What's this? ANOTHER update?

That's right! You guys left me in a great mood when you reviewed! And I decided I should reward you by updating much sooner than later!

Thank you so much, my fellow Dramioners! I'd offer you Draco for the day but I think the poor boy's still recovering from his earlier, um, hectic day.

So he'll just offer you virtual hugs instead (Malfoy: No, I will not!) And he says he loves you all (Malfoy: SOD OFF!).

Disclaimer: *checks purse* Hello?...hello...ello...llo..lo...hmm. Well, on the other hand, I do however own the Tale of Austerius. So, please, DO NOT use without permission and crediting.

Chapter 3

Four months earlier

"It specifically says to cut square pieces."

"For the last time, you know-it-all wench, I am cutting square pieces."

"No, you're not, they're rectangle," Hermione corrected, ignoring, for what seemed to be, his forty-third remark since they started half an hour ago; half an hour of metaphorical hair pulling, snide comebacks, snarling teeth and not one single agreement.

Malfoy vigorously exhaled through his nose. She was getting on his last nerves, nerves he didn't even know he still possessed for this incessantly pretentious bitch.

"Who is the better Potions student here, Granger?"

Hermione shot him a glare, defiantly looking up at him. "I think you mean the more 'favoured' because we both know daddy is in good graces with the professor."

It was Draco's turn to shoot her a glare. That was it. "You think you're so capable of doing this seventh-year advanced concoction that two people are supposed to make on your own then, by all means, go ahead." With that, he dropped the knife he held on the table with a clank and stormed out the room. "And for your information," he turned to face her, one hand leaning towards the door, "I happen to work my arse off to get those well-deserved marks."

"I didn't say-"

He cut her off before she could finish; after spending a horrific amount of time with the person he hated almost as much as that annoying Scarhead and letting her infest his ear with her practical bragging, he reached the end of his very thin thread of endurance, "So why don't you mount off that high and infuriatingly shrewd horse of yours and stop proudly patting yourself at the back for thinking you're the only student with wits in the year, you stuck-up windbag."

The instant he took off Hermione let out growl so vicious she could've sent Malfoy a run for his money. He was being way out of line. She never said she was the only smart student; certainly there were many others who got high marks in her year - of course, not as high as hers – and she didn't claim he didn't work for those grades, much to her surprise that he admitted it. So what the hell was his problem? The fact that he was so intimidated by these 'wits' of hers that he had to rant about it to her face?

It shouldn't surprise her that he would be anyway. He did like to think he was better than everyone, the immature hypocrite, and he did have an ego the size of a whale.

"Egotistical prat," she hissed as she took the knife. "FINE. I'll do it on my own then," she declared to no one in particular. She looked over her ingredient and positioned the knife. She made an attempt to cut straight but the knife swerved underneath the slippery ingredient and the result ended up slanted. "Shoot!"

Just then, Malfoy had reappeared into the room. Hermione poked her head up in surprise as he wordlessly made his way back to collect his forgotten bag. His eyes caught sight of Hermione's poor attempt, a corner of his mouth threatening to rise condescendingly.

Hermione absently pointed the knife at him. "Not a word!"

Draco's eyes almost bulged out of his skull. "Watch where you point that thing, you swot," he shoved the knife away from his chest.

Hermione scowled and carelessly tossed the knife towards the table with a resounding clink. "That's it. Enough. I've had it with your insults, Malfoy! You've been at it the whole time we were forced to be paired up and I'm getting sick and tired of it."

He equalled her scowl. "It's not as if you're the innocent party here-"

"Yes, I contributed my fair share of them, but only because you keep giving me reasons to. And for your information, I happen to work my arse off too to get my well-deserved marks; the difference between us is that I don't stick my nose up in superiority and make everyone else feel inferior about themselves; unlike someone else-" she poked his chest, he swatted it away, "-in this room."

Malfoy scoffed dryly. "You sure about that, Granger?"

She placed her hands on her hips. "What are you talking about?"

"You honestly think it escapes everyone when you correct those pathetic Gryffindors even if they so much as to exhale incorrectly?"

"I do not-"

"And don't get me started on those mindless apes you lug around."

