Apricity – Chapter Twenty-Two

Draco sat down in the armchair, sinking low and stretching his legs out.

He didn't need to sit so far away from her, but it felt safer to talk this way. Especially given that he'd brought a freshly rolled joint back out with him and if he was already going to smoke in the common room, he didn't need to be blowing it into her face. He'd gone to his room to get what he needed and change into his usual trackies and a black tee shirt, and he wanted to relax, not cause issues.

Hermione had taken her slippers off and was now sitting on the far side of the couch, her knees tucked up into his jumper and her hands clasped to her chest. She was staring at the tree, and Draco could see the lights glittering in the reflection of her irises.

"I wanted to be close to you."

Draco wished it wasn't just because of the bond. He wanted to be close to her, too.

"If you're gonna do that in here," he said, "then there needs to be some rules."

"Rules?" she spluttered, looking over at him from underneath the hood. "You said you weren't going to control me!"

"I'm not." He put the joint between his lips and lit it with the tip of his wand, then set the wand on arm of the chair. He took a drag, held the hot smoke in his lungs, and then blew it out with a cough. "But this is a shared space, and in a shared space, there should be a set number of rules that all parties living within should follow. That's fair, innit?"

". . . Yes," she muttered. "But I have to agree to them, because it's my choice what I do with my body."

"I know, Granger."

"All right. So, what are they?"

Draco took another drag on the joint while he thought to himself. He weighed the way things were with Hermione against the way things were with his mother, and wondered if maybe he wasn't making a huge mistake.

What if it was his fault his mother had died? What if him watching over her from afar, cleaning up after her, and hiding her secret was what had ultimately killed her? He didn't even know how making yourself sick could kill you, but if that was what had caused his mother's death—what if Draco contributed to Hermione's?

But she was a Gryffindor. She was strong and proud, and she was going to do whatever she wanted to do, no matter what he wanted.

"First of all, you leave the door open when you do it. If you don't leave it open, I want you to tell me before you're gonna be sick."

She stared at him in horror.

"Don't look at me like that," he said around a third drag. He could feel the calm of the high settling over him, easing his heartbeat and muscular tension. "If you want to be able to do that without me interfering, then you either tell me before you make yourself sick, or you leave that door wide open. I'm not going to make this easy for you. And what if something happens? How am I supposed to know to help you if I have no idea what's going on in the loo? I could think you're dead and walk in on you in the shower, or you could be dead and I wouldn't find you for hours."

"I'm not doing that. I'm not announcing it to you, nor am I leaving the door open. You've lost your damn mind."

"Then you're not throwing up in here, and I'm going to McGonagall."

"You wouldn't. She'd never believe you, anyway."

"You don't have many options here, Granger," he said, tapping the ashes onto the carpet and then vanishing them with wandless magic. "You either play by my rules, or you can play by McGonagall's."

"Or I could just do it in the public loo." She gave him a look that bordered on smug.

"Have fun doing that—if you do it anywhere other than here, I'm going to McGonagall."

Hermione looked like she wanted to throttle him. "Fine. I'll tell you before I do it, but I'm not leaving the door open."

"Fine. Your choice, as long as you pick one."

"It is my choice," she mumbled. "What's the next rule?"

Draco rested his head back against the back of the chair, staring up at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. Whatever strain this was, Blaise had done a great job.

"No overeating by yourself. If you're gonna eat all those Muggle snacks, you can do it with me."

"I have to eat with you?!" she practically shrieked. "Draco, sometimes I don't eat breakfast or lunch—sometimes I eat between mealtimes. How am I supposed to eat if we're in—in class or something? Am I just supposed to starve?"

"Isn't that what you're doing?" He sneered.

"No! It's not—you don't understand. It's one thing to eat and get rid of it—at least then I can trick my brain into thinking I ate. If I don't get to eat at all, it feels like torture!"

"Granger, come off it. You stuffed the packaging into the couch to hide it from me. That's stupid. I'm not saying you can't eat—I'm just saying you can't eat it alone."

"But what if you're asleep and I'm hungry?" Her tone was challenging. "Can I still eat it if I tell you in the morning?"

