Edited 10/11/15

25. Hot as a Fever

Soft lips are open
Knuckles are pale
It feels like you're dyin'
Hot as a fever
Rattlin' bones
I could just taste it
Taste it
If it's not forever
If it's just tonight
We still had the greatest time of my life

[Sex on Fire, Kings of Leon]

Hermione's tiny room was filled with the sound of their ragged breaths, and her face was burning hot as she slid her hand up and down Draco's cock. She couldn't believe she was touching it. Touching it. And despite everything Hermione had read in Muggle books on the subject, she really had no idea what she was doing. She was terrified she might be doing it wrong and she knew Draco was...experienced...and she didn't want to not do it right. Didn't want him to think she was...she didn't know, but she wanted to please him. Like everything Hermione did, she wanted to be good at it. She wanted to be the best. Hermione thought of Pansy Parkinson with her pug face and nasty stupid manners, and jealous anger spun through her. Hermione wouldn't be able to stand it if Draco compared the two of them in his mind, and Hermione came up lacking. From Draco's reaction so far though, Hermione smiled smugly to herself, she thought that she was doing okay.

Draco's fingers clutched convulsively at Hermione's back whenever she gently twisted her hand just so, and his splinted arm pressed hard against her side. His tongue was tracing the shell of her ear, teeth nipping at the lobe, and little growls of incoherent pleasure escaped his lips, breath hot on her ear, the sounds vibrating through her bones. His hips jerked against her hand in small movements she suspected were involuntary - and god that she could do that to him was so hot - and her hand squeezed tighter, drawing a low moan from him that made the hairs stand up on the back of Hermione's neck, her skin rippling with goosebumps. She whimpered low and shaky, eyes sliding shut and legs feeling weak and trembly.

"I - we...are you - you sure...we don't have to...this..." Draco tried to speak and then faltered and failed, nuzzling his face into her hair instead, fingers twitching weakly against Hermione's back as she gently twisted her hand up and down the length of his cock, marvelling at how she could feel the big vein thrumming with blood at the very base, at how silky his skin was, how hot it was compared to the rest of him. How big he felt, and the part of her mind that wasn't muddled with nervous, excited need, wondered if he was really big, or if they would all seem big to her because she hadn't seen one like this before. Or if it seemed big because she wasn't looking at it and it just felt bigger than it looked. Inquiring minds wanted to know; Hermione thought deliriously and stifled a shaky giggle by grabbing his hair with her free hand and pulling his mouth away from her tingling neck to her lips.

Draco made a satisfied sound when his lips met hers, and kissed her thoroughly. Hermione melted against him - melted into his tongue and his teeth nibbling her lip and his hand kneading her bum through her jeans. The rhythm she'd slipped into of how to move her hand on him skittered to a stuttering halt, all her focus seized by the kiss. Wet and hot, and his lips were soft, and his tongue laced shivers down her spine and sparked pulsing need that made her slick with arousal. She wanted him to touch her there. Wanted his hand - oh god his mouth - on her. Wanted to come from his tongue on her clit and his fingers inside her; but there was no way she could ask, face ablaze at just the thought of saying the words aloud.

Hermione dragged her fingers from where they twined in Draco's hair and whispered them down his temple, over soft skin to the faintly stubbled roughness of his jaw, up along the line of his cheekbone. He pulled away and stared at her intently with eyes that were awash with inky pupils; irises the darkened grey of thunderclouds.

"Fuck that's good," he mumbled and Hermione's shallow breaths caught in her throat, eyes pinned to his as her hand moved up and down on his cock. Her chest felt tight and she licked her lips.

"Really?"

Draco smirked at the hopeful hesitancy in her tone, dropped a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose. "Fuck yes." He sighed and his fingers drew lazy, aimless patterns on her back.

"I've never... You can tell me if I'm not doing it right..." Hermione felt embarrassment wash over her and she wanted to duck her eyes from Draco's, but he looked so gorgeous and she couldn't look away. His pale skin was flushed, his lips reddened and swollen from their kisses and the way Hermione loved to nibble and suck on his bottom lip, and he looked at her like he wanted to eat her. Like she was prey, and the thought sent the most delicious feeling of excited, nervous want through her, making her belly flip and her heart quicken.

"You're over-thinking things again, Hermione," Draco murmured and nuzzled against her ear, breath hot. "Stop it." It was an order, growled low and half-teasing and Hermione whimpered and swayed against him, quivering, head reverberating with the way he had sounded. Stop it. Merlin, he could tell her to do anything right now, and she would do it.

She wanted him so badly.

"Fuck, I want to see you," he said urgently, and his hand went to the buttons on Hermione's shirt and her heart started lub-dubbing so hard, goosebumps springing up where his fumbling fingers made the material of her shirt scrape against her skin. Every sense felt like it was intensified, and she was exquisitely aware of how shamelessly wet she was, how much she ached and throbbed for him. Hermione had never realised it was possible to be this aroused; this mindlessly, desperately wanting. Her fingers trailed down his cock inside the confines of his jockeys, up and down, light and teasing, distracting him from his efforts with her shirt.

