I am warning you one final time
This is a DARK fic
EXTREMELY dark
There is NON-CON
TRIGGER WARNING: There be smut
Counting the Stars
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Girl With a Flower - Mariam Abounnasr, Kairi - Project Destati, In Bottles - AURORA, and Nabi - BIBI
O
It wasn't possible.
It wasn't possible that Draco had noticed her as early as Fourth Year.
It wasn't possible that she was attracted to him, for any reason.
It wasn't possible.
Yet it was, and she knew she needed answers.
After their encounter in the potions lab, Hermione couldn't get out of her head long enough to walk in a straight line, let alone to sleep. She gave Narcissa her potion and went to her bedroom to change into her pyjamas. She put on a pair of dark blue satin trousers and an oversized top, and then knotted her hair at the top of her head.
She stood and stared at the spot where Carrow's body had once lay prone and emptied of blood.
She needed to talk to Draco.
The Dark Lord could summon her any day and before it was too late to turn back, she needed to know the answers to her questions.
Did you seek me out because you wanted revenge on me, or because you wanted to help me?
Is your mother's potion just a ruse to keep me busy, so I won't discover the truth of why I'm here?
Do you see me as your property?
Am I your slave, or am I just a slave to my own fears?
Most of all, she wanted to know why she hated him. Because in order to hate someone, you had to feel something for them in the first place. For her to admit that he'd destroyed something between them, she'd have to admit that there was something there to break.
She wouldn't be able to locate his charmed bedroom door, but there was one place she had a feeling he might be.
Hermione pulled her boots on, ensuring to lace them up. Then, she took the oversized shirt off and traded it for a large jumper. She fixed her bun, which had fallen out of place, and then stared at herself in the mirror for a moment.
The scar on the tip of her nose stared back at her, reminding her of a time she wished she could go back to. A time when Draco played with her in jest, laughing and bantering with her. A time when he held her hand in the forest in the dark and lifted her up into the air just to prove that he could.
A time before she ruined everything with her self-destruction.
No, she thought, drawing on her reserves. There's no reason for me to feel bad. Not until I get my answers. If he proves to me that everything I've accused him of is wrong, then I will apologize and wait patiently for the Dark Lord to take me. But I'm not going to Buckingham without a fight if I find out that I was right.
If she found that he had lied about his mother's prognosis and manipulated her into coming to the Manor so he could win some sort of strange Hogwarts game that she never agreed to be a part of, then she would allow herself to hate him fully. Then, she would make sure that Draco knew what a mistake he had made bringing her into the Manor.
He was a killer.
But she was, too.
Hermione walked down to the back door, not worrying about trying to be silent anymore. Things were different now.
If she truly wasn't his slave, then she was free to walk out the back door whenever she wanted.
The fates smiled on her. He was just barely turning down the left-side hallway when she went from the entryway to the bottom floor hallway. He wore a jumper and tight trousers with the hems tucked into boots again, all black.
"Malfoy!" she called, following after him.
He stopped in the doorway and turned to look down at her, scraping his hair back out of his eyes. "What are you doing up?"
"Gonna send me back to bedtime?" she challenged, coming to stand in front of him with her hands on her hips. "Are you going to see Callie?"
"Yes, alone."
Hermione's gut twisted unpleasantly. "Oh . . . Well, we need to talk."
His jaw clicked. "I don't want to talk to you right now."
"Well, you don't seem to care what I want, so we're gonna talk now."
His eyes flashed. He lifted his hands and tangled his fingers in his hair, turning to face the wall. "Ohhh, my Gods. You are the most infuriating witch."
"I don't care," she said in a flat tone. "We need to talk."
"What do you want me to say?!" he said loudly, sounding angry. He threw one hand outward. "Anything I say, you just claim is a lie. Anything I do, you think I'm doing with an ulterior motive. I am too fucking stressed to deal with your refusal to accept anything I do say!"
Hermione raised one eyebrow. "You're the one who told me you didn't want me to stop."
He narrowed his eyes.
"In my room that night," Hermione went on, encouraged by his silence, "I asked you specifically if you wanted me to stop. You were rather enthusiastic about the fact that you didn't want me to stop. And I understand that you're stressed out - I am, too - but I think what happened between us is something we need to talk about. You're the one who came to Paris and found me. You're the one who sought me out. I want to know why. It's too coincidental, with the money and the -"
His came towards her with a sudden motion, causing her jaws to snap shut. She backed away a few steps.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?! I don't want you like that!" His hand shot out above her head, pointing behind her. "Whatever you did in that room that night? The position you put me in? I get that you're upset about the circumstances of your life -" he spoke with a bit of a sarcastic cadence to his tone, "- but I'm not the person you think I am. And I'm not going to spend the last fucking days I have with you arguing over whether or not I -" He broke off with a loud roar of frustration. "Salazar - fuck, I don't want to deal with this. I do not want to deal with this."
