Edited 10/11/15
8. More Than It Gave
Mine are sinning hands
On her lying on my bed
The river still may rise
Wild and water take us both
Mine are sinning hands
Take our bodies, take our clothes
Bloodless moonlight, may my lady
Give her lovely skin and bones
[Sinning Hands, Iron and Wine]
...The floor is cold and hard. Draco is stranded like a beetle on its back, ready to have its wings plucked off by children with cruel faces and sharp laughter. All he can move is his head, but he refuses to move it, refuses to look around at the mocking faces taking their pleasure in his terror. And it is terror, abject and complete as he wills his limbs to move and they remain limp and lifeless, splayed out over the chill marble. He remembers playing here as a child. Running through the expansive room, shoes clattering over the floor and echoing up into the highest reaches of the ceiling. Hiding behind the heavy drapes when his mother and he played Hide and Seek, toes sticking out from beneath, but his mother always pretended not to see at first.
He can see his mother now in his peripheral vision, her face lined with fear and horror and hands twisting together in front of her. But she does nothing; just stares at the floor several paces to the left of where Draco lies, tears standing unshed in her eyes. His back throbs with pain from the raw whip marks fresh across his skin - twenty deep stripes, flaying the flesh wide open. His knee is swollen to twice its proper size, and his mouth bloody from where someone struck him and his teeth sank through his tongue. Draco refuses to show his pain. He won't entertain them; he will not be the one to give the Dark Lord cause to giggle with glee in that awful high pitch of his, dear Aunt Bella grinning wickedly beside her master.
Draco's master.
His father approaches with a glint of silver in his hand, sweeping across the floor with odd, disjointed speed, and the rest of the room fades away to a strange, black fog. Draco can still see his mother though; there is a lacy handkerchief crumpled damply up in her tight grip, her features looking old and pained, a drop of blood on her lip where she has bitten through it. He can see everything so clearly. He shuts his eyes for a brief second, and wishes he was somewhere else. Wishes that this isn't real, that it is just a nightmare. But the cold floor seeps into the flayed stripes on his back and sends an icy, painful chill through him, and Draco knows it isn't a dream.
His hand. Oh Merlin, not his hand. His chin trembles and to his shame, his utter humiliation, tears spill over onto his cheeks. It's going to hurt; it's going to hurt so much, and Draco doesn't know if he can - if he can take it. But he doesn't have a choice. His hand. His eyes flick to it, just able to see it; pale and maimed against the black marble floor, and the thought of having it cut from him is abhorrent. Unbearable. Draco has two fingers and a thumb left to him, and he remembers, with the marble hard against the back of his head, what it felt like to have his missing fingers torn away. The sudden, unbelievable agony of having part of himself ripped asunder. He tries to move his limbs, brows scrunching together with the effort, and nothing happens. Nothing.
He is completely immobile.
"Act like a Malfoy, boy," his father says harshly as he looms over Draco, his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once, beating disgust and disappointment into Draco's head. He feels a curling of shame in his gut, making him feel sick and small, like a beaten dog. He only ever wanted his father to be proud of him, he thinks pathetically, and a sob shivers out of him despite his efforts to hold it back. He is ashamed and he is scared, and there is no room for anger, just a wrenching, shaking horror.
The blade in his father's hand looks so sharp. So sharp. One of Aunt Bella's, Draco can see, inlaid with silver in swirling patterns, like the ones freshly carved into his stomach. He wonders how much effort it will take to get the dagger through the bone of his arm. Whether his father will break the bone, or need to use magic for that part. Bile is sour in his mouth. He lies there helplessly and wonders how exactly his father is going to do it. How much it will hurt. Draco's gorge rises as he imagines the pain, and his hands would be clenched into white-knuckled fists if they weren't dead and limp, laid out over the marble like pieces of meat. Not his hand. He's only seventeen; he can't - can't lose his hand. Crippled, he thinks, crippled and useless and worthless and it's what I deserve.
He deserves it for being part of the Death Eaters. Draco deserves it for being weak enough to join them, and deserves it for being weak enough to fail to do what the Dark Lord asked of him. Not good enough to be other than a Death Eater, and yet too conscience-plagued and weak to succeed as one. And for his crimes, Draco is going to have his right hand severed by his own father. As he thinks of his father again with dazed bewilderment, a kick drives into his ribs and he bites back a scream as they snap and splinter.
"Be quiet," his father spits, and Draco realises he has been emitting a faint, horrified whimpering through thirst-cracked parted lips, and clamps them shut. Refuses to give the leering Death Eaters off somewhere in the inky black the pleasure of his fear. Or let them down by showing it like a weakling. He's not sure which; he only knows that he must deserve this. He is a trapped beetle on its back - and what is a beetle for but the amusement of its captors? It is nothing important, nothing special, nothing... Draco feels sick and blurry, and he knows there must be a reason, has to be a reason, but nothing makes sense anymore and all he knows is that he doesn't want to have his hand cut off.
"Take it like a man," his father says, so cliché and yet there is nothing funny about it, just terror rising and rising and rising until Draco feels like he's choking. Tears bathe his face and he turns his head away, trying to hide his shame and weakness. It's not theirs to see. This can't be happening. His father couldn't really...wouldn't really... Draco is helpless, unable to even twitch a finger, and his father's eyes carry an unpleasant gleam as he stands over Draco and twirls the knife in dexterous fingers, silhouetted against a backdrop of inky nothing. Draco might not be able to consciously move his limbs, but they are trembling involuntarily with coldness and terror as his father reaches his right side and kneels with careful precision.
"Please don't," Draco gasps suddenly as he snaps and breaks in two and shatters apart into a wreck of nothing and worthlessness and fear. He is whimpering in breathless moans of sick terror, and he begs over and over, crying messy, undignified tears. "Please not my hand, please don't - please, father. Father, please! I - I can't - please don't, not - not my - my hand, I can't...please, father."
His father looks down at him, and he looks cold and disappointed, and Draco is shivering like he's going to tremor apart at the seams, and he is tears and snot and horrified terror because it's really going to happen and he can't understand it. Draco cannot comprehend how it is that he is lying on the floor of the room where he used to play Hide and Seek with his mother, waiting for his father to mutilate him. He licks his lips, and manages to croak out with thin, strained tatters of composure:
"Mother. Go, please. Don't watch. Don't -" And then he stutters to a halt halfway through and presses his lips together, because if he keeps speaking his whimpering, shameful tears will turn into a heaving, sobbing wreck of panic and fear. And he doesn't want them to see that. He doesn't want them to take that from him.
The Dark Lord's voice swells and reverberates through the room, a light, cruel tone with the brutal edge of command behind it.
"Stay, Narcissa my dear," he says, and Draco sees from the corner of his eye, his mother shudder and crumple in on herself, head ducking in acquiescence, fingers bloodless around the sopping scrap of lacy cotton.
