CW: more sex.
Bed (day)
11th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.
There is a short moment, when we wake up, in which we're not actually awake yet.
Our eyes open groggily, and we float in a sort of in-betweenness of sleep and real life where the weight of everything hasn't crushed our conscience yet. It's fleeting, instantaneous, ephemeral, sometimes so quick we don't even realise it happens. But that moment is there every morning, something we unconsciously cling to before bracing ourselves for a new day.
A brief wrinkle in time that welcomed Hermione as she woke in the comfortable warmth of her bed, blissfully unaware of where she was, who she was with, and even her own name.
She blinked once, looked at the shadows cast by the curtain on the wall in front of her, followed the way it played with the feeble light of the rising sun, and it was gone.
The sheets rustled as she turned around, the awareness of life bombarding her all at once. And yet, upon seeing the figure of the man lying next to her, she didn't feel the dread she would have expected, had she been presented with this possibility only ten days before.
Not that anyone would have ever fathomed Hermione Granger waking up next to Draco Malfoy; but hypothetically speaking, if someone had said, "You wake up, and bleach-blond Draco Malfoy is sleeping next to you, and yes, you spent the night together, like that, what do you do?" she would have answered, without a doubt, "Run. As fast and as far away as possible." Or maybe, possibly, she would have just laughed in the poor person's face, and they would have gone home like a Cassandra of modern times.
Malfoy was sleeping on his side, with his back to her and the pillow squashed between arm and head. His shoulder rose and fell under the heavy duvet. The collar of his pyjamas t-shirt was so rumpled that Hermione could peep the hollow line forming between his shoulder blades, the one that continued downwards.
She wanted to touch it.
She was about to do it, when he shifted and turned around. She tucked her hand under the pillow as she watched Malfoy rub the sleep from his eyes, frowning and squinting like a kid.
"Hi, Granger."
Who knows what would have happened if someone had asked him the same question, with the dutiful changes: "You wake up, and curly-haired Hermione Granger is sleeping next to you, and yes, you spent the night together, like that, what do you do?" Maybe he would have laughed, too. His younger self would have probably had a stroke or something, and the person who had dared ask the forbidden question would have had to live with Malfoy's life on their conscience. Tragic.
The corners of Hermione's mouth pulled up. "Hi. Did you sleep well?"
Draco reached to his lower back to massage the soreness away. "Actually, yes. Finally."
A genuine chuckle escaped her. "Yeah, I bet it must have been an amazing improvement for your bones."
"I'd started to feel them cracking whenever I moved around. Even as I stood up. I'm not sure how healthy that is."
His hand abandoned his muscles to reach for Hermione's waist and tugged her closer. She went with no resistance and decided to place her own fingers on the swell of his back, digging in and making small circles to try and bring him some relief. Her touch was gentle, palming each vertebra underneath.
Everything about that moment felt so normal and ordinary that Hermione was having real trouble focusing on the dizziness huddled in a corner of her mind that was trying its best to underline the very out-of-the-ordinary-ness of the situation.
Who cared, anyway. In that bedroom, in that cabin, it felt like they had slipped out of their usual suits—or maybe it was just her, but there was no way for Hermione to be sure, so she just assumed.
In there, she wasn't Hermione Granger, war hero and former Golden Girl of the Gryffindor tower. She also certainly wasn't an aspiring novelist constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown and a certified personal disaster with a fragile psyche she refused to acknowledge and tackle. And he wasn't Draco Malfoy, ex-classmate and redeemed Death Eater, heir to the largest fortune in the wizarding world and, as of recent discoveries, grieving widower.
They were just two people who had had sex and had quite enjoyed it—and might also enjoy doing it again. Two people that no one knew were even spending time together.
It felt… freeing. Exhilaratingly so.
"You men are so dramatic," Hermione commented, rolling her eyes for good measure. "It's a perfectly comfortable sofa, and if your back hurts it's because you watch the TV in horrendous positions, not because you slept on it."
"Sure," Draco mumbled in her hair while she kept pressing and rubbing on his sore spots. "Mh, yeah, a bit to the left. Right there. Yep. Merlin, that feels good."
A phone buzzed after a minute, bursting the delicate and torpid bubble. Malfoy stretched with a groan before burying his head in the pillow as Hermione reached for her mobile on the bedside table.
"Who's calling you on a Sunday morning?"
"It's Monday." She slid the notification open. "And it's Ginny."
"Is it about baby Potter?"