The last days he had with her.
"He's going to take you away from me."
That implied that she was his to be taken. Which was the problem.
She couldn't tell in what way he felt she belonged to him.
Hermione was reeling, but she forced herself to remain calm. She wanted answers. It was time she got them.
Even if they were hard to hear.
"Okay. Fine. I'll humor you," he said, one hand upside down on his waist, near his back. He rubbed his jaw. "Why do you keep offering yourself up to me? Because it seems like you either truly feel like you are my slave, or you are trying to get me to admit that everything I've ever done for you has been a lie. Either that, or your penchant for self-destruction is way more toxic than mine. Do you really want to be used that badly?"
Hermione swallowed against the sudden lump of emotion that rose up. Bits of her time with Cillian burst forth like flashes of lightning in her mind. The most shameful three months in her life. A time so horrific and so mortifying that it had led her to do what she did to Draco in her room.
The pressure. It felt like he was trying to rip her heart open, reach inside, and pull her emotions out so he could lay them out on a table and inspect them. Like he felt privy to them, like even her memories belonged to him. It felt like he was trying to understand her much deeper and more profoundly than anyone ever had before.
Why did she feel like it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he was the one to do it?
I won't let him in, she thought, and she didn't care if he heard it. Not him. Not anyone.
"Granger," he said, vexation apparent in his facial expression. He repeated his question, punctuating each word with a nod of his head. "Do - you - want - to - be - used - that - badly?"
The pressure detonated.
"Yes!" she shrieked, unable to lift her gaze further than his collar, and the length of his lean, slender neck.
Merlin, did she want to kiss that neck.
What? No, I do not. No, I do not!
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.
"Yes," she whispered into the silence, clutching her hands to her chest. "All of my friends are dead because I wasn't strong enough to protect them. I don't deserve to be happy living here or living anywhere. The Dark Lord is not going to let me come back here anyway, so . . . Yes. I want to be used." She closed her eyes, feeling defeated. "I don't want to feel anything anymore."
"No."
Hermione's eyes snapped open. That . . . Hurt. It hurt more than she thought it should. She looked up at him, confused.
Because if he was saying no . . . Did that mean she had been wrong about him?
Was this an answer?
"No," he said again, shaking his head as he glared down at her. "You may want to be used, but I won't be."
He turned around and left out the back door, letting it slam shut behind him.
Hermione stood there for a second, her heart racing.
What if the Dark Lord summoned them tomorrow? What if she left and never got any answers?
Before she could stop herself, she was moving forward. She opened the door and dashed after him. He was already almost to the trees. Hermione followed. She panted for breath as she tried to keep up.
"I said I was going alone," he growled.
"That's nice," she said. "I have some questions for you. If I'm going to get taken away from you, then we need to have this talk now, rather than later. Don't you think?"
He stopped walking, glowering down at her. She wondered what he was thinking. His gaze was guarded, but she could see anger simmering behind the barrier.
She raised her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth turned up into her version of a smirk. "What're you gonna do? Order me to go back?"
"You know what? Whatever. You're here. Just follow me." He sighed and went into the copse, melting in with the darkness.
She walked behind him in silence for a while, trying her best not to trip and fall flat on her face. She could not see a thing. The Spring leaves were too thick. It wasn't until she felt her foot catch underneath a root and she slammed face-first into his back that he scowled.
"You're going to be the death of me," he growled, and then she felt him reaching behind him in the darkness.
His fingers wrapped around her wrist. Then, he yanked her to his side and began to walk again.
"If I don't, you're gonna trip, fall, die, and then I'm going to have to carry you. And I'm not interested in carrying another dead body through the woods."
Hermione's eyes nearly popped out of her skull and for a moment, she forgot everything that had ever happened between them. She scolded him.
"Malfoy!"
He was laughing. It was quiet and short, but it was real. Suddenly, it felt like his fingers were searing the skin that stretched over her wrist bones. They slid down until their palms were pressed together.
"I was just kidding, brat," he said.
Hermione glared at him. She wasn't sure if she was ready to go back to "kidding" with him yet.
He laced his fingers with her own in a loose connection for a moment. Hermione held her breath. He was holding her hand again. He was laughing. He was using a nickname or a moniker or whatever she wanted to call it -
He's holding my hand.
As fast as her emotions had begun to swirl with confusion and a strange elation, he unlaced their fingers. He moved back to her wrist and held that the rest of the way. Hermione grimaced through the discomfort of moving through the wards, and then after thirty or so quiet, awkward minutes, they entered the willow glade.
Hermione's jaw dropped.
Calypso was the size of a horse.
