Brutal truth.
But lies. Half truth, things that they have had between them. A history.
And in the history, a logic.
And Hermione catches on to that logic. Catches on and holds against her chest.
Knowledge.
Staring at him. At the vibrating about him, the magic swirling about him, the intensity of his words.
"You don't love me." She says, the words out before she can stop them, before her mind can catch up with her tongue, throat, voice.
But in them the knowledge she is seeking.
The truth.
A snort. A sneer.
"Of course you would say that. The know-it-all always, aren't you?"
Hermione, feeling the irritation along her nerves, but keeping herself calm, cool, shaking her head. "You don't. I know you don't. It's the compulsion, the bonding, that's all it is."
Explanation. Knowledge. Logic. She gathers those things around her.
Looking away from him then, away, to look down at the parchments, quills, books, on the table. Looking away from him so she can gather her thoughts.
"You don't." She says again. Quietly.
A shift in the chair across from her, the barely heard movement of fabric.
"Pray, Miss Granger, why you have decided that you know more about what I feel and think then I do?"
The words, supposed to be sneered, mocking, but dead cold. Ice.
Falling between them.
Hermione still does not look up, does not look up because she doesn't want to see what is in his eyes. She doesn't want to feel the brilliant pain that circles her like a wolf in the night.
Circling. Judging. Preparing to strike and tear at her throat.
She knows the pain is there.
So she does not look up. Staring at the quills, picking one up, just to have something I her fingers, to have something to occupy her physical as her mental skips, trips, its way over the words that are on her tongue but which she doesn't really want to say.
Because a small part of her, albeit a very small part of her, does not want to hear her logic, wants to hold on to his words, to that word, though the larger part of her knows its false.
Believes without a doubt it's false.
So she plays with the quill and does not acknowledge the wolf circling about her.
Speaking. "The bond, the binding, this compulsion, sharing of magic, that's what this is."
She says the words quietly. Into the silence.
She looks down. Not realizing that Draco has moved until she feels his hands on her face, suddenly, long fingers along side her cheeks, reaching up to her hair, retching her face upwards.
Fear. Then. Suddenly, as she is trapped between his hands. Grey eyes hard. Glittering.
Fingers digging into her cheeks.
But Hermione is past the point where a small amount of fear keeps her from very much and she jerks her head back, out of his hands, shoving herself from the table, standing up.
"Don't touch me." She hisses, anger, which had stepped back for a moment now forcing itself forward.
A defense. Though she doesn't realize it.
And Draco laughs then. Laughs, and it sounds normal, once more slouching backwards in his chair.
"Why?" He asks, smirks. "You like when I touch you."
And those words. They are truth, and Hermione knows it because she can feel his fingers, along her face, still, but other places.
Distant echoes. Memories.
"Don't touch me." She repeats, stepping backwards then, towards the door.
And Draco tenses. Seeing it, wondering if now, she will leave.
A part of him wanting her to do so, another part of him hoping, praying, because even though his blood is moving through his mind, body, at the touch of her skin, another part of him is still tired.
Tired of so very much.
But still he tenses.
Watching her.
But she stops at the window, looking out at the night now, suddenly, darkness taking over, smoothing over the small cottage and its two occupants.
Hermione raises a hand and places her palm against the glass.
And Draco remembers the frigid chill of her wand against his chest. The coldness about their persons as they completed the spell and how it felt then. Wondrous. Complete.
Coldness.
An anchoring. For the last ten years.
He sees her action and understands her action.
And calls her on it, even as he moves from his chair, rising, slowly, gracefully, and silently making his way to where she stands, closing the distance, blood throbbing in his ears, pooling at the base of his spine.
Moving so he stands behind her, looking at her in the reflection of the glass.
And Hermione closes her eyes.
The swirling of magic brilliant in the darkness.
And he leans down, leans down in a posture that has become normal between them, that has become routine, putting his lips along her ear.
Whispers. "But you like it when I touch you."
And when Hermione hears the voice, silk, darkness, moving through her mind she tries to keep it out, tries to keep the heat away, the tightening of her center, her being, trying to not be effected.
Draco bringing a hand up, to gather the curls at the base of her neck, letting his fingers get caught in their mass, lifting them, heavy in his hand, exposing the knob at the top of her spine.
