them or save your Galleons altogether."

And what could he say to that? Well, Granger, at first I just wanted to get your attention, and now it's wholly out of hand. I just wanted to make you jealous. Yeah, not bloody likely. The plans had backfired anyway.

He turned towards her, his arm stretched towards her on the back of the sofa, his lips curling up on one side weakly. "Guess loneliness isn't exclusive to Gryffindors, eh?"

Instantly, her features pinched, and she looked… sad. Great. She pitied him. Exactly how every bloke wanted Hermione Granger to feel about him. She sucked her cheek between her teeth and gnawed on the corner of her lip for a moment before smiling down at her knees.

"I'm kind of happy to hear that."

His heart ceased to beat, skipping exactly three pumps before resuming in a desperate, frantic pace.

"I have to admit I was always a little jealous of those pretty little twits on your arm." Her chocolate gaze found his, deep pools of terrifying emotion that seemed to sear through him.

Draco gulped. "Why?"

"It's stupid." She laughed wryly, tucking a curl behind her ear. "Just a silly crush."

Crush. The words were there, laid out plainly for him. But they didn't make sense… she didn't mean it. Maybe it was some elaborate prank set on by the twatheads and her to get him up here and full of hope just to slice him open and leave him bleeding.

"Granger," he breathed, his voice low and husky and nearly unrecognizable. "If you're trying to say something, I need you to speak to me like an idiot and lay it out plainly for me. I can't misinterpret any signals or risk whatever it is we've so precariously built between us these last few years. So, if you—" His throat felt hot and gravely, and he swallowed until it felt like sand coating his airways.

With a huff and roll of her eyes, she shook her head. "It's stupid. Like you and I— like we'd ever…"

She hadn't yet said it, but he was done waiting. There was something in the nervous titter about her and the way she kept fussing with her hair and avoiding looking right at him, like she hadn't looked him square in the eye last week and called him a rotten prat. He moved with purpose, catching his hands on the arm rest behind her as he crashed into her, finding her lips with ease and tasting her like he hadn't allowed himself all weekend, because this time it was real.

There was a moment of brief hesitation, when he was sure that her eyes were wide and round and terrified of him. He braced himself to be shoved off and hexed, quite possibly permanently maimed, but it never came. Her knees fell open—thank Merlin for that—and her hands rested on his hips pulling Draco flush against her as she arched up and into his body. One hand moved to tangle in her hair, turning her face to meet his so he could press his tongue between her lips. His bold exploration earned a gasp, and he nipped her bottom lip before moving the hand in her hair down to her hip.

"Tell me when to stop," he mumbled against her lips. She remained silent as his hand worked its way to the flesh of her bum. "Granger, you've got to tell me when—"

She growled. She actually growled at him and shoved him off, and for the briefest of moments a sharp pang of disappointment lanced through him. But before it could grow any further, she was swinging her leg over his and gripping his face between her palms. Gryffindor. It was all he needed, Merlin, it was all he wanted. He gently pulled on the tie of her robe, pushing it from her shoulders, and she gasped as the cool air kissed her skin.

Draco wasted no time in gliding his palms over every inch of her that he could; his hands never stopped moving, never stopped memorizing. His lips moved to the long column of her throat and to the curve of her breast. Her back arched into him, pressing her down onto his cock, and his groan was muffled only by where his mouth was pressed into her skin.

"Draco," she breathed, and he was undone. Moving up to capture her perfect mouth once again, he curled one hand in the ringlets at the base of her neck. "I've wanted you for so long."

Her confession shot through him, and his free hand grasped her waist, pinning her to him as he stood, moving them through the grand doors and back into the suite. They fell in a heap of limbs and wild curls, their remaining clothes shed in frantic tugs and tossed to the floor.

Peppering kisses up the inside of her thigh, his mouth latched onto her sex, alternating between firm laves and quick flicks until her thighs were tightening around his ears and her lower back arched off the mattress. As the final spasms of her orgasm trembled through her he crawled up her body, sinking inside her in a swift buck of his hips. They moved together effortlessly, her fingers coiling in the hair at the nape of his neck and tugging him impossibly closer. Draco had imagined this moment countless times, and it still was nowhere close to the euphoria he was experiencing. As the room filled with soft breathy noises, his hips stuttered, and he buried his face in the crook of his neck.

His body shook through the last of his orgasm while her nails trailed up and down his back, and her lips pressed small kisses over his trembling shoulders.

"Granger," he breathed, rolling off her and falling with a huff next to her. "I—"

"It's okay if you don't feel the same way. This can just be… what it was. It's okay—"

"It's quite possible I'm in love with you and have been for some time," he interrupted her, rolling up on his elbow to stare at her with a smirk, relishing in the sheer disbelief painted over her features. "I have spent the last handful of years just trying to get you to bloody look my way, and when you started lurking outside my office with your sad cold lunches but ignored all of my advances to claim your attention, it infuriated me."

"What?"

Draco reached over, using a featherlight touch to tip her face towards him. "Why did you ask me to come with you? Because if it was just to make that arsehole jealous, I can swallow that."

