The next night, as they drove through some muggle city lit up in neon, Hermione tried to explain the concept of electricity to Narcissa. Narcissa, though she tried, could not quite follow. It was distracting, the way the city lights moved across Hermione's features. When they got to their room in the hotel they would be staying at that night, Narcissa turned to take Hermione's coat and the glow of the younger witch's eyes and cheeks struck her dumb. Hermione was dazzling. Aflame. It was as if she had somehow carried all of the lights of the city inside with her. Or as if, and Narcissa thought this possibility more likely, she was her own source of light. A bright sun who had deigned to visit Narcissa's solar system and who, when she eventually left - as she must - would leave everything dark and cold. Narcissa thought that if she was a man, a young man especially, the thought of it would devastate her.
Turning, Hermione caught the expression on Narcissa's face and blushed.
"I'm exhausted," Hermione said, collapsing onto the bed. Deflecting. "I need a nap."
"And I need a shower," Narcissa said. A cold one preferably, she thought privately.
Hermione nodded, closed her eyes and listened to Narcissa move around the room. Something solid - Narcissa's shoes, Hermione guessed - hit the floor. Something was unzipped. Hermione swallowed. Probably just a suitcase. Then a padding across the floor, the sound of a door opening and closing and a steady stream of water hitting shower tiles.
Hermione exhaled. Holding hands in the dark was one thing. But it was entirely a different thing to have the thoughts she'd been having. About Narcissa. It was all too complicated, too much. She was Draco's mother, Lucius's wife, Bellatrix's sister. But she was also just Narcissa. Just Narcissa with her eyes clear and blue like the sky and her jokes and her hands so gentle and warm. It didn't feel so complicated when she thought of it like that. Best not to think of it like that, then.
The heaviness in Hermione's limbs grew. But it was pleasant, this tiredness. It was the type of tired that came from a busy and fulfilling day, a day of moving forward, of going somewhere. It was a tired hadn't felt in years before this trip and it must have overcome her because the next thing Hermione heard was the bathroom door opening again.
Blinking awake, Hermione saw that Narcissa was wearing a bathrobe, her hair wet and slicked back away from her face. She looked - well, she looked breathtaking and it was entirely unfair how the neckline of her bathrobe was open just enough to form an arrowhead pointing -
Hermione coughed, choked almost. Her eyes skittered away from Narcissa and found the light fixture above the bed.
"Where to next?" she asked, voice a little pitchy.
Hermione felt Narcissa lower herself onto the bed. Narcissa didn't do anything so graceless as collapsing.
"Anywhere," Narcissa said. There was a smile in her voice. "Wherever you like."
"Anywhere?"
Narcissa hmmed. "How would you feel about France? I have a home in the south. Or somewhere warmer, perhaps?"
Hermione considered the ceiling fan. Narcissa meant it. Anywhere. In her head appeared a road, a familiar road that, by Hermione's recollection, forked out left and right. Only now it seemed to split, sprouting a hundred different branches like one of those time lapse videos of trees growing that Hermione used to see on television. An infinite number of tributaries; an infinite number of forks in the road. Where to go? What to do?
Hermione sat up, feeling suddenly a little dizzy. Narcissa in a bathrobe, France, choices, choices, choices - it was all too much. She stood, walked to the large window on the other side of the room and leaned her head against its cool surface.
"You decide," she said.
She could feel Narcissa's gaze on her back.
"Where would you like to go? What do you feel like doing?" the older witch asked.
"I don't know," Hermione said. She closed her eyes and turned her head so that one of her cheeks rested against the window. She felt feverish. "I don't know anything."
She heard Narcissa shifting, sitting up in bed.
"Nonsense," Narcissa said. "You know almost everything."
Hermione opened her eyes.
"I don't," she said to the reflection of Narcissa just visible in the window pane. "I know facts. I know dates and spells and potion ingredients, but I don't know anything important. I don't know what I want to do or where I want to go. I don't know what I like, or who I like, or who I am or what I believe. People think that I know these things because I used to, once upon a time. But that was before - and I don't –" her words tripped on each other in their haste - "I don't know anything anymore." Hermione ended on a plea. "I don't know what I want."
Narcissa looked at her for a long moment. "You knew you wanted to come here. With me."