"I don't know, but I don't see why you would—oh, for Godric's sake." On the screen, a picture of Harry holding a small red Quidditch onesie, the name JAMES written in capital letters on it, number 7 matching the one on the jersey he was proudly sporting himself.
Ginny's message read, help the man's gone full dad and i don't know if im scared or horny or both.
Malfoy peeked at it over her shoulder. "Well, that certainly is an excited father-to-be."
"Shut up," Hermione replied, shoving him away, "I'm the only one allowed to make fun of my best friend. Leave him alone." His chuckle was a welcome sound as she looked at the picture; the cheerful and unconditionally happy glint in Harry's eyes made her heart swell.
All things aside, he deserved this. He really did. At the end of the day, it was everything he'd ever wanted from life, what he'd looked for while sitting at Molly Weasley's table, and what his hands had almost taken a hold of when he found Sirius, before it was cruelly snatched away: a loving family. Now he had it, and it was his. Let him be ridiculous and over-the-top about it.
"You have a face," Draco said, just as she began to type her answer (Both is good. Tell him you don't know if he'll be a Gryffindor yet).
"What face?"
Ginny: he says it's in the blood.
"This," he repeated, poking her on the temple, "face."
Hermione locked her phone and tossed it on the mattress. "That's my normal face."
"No, it isn't."
"I think I know what my normal face looks like."
"Are you sad?"
Hermione's eyes almost jumped out of her sockets. "Beg your pardon?"
"I said," he replied coolly, "are you s—"
"I'm not sad, what makes you even think that?!"
"I don't know." His eyes never strayed from hers. "It's just a look on your face."
"What do you know about the looks on my face, Malfoy? Why would I be sad that my best friend is going to be a dad, do you hear yours—"
"What's your stance on kids, Granger?"
Hermione reined back a gasp but couldn't stop her heart from beating faster. She'd woken up ten minutes before and he managed to make her angry already. Maybe it was just irritation; or maybe self-consciousness, it wasn't clear. Still. What was clear was that Malfoy was doing everything in his power to remind her exactly who he was: Draco bloody Malfoy, and not some random man who'd keep his mouth shut on business that wasn't his to discuss.
"What?"
"Are you sad because you want a kid, too, or—"
"I am not sad!" A long pause followed, in which Malfoy held her cross gaze. "Can you stop that, please?"
"Stop what?"
"That," she remarked, pointing an accusatory finger at his face. He stared at her, and she tried and failed to read his expression. Her heartbeat was still out of tune.
"You know, I get sad about it, sometimes," he said quietly, then glanced away. "I don't think it's a big deal."
This made her frown. "About your friends having kids? Do your friends have kids?"
"No, not them. I mean in general. People… creating families, I guess." He rubbed his neck, pulling a face. "I get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach of something like longing, I think. And it sucks. But I also don't think about it too much." His eyes settled on her again. "So you can tell me if it makes you sad. I'm not going to judge or make fun of you."
Bzz. The notification gave Hermione an excuse to avert her eyes. Another picture, this time from Harry: Ginny looking exasperatedly at him, holding a stuffed animal that looked too much like a hippogriff to be simply coming out of Harrods. PLEASE give us your blessing, she wants to take it back to the store. Now that Hermione knew what to look for, the swell on Ginny's belly was impossible to miss.
"I'm not sad," she repeated, mostly to herself. "I am incredibly happy for them, so happy in fact I can't even put it into words." Her voice grew quiet as she put her phone away after answering Harry (Tell her I'll get it for you anyway, if she doesn't want to keep it). "What I think I feel is some kind of… envy, I guess."
"Envy?"
She was past asking herself why on Earth she was confiding in Draco Malfoy, at that point. He really had a certain way of looking at her that just made her want to vomit everything out like she never had before. The more instinctual part of her deemed it uncharacteristic of him, and it tried to tell her that it would probably be wise to find out where it had come out of before trusting it blindly; but all of this came inevitably second to the primal need to dislodge some heavy burdens from her chest, so Hermione talked.
"I mean, what kind of certainties do you have, to be willing to bring another life into the world? Into this world?" She layed back on the pillows, body suddenly tired. "I don't know if I have that, or if I will ever have that. Honestly, I don't even know if I will ever find the kind of relationship that makes me feel sure about myself, let alone another human being." Somehow, the words slipped out without her fully acknowledging it. "So, yeah," she shrugged, as if to shake away the uneasiness from her shoulders. "That's it, I think."
Silence lingered between them for a while. Eventually, Draco spoke, quietly.
