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6.
5th June, 1997
Hermione goes through the day in a daze. She tells a worried Harry and Ron and mildly concerned housemates, that she thinks she's getting the flu, and no, thank you, she doesn't want to go see Madam Pomfrey. Her eyes are dry and stinging, her nose red and stuffy, and her throat raw, from the hours she spent curled up in a ball on her bed sobbing, the heavy drapes drawn shut and a silencing charm up. She didn't fall asleep until dawn was approaching, and today she is exhausted in more ways than one, with her heavy and sticky eyes and aching sinuses, her bones which feel as if they have been replaced by lead weights, and her very self as wrung out as an old rag.
She is numbed and in shock, shut down and locked into a holding pattern, unwilling to do anything or tell anyone until she sees Draco, once more. Her hand does not rise in class, and Professor McGonagall asks her if she feels quite well, and doesn't seem convinced by Hermione's excuse of the flu. The brusque, matter-of-fact Professor lets it go though; she seems to assume Hermione is having problems with matters of the heart, and is afraid to pry. It makes Hermione want to laugh and weep at once when Professor McGonagall pats her on the shoulder and tells her that life invariably works out for the best. Hysteria nearly overtakes her, and she spends all of lunch locked in a stall in the girls' bathroom, fist stuffed in her mouth, biting down on her knuckles and crying.
Draco is absent from every class, and every meal, and when Hermione goes to the Room that night it is empty, even though she waits until after midnight. She tells herself she will give him until tomorrow night before she goes to Headmaster Dumbledore, who is back at school these past few days. Perhaps, she hopes because that is what she does – she is an incurable optimist – perhaps she will be able to somehow convince Draco to go to Headmaster Dumbledore after all. She has to try; she doesn't want to betray him. But she has a feeling she will have to.
Hermione creeps through darkened, silent hallways, avoiding Filch and Mrs Norris, and when she reaches the Gryffindor common room it is nearly one o'clock in the morning and she is not tired. She is weary past the point of exhaustion, so mentally and emotionally drained that her brain and her chest almost seem to hurt, but she lies in bed for two whole hours and does not fall asleep. In the end she wraps a rug around her shoulders and goes downstairs, and sits in front of the common room fire and stares into the embers for a long time. She is still sitting there like a pale, hunched wraith wrapped in bright coloured crochet when the others rise the next morning, and dark circles ring her eyes.
6th June, 1997
She tells anyone who asks that her flu is getting worse and she couldn't sleep, and yes, she will go see Madam Pomfrey later. Draco is still absent from class, and Hermione finds herself daydreaming, unable to keep her attention fixed on lessons, like always. Her teachers watch her odd behaviour closely; Professor Flitwick asks if she is ill, and Professor McGonagall tells her confidingly that if she wishes to talk, to come see her in her office after dinner. Hermione nods and smiles, and has absolutely no intention of doing so.
She goes through the entire day in a daze, unaware of her surroundings, her mind turning her and Draco's situation over and over, exploring every angle, trying to find a solution – there is none. By the end of the day, as she picks absently at her dinner, her optimism has fled her. She sits with shoulders slumped; ignoring the curious and worried stares around her and trying not to dissolve into tears in the Great Hall, in front of everyone.
Draco will refuse to be the indirect cause of his mother's death no matter how much Hermione pleads, and so she will go to Dumbledore. His mother will die, but Dumbledore – and Draco himself – will be saved, and she will lose him. She had always thought she would, eventually, but now the time has come – and like this – it hurts so much she thinks she will die. She leaves dinner early, telling Harry and Ron she is going to go see Madam Pomfrey, and instead hides in the library for two hours and fruitlessly tries to force herself to come up with a plan that will fix everything.
It is nine in the evening when Hermione bolsters her courage enough to go to the Room, and when she enters he is there, sitting on the edge of the settee and staring into the fire. Hermione has the impression that Draco has been sitting there utterly motionless for hours; there is something in the stiff set of his shoulders, as if he has frozen into that position. She wonders if he really has been in here all day, just sitting and watching the flames. Draco looks up when she shuts the Room door behind her with a grate and a thud, and his face is expressionless, colourless except for the purplish dark stains of stress and sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
Hermione crushes her lower lip between her teeth and worries at it, searching for words and discarding all the possibilities she comes up with as she approaches him. Her heart is rabbit-quick and her palms are sweaty, she feels uncomfortably hot except for an icy dread in the core of her. She is at the end of the couch now; close enough to see the spider webbing of broken capillaries in Draco's eyes, which have not moved from her face since he first looked up. It is unnerving, that stare, as though he is calculating things she doesn't want to think about in that head of his; contemplating murdering her and stuffing her in the vanishing cabinet, perhaps.
How far would Draco Malfoy go to save his mother? And how does that balance out against how much he loves Hermione?
Her wand is up her sleeve, and the hard rub of it on the skin of her forearm is pitiful comfort, because she knows she would likely lose in a duel with Draco. She would hesitate, she is sure of it. He, she is not so sure about. She stands in front of the fire, the heat of it scorching on her bare legs, but she doesn't move, just lets it bake her. Her mind is fumbling and grabbing for coherent speech, and she wishes she had written something down – a pre-prepared speech – and that stupid thought makes her suck in sharply on a half-laugh that is more sob and inhale than anything.
Draco's eyes bore into her, they drill behind her eyes like he can see every frantic thought skittering through her head, and Hermione feels flayed open and vulnerable, and so helpless. She opens her mouth to say something, anything that might sway him to listen to her, and he speaks.