Hermione turned. Narcissa had her chin raised, eyebrow quirked in challenge. As if she was teasing. But when Hermione met her gaze, she saw only vulnerability there, a heart baring itself, accepting that it might be broken. A question.
"Yes," she said. "I did."
Hermione pushed back her shoulders and walked to the bed.
Narcissa shifted once more, drawing her legs up and under her so that she was half kneeling at the edge of the bed. Like this, with Hermione standing, they were almost the same height. Like this, they were close enough that Hermione could see the laugh lines on Narcissa's cheeks and around her eyes. Signs of a life lived. Imperfect and beautiful. What had Ron said? It had been an awfully long time. Things had changed. She deserved to do the things that made her happy. And these last few weeks with Narcissa - she was happy.
Hermione, though certain now, did not bridge the final gap between them. This, this one thing, she wanted to leave entirely to Narcissa. Narcissa could turn away, pretend like this was a joke. Hermione would not push. Nothing need change. It would be easier that way, less complicated, less risky. But really, hadn't Narcissa waived her right to easy when she wrote that letter?
Maybe Narcissa thought the same, maybe she thought that her inexplicable recklessness had turned out alright so far. She must have thought something like that because, with a hand that was only slightly trembling, she pulled Hermione to her and closed the distance with a kiss.
Narcissa's lips were unbelievably soft. Her cheeks and neck, which Hermione kissed her way down and across, were soft. Her hands, which reached under the back of Hermione's shirt, were painfully, frustratingly soft.
"I want you," Hermione murmured into Narcissa's collarbone. And Narcissa's hipbones, which pushed against Hermione's in response, were hard; desperate and demanding.
Narcissa tugged off Hermione's shirt and unclipped her bra, leaned back just to look and then they were kissing again. Her hands ran up and down Hermione's arms, her back, into her hair, touching everything she could reach. They fell onto their sides, still kissing, still tasting each other, and Narcissa shrugged off her robe. Shifting so that Hermione was under her, she began to kiss her way down Hermione's body. It was an act of worship. She left a prayer at the hollow of Hermione's neck, at her sternum, at her ribs, and the dip of her navel. Hermione's trousers were unzipped and, with a pause, a questioning look and a nod from Hermione, they and her underwear were pulled down. And the prayers continued.
Narcissa was sure, as it happened, that she would never remember it. Hermione was glorious to look at. Her touch was feather light, transient, the sensation dissolving on Narcissa's skin within seconds. How could memory ever recreate this?
And then when she was inside Hermione and Hermione was arching, gasping into her mouth and saying her name over and over, Narcissa, Narcissa, Narcissa, she thought that she was a fool - she could never forget this. It had changed her in some fundamental way. Surely they would both be marked by it forever.
And then there was no room for thought. Only pleasure, only the hungry look in Hermione's eye, the sound of her moans, the taste of her when Narcissa dipped between her legs.
God.
"How did you do it?" Hermione asked later, when they lay in one another's arms, blankets over their intertwined forms and nothing at all between them.
"Do what?"
"How did you lie to Voldemort? Keep things from him? You're not an open book but you are…" Hermione paused. Ran two fingers over Narcissa's lips. "Expressive."
"Oh darling," said Narcissa with a delighted laugh. "I was nothing like this during the war. I was, well, I suppose you would have called me a closed book. Shut tight. But what I did took no special skill. I simply did what I had to do to protect myself and my family."
"Like Lily," murmured Hermione.
"Pardon?"
"Harry's mother's sacrifice saved him. A mother's love defeated Voldemort the first time around, and in a way I suppose, a mother's love defeated him in the end too."
Narcissa shook her head. "I've heard that one before," she said, smiling sadly. "And I've had some time to think about it. Perhaps I played some small part in the whole thing but my love only saved my son. You and your friends saved us. The love you had for one another and all of the rest of us - it was selfless. He never understood it. None of us did."
Hermione looked at her, intently. She could be so gravely serious sometimes. "Do you understand it now?" she asked.
Narcissa shook her head. "I'm learning, but no," she said. Shifting her weight suddenly, she pinned Hermione under her and leaned in to claim Hermione's lips. "I'm still very, very selfish," she said and felt the younger witch laugh into the kiss.