The kiss is gentle.

A breathe, along lips. A confirmation. Of sorts.

Thrilling. Momentary.

Draco pulls away slightly. Just a small amount, enough to look into the eyes of the witch in front of him.

"What are you doing?" He asks, a whisper of air along the side of her cheek.

A smile, in her eyes, in the softness about her mouth.

"And here I thought you were experienced enough to know what a kiss is," she says. Joking. Court jester. Lighting the room because it's heavy about them, shadowed, darkened.

Heavy.

But Draco does not want that answer and he scowls, a narrowing of dark eyes, so very dark, because suddenly they are a dark grey, intense, heated.

Making Hermione shiver, and not from fear.

Anticipation. Desire.

And she sobers, because suddenly, after so long, the moment is here, the brief time, a lapse of judgment, reality, a cornerstone out of what is true.

A moment absent from time in a small cottage facing the sea.

Honesty.

It swirls about them in the colour of blood. Crimson and strengthened to a darkened colour of shadows. Promises, lives not lead. Words not spoken.

"Do you know what used to get to me about you?" Hermione asks, and in her voice a tilt of something precious. Sacred.

Draco looking at her, shaking his head slightly, until the memory surfaces, suddenly, completely. A smirk then, just faint, along the side of his mouth. "Because I am brilliant?"

Hermione, hands still along side his face rubs a thumb over the slightly scruffed skin of his jaw line. She smiles, looking down on his lips, slightly parted, feeling the warmth pool to a heated insistence. Deep. In her womb.

"You never had to try." She says, corrects. "Never had to try." She murmurs again, to herself more to him.

And Draco wonders where she is going with this, this bit of memory, this bit of thought, part of him wanting to pursue the question, another part of him reluctant to do anything that would cause her to pull away, cause her hands to fall away from his face.

Her fingers. So gentle.

More telling than she probably even knows.

So he nods, just barely. Fighting the urge to close his eyes, fighting the ever increasing arousal of having her near, trying to hold on to what this is about, what her presence her means, what he is here for. But losing, always losing his awareness around her.

Wanting, so very desperately, just to let go.

But he keeps his eyes on hers, steady.

And another smile, slight, gentle. "Harry says you're intelligent."

He cant help it, a snort of laughter then, a slight rise of his eyebrow, but her smiles grows a little bit bigger and her hands do not drop.

"I thought you would find that amusing. But he's right. You are." She has been looking at his mouth as she spoke but now she looks up and meets his gaze once more and what he sees there causes his chest to contract.

Suddenly it is very hard to breath.

"Always smart Draco, the ease of being a Malfoy, the Prince, there are only two things I have ever seen you voluntarily work for, voluntarily suffer for" A pause then, a pause as she searches his eyes for something, for something he doesn't know she searches for.

Continuing. "The war." A pause. Then. "And me."

The constriction in his chest, growing, the vice tightening, tightening about his person, the look in her eye causing all thought to move away, far away, until only those words are flamed in his mind, in his brain.

On his tongue, against his teeth. Sweet, but still so sour, bitter almost, because of the nature of their history.

Pleasant. With a tinge of harshness. Like everything else between them.

Her hands hold his face between cool palms, her thumbs on his lips, staring into his eyes and she feels her heart moving about her chest, bursting up from her throat.

"I don't know what this is Draco, this feeling I get when I'm around you, the need to have your hands on me, your lips on me, but more than that, the need to hear your words, to argue with you, to feel your intelligence, to have you, all of you, every bit of you, about me. Your mind, magic, hands, all of it. I don't know the reason behind my inability to find other relationships, my inability to banish you from my thoughts, those eyes, always in the back of my mind, our bond always around me, supporting me, warming me. I don't know what that means."

A pause, as her thumb moves across his lips, though her eyes never leave his. "I don't know why I am so horrified at the thought of you to destroying this bond, this compulsion, I don't know why, because you're right, it will probably make things easier." A smirk, a slight, ever so slight smirk that fades away to earnestness, to seriousness. "But, I cant let you, the very thought of you doing it causes a fear, dark, forbidding, like nothing I have felt since the days before, around the war, facing Voldemort. And panic, a horrible panic, like drowning."