"Father." Draco says it with despairing, urgent pleading; he tucked Draco in at night. He bought Draco his first broom. He sat by Draco's bedside when he was sick. He is his father. But there is nothing in his father's eyes but the light of a strange, horrible madness, and Draco looks away, looks out into the strange, inky black as the knifepoint pierces his skin. It goes deep and firm, steady in his father's hand, and the pain is terrible but Draco refuses to make a sound, teeth grinding together as the pain begins.
And then the knife moves and cuts and saws, and everything is agony and screaming, screaming until his throat is hoarse and torn and bleeding ragged, screaming and pain and...
"Draco! Draco! Draco, wake up!"
There were warm hands on his shoulders, firmly pressing him back down onto softness, not cold, hard marble, and his throat was aflame but there was no pain in his wrist, just blessed nothingness. Draco opened his eyes to Hermione's face, her eyes bleary with sleep and filled with fear as she repeated his name over and over.
He choked in a breath and fell back into the stack of pillows behind him, pulse whooshing fast in his ears as his mind tried to make sense of what was happening. What had happened. A nightmare. Just a nightmare. Fuck, it had felt so real. Like living through it all over again, and Draco realised that his cheeks were wet with tears and he went hot with embarrassment, swiping at them clumsily. Hermione released his shoulders as he sank into the pillows and her lips twisted into an expression of overwhelming sympathy, thumbs gliding quickly beneath his eyes and wiping away his tears.
"Do you want me to get you a pain potion?" she asked, her voice stuffed to bursting with worry and a groundless fear. She didn't need to be afraid. It had only been a nightmare. Hermione's hands trembled as she pushed her hair behind her ears, staring at him with big fear-round eyes, and Draco suddenly wondered with intense mortification, whether he had only been screaming in his dream, or...or whether he'd woken her with his cries. Fuck. He hadn't had a nightmare like that in months.
"No," he croaked, hand snapping out to latch around her slim wrist, and oh Merlin it hurt to speak. "No, don't go."
There was a feverish, wretched desperation in Draco's voice that he couldn't hide, and his fingers clung white knuckled to Hermione's wrist. He slid his eyes away from her, heart still racing as he remembered; remembered the feelings of helplessness, shame and terror from both the nightmare and the true memory. The echoes of pain thrummed in his stump, and he squeezed his eyes tight shut.
"I -" he began in a thin, half-apologetic whisper, and Hermione interrupted.
"Can you move over?" she asked softly, a wealth of empathy in her voice, and Draco bit his lip as he shuffled across the narrow bed until his side was pressed against the wall, pain sparking in his throat as he moved his head. Fuck, it took such an effort just to move a few short inches; he was so bloody weak.
Weak in so many ways, Draco thought vaguely, the dream still clear and hard in his mind. Hermione peeled the blankets back, and in an old tee shirt and sleep shorts, slid into the bed next to him, jostling the mattress and making him wince. She shot him a worried, apologetic look and settled back against the pillows curling onto her side so that her nose nuzzled up to his ear, and her arm wrapped over his middle.
She was heavy and hot and clinging to him like a limpet, and Draco drew in a deep breath and let it out again, careful and slow, letting Hermione's warmth seep into him, settle into his bones and warm him through. Her hair tickled his jaw and her fingers traced idle patterns over his ribs, and the scent of her; all soap and clean, and that indefinable smell that was Hermione, wafted over him, helping chase away the lingering, clutching shadows of his nightmare.
He sighed and gingerly, cautiously, turned his head so that he could see her easily; those sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes all swimming with worry, and those soft lips that contorted into a jaw-cracking yawn, and then kissed his cheek gently. They snuggled together in the dim room, cosy under the blankets all folded up in each other in the silence, and all but the faintest remnants of unease slid away from Draco as he soaked Hermione's comfort in.
"Bad dreams?" Hermione asked quietly after a while, as if she wasn't sure if it was tactful to ask but couldn't help herself, and Draco made a short sound of assent and hooked his maimed arm over hers where it lay across his middle. She kissed his cheek tenderly, lips rasping over his stubble - in that prickly stage between intended beard and mere laziness.
"I'm shaving that off tomorrow," she said decidedly as she pulled away and licked her prickled lips, and Draco smirked with silent amusement. Hermione nuzzled her face back against his cheek despite the stubble she complained of, and sighed loudly in his ear.
Merlin, he had fucking missed this. This wriggling, hair-in-his-face, breath-in-his-ear and yet somehow perfect cuddling in bed, and the heavy warmth of her draped half over him, and her insatiable curiosity. Or more accurately; her nosiness.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Still just as tentative, her fingers bumping over his ribs, up and down in a vaguely ticklish, soothing motion. Draco shook his head slightly. There was no point; especially not now when he could barely whisper without the pain taking away his voice. And it wouldn't help anyway. There was nothing she could say to make it better; it wasn't a fear but a memory, and unless she could change the past, she couldn't take away Draco's lingering horror.
"No, not right now," he murmured simply, too tired and sore for the dry, snarky comments that simmered up to the surface of his mind. "W - what's the time? My - my throat..." It seared as he spoke, and Hermione seemed to understand and ever so carefully wriggled free of him and flung the covers back.
"When you woke me it was nearly midday," she said clambering out of bed, and Draco lay stranded on his back by the pain and bone-deep exhaustion as she disappeared from view. There was a rummaging, and then a clinking sound, and Hermione padded back into view with a vial in hand, which she passed to Draco as she sank onto the edge of the bed.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Anything?" she asked as he gulped down the bitter dosage of pain potion. Draco began to shake his head, whisper 'no', and then swore internally. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, but he was suddenly aware that he really needed to...oh Merlin damnit.
"I need to get up," Draco said, weakly pushing into a sitting position and Hermione grabbed his elbow and steadied him as the world swirled and the blood rushed dizzyingly in his ears. He shut his eyes until the nauseous feelings went away, biting his lip and trying not to throw up on the bed. He opened them again and there she was, peering at him all worried and solicitous.
"Healer Sylvan said you weren't supposed to get out of bed until tomorrow, at the very earliest. Draco - you nearly bled out. That's not a minor injury. Even with the blood-replenishing potions...you shouldn't be walking around."
Draco glared at the foot of the bed, cursing Healer Sylvan and his or her instructions to Hermione Granger, goody-good stickler for the rules. "I'm fine, Hermione. And I want to get up."
"Why?"
"Because," he growled and his throat did not thank him for that, even though the pain potion was already starting to ease the pain. He could feel a hot flush starting to crawl up his face, and he ducked his head, staring at his hand and stump, lying together in his lap and in a moment of alien clarity Draco realised how grotesque it looked and shuddered.