"Leave Harry and Ron out of-"

"And the best part is – my favourite part of it all - you enjoy it!"

"What?"

"Admit it, Mudblood," he smirked, "you get off of it."

What happened next wasn't the verbal response Draco had been looking for. Instead, he had taken a blow to the face, earning himself a stinging sensation on the cheek and consequently throwing his mental script out the window. The action rendered him in stunned silence for the second time.

"You will not speak to me like that again, Malfoy," she said breathlessly after a moments of silence. "Not if we're going to have to spend more hours together perfecting this project."

Malfoy swallowed. But unlike last time, he didn't bother backing down; he didn't urge himself to remain in control and keep a cool head while he walked away like he did that third year. This time, she was not going to slap his face like some kind of perverted vermin and get away with it the second time.

Draco Malfoy stood his full height, towering over the petite Gryffindor. His cold, stormy eyes blazing in intense fury met her equally angered and slightly overwhelmed brown orbs. He could see that her fingers twitched by her hip, indicating that she was prepared to use magical force if she had to.

He stepped closer. She remained immobile.

"I trust you're trying to find a way around your differences," a third, sudden voice interjected, startling the two and cutting through the concentrated, momentary spar of heated gazes. Hermione and Malfoy immediately turned their heads to their Potions teacher who had composedly strolled into the rivalling students' battlefield, eyeing them suspiciously.

For a moment, neither of them had said a word; until Hermione gathered her wits once more and plucked up the courage to step in, "Of course, Professor, we were just…experimenting, hence our disagreements."

Snape made a move closer to their bubbling cauldron and mentally judged it with a raised eyebrow. His eyes then caught side of Malfoy's face, a noticeable red mark now appearing. Snape turned to the young girl.

"Whatever these disagreements result in, I hope they are in course of being sorted out. Or I will sort them out for you," he lowly hissed in a threatening manner. "Unless, of course, I'm in need to intervene at the present time?"

Hermione swallowed, not daring to look Malfoy in the eye. "No, sir."

Snape looked at his favourite student. "Are you…quite sure?"

Malfoy looked away and grimaced. "That is something I finally agree on with Granger." There was no way he'd tell Snape he was beaten by a girl…again. And by Granger no less.

"Hmm," Snape contemplated. "Good." He walked towards the exit, "By the by, your concoction is emitting a substantial amount of hues of blue. I don't have to tell the two best students in the class what it's supposed to look like in its first stage." The flushed faces on his students almost made the whole, evidently crashing ordeal worth it. Almost.

The professor made his way out, leaving Hermione and Malfoy to deal with the aftermath of the Potion mix. Hermione decided to move from her spot first, but was immediately pulled back with a vicious grip on her forearm. She turned to face the violent, grey eyes of her Potions partner.

"I may have let your filthy hand get away with marking my face twice now," Malfoy hissed, "but don't think I won't retaliate if you even consider raising your hand at me again. Do I make myself clear?"

Hermione snatched her arm from his iron grip. "You don't scare me, Malfoy." Suddenly, she couldn't stand looking at him.

Before Hermione gave him a chance to respond she grabbed her bag and left him to deal with the clearing up. She had reached the end of her rope of dealing with the Malfoy heir that day. And the worst part was - she knew it wasn't going to get any easier.

xXx

Present day

Hermione rolled over the large, old sofa that she had transfigured using her cloak and into the tired arms of the platinum-blond beside her, letting her head rest against the placid sound of his beating heart. She inhaled his light, luscious scent of peppermint cologne, sighing in pleasure. Her index finger stroked circles on his firm, upper, open-shirted torso.

It was just after 10 PM, they were still in their uniforms, neither having the time during the day to get back to their dormitories to change. Their ties, shoes and socks were abandoned on the floor next to them, allowing their toes to brush freely against each other's.

Draco's robes wrapped them at the waist and below. His arm, encircling Hermione's side, caressed her upper arm with his thumb, while his other hand supported the nape of his neck, his elbow sticking out. Eyes closed, they cocooned in each other's bodily warmth from the vicious January breeze piercing through the room.

Then, breaking the momentary tranquillity, Hermione felt the chest beneath her vibrate slightly. She looked up to realise Malfoy was chuckling quietly.

