Lunar Embrace - Twelfth Chapter

I promised, didn't I?

Hermione rolled over in her sleep, fingers brushing over something smooth and soft, her hands clutched at the fabric a moment later. Eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Fabric? Soft? She distinctly remembered falling asleep on a hard wood chair; the edges digging into her sides, body curled awkwardly with her cheek resting against the desk when her arms must have fallen off. She remembered-

Her eyes flew open, a terror pounding up her throat as she glanced around quickly. Breath already coming in quick awkward gasps. There was a blur of golds, red, white. It all danced in her vision as her mind spun, only coming to a halt when her gaze rested on the vanity mirror.

Taking in a breath she stared back at her reflection. Of her room, the sheets of the bed tucked up around her.

For a moment she had thought she was in his bed again, living through a round of nightmares each time her eyes closed, that he would be standing over her, waiting.

Seeing her own eyes looking back at her, and being in a place she considered relatively safe, until the events of Sunday that is. Drawing in a shaky breath she turned away from the mirror, her side eyes widening a moment later.

Oh, please. Please don't let it be him.

Not this soon.

She turned her head slowly to look at the door frame, to find him standing there in that black robe she had seen from the corner of her eye. "Barty." she had tried to make her voice sound calm but instead it came out shaking and she could feel her whole body trembling like a leaf just from the sight of him.

"Lose your Gryfindor courage over the week Hermione?" He sounded amused and she wondered how long he had been standing there, if he had been waiting for her to wake up.

She fought to keep her voice from shaking this time, after finding another reason for her to be shivering like she was. "No. I-it was-nightmare." Her voice seemed to have just shaken more and she clamped her jaw shut, hoping he wouldn't see past the lie. The last thing she needed was him knowing the effect he was having on her after everything he had put her through last weekend. Even that fever had been his fault, all those nightmares had been because of him. No matter what he said of it not being neccessary if she had just told him what he wanted to hear in the first place. He still wanted her to tell him about what the Order knew. She couldn't let him know how much going back to that room from hell scared her.

And yet, she was still shivering.

She forced herself to keep her eyes on him, even if it only seemed to make her body shake even more beneath the sheets. He was staring at her, as if considering the words. She resisted the urge to look away from him even as her fingers shook and she curled them under the covers to try and atleast stop their movement. "Is that what it is?"

"What else would it be from?"

He smirked at her words and Hermione felt her heart leapt into her throat. Did he- No. No, he couldn't possibly know the reason for it. When he stepped into the room she focused on keeping herself from moving. Even as he made his way to the bedside, the bed dipping slightly when he sat down on the surface. Her eyes widened in the next moment though, because his hands were suddenly on her and she had to drive the urge to scream down her throat.

His fingers gripped her shoulders, pulling her up from her horizontal position on the bed. One hand dropping only for her to feel his arm around her waist, moving her across the bed toward him. Her back was pressed to his chest in seconds, both arms now secured around her waist, a finger dipping beneath the waistline to rub at her hip bone. She stared down at it, watching the circles being drawn there through... lace. Lace? When had that happened? When had she- Her eyes widened as realization flashed through her. "You changed my clothes."

"Tucked you in bed too, or would you have liked to continue to sleep on the floor? Didn't look very comfortable from where I was standing." She didn't respond at first, her mind still stuck on the fact that he had changed her into something so revealing. It hardly even covered most of her body and was see-through in the thinnest places. The top held in place by a string of lace over each shoulder as it flowed over her to stop where his hands rested. She sucked in a breath after seeing the bottom half stop before so much as touching her thighs, it was much too short, something she would have never imagined herself wearing before this. "Something wrong?"

"You changed my cothes." It was all she could manage to say for a moment. "With magic."

"Yes to the first, no to the second." She stiffened in his grip, bile rising in her throat. Just thinking about him removing each piece of fabric from her body to replace it with this made her feel sick. That his hands had been all over her while she was out cold from exhaustion. The fact that they were on her now, her body pressed against his only made the feeling increase in the pit of her stomach.

Taking in a breath she managed to ask, "Why?" After waiting a few seconds for him to give no response she pressed on, "I'm a muggleborn."

This time there was a low chuckle at her ear. "No. You're mine." At first she thought her own skin had crawled at the words, then she felt how his hand had slipped under the top to rest on her stomach. There was a nudge of skin at her left cheek but she was too shocked to fight him, her head moving over to the right, feeling her hair tucked behind her shoulder, slowly as both of his hands were occupied.

