His hands—pulling, yanking, stripping her clothes off, piece by piece. And then his right hand would tug at her cheek—right under the cheekbone that was becoming more prominent that less she ate, the more she thought about him.
"What are you doing?" She would ask, the same question night after night.
"Taking off your mask," he would sometimes say, or, "whatever I want," other nights.
She would always ask him why. "I'm not wearing a mask," she would add occasionally.
And every time she did, his response was the same: "But I am."
Every night she would wake up with a vague memory of the exchange, fuzzy on the details, but with the chills all the same. She would put a heat spell on her blanket and go back to sleep. Sometimes she would need a sleeping potion, but not every night.
It had been over a year since the wedding; since she had seen him.
She had been studiously avoiding him. But even during daylight, he felt like her shadow. Every dark corner she turned (too many, in the Department of Mysteries), she would glance back, catching a bit of that familiar scent of cinnamon and thyme that two meetings had burned into her memory. No one was ever there.
When asked about her sudden change in candle preference (from vanilla to cinnamon), she said it was the autumn leaves that sparked the change. Luckily no one remembered her comment when spring came and the same bright red, cinnamon candle burned in the her living room. It had three wicks, enough that the scent greeted her even as she returned from work the following day. It smelled like him, but off—why did she want to be reminded of him when the thought of him made her weak with fear? She was good at pushing those questions out of her thoughts, off to the side, a question for future Hermione, perhaps (but not so, for she would never confront it of her own volition).
Still, she couldn't shake the tendencies of her youth. Having him on her mind and wondering about him was enough to drive her to research him. She was subtle at first. She asked the librarian at the Ministry library. He knew nothing. Books were not illuminating. She asked Draco and other friends. All they knew was that he didn't play Quidditch, which they found odd. Her old enemy recalled suspiciously little about his groomsman, which Hermione couldn't help but note was somewhat irresponsible. As time wore on, her obsession deepened and her care corroded. Ginny told her she was being silly, but Hermione ignored her friend. She asked everyone, even near strangers. No one knew anything.
One year, two months, three weeks, and six days after the wedding, she thought she might be rid of him. Perhaps he was a chimera that everyone saw somehow.
"I hear you've been asking about me." His thick voice, recognizable anywhere, echoed off the walls of the empty hallway. It was one of those long hallways in the Department of Mysteries that never seemed to end. But the shadows never spoke.
"And who are you?" She asked, not turning around, because he couldn't be there, not really.
"Let's not play games, Hermione." His hand grazed her shoulder, starting too far forward and tracing its way back. "You've lost some weight," he commented as he grazed over her bone. "Any particular reason?"
"It's intentional," she responded with a swallow, still not turning around. And his hand rested there, over her thin sweater where her overly bony shoulder resided.
"Why?"
His why reminded her of her dreams, her constant dreams about the man who was behind her, too real and too lifelike. Hermione froze. She shuddered. The movement reverberated through her entire body, and still his hand was there, like a dead weight.
"There's no need to be scared."
"I'm not."
He pressed against her back; he was too close. "Why, then, are you shaking like a leaf?"
"Um."
"Hmm?" He asked, closer to her ear but not touching. Still, she could feel his breath and she was close enough to smell him—it was different today.
"No cinnamon," she muttered to herself.
"Pardon?"
"You changed your cologne?"
"Oh, Hermione, you do remember me." There was a touch of sarcasm in his voice, but a streak of sincerity that seemed out of place.
"Yes."
"I remember you, too. Why did you shudder? Are you scared or aroused?"
Both. "Why would I be scared of you, Mr. Vole?" She avoided the second part of his question.
"Mr. Vole? I think we know each other a bit better than that, Hermione."
It sounded like he was making some sort of joke, but Hermione wasn't in on it.
"Allow me to repeat myself. I hear you've been asking about me." Those long fingers—that should have belonged to a professional pianist, really—snaked around her waist, pressing against her ribcage and tracing the line between her sweater and her burgundy pencil skirt.
"Like you said—I'm attracted to you," Hermione told herself it was a lie, and it wasn't the whole truth at least, but it was part of it. And she knew it.
"And?"
"You never contacted me after the wedding."
"You didn't contact me either."
There was no good excuse for that. "I was waiting for you," she responded, her voice wavering.
"You don't strike me as the type to do that. Regardless, you've been asking about me and I'm here. Is there anything I can assist you with?"
"Do you remember me?"
"Pardon?" He repeated; there seemed to be some genuine confusion this time.
She whipped around in a sudden movement, wresting herself from his grasp and facing him in the darkness. "Lumos," she whispered.
"You don't like the dark, Hermione?" Demetri asked, his voice mocking her just as she remembered.
"The dark allows people to hide, like you, behind your faux politeness. I will not allow you to intimidate me, Mr. Vole. I asked if you remember me because you said you had read so much about me in the papers. Then you know that I helped to defeat Voldemort, and if I can do that, I can certainly be approached in a dark hallway without fear. Your attempt to shake me is noted, and rejected. The year I didn't see you was a great year."
"I am not trying to shake you, Hermione, and yet I find you shivering at my mere presence." His cold hand was on her again, stroking under her chin this time.
"I would appreciate if you could refrain from touching me." A smirk in response, yet he dropped his hand. "You startled me, I will admit. It's a small department and you aren't in it. So may I ask what you are doing down here?"
"To see you, my dear. As I said twice now, I have heard you were asking after me."
She held the wand up to his eyes: green as grass, again.
"You're checking up on me," he whispered as she raised her wand. It was not a pleasant tone.
"Yes," she responded in a defiant voice.
"Have dinner with me."
"Why?"
"I think it's time that I answered some of the questions that I can see swimming around in that brain of yours, Granger."
"Dinner where?"
"My apartment," Demetri responded in a confident tone.
"That's rather forward."
He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling in the stiffest motion she had ever seen in a shrug. "I waited a year."
She bit her lip, hard, as she thought. Unexpectedly, his thumb met her lip. "Don't do that, dear." That's the second time he called me dear. "Come over."
His voice was hypnotic, and she found herself nodding without thinking or even wanting to meet him. "Good girl." He kissed her forehead and brushed one of her erratic locks behind her ear. "I'll send an owl with the details. I look forward to it." As if in a trance, she only nodded with a slight incline of her head. And just like that, he was gone, robes swishing down the winding hallways until all she could see was his shadow. Then, nothing.