"Because why?" Hermione sounded utterly bewildered, and concerned, and Draco wondered - not for the first time - how she was considered bright when sometimes she could be so damned thick. He shrugged off her hand on his arm, ignoring the prickling, hot pain in his throat as he swallowed hard and made to get out of bed, feet on the floor, wobbling upright if rather unsteady. Hermione pushed him back down with absurd ease - a push to his chest with the palm of her hand - and Draco scowled up at her, relenting.
"I need to..." Draco began nearly inaudibly, and trailed to a halt halfway through. This was not the sort of thing Draco pictured, when he imagined 'wounded hero reunited with his true bloody love'.
"I need to fucking piss, all right?" The last bit came out sharp with anger as embarrassment seized him, and Hermione's cheeks pinked vaguely, she pressed her lips together, eyes slithering away from his face.
"Healer Sylvan left a bedpan for that. I can..." Hermione was red, and stumbling over her words, and he was red and furious and mortified. "Or I can go get the Healer?" she added swiftly, and Draco shook his head.
"Fuck off. I'm not bloody... No."
"You want me to...?" she misunderstood, her fingers plucking nervously at the hem of her tee shirt, intent unravelling a loose thread.
"No! Shit no. Definitely...not."
"Well then what? You can barely stand, Draco. And Healer Sylvan said that you're not supposed to get up yet." She always had to follow the fucking rules, Draco thought as humiliation swallowed him up and shat him out.
"Hermione, I swear to Merlin, I am not...using a - a fucking bedpan."
"Well then, once you've wet the bed don't expect me to climb in with you," she said pertly, eyes flashing amber sparks, and amusement at his bloody expense tugging at her mouth. He glowered at her.
"Ugh, you bitch," Draco said without real rancour, and gingerly sank his head into his hand, groaned into his palm.
"It's not my fault," she retorted defensively, and then sighed and sat beside him on the edge of the bed, the length of their thighs pressed together, her hand going to rest lightly on his knee. She nudged him gently. "I'm sorry, I know this is...awkward. But -"
"Hermione, please - please, just shut up and help me to the bathroom," he wrenched out past the pain into his palm, absolutely flaming with bloody humiliation, and there was a long, long pause as she considered it, and then she stood. Took his elbow and helped him up, and he felt ridiculous standing there swaying as she looped his maimed arm around her shoulders. They started a slow, unsteady shuffle toward the door, stuck in awkward silence. Draco supposed it had been too much to hope for, that getting back together would make everything come up unicorns and fairy-dust. No, he didn't get delicious bloody reunion sex and perfect, passionate exchanges of feeling - he got to hobble to the loo with his throat aching in pain and his face burning at the indignity of it.
"You know," Hermione began stiltedly as she fumbled the door open and they squeezed through the narrow doorway into the equally narrow hallway. "In Muggle hospitals you wouldn't need a bedpan, or have to get up either."
Draco grunted, vaguely curious but not about to admit it.
"If you were in a Muggle hospital, you could just lie back in bed and go, and not have to do -" She broke off as she nearly tripped over her own feet and staggered, bumped him into the wall and he bit back a cry of pain as his head moved, sharply, and the pain cut through the relief the potion was starting to create.
"Not have to do this," Hermione continued, apologising and then leading them on down the hallway, slower now.
"What do they do then?" Draco asked, playing along with Hermione and trying not to lean too heavily on her, but his knees were weak and wobbly, and his head was swimming with blood loss and pain potion.
"They use catheters."
"Cath...?"
"Well, for you, being male, they take a thin plastic tube and insert it into the urethra, and -"
Draco blanched and his steps halted for a moment. Hogwarts wasn't exactly big on biology - none of the wizarding world was, unless you went into Healing after school, but the idea of putting anything up a urethra triggered a feeling of wrongness, for some reason he couldn't quite place. "...Urethra?"
"My god. You don't know what...? First you've got no idea how the hymen works, then you've never heard of a urethra. I'm getting you a biology book when we get back to Godric's Hollow. Maybe a Children's Human Body Encyclopaedia, with illustrations so that you don't get too confused," she teased and Draco snorted, still taking one slow, wobbly step at a time, still trying not to lean on her too much, and still failing.
"Hermione..." he warned her with tired humour, blinking through dizziness.
"A urethra is where, urine - and semen if you're male - come from," Hermione said with blithe nonchalance. "So catheterisation is when they insert a plastic tube up the urethra, and into the bladder..."
Draco felt suddenly rather ill. Muggles were insane. Absolutely fucking bonkers. "They put a tube up your dick?" he asked in horrified disbelief, refusing to give in to the urge to clutch the Malfoy family jewels protectively. "And that's considered better than a bedpan? Why?"
Hermione paused in front of a door, and he could hear she was trying to repress giggles.
"It doesn't hurt - not too much, at least - and once it's in it doesn't hurt at all, and they arrange it so that the tube goes to a bag they hang off the side of the hospital bed, and you just...don't need to go. The bag fills up automatically as you make urine, and the nurses - Healer's assistants, I suppose you'd call them - replace the bag every so often, and people like me don't have to haul stubborn bloody injured people who are supposed to be resting, all the way to the toilet." She shot him a pointed glare, with no real annoyance behind it.
Draco arched an eyebrow, rather more than mildly disgusted. "They hook it to the side of the bed. Where people can see it," he repeated, the whole concept of these cath-whatsits sounding painful, humiliating, insane, and very Muggle. He didn't tell Hermione that - he had a feeling calling Muggles insane might end up with him being left in a heap in the hallway to piss himself. Which didn't sound very appealing.
"Well, it's not obvious, no. But everybody urinates, Draco, it's hardly a secret," Hermione said gravely, but there was a bubble of humour in her voice, and her eyes were warm and bright. He gave her a dry look, still grimacing at the thought of someone shoving a tube up his dick, but they were at the toilet, and while he might be cringing, Draco realised he wasn't embarrassed anymore. He hadn't even been thinking about the indignity of everything. Hermione grinned at him and pushed the toilet door open, and Draco realised that distracting him had been the whole point of that disturbing little story.
Gratitude swept him up suddenly - or maybe it was the pain potion making him light-headed - and Draco grabbed hold of the doorjamb to steady himself and, ignoring the pain that flashed up, bent his head to kiss the tip of Hermione's nose. Merlin, he had missed her so fucking much.
Hermione got Draco back to bed with no little effort. He was heavy, and far weaker from blood loss than he would admit, Healer Sylvan's extra-strength pain potion hitting him hard and making him clumsy. Getting him to lie down in bed wasn't easy either, as the potion had swept him off into muddled half-delirium. He stood looming over her on unsteady feet, rubbing his thumb distractingly over her lower lip, petulantly mumbling something about how, "It isn't fair. You and me, here alone, and I'm...I can't...shit... it isn't fucking fair."