She still felt herself tremble from his actions. "Stop shivering." The words were soft against her ear but she couldn't stop herself from shaking in his grasp. "Close your eyes." For a moment she stared at the sheet of the bed, then the lids of her eyes cast down and she only saw darkness. "What do you see?"

Hermione whimpered softly in her throat not sure what he wanted her to say. The light in the room wasn't bright enough for her to see even with her eyes closed, and besides the dark there was nothing. It took her a second but she forced her mouth to work, "Nothing."

There was another brush of skin over her cheek, rising up along her jaw bone back to her ear in the seconds of silence that followed. The bottom of her earlobe was tugged only slightly, it took her a moment to realize he had gripped it between his lips. "What do you feel?"

She thought over the question for a second, but she must have gotten the last one right or else he wouldn't have asked a different one. If he wasn't looking for a riddle of an answer like she had first believed then it had to be something else simple. She repeated the question in her mind, what do I feel?

Circles were still being rubbed into her hip from his fingers. Her legs ensnared in a rougher fabric than the blankets of the bed, his robe then, one of the legs beneath it lying over her own. Stomach warm from the presence of his skin against her flesh. The repeated press of breath over her cheek, almost rhythmic. Everything she felt was from him in one way or another, her own fingers touching the robe rather than the sheets of the bed that was now beneath her. "You."

Her earlobe was tugged on again and she took it to mean she had answered correctly or atleast in his favor. "What do you hear?"

Focusing on her surroundings she became aware of the crackle of fire from above in the chandelier. The soft pops the flame made as it burned the candles. The wax of which would be sliding down the sides quietly. She would be able to see it if she opened her eyes. Instead she just focused harder and the sound of the fire slowly drew into the background.

It was his breathing that broke the following silence. Softer than a whisper against her skin. She only turned her head ever so slightly, cheek pressing to his robe, hearing the soft rustle of the fabric when she leaned into it. There was another sound beneath that, beating like a steady drum and she focused on it. On his heart. She kept focusing till even that was drowned in silence. Leaving her in the dark, cocooned in his arms, surrounded by dead air.

"Nothing." She whispered in return, barely aware of how her body had stopped shaking. How the span of time between tremors kept lengthening until it was eventually nonexistent.

"Can you listen to me?"

His words peirced the quiet and she didn't say anything for a moment, shocked by the sound. "Yes."

"Only me?"

"Yes."

Lips were pressed to her cheek, then to the bridge of her nose, moving up to settle on her forehead and she leaned into the soft touches. The only other prescence with her in the dark, his voice filling the empty void. The lingering touch at her waist had moved down past the lace to her leg. A nail pressing over the skin, moving slowly across the expanse of flesh, leaving only a soft pleasant feeling behind it that lingered for mere seconds.

"Do you know my name?"

Hermione turned at the feel of his lips now brushing over her left cheek with every syllable spoken. "Barty." The corner of her lips brushed against his and she stopped in her movement.

"Do you know my full name?"

A small thrill ran through her with each brush of those lips and she answered, "Bartemius Nyle Crouch Junior." She paused. "Like the river."

His chuckle ran like streams of water over her skin, down her throat, leaving rivulets crawling down in the pattern of the lace. "Yes, like the river."

She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, wanting nothing but to focus on those words, to drink them in.

"Would you like me to tell you about it?"

For a moment her lips remained parted. The idea of just listening, of just feeling that nail repeatedly dragged up and down her leg, it was too good to pass up. "Yes, please."

She felt his lips move back up to her ear, brushing over her skin periodically as he had already started speaking in the same soft tones. Soon he was whispering directly into her ear and she drank each word in, a shiver running it's way down her spine as he described each area it passed through so she could picture the lands perfectly even though she had never been to any of them.

The painted landscapes in her mind vanished within seconds after he stopped describing them to her. Leaving her to see nothing but darkness again, mind focusing on the way his hands roamed over her body. The hand on her leg had moved to her arm, the one on her stomach tracing the patterns of the lace ontop of the fabric. She had the overwhelming urge to stay like that, to just sew her eyes shut so she could stay in the darkness with nothing but his whispers to sate her need for company.

His finger had stopped at her shoulder just before he said, "Show me." She hardly had to think to know what he was referring to. Hermione tipped her head toward him, raising a hand to brush her hair over her shoulder, exposing the right side of her neck. His hand trailed up past her shoulder, finger running along the scar, his-and now her's-initial. "You know what this means?"