She smiled and rested her chin on his torso. "What're you laughing about?"

"The look on your face when you thought we were busted earlier."

She lightly chortled with him. "Me? What about you?"

"What about me? I was as smooth as the purest satin silk out there…and the most expensive," he gave her the infamous, Malfoy quick-eyebrow-raise, while biting his bottom lip in an almost suggestive manner.

She snorted. "Please, don't think I didn't notice your twitchy fingers when McGonagall was eyeballing you."

Malfoy shuddered, not necessarily from the cold. "It's like the old bat was seeing into my soul."

She let the insult of her favourite teacher slide. "You displayed an exceptional example of House unity and teamwork," Hermione quoted.

"Merlin," he scoffed, "it was just a forced partnership in Potions mixing, not an alliance in some kind of blasted warzone."

Hermione pursed her lips in a careless manner and shrugged. "I prefer to think of it as a compulsory camaraderie."

"That's a mouthful, ain't it?" he mumbled. "Wait, that would insinuate-"

"I know," she cut him off. She didn't want to turn this into a verbal combat, thus opted to refrain from the real retort just waiting to slip from the tip of her tongue.

Draco, not wanting to pursue a conversation that would inevitably morph into an argument, continued to a different path and held his tongue. He inhaled deeply and stared back at the ceiling.

"Well, she was right about one thing," Hermione said.

"And what's that?"

"That we accomplished a perfect, advanced Potions brew and achieved a progressive understanding of Transfiguration that no other fifth year ever attained before us."

Draco smiled smugly. "She was right about another thing too."

Hermione gave him a lopsided smile, her elbows now leaning on his chest. "And what's that?"

"That we did unite…" She raised her eyebrow, the motion urging him to continue, "…though a lot more voluptuous than she was implying."

Hermione giggled and moved up to sensually moisten his bottom lip, her elbow supporting her weight on the sofa. Malfoy reciprocated with appreciation by submitting some lip-dampening of his own. This continued in slow motion, a vapour of bliss surrounding their locked tower; when their lips fused in a fervent haze, the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Draco's hand, previously residing behind his neck, lowered to his partner's waist as he raised her thigh to line it across his upper legs. His hand then dug below the hem of her school shirt; he had wanted to loosen the buttons on her shirt earlier just as she had done for him, but she only kept on lightly brushing his hand away at every attempt, and so he finally gave up and just focused on swirling his tongue on hers.

Now his hand trailed up her back and then down her spine, causing a new emission of bumps to cast over her arms. He toyed with the clasp of her bra, teasing the idea of undoing it. Hermione didn't complain. In fact, she responded with a bit of her own teasing by sliding her free hand down his torso and stopping just by his belly button to rub his abdomen. Malfoy, not expecting the quite provocative manoeuvre, surprised himself when the action reduced his hips to a slight, involuntary thrust; and momentarily forgetting that his hand was residing on her back, Draco pulled her closer during the motion.

Hermione exhaled a gasp of surprise, but wasn't repelled. Actually, she quite relished in the fact that she, an average looking plain Jane, could bring out such an erotic side to the cocky, striking Malfoy heir; the same Malfoy heir that the girls in her year and below only fantasised about being with and seeing him reduced to a famished wolf, baying for the soft, but demanding, touch of the opposite sex.

Hermione then sat up, cradling his hips, to reach for her black, hair claw, and releasing the pressure of the tightened hold, letting her wild curls flow down gently thereafter, all the while Draco watching her with hungered eyes. She tossed the large clip towards the floor, the clatter not registering with either of them through the lusty miasma now heaving around them. Spurred by her movement, Draco lifted his upper body and captured her lips in his, while swiftly and effortlessly twisting her body with his arms so that he overcame her. Hermione cried out a moan of surprise without releasing the hold of her mouth on his.

Once they broke apart for air, Malfoy brought his jaw towards her neck, biting tenderly at the flesh. He heard Granger mumble something. "Hm?" he said hazily, continuing on his mission of skin nibbling.

"…teruis," she said.

Finally, Malfoy looked up. "What?" He rested his elbows either side of her arms, while she played with his open collar.