A mixture of persuasion and gentle force got Draco into the narrow bed, only he took her with him - squashed to his chest with his maimed arm pinning her there. He kept groping her blindly; his gorgeous grey eyes glazed on her face, muttering in that rasping, strained voice, what sounded like, "Fuck...want your luscious bloody arse..."
And then when Hermione finally managed to detach herself from his pinning hold, Draco's hand slid up beneath her baggy tee shirt quick as a snitch. His dexterous hand sought out her breasts, rolling her nipples in turn between a finger and thumb and sending wrenching want crashing like a lightning bolt through her. It took a brief, gentle scuffle to free herself from him, and Hermione's mouth was quirked with amusement by the end of it, her insides all fuzzy and warm feeling, because there was a strange sort of sweetness to half-delirious-Draco.
It took her a while, but at last she got him propped comfortably up on a stack of pillows in the bed, tucked in neatly with the thin bandage across his throat a stark white. She sat in the chair by the bed, a glass of water in hand, giving him sips of it through a straw. Draco watched her intently, talking in between sips in that rough, tortured voice, mostly bits of phrases that sounded like nonsense to her. It could have been boring except that Hermione was happy to nod along with whatever Draco said, content in just soaking in the fact that he hadn't died, and that he'd stopped being a stubborn idiot.
Eventually, after finishing his glass of water, and babbling a little more nonsense that he was going to be terribly embarrassed about if he remembered it, Hermione thought with a smile, Draco drifted off to sleep with a little crinkle of pain between his dark brows. Hermione got up stiffly and dug through the bag she had packed when she had returned to Godric's Hollow after the mission. There had been no way she had been willing to be away from Draco, not now that everyone knew about how she felt, and there was no reason to hide it and pretend she wasn't going half-mad with fear.
Lupin had, after a short, meaningful exchange of looks with Tonks, agreed that Hermione could go to the safehouse Draco was being healed at. So she had torn upstairs and thrown a wild assortment of items into a bag without thinking, desperate to get to Draco's side, still unable to convince herself that he was really alive and going to be all right. Which, Hermione thought ruefully as she settled back into the chair by Draco's bed, led to issues such as her most interesting book being Innovations in Potions: An Advanced Guide to Potions Research. She put her bare feet up on the bed, wriggling her toes against the side of Draco's knee through the blankets, and opened the book with a sigh.
Draco slept all afternoon, Hermione prodding him half-awake periodically to administer more pain potion. Healer Sylvan came up at five with a blood-replenishing potion, chicken broth, and a wide smile. Draco suffered sleepily through a brief examination, and Healer Sylvan's round, serene face was cheerful beneath his mop of curly grey hair as he pronounced Draco much improved, despite what looked like a developing fever.
Draco grumbled something that sounded like, "Fuck off," and Hermione inhaled a sharp, embarrassed breath and tried to apologise to Sylvan, only to have her apology ruined by Draco repeating himself, with more irritation this time.
"Make sure he has all the broth, and wake him at around midnight for a dose of pain potion, and call me if his fever gets too high," Sylvan instructed, appearing completely unruffled by Draco's horrible manners, and left Hermione to try to do as Sylvan ordered, while he went to attend to the several other patients also at the safehouse.
Getting a shirty, sleepy, delirious Draco to drink up his broth resulted in what felt like half of it spilling down Hermione's front and over the bedcovers, as she quietly fumed to herself and persisted with growing exasperation to try to coax him to drink. It took promising to give him anything he wanted once he was better, if he would just bloody well drink - a promise Hermione wasn't sure if she hoped he would remember or not - and he finished the broth without any more complaint. After that, Draco kept flicking distractingly sly glances at Hermione as she fed him like a baby bird, a tired but lascivious smirk shaping his mouth, glazed grey eyes sparking with not-quite-coherent want.
"I need - I think I need the bathroom again," Draco mumbled, blinking up at Hermione blearily as she set the emptied bowl of broth on the bedside table. She sighed and brushed her hair back, tugging the bedcovers off him and helping him sit up, her mouth tightening when Draco made a rough little sound of pain as his sleepy head lolled and then jerked up. He shouldn't be out of bed, she thought desperately, he should be resting. But try telling him that. He was a terrible bloody patient, and Hermione supposed she shouldn't be surprised, considering what he was like when he was well.
"Come on, then," she said, slipping her arm around him and helping him wobble upright, pupils little pinpricks in his irises from the pain potion. He was dead on his feet, steps stumbling and clumsy, leaning heavily on her, his bare skin hot as a brand wherever it pressed against her, black pyjama trousers low on his hips, and Hermione both worried about him and wished he was well. Wanted to twine herself around him like a clinging vine and kiss him long and lazy. But he wasn't well, and once she had steered him back to bed, she settled on the edge of it and laid her wrist over his forehead. He was hot, but not dangerously feverish, so Hermione just gave him more water and tugged the sheet and a thin blanket up over him, dropping a kiss on his forehead and watching him from her chair as he drifted back into restless sleep.
Hermione was bone weary herself - she had only caught a couple of hours sleep in the last thirty-six or so hours, and the mission and events following it had left her wrung out and shaking with exhaustion. But she didn't want to fall asleep while Draco had a fever, so she drank down a Pepper-Up potion Healer Sylvan had reluctantly left for her, and opened up Innovations in Potions: An Advanced Guide to Potions Research again for lack of anything else to do. Every so often Draco shifted his head on the pillows with a wince cutting across his features, and murmured in his sleep.
"Mother," he muttered several times with a childish hurt and longing that made Hermione's heart ache for him. And her name, a mumbled, "H'mione," that made a smile creep over her lips.
He still looked too pale, drained of blood until he was almost as white as the bandage that wrapped his throat. His hand was nestled on the pillow by his head, curled into a loose half-fist, fingers twitching now and then. Draco's eyebrows were so dark in contrast to his palest blond hair, and his lashes cast little spiky fans of shadows on his cheeks in the dim torchlight. He looked almost peaceful - almost, and Hermione checked his forehead periodically, monitoring his fever. Draco was hot, but still not terribly so, and so she simply stripped off the blanket leaving just a light sheet draped over his body, and he made a little snuffling sound and his brows scrunched briefly together, before smoothing into relaxation again. Hermione yawned despite the pepper-up, and tried to read, squinting with intent concentration at Innovations in Potions.
But it was horribly dry, and she was wrung out and weary, and before long the words were blurring on the pages. Hermione wondered what the Order had done with Pansy Parkinson as a sliver of moonlight slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across her book. And then, flicking idly through the crisp pages of her book, having given up the pretence of reading, Hermione's mind wandered to the Order - to Harry and Ron and everyone, who all seemed so far away. Not just in distance - and Hermione had no idea where this safehouse even was, so she could be on the other side of Britain for all she knew - but mentally. They were filed away in the back of her mind, as if it had been years since she had seen them last, filed away behind a fog of weariness, and worry over Draco. So much had happened, and Hermione was past the point of exhaustion and teetering on the brink of collapsing from it, and part of her wanted her friends, to bolster her up like they almost always did.