He places a kiss there, hot, open mouthed. One kiss at the top of her spine. Feeling her shiver, feeling her involuntary shiver even as she tenses to battle it.
Another kiss. Tongue, slightly pressed against her skin, tasting it, the salt, the scent of her, tasting it along his tongue, moving it, as one hand holds her hair and the other hand moves the fabric of her clothing.
Another. Just at the hollow of the collarbone, feeling the thrum of her moan as she leans back into him, against him, the full length of her body pressed securely against him.
Thrilling, to feel him hard against her back, knowing that he does to her is what she does to him. But knowing, all the while, it is something else, something more, less, she doesn't know, not when she can feel his lips, his tongue, on her skin, hand in her hair.
But remembering, somewhere, in the back of her mind, in the small part that is not melting under Draco's attention, that there is something bigger than this, more than this, that there is something they need to discuss.
Some point.
Some logic.
Another kiss, along her neck, moving upwards, to her jaw, a hand, circling about her, circling to pull her closer to him, into the heat, into the melting heat, away from the cold, away from the frigid nature of the window pain.
"Please." She whispers.
Whispers. A plea, but not sure what she is pleading for.
"Please what?" He murmurs, against her skin, against the sensitive hairs along her face.
And she doesn't know, doesn't know because his hand on her stomach is moving, tugging, pulling, and then the skin of his palm is against the skin of her stomach and suddenly the logic no longer matters.
No longer matters and she lets her head fall back to his chest, lets his lips move over her face, lets his hand slide up the skin of her stomach, upwards, to the swell of her breast, a finger, caressing the crease, thumb moving over the silk of her bra, it no longer matters.
And all Draco is able to comprehend is how incredibly soft she is, soft, pliant, in front of him, leaning back towards him, the feel of her hair, the taste of her skin.
"You like when I touch you," he murmurs, along her forehead.
And Hermione closes her eyes because she does, always, ever since the first time he touched her, a finger along the side of her face, she has loved his touch.
And the word. Echoes. Remembers. Echoes.
Love.
And suddenly she remembers. Remembers and jerks forward, turning in his embrace, turning so his hand falls away from her skin and hair, turning to face him, looking up at him, catching his eyes.
And biting down on a moan when she sees the look there, the gray the colour of quicksilver.
Biting down on it. Hard.
Because this is the point. The logic.
And he sees it in her face, in her own eyes, the battle of desire, the battle of something else, what they'd been discussing, yelling.
What she's been trying to prove.
The memory of why he is here.
And he steps back away from her. One step back away from her, anger replacing the lust he'd felt moments before. So quick, always so quick, the change in those two feelings, those two emotions.
"This," she starts, quietly, voice slightly wavering, clearing, continuing. "This is what you feel, this bond, lust, whatever."
A pause. Cold. Frigid.
Continuing.
"This is what you feel." Hermione emphasizes.
Draco looking down, seeing the words as if written in the air between them, and then a wry smile, a twisting of lips, and a slight shrug of the shoulders.
Turning away. Turning away.
To go back to the table. To sit himself back in the chair. To slouch easy. Nonchalant.
Ever elegant. Ever arrogant.
Looking to where Hermione still stands at the window, uncertain, along the lines of her magic, the slight straightening of her shoulders. But defiant in the way she looks at him, the rise of her chin.
A hand, long fingers, indicating the parchments and books in front of him.
"Then all the more reason to be rid of it." He says.
Hermione stares. Realizing suddenly, with blinding force, what just happened.
The manipulation of it.
Her anger, not fueled by fury this time, no, but by the sudden rise of panic, the sudden rise of terror, seeing that she has just made his point.
That she has just helped him win the argument. The original argument. Not the one about love. But the one about the destruction of a bond.
A bond she doesn't want to be destroyed.
And she steps. One step.
Shaking her head. Because that is not what she wants.
But things are confused again. So very confused. Like they always have been.
And how to make sense of things?
Draco watching her, reading her. Seeing the emotions, but looking away because their battle has been long, too long.
"What Granger?" He sneers. "Don't you want to get rid of this, between us, this bloody mess of emotion that we seem to not be able to get out of?" A smirk. "Don't you want to mourn your dead boyfriend in peace and without guilt?"