The dragon was perched atop the boulder, curled up like a cat with her tail dangling to the grass. Her scales had darkened slightly to a more rich shade of blue; they shimmered as she breathed. She lifted her head, which alone was as big as a horse's head, and her tongue snaked out to taste her own nose for a moment. Her horns looked frightening in how sharp they twisted up from the top of her head. Her cobalt blue eyes seemed to light up when she saw Draco, and then brighten further when she saw Hermione.
With a crooning sound, she slunk down off of the boulder and trundled to meet them. She spread her wings for a second.
Hermione's eyes widened. Calypso's wings nearly spanned the width of the clearing itself, brushing the willow branches that ringed the edges. She came to a stop by the two of them and sat back on her haunches. She seemed a lot calmer than she used to a couple of months ago.
"She's as tall as you when she sits like that," Hermione said, marveling at how fast she'd grown. "Perhaps taller."
Draco said nothing, running his hands along Calypso's scales underneath her chin and on the top of her neck. When his fingers dipped down to brush the top of the crystal in her chest, it glowed in response and Calypso hummed. She headbutted Draco's face.
For a moment, Hermione's mind flashed back to black-and-grey scales and Hannah's wild laugh.
Her heart trembled.
She couldn't think about that. She couldn't think about the past. Because if she thought about Hannah and Aodhan, then she would think about Luna. And if she thought about the fall of Wicklow Sanctuary, then she would think about Cillian.
She wished, though, that Hannah and Aodhan had survived. Perhaps then they could have learned that Hannah was one of the Drakin, and they could have been connected.
"She's not as playful anymore," Draco murmured when Callie sat back to watch them with the curiosity of a sleepy cat. "I think she's outgrowing this clearing."
"You can't make it bigger?" Hermione asked, stepping beside him so she could reach out to stroke the side of Calypso's neck. She stifled a laugh when she dropped her nose to the top of Hermione's curls and nudged until her bun came loose. Her hair tumbled down to her lower back.
"I can," Draco said, twirling one of the black rings around his right-hand middle finger. His gaze drifted all over her, focusing on her hair in an absentminded manner. "I . . . Could."
Hermione eyed him, scratching Calypso under the chin. "But you don't want to?"
Draco lowered his gaze and for the first time, Hermione felt like he had let his walls down. Instead of cold ice, she could see all the little gears turning in his mind. All the things that were unsettling him.
He was scared about something.
"There's a chance the Dark Lord won't let me come back," he said in a soft voice, still twirling the ring. His sleeves were so long that they were halfway down his hands. He looked pale under the moonlight. "There's a chance I'll be executed. I don't want . . . I worry that something will happen to her. That she'll be discovered. It's only a matter of months before her neck reaches higher than the trees. You know as well as I how big Ukrainian Ironbellies can get."
Hermione felt the strings of her heart being tugged. What if someone discovered Calypso and hurt her? Or worse? He was right.
"I may have to make some tough decisions," Draco said, and then he looked into Calypso's eyes. He placed his hand over her crystal. "I just wish I could have figured out our connection."
As complicated as things were between them, she knew how much Draco loved Calypso. Making the decision to let her go would likely be something he regretted. It would be like Hermione having to give up Crookshanks after getting him back, or having to give up the memories of her friends that didn't break her heart.
It was indescribably sad.
Draco resumed twirling his ring back and forth on his knuckle. He bit his lower lip and studied Calypso as though he were trying to memorize her. He took a deep, shuddering breath.
Hermione thought he looked frail.
Was that why he wanted to come out here alone? Because he was going to send Calypso away?
The moment the thought came to her, she felt floored by her shock. The fact that he would send his beloved dragon away, coupled with the outbursts he'd been having since the Dark Lord crucioed him, were starting to make sense.
He was more than stressed out.
He was terrified.
"We - erm, you don't have to make any decisions yet," Hermione said, heart pounding as she shot a glance up to Calypso's innocent face. "Just think about it for awhile. All right?"
He nodded and then when his gaze fell upon her again, it seemed a little clearer than usual.
"Ask your questions," he said.
Hermione parted her lips, preparing to speak, trying to figure out how to word them. Now that she was here, alone in the clearing with him and surrounded by moonlight and glowing white moonflowers, she almost didn't want to ruin the ambiance.
But she knew she had to. They could do this - what they were doing, spending time together - unless she knew the truth. Because if the truth was that he believed he owned her, then this was not a part of herself that she wanted to give to him. It was not a part of him that she wanted to accept.
"You know what?" he said suddenly. "It would be better if you didn't speak right now."
Hermione narrowed her eyes. Because he was upset over Calypso? Or because he was still annoyed with her?
"Is that a command?" she snarked, rolling her eyes.
"I just don't want to fight with you," he said on an exhale, and then he crossed his arms over his chest. "And I can sense that's what this will become."
"Oh, you can sense it?"
"It's in the air." He sneered.
