My OTP's in a hammock

"Hermione! Move your ass over! You're squashing me!" Draco groaned, shoving Hermione trying to make space for himself on the cramped hammock. She ignored him and continued trying to read her book.

"I didn't ask you to join me Draco. I was perfectly content here by myself, until you HAD to disrupt my peace." Hermione replied to him through gritted teeth when he knocked the book from her hands as he tried to make himself comfortable.

He had just gotten back from the ministry when he found her reading on the hammock in the greenhouse. Promptly, he decided to join her and had done nothing but whine about how cramped and uncomfortable the hammock was.

"I was trying to be 'cute'" he sarcastically stated, making air quotations, "and spend time with you like you've been nagging me to do." He tried lying still, his broad shoulders pressed up against hers.

Hermione began to feel sorry for him, beginning to put her book down when he moved his elbow, which stabbed painfully into her side.

"Ow! Draco! Would you stop bloody moving?!" Hermione yelled, quickly getting angry again.

"It's not my fault this foul mudblood contraption is so IMPOSSIBLE to -" he began to reply when Hermione suddenly slapped him across the face.

He reached his hand up to cup his face that throbbed painfully.

"What the HELL was that for?" He yelled, turning to face her. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the tears in Hermione's eyes.

He realised what he had done and felt all his anger leave him when a tear rolled down her face.

"Shit. Hermione, I'm sorry." Draco reached out to her, but she moved back sharply. The hammock suddenly tipped backwards throwing her to the ground with a loud thump. She groaned.

"Hermione!" Draco panicked, awkwardly getting off the hammock. He ran around to her side and found her crumpled on the ground, holding her arm that was, not damaged, but throbbing with pain.

"Leave me alone Malfoy." Hermione said in a strained quiet voice when he tried to help her. Draco flinched. She only called him that when he had really screwed up and he had, royally.

He took a step back, and slumped to the ground with his back against a pot plant. He dropped his head into his hands, hating himself for using that word and upsetting Hermione again. He should know better.

After a few moments, Draco looked up at Hermione. A curtain of her brown hair hid her face from him. She was conducting a small healing spell on her arm that worsened his guilt.

At his feet he noticed the book she had been reading. Some muggle book about astronomy, it had about 500 pages in it. It brought a small smile to his face.

Picking it up from the ground, he dusted it off with his hands as carefully and thoroughly as he could. He felt her eyes on him as he carefully closed the book and stood up, turning to face her as she continued to sit on the ground.

Staring down at her, she stubbornly glared up at him from behind her fringe. The light poured in through the glass wall, illuminating her in a circle of light that made her look even more beautiful and innocent. Far more than he deserved.

Draco sighed reaching out to her again.

Her glare intensified.

"I'm sorry Hermione. I wasn't thinking...again. You know how much I suck at that. That's what you specialise in - thinking for both of us." He said chuckling at the end, hoping to lighten her up.

She continued glaring up at him.

"Hermione. Please don't be mad at me. I'm very tired." He said quietly. He really was tired, work had been long but he knew that didn't excuse what he had said before.

Hermione began to notice how rumpled he looked. His usually crisp dark suit was wrinkled and his pale blonde fringe flopped into his eyes. They were what worried her the most, they were devoid of their usual stubborn spark.

He jolted slightly in surprise when she wrapped her fingers around his hand, using him as an anchor to stand up. Toe to toe and chest to chest, they surveyed each other carefully.

"Can we try again?" Draco asked in a cautious voice. He indicated towards the hammock. He really didn't want to, it was still a foul device that made no practical sense, but he wanted to mend what he had broken.

Still without saying anything, Hermione tugged on his hand and led him towards the hammock. Draco hopped on first, Hermione second, curling herself around his lean figure, one leg draped across his legs. He propped her book on his stomach, tucking her head underneath his chin and rested his left hand on the curve of her hip. The other hand nervously gripped his side of the hammock in case they tipped off again.

Hermione placed her hands on his chest feeling each breath come in and out of his body, counting each of his heart beats.

"I'm sorry" he repeated his apology. She still hadn't replied to the last one.

She couldn't help but grin at the nervous tone in his voice. Draco Malfoy was nervous. She never thought that was possible. But then she never thought that THEY were ever possible.

She was still pissed with him, but she knew that he was genuine. The teachings of his father would take a while to take him away from completely. But he was trying. That's what mattered. That's all that mattered.

Hermione turned her head slightly, pressing a soft kiss to the place between his jaw and his throat.

"I know." she whispered into his ear, before settling back underneath his chin.

Her breathing deepened as she slipped to sleep. Draco smiled contently, pressing a kiss to her forehead before he allowed his own eyes to close and drift to sleep...