Draco couldn't lift his head—he was too high. He just looked at her from under his lashes, speaking to her in a hoarse voice. "If you make yourself sick at night and die, it defeats the purpose of the first rule."

She sighed heavily and then threw up one hand. "Fine! Fine. I'll eat with you." Then, her eyebrows shot up. "But you have to sit with me at every meal—including in the Great Hall."

Draco took a fourth drag on his joint. "Can't you accept the rules without trying to make compromises?"

Her face remained unchanged. "I'll agree to the second rule if you agree to always sit at the Gryffindor table, or save a seat for me at Slytherin."

Draco could see it now—the absolute sheer pandemonium that would ensue and the rumors that would spread—and he didn't mind it. But that wasn't the issue.

The issue was that Hermione wasn't understanding how important these rules were.

"Third rule," he said without answering her, "is that if you go to Hogsmeade, you can't make yourself sick at all. None of that 'going to the loo three times and ordering multiple meals' shite like you did with the Weaselbee."

"Oh, so I can't go to Hogsmeade now?" she snarled, crawling across the couch to the side closest to him. "You think you can tell me where I can go?!"

"No, you can. You just can't make yourself sick if you eat at the Three Broomsticks. You can either take it to go, or eat it and keep it down."

"That's not fair!"

"It's plenty fair. You ran into a table last time, Granger, because you were faint from doing it so many times. I may not understand how it all works in there—" He gestured to his entire body. "—but I know it can't be good if you're running into things. So, if you're gonna throw up everything you eat, you need to keep it to the castle. Hogsmeade is off limits."

She let out a growl. "You're a complete nightmare! It's the Winter. Any food I take to go will just get cold, even with a stasis charm."

"I guess you'd better keep it to the castle then."

She was silent, but he could feel her fuming from where he sat. He took a drag on his joint while she thought to herself, and he held the smoke in his chest for as long as he could. He coughed a couple of times, feeling his high intensifying.

"I hate you so much right now," she said, "but fine. I'll agree to that. Hogsmeade is off limits."

"You can go there—you just can't throw up there."

"Whatever, arsehole!"

"Don't be a bitch," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. His head felt light. "I'm not the bad guy."

"And I'm not the bad person, either!"

"I didn't say you were. The issue isn't you or me. The issue is your 'virus'."

She paused and then grumbled, "Anything else, master?"

"Shut the fuck up," he said, trying not to laugh at the sheer absurdity of what she'd just called him. "Don't call me that."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, one more." His eyelids fluttered open and his head lolled to the side as he gave her a lazy look. "If you feel anything amiss—and I mean anything—you come to me. Don't hide it or keep it inside. If you feel faint, tell me. Or—or give me a look across a room. Something. Anything."

She opened her mouth, and he could tell she was trying to find something she could say to control the rule like she had the other three. But then, he saw her brow furrow. He didn't know if she'd pieced anything about his mother together or not, and he hoped she didn't bring it up if she had.

"I will," Hermione finally said, and she tousled her curls back. "If you promise to come running."

He looked at her, and she looked at him, their eyes meeting with something that showed Draco she wasn't as tough as she was pretending to be. She didn't want the rules because they scared her. She was strong and she was proud, but she was scared.

"Always," he said softly.

He glanced at the tree again, taking in the sight of the glitter and twinkling lights. He supposed now he could see why she was so adamant about decorating the tree. It had been pretty in his dream, but in real life, it looked ten times better. He'd seen plenty of House Elf-decorated trees in the Manor while growing up, but it felt different looking at one that he'd decorated with his own two hands.

Draco wondered what Christmas would have been like this year if his mother had lived. Would they have decorated a tree themselves, since all the House Elves had been dismissed by the Ministry? Would they have visited with his father and shared some sort of dessert across a metal table in a room made of stone?

Would his mother have eaten until she was too full and made herself sick like she had the previous years? Would she wait until dark, or would she do it at midday since Lucius was gone?

So many questions. So many painful questions. Questions that tugged at his heart and stung at his eyes.