Of course she did. She had always known the moment he carved it into her skin. "That I'm yours." She shivered when his finger pressed against her collarbone. "Only yours."

"And?" His lips were on her forehead again.

"I'm a part of the Crouch family. That I'm married to you."

For awhile she just felt him tracing the scar over and over again, she was sure it was turning a shade of red. "I'm going to ask you a few things, and I need you to answer them. Okay?"

Hermione took in a slow breath when his hand raised to trace around her breast. "Okay." She whispered.

"Where does the Order usually have it's meetings?"

She opened her mouth but stopped, she tried again a second later before frowning. "I can't say." Even so she tried again, "I... it's in... there's a... a secr-"

"Shh. Don't strain yourself." Fingers trailed through her hair, pressing lightly into her scalp. "Who's the secret keeper?" Her tongue couldn't seem to move for a moment. "Hermione?" She gasped, his fingers had just slid around her throat, tracing little crescents the whole time.

"Mad-Eye."

Those lips pressed at the corner of her closed eye. "How did you know about Remus?"

"He came to the Weasely household when we were discussing-they were discussing marriages. The twins marriages." She paused, feeling her heart start to beat louder as the memory surfaced. "Remus came barging in from the door bleeding, we-they-surrounded him, to try and stop it, the bleeding. I-i-"

"Hermione," his tongue was tracing her ear, fingers moving over her breast, tracing that scar again, touching at the bite mark, "come back to me."

With a soft whimper she followed his voice back to the darkness and away from the grim scene forming in her head. She raised a hand to grasp at the cloth of his robe, to feel his fingers slide over hers barely a second later, leaving her chest feeling cold in it's absence. "Thank you."

"Can you tell me what he saw?"

Her fingers clutched back at his. "A box."

"Do you know what it looked like?"

"Like a puzzle. A puzzle box. They said it emanated dark energy."

"Who's they?"

"Ron and Ginny, they oveheard the Order with a pair of extendable ears."

"Does anyone else know they were listening?"

"They were caught." There was a soft hum in her ear. Parting her lips she began, "I... I compared it to Pandora's box. They said Remus had seen it soaking in some kind of spell."

There was a pause. "Do they know what it does?"

"No. Ron and Ginny don't. The Order might. That's when they were caught."

"If they come up with something, will you tell me?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

She just burrowed into his chest. "My head hurts." Fingers were pressing at her scalp again, moving slowly. Lips pressed to her forehead. "Please, don't ask me anything else Barty."

"Just one more, okay?" She nodded. "Do you trust me?"

Her lips seemed to stay parted for a long time, it felt like hours, though it was really close to a minute. "I..." she took in a breath. "I don't know."

"Good enough. Go to sleep."

A sigh of relief past her lips and she reached her other hand up to curl into his robe, pressing her cheek firmly to the cloth before slipping into a dream.

When her eyes opened she spent a good amount of time staring at the dark fabric infront of her, up until she noticed the way her whole body seemed to be rising and falling in gentle waves. Her eyes raised slowly to see Barty's head leaning against the headboard. His chest still rised in an even manner so her slightl movement obviously hadn't woken him.

The thought of keeping still flew out of her mind before it could really settle there. Hermione just stared at him, her eyes widening every passing second. Her hand moved quickly to clasp over her mouth to keep the scream from bubbling up, a sob still broke through.

She had told him everything, more then she had ever meant too. The words had come freely from her, not a one tortured from her body. Her fingers parted and she sobbed again as her eyes felt hot, tears quickly overflowing to run down her cheeks. She... She raised both her hands to rub at her eyes, to stop the tears, but they still fell. How could she have done that? How could he-

"Hermione?"

Her eyes widened at the realization he was awake and she just cried harder, her whole frame shaking with each sob that racked her body. Raising her hands she pounded at his chest. "I hate you." she repeated with each strike. "I fucking hate you." Another sob racked her body and soon she couldn't get the words out anymore.

His arms had wrapped around her in that time, draped over both her waist and chest, pinning her arms down so they no longer connected with his chest. "Shh." She turned her head, burying her face in it as tears streamed down her face. Something soft was pressed to the top of her head and the tears just came down faster. She kept cryng until finally she didn't have the energy and the world of dreams took her again, still nestled within his arms, clutching at his fingers and wrists.