"Do you envy their certainties or their relationship?"
Hermione didn't know the answer to that, so she kept looking at the ceiling.
"Because, you know, you could have one without the other," he went on, as though he wanted to draw her out. "There are people who want kids without partners, and there are people who—"
"I know, Malfoy, thank you for the civics lesson." She rolled her eyes, then exhaled. "Neither. Both. I don't know," she said, and turned on her side to look at him. His lips were twisted in a sweet mix between a pout and a smirk. "Do you want kids?"
His thinking frown was cute.
"I don't know, to be honest. I haven't thought about it."
"You never talked about it with—" She stopped herself before completing the sentence. Draco smiled, as if encouraging her. "Sorry if it's an inappropriate question, but you never talked about it with Astoria?" Her voice grew smaller on the name.
"It's fine, don't worry about it." There was a blue nuance to his tone, though. "Yes, we did talk about it. She didn't want one." His eyes went to the wardrobe and stayed there. "Not because she didn't want one, in the most absolute sense of the term, but because, you know… Since she didn't know whether she was going to die in minutes or in years, she'd decided that she didn't want to pass on the burden of that uncertainty to a child."
Hermione pondered over it. "Isn't that the human condition, though? Every parent knows they're giving that specific burden to their child. None of us know when we're not going to be there anymore."
"That's what I told her. But she said it was different. And she wasn't completely wrong, I get it; but that's why she didn't want to risk it." He ran a hand over his stubble, feeling the short hair. He was probably going to shave later, Hermione thought. "Anyway, that's it. No kids."
She didn't give herself time to think before blurting out the question. "Would you have done it? Had she asked?"
Draco kept staring at the wardrobe doors. His jaw clenched and released a couple of times.
Then he turned to her, and instead of answering he said, "What did you mean when you said this isn't real?"
Her eyebrows rose, taken by surprise by the sudden remark while simultaneously trying to think of how to dodge the question, not sure about the answer herself. "Nothing, really. I say a lot of things."
"And if you're still the same person I used to know, they all mean something. What did that one mean?"
"You are not the same person I used to know, so I don't see why I would be," she retorted, crossing her arms. He poked at her with his foot, and she sighed. "Nothing. It's a… philosophical kind of trip I thought about a couple of days ago. Meaningless, really."
"What kind of philosophical trip?"
"For Godric's sake, what do I have to do to shut you up?"
"I have an idea or two," he smirked. "But I also want an answer, so I'm not sure that would be helpful right now."
"Then I want my answer first. Would you have done it?" she demanded firmly.
Draco didn't exactly sigh. But in the moment before answering, as he chose the right words, it looked like he deflated, like a worn-out balloon.
"I would have done anything for her." His fingers wriggled; thumb and index went to touch the rigs on his left hand, and Hermione almost averted her eyes at the devotion that gesture conveyed. "Anything."
She deflated, too, arms going slack along her sides. Maybe what she envied was the relationship, after all.
Silence settled in the room. Not heavy, but somewhat charged with a presence that couldn't really be dealt with; and yet, neither of them seemed to make any effort to chase it away.
"I just meant that something happening here, in this cabin, without anyone else knowing about it, isn't really real, because the rest of the world is completely unaware," Hermione said slowly, before clearing her throat. "Technically, this," she moved her hand between her and Malfoy, "isn't reality for anyone else except us."
(She hadn't known about Astoria until a handful of hours before. Did that make her any less real?)
Malfoy seemed to contemplate her reasoning for a while.
"Feels pretty real to me."
A beat of silence passed, as quick as the flutter of a butterfly's wings.
"It is real for us."
"Then it's just real."
"No," she insisted, "because if it's just us against the rest of the world, you understand there's at least a numbers issue here."
One of his hands reached over to touch her wrist, thumb brushing along the pattern of her purple-green veins.
"I think I'm fine with what's real for me." He tugged a bit, and Hermione found herself shifting on the mattress to get closer. "And as far as I remember, last night was real for me."
"But, you see, memories are even trickier," she said while Malfoy pushed her right sleeve up past her elbow, caressing the skin of her forearm with the tip of his nails. "Sometimes we forget things, sometimes we make up details, simply to protect ourselves from the absurd and to find some resemblance of quiet and peace. How can you rely on that to decide what's real?"
"Because you shouldn't be looking for an all-encompassing definition of reality." His hand moved to the curve of her waist. "Reality for me is what is real for me, no matter whether my memories are 'real' or not. They're in my brain, so they're real to me."