"I have to do it." He stands with a fluid grace, and he is tall and his wand is in his hand already, and Hermione feels small and heartsick. "You won't persuade me otherwise, Hermione." He sounds desperately afraid and his hand is trembling slightly, and Hermione wonders if she should hate him. She doesn't. She can't. Draco is determined to commit murder, to give Death Eaters free access to Hogwarts, and she isn't surprised he loathes himself but she cannot condemn him either, because what lengths would she go to, to save her mum's life?
And Hermione sees in Draco's bloodshot eyes and the tight set of his thin shoulders that nothing she can say will dissuade him.
"I have to," Draco says again, voice flat and dull now, and shifts his grip on his wand.
"I – I know," she says, which is not what she planned to say at all, but it is the only thing left right now. Her voice is cracked and broken, and she doesn't sound like herself at all. Draco's lips flatten and the muscles in his jaw bunch up, he swallows hard and her name is a breath, a plea.
"Hermione." He is raw, just like her, and neither of them want to do what she knows they will. Light and dark, good and evil, Dumbledore's Army member and Death Eater, and the distance between them has never seemed so vast before as it does now, staring into his thin face, filled with shame and determination. Hermione closes the gap between them because it is all she can do, because she can't just walk away without saying goodbye, because she wants this one last thing to cling to.
Her eyes flutter shut and a strange hurt blossoms in her chest as his wand tip presses into the hollow of her throat. She takes a breath, feeling the wood dig into the delicate flesh of her throat as she inhales, and opens her eyes. Hermione sees her hurt reflected in Draco's eyes before she lifts her hand, and gently pushes his wand aside, and he lets her, his grey eyes grave, searching over her face. Up on tip toes then, and her hand braces on his shoulder; understanding blooms in those grave eyes and then his head dips and their lips meet.
Her tongue dances delicately over Draco's bottom lip, and he presses his folded up wand hand between her shoulder blades to pull her closer. A moan is lost between their mouths as their lips part properly and their mouths mesh, tongue and lips and teeth and Hermione is dizzied, her breath is trapped in her chest, swelling her lungs painfully. Draco's knuckles dig in her back, his wand jabs into the base of her skull, and her head is tipped too far back to be comfortable, but her fingers curl up into the muscle and bone of his shoulders and she surges forward into the hard warmth of him anyway.
He is a rock, rooted to the floor immovably, his mouth moving on hers and kissing her so slowly and thoroughly now that it makes her feel as if he is mapping her. Draco is committing her to memory, Hermione realises with a sharp pang that momentarily drives back the swelling ripples of arousal that are drowning her mind. He is memorising the feel and the taste of her, and the small hungry sounds she makes, so that he will always remember what it was like to kiss Hermione Granger. And she realises she is doing the same to him.
This is a goodbye, because no matter what happens exactly, once one of them leaves this Room, the last of what they have had will remain here, shredded and mutilated beyond all recognition.
Hermione makes a stifled, muffled sob as she pulls away from Draco, panic rising up and overwhelming her. Her hands come up in the air by her face, hovering and fluttering indecisively as she tries to shove down her tears. She fans her face and sniffs hard, but the sudden furious grief that seized her refuses to be pushed back down. Draco steps forward – to comfort her, she thinks – but his bloodshot grey eyes are cold as stones and his kiss-swollen mouth is flat, and she stumbles two jittering steps back from him.
"I just…need a moment," she rasps and blinks and wipes her cheeks, clears her throat. Looks at him and sees a stranger who should not be a stranger and shakes her head hard. "I can't do this. I can't…Draco, please." Please don't do it, please go to Dumbledore, but she can't say the words aloud because she can't bear to hear him say no again. She feels as if she is a geyser, waiting to explode, to come apart in rage and pain, and she can't say goodbye because goodbye is too hard. She wants to run away like a coward; she does not feel like a Gryffindor right now.
But Hermione's fingers flex and she takes his outstretched hand despite her insistences that she can't, wrapping her hand around his fingers hard enough to grind their bones beneath the skin. She is a mess, shaking and sickened by what they will have to do after this, but she wants this one last piece of sanctuary, she needs it like she needs to breathe. Hermione knows that it will only make it hurt more in the end, afterwards, but she will accept that pain. Draco is not a trembling mess, he is a living statue, as cold and blank as if he doesn't care in the slightest, but she knows he does. Draco slides his palm over hers and interlinks their fingers, and his hand is warm, and dry, and calloused from Quidditch and if Hermione lives to be two hundred, she will never forget the feel of it. His voice is carefully calm and even.
"It's just us. Just you and me, Hermione. Here, in this moment. This is us. This is all we have." Draco has never been so honest with her before, and she nods and her chin quivers, she whisks away her tears and her eyes sting and burn but stay dry, this time.
"Okay," she whispers and buries herself willingly in the kiss that comes next, forces herself to forget everything but what he makes her fell. The minty-ness of his mouth, the hot slick of his tongue that makes her womb clench and her toes curl inside her shoes, the smooth blunt edges of his teeth, the firm, damp warmth of his lips, and how they mingle and tangle together so perfectly, with thrills and shivers and snaking coils of need roaring and rising in her like a living thing. The scent of him, the feel of his lean body bumping and shifting against hers, the way the ends of his fringe fall forward to brush against her forehead.
Hermione moans and mewls as she slips her arms around his neck, and his hands are on her back and her cheek, and both of them are trying to press together as if they can soften and melt and sink into each other. Hermione shifts and hooks her leg up around Draco's as their kiss grows ever more frantic – bunting together, nibbling, tongues swirling deep together and making her throb madly between her legs and her knickers are damp. The move of her leg unbalances them and they sway and wobble, and with a cry from Hermione and a grunt from Draco they go down in a half-controlled tangle onto the thick hearth rug.