Looking down at the parchments, going to pick up a quill, a book, to get started.
But Hermione moves then, quickly suddenly, moving to where he sits, propelled by indecision, by fear, by anger, by so many different things, by the shadows swirling about her, and the darkness.
Moves to him and with a strength undiminished through the years, hits him, across the face, quick, precise.
The sound echoing through the room.
The redness slowly creeping across a white cheek.
Draco looks up at her, surprise moving across his features, surprise followed by something else, something darker, meaner.
Hermione steps back.
But Draco grabs her wrist, grabs it before she can move away, grabs it to pull her towards him, to punish her, to take away the sting that ricochets across his face, but instead, instead of crushing her to his body, he stops.
Just a moment.
Barely there.
And then lets her wrist drop.
Because he is tired. Because he doesn't want to fight anymore.
Because the anger slips away from him.
Because what, in the end, is the use.
Hermione looks down at him, seeing the swirl of magic, the anger, then suddenly, that anger is gone, replaced by dullness.
And the dullness hurts more than the brilliance ever did.
The silence between them stretches outwards. The distant sound of waves and the pop of the fire, the only things ticking away the passage of time.
"I don't want you to." Hermione finally says. She finally breaks the silence.
Draco not looking at her. Not looking away from the table.
"Why?"
One word. One word that hangs between them.
A word Hermione still cant answer. And it frustrates her, frustrates her and makes her crazy, a feeling of jagged glass along her nerves, up her spine.
"Because." She answers. Answers, stumbles. Not sure.
"Because." She repeats.
And Draco looks up at her then, looks up at the witch standing still in front of him, the sting of her slap still on his cheek.
Looks up and sees the woman she is, separate from everything between them, sees her, and wonders, again, what is between them. Wonders if it is just the bond, nothing more.
But then she meets his gaze, and the darkness there, that swirls about her person, is along her look, and it's the same darkness that he knows, is intimate with.
"What do you want Hermione?" He asks, quietly, almost gently.
A choked sound, coming from her throat, as her hands fist at her side.
Draco not looking away. "What do you want?" He whispers.
She looks away. She breaks the gaze, she looks down at the books, at the parchments.
Misery. She laughs at it. Inside her head. The madness of it. Insanity.
A tangled mess of thought. A tangled mess of memory, emotion.
A tangled, bloody, mess.
"You should have died."
She answers.
A moment. Silence.
Draco answering.
"I know."
The words, so very, very wrong.
And there is nothing to say.
So Hermione says nothing at all.
Looking down at her hands, hands clasped now in front of her, holding tight on to something. Control?
No. Not any more.
No more control. Just blankness. Nothingness.
And because she has nothing to say, because the silence is deafening, because the man across from her is so relaxed, so nonchalant in all his elegant glory, she goes over to where the broken pieces of porcelain lay on the floor and kneels.
She starts to pick the pieces up.
By hand.
Without magic.
Gathering the porcelain in her hands, clenching fingers around them so the edges, broken edges, slice into her fingers, into her palms.
Silently picking up the broken pieces.
Draco watches her for a moment, watching until he can see the blood on her hands as she slowly moves to another piece of porcelain, as she picks it up and adds it to the pile in her hands.
"What are you doing?"
And his voice is almost harsh because he doesn't understand her reaction because if their past is any indication of the way of things she should be leaving, or, at the very least, hexing him, yelling at him.
But she is picking up the pieces of the porcelain. Slowly, methodically.
He moves to her, moves to her before he knows what he is doing, kneeling in front of her.
Watching her for a moment longer, shaking his head in exasperation, because really, what is she doing?
Then.
Raising his hand and twitching his wrist, the rest of the pieces gathering themselves, the pieces in her hands flying outwards, reassembling the tea pot, the tea cup. They return, gently, back to the table.
Hermione does not flinch from the wandless magic, she does not even look up as the pieces are taken from her.
She does not move from her knees, looking down at her hands that are now criss crossed with shallow cuts, but now empty.
Draco can see the cuts from where he kneels.
And the blood, the redness against those palms causes something to twist into him.
Twisting, harder and harder, when she looks up and meets his eyes and he sees that she is crying.