"I told you that I have questions," Hermione said. "That's why I came out here with you. I didn't come here to pretend everything was back to normal."
The anger entered his eyes like a flash flood. "I didn't ask you to come out here. In fact, I said I wanted to come alone."
"Well, I'm here, so you should follow through."
"I really don't care about your questions, Granger. There's a lot more important things going on right now than whether or not you're my slave."
She put her hands on her hips, feeling her pulse pounding harder as she began to stray into new territory. Territory that could either backfire on her or give her the truth.
"You know, your father told me a thing or two about you," she said. He gave her a sharp look. "And it makes me think that I'm even more right than I already was. If you want to prove to me that ownership over me wasn't your intention, then you had better do it quickly. How am I to believe you based purely on your word?"
"You're supposed to trust me. That's how."
"Trust you?!" Hermione spluttered a laugh. "Trust what? Your poisons? The fact that you tried to keep the 150,000 galleon price you paid Carrow from me? Or perhaps the fact that you had already given up on your mother by the time you brought me here? You said it yourself: your mother is going to die. So what was the point of bringing me here for a useless potion, then? To keep me busy while you worked on manipulating my legs open?"
"Shut up," he said.
He was right. There was something in the air.
Tension.
Beside them, Calypso made a strange, pitiful sound. She pushed her nose against Draco's side, but he was too focused on glaring at Hermione.
"No," Hermione said. "I told you we needed to talk. I didn't say it would be easy."
"I don't want to talk about this."
To Hermione's surprise, he turned around and walked across the clearing, towards the boulder. Indignant, she went after him. Calypso walked slowly behind them.
"Well, we're going to talk about this!" Hermione cried.
She reached for his wrist.
He whipped around and she saw his eyes blaze with rage. The moment their gazes locked, he was inside her head.
It was just as easy for him to sink inside as it had been for the Dark Lord, and Hermione found herself staggering to the side as a terrible ache began to spread across her forehead.
We'll talk when I'm ready to talk, came his voice. Stop pushing me.
She glowered at him, clenching her teeth and leaning back against the rock.
"What?" he said, his upper lip curling. "You don't have a dagger on you right now? You have nothing to stab me in the throat with?"
Hermione was starting to hate him again.
Finally, he slid out of her mind, taking the iciness of his Legilimency with him. Calypso came to sit beside them again. She was making that crooning noise again, quiet and repeated.
"Stop this," he said. "Whatever this is that you're doing. I told you I wouldn't be used. Are you trying to provoke me into doing something that I have no desire to do?"
"I," Hermione said with a heavy breath, still leaned against the boulder, "just want you to admit it."
"Admit what?"
"That you want to."
They held a lingering staring contest with one another, Hermione's eyes full of determination and his full of ire. She saw him clenching his fists at his sides, opening and closing them as though he was itching to do something with them.
"Fine," he said, eyebrows shooting up. "I'll admit it."
"Fine. Go ahead."
"I want to fuck you, Granger."
Hermione's breath caught in her throat. That was not what she'd expected to hear.
She didn't know what she'd expected to hear. She'd thought he'd admit to some sort of elaborate hoax that he'd created to trick her into coming to the Manor. But instead, he'd just looked her directly in the eyes and said that as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
"There," he said. "Happy?"
Hermione let out a strange laugh. She could tell she was blushing.
But she wasn't going to let him make her speechless. She wasn't going to let him win.
"And is that a new conclusion you've come to?" She gave him a once-over. "Or has that been something you've wanted since Fourth Year?"
He looked confused.
Hermione laid her cards out on the table.
"'You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?' I believe you said that to Harry, Ron, and I at the Quidditch World Cup. So, was it before I punched you or afterwards that you realized you wanted to -"
"Shut up!" he suddenly roared, and then his hands were around her upper arms, pressing her firm against the rock. His eyes searched hers. "Shut up! You don't know anything."
Calypso let out a loud screech of her own. She snapped her jaws, her teeth clacking together. She began to prance back and forth around the side of the boulder. The dragon was in distress, but she was ignored.
"Why do you . . ." His voice faltered for a moment. His eyes dropped to her lips, then snapped back up to hers. His glare intensified and hands tightened. "Why do you have to twist everything to make it - to make it . . ."
He trailed off, his lips still parted as though they were waiting to keep moving. Hermione's breathing grew shallow. Their proximity was within inches. He smelled of sandalwood.
There was something else in his eyes.
Calypso paced, the faint thump of her heavy step providing a unique background tune to their stand-off.
Suspicion entered Hermione's mind.
"What do you want to do?" she asked, threading the tiniest note of challenge into her tone. "Right now, what do you want to do?"
"I really want to shut you up," he growled, his grey eyes boring holes into her very soul. It felt like he was trying to see every part of the inside of her head.