And it is not a decision or a choice but an inevitability that they stay tangled on the floor in front of the fire, shedding their clothes like autumn leaves.
This is a goodbye, and Hermione will say it properly, with her hands and her mouth, with fire-heated skin and small moans, and legs that part willingly when Draco slides his calloused hands up over her knees and soft thighs. His mouth on her there and it feels startlingly cool on her flesh, and she jumps and her thighs clap shut on his head. He grunts and makes a sound that could be a laugh or a protest, and his tongue drags down her slit and she shudders and jolts and her legs fall apart again, a low, rough moan ripped from her throat.
She doesn't want him to stop, despite the small self-consciousness she feels – it is too good, he is too good, and she wants more. Draco explores her, with fingers and tongue, and her face is hot from more than just the fire, and she shuts her eyes and grabs handfuls of his hair and bites her tongue on the whimpers and gasps he draws out of her. At first Hermione's hands are on his head to assure herself she is in control, then to keep him there as he licks and sucks and works a finger slowly inside her, and then two, slowly thrusting and curling. Her body is a heated frenzy, and every cell of her is screaming with the need for release.
And then finally Hermione's handfuls of Draco's fine, platinum hair are a way to hold on, to ride the waves of orgasm that buckle her, sweeping through her and turning her into a ball of rippling, wrenching pleasure. She curls up, her knees drawing up and her thighs slamming shut on Draco's head, her back bowing forward so that her shuddering, gasping moans send hot breath rushing over the fingers she has wrapped in his hair. And then she arches back and her pelvis juts up, bum lifting right off the floor, legs falling open and cramped fingers loosing his hair stiffly.
She feels as though her bones have been replaced by quicksilver, and she feels hot, muscles turning to jelly as she falls limp on the thick rug and pants for air.
"Please," she gasps when she catches her breath, and long, damp fingers walk up from her throbbing clit to her sternum.
"Please what?" Draco asks slyly, and she lifts her head and looks down at him between her legs. He is flushed with colour and his eyes are glazed and wicked, he licks his lips and smirks when she whimpers at the sight. Hermione is pulsing inside, needy and greedy, and coming wasn't enough; she wants him, buried inside her, filling her up. She is incoherent with the urgency of it and her fingers bite into his shoulders, trying to pull him up her body. He looks so smug she could kick him, but instead she wriggles and squirms with an aching need and tries to drag him up by the hair.
"Say it," he says with swollen lips, and his pupil-swamped eyes are demanding on Hermione's as he ignores the pain she must be inflicting on his scalp as she yanks at his hair. His fingers play up and down her slit torturously, his thumb dragging over her clit now and then and sending shocks through her, making her twitch and hiss. "Say it," Draco demands and slides two fingers inside her, and she sobs, raw with desperation.
"Please. Draco, please." Hermione is so embarrassed she thinks she will die, but need overwhelms her self-consciousness after eight slow pumps of his fingers inside her exquisitely sensitive pussy. "Please, put it in me. In me. Screw me, shag me, fuck me, just put your bloody cock in me," she begs and orders at once when she breaks, nearly tearing his hair out by the roots, a low whine leaving her between words as she wriggles on his fingers. A slow smile curves Draco's lips, and she stops wriggling and stares at him, because he is so beautiful in this moment. On his elbows between her thighs, with his fingers buried in her pussy and smiling with the firelight staining his pale hair gold and filling his eyes with silvery hints of oranges and reds - he is like some fey creature bent on delicious wickedness.
He is the most beautiful Hermione has ever seen him look, and a pressure wells up in her chest and she fights the urge to cry, because she will never see him like this again. It hurts like nothing else she has ever felt; it hurts like a death, like a betrayal, like a physical thing tearing inside her chest. Tears weave and slip silently down her cheeks, and Draco's smile fades and she mourns the loss of that, too. He moves up so they are face to face and he covers her, his skin cooler than hers, holding himself up on one elbow and swiping her tears away with his thumb while he makes soft, soothing sounds.
Draco's cock is hard and hot against her upper thigh, but his eyes are gentle and clear, and he presses his lips to hers very tenderly. There is more tenderness there than she thought him capable of, and his fingers are a whisper when they brush down her nose and sweep out along her cheekbone. There is a question in his eyes.
"Don't stop," Hermione chokes and blinks hard, her hands cupping his face and her lips finding his again. "Please," she breathes against Draco's mouth, and he nods once. He picks up his wand from where it lies abandoned nearby with hers, and Hermione stiffens on instinct, suspicious that Draco will use this moment to incapacitate her, and risk using an obliviate to assure the safety of his plans. There is no hiding the mistrust that flashes over her flushed face, and Draco's expression is briefly hurt before it hardens and turns unreadable, emotions hidden away.
"Contraceptive charm," he says shortly and Hermione nods and trusts him enough to let him cast it, her heart in her throat. But the warmth of benign magic tingles in her belly for a moment instead of the shock of a stunning spell, and then he tosses his wand aside out of both their reach. Instead of thrusting into her immediately Draco turns his attention back to her mouth and kisses her for a long moment, deep and slow, tormenting her and making her blood heat and her skin itch with impatience. His hands shift to her breasts as he holds himself up on an elbow, and he tweaks her nipples, tugs at them as his tongue delves slick and slow in her mouth. It gives Hermione the time she needs to sink back into heavy, heady lust after her brief moment of tension, and she is grateful to him for knowing she needs it, and for giving her that.