She missed them, even though it hadn't even been a day yet since she had seen them. Hermione hadn't even had a chance to talk to anyone about her inadvertently revealed relationship with Draco, and surprisingly enough no one had cornered her to ask about it in the frenzied brief time that she had spent at Godric's Hollow, before coming here. Not even Ron had confronted her. Hermione wasn't looking forward to explaining everything when they returned to Godric's, and she wished she didn't have to, but they were her friends, and they would expect some sort of... justification. Oh Merlin damnit. Hermione made a face, and changed her mind about seeing them. She could imagine their reactions to her relationship with Draco, and her imaginings weren't exactly pleasant.
Hermione wished with sleepy simplicity that she and Draco could just stay here forever. In this cosy old farmhouse in the midst of the countryside, in this neat little room, in this moment, with warm flickering torchlight, and a peaceful stillness that sank into her bones.
Even with Draco injured and feverish, there was a delicious intimacy to this; a little bubble that safely encased the two of them - just the two of them alone - in warm, glowing torchlight, close cream walls, and hot chicken broth. Except that there was also a fragility in the air that made Hermione want to crawl into bed with Draco and wrap herself to him, place her palm flat on his chest and listen to his heart thudding steadily. He nearly died. He wants to be with her. He's going to be all right. They love each other. They will be all right. Hermione's head tipped down heavily as her eyes fell shut, and she jerked back into startled wakefulness, grabbing Innovations in Potions before it slid off her lap and landed on the floor.
Draco was still sleeping deeply, his breathing heavy and slow like a whispering lullaby, and inevitably Hermione slipped into a light, uncomfortable sleep on the chair. Her head wobbled and dropped forward by inches, slumped in the chair with her feet up on Draco's bed, and Innovations in Potions clutched tightly in her sleeping fingers.
Hermione scrabbled into terrified consciousness, heart racing in her chest as she leapt to her feet - Innovations in Potions tumbling forgotten to the floor with a thunk. The stifled cry that had woken her had cut off abruptly, and Draco was sitting bolt upright in bed, half-awake and shivering. His eyes stared blankly straight ahead of him, silvered grey and wet, and his chest was heaving with shuddering, gasping breaths, his cheeks were streaked with tears that made Hermione's own breath catch painfully in her throat.
Hermione scrambled onto the bed on her knees, still half-asleep, instinctively wrapping herself around Draco. She flattened one hand on his back, holding him close, the other hand petting shakily over the back of his head as she made little shushing sounds. Merlin, he had scared her. Draco's hand came up to clutch at her wrist, hard and desperate, and she very gently pressed his face into the curve of her throat, kissing his temple, her heart still fluttering shock-quick.
"It's all right. It was just a nightmare," Hermione said softly, fingers trailing up and down Draco's spine, and carding through his hair. "It was just a bad dream."
Some of the tension shuddered out of him then, and the muscles in his back relaxed a little under her fingers as he let out a low, rattling sigh, nuzzled his face harder against her and pressed a kiss on her collarbone. She laid her cheek against the top of his head, and wondered what he had dreamed about, that could do this to him. His hand, she thought, and wondered why - they'd slept in the same bed often, and he'd never woken her with a nightmare before. It couldn't be the fever; that felt like it had broken. Draco's maimed arm came up around Hermione's waist, his hand still holding tight to her wrist like a lifeline, and he kissed her collarbone again, his breath beginning to even out, hot on her skin.
"No. It wasn't," Draco said raspingly, sounding clearer-headed than he had all day, crisp Malfoy sharpness in his tone. He pulled away from her and sank back onto his pillows with a grimace of pain, letting go of her wrist reluctantly. "It was a memory. And..." His lips twitched and nearly shaped a pained sneer, his voice wasn't quite even when he spoke. "It's not all right."
Hermione bit her lip as his eyes clearly flicked down to his maimed arm, so familiar now that she hardly ever noticed as unusual, unless she expected to feel a hand and didn't. Seeing it was just normal now; just him.
"I'm sorry," she said faintly, unable to stop herself from imagining the many ways it could have happened, horrifying scenarios prowling through her brain, and she caught glimpses that made her shudder. Hermione didn't want to picture Draco having that done to him, but she couldn't help it, and her eyes prickled with tears and her mouth trembled, and she got up quickly; busied herself with picking up her forgotten book so he couldn't see her face and know what she was thinking.
Draco groaned and rubbed his hand over his eyes, let out a long breath.
"I don't know why I'm dreaming about it. I haven't for months. I thought...fuck." His face was thrown into sharp relief by the torchlight, and Hermione noticed lines of pain cut into his thin features; more pain than there should be. She remembered Healer Sylvan's instruction and shoved the heel of her hand against her forehead in frustration.
"Oh damnit. Merlin, I fell asleep and forgot to give you your pain potion. I'm sorry." Hermione hurried over to the little desk in the corner where the vials sat in a neat row, and took one up; a delicate glass phial filled with a pale reddish liquid. "No wonder you're talking normally," she commented, apologetic and rueful as she popped out the cork with her thumbnail and pattered back across the room to Draco.
He gave her a sharp, raised eyebrow glance, still pale and shaken looking, but coherent and Draco again. "What exactly did I say?"
"That you've been harbouring a secret attraction towards Harry for years, which is why you were so upset when he refused your friendship in first year," Hermione said wickedly, struggling to keep a straight face. Draco looked horrified for a brief second, and then scowled at her.
"You're a terrible liar, Hermione."
"I had you for a second there. Makes me wonder... Now here, drink." She held out the vial, grinning smugly to herself, and Draco stared at it suspiciously with narrowed grey eyes, making no move to take it.
"I'm not sure I want to." He glanced up at her, sweeping his hair off his face. "What did I say?"
"Just nonsense, really. Something about how a sock couldn't fit there, and that you thought the bath was too cold, and that there were too many rabbits in the bed. And that I had a -" Hermione blushed slightly but went on. "And you said that I have a luscious arse."
He smirked. "You do."
She thought, and you called for your mother in your sleep like your heart was being ripped out and stomped on, and didn't say it, pushing the potion at him instead. "Drink. It's been hours since your last dose; your throat must hurt."
"No. Well, yes, it hurts like fucking murder," he rasped in that thin whisper, and Hermione's throat ached with sympathetic pain. "But I don't want the potion."
She frowned at him, irritated and confused. "But you have to. You know I was only teasing, before. About Harry, I mean."