Tightening her hands then, fingers tips bruising his cheeks. "A panic because I know Draco, know with everything that I am, that I can no more lose you now then I can lose you before, and that in the end, in the end, I will choose you. I will always choose you, no matter the past, no matter what my noble heart or my inner Gryffindor might say."

A pause. A whisper.

"I will always choose Draco Malfoy."

Moments. The sound of the fire in the grate, the sound of wind about the house.

The distant sound of waves against cliffs.

A moment.

That Draco stares at the witch in front of him, that he hears, processes his words. A moment.

And then he does the only thing he can think to do.

He kisses her.

And in that kiss, like before, is desperation, for her words to be true, for there not to be any lies.

For honesty.

And when she doesn't pull away, when she tilts her head just slightly, just enough, his hands come up to her arms and he pulls her towards him, onto him, wrapping himself about her, deepening kiss with long lazy strokes of his tongue, lips, and teeth.

But under the laziness, a hunger, a heat, that they feel, thrilling, down deep. His hands moving across her skin, her hands moving up his arms, while they breathe into each other, falling further into the blood magic that swirls about them.

Suddenly breaking away, breaking away and standing up in a smooth motion of grace and agility, Hermione in his arms, her arms coming up to wrap around his neck, looking up at him.

The sight of her smile, the slightly swollen lips, the eyes dark with passion, causes something to jerk, pull, hard in his chest.

"I am going to make love to you Hermione Granger, unless you stop me right now," he whispers the words, but they are fierce, guttural, words that must be spoken though every instinct of his is yelling at him to just take her, be damned the actual consequences or anything else.

But he does speak those words. And because he does something in Hermione warms, glows, and she smiles up at him and he thinks he has never seen anything else more beautiful.

"Please," she says.

A slight smirk. An insertion of his normal self. A nod to earlier. "Please what?" He prompts.

A flicker of irritation, of normalcy. "Please make love to me Draco Malfoy," she says, keeping the irritation down, but still there.

Some things change, some things do not.

But before her words process, or the tone they are said in, his lips are on hers once more, and then steps, several, until they come to the room they'd left days ago, the fire leaping there all ready, the bed, with the pillows, no longer indented with two heads, but waiting for them.

And he lowers her to the black surface, lowering her gently, his fingers coming up to smooth away the curls from her forehead, staring down into those eyes, and then kissing her nose, then her cheek, her forehead, the point behind her ear, her hands moving across his back, shoulders, down his sides.

Looking up once more to catch her gaze and then startling to see that tears have started, slowly, trickling down her cheeks and immediately he stiffens, immediately wondering if it was a lie, all of it.

And she must have seen it, felt it under her roaming hands because she lets go of his shoulders to reach for his face, cupping it as she has several times that night, cupping it and smiling up at him.

Draco relaxes, slightly, ever so slightly, bringing a finger up to wipe the moisture from one cheekbone. "Why are you crying?"

The smile, less sure this time, but still there, but her eyes, burning, and her magic, a warmth so secure, so comforting that it doesn't allow him to pull away.

But still. He must know.

So he asks her again.

And this time she answers.

"Because I just realized something," she says and her voice is weak almost, breaking, but clear, precise, words spoken as her hand traces feather light touches over his cheekbones and his lips, over his nose and eyebrows.

Draco watching her, holding himself still. Waiting.

Poised.

But then her words, crashing whatever barriers there might have still existed. Her words.

Demolishing him.

"I do love you," she says.

Words.

And then her laugh. Crystal. Bells.

And her eyes shining.

"I do." She says. The wonder of it. "So very, very much."

And then she brings her head up and kisses him, and this time the kiss is not gentle, its demanding, its heated, and he moans into it, falling onto his elbow, senses very much taking the first seat as he feels this witch, his witch below him, her hands on him.

Finally. His witch.

And this time their fingers are more sure, quickly depositing their clothes to the floor, their hands knowing, the curves of her hip, the small of his back. Their lips know the place at her collarbone, the slight trail of hair on his flat stomach.

Bodies knowing even as breath moves between them, whispers of skin against skin, the moan and slight quickening of pulse, of magic about them. Hermione kissing the scar on his forearm, even as he kisses the scar on her shoulder, confirming, remembering, the feel of her breast, heavy in his hand, nipple pebbled against his palm. The feel of his shoulders, strengthened, warm against her fingers, the points of her fingers digging into his muscles as he licks a trail, kisses at trail, down her chest, enveloping one of her nipples in the heat of his mouth.

