The Best Mistake

Chapter Three | Mouthfuls of Munster and a Massive Mistake

Draco Malfoy couldn't believe his luck.

As he stumbled out of the cold night air into the warmly-lit kitchen of the Weasley's ramshackle hovel of a home, he tried to clear the haze of inebriation that clouded his vision, pulling Granger along, afraid to let go of her hand lest she change her mind.

He stopped by the large, worn kitchen table and searched for the fireplace.

Even with his mind fuzzy, he had to admit that the house, the Burrow as it was so fittingly called, wasn't as shabby as the mismatched outside led him to believe. Clutter dotted every nook and cranny, but it was clean and surprisingly well maintained. Seeing no floo in the immediate vicinity, he picked one of the many open doorways and started toward it.

"No, it's this way," Granger said, coming up beside him and shaking her head.

Draco might have imagined it, in his cloud of lust and liquor, but the action seemed to release a few more curls from the clip at the back of her head, making his mouth fall open.

They needed to find the floo and fast so that he could remove the clip himself and watch those riotous bronze curls fall around her face and down her back. Draco wanted nothing more than to watch them bounce as he drove into her—the way they used to in Potions as she waved her hand, squirming in the chair of her desk, silently begging Snape to call on her.

Breathing heavily, he shook his head to clear the image and focus.

This was happening; he didn't need to imagine anything.

Now pulling him along, she pointed toward the ceiling with her other hand. "See the mist above us? It's supposed to guide guests to the floo, but I know the way anyway, of course."

"Right, of course," he muttered. Truthfully, he hadn't noticed the mist, and now that she was in front of him, he noticed it even less as he stared at their joined hands, dumbfounded.

How did this happen? One minute he was ready to say goodnight to Granger and follow Blaise and Theo to the floo, and the next, he just couldn't resist teasing her about complimenting him. Then she'd been so...receptive.

Merlin, the want in those big brown eyes—an emotion he'd never even allowed himself to dream could be coming from her directed at him—it had been enough to make him painfully, embarrassingly hard, and now he, Draco Malfoy, was taking Hermione Granger, home.

It was absurd in the extreme, but Gods if her hand didn't feel good in his.

A warning voice in the back of his mind—a voice that he surely would have listened to if sober—screamed at him to stop and consider the consequences. They worked together, very closely, in a partnership that started off with an awkward apology from him and steely looks of loathing from her. Indulging in a drunk shag would certainly further complicate things, but he just couldn't bring himself to care.

For years, Draco thought that Hermione Granger was one of the very few things that he wanted that he could never have, and now that he was this close to having her, he would do everything in his power to make it happen.

Suddenly, Granger came to a stop in front of a large hearth. Moving photographs of various red heads lined the mantle, along with a collection of mismatched tchotchkes. Granger reached into a grubby black box in front of a photograph of the whole pack of weasels in front of a pyramid in Egypt, their fair skin pink from the sun, but smiling and waving happily. He sneered at it.

She grabbed a handful of floo powder and handed it to him. "I don't know where we're going."

Draco tilted his head curiously, accepting the powder. Of course, she must know where they were headed, right? He'd asked her to come home with him, hadn't he?