Silently.
Tears falling down her cheeks, slowly, gathering at her chin and dropping to the floor.
He watches as if mesmerized.
And she looks on him and in her mind so much confusion, so very much confusion.
"I had to save you," she repeats, again. Through her tears, her voice cracking, breaking, under the implications, the lack of implications, the thoughts. "I couldn't let them do that to you. I could let them…" And she trails off, because what can she say.
"I would have died." A whimper, from low in her throat because it is the truth. In the end, she survived Ron's death, but she would not have survived the death of the man kneeling in front of her.
The knowledge.
So confused. Because she hurts, low, deep in her belly.
Because he loved her.
Because he said he loves her, and she doesn't know what that means or if its even true. She has never known what that means and all she can focus on is the way his eyes look, the nature of the colour there, swirling storms clouds once more, and the way the firelight now glances of his white hair.
And she thinks him beautiful.
And it tears at her gut.
Because how could she forget how beautiful he is.
How could she have forgotten what it was she felt that night sitting in front of the fireplace, that night later, when they had watched the night turn to dawn, secure in one another.
And he sees her, the blood on her hands and so gently, as if approaching a wild animal he takes her hands in his, cradling them, and with a word, not even spoken, breathed, focusing on the cuts on her palms and along her fingers, he heals her.
Holding those hands in his, for a moment, just a moment, and then letting them go, not looking away as they slowly fall to Hermione's side. Not looking away until she speaks and then looking up to her face, along the lines of her lips, the wet trails along her cheeks, finally to her eyes.
"I couldn't let it kill you," she says, pleading, not wiping away the tears on her cheek or looking down on the healed cuts on her hands, looking at him, capturing him with a gaze.
The words whispered across to him. A plea, something else, that he has never heard from her, or if he has, never wanted to remember.
"Couldn't let it take your soul." She says.
And Draco looks across at her, looks at the witch kneeling on the floor, and he shakes his head to get away from her image, the image in front of him.
Because what does he say to that? How can he respond to her words, knowing that she holds it against him, that she holds her decision against him?
And he is tired, the fury that he felt, the cold resolve, is fading away and now he just feels tired.
Down deep in his bones, in the marrow of his bones, and realizes that he doesn't want to feel tired any more, that he wants to be free of this, the compulsion, the constant ache at the base of his spine, the knowledge of her, and her magic, the pain brilliant in its cold heat at the point on his chest.
Wants to stop loving her.
Finally. Just wanting it to stop.
So he looks away from her, over her head at the gathering night, away from her and her healed hands and her tears.
Looks away.
To the night. To the darkness. Something so base about it. So right about it.
"Why did you come here Hermione?" He finally asks. Again. Reiterating.
Breaking the silence between them.
She looks at him, kneeling in front of her, looking up at him, and what she sees is the tiredness she can feel in her bones, the tiredness, the resolve.
And she feels fear, low, deep, fear, at that look, knowing that look.
Draco closes his eyes, for a moment, just a moment.
And then looks down at her, seeing, as if brilliant in his mind, how she gathers herself, how the tears slowly dry in her eyes, as she brings her magic about her.
He sighs, rising to his feet and going to sit down at the table once more, placing his head in his hands, elbows resting on the table.
She breathes in a breath. Once twice, then stands slowly and going to the table to sit herself in the chair once more, clasping hands in front of her.
Across from him, looking on the bowed head, the white hair, and she wants to touch it and because there is too much in the room, too much between them, and because its old, a familiar feeling, but still so new, she does.
Reaching a hand out, one hand, across the table and touching the white strands, silky under her fingertips.
Aching in the memory of how it feels.
Draco does not look up though he feels the touch, the heat from her fingers as she places them along the top of his head.
But he does not look up.
So very tired.
Hermione watches her hand as it strokes the fine hair, watching it play with the fire lit whiteness.
But then letting her hand drop when he does not move. And he does not say anything.
"Why do you love me?" And its not the question she meant to ask, but it's the question that comes unbidden from her mouth.
The question catching him off guard.
"What?" He asks. Clarifies. Not sure if he heard her correctly.
A huff, from Hermione, almost in indignation, definitely in annoyance. "Why do you love me?"