"So do it," she said, lifting one eyebrow.
She didn't know what she thought he'd do. She supposed he would back away. After all, he was the coward, wasn't he?
Draco inhaled and held his breath. His gaze fell to her lips again.
And he kissed her.
No.
He devoured her.
He devoured her with his head turned to the side and his hands bruising on her arms. With his entire body pinning her to the boulder with so much force that the only way she could breathe was to open her mouth and let him inside. There was desperation in his moan.
But there was rage in it, too.
The moment his lips touched hers, his tongue was inside her mouth, searching for something. She didn't know what. She didn't care, either. She just kissed him back with as much fervor as he had. With just as much anger and frustration and stress and fear as he was giving to her.
His hands began to roam. So did hers. His fingers scraped down the sides of her waist and around to her lower back, squeezing her backside through the fabric of her jumper. Her fingers were in his hair, her nails combing his scalp and eliciting a pained sound from his throat.
He broke away for a moment, his eyes meeting hers briefly. He hissed through his teeth, barely moving back far enough to keep their noses from touching.
"You fucking infuriate me, you little witch. You make me want to just . . ." He groaned and his hands went to her waistline again, lifting her up and pressing her to the boulder with their hips melded together. "Throw you down and just -"
She shoved him away and slapped him. She didn't know why. She just wanted to.
He stared at her. Her palm stung.
They each took a breath.
"I promise you that if you don't knock it off, you're going to find yourself in a bad situation," he said in a threatening voice.
Desire fueled her as she surged forward and kissed him again. Draco's hands pressed tight on her waist, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. Hermione bit his lower lip, hoping he understood that even if he was taller than her, and bigger than her, and making her feel like her blood was on fire, she was the one in control.
He slammed her against the face of the boulder again, the sounds of their almost feral groans and sighs mingling with Calypso's anxious growls.
Her mind was blank. Just like the night she'd pleasured him on the window seat, inside the expanse of her head, there was nothing but the white-hot heat of the star that was Draco.
She was kissing Draco Malfoy - snogging him, really - and all she cared about was the fact that she wanted to keep doing it until one of them won the battle. She wanted to tear his hair out and claw his eyes and wrap her hands around his throat and -
She tore her lips away from his and gasped as though coming up for air. Everything was spinning. Her skin was hot, too hot, and she just wanted to breathe.
"Stop making promises you can't keep," she said, her breaths high and pitchy. Her hands gripped the sides of his head, holding him to her neck. Her eyes rolled up as he nibbled the skin beneath her ear with near-vehemence.
"You want me to throw you down and fuck you right here?" he growled, and then he was sucking on her earlobe. Her hips jerked as a bolt of lightning jolted her core.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she snarled, trying to keep herself from moaning as the feeling of his tongue on her ear and neck threatened to send her into a tailspin. "You'd - you'd like to just - ah - tear my clothes o-off and - nnh!"
She felt like she was going insane. It didn't make any sense. She was so angry, yet she wanted him so badly that it hurt. Her stomach clenched with a need so ferocious that she thought she might keel over and die. She moved her hands through his hair, all over his head, like she couldn't get enough of its softness.
"I think you're the one who would like it," Draco whispered into her ear, moaning as they continued to grind against one another. "Since you - fuck - keep trying to - to get me to - Fuck, I can't take this!"
His hips rolled to meet hers. Hermione's skull exploded with pain as she let her head fall back against the rock. He was hard as he ground against her again and again, firm enough to make her cry out with every movement. She didn't even mind the pain, or that she was seeing more stars than just the ones in the sky.
He kissed a line of molten passion down the side of her throat, tasting her skin with his tongue. She pulled his hair because she wanted to. Because she was angry that he was kissing her like this, just to shut her up, when she was trying to prove that she was her own person.
But damn if she didn't want him to sink inside of her and make her his.
Skreee!
A screech. There was a thundering sound.
Calypso, in her agitation, had run across the clearing and was now bounding back. The ground shook so much that Draco's hands slipped, forcing Hermione to let her legs fall from his hips. There was a strange crackling noise, like the scream of electricity in the air.
Calypso was inhaling.
Hermione's eyes widened. Draco cursed.
Her throat was glowing blue.
The dragon let out another angry screech and opened her maw. The blue glow spilled out from within and Hermione had to squeeze her eyes shut against its brightness. She felt Draco's hands on her, yanking her forward as he backed away from the rock and shoved her to the other side of it. She stumbled behind the safety of the boulder. He whirled around to face the dragon.
Calypso exhaled.
A beam of blue light expelled from the depths of her throat, razing the grass flat with something hard and white. It streaked across the clearing and went straight for the pool of water.
The water froze instantly.
Calypso made a coughing, hacking noise, and then she crooned. She looked at Draco with the expectant look that Hermione had come to realize meant she was happy.