Draco hand skims over her breast, waist, and hip, leaving a wake of tingling goosebumps behind it, before sliding between their bodies. Their mouths move together slowly now, almost absently, as he sinks two fingers into her and groans at the slickness. Draco positions himself, and Hermione's breath stops up in her lungs, she clutches at his shoulders and goes stiff and still as fear bubbles up.
"Breathe," he tells her on his own exhale, the word a puff of cool air on her cheek. He is nudged firm against her entrance, and it is a foreign, alien feeling that makes her edge toward panic. She struggles to do as he says, wanting him but afraid because what if it hurts, what if it isn't good, what if she ruins it?
"Relax," he tells her next with a hint of amusement, and hunches so that his head dips to her breasts. His mouth is cool and wet on her nipples; first one, then the other, and she forgets her fear for the delicious pleasure of his tongue swirling over her hardened nipples, bolts of want skipping straight down to her belly.
"Oh god…oh Merlin…Draco, I –" The words rush from her in jagged pants, and then he is pushing into her and her gasped words turn into a wavering groan of not-quite-pleasure. He feels too big for her body at first, and her eyes are wide and fixed on the ceiling, her fingers dig gouges in his shoulders. Then the sensation becomes the faint burn of her body stretching to accommodate him, but there is no real pain, and Hermione's eyes flutter unseeingly and a sigh falls from her lips, her tensed muscles begin to unwind and relax.
Draco's head is knocked against hers, and his hand is a vice on her hips, and he is gasping in short hisses through his teeth. He is inside her, all of his length, and he is shaking with the effort to hold still as Hermione adjusts to him filling her. Draco doesn't want to hurt her, and that makes her stomach flip and her bones fizz along with warmth, but it doesn't hurt, not really. Hermione was – is – sopping wet, and his fingers had helped prepare her, and now the feeling of being uncomfortably filled is passing. Now it just feels…good.
Hermione grips his hips with her knees and juts her pelvis up and he shifts inside her, and they both moan raggedly.
"Fuck. H'mione. I…" Draco's voice is thick and strained, his fingers bruise her hip, his other hand tangles in the hair behind her ear. She flattens her hips to the floor and then pushes them up again, wordlessly urging him to move. There is a building, aching need that tightens her womb and seethes outward through her, her every muscles ratcheting tight, and she feels like she is throwing off heat like a small sun. Draco's forehead rests at her cheekbone and she mumbles incoherently in his ear.
"Please. Now. Now. I need – I need…" Hermione is whining with the want, her nails scratching over Draco's scalp. He lets out a plosive breath that rushes over her cheek and ear, and his hips pull back, he slides half out of her. Hermione makes a startled little cry at the sensation, her hand gripping his arm, and then his hips snap back and she lets out another raw, low cry that drowns out his own stifled moan. And then Hermione is clinging to him as he drives into her over and over, until she is gasping and nearly sobbing at the deep, wrenching pleasure of it.
She urges him on in half-formed sounds that he seems to understand because he goes harder and faster, and he is gasping her name and mumbling things between pants for air. "So good – feel so fucking… Fuck – Hermione… Merlin… Shit… You feel so fuck-fucking good…" Her arms come up around his neck and her hands flatten on his shoulder blades, pressing him down to her so that she can feel the heavy weight of him, the drumbeat frenzy of his heart, the slip and slide of their sweat-slicked skin.
Hermione's face is turned to his and their teeth clink as their mouths meet sloppily. Draco tastes salty with her own sweat and his kiss is fierce and possessive, and she matches that fierceness, both battling for control of the kiss and both losing to the sensation of him thrusting and stretching and filling her, until she feels like he is everywhere. Every inch of her body is thrumming and heated with the feel of him, and she yanks breath in through her nose in short pulls, clutching him tight to her with her hands and knees. The kiss loses coherence as Draco's hips begin to jerk more erratically, and if his fingers press any harder into her hip Hermione thinks the bone might snap.
"I'm –" Draco chokes on an exhale, and she can feel the muscles of his back shifting and hardening beneath her hands. "Oh…fuck…" Draco drives into her so deep it sends an ache shooting right through Hermione's abdomen, and his head goes back, throat arched and bared, eyes slipping shut, biting his lip hard. He is flushed and sweat sticks his fringe to his forehead, the cords stand out in his neck, and Hermione can't tear her eyes from him in this moment. Three, four, five more spasmodic thrusts, and she feels his cum fill her in a muffled, vague sort of way, and the throaty little groan he makes sets off little waves of pleasure that make her insides clench and twitch like an echo of his orgasm. Hermione's brain twirls dizzily, and her fingers will leave bruise marks on his arms.
Draco goes loose-boned and limp above her then, releasing her poor hip and falling onto his elbows so as not to crush her completely. His face is buried against her neck, and he is laying sloppy, sucking kisses there, satisfied little noises humming on her skin. Her hands move from his sweaty, hot arms, fingers shoving into his damp, mussed hair and cradling his head to her as her legs collapse apart and her stomach caves with an exhausted breath. He is still inside her, and there is an intimacy to this hot, sweaty, limp afterglow that almost eclipses the closeness of the sex. Almost.