"Fuck," Draco swore in frustration, his one hand tugging at her shirt buttons. She looked down and saw he'd only managed to undo one, and it was hanging raggedly on its threads after his impatient efforts.

"Draco..." She could do it. He didn't need to get frustrated - she could do it. She wanted to say it but she bit her tongue. Hermione knew through the haze of lust fizzing in her brain that the fact that she could do it for him didn't matter - Draco wanted to be able to do it himself. Empathy welled up in her; he could never get away from the disadvantages of losing his hand, nor, no doubt, the memories that went along with the wound. Even now, during this - when things should be easy and thoughtless and good not some stupid struggle - Draco couldn't do what he wanted to. Couldn't forget.

Hermione stroked the back of his head soothingly, his hair silky under her touch, and he gave up, burying his face into the side of her neck, nuzzling her wild hair and soft skin.

"Shit. Fucking hand," he hissed, full of frustration, and sucked at her throat, tongue circling her skin.

"It's all right," Hermione murmured, and he didn't answer - still sucking and lapping at her neck just below her ear, making her shiver and tingle, nerve endings buzzing on overload.

Draco's hand sought up beneath her shirt, fingers crawling from her stomach up to her breasts only to encounter the barrier of her bra.

"Damnit," he whined into her neck. "Why do you have to wear so many fucking things?" Hermione let go of his cock and pulled her hand out of his jockeys, and he groaned. "Oh fuck, don't stop, please, Hermione, please..." Hermione felt a thrill and the sudden urge to just grab her wand and vanish their clothes, and devour him with her mouth and hands. Did he have any idea how hot he sounded when he pleaded like that; half-begging, half-ordering?

"My shirt," she whispered huskily, voice not working right and mouth lust-dry, and Draco let her go abruptly. Hermione gasped at his sudden movement and swayed on her feet, watching him as he shrugged off his shirt, toed off his boots and socks, and kicked off his jeans, retreating a step to the wall and leaning against it. He watched Hermione intently as her hands went to her shirt buttons.

Hermione pushed her hair off her face and undid her shirt with trembling fingers, feasting her eyes on Draco. He leaned against the wall so close to being naked he might as well be, torso pale in the overcast afternoon light. Shoulders broad and no longer as thin as they had been, chest smooth, the old scars from his mistreatment at Voldemort's hands healed by one of the Machi sent by the Warlock of Chiloé, leaving only the cruel swirling scars Bellatrix had etched into the right side of his abdomen with her cursed blade.

The pattern could have been almost pretty from a distance if Hermione hadn't known how he had gotten it. The horror contained within the pretty swirls, those thin dark purple-red marks that looked like some sort of strange Muggle body modification. Except unlike the Muggles who got such things, Draco hadn't wanted them. They had hurt him. They had tortured him and marked him, and even if the other scars were gone now, his memories weren't. Hermione's chest was seized with a sudden sharp ache as she stared at him, teeth unconsciously gnawing at her lower lip.

And then Hermione's last button came undone and her shirt fell open. She shrugged it off, and stood there in jeans and bra, heart juddering and racing, breath coming short and shallow. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. Draco jerked his head at her body.

"Take your bra off." There was an undertone of pleading in his rough order that made Hermione's insides quiver like jelly, and she unhooked her plain cotton bra, slid it off her shoulders and dropped it on the floor. Stood completely topless in front of him for only the second time, and she felt sick with nerves. Hermione wanted to cover herself - not her breasts but her scars, and her eyebrows scrunched together and her eyes slid away from his. Her arms tried fruitlessly to cover the words carved into her flesh.

Mudblood across her chest, and carved smaller again on her stomach, with whore scrawled in tiny messy slashes half across the Mudblood. The insides of her forearms read Slut on the right and Mudblood yet again on the left, in small, barely decipherable scrawl. Hermione felt tears sting hot behind her eyes.

"What...? Hermione?" Draco pushed himself off from the wall, stepped over to her and looked down at her face, his hand stroking over her cheek, thumb dragging across her lower lip. "What's wrong?" The glazed lust had faded from Draco's eyes and they were stone grey and concerned, and Hermione berated herself for ruining the moment, for being stupid.

Hermione should be used to the scars by now. She looked at them in the mirror every single day - read the mirror-backward letters, mouthed them silently to herself, traced the thin ridges with her fingers. She shouldn't still feel a flush of hot shame and fear when she saw them by herself, when she realised they were exposed so plainly in front of Draco. Surely after all these months Hermione should be desensitised. Why wasn't she? She couldn't figure it out, and it galled her. Mostly Hermione tried not to think about it, and with everything else that had been going on - Draco, the war, Draco and her - Hermione had managed to not dwell too much on the way Bellatrix had mutilated her.