"Did she just breathe ice?" Draco said, sounding breathless.
"I think so," Hermione replied. She stared at the frozen trail in the grass and then looked up at Calypso. "And she looks pretty pleased with herself."
"Do dragons breathe ice?" Draco asked, looking perturbed.
Hermione recalled what she'd read in Dragons and their Kin. Before learning about the Drakin, she wouldn't have thought this was possible.
"It's the crystal in her chest," she said with confidence. "The crystals influence scale color and elemental magic. Her element must be ice."
She walked over to the ice floe that bisected the grass, kneeling down to feel it with her fingertips. It was rough, cold, and hard. When she touched it, she felt like she could feel the magic thrumming within it. It was like tiny sparks, remnants of magic-past.
"Fascinating," she whispered. Then, over her shoulder she called, "Looks like Calypso is an ice dragon."
Draco didn't respond. He went to pet Calypso, using his hands to stroke her head. He murmured to her, avoiding Hermione's gaze.
The heat was gone and awkwardness had settled in.
Hermione walked to the other side of the clearing, running her fingers through her hair. She took deep breaths, struggling to find some sort of calmness within her spirit. Whatever issue she'd been having before the snog of the century was now ten thousand times worse. The feeling of his kiss lingered. On her lips, her ear, her neck . . .
It was dangerous, and raw, and poisonous, and infuriating, and just -
She hated him. She hated him more than anyone she'd ever hated before.
Hermione stopped her frantic pacing and glanced across the clearing.
Draco was climbing on top of the boulder to sit on it. Calypso curled around it, resting her head on Draco's lap. The narrow tip of her long, snakelike tail thumped against the ground in bliss when Draco smoothed his hands along her scales on the side of her head.
He glanced to the side, towards Hermione.
Their gazes met.
"You want me to throw you down and fuck you right here?"
Hermione whimpered in irritation, low under her breath, and turned away. She sat down in the grass, facing the willow branches.
Because yes, she did. Kissing him was like dancing with the Devil and soaring past the stars, all at the same time. His tongue was sinful when it spoke, lecherous when it kissed, and iniquitous when it tasted. There was wickedness in the press of his fingers and the roll of his hips.
Her heart sank.
What if it turned out that he just saw her as a slave? Had she just sealed her fate with a snog?
All the fighting and arguing that they'd been through would all be for naught if she found out that not only had he lied to her, but she'd been so foolish as to let her body control her actions.
Everything was so confusing now.
After what felt like hours, Draco approached her.
"Let's go," he said, voice as closed off as his facial expression.
"All right," she whispered, and then she stood up. She glanced at Calypso to say good-bye, but she was asleep on the grass by the boulder.
The boulder that Hermione and Draco had rutted against.
She looked away quickly. She and Draco stared at one another for a moment.
They absolutely could never go back to the way things had been in February. They were going to have to just keep moving forward and disentangle the threads as they went.
If we have time to, she thought as they started off through the trees. Because the Dark Lord will summon us any day now, and that might be the end.
She knew that if the Dark Lord had her executed, then it didn't matter if Draco wanted her to be his property or not. She'd be dead. Their time together was limited.
Hermione just didn't know what to do with it.
They walked back in tense silence. They did not hold hands, but Hermione kept a shy grip on his jumper sleeve. He let her. She tripped quite a bit, trying her best not to make a sound so that he didn't have cause to talk to her. She could tell by the air about him that he was on edge, agitated, or angry. She didn't know if it had to do with her or with Calypso.
Did he think they'd made a mistake, kissing like that?
O
Hermione's bedroom door seemed to loom up in the darkness of the hall.
"Tomorrow," Draco said, and it was more of a mumble. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay," Hermione said, her hands clasped behind her back.
There was silence. Draco twirled his ring again, like he had earlier. Hermione was beginning to think it was a nervous habit. Which was odd, because before everything that had happened with Carrow, Draco had never seemed like an anxious person. He'd always seemed rather cold.
If she could be wrong about his personality, maybe she was wrong about what she thought he wanted from her?
"Granger, I didn't protect you that night," Draco said, drawing Hermione's attention with the seriousness of his tone. He was staring at the floor, from what she saw. Her eyes had just barely adjusted to the darkness. "You fought Carrow off to get the door open; I couldn't break the wards. You were the one who killed him, because I was on the ground. I should have been the one to do it. I should have been the one to kill him. I didn't protect you and I can't protect you from the Dark Lord when he sends for us . . . Forgive me."
Hermione felt her heartbeat begin to flutter. "I forgive you for that."
His expression was unreadable, but no less intense, even in the dark. "I'll make sure the Dark Lord doesn't find out it was you. That's a promise I can keep."