He wished he could explain it all to Hermione so she could just . . . Know why the rules were important. But when he thought about telling her—about betraying the only secret his mother had taken to the grave—it made him feel ill. It tied his throat shut and suffocated him.

Huh.

That was odd.

It almost felt like . . .

The storm was back.

He blinked a few times, holding the heels of his palms over his eyes as he felt his head spinning behind closed eyelids. He could feel the clouds rising up in his chest, expanding there and making him feel like he was floating. Either he was extremely high, or he was—

"How careful?"

Draco dropped one hand to the right arm of his chair, and his left hand slid up into his hair. "What?"

Hermione was leaning over the arm of the couch a bit, on her knees with her hands propping her up. There was a strange look in her eyes. Rather, it was familiar because he'd seen it before. It was just strange to see it while he was awake, and even stranger to see that she was leaning far enough to put her head above his.

"How . . . Careful?" she repeated, and the crackle of the fire in the hearth was louder than her voice.

Oh.

He looked up at her, his gaze flitting up and down her face as he took it in. "More careful than if we were in a dream."

"Why?"

"Because," he said. She was looking at him so intently that it unsettled him. "It's too easy to lose control in a dream, and the fact that you and I can interact and remember it makes me think it's more real than it seems. But in real life—"

"You're in control."

He scrutinized her for a moment longer while he took another drag, feeling the grey storm raging within him, his emotions even more muted than usual because he was high. Then, it clicked.

"Are you feeling it, too?" he asked.

She averted her eyes for a moment, and then she nodded.

"It's unbearable. Like, it hurts."

"It hurts?" he said, his eyebrows lifting.

Another nod from her. "It's hard to explain. But it's like a storm for you, right? Well, turn it into a hurricane. It's just so much that it hurts. I don't know if it's the bond, or if I just . . ." She looked down and then met his eyes again. "Or if I just want you."

He felt his stomach twisting, but he schooled his features into nonchalance. He wished she wasn't on her hands and knees like that. It made her back arch, even in his jumper.

Damn it.

The last thing he wanted to do was give into the star bond when they'd been through a nightmare together twice. What if she wasn't thinking clearly?

But he was in control.

He was in control, and he would never hurt her.

And she said she was in pain.

"So, you think it'll help if we just . . ." He looked her up and down. "Mess around a little bit?"

Even in the dimly lit living room and with her bronze skin tone, he could tell she was blushing. She had to be—there was too much body heat coming from her.

"I think so," she said. "Yes."

"Are you ready for something like that? After everything?"

She pursed her lips. "To be honest, I'm not sure. Part of me wonders if I'm ever going to be able to be normal and just . . . Do the things I want to do. But another part of me knows it's the bond."

"Granger . . ."

"Another part of me just likes you," she said, looking directly down into his eyes. "And that part of me knows you would never hurt me. You would stop if I asked you to, wouldn't you?"

Draco's heart leapt, but he remained as calm as possible. His lips quirked up into a half smile, and he spoke to her out of the corner of his mouth.

"I'd do anything you asked me to."

"Then . . . I know what I'm feeling right now." She sat back on her knees on the couch, facing him. "I know what I'm feeling, and it's confusing and overwhelming. It's the star bond, yet it's also me wanting to see if I'm ready. Me knowing that you're the only person I feel safe enough to try try it with."

"You realize you're all over the place, right? It is the bond—there's no way that what happened in the dream last night was anything other than that," he protested. "You might regret it."

"Right now, you're the only person I trust with my body, Draco," she said in a quiet voice, not looking at him. "And I feel so . . . Dirty. After this Summer. For feeling this way. I just want to feel clean again."

"You're overexplaining," he said, still relaxed in the chair. "You're valid, but you're overexplaining."

"It's not that." She shook her head, a deep frown settling onto her face. "I'm making excuses because I'm . . . Scared. What we did in the dream—I liked it. Every time Ronald tried to touch me like that, I felt unclean and—and wrong. But when you touched me, it felt right. Normal. I didn't seize up and feel afraid."

Draco was quiet. A different version of himself would have thought she was acting so strange. It was normal to be attracted to people, and normal to want to snog them or do more with them. And here she was, analyzing and discussing and convincing.