"Seeing as I don't harbour a secret attraction to Potter, yes, I realise you were only teasing, Hermione." He said dryly, and stared down at his right arm - at the stump, and remembered pain flickered on his face. "I think it's why I'm having the nightmares."
"Healer Sylvan didn't say anything about the potion causing nightmares," Hermione said as she sat on the edge of Draco's bed, drawing the vial back to herself and resting her hand in her lap, being careful not to spill any liquid. He couldn't just refuse his potion. The Healer had said, and besides, Draco must be in horrible pain right now. Hermione had seen it happen, had her hands on the wound - seen Sylvan healing it; the horrible, deep gash, with nicked artery and trachea, and Dark magic writhing through it. It took time as well as magic to heal such deep wounds.
"You need it." Sylvan had said Draco was to take it, and Hermione wasn't about to disobey a Healer's orders.
"I'm fine," Draco muttered and his hand fisted in the sheet as he spoke and his voice cracked, belying his assurance.
"No you're not. Just take the bloody potion, Draco. Healer Sylvan didn't mention any side effects. It's probably just a coincidence."
"No." The word was full of finality.
"But -"
"No. I - I can't, Hermione. I fucking won't..." Draco trailed off, his fist clenched white in the sheet, and there was a pleading desperation in his voice that made Hermione flinch and decide against arguing with him. She wordlessly replaced the vial with the others on the desk, shoving the cork firmly back in and walking back to Draco, her face all scrunched with worry. His lips were bloodless and his eyes far away, pain etched into his features as the pain no doubt gnawed at him.
"Can I?" she waved vaguely at the bed, feeling suddenly awkward and shy. As much as they both wanted to be together now - were together now - a lot had happened between them over the past, well, since they first met each other, really, she thought slightly facetiously. Really, they need to talk about...things, but not right now. Now was definitely not the time. But it left Hermione feeling a little unsure and nervous, and relief flooded her when Draco tried to nod and winced, stopped himself.
"Please," he said, and his voice was gravely and strained and his eyes burnt on her, and Hermione felt a warm shiver trickle into her core. She slipped into bed next to him, her hand folding on top of his, rubbing over his knuckles one by one with her thumb until his hand relaxed slightly. Draco let go of the sheet and hooked his arm around Hermione so that she snuggled into him on her side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She curled her arm around his middle and sighed with utterly selfish contentment at the feel of his warm, naked torso, and the way his fingers brushed idle and light over her forearm. It had been too long since they'd had even this small degree of peace between them.
He was lucid, which was nice; Draco again. All spiky vulnerability, wrapped up in snark and awkward history and something that made Hermione want to cling to him, made her pulse skip and her chest deliciously tight. But before long the first flush of enjoyment at being curled up with him wore off, and Hermione noticed his tense shoulders, and that his fingers brushing over her arm seemed more like he was trying to distract himself than idly enjoying touching her. She laid her palm over his sternum, slid it up a little and felt his heart beating hard and quick. She didn't know if it was the pain or whether he was thinking about the nightmares, or both. And she never could keep her mouth shut.
"Does it hurt?"
He laughed softly at the question and stifled a gasp. "Yes." One word, bitten out and Hermione nibbled on her lower lip, wishing she could take his pain away. If only he would take the pain potion. Bloody Malfoy stubbornness.
"Are you sure you don't want to take the potion?" she asked hesitantly, and Draco made an annoyed sound, his fingers fluttered on her arm.
"Yes."
"Do you - if you want to talk about...the nightmare...I mean..." Hermione offered haltingly before she could stop herself, her chest tight, but the feeling no longer a good one. Draco was silent for a very long time, and Hermione had just decided she had said the wrong thing, was berating herself for prying, when he said very quietly:
"I cried."
She drew in a sharp breath and her fingers pressed a little harder into Draco's chest, like she wanted to sink into him. Two little words, hanging in the air, and Hermione felt so angry at what had been done to him, and so desperately sorry for him. Draco sighed and shifted on the pillows, began to speak, the words coming slowly and broken-rough, and very, very distant.
"Voldemort had me pinned to the floor in the ballroom, and everyone was there. To watch. I was their entertainment for the evening. Their fucking toy. I couldn't believe that it was happening. That it was really going to happen. I thought... Right up until it actually happened I thought that it...wouldn't." Emotion seeped into his dispassionate voice, and Hermione clung closer to him, feeling his heart begin to race harder and faster under her hand.
"Mother was there, watching, weeping into a hanky. And father was there...with the knife. One of Aunt Bella's blades."
Hermione's breath froze in her chest and her eyes slid shut. A knife. His father cut Draco's hand off with a knife. Not quick, clean magic like she had thought was most likely, but the slow torture of a knife, slicing slowly through flesh and tendons, and Hermione felt sick. She couldn't bear the thought, but of course she had to because it was what happened to him, and he had borne it happening to him, so she should at least be able to manage hearing what... and then Hermione realised he was talking again, and stilled her panicked thoughts and made herself listen.
"I cried, and I begged father not to. Begged him. But he did it anyway. Of course he did." Draco paused, and Hermione untangled herself from him a little, pushing herself up on her elbow and staring down at his cold, stark face. She ran her fingers over his forehead, an ineffective comfort, and he frowned as if her touch irritated; trapped her fingers in his and entwined their hands together, resting them on his chest. Draco didn't look at her once, staring at the wall opposite instead, and the line of his jaw was tense, a muscle at the side jumping convulsively as he swallowed and grimaced with pain. He kept talking.
"The first cut wasn't so bad - I thought, I thought that maybe I could keep from screaming. Refuse them their entertainment...and make my father proud."
Make my father proud. It was a hideously twisted statement, just tossed in there dreamily, as if Draco was utterly lost in memory and didn't even realise how sad and wrong what he said was. Hermione fought back tears as she stared at Draco's blank grey eyes set in their bruised hollows, thinking of him lying helpless on the Manor's cold floors and trying not to scream, so he could make the man who was severing his hand proud. She felt sick. So terribly sick.
"But it hurt so much. So...so much. I don't - don't remember all of it. I think I passed out for a while when he snapped the bone," Draco said faintly, and Hermione couldn't help it; she choked and wrenched in a gurgling breath, stomach roiling. He gave her an unreadable glance, and squeezed her fingers a little tighter as tears rolled down her cheeks and sploshed on Draco's chest and shoulder. He was comforting her, with that small, tight grip on her fingers. Comforting her while he related his torture, and it made Hermione's heart ache, a physical pain drumming and squeezing behind her ribs. He shouldn't have to comfort her.
"But I do remember screaming, and screaming. And begging and begging and...and...I would have done anything for it to stop. Anything." The admission tore from Draco's throat like he was ashamed of it, of what it meant, and Hermione's lips trembled, and it was her turn to squeeze his fingers reassuringly.