Hermione feels well-used, but in a good way; deliciously dirty and achy and wet with their sweat. She combs her fingers through Draco's hair, her limbs feeling all loose-jointed and wobbly, her hair plastered to her temples and cheeks in damp whorls, and she just breathes in the moment. Draco is murmuring incoherencies as he smatters her with clumsy, urgent kisses that are somehow packed with grief, his slowing heartbeat thudding against her chest, and Hermione remembers then. The reality of their situation, hazed over and forgotten in pressing together hot skin, and sloppy, hungry kisses, and the rhythmic jerk of his hips, returns swiftly.
It is clouds sweeping over her mind, chasing away the sunlight, and Hermione is left in the shadows and dull red light the burnt-down fire casts over them, damp with sweat and aching between her legs, clutching Draco's head to hers and knowing they would never do this again. Hermione could scream at the injustice of it, at the way it hurts so much now it comes down to the moment, but her lips are clamped tight. Despite the heat of the fire and their exertions, she is cold right through herself, goosebumps rising on her naked flesh.
Hermione remembers, as her fingers clutch hard into Draco's hair, being four and going to a riding stable with her mum and dad. The lady at the stable had told her to pick a pony, and Hermione's four year old heart had swelled to bursting with joy. The pony had been named Fizz; a beautiful, placid bay, and Hermione had been crazed with excitement as the lady had led her about the ring on her new pony's back. Then it had been time to go home, and Hermione had realised her beaming parents had not bought her beautiful, perfect Fizz, just an hour's ride on her. She still remembers the utter crushing devastation as she clung to Fizz's back and sobbed as her distressed father lifted her down and tried to explain.
In a way it is, similar to how she feels now, naked and clinging to Draco so tight her muscles are cramping, with tears burning behind her eyes. She had thought - stupidly, irrationally - that he was hers for a while longer at least, but he is not and oh god it hurts like a physical pain. Hermione had never thought about there being any sort of possible future for her and Draco until the possibility had been taken away from her, and now all she has been able to think about these past few days has been, what if?
What if Draco hadn't been a Death Eater? What if he had agreed to go to Dumbledore and confess everything? Would they have been able to carve out some kind of future together? Would clandestine meetings in the Room have evolved into something more, something solid and certain? Could Hermione have ever told her friends? Would it have worked? Or would any relationship they attempted have sputtered and died at the end of the school year, or before? It doesn't matter now – she'll never find out, and it makes her want to weep at the unfairness of it all.
The embrace they are locked in suddenly feels hollow, and maybe Draco feels it too, because he eases his softening erection out of her slowly, a small trickle of fluids following, and Hermione represses a shudder. She feels used still, but not in a good way anymore. She feels sticky, cold, gross, and empty. Draco is not hers; he never was, and he never will be. She wants to be in her bed, hiding under the covers and crying like a little girl, because all this hurts too much – wanting to cling to him, pull him back down to kiss and shag some more – but what is the point? Hermione bites her lip and blinks back tears.
"Hey," Draco says softly, soothingly, and his thumb runs along her cheek. Hermione lifts her eyes to Draco's as he kneels between her thighs, and he is flushed in vivid colour and his chest rises and falls sharply still. His hair is sticking up madly, his features cast in regret, and his thumb swipes down over her kiss-reddened lips. "I love you," he tells her gently, like an apology. Hermione looks at him a moment, unable to say it in reply, and her chest burns with the trapped feeling.
Then she rises up and twists, and flings herself bodily for their wands. The floor whoofs the breath out of her, but her fingers snap around their wands, she pushes herself up on a wobbly, precarious knee and flicks her wand at him.
"Stupefy!" she gets out as she wobbles and then falls back, and Draco's face is a mask of anger, and he lurches at her, the stunning spell whizzing just past his neck. Oh shit, she has time to think before his shoulder hits her chest hard and he crushes her onto the floor.
" – Bitch – " she hears Draco snarl over and over as they struggle on the floor. She is trying to keep the wands out of his reach in one hand, and he is grabbing at her arm, her legs locked around his hips in a parody of what they had just been doing moments before, keeping him trapped. Hermione clenches her fist and slams it as hard as she can muster, into the side of his head and ear. She will be overcome with guilt later, she will cry and rage and hate herself later – when Draco has been saved from destroying lives that include his own.
He yelps, surprise and pain, and she catches a glimpse of angry red face and shocked eyes, and realises that Draco has underestimated what she is capable of. She would be smug if the situation were different, and she hated him still, but it is not and she just feels sick. She kicks and knees at him, thrashes, and gets half out from under him, when he catches her across the face with the back of a closed fist. Hermione's head snaps back and she sees stars, a wounded animal wail breaking from her throat, the pain flaring red and hot in the left side of her face. Shock roils through her and blood fills her mouth as Draco goes up over her on his knees, and seizes her hair, yanking painfully. She shrieks at the sharp stinging, and in mindless retaliation, adrenaline and fear spurring her on, Hermione knees him in the bollocks.
Draco folds immediately with a strangled oof, abandoning their struggle in favour of cradling himself and swearing up a blue streak. "Petrificus Totalus," Hermione rushes with a thick tongue, blood dribbling down her chin – she thinks he knocked a tooth loose with that backhand – and Draco goes straight and stiff as a board and tips onto the floor, and her legs. Hermione spits out a gobbet of blood-tinged phlegm, gasps in a huge, shaking breath, and heaves her legs out from beneath Draco's body, barely able to believe it is over so fast. Her ears are ringing and vision blurring from the smack across her face, and she feels so dizzy and ill that she thinks she might vomit. She does, a moment later, on all fours on the ground, choking and sobbing beside Draco's rigid body.