But he knew the truth.

She was scared that there was something wrong with her.

"Never mind," she said. "It was stupid. Dreams are different than—"

"Just come here, you silly bint," he murmured, holding his hand out to her, palm-side up. "Stop overthinking everything."

With a somewhat shy expression, Hermione placed her hand in his. Her skin wasn't as soft as it had been in his dream, but he didn't mind. He wished she didn't feel so cold—it worried him.

His mother's hands had always felt cold, too.

She stood up from the couch, and he tugged on her, pulling her over to him. She stumbled slightly, and then she was standing between his legs. His half-smoked joint in his other hand, he maintained eye contact with her and pulled.

Her knees landed on the cushion, between his, and her hands curved over his shoulders to steady herself. While she was still visibly reeling, he reached up to push her hair behind her ear. His heart pounded, but the marijuana in his system kept him from dwelling on the way things had escalated, and the fact that they were very awake and not in the Library where they had an excuse to stop.

The only interruptions would come from them.

He held the joint to his lips and inhaled. She watched him.

"You want some?" he said in a smoke-strained voice as he held it in his chest.

She eyed the joint warily. He coughed and blew the smoke out to the left.

"I'll put it out."

"No!" she said quickly, and then to his surprise, she straddled him, her knees slotting between his thighs and the arms of the chair. She settled on his lap. "I want to try, but I don't know if I can actually . . ."

Draco raised one eyebrow. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

His heart warmed.

"Okay. Just . . . Okay. Remember to part your lips and inhale."

"Huh?"

"Just—remember."

Once again, he put the joint to his lips and inhaled, pulling in as much as he possibly could. Then, he grabbed the curls at the back of her head, his fingernails scraping lightly along her scalp as he did so. He pulled her down closer to him, tilting his chin upward so that their lips brushed together. He felt her body tense up, but she tightened her hold on his shoulders. Her lips parted one moment after his did, and then he exhaled.

She breathed in.

The smoke exited Draco's chest and she inhaled as much of it as she was able to. When their lips broke apart, she began to cough weakly. He couldn't help but laugh, especially when she held the back of her hand over her mouth and let out an uncharacteristic giggle.

"Well?" he said.

"Can we do it again?"

His lips curled up.

"Good girl. You learn fast."

After another drag and breath share, he could see by the catlike grin on her face and her lidded eyes that she was already high. He wasn't surprised, given her weight and the fact that it was probably her first time. The occasional breathless laughs that left her lips at silent jokes she was sharing with herself proved it.

As Draco finished off the last of the joint, Hermione's hands roamed his upper body. She stroked his forearms, arms, chest, even his neck. He felt his skin prickling in the wake of her touch, felt it going straight through his body, but he held himself together.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"Getting comfortable," she replied, her fingers fluttering along his neck tattoos. "Just in case."

"Just in case what?" He vanished the expired joint.

"Just in case the bond can't be reversed."

Well, that was something.

"So you think it's a for sure thing?" he asked.

Her gaze snapped to his. "Do you?"

"I think it is," he said, his hands hovering over her hips. He wasn't sure if he should touch them, but it was getting difficult to ignore the way she felt pressed up against him.

"So do I," she said. "In fact, I'm certain of it." She ran the forefingers of both hands down the center of his chest. Because they were so cold, he felt it through the fabric. "Is this okay?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Whatever makes you more comfortable."

Draco felt Hermione's fingers traversing his body again, this time going slowly as they pressed into every nook and crevice on his torso. The buzz that sang through his veins seemed to hum in response to her, coming alive every time her fingertips came into contact with his shirt. Still relaxed in the chair, he let his head fall back into the cushion and he closed his eyes.

He hadn't been touched in so long.

Hermione's hands found their way to his face, where she seemed to inspect it like she was looking for injuries. She tugged at his ears, pushed up the tip of his nose, and squeezed his cheeks. His eyelids fluttered open right as her thumbs pulled his lower lashlines down.

"What are you—" He burst out laughing, batting her hand away. "What are you even doing?"

"I'm getting comfortable!" she said, grinning. "I might have to look at this face for the rest of eternity. I might as well do a preliminary inspection."