And knowledge. Somewhere, as her hands move down his sides, down his hip, around to kneed at the flesh of thigh, and his knowledge, his mouth moving from her breast, down the slight concave of her stomach, across the slight rise of her rib, down to the hair that is heated.

Welcoming.

And the taste of her, the smell of her, the brilliance of lavender, of autumn, it tears at him, and he reminds himself, his tongue dipping down, finding that swollen nub and playing with it, reminds himself that he must take it slow. Wanting, even as he grins at the sudden gasp of pleasure from her mouth, that he wants to worship this witch, this beautiful, wonderful, witch.

His witch.

The knowledge causing him to growl and nip at her inner thigh with his teeth.

The sensation, combined with his fingers slicking through her folds, passion gathering in her belly, low and deep, and pushing further and further, causing her to whimper, fingers coming to his hair and holding there.

Just there, the silkiness under her hands as he plays her, so eloquently, ever so gracefully, plays her. Urging her magic, the deep swell and circling of desire, to gather, at the base of her spine, stroking it, higher and higher with every finger twitch, with every piercing of his tongue around her nub.

Taking her into his mouth, growling at the feel of her hands in his hair, at the taste of her, at the moans moving across his body as she responds to his attentions. Fingers, licking, sweeping, tongue moving with wicked knowledge across the swollen nerves and then into her core, once more at her nub and nip of his teeth, until it burns, a rise of pleasure, of pressure, focusing until it bursts about her.

And she calls out, her body arching upwards, her hands digging into his hair, calling out his name and his name said with such pleasure, with such abandon, with such a voice causes him to tighten to an almost unbearable point.

And still, between her legs, he bites once more, a soft bite, along her inner thigh, just one more time, before moving up her with slow kisses, with slow hands, stroking that pleasure, that feel of him about her once more.

Until he is hovering above her, eyes the colour of quicksilver looking down on her with such gentle care that it causes her chest to contract, her eyes to once more tear, because everything he feels, is there, right there in him and she sees it, and the trust he has in her its almost too much, the love, almost too much.

She reaches up with hands, cradling his face, and then curves up to kiss him, a long slow kiss, a thanks, a confirmation. He doesn't know, doesn't care, the desire he has for her overwhelming in its intensity.

His hands, elbows propping him up on either side of her head, play with her hair.

Staring down at her. His lips curving into a smile, body positioned so she can feel him, a breath away, her body unconsciously arching upwards to make the contact, her need of him a slow burn deep in what she is.

"You are so incredibly beautiful," he says, to her, scanning her face with his, even as he slowly enters hers, slowly, methodically, inch by inch.

She groans, barely able to keep her eyes open under the feel of him, filling her, the climax from before warming her, throbbing still, and she feels him as a piece of herself.

Stopping when he is fully within her, and then retreating.

His name, a whimper in her breath.

Draco slides almost all the way out, the tip just barely there, a pressure, and Hermione groans, biting her lip in an effort not to break the moment, even though her body is screaming at him, the need for him something that is almost threatening to take over.

Almost too much.

He moves forward, slowly, his own breath barely controlled, his voice strangled, but still, not closing his eyes, not looking away, staring down into dark brown eyes nearly black in the firelight.

"I am going to make love to you now, Hermione," he says, and his voice slides about her person, that voice, dark silk about her and she shivers at it, at the pleasure of it, even as he fills her, body melding to hers.

And she cups his face once more, cups it, bringing her body up so every piece of her, every part of her body is in contact with his, kissing him, just a kiss, just lips.

"I love you." She whispers as she breaks the kiss, the murmur against his lips.

He leans back, leans back, stilling inside of her, studying her face, studying everything about her.

"As do I." He says and those words, they are full. Heavy.

"As do I." He repeats.

His forehead coming down and meeting hers, as he slowly starts to move, slowly, his hands coming around her body, coming around her person, to pull her into him, his rhythm not losing its smoothness, just increasing its speed, their lips meeting, as everything, just everything, between them, is between them, their magic, their desire, their love.

Everything between them.

And when the climax hits them its simultaneous, a growl, a shout, names, magic, intertwined, combining about them, the intensity of it causing their magic to shutter, combined as it is, shutter and burst, and the brilliance of it glows in the darkness of the room.