But every time Hermione took a shower, she still automatically went through her brief ritual examination of the cursed scars - and as her fingers traced the letters, she remembered vividly for a moment the warm damp feeling of her jeans after wetting herself during Cruciatus. While Draco watched. Remembered the way her throat had gone raw from screaming. And Draco had done nothing. Remembered how she had wanted to die. He hadn't killed her - although that was one thing she was glad of now. She remembered Draco terrified and revolted by the torture happening in front of him. Remembered the horror Draco had briefly shown at the idea that Bellatrix was offering Hermione up for him to rape. But Hermione's memory was coloured and altered by what she knew of Draco now, and pity and love softened the muddled feelings of resentment and anger toward him that her memory tried to resurrect.

When she realised they were all exposed, and he was seeing them, it brought back all the memories. Pain, terror, humiliation, feeling ugly. Filthy mudblood. He had been there. She would carry the scars forever. And he had seen it happen. Seen her humiliation, her punishment for having filthy blood. Hermione lowered her eyes as she spoke, "I just don't like you seeing them."

"Seeing what?"

"The scars..." she said in a small voice, and Draco made a short sound filled with both aching sympathy and frustration, pressed his lips gently on her forehead.

"I've seen them before, Hermione," he said softly, thumb caressing her cheek, "Why are you trying to hide them now?" Hermione shrugged, arms plastered across herself.

"I've never - we've never... I've never thought about it before," she said stupidly, feeling like an idiot. Like an idiot child. Draco had seen the scars before, but at the times he had, Hermione hadn't really thought of them. She had been too busy having her brain shattered into pieces by his touch. But now, now, having just stood in the middle of her bedroom slowly unbuttoning her shirt with him watching her like a predatory half-starved lion...she was acutely aware of them. Why now? Why did her stupid brain have to click to the fact that Draco could see Hermione's shame and fear now?

Why couldn't she have stayed lust-hazed and blissfully oblivious?

He stared at her for a long moment; she could feel his eyes like lead weights on her for a long moment, even with her own tear-filled eyes mostly glued to the floor. She let her eyelids fall shut, tears beading heavy and wet on her lashes, the silence in her tiny room all-consuming. And then there was a rustle and a whisper of air, and the unexpected feel of crisp cotton around her shoulders and back. Hermione opened her eyes and saw him awkwardly pulling his shirt around her; big enough that even draped clumsily around her shoulders it covered her torso, save a thin strip of creamy pale flesh down the middle of her body, from her neck to her jeans.

Draco tugged and pulled at his shirt fussily, trying to cover her completely while he muttered something under his breath, eyes dark and lips a tense line. His cock was still hard and Hermione's eyes skittered over it, feeling fragile and trembly, like she wanted to cling to him and cry and cry and cry. And some of the flood would be tears of surprised relief. Draco hadn't protested her discomfort, hadn't tried to convince her to leave her shirt off. He had just shut his mouth and covered her, what he wanted set aside for now. And Hermione knew he wanted to see her body. Draco wanted her naked and splayed out before him, pliable and eager, without any bloody insecurities about her body. But Hermione couldn't help it.

"I'm sorry. I want to, I just...I don't like showing them. I feel... I'm sorry I ruined it." Her voice was a whisper, and Draco looked at her sharply, a spark of a smirk on his face.

"You aren't off the hook that easily, Hermione." She furrowed her forehead, confused out of her mingled guilt and insecurity for a moment.

"What? What do you...?" Hermione trailed off as comprehension stole over her. Draco's fingers played with the button on her jeans, fiddling with it, ever so slowly easing it through the buttonhole. He looked at her while he did it, eyes thunder and silver, with that small knowing smirk on his face that made Hermione feel clenching pulses wrench through her insides, made her flesh twitch and slick wet dampened her knickers, and her skin went shivery all over.

"No scars down here, right?" he asked and there was a dangerous mischief in the curl of Draco's tongue behind his teeth as he grinned. Not a smile, no; he was baring his teeth, not smiling. Like he wanted to eat her, Hermione thought, and blushed brilliant red.

Oh god, he did.

He did.

"N-no scars," she whispered and her voice shook and the button popped free, and his strong, elegant fingers drew the zipper down as he stared into her eyes. She felt like she couldn't breathe, even though she was. Hermione's hand came up to her chest beneath his shirt, wrist twisting around so she could clutch the shirt closed, and she could feel her heart thud-thud-thudding against the skin and muscle and ribs that encased it. Draco's hand gripped the top of Hermione's jeans at her left hip and tugged, and she grabbed the right side and pulled with him, and her jeans slid down, over her bum, down her thighs; crumpling around her ankles. And she was in her cheap blue cotton knickers and his shirt, standing in front of him while his hand gripped the soft curve of her hip, and his eyes were devouring her.