"Draco." She grinned, her eyes misting in the dim light as she cuddled into his side. "I was pulling out all my Slytherin stops to get you here and hoping you might see me as more than me."

A soft snort escaped him, and he hovered his lips over hers. "You're everything, Granger."

XXXXX

Hermione was sure she fell asleep at some point. But it was merely to regain some needed strength before Draco worshiped every inch of her again… and again.

When she looked down at herself she only saw her imperfections, the flaws that had made her unlovable all this time. But he kissed—and licked—each doubt away. She woke with his head between her thighs, and her hands rushed to tangle in his sloppy hair, her nails dragging along his scalp as he pushed his tongue inside her.

She let out a wild scream, long since having stopped giving a shite who heard, and her thighs tightened around his ears as his tongue slid up to her throbbing clit. Two fingers pushed delightfully inside her, curling and pumping as another orgasm coursed through her, tingling from her centre down to her toes and then fluttering up into her chest.

Her thighs fell apart, and he gave a final soft sweep to her sex with a wide tongue, earning a shiver as he crawled up and pressed against her entrance with his cock.

"How can you—ohhhh?" Her words were cut short as he pressed slowly inside her, pausing only to bump his nose against hers and slide his tongue inside her mouth. When the kiss broke, he pulled back and repeated his languid movements. "It should not be humanly possible for you to…"

Warm lips wrapped around her nipple as one hand gripped the flesh of her arse. He grinned against her breast and peeked up at with her a devilish smirk. "Perks of being in my twenties, Granger. I told you there was another stop before spinster; you've officially lured a younger man into your bed."

Her lips fell open to chastise him, but he had pulled out of her, and before she could think of a proper retort, he gripped her hips and flipped her swiftly onto her belly. Sliding between her thighs and finding her sex with ease, he began a more persistent thrust, and she arched her back, lifting her bum off the mattress and offering a new angle.

Soft noises filled her ear as his breath fanned over her, tickling her cheek. His arms caged all around her as he pushed inside her again and again until he was stiffening and moaning into her neck.

There was a brief respite when he softened inside her and laid out a trail of kisses over her freckled shoulders, and she could catch her breath. But the moment was quickly shattered by a sharp rap of knuckles against the door.

Draco jumped, sliding from inside her and scrambling next to her. "Merlin, can't they hear we're busy?"

"Shite!" Hermione's face burned with her embarrassment, and she pressed her face into the pillows.

"Hermione! Come out of there!" Ron called loudly and she could hear Harry's soft reprimand follow just after.

With a loud groan she got up from the bed and found the robe that had been so hastily discarded hours prior. As she reached for the handle, she sucked in a fortifying breath and tilted her chin up in the most Hermione way possible.

On the other side of the door was a very unamused Ron and a very abashed Harry who couldn't look up at her.

"Yes?"

"Do you know what time it is?" Ron asked, a brow lifted haughtily.

Hermione's face screwed up in thought. "Um, maybe eight?"

"It's half ten! We're here for your birthday, and you can't leave your little love nest to say hello?" Ron's face was pulled into a grimace, his hands braced hard on his hips as he stared at her with a look that she recognized as his cue for extreme hunger.

"I'm sorry, okay? It is my birthday after all; I thought having a lie in would be appropriate," Hermione said cooly.

A watery snort from Ron and a choked noise from Harry made her eyes go wide. "We know what you were doing," Ron deadpanned. "The entire bloody house could hear you lot all night."

An enraged blush bloomed on her cheeks, spreading all the way to the tips of her ears as her lips parted to give Ron Weasley a piece of her mind. But before she could, the door behind her swung further open and Malfoy stepped forward in nothing but his boxer briefs.

"Merlin!" Harry exclaimed, covering his eyes with both hands. "Put your cock away, Malfoy!"

"Listen up, twatheads. You two have done a spectacular job of ruining Granger's birthday thus far, truly. I can't think of a single way you two could make it any worse, so congratulations on a job well done. I speak on behalf of the birthday girl when I impolitely ask you to vacate the residence immediately so that I may spend the rest of the day making it up to her."

Hermione stared at Malfoy, a grin curling up her features as he spoke.

Harry stepped forward. "That's not happening, Malfoy. She's our best friend and—"

"Fine." Malfoy shrugged, turning to scoop Granger up so that she was bent over his shoulder. She yelped, a quick laugh following as she batted at his thinly veiled bum. "Then stay, but I have no intention of silencing this room or letting her out for meals that can't be eaten off her body—"

"Merlin, fuck, Malfoy!" Ron groaned and brought his hands up to his ears.

Malfoy carried her back through the room, kicking the door shut in the boys' face and tossing her playfully on the bed. Staring down at her while she giggled, his face pulled up into a smirk. "Now, where were we, birthday girl?"

XXXXX

Welp, that's the last of it. Hope you enjoy your birthday, MCal! You shower our fandom and your friends with such love and joy and it is a brighter place because you ship it. All of my love forever!

LK

Thank you again, Ravenslight. You're a queen!