"A preliminary in—"

He slipped his arms around her waist because he laughed so hard she almost fell off of his lap.

Draco straightened his spine, sitting up. He tilted his head back and gazed up into her eyes, watching the way they sparkled even with the Christmas lights behind her. It was just like in the dream, when they were running across grass smattered with white gardenias.

The smile reached her eyes.

His hands slid up the center of her back as he lifted his chin to press his lips against hers. It took a moment of consistent pressure before she was kissing him back, her body molding to fit the contours of his. He felt her hands cupping his cheeks, her fingertips playing in the long hair that wisped against his ears. He fought a pleasant shiver.

He'd kissed her before in waking and in dreams, but he knew without a doubt which he preferred.

The heat of her body. The softness of her mouth. The way she seemed to burrow into his arms as though it was the safest place to be. He felt needed like he never had before.

If kissing her always felt like this, he'd take eternity over dreams any day.

Draco's stomach curled in tighter and tighter, until he had to part his lips to take a breath. The moment he did, Hermione slipped her tentative tongue into his mouth and caressed his. He curled his hands into fists in the fabric of the jumper she wore, feeling the ridges of her ribs beneath the fabric.

Every single one.

He almost stopped kissing her because he felt so sad.

Hermione tilted her head to the side and kissed him deep—as though she were searching for something. Draco didn't stand a chance against the tidal wave that crashed over him, pulling him under just like the dream had. He panted, trying to gain his bearings in the sea, but it was like trying to breathe beneath the surface. It filled his lungs and suffocated him.

In a move that seemed experimental, she rolled her hips downward. He felt her core grinding against him, the heat of their bodies mingling and the temperature in the room seeming to intensify. Draco lost himself to the sensation of her on top of him, his fingers sliding up higher until one hand got lost in her curls and the other traveled around to the underside of her chin.

She broke the kiss, their lips millimeters apart, and their eyelids fluttered open at the same time.

Her hips rolled again.

Draco moved forward to kiss her again, his lips slamming into hers with fervent desire. His hands roamed her body—her face, her shoulders, her arms, her waist. They slipped beneath the hem of his jumper to curl around her outer thighs, dragging her as close as he could. She couldn't so much as shift her body without grinding their lower bodies against one another's again.

Gasping, he kissed a line down the side of her throat, relishing in the way her hips jerked when his tongue lapped at her skin to trace the path. He suckled at the tender junction of her jaw, right beneath her ear, and her head fell to the side with a soft sigh. Soft and just for him—just like her.

It felt like he held an entire galaxy in his hands.

"Do you want to stop?" he breathed into her ear.

Her hands came to rest on his chest. "No. I want to keep going."

He kissed her ear and this time, when her hips jolted, he gripped her hipbones. Taking control, he moved her backward and forward. She gasped again.

"Tell me what you feel," he murmured, his gaze falling to where their bodies touched.

"I can—" She let out a strangled sound, like a breath constricted by lack of oxygen. "I c-can feel you . . . Getting h-hard."

Fuck.

The fact that this was real—that this wasn't a dream—and she wouldn't let anyone else do this—

Fuck.

"Yeah?" he said, his nose brushing hers. He breathed her air. "Then you know how bad I want to be inside you, don't you?"

"Y-Yes," she whimpered, and then she placed a hand on the base of his throat, right over his tattoos. "And you know . . . How wet I'm g-getting."

His eyebrows shot up. "Oh, yeah?"

She bit her lower lip and nodded.

"You're getting wet for me?" he drawled, his blood rushing South. He smirked.

"For—yes, for you."

The shy way she stumbled over the words in that sweet voice of hers.

It was so cute. It was just so fucking cute.

Draco cursed below his breath, almost powerless to stop his own hips from rolling upward. The moment they did, he felt her begin to rotate. Quick, undulating circles as she arched her lower back to put the apex of her core directly against the hardness that had grown.

"Touch me," she said, the words falling on the wake of her breaths. "Please, Draco."

"Are you—are you sure?" His hands remained on her hips.

"Yes. Before I change my mind."