Her knickers were next, whisked down her legs by Draco's rough fingers, and she gasped as his fingers traced over her thigh, perilously close to the short vee of fuzz at the apex of her thighs; there wasn't a lot of time for personal grooming while fighting a war. Not that Hermione had ever been a meticulous Brazilian type of girl anyway. There was no way she would ever go get a Muggle wax - far too embarrassing - and the magical methods all sounded too prone to going horribly, terribly wrong. She didn't want some twisted genital version of the Polyjuice Incident to take place. And after all, Hermione had told herself after the chances of anything happening between her and Ron had melted away, it wasn't like anyone was going to see it. She felt flushed with nervous embarrassment, but Draco was staring at her there and the look on his face was anything but dissatisfaction.

Hermione's legs trembled as Draco reached out and his fingers just stroked over her, and her fingers spasmed around the handful of shirt she had. He hadn't even touched her clit; his mere proximity to it was enough to make her weak at the knees.

"Fuck, Hermione," he ground out as his hand slipped between her legs and his fingers slid over her slick, hot flesh - so wet, god she was so wet - and she gasped at his touch and swayed into him, her free hand grabbing at his arm and he nearly overbalanced. He wrapped his broken arm around her tight to hold her steady and drew sharp breath as it took her weight while she steadied herself.

"Shit. Fucking arm," Draco swore, and his fingers dragged firm over the exquisitely sensitive flesh between her legs as he drew his hand away and grabbed her shoulder, holding her firm.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," Hermione gasped, waves of arousal ripping through her like electric shocks from his touch as she buried her face against the smooth skin of his chest and breathed. Just breathed, trying to get her racing heart under control.

"Bed," Draco said harshly, and pushed Hermione backward with his fingers digging into her shoulder, and the back of her legs hit the bed and she tumbled onto it, feet tangled in her pants and knickers, wriggled her feet to kick them off, mind whirling and blurred. She was fallen back on the bed propped up on her hands, naked other than his shirt, which had fallen open, her legs sprawled apart and Draco staring down at her with something burning and urgent in his eyes. Hermione flushed and clamped her knees together.

His hand came up to cover her knee, smoothing over it and up her thigh, fingers tickling and sensitising. He tried to gently pry her knees apart, and she almost let him, but then she pressed them harder together. What was he going to do? Her eyes went to his mouth; those full lips, and was he going to...? Her breath rattled in her throat and she was terrified. No one had ever... No one had ever done that before. What if he didn't...what if she wasn't...she was flushed red and hot and embarrassed and she wanted him to, but she was so scared.

"Hermione." His eyes were on her, steady and calm, but Merlin, the way he said her voice sent thrills jolting through her, and Hermione shivered and stared at him helplessly.

"I want to...but..." Her eyes slid shut and her fists clenched.

"Lie down," he told her and she did it with a stifled whimper, but her mind raced as her head nestled on the pillow, eyes still screwed shut, knees still jammed together. His fingers trailed the outside of her leg, from ankle to hip, dipping around at the top to brush his fingertips over the short curls that were visible despite her squashed together legs. She jolted at his touch and then his fingers ran away down again, down from the top of her thigh to her knee. How many people had Draco slept with? The thought flashed through her head suddenly. The bloody princeling of Slytherin house throughout most of his school years, Draco would have been able to get any girl he wanted. Hermione knew he must have slept with Pansy at least. She told herself she wasn't jealous, even as jealousy and insecurity swept through her in a sickening wave.

His hand tried to tug her knees apart again, but Hermione was lost in a spiral of negativity. What if she wasn't good enough? What if Draco wanted someone better, someone more experienced? He probably thought Hermione was being so bloody stupid acting like this; so nervous over something he'd probably done with Pansy dozens of times. Now Hermione just felt ill, and she squeezed her eyes tighter shut, clenched her fists harder.

"I want to..." She whispered again, telling herself not to over-think things, like he always said, and heard him sigh in response and fear and self-reproof seized her. He was sick of her uncertainty, sick of trying to reassure her. He was going to go. He...

"Shove over." Something prodded her side and Draco's voice, resigned but not annoyed, cut through Hermione's growing internal panic. She wriggled over and opened her eyes as Draco stretched out on the bed next to her, propped on his broken arm with only the deep crease between his brows and a slight twist to his lips showing his discomfort.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and let her death-grip on his shirt go, hand coming up to cup the side of his face, cradle the sharp angle of his jaw.

"You think too much," Draco said and kissed her softly, tenderly. Lips warm on hers and tongue probing delicately, and Hermione kissed him back eager and hungry, the tension and worry shuddering out of her as he gently pushed her hair off her face. Traced his finger over the shell of her ear. Slid his hand around to cradle her neck. This was familiar, this was safe; this, Hermione could do without thinking. Warm licks of flame leaped to life in her core, and she hummed with happy pleasure into his mouth.

"Let me," Draco pulled away and looked into Hermione's eyes, fingers dancing lightly down over his shirt to the crux of her body. Kissed her again and his palm smoothed over her mound, fingers curling down, pressing against her clit and she gasped and her hips lifted an inch off the bed.