"And...and then it was over, and Voldemort mended the wound just enough that I wouldn't die, and then they just...left me there. In a puddle of blood and..." He didn't finish that sentence, his cheeks a humiliated pink despite his blood loss, and Hermione knew what he had been going to add. She had wet herself during the torture at the Manor, and the feeling of degradation, mortification, had been...overwhelming. She wasn't surprised Draco didn't want to say it aloud to her.
"No one came to get me. Not even mother. I - I waited and waited, for what felt like hours, in too much pain to move, but no one came. They just left me there, like I was just some worthless toy they'd played with, and broken, and didn't want anymore. Even mother." Draco's lips clamped together, and his eyes squeezed shut, brows all scrunched up, and Hermione could see a glint of wet on his lashes as his chin quivered with suppressed tears.
"I can't - can't dream about it again. It's too real, too...I just can't," he admitted through gritted teeth, like it was a weakness to be ashamed of.
"I know. I understand," Hermione said softly, and leaned forward to kiss Draco's cheek gently, not knowing what else to do or say in the wake of his confession. It was only meant to be a comforting, meagre gesture; all she knew to do, except Draco's eyes flashed open all molten silver and pain, and his hand ripped from hers and grabbed her hair, twined in the mass. He pulled her mouth to his, all hard, edges and desperation, mouths meeting, and he tasted like hints of chicken broth and the bitterness of his last dose of pain potion, and he moaned not with pleasure but pain as he pushed up into the kiss. It was quick and brutal, and Hermione felt a pulsing thrum begin at the junction of her thighs as she read the need in his eyes.
He pulled away gasping and angry, as if he wished he hadn't told Hermione and bared himself to her, cracked open that last secret and let it all out.
"Your throat..." she protested weakly, but Draco was already pushing her back onto the bed, and her thighs were parting eagerly of their own accord as he pulled at her pyjama shorts. She kept her eyes on Draco's face, his hair falling across it and half obscuring it; but there were flashes of compressed lips and furious eyes, as though Draco was boiling over with the memories of his degradation, and wanted to take them out on her. Her pyjama shorts slid down Hermione's legs and her hands found themselves lost in his hair, on his shoulders, sweeping over his jaw, fingernails scratching down his sides as Draco shoved her tee shirt up and laved briefly at her nipples, nipped at her throat.
And then his fingers were suddenly, shockingly between her legs, sliding over her slick flesh and Hermione gasped. Two long fingers, pushing unceremoniously into her and stretching her deliciously and another gasp caught in her throat and then slithered out as a moan, and her spine stiffened, her belly tightened with raw, grinding pleasure. And then his fingers withdrew and Hermione moaned again, this time at the loss, eyes as wide and glazed as if she'd taken a dose of his pain potion, scrabbling at him, wanting him back. Back inside her, filling her, those nimble, skilful fingers making her feel like fire was blossoming inside her, curling, licking flames sending pleasure burning to life. She wanted it back.
Hermione didn't have to wait long, with her breath caught in her throat and greedy fingers grabbing at him blindly. Draco was rough and efficient, shoving his pants down just enough to free his cock and rolling onto her, over her, above her, his jaw clenched tight with the pain of his injury. Hermione was caught up in his frantic need, caught up in his blurring, desperate want; reflecting her own back to him, until they were feeding each other's desire and magnifying it into a creature that swallowed them both up without a thought. Her tongue slid hungrily over his as Draco kissed her hard and open mouthed, and he whimpered raw and low in the back of his throat at the hurt he had to feel as he bent his head to her mouth.
And then he was fumbling with his cock, pushing it against her slick-wet pussy and she shifted, wriggled, and - there! He slid into her with a sharp, uncontrolled thrust of his hips and Hermione let out a twisted, thready moan. She felt filled and stretched and exquisitely sensitive, and her hips bucked up, her teeth clenched and her fingers dug into his lean upper arms, eyes squeezed tight-shut as she absorbed the sensation. Draco bent his forehead down to rest awkwardly on hers, their noses touching, jerking and shifting as he thrust, hard and deep enough to make her moan helplessly with each one. And then Hermione felt a drop of wetness fall just beneath her eyebrow, trickling down onto her eyelid, and with a shock that made her stomach flip and her breath stop for a moment, she realised Draco was crying.
Hermione thought of Draco lying on the marble floor and crying as he begged his father not to do it, and her heart wrenched and she blinked back sharp tears, curled her fingers into his hair and found his mouth with hers, hot, fumbling kisses. Trying to soothe his pain with her mouth, trying to take it into herself and comfort him.
But a moment later, there was another drop, and Hermione cracked her eyes open just enough to peek through her lashes at his face. She swept her thumbs over the faint wetness beneath Draco's eyes, and he flinched and his rhythm stuttered and two faint blotches of pink appeared high on his cheeks.
"Don't," he gasped out, angry and rough, and Hermione dragged his head down to her, buried his face into her neck and the shift angled her them so that his next thrust went even deeper, and they moaned in unison. It was joining and clinging and falling, and if she pushed up, just like - ah - that then there was pressure rocking and bumping against her clit, enough to bring her to orgasm maybe, and Hermione's mouth parted and trembled open in a soundless cry as her pleasure rushed and grew, and grew.
The junction of her neck and shoulder was wet with his tears, and his fingers were digging cruelly hard into her hip, and he was making little sounds of pain and pleasure that made her twitch and clench hard around his cock, buried so deep inside her. Draco thrust into her until it hurt deliciously, and the pleasure built and built, and yet Hermione kept thinking of him begging Lucius to stop, to not do it, and sick nausea mingled with her pleasure, and strangely - wrongly - both created the same roiling tightness in her belly. It was awful and it was amazing, and the feeling was jarring and discordant and Hermione was too lost to care.
She gasped and moaned with each hard jerk of Draco's hips, the sounds jolted out of her, her fingers twining in his hair and clutching at his shoulders, legs bent and clamped around him. She tried to focus on him, and not what he'd told her. Not his father bent over him, carefully slicing through flesh, measuredly snapping the bones and snicking the knife through tendons. She tried to lose the hideously unwelcome thoughts by melding into Draco, clinging to his sweat-damp hot skin, opened her eyes to his platinum hair and lean, pale shoulder, thinking of only him, now, and not back then, not screaming himself raw with the agony as the blood...
It didn't work. Hermione couldn't help it; the images kept intruding jarringly, and she wondered in a tiny still coherent part of her mind if he was thinking of the same thing, and a knot of emotion stoppered up her throat. This was his comfort, she told herself, and tried to give herself over to it. And it wasn't so hard, in the end. Draco kept rocking against her clit with every move, and his cock was going so deep, and it took only a little longer before Hermione's muscles began to seize in the familiar burgeoning crest of orgasm, everything tightening, her toes curling, mouth open and eyes shut. She forgot about everything but the sensations inside her, coiling her tight as overwound clockwork.