Draco moved his hands up to her waist as slowly as possible, his eyes searching hers for any sign of hesitancy. He didn't know if they should be doing this, but she seemed so adamant in the way she—

Hermione took one hand off of his cheek, reached beneath the jumper, and placed it over his. She moved his hand up to her breast, a bold look on her face as she formed his palm to fit over the small mound. She wasn't wearing a brassiere, and there was an eroticism in that that made him want to groan.

She held him there for a moment and then let go. Her hand returned to his face.

"I said touch me," she whispered, and then she kissed him again.

He didn't know if it was her bravery or the fact that it was her—he was more turned on than he ever had been in his entire life. He moaned into her mouth, breathy and certain, and began to squeeze and knead her flesh. Her back arched again, bringing her chest closer to him, pushing her skin into his.

Another twist of his stomach.

This was surreal. It was like a dream in and of itself, nevermind the fact that he knew they could fall asleep and still find each other. His thoughts were spinning and reeling, thinking about everything they'd been through, and how different things were now, and how much he liked her.

He liked her.

He liked her more than he should, and it didn't make any sense.

Draco rolled the peak of her breast between his forefinger and thumb, gentle yet insistent, until she broke the kiss and buried her face in the crook of his neck. He repeated the movement, never lessening the pressure, and she stifled her cries with her lips against his pulse.

His other hand—still on her hip—swirled circles in the dip of her pelvis. She ground down harder, moved back and forth faster.

The fire continued to crackle in the hearth.

Draco's other hand moved inward, his thumb still pressing those gentle circles. He crept closer and closer to her core. When he reached it, he turned his hand so that he could stroke her there where the fabric was wet, pressing circles into a new place.

It was everything.

He turned his head, burying his face in her curls and listening to the way her breath hitched when he did. Godric, she smelled so lovely.

"Want me to make you come like this?" he breathed, his hand massaging her slowly in time to the rolling of her hips.

"No," she said. He started to pull his hand away, but she reached between them to grab his wrist. Without lifting her head from where it was buried, she spoke in a muffled, weak tone. "I want you to touch me for real."

"Underneath your trousers?"

"Yeah," she said, her hips still rocking against his fingers. "Beneath my knickers."

Draco hesitated for a moment.

What if she wasn't ready? What if she regretted this?

Did she forget who he was?

Hermione's grip on his wrist tightened and she began to move his hand upward again, pinning his fingers to the waistband of her leggings. Her head lifted and she pressed her forehead against his. Her eyes were closed and he could feel her shaking.

"If you're frightened," he whispered, his hands stilled on her breast and on her lower abdomen, "then we can stop."

"I'm not frightened," she said, shaking her head. She kissed him, a brief brush of their lips. "I'm not frightened of you."

He wanted to tell her she should be. He wanted to tell her he was the wrong person for her to be doing this with, and the wrong wizard to be bonded to. However sitting there, looking deep into her eyes and seeing the trust that had somehow cultivated between them, all he could think about was the way it had felt to wash her in the shower. To know that in that moment, he was the only thing holding her up and that without him, she was alone.

In some ways, this was the same situation.

"Don't move," he breathed, and his hand slipped beneath the waistband of her leggings and her knickers. He felt the soft curls there, his fingertips sliding over them, and then he was touching her.

He was touching her.

"Don't move," he begged when he felt her hips startling at his touch.

She bit her lip against a sigh, but her hips continued to rock. The movements were ever-so-slight, and he felt them. The back of his hand passed over his hardness, and the sheer willpower it took to keep himself under control caused his eyelids to flutter shut once more.

Just like in the dream, she was so wet that all it would take was a slight movement upward. His fingers would slip inside as easily as though she were made of ocean water.

He wanted to drown in her.

"Oh, fuck—" He cut himself off to hiss through his teeth. "Don't move. Just let me feel you."

Her fingers clenched in the shoulders of his shirt as she forced herself to remain still. Her forehead pressed harder to his as his fingers slid through her wetness, exploring, touching, feeling. He cursed again, and looked down between them, the shadows so dark that they obscured.