Draco shaking his head, at the absurd nature of the question, at the change in conversation. "I thought you didn't believe me?"
Hermione shrugs, studying his face as he finally looks up at her. "You said you did, so why do you think you love me."
Draco just stares at her. Staring. Not understanding, searching her face for some kind of guile, something wrong, dangerous.
But all he sees is open curiosity and a slight tinge of nervousness.
And the magic he feels from her, its gentle. A slight touch, not brutal, not demanding.
Gentle.
He looks down at the table.
"Why?" He asks.
Hermione feels her stomach roll, feels the nerves there, beating steadily against the lining of her belly.
"Because I want to know." She answers.
A snort. From him, but not brutal, not sneering, just, acknowledgement.
Of course she wants to know.
And Draco does know, down, at the base of his spine, about his person, in his magic. He knows. Has the knowledge, sees it in his mind even as he stares down at the parchments in front of him.
But he is still Draco. He is still a Malfoy. He does not trust.
Not even in Hermione.
So he looks up, piercing her with greyness.
Now, the colour of the sea outside the house, crashing against the cliffs.
"But why should I tell you?"
And Hermione's breath catches. Catches because she doesn't know the answer, but suddenly, just then, it is so very important for her to have an answer, because something is moving away from them, away from them.
And she doesn't know if it's a good thing or not.
Words, coming to her. "Because after this, if we break this bond, you will never be able to tell me again."
A rise of an eyebrow. To the answer.
But she is not done.
Continuing.
"Because you are not a coward."
The gauntlet. Thrown down.
And Draco takes it, takes it with a sudden smile that tears at her in its gentleness, in the way it softens his face, softens his eyes.
"And that is why." He says, answers.
Hermione tilts her head, a furrow of confusion marring the skin between her eyes.
And Draco can't help but smile more.
"And because of that." He says.
Hermione would have reacted badly perhaps, blown up at the cryptic nature of his words, if it weren't for the look that he is giving her.
And his magic, touching her, a sigh across hers, drifting softness, silkiness, velvet, warming, cool.
A whisper of air across her mind.
Body.
"Hermione," he says, begins. "Hermione Granger, never my witch, always just outside of my realm of existence. Do you know what its like to want something so much it hurts down deep in your mind and body, but know that you can never have it?"
Her chin rises at that, a slight narrowing of her eyes. "So you love me because you cant have me?"
Draco shaking his head. "No, I love you because of the reasons I can't have you." A pause. Continuing. "I love you because of your noble heart, because of your goodness, because even though you are shadowed, even though you have tasted darkness, known it, something is always, and will always be pure about you."
And then because so much is between them all ready. Because there is so much there.
He continues.
"I am tired Granger. I want to sleep without you invading my dreams. I want to wake up in the morning and go to bed without you on my mind, without your magic touching mine, without being constantly reminded of something I can never have. I thought, at the beginning, when Minerva first came to me, that maybe this would be the chance, maybe, finally, after all this time, you would have moved away from what happened, but I found out, that you haven't, that you hold that knowledge, that memory, as close as you ever have." A slight smile, a twist of lips. "And the irony of it, the fact you do, makes me love you even more. You wouldn't be you if you had just let it go. But, I'm tired, and you deserve more than this, whatever this is, we have, or don't have. You deserve more, and I just want to rest."
And Hermione stares at him. Stares, and those parts of her that were broken, that were shattered, suddenly, they are not as huge, not as overwhelming.
Suddenly.
It just doesn't matter.
But she doesn't move. Not towards him, not away from him, just staring.
At him.
Silence.
Between them. Always between them.
Even in the heat of an argument. Even in the moment of passion.
A silence. That is comforting. That is real.
A presence.
And Hermione smiles, because right then, clarity.
After ten years. Finally.
Clarity.
And then she does move, leaning forward, leaning to capture his face with her hands, the same as he done moments before, stilling him, stilling her, and in his eyes knowledge, and in her eyes knowledge, and it speaks of a different time, a different place.
And before she kisses him, before she lets her lips fall to his, she holds that look, grey eyes the colour of a northern sea, brown the colour of amber in the dark, holding the gaze.
And she smiles.
Because that is exactly the answer she was looking for.