She rested her hands on his chest. "That would mean to completely tear the very fabric of the world down to pieces."
"Who cares about the world, Granger."
"I care about the world. A lot of people care about the world, actually, you dull Slytherin prince."
Hand sliding under her pyjamas top. "Love the nicknames. Keep them coming."
"I have trouble with my memories, sometimes."
Draco's hand never faltered, continuing along its path, but it was firmer now, more determined. It reached the small of her back and stopped there, mirroring the position Hermione's hand had itself occupied on his body just a little earlier before.
"How do you mean?"
"After I reversed the Obliviate spell on my parents, it took a toll on me, and since then I've had trouble remembering things from time to time." Actually, her Mind Healer had told her it was very much plausible that some of her memories had vanished due to a certain degree of trauma response and not because of the spell, and that attending therapy sessions might help with that—but again, Hermione had yet to book an appointment with that imaginary therapist she liked to think about at times, so she just took her diagnosis and went on with her life.
Malfoy didn't comment on the spell, and Hermione did wonder whether he knew what she was talking about or not; but then he was speaking again, and the flash of wartime fled her mind.
"What kind of things?"
"Oh, you know. This and that. The first film I saw at the movie theatre. Some arguments I had with my friends over the years. Old relationships." She narrowed her eyes. Weird, trying to scan her mind to find out where the missing pieces were. How do you even realise that something is not there? "For example, I don't remember the first time a guy went down on me, nor I remember the first time I gave head, even though I'm one hundred percent sure both happened, because I remember all the other times."
His palm was still on her back. "And that's all because of the spell, or is it because of, um… because we want to protect ourselves from the absurd?"
Hermione shrugged and leaned closer to him, their bodies sharing warmth. "I don't know. I'm not sure I care."
"There's a difference, though. In terms of reality." She arched her spine under his touch. "What you don't remember because of the spell is simply gone. What your mind makes up or erases for you, that's more like you lying to yourself. Isn't it?"
"You just said that what's real in your mind is real for you, full stop. Are you backtracking already?" If she tilted her head just so, Hermione could kiss the hollow over his collarbone.
"No, you're right, I said that." Draco's hand made its way to her lower back, her waist, her hip, before skimming her belly. "I guess, what I really want to know is—will your mind play games with you and make you forget this? Is this why you say it's not real?"
Her eyes darted to his. "I don't know." Flecks of green in a sea of grey. "Why?"
"Because this is real for me." Open-close, like the beating of a living heart. "No matter how absurd it might be."
She blinked, incapable or, more likely, unwilling to dwell on what Malfoy was telling her. Then she leaned up and her lips met his, puzzle pieces trying to determine whether they fit or not, left locked together on the table while the rest of the image was being worked out.
It felt electrifying. Or even electrocuting.
Draco quickly stripped her of her top as she climbed on his lap. His hands went around her back to draw her closer, mouth dashing for her nipple to kiss, and bite, and suck, and kiss again. Hermione cradled his head close to her chest, fingers sliding into his hair, eyes closing while little sounds of delighted pleasure left her throat.
Was it real? Was it a real thing that was happening in the real world? How was it going to affect her? Was she going to remember it? How was he so certain of the realness of that situation? The answer didn't matter: her brain was too occupied by the discharges of pure energy Draco's lips and teeth and tongue were sending to it.
When he circled his tongue around her nipple, Hermione felt the first throbbing between her legs and a very present emptiness in her mouth.
"Wait, let me…" she breathed out, climbing off of him to take her pyjamas bottoms off. Mere seconds later, her hands were impatiently working on getting him rid of his clothes, too, and Malfoy chuckled.
"I think I should prepare you a bit before… I don't want to hurt you."
"Do you think you have some magical creature down there?" And yet she had to blink twice when he was completely naked before her. Big was the only possible word to describe him, and Hermione felt a sting inside of her, remembering how it had felt the night before and craving it again.
His hand reached around her, shamelessly resting on her arsecheek, kneading it slowly. "Just looking out for you, Granger. You could thank me."
"Sod off," and she threw a leg over his body, sitting on his abdomen facing his legs.
She licked her palm.
"I would actually prefer it if I could see y—oh, fuck," Draco groaned when Hermione took him in her hand, fisting slowly up and down. His skin was smooth, almost silky to the touch; there was an angry vein running for the whole length of him that pulsed against her palm.