"Let me," he sucked on her bottom lip and swept his tongue over it, nibbled and his eyes were pinned to hers and they were dark as thunder and granite and shot through with silver frost, and his finger slid and moved on her clit and she gasped.

"Oh..." She tensed and his tongue dipped into her mouth, distracting her again and Hermione didn't know if she should be glad or annoyed that he was distracting her. Relaxing her. Stopping her from thinking. Oh god. Glad, definitely glad.

"Let me." Draco's voice was a low, harsh whisper, and the words were more an order than a plea. Hermione whimpered. He suckled at the very tip of Hermione's tongue and her womb clenched and her clit throbbed and her hips jerked sharply, pressing her clit against his fingers, and her thoughts shattered to nothing.

"Oh," Hermione mewled muffled into his mouth as two fingers moved in tiny circles over her clit and sent pulsing, seizing lust through her, and her hips bucked up again and her hands grabbed his hair, his shoulders, pulling him half on top of her, kissing him wet and clumsily, moans shivering out of her mouth into his. It was good. Fingers on her clit, circling fast and her breath came quicker and quicker and her hips jerked and her legs started trembling involuntarily and Draco was still kissing her, both of them distracted and clumsy but every swipe of his tongue made her belly coil tighter with that delicious tension, made moans and whimpers spill from her lips helplessly.

"Merlin, you're so fucking wet," he groaned low and rough as his fingers drifted away from her clit, tracing down over slickness to dip a fingertip just...barely...not quite...in, and Hermione gasped and stiffened at the sensation. Oh. More. More, she wanted more.

Her hips jutted up again and she mewled unashamedly, trying to push herself onto his finger, her hand fisted in Draco's hair dragging at it without thought, hard and rough and she didn't care, she just wanted him.

"Are you? I mean...have you...done this before?" he asked her, concern and urgency, drawing back and looking down at her, faces so close that his fringe tickled her forehead, his breath warm on her cheek.

"N-no..." Hermione stammered, her hand gripping his shoulder hard as his finger slowly swirled around her entrance, his thumb rubbing over her clit teasingly. Draco went red.

"So you still, um, have your maidenhead, then?" He was suddenly nervous and worried, and Hermione choked back a giggle, surprised out of the heady lust that had washed away her thoughts. Maidenhead? Sometimes the wizarding world was so horribly old-fashioned. She shook her head, and she would have blushed if she hadn't already been hot and flushed from everything.

"No. No, I don't." Draco's fingers never stopped moving, but he looked confused.

"But I thought you just said...?" Hermione rasped an impatient sigh, pelvis still tipping up against his touch, thrills still running through her, but muted now. He was distracting her. Shut up and do it, she begged him in her head.

"You don't have to...you know...to not have your, ah, maidenhead." She felt stupid saying that archaic word, and Draco looked no less confused, fingers pausing in their motions.

"But -"

Hermione whined in frustration. "I'm not about to give you a lesson on the hymen right bloody now, Draco. Just...please..." He smirked as she begged him, looking arrogant and smug, and every inch a Malfoy, and god Hermione loved him so much. She told him that as he eased his finger slowly, tantalisingly into her, told him in a drawn out shuddering breath, and he kissed her throat and said in a low, tight voice:

"Fuck Hermione, you feel so good," which wasn't exactly 'I love you' but it would do. And his finger was sliding in and out of her, and it felt so much better than when she did it, and every muscle in her body was taut as a bow string, and her bum was off the bed as she dug her heels into the mattress and arched up into his touch, his thumb moving rhythmic and quick over her clit.

"Oh fuck, oh god so good...ohmigod Draco...good...so - so..." Hermione moaned words jumbled and strained, her throat feeling tight and raw and her hand pulling at his hair and his mouth on her throat, licking and sucking as his fingers brought her closer and closer, building and tensing and her body was pulsing. And then he stopped.

"Draco...!" she whinged and dragged at his hair, and he grabbed her hand, hissing.

"Shit Hermione, stop fucking doing that. It hurts. I'm not made of bloody stone, you know." And she let go of his hair and her stomach flipped horribly as she felt awful for hurting him and ruining the moment and...and then somehow he had slithered down the bed - Slytherin slithering, she thought deliriously - and his wet, hot mouth was on her clit...

"Oh god..." Hermione's thighs involuntarily clamped either side of Draco's head, and her hands went back to his hair, trying to remember not to rip it out by the roots but his tongue was rough and hot and wet and she flinched with every rasping lap and her legs shook and she couldn't stop them, and she was so...soooo close.

Two fingers now, pushing into her, filling her, long and curving inside her, towards her belly, and a fire lit in her, exquisite and overwhelming and the soles of her feet felt like they were burning deliciously and her neck arched and her head drove back into the pillow, and Draco's tongue stopped moving and her muddled brain heard him say,"Hair, Hermione," and Hermione released her death-grip, grabbing the corners of her pillow instead and mewling at the ceiling. He - he was...it was...so...so... Her brain had fallen apart and all she could think was what she could feel, and all she could feel was what he made her feel. So good. So good. Oh so good. Draco's tongue laving figure eights over her clit and his fingers slowly thrusting and curling inside her and her abdomen quivering, muscles spasming and her eyes slammed shut, mouth open as she gasped for jagged, wrenching breath.