"Oh - oh god, I'm..." was all Hermione managed before she came in a wrenching, spasming crash. Her inner muscles clamped erratic around Draco's cock, and she heard him moan muffled against her skin, with surprise and needy bliss at the feel of it. The seizing perfection of orgasm rolled through her hard; her knees jerking up toward her body, her clit a sea of sharp pleasure, her womb clenching, a desperate mewling sound tearing from her lips, and Draco kept thrusting, kept moving, and it was all just so much, so much. Hermione clung to him and shuddered as she rode it out, drowned in it, fingertips digging at his scalp and twisting hard in his soft hair.
And then just as the last few spasms racked her, Draco made another muffled, needy sound, and his hips jerked faster and out of rhythm. It only took a few urgent thrusts, and then his shoulders shuddered and his teeth clamped over Hermione's collarbone as he made a raspy, low moan, cock buried deep inside her. And then it was over, and Draco shoved himself up and rolled clumsily off her, his breath coming quick and hard, and when she rolled her head to look at him, Draco's hand was loosely around his throat, a vertical crease gouging deep between his brows, mouth twisted.
Hermione blinked sleepily, dazedly, and sat up with muscles that felt weak and wobbly, grabbed the blankets and dragged them up. His cum trickled out between her thighs, and she felt pleasantly swollen and tender, a soreness that went deep inside; a delicious, throbbing ache.
"It hurts?" Hermione asked him stupidly as she tucked the blankets around them, head all muzzy like it was stuffed with cotton wool, and Draco nodded slightly, mouth still twisted up in pain. Her skin was still damp where his tears had dripped onto her, and she hated the fact that he wouldn't use a pain potion; wished that she had Muggle pain relief. Twice they'd had sex now, and both times the aftermath had not been what Hermione had read about in romances. It wasn't disappointment she felt though, it was hurt, and it wasn't so much because of him, as it was for him.
She shut her eyes and sighed, wishing for perfection, which was silly because Hermione knew perfectly well that perfection was unattainable, something to always strive towards, and never achieve. In both studies, and sex, it seemed, and she would strive just as hard at the latter, as she did at the former, she decided with a hint of fragile amusement.
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, and then Draco said awkwardly and abruptly: "Sorry."
Hermione furrowed her brow and propped herself up on an elbow, staring down at him as her fingers traced over his chest. He was the picture of taut, angry humiliation, and beneath that, the pain of his injury. She nibbled at the inside of her cheek, opening her mouth and shutting it again, not knowing what to say. What could she say? It had been...unexpected and gut-wrenchingly good and awful all at once, and he was embarrassed about crying, and she was shaken that he had cried, because he was Draco and he didn't do that sort of thing. Hermione hissed in a sharp breath, head beginning to ache. She wasn't equipped to deal with this sort of thing.
It hadn't been sex because he had just simply wanted her; it had been all tangled up in what he had just laid bare to her, all inextricably entwined with the horror of his father cutting off Draco's hand while Draco begged him to stop, and Hermione still felt sick about it. It had been like he was desperately trying to...Hermione didn't quite know what. To sink all his pain and hurt and remembered humiliation into her, and exorcise it from himself? Take it out on her? That was what it had felt like. She swallowed hard, still searching for the right thing to say, while he flicked worried grey eyes at her face every few seconds, his lips flattened with nervous tension. The thought of what had prompted Draco to, well, jump her like that was more than a little unsettling.
"I didn't mean it to happen like that. I wanted the next time to be...better. And instead...shit. Instead it was worse. I'm sorry." Draco covered his eyes with his forearm and puffed out a short breath, cheeks still pink. Hermione slumped bonelessly against him, wrapping an arm over him, trying to be reassuring, face tilted up to his.
"It wasn't worse," she denied firmly, tapping a light, clumsy rhythm on his chest.
"Oh, lovely. The sex wasn't worse. What a fucking relief to hear that. Maybe next time I can aim for blasé."
"That's not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean, Hermione?"
"It was...good." And it had been. It hadn't been perfect, but it had been good, and even with the weight of what Draco had told her about his hand crushing down on them both, Hermione had come beneath him and around him, and for a moment she'd forgotten everything in her mindless pleasure, and she was glad they had done it. Draco had needed it, she thought, because even now, embarrassed and ashamed of himself, that brittle, sharp fragility had faded away. Now he was just shirty with defensive mortification; Hermione thought that was a small improvement, at least. Draco shot her a dark look, peeking from beneath his arm and scowling at her.
"I cried on you," he grated out, and then hid his eyes behind his arm again, jaw clenched. "During sex."
"I think it was understandable, Draco. Considering. Don't - don't worry about it." Hermione tried to make it not a big deal, to gloss over it, but Draco just wouldn't bloody let up, determined to castigate himself with miserable embarrassment.
"You're not the one who just humiliated themselves to the point where ritual fucking suicide sounds like a viable option."
"Oh don't be stupid," she snapped and poked him in the side, and he jerked and made an indignant noise. "Would you care if I cried?"
"Well, actually, I would be somewhat concerned about that, yes."
"You know what I mean."
"It's different," he argued stubbornly. "You're a girl."
"Sexist git," she jabbed lightly, poking him again, in the side between two ribs, and Draco twitched and batted her hand away with a growl of annoyance.
"It was good," she insisted, meaning it, and he sighed, nodded fractionally.
"Of course it was." He was dry and completely insincere, and Hermione huffed and pulled away from him, wriggled down his body - his thin pyjama trousers still halfway down his thighs where he had shoved them perfunctorily during the sex.
"What...?" he asked as Hermione slithered down him, and then she took his limp cock in her hand, wrapped her mouth around it, and sucked, and Draco's hand fisted in her hair and he drew a sharp breath.
"Wha...?" He couldn't even get out the whole word, Hermione thought with an inward smirk, and his voice wobbled and trailed off as she sucked hard and his cock began to stiffen. "You don't..." have to do this; Hermione knew he was going to finish, but the words were lost as she licked his cock from base to tip, dragging her tongue slowly up, ignoring him.
"I - It'll be better, next time," Draco said like he had when he'd first woken after the mission, his fingers all twined in her hair and voice thin as she sucked hard. Hermione nodded, swirled her tongue around the head of his cock and he stifled a rough sound that made her shiver all over, and his hips lifted off the bed ever so slightly.
"Tomorrow," he insisted tightly, strained and rasping as she took the whole length of him into her mouth, swallowing around him. "Tomorrow it'll be better, I promise."
Hermione nodded again, releasing his cock with a soft popping sound as the suction broke, and agreed. "Tomorrow, then." And then Hermione did her best to make him forget about everything except her mouth hot and wet around his cock, and, she thought from the needy, growling whimpers that slipped past his lips, that she succeeded.