Her thumb brushed on the tip, and Draco grabbed her bum, urging her to slide up towards him, muttering incomprehensible things. Hermione pressed down on his body, but let him spread her legs as he looped his arms around her thighs and drew her close. She moved her hair to one side with a smooth movement; the sight of his hard cock was making her mouth water and her cunt drip.
Her lips wrapped around the head at the same time his tongue tasted her pussy.
She moaned around him, and Malfoy flicked her clit before mapping the road down her entrance. His hold on her legs tightened as his tongue played with her, twirling and swirling and giving long and broad strokes. His fingers moved to cup and squeeze the softness of her bum, and when he started poking her slit, Hermione took his entire shaft in her mouth, letting the tip hit the back of her throat. She swallowed around him, coughing a bit, but she was determined to keep him inside the warm alcove of her mouth, so she took a deep breath before she started sucking.
The sound of smacking skin ricocheted around the room loud and clear, making Hermione yelp and pull away.
Draco had slapped her.
She turned her head, unsure whether to tell him off or to do it again, but it didn't matter: Malfoy's tongue was inside of her and his hand was on the nape of her neck, urging her to resume her previous activity.
"Sorry, Granger, you don't like that?" he muttered against her folds, hushed and quick, lapping up her juices and rendering Hermione speechless. "Because I, on the other hand, quite liked it." She swore, panting against the base of his cock as she gripped it in her hand. The sounds he made as he licked her were obscene. "But I can just focus on your pretty little cunt here, if you prefer it."
Hermione trailed a path of kisses up his length before focusing on the tip: she pulled the foreskin back to expose the head and swirled her tongue around it, tasting the first drops of precum. Malfoy's hips bucked up and she grinned, then ran the flat of her tongue along his hard cock; she felt lewd as it brushed her cheek, but alive with unfamiliar desire.
Her lips pressed small pecks at the base, softly, sweetly, while her thumb grazed the slit. She pushed her bum out towards Malfoy's face; it was both a silent answer and request.
His chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. Then, in rapid succession, his palm smacked against her skin, before his hands went to sooth the reddening spot with gentle caresses as his mouth sucked on her clit.
The snapping in her lower belly was impossible to misunderstand, and Hermione moaned loudly as the mixed sensations made her tumble towards a shuddering climax. A gush of wetness coated her thighs; she could hear slurping sounds in her post-orgasm haze.
Warm fingers drawing random patterns on her heated skin lulled her back to reality. Blinking her eyes open, Hermione saw the pulsing vein of Malfoy's erection: her walls clenched, and a whispered "fuck" came from behind her before two fingers entered her.
Eagerly, almost wildly, she took him back in her mouth, straining her jaw and trying to keep the gag reflex at bay.
She felt his hand on her neck again; this time, though, his fingers tangled at the base of her curls. He gripped hard and tugged.
A gasp left Hermione's mouth as she pulled up.
"Such an obedient girl…"
She keened, but whether it was from the praise or from the way his fingers curled in her pussy, she didn't know. Malfoy loosened his hold, but his hand stayed on her nape, holding her firmly and silently telling her to keep going.
Hermione did. Wet lips dragged over the thick length of him, alternating between kisses and licking. Saliva started running down her chin, and with a hand she reached over to fondle his balls. The response was immediate: Malfoy groaned and then grazed his teeth over her clit before sucking hard at it. His fingers left her cunt to grip her arse, digging in. It almost hurt, her button too oversensitive, but the prominent feeling was an ache for more.
She needed to be full—of him, of the feelings he was eliciting in her, of the reality they were creating together.
Taking him back in her mouth, she hollowed her cheeks and swallowed around the head, a mix of heady tastes engulfing her throat. She felt Draco part her folds with his fingers before his tongue penetrated her again. Hermione's moans of pleasure were interrupted by a loud gasp the moment his thumb slid up, stroked over the puckered skin of her arsehole, and pushed in.
She choked on his cock, and his hips jerked.
"Granger, fuck, I'm gonna—"
He was slippery and covered in spit when she pulled away, taking him in her hand. Hermione turned, and the sight made her walls flutter: Malfoy's face was flushed, hair crumpled, heavy-lidded, fingertips white as they firmly held onto her. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke.
"Will you stop afterwards or do you think you can handle two rounds?"
He grunted as her fist kept pumping him. "I'm not a teenager anymore, Granger."
"Feel like risking it?"