Part of her gut-wrenching nausea is what she has just done to him, and what he did to her. Just moments before Hermione had felt like they had attained something close to perfection, and then…this. But she didn't have a choice, she tells herself; she knows Draco, and he would never have just let her leave after the sex. Not without making sure she couldn't speak a word about him. It had been him or her, and Hermione had been counting on him underestimating her. She had underestimated herself too – she had thought she would hesitate in hurting him. She hadn't. She isn't sure how that makes her feel about herself.
Adrenaline is still thrumming in her veins like fire as she dresses quickly and clumsily. She is sore between her legs and inside, and she wants to cry because her memory of what they did will always be tainted by what came after. She had been trying to say goodbye properly, but instead she feels like she has ruined something that should have been happy, and precious. Whenever Hermione remembers losing her virginity, she will remember this – crying as she dresses, her face a mass of pain, Draco locked still and hate-filled on the floor beside her.
Her hands shake as she manages to get Draco's boxers on, avoiding looking at his face, because she doesn't want to see the hate in his eyes. He must be furious beyond all reason, she knows, and the indignity of the fact that she is dressing him like a doll would only increase his rage. The left side of her face is swelling now, and the skin feels hot and tight, and she can't seem to pull in a proper breath. Despite that Hermione apologises over and over in a rattling, slurred whisper as she forces his boxers up his thighs and over his hips. She tries not to stare at his now flaccid penis, and think about how – such a short time ago – it had been thick and hard inside of her.
She tells Draco that this is for his own good, and she is desperately sorry, but she loves him and she can't let him commit murder, can't let him throw his life away like this. A low growl forces its way out of him, and Hermione finally meets his eyes, and knows exactly what he is thinking. 'But you'll throw my mother's life away?' His eyes are glued to her, frantic and maddened with fury and desperation and despite the petrificus, his fingers flex and scratch at the floor. Worried that he will break free, she conjures chains and binds him tightly enough that the irons indent slightly into his flesh. It is only for a little while, she tells herself – it won't hurt him.
She releases the petrificus totalus so that he can blink and swallow and shift a little again, and Draco lets out a roar as soon as the spell is lifted, straining against the chains, struggling like a madman. His mother's life is at stake, she thinks – she would be the same. She listens to him a moment like it is her punishment as he spits words, rising and falling from a low, dangerous snarl to a scream. They bite into her; knives peeling back her skin.
"My mother – my mother – kill you – I loved you – fucking bitch – hate – fucking murder you – do this to me? – trusted – filthy fucking Mudblood bitch –"
She walks away when 'mudblood' crosses his lips, as though it is a trigger – a switch flipped in her head, and she is done. Has to get away before she falls apart, loses her nerve and lets him go, so that he can tear her apart in his anger. She pockets his wand calmly – the illusion of calmness taking every iota of her self-control, and helped by a growing numbness.
When she reaches the door she looks back, and concentrates hard, hand white-knuckled on the door. Their cosy sanctuary is replaced by the place where things are hidden, and Draco is a half-naked comma on the dusty floor. He is chained tightly, because she won't underestimate him, and his skin is pale in the gloomy light, except for his face and neck, which are stained red from the force of his anger. He is rasping his fury now, voice ragged and hoarse but no less vicious for it, and Hermione wishes it didn't have to be this way – she wishes it harder than she has ever wished for anything.
"I'm going to go tell the Headmaster now," she tells him and he goes dead silent, his eyes burning into hers.
"Please, Hermione." Draco drags the words out of him; it is as if he is tearing them free and creating bloodied holes inside him. "I love you. Please don't do this."
"I love you too," Hermione gets out in a shaky breath, feeling shivery, her muscles weak as water. "And that's why I have to tell. I – I'm so sorry, Draco."
He lies there still and quiet with tears slipping from his eyes, and Hermione thinks that maybe he understands a little bit. Maybe a part of him wants her to stop him, a small subconscious part that he tries to bury. Because there is no way the Draco that Hermione knows would have left his wand within her reach on a day like today, when he knew she would try to stop him. For a brief moment she wonders if things between them might be mended, in the end, given time.
"Fuck your sorries," Draco says then, and shuts his eyes, and Hermione nods slowly, chin trembling as the sobs jam up in her throat. She leaves him there, without a goodbye. They have already said goodbye.
7th June, 1997
Hermione goes to Professor McGonagall, who is still in her office despite it being just after midnight, and says she needs to see the Headmaster now. The tremble in her voice and the state of her bruising face convince Professor McGonagall that the situation is serious. She fires questions at Hermione as they hurry towards Dumbledore's office, and she is unable to answer any of them, really.
"Are you all right?" is the first question Professor McGonagall asks, with a shrill, brusque worry, and even that Hermione finds hard to answer.
"It doesn't matter," she answers dully, hand wrapped around Draco's wand, shoved in her pocket.
"Miss Granger, I think it very well does."
Hermione isn't sure what the Professor is thinking may have happened, but the older witch is taut with worry, and her eyes are sharp on Hermione. "No, Professor, it doesn't. What matters is that I speak to Dumbledore before it's too late."
Professor McGonagall is taken back at Hermione's blunt, almost rude urgency – so out of character for her – but that very rudeness seems to lend weight to Hermione's urgency. The Gryffindor Head of House still questions Hermione, as if she can't help herself, but seems to accept Hermione's lack of answers. Her limbs are trembling and her heart is juddering so hard it feels like it will burst out of her chest when they reach Dumbledore's office. Professor McGonagall speaks the password and the gargoyle grates aside, and then they are up the stairs and in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"Minerva, Miss Granger. What brings you here in such a fluster, this evening?" Dumbledore inquires before he even looks up, and when he does his eyes are tired and seeded with cautious worry. He looks very worn and more ancient than ever to Hermione's eyes, and he removes his withered hand from the desk and lays it on his lap, out of sight. "There has been an accident?" he asks calmly as he sees Hermione's face, which throbs with a hot, hard pain.