"And what if he crucios you?" She closed her eyes. Even if they didn't get along, watching him fall apart like that, sobbing in agony as the Dark Lord's magic rippled through his body? She never wanted to see that again. "Like last time?"
"Then I'll take it. If that's what the Dark Lord does, I'll take it ten thousand times over if it means keeping you safe. Even if I have to take the fall for Carrow."
Hermione felt uncomfortable. Overwhelmed. Nervous.
If he was willing to fall upon the sword for her, then that must mean that he cared for her. He cared for her enough to take all those crucios in the sitting room, and now he was saying he'd do it over and over again.
And if the things Narcissa and Lucius had told her turned out to mean something, then that meant that the answers to her questions as to his truthfulness lied in context and circumstance.
But Hermione didn't want context. She wanted undeniable proof. After what Cillian had done to her, she needed undeniable proof.
Even if it were true that Draco cared about her and his parents had told her useful information, none of it explained away her fears. He could be willing to fall upon the sword for his property or his witch. It was interchangeable.
How am I supposed to find out the truth?
"What if . . ." He took a step closer and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. "What if I told you that you were right about one thing . . . What if I told you I wanted you? Would you want me, too?"
Hermione stared up at him in shock. What was he saying? Was he asking her if she wanted to . . . To be with him?
Her mind whirled. Forty-five minutes ago, they were clawing at each other, violently snogging against a boulder and cursing at one another. And now he was asking her if she wanted to be with him?
There was something forlorn in his expression. She didn't know if it was because under his stoic, caustic exterior, he was just a sad person. She didn't know if it was because their days were numbered while waiting on the Dark Lord's summons. She didn't know if it was because of either of those things, but it was like he expected her to say no. Like he wanted her to say no so that she lived down to his expectations.
That bothered her.
They were not in a place where she could answer that question.
"No," she said, because she simply couldn't give him another answer when she was so convinced that she hated him. "I don't want anything with you."
But even as the words left her mouth, she knew they weren't entirely true. She just didn't know how to dissect them. How could she say she didn't want anything with him when she could hardly look at him without feeling her stomach flip?
He nodded in the sort of way that one nods when they're on autopilot. When Hermione thought about what he must be feeling, she did feel poorly about it, but she just . . . Couldn't answer his question with anything else.
Yes, perhaps they had made a mistake in the clearing.
"Goodnight, Granger," he said.
Hermione let her glance linger for a moment before she went inside her room and shut the door behind her. Her hand hovered over the lock.
All she needed to do was turn it. If she turned it, he couldn't come in.
Her mind screamed a very loud, Who cares if he can't come in?! Lock the door! in her direction.
Why did she care if he wanted to come in? If he came into the room, well then . . . Then . . .
Then she wasn't so sure what would happen.
She wasn't so sure she could stop what would happen.
Hermione left it unlocked.
With a sigh, she tossed her coverlet back and threw herself into bed with her jumper and boots still on. She pulled the blanket on over her body and tried to settle in on her side facing the wall. She closed her eyes and tried to count Snitches.
Maybe if she didn't look at the door, then her imagination wouldn't be allowed to wander.
Because it really would be simple for Draco to just waltz in, since she'd left the door unlocked. Even if she'd locked it, the windows weren't black. That meant that he could Apparate in.
If he wanted in, there really was nothing to stop him.
An image of Draco Apparating in and crawling on top of her in bed flashed across her mind.
Hermione swallowed and rolled onto her other side. The half-moon was rather bright today, closer to the Earth than normal. The Spring temperature in the air was warm but with the jumper, it was downright sweltering. She could feel sweat beading underneath her arms and on the back of her neck.
The jumper was going to have to come off.
She sat up, crossing her arms in front of her. She grabbed onto the hem and pulled it off over her head.
Another mental image. Draco standing at the foot of her bed, watching with hard-as-flint eyes as she revealed her camisole to him.
Hermione shook her head to rid her mind of it. That was absurd. It had to just be something lingering from the boulder incident. The boulder incident, which would never happen again and would never be spoken of.
She lay down on her back, the coverlet bunched up around her waist.
She just needed to go to bed.
Hermione's eyelids fell shut. One moment passed.
"I promise you that if you don't knock it off, you're going to find yourself in a bad situation."
His hands on her waist, pressing in and kneading her flesh with his fingers. His lips against her pulse. His tongue, soft and wet against her earlobe.
A situation with Draco Malfoy didn't sound so bad right now.
Hermione gritted her teeth. Her lower body felt like it didn't belong to her. Like it was awake, alert. She pressed her thighs together, shifting her feet against one another.
She was not attracted to him like that. She couldn't be. She'd snogged him, but it was out of anger. She'd ground her hips to meet him, but it was out of hatred.
"Fuck, I can't take this!"
The memory of the feeling that had coursed through her body when Draco pinned her to the boulder and lost control was undeniable. She couldn't erase it or push it away, even if she tried.