There was a challenging glint in his gaze before he closed his eyes, shifted to press his mouth to her centre, and shoved his fingers inside of her, crooking them to tap on her most sensitive spot. Full in both holes, Hermione pushed down on his face, desperate for more, feeling his stubble tickle her. Her hand stopped her ministrations, wanting to indulge in the new sensations for as long as she could, but Draco moaned anyway as soon as he tasted her again. She almost let out a sob.
Was it as addicting to him as it was to her?
The burn in her rim when his thumb thrusted in made her hiss, but she moaned in disappointment when his hand left her arse to roam her body. From thigh to hip, following the curve of her waist, up to the shoulder and down again, it left a scorching trail behind it before joining the other one.
Both hands now kept her spread open and firm against him, like it was his only mission to snatch another orgasm out of her with his tongue alone.
When Draco glanced at her and arched an eyebrow, while giving a hard lick from entrance to clit and back up, Hermione quivered and immediately leaned down to take his dick in her mouth. She almost pushed herself to her limits, sucking deftly around the tip before she bobbed her head up and down until she gagged and sputtered and her eyes watered.
As his tongue was buried deep in her cunt—where he sucked, and sucked, and sucked again—Hermione felt him twitch, once, twice, and then he was spilling his seed down her throat. Draco groaned against her folds, muttering nonsense and body trembling under hers.
His hands were touching anything they could reach, and a second orgasm tore through her when he gripped her tits and squeezed hard—her toes curled on either side of Malfoy's head, her nails dug into his thighs, and black spots blurred her vision.
A minute passed before she could catch her breath. She started to stroke him, slowly, as though measuring him again for the first time. Draco eased his grip, gently caressing her hips and kissed her inner thigh.
"Think you can take me, Granger?"
"Fuck you," she muttered, then pulled herself up and slid down his body, her back still to him.
His hands snaked to her front as he sat up, too. He held her waist to help her angling herself: Hermione got on her knees, hands balancing on his legs; Malfoy took himself in his fist, chin resting on her shoulder as he looked down.
"Correction," he whispered in her ear. "You are fucking me."
The crown of his cock slipped into her, and Hermione groaned, leaning back against his chest. She pushed down, welcoming more of him inside. Malfoy's breath was hot against her neck.
"Careful. You don't want to hurt yourself."
"I'm not—shut up," she managed, before sheathing him completely. A sharp sound left her mouth, her brows creasing together. "See?" she remarked, panting as the girth stretched her out.
Draco placed a hand under her chin, tilting it to kiss her neck while giving a tentative roll of his hips. His left hand gripped her jaw, and the sudden ring-shaped point of coldness on her neck made her shiver.
"Good girl."
Her eyes flickered shut, and Hermione squeezed hard. The indecent sentence leaving Draco's mouth made her pick her pace: she started bouncing up and down with growing need as his hand roamed her chest, lips and teeth stubbornly attached to the pulse point on her neck. She threw her head back, screaming unabashedly at every new plunge, pain and pleasure mixing together until they both fell off the cliff, gasping for air and grasping at each other.
Draco's arm was still around her waist when Hermione came back to her senses, and her nails were still digging in his shoulder when his breath evened out.
"You alright?" he asked after a bit.
She made an affirmative sound. Her skin was sweaty, detaching from his with a smacking noise. "You?"
"Yeah." A pause. (It could have been filled with a kiss.) "I'm fine."
He rubbed his palms on her body, carefully, almost tentatively, helping her off of himself.
Hermione stood up on shaky legs, and Draco waited a bit before rising from the bed, too: he sat on the edge of the mattress, holding his face in his hands, breathing deeply. She padded across the room to reach the window, drawing the curtains open.
The sunlight wasn't strong, but it was stronger than the day before. She could have sworn there were less clouds, too.
The storm was drawing to an end. For good, probably.
She turned, blocking the morning light from Draco's face with her frame. Too bad he still had to cover his too-clear eyes when he stood. He mumbled something, looking at the crumpled and stained sheets.
"Let me clean…"
"Wait."
The storm was drawing to an end.
Hermione held out a hand for him, taking a few steps towards the door. "I have yet to have a proper bath since I arrived."
Malfoy glanced at her open hand, then at her, then at her palm again.
If Hermione had looked more closely at his expression, she would have seen something dark flash on his face for the shortest of seconds before he took her hand.
She didn't, though.
Pulling Draco towards the bathroom, her mind was already caught up in anticipation of how they were going to fill the rest of the day. For the same reason, she didn't notice that the hand she'd offered was her left one.
And being still naked, that meant she'd stretched out her left arm, too.
Bare in the sunlight.
Scar in plain sight.