"Miss Granger insisted on seeing you, Albus. She has not told me what has happened to cause..." Professor McGonagall breaks off, flapping her hand at Hermione's face, her brisk tone carrying an undercurrent of frustrated worry. Dumbledore turned his gaze back to Hermione, and she shifts beneath it uncomfortably.
"Miss Granger?"
Her mind is filled with Draco; lying trussed on the floor of the Room, screaming and hissing bile and hatred at her. Pleading with her not to tell and sentence his mother to death. The way he had looked when they had...The flush of his face and the tightness of his fingers, the greedy, gasping sounds he had made. She isn't ready for that to be goodbye, she cannot bear the thought of it never happening again, never seeing him with that dark, wanting glaze to his eyes that she is the cause of. She loves him. Hermione Granger loves Draco Malfoy. And that is why, even if it wasn't too late, even if she could spin and Time-Turner and go back, she would still be standing here, in front of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, feeling sick and sore and so scared.
"Does this have anything to do with Draco Malfoy, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asks, and she gulps and chokes on an inhale and her eyes fly away from his. Legilimency, she thinks with sudden panic, because there are some things that are private, like the memory of how Draco looked when orgasm overtook him.
"Sir?" Hoarse panic shapes her voice and she looks hard at a clinking gadget past Dumbledore's shoulder instead of his eyes.
"One moment, Miss Granger," Dumbledore says instead of clarifying, and dashes something off quickly on a bit of parchment, which he then appears to simply vanish. She waits impatiently until Dumbledore looks up again, eyes alert on her face. She still avoids his, looking at his beard instead.
"I see you have Draco Malfoy's wand, in your pocket. I assume I am correct in that it is Mister Malfoy's wand?"
"Y-yes, sir," Hermione answers, shoulders sagging. She wonders if Dumbledore really spotted the butt of Draco's wand and managed to recognise it, or whether he is covering up the use of legilimency. Her uninjured cheek flames nearly as hot as her hurt one at the thought of the Headmaster intruding on her mind right now.
"Hermione – Miss Granger, please explain. What in Merlin's name is going on?" McGonagall's voice cracks the air, and Dumbledore waves his good hand quellingly.
"Let Miss Granger have a moment to collect herself, Minerva. She will explain everything in her own time – there is no need for undue haste. And if this involves Mister Malfoy, perhaps Severus should be present, as his Head of House."
Professor McGonagall subsides, sending her patronus for Professor Snape, while Hermione shrinks further. She doesn't want to tell Snape any of this, especially not while she is still sticky and sore from sex, with the mark of Draco's fist across her face. She is vulnerable and raw, and Snape's sneering face will only make her feel worse. She settles in a chair in front of Dumbledore's desk at his invitation, and McGonagall calls a house elf to bring hot, sweet tea, which Hermione sips at without protest. It helps steady her a little, although she still feels as though her world has come crashing down around her ears.
When Professor Snape arrives, his usual contemptuous expression firmly in place, Dumbledore urges Hermione to tell them what has happened. With her eyes on her hands clutched around the tea cup, Hermione obediently tells them everything. Or nearly everything; Draco's penchant for mild cross-dressing, and their romantic feelings, Hermione leaves out, using sympathy and a growing friendship as the only reason she kept Draco's secret as long as she did. Mostly she just focuses on the pertinent facts – Draco being forced to join the Death Eaters, kill Dumbledore, and let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, whether his mother can be saved, and that it will be happening soon.
Hermione is rather certain the three adults guess at the romantic feelings, however. Snape humphs at her stammering, vague reasons as to why she kept the secret as if she is the most transparent person in the world, McGonagall gives Hermione a meaningful and startlingly sympathetic pat, and she is sure Dumbledore knew about her and Draco since the moment he looked into her eyes. This suspicion is solidified further when, at the sudden appearance of a slip of parchment on his desk, Dumbledore informs them that Draco has already been collected from the Room, sedated, and is currently under the influence of Dreamless Sleep, in the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore could only have organised that earlier, when he scribbled on the bit of parchment and appeared to vanish it. She hates that the Headmaster has seen into her mind, even if it does mean Draco has already been rescued from his chains.
She shoves her feelings of violation aside though and waits quietly, watching the adults carefully, wanting to know what will happen next. Hermione does not expect Dumbledore will allow it, but she hopes to be privy to their plans.
"Minerva, please escort Miss Granger to the hospital wing to have Poppy see to her injury," Dumbledore says after a long moment of thought, and he looks immeasurably tired now, from what she can see of his face behind the beard. It worries her. "Severus, if you would disable the cabinet before you return to your rooms?"
Snape nods shortly, his sallow face unreadable, and Professor McGonagall waves Hermione to her feet.
"What – what will happen to…to Draco now, Headmaster?" She asks nervously, hands twining together as she stands to go.
"It will be taken care of, Miss Granger. Mister Malfoy shall be safe, thanks to your bringing this matter to my attention. I should like to give you House points for your actions tonight –" Hermione nearly chokes at that, thinking of flushed skin and reddened lips, before she remembers all the bad and her stomach sinks like a stone. "– but I believe it would be best for everyone if what has eventuated tonight is kept secret, even from those closest to you."
"Of course." There is so much more Hermione would like to know – would like to ask – but she senses she will get no answers from Dumbledore tonight. "Thank you, Headmaster."