"The other night…" She felt slightly self-conscious now. "You compared me to…an Austerius?"

Malfoy raised his eyebrow before catching on. "Oh. You still on about that?"

"I'm just curious," she pouted, shrugging in a childlike manner.

"What, you've never heard of the Austerius fable?"

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head beneath him.

"Come off it!" he snickered. "It's quite a popular wizarding tale."

"Well," she began, hesitant to mention her muggle upbringing, "I grew up with stories from the Grimm Brothers' Snow white or Rapunzel," he shook his head at her mentions, "How about Beauty and the Beast?...Um, Red Riding Hood?" Draco shrugged. "Cinderella?"

He snorted. "Sounds like a disease."

Choosing to ignore him, Hermione continued, "Peter Pan?"

"The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up," Draco said, knowingly. At Hermione's astonished stare, he added, "Written by the famous, 20th Century Scottish wizard."

Hermione sat up in discovering this news about one of her favourite authors. "Barrie was a wizard?" She cushioned her side on the forefront of the sofa.

He nodded. "My mother used to read me his tales." Draco then rested his elbow on the sofa, facing her, while cradling his head with his hand. "But you wanted to hear about Austerius?"

She nodded eagerly.

"Well, firstly, Austerius is the Latin meaning for-"

"Stern," Hermione answered quickly, smugly.

Draco didn't appreciate the interruption. "Do you want me to tell the story or not, Miss Smart-Ass?"

She smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, continue."

"Austerius," he stressed out, "like his name, was a stern, stickler for rules and routine-" at Hermione's outraged guise Draco held up a hand to stop her from interjecting again, "-who had the chance to pursue what could've been an opportunity of a lifetime." He rested his back on the couch and proceeded with the tale. "He was the head of his household – the house in which he had grown up in, he had enough money to go by in life; but never had he left his hometown, or pursued an adventure of his own. One day, when he was travelling home, undergoing the same forest pathway he had been his entire life, a golden box magically appeared before him." At this point, Hermione rested her head against his shoulder, drawn into the story. "And on top of that box, laid a note that promised him great fortune if he lifted the lid."

"And?" Hermione prodded, looking up at him.

"And…" he looked down at her, "he didn't. He turned the opposite direction and never looked back. Guess he didn't have the pair to do it, in case it was a ruse."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. "I see it a lot more differently than you do."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course you do, Granger."

She ignored his remark. "To me, this story sounds more about being grateful for what you already have. He looked the other way maybe because he felt that he already had great fortune in his life."

"Hm," Malfoy contemplated in thought and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Never really thought of it that way."

"Come to think of it," she leaned into his embrace, "this reminds me a little bit of the Grimm Brothers' The Golden Key. About how a poor boy gathering wood with a sleigh wants to warm himself by a fire and finds a small golden key beneath the snow; then he finds a small iron box in the ground."

"And?"

"And the story ends with the statement that the reader now has to wait until he has unlocked it."

"So in either story, we don't ever get to find out what was in the boxes."

"And that's why God gifted us with imagination."

He exhaled a chortle before sobering up. "That's the second time you mentioned the 'Grimm Brothers', by the way."

"Well, they pretty much set the foundation for fairytales."

Draco scoffed.

"I'm serious! Tell you what; I'll lend you a copy of some of their work-"

"Muggle reading?" he bared an expression of utter revolt. "No, thank you." She moved from his shoulder and whacked him, to which he retorted, "Okay, I'm serious about that Seeker arm now!"

"Then I'll keep doing it unless you read at least one of their fairytales."

Draco threw his head back. "Ugh, fine."

Hermione immediately beamed at him. "Oooh, there's so many to choose from!"

Granger rambled on and on about what story he would enjoy, leaving Draco drowning most of it out, and a half-hearted thought of 'what have I gotten myself into?' running through his mind.

TBC

I hated how I ended it here. I felt like I could've written more, but it already went way over my chapter word limit for the story. Not to mention, it was already 3:30 AM and my brain was a split second from turning into a giant pancake.

SO.

Review, guys! Please! Por favor! s'il vous plait! Gefallen! Per favore! Kudasai! (You get the idea).

Mrs-N-Uzumaki xx