He found her clit with soaked fingers, scissoring it between them and making her thighs quiver. He used gentle, soft movements, his lips finding her bared throat to press open-mouthed kisses to her petal-soft skin.

"Draco," she gasped, throwing her head back. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders. "Draco, please—I need to—"

"Yes," he hissed. "Fucking—do it."

She let out a moan as her hips jerked forward again, rocking harder against the swirl of his fingers, chasing his touch. He looked up through his lashes at her, watching her brows pull together and her mouth fall open on a choked sigh, and his entire body vibrated with desire.

When he slipped two fingers inside of her, she bloomed like a flower for him. She sank down onto them with a groan, wrapping her arms so tightly around his neck that he had to breathe through her hair.

"You're so fucking perfect, you know that?" he breathed into her ear, holding her breast with one hand and sliding his fingers in and out of her body with the other. He twisted them, curled, felt the spongy spot he knew would make her keen. "You feel so fucking tight and perfect."

The movement of her hips stuttered and he let out a breathless laugh.

"Yeah, you like when I talk to you like that, don't you?" His other hand disappeared into her knickers, finding her pearl again. The simultaneous touches inside and outside of her body seemed to send her careening into space, because she let out a sob.

"I like it." Her lips moved against his ear. "I like y—"

"When I do this?" He slammed his fingers into her with rapid speed, again and again, not stopping for even a second. The grey inside of him had gone white. "Huh? You like when I fuck you with my fingers like this?"

Before she could answer, he went faster not because he knew what he was doing—because he did, of course—but because something about the way she was tensing up in his arms showed him that she needed more.

"Good girl," he growled, his chest bursting with an emotion he couldn't place. She whimpered like she was overcome. "That's a good fucking girl for me, aren't you? Come on—I wanna hear you."

He went harder, his forearm muscle burning from exertion that he ignored.

"Tell me, Granger. Tell me whose good girl you are. Tell me—"

"Oh," she wailed, her body trembling. "Y-Yours. Yours, Draco, yours, yours, yours."

He punctuated each word with a firm thrust of his fingers because he liked the way she sounded when she said she was his.

Draco kissed her again, swallowing her cries with his tongue as he attacked her core with every intention of making her see stars. Her hips jolted forward, forward, forward, and then she turned her face aside so she could let out a low, desperate moan that sent shivers of lightning racing down to his toes.

"Come on my fingers, Hermione," he pleaded in a rough, scratchy voice. "Fuck—I want you to come all over my fucking fingers. Come on. Come on."

"Draco—I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm—" Hermione cried out again, her entire body going rigid as she shattered like a comet crash-landing on Earth. Her leg muscles convulsed and he felt her walls fluttering around his fingers, felt an extra rush of wetness escaping her and slicking his skin. She let out small moans in his ears, the sound of her voice tapering off into pants for air.

Like something written in the cosmos, they turned their heads to lock gazes, each one studying the other. Draco couldn't read her expression—he didn't know what she was feeling. It terrified him.

And then, as the tide goes with the moon, he saw the reverence in her eyes shift into something wholly different. She went stiff. Completely stiff.

Well, shite.

"I shouldn't have done that," she said.

Draco froze with his hands hovering over her hips. "Wait—what?"

"I shouldn't have—oh, my Godric. I shouldn't have—that was—I'm sorry."

Hermione rose to her feet, her hands trembling so visibly that it was impossible to ignore. Her expression was panicked. Full of regret. Fear.

Self-hatred.

Draco scrambled to his feet as she backed away, worried. He moved toward her, reaching, fingers grazing her elbows. She turned her face away and tried to field his touch.

"I just—I'm not—don't touch me!"

Draco stepped back, holding his hands up in reflexive defense. Shame pulled his heart to the pit of his stomach. He was no better than the man in Paris. No better than anyone who had ever hurt her.

It was too soon. Of course it was too soon. Even what they'd done in the dream was too soon.

What was he thinking?

"Are you—"

"Just—" She squeezed her eyes shut and he saw her chin tremble. "I need to be alone right now."

She turned and left, and moments later, he heard her bedroom door click shut.

He was so fucking stupid.