Even if she wanted to.
What was it about him that just . . .
"Oh, you sweet girl. You're so, so sweet."
Hermione felt like her entire body was on edge. Alive. On fire. She wanted him to walk in, or to Apparate into the room, so she could throw caution to the wind. To get it out of her system. To get it over with before the Dark Lord took her and killed her.
She wanted to show him that she wasn't sour all the time.
Sometimes, she could be sweet.
She slid down deep under the blanket, until the entirety of it covered her whole body. The heat that enveloped her was different from the stuffiness she'd felt when wearing the sweater. It was slightly stifling, but in a way that made her feel lightheaded. Her skin tingled all over. She took a deep breath, feeling it warming her inside. The sheets were rather soft.
She could do it just this once, to the thought of him, and then never think about it again. She could take the strange attraction she had to him, the memory of the kiss, and the memory of what she'd done to him in the window seat, and put it in a box somewhere deep inside her mind.
After all, what would have happened if Calypso hadn't lost control of her magic?
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut in the darkness.
What Draco didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.
I still hate him, she thought as her hand slipped down the front of her pyjama trousers. I'm still me, and I still hate him, even if I want to imagine him when I -
The moment she touched her fingers to her bare flesh, her eyes rolled and back arched. Her imagination - her desire for Draco - was so strong that she was having no trouble whatsoever imagining that it was him under the coverlet with her.
She allowed her mind to wander as she explored her own core, her toes curling. Though her touch was gentle, the image of Draco in her mind was not. He was rough with her, like he'd been in the clearing. This Draco was the violent clashing of lips and the forceful spreading of her legs as she wrapped them around his waist. She could almost hear his moan in her ear again.
The enclosed space beneath the blanket was getting hotter. Her breathing grew shallow, her exhales turning to low whines as she parted her lips to try to get more air. The combination of the pleasure and the lack of oxygen was heady. She felt dizzy, but in a good way.
As she felt herself steadily climbing to the top of the mountain, she imagined his eyes. Silver storms swirling in an icy wasteland. Watching her, boring down into her, glaring at her. Wanting her to spread her thighs wider. Wanting her to come for him.
She didn't know if that was what he would want or say, but her mind had taken on a life of its own.
"I wanna see you come," she imagined he'd say in the same voice he used when he was angry with her. "Now, Granger. I want to see you come undone for me."
Hermione let out a cry as the pace of her fingers swirling against her pearl nearly brought her over the edge. Her cheeks flamed with mortification, but her body was unable to stop. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the sheets. Her hips ground against her forefingers, her arousal making everything ten thousand times more severe.
She was so close.
And oh, she just wanted it to last.
She wanted it to last forever. She wanted to hang on the knife's edge of ecstasy for as long as possible so that she didn't have to put it in the box yet.
Hermione pressed her face even harder against the mattress, her head spinning in wild, oxygen-deprived circles. She moaned aloud, into the sheets where the sinful sound became trapped. Her thighs began to tremble. Her lungs burned, desperate for air. She could feel it. It was getting close.
She was going to come.
The Draco in her fantasy wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed until she saw spots. He looked at her not with hatred, but with a possessiveness that she knew had no boundaries. He looked at her like she belonged to him.
I do, she thought, the voice in her head frantic with desire. I do, I do, I do, I -
She couldn't breathe. She was seconds away from passing out, but she didn't want to lift her head from the sheets. Not when she couldn't stop moaning, whimpering like she was on the verge of tears.
The Draco that existed in her head was the one that was stroking her between her legs, winding the coil in her core tight, tight, tight until -
"Tell me," he whispered with that Slytherin tongue against the shell of her ear. "Do you hate me now?"
The coil snapped and sprang apart, electric shocks traveling along her veins as she shattered in her first orgasm in months. She sobbed into the sheets, stars shooting across her vision as she the euphoria wracked her body with convulsing shivers. It was overwhelming, the power of it as she finally lifted her head to gulp in air.
Sparks of anger replaced the pleasure as it slowly ebbed from her body. She hadn't actually meant to think that. I do, I do, I do? No, she did not. She did not belong to him. Even in her imagination, he was still trying to control her. To own her.
Tomorrow, she would have to figure out a reason to explain why she was angry with him again. She certainly couldn't say, "I'm angry with you because you're a prat, even in my imagination." And she couldn't tell him she was brassed off because she was attracted to a dark part of him that she had no business being attracted to.
At least if she could focus on her anger, she wouldn't have any energy to feel embarrassed for touching herself to the thought of him.
As she lay there in the aftermath of the tsunami, shame tingling along the network of her veins, she realized something.
She hadn't gotten to ask any of her questions in the clearing.
He hadn't let her.
Prat, she thought, her vexation already growing. Bloody prat.
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