And then Draco clamped his mouth down and sucked, sucked on her clit with his tongue still swirling over it, and Hermione gave a low, choked moan and tipped over the edge. Pleasure. Pleasure wrenched through her body, ragged and consuming, waves of it, seizing her unresisting and flooding her with oh god oh god oh holy fuck.

"Draco..." Hermione gasped his name as her hips twitched and jerked and her legs shook and slammed shut on his head and her hands were vices on the pillow, and her clit washed heat and good over her and her womb clenched and her flesh twitched hard and rhythmic around his fingers and her toes curled. "Oh god, Draco..." Visceral, delicious, consuming pleasure - Hermione's muscles seizing and her whole body racked with pulsing, spasming pleasure for a long, delicious moment. Then; satiation. Fulfilment. Perfection.

Hermione went limp, hands releasing the pillow, legs falling open as Draco withdrew his fingers, feeling delectably sated, heart still pounding hard. Aftershocks juddered through her every few seconds, and Hermione gasped in a deep, slow breath, rubbing her hands over her face, blinking hard, trying to clear her fogged head. "That was...amazing..." she murmured and opened her eyes. Draco was there, between her legs. Placed a kiss on her clit, and she jerked and shuddered.

"Too sensitive," she mumbled, flushing, and Draco grinned at her, licking his lips theatrically. He looked so bloody smug. Such a Slytherin, typical Malfoy; she deliriously accused in her head, and he kept smirking at her.

"Aren't you glad you let me, Hermione?"

"Yes," she said small and whimpering and desperate before she could stop herself, and his smirk spread.

"It was..." she trailed off and brushed his fringe out of his gorgeous grey eyes. Everything looked perfect. Everything was right with the world for one, wonderful moment. Draco's hand rested flat palm down on her lower belly, and he rested his chin on the back of his hand, lazy and relaxed, still looking so smug she would want to slap him if she didn't love him - if he hadn't just done that. They lay there quietly for a moment. Draco opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, shifted his jaw side to side like it ached and Hermione realised it probably did after all that, and felt slightly guilty.

Draco shifted his hand and pushed his fingers through his hair gingerly, resting his cheek on the soft skin of her abdomen, sighing softly, the faint stubble on his jaw rasping on her stomach as he nuzzled his face against her.

"I'm sorry about your hair - pulling your hair." Hermione felt like her limbs were leaden, her mind fuzzy and contentment swamping her.

"Completely understandable," Draco said dryly - she thought; it was hard to tell what his tone was with his face squooshed into her stomach like that. "I didn't mind." Draco paused. "Well, actually, yes I did mind, but...it's fine, Hermione." He made a growling sound in the back of his throat and nuzzled at her belly.

"Fuck you're delicious." And then he bit the slight jut of her pelvic bone on her left side and she squeaked with surprise. "But too thin." Draco smoothed his hand over her side, the slight bony bump where her pelvis jutted out, and Hermione mm-ed happily at the feel of his hand on her skin.

"I just have wide hips. Mum always said I had her child-bearing hips," she related idly, and then bit her lip, wondering if it was appropriate to bring up 'child-bearing hips' right now. Probably not.

"Huh," Draco said thoughtfully, and Hermione would have given a million galleons to find out what he was thinking right then. He crawled up the bed, half on top of her, and she felt him - it - hard against her leg as he scrambled limply over her and flopped onto the bed next to her. She realised belatedly that she had...had an orgasm, and he hadn't, not yet, anyway. Her palms went clammy with nerves as she gnawed at her lip. If he had done it for her...then she should...and she wanted to, Hermione realised. She wanted to see it, touch it - suck it. Make Draco feel the way he had made her feel.

"You," she said stupidly, and Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm?"

"You. You did all, um, that for me, and I haven't..." Hermione's hand went to his cock, sticking out hard inside his jockeys, and Draco smirked faintly, tucking his hand behind his head.

"Ah. That's true. Maybe you should get to that, then," he suggested archly and Hermione's heart thrummed like a frightened bird's wings. She didn't know quite how to start. She was so used to being good at everything, and right now everything was new and slightly terrifying and she was discovering that reading things in books didn't always stack up to firsthand experience. Hermione sat up, his shirt falling open further but she didn't think about it, except for noticing how it felt when her nipples brushed against the fabric. She indented her lower lip with her teeth, nibbling nervously as she pulled his jockeys down, and he lifted his hips slightly.