Snape remains in the room, and she can hear him begin to speak in a harsh whisper before she and Professor McGonagall leave earshot. She cannot make out the words, but Snape sounds angry, worried, and Dumbledore's voice is soothing and calm. She wishes she knew what they were saying, but then she and Professor McGonagall are down the stairs, and the gargoyle grates back into place with a thunk.
11th June, 1997
Narcissa Malfoy's body was left at the gates of Hogwarts this morning, or so Hermione hears by way of the rampant rumour mill amongst the students. Dead without a mark on her, she hears Terry Boot whispering to a fellow Housemate in a corridor, except that her head was two metres from the rest of her. Hermione feels as though she has been struck and sent reeling, and she prays that Draco did not see his mother like that. She feels sick, sick sick because the blame for Narcissa's death can be laid at least partially on Hermione's shoulders, and she feels like a murderer. She abandons her steady stride towards Ancient Runes and ducks into a nearby alcove, behind a tapestry.
A couple of fifth years are already occupying it, snogging, and they stare at her in disbelief and disgust as she comes barging in, disregarding their obvious wish for privacy.
"What the –" the boy gets out, sneering at her, and Hermione growls under her breath, in no mood.
"Five points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff!" she snaps at the pair of them. "Now get on to your classes, now, before I take another five points!" She sounds frighteningly like a shrill Snape, and a trembly kind of hysteria has taken her over as the students scuttle away looking resentful and as if she may be mad. She dumps her bag to the ground and whips out the Map, scanning it for Draco's name. She finds it, in the hospital wing, and it is utterly still for the three minutes she stares at it with barely a blink, trying to calm her ragged nerves and sickened stomach. It is the stillness that scares her and finally sets her into momentum again; what if he did something after hearing about his mother? What if he did something bad?
Hermione heads at a jog to the hospital wing, tamping down on the fear that rises up in her. What if he's hurt himself? What if he's fine, but he hates her? What if, what if…they swim through her mind until she feels dizzied and more nauseous than before. The fact that she has not seen him since the night she left him in chains in the Room only adds to her terror. There is no reason for him to have any feelings towards her bar hate, and yet here she is. Standing in the doorway to the infirmary and staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.
Draco sits by a bedside, his hands resting on the chair arms, staring straight ahead of him as though he is a statue. There is a body on the bed, but it is covered by a pristine white sheet, and Hermione suddenly loses all her nerve – she wants to turn and run and flee, and not have to face Draco, with that empty, blank look on his face that makes her spine creep. But she is a Gryffindor, and this is her fault, and she loves him, may Merlin damn her for a brainless idiot. She can't just walk away like a coward; she has to face the consequences of her choices. She can either comfort him, or offer him an outlet for his grief and anger, and either way it should help him, she hopes.
Hermione makes her feet move her forward, and her shoe scuffs on the floor and Draco's head snaps to her. The empty, blank look – like the door is open but nobody's home – disappears, to be replaced by a mask of anger that transforms him into someone else entirely. He shoves himself to his feet jerkily, like he's a malfunctioning robot, and stalks several steps toward Hermione. "You," he spits, like she is scum not worth scraping off his shoes, and his eyes are bloodshot and face blotchy from crying.
"I heard…" She all of a sudden doubts the wisdom of coming here, as he keeps stalking towards her furiously, and she scans the room for the reassurance of other people, and finds the place empty but for them. "I'm so sorry, Draco. I'm so, so sorry. I never – I didn't – I –"
He jerks to a halt, close enough that his breath is hot on her face as he looms over her, and a vein throbs at his temple. He looks at her like she is a stranger. Hermione swallows and tries again. "I couldn't let you do that to yourse–"
"You should have!" he roared suddenly and Hermione flinched back, cringed into herself. "You had no fucking right!" Draco's face is boiling red with the force of his rage and his voice deafens her. "It's your fault she's dead! Your fucking fault you mudblood bitch! I hate you!" He is right up in her face now, and she slides back a step, something small and warm in her chest being battered to nothing at his words, being bruised and broken and crumpled. A sob shudders from her lips, and tears fill up her eyes and begin to spill over.
"Bitch!" His hand shoots up and slams into her shoulder, and Hermione chokes on an inhale as shock seizes her – he pushed me, he pushed me – and she stumbles back a step. "Don't you dare cry! You haven't got the right! My mother is dead because of –" His voice cracks and breaks on dead and the rest is a hoarse rasp, and Hermione clamps her lips together hard and tries to stop her tears.
"I'm sorry," she whispers in a tiny, crushed little voice, her eyes focused on the left side of his chest as it rises and falls raggedly with his breath, afraid to meet his eyes for too many reasons. "I didn't think – I shouldn't have come up here…I'll go. I'm sorry."
Hermione spins and walks away unsteadily, tears making her vision waver and double. Draco doesn't stop her, just breathes hard and heavy behind her, as if he is held together by a thread that is swiftly unravelling. She hears a low choked sob before she pulls the infirmary door shut behind her, and then nothing. There is nothing.
Several days later she will stand and stare at Dumbledore's body, and again she will feel nothing. Like it was all for nothing. Draco, Narcissa, Snape, Dumbledore…everything Hermione did was for nothing. She will try to remind herself she saved Draco from committing murder and that is worth something, but she will have heard on the rumour mill that he has been deep in the bottle since his mother's death, lashing out at everyone and everything, barely coherent. Hermione will wonder if she actually managed to save Draco, or whether all she has done is break him in a different way.
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