It bobbed up as soon as it was free, Draco's jockey shorts around his knees and he wriggled them further down his legs and toed them off and his cock bobbed every time he moved. Hermione's eyes fixed on it. She had seen them before - penises, she thought, and her cheeks were flaming - in photos in her research books, but not erect. It was flushed slightly darker than the rest of him, and it looked big to her but she compared it in her mind to the statistics she knew and decided it was probably not much bigger than average. But if this was what slightly-bigger-than-average looked like in real life, Hermione was happy. And slightly worried about sex, thinking about how on earth it was supposed to fit. If a baby can come out of there, then that will fit, she told herself matter-of-factly and unromantically, but wasn't entirely reassured. It looked so...thick. And his balls were right there, nestled beneath it, soft and squishy, the skin crinkled, looking somehow alien, but not unappealing. Just...funny.

Draco cleared his throat meaningfully, and Hermione's eyes, wide and frightened, darted up to meet his.

"You just going to look at it?" he asked, lips twitching with amusement, and Hermione scowled at him. Took a deep breath and told herself she had touched it before - this was exactly the same, except that they were both naked, and on her bed, and not in a frenzy of snogging. She shrugged off his shirt and knelt between his legs, all while he watched her with amused eyes.

She reached out tentatively and wrapped her fingers around it, gently moving her hand up and down. Draco made a tiny sound of pleasure and his eyes slid half-shut - but he watched her from beneath his lashes, and she flushed. He wasn't circumcised, she didn't think - she'd never seen one in real life before and wasn't sure how to tell when it was already erect - but the skin of his cock moved easily with her tight grip, and Hermione squeezed and twisted and watched with a sense of triumph as Draco moaned and his eyes fluttered shut, hand gripping the sheet.

Hermione stared at it, hand moving up and down automatically, and wondered how to suck it. What she was supposed to do. She bent her head and then chickened out, licking her lips and staring up at Draco.

"I've never..." He groaned with what sounded like frustration and need.

"It's not difficult, Hermione. Just...suck it for Merlin's sake." So she did, nervousness threading through her. She tried to remember the diagrams and techniques she'd discovered in books she'd read sitting in a private corner of a Muggle library - too embarrassed to get the books out, too worried her parents might find them and make assumptions. And now they seemed to be good techniques, he seemed to like it. She wasn't failing terribly.

Hermione's hand and mouth moved in unison; lips wrapped around the head of his cock, tongue swirling over it, sucking and licking while her hand moved up and down the shaft. Draco gasped as Hermione tried to take the whole length into her mouth and swallowed convulsively around it, trying not to gag, and his breath grew shallower, his hand knotting in her hair. A shudder ran through Hermione like one of the aftershocks of her orgasm as Draco moaned and his hand tightened painfully on her hair. She was making him feel like that. His eyes were shut and his lips were parted, a little crinkle between his dark brows, his whole body tensed.

She smiled and licked him from base to tip in one sweep and he inhaled sharply, hand jerking and pulling at her hair and Hermione winced.

"Fuck. Sorry." Draco let the tangled strands go. "Now I'm doing it." He sounded breathy and strained and bliss crossed his face as Hermione swirled her tongue around the head of his cock, and then sucked on it hard, letting it go with a soft popping sound. "Fuck."

His hand clenched into a fist and his eyes squeezed shut again. It was easy to find out what he liked; she tried everything she had read about, everything she thought of, and his reactions told her whether to keep doing it or not. It was...fun. Hermione liked provoking low, strained whimpers from his lips, liked the way she could make him think of nothing but how her mouth and her hand felt, toying with him. She felt powerful. Hermione liked that feeling a great deal. So much so that it almost worried her. Hermione Granger, the power-hungry maniac?

It didn't take Draco long. Hermione hadn't expected it to, after the weeks she had spent snogging his brains out and working him up. Both of them - it hadn't taken her long either, although that could have just been his skill. But a few minutes of Hermione's experimental ministrations, and Draco breathing was shallow and quick; his fist white-knuckled, jaw a tense line and forehead furrowed, teeth crushing his lip.

"Oh fuck...oh fuck I'm going to -" Draco ground the words out disjointedly and then it was pulsing in Hermione's hand, and she almost pulled her mouth away when he came and warm wetness hit her tongue, mingling with her saliva. Faintly salty and almost...sticky, and Hermione swallowed without even thinking about it, hand still moving on his cock as he let out a low shuddering whimper that was half a growl, and clamped his fingers in her hair again. And then he relaxed, like he was a puppet whose strings had been snapped, and Hermione's mouth was filled with her saliva and the rest of Draco's cum, her tongue still swirling messy over the head of his cock. She felt like she'd just gotten an 'O' on her Newts, ridiculously, absurdly proud of herself.

"Fuck..." Draco grated and flinched at Hermione's continued touch, using his hand wrapped in her hair to jerk her head up from his cock and she squeaked with pain and surprise, and then he pulled her by her bloody hair up his body and his grey eyes were dilated as he glared at her.

"Swallow," he said roughly and Hermione's stomach flipped on her. She was wet again suddenly, and if he'd rolled her over and fucked her, she would have been in heaven. Oh god he was so fucking irritatingly attractive when he did that arrogant Malfoy act while they were doing things. She tried to scowl and failed, did as he said, and stuck her tongue out like proof, grinning nervously at his quicksilver eyes.

"Oh fuck," Draco breathed, dragging her head down to his and crushing their mouths together rough and hard. His tongue swept over hers and she knew it still had to taste of his cum but Draco didn't seem to care, his hurt arm wrapping around her waist and his hand letting her hair go and clutching her bum, kneading it firmly.

Hermione wanted him to just do it. Do her. She wanted to have sex with Draco Malfoy. His fingers trailed the curve of her bum, dipping around to her...and a frenzied knock came at the door. "Shit," Draco hissed, dragging his mouth from hers with a harsh frustrated breath. His fingers pulled away and Hermione whimpered, dropping her lips against his chest and internally cursing whoever it was that had thought to interrupt them now. There had better be a damn good reason.

"What?" She yelled, lifting her head up, and the wards that were designed to only let out sound that was allowed out seemed to operate all right, because Harry's voice came through the door.

"Hermione! Hermione, I need to talk to you!" Hermione gritted her jaw and yelled back again.

"About what? I'm a bit busy, Harry."

"Is he still in there with you?" Harry asked, voice sounding muffled like he had put his face closer to the door, and Draco's eyes sparked frosty. Hermione clapped her hand over his mouth, and he glared daggers at her, grabbing her wrist and yanking her hand away.

"What do you fucking want, Potter? We're in the middle of something."

"I want to talk to Hermione. Now."

"You might want to wait for her to put some clothes on, first." Draco smirked at the spluttering sounds on the other side of the door, and Hermione thumped him, trying to look annoyed. It was difficult when he was so... All traces of the strain and abject misery from earlier had vanished, and Draco's eyes sparked with glee as he listened to Harry's incoherent ranting, his hand returning to her bum, absentmindedly caressing it. He looked happy.

"I'll talk to you later, Harry," Hermione called, struggling to keep a laugh out of her voice.

"Hermione!" Harry protested, and Draco kissed Hermione's ear and grinned.

"She said piss off, Potter. So why don't you do as you're told, and toddle off like a good little Golden Boy?"

"Oh fuck you, Malfoy," Harry spat through the door indignantly, but a moment later there was silence. He had achieved what Hermione presumed he had wanted to do though; Harry's voice had brought reality crashing back in. Harry had wrenched Hermione back into the real world. And she realised she was stark naked, lolling over Draco, and the scars on her chest and abdomen were pressed against his bare skin, one of the ones on her arm clearly visible. And the memories intruded, sour and stale and even worse when contrasted with how Hermione had just been feeling. So good and Harry, damn him, had ripped that away too soon. She scrambled off Draco without a word, hunting madly for his shirt, snatching it up and wrapping it around her, falling back against the wall and meeting Draco's confused eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, reaching his hand out toward her, and Hermione buried her head in her hands. She just needed a moment. Just needed a moment to calm down. She searched for words, and finally mumbled "Memories," into her hands, and Draco made an understanding sound.

"I know all about those," he said with a heavy sigh, and then the bed shifted and his body was warm next to hers, his arm around her. Hermione laid her head on his chest. "Sometimes I wish I could get someone to obliviate me," she admitted quietly, listening to Draco's steady breathing, feeling his chest rise and fall under her cheek. It was soothing.

"Why don't you?" Draco asked curiously, and Hermione smiled sadly to herself, shrugged. She wasn't entirely sure why.

"It seems too much like cheating," she said after a moment, and that felt like the truth.

"Why don't you?" she asked a moment later, and Draco snorted.

"Who would do it for me, even if I wanted to?"

"Let's say I would do it for you - would you have it done?"

Draco shook his head. "No, it wouldn't be right. I deserve the memories I have. Every single one." Hermione twisted her fingers through his, squeezing.

"I love you," she said muffled but fierce into Draco's chest, and there was a moment's silence. Draco pressed a hard kiss on Hermione's head.

"I love you too," he said, his voice hoarse and quiet. Hermione squashed herself closer to him and smiled dreamily. They might not be snogging each other's brains out anymore, but there was a lovely sort of peace to this. Hermione felt like his heartbeat could lull her off to sleep, and his thumb stroked warm over the back of her hand, his splinted arm heavy around her waist and his shirt wrapping her up like a cocoon, with her knees drawn up to her chest. Hermione's eyelids felt heavy, and she yawned jaw-crackingly.

"If Harry comes back, you can be as rude to him as you like," Hermione said through her yawn and she felt Draco laugh shortly.

"Don't worry, I will be."

"Just don't wake me up." She nuzzled closer, still feeling sad, but tempered by the pleasure she had just experienced; by Draco's arm around her and his chest warm on her cheek.

"Can I use your wand, then? It'd be quieter than yelling insults through the door." He was hopeful and teasing, and Hermione smiled, a quick, sleepy flash.

"No."

"Damn," Draco swore, and kissed her temple. He was so warm. She forgot all about the memories, for a short, blissful time.