RESimon and shestoolazytogin are the queens behind the scenes. I love you both so much.

I'd forgotten to mention this in the last chapter, but I'm never inspired by music and was so proud to have listened a song that was def the theme to 28 back in January only to subsequently forget to mention it when I finally posted, lol. The song is My All by Mariah Carey, even though I'm a chapter late now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked back at him, wide-eyed.

Draco. Draco—

"Draco." The word came out in a sob.

His eyes burned as he pressed closer to her. His hands were tight to the point of pain as they gripped her shoulders hard, but she couldn't focus on anything but the look in his eyes as he bore down over her.

He was everywhere — his shadow, his scent, every inch of his looming presence closing in around her, drowning her in the guilt she'd already been failing to suppress.

She opened her mouth again, unsure of what she could say that could ever, ever undo the destruction that she'd unleashed upon them, dashing away all they'd been building toward with a mere few drops of select potions from their cabinet slipped into his tea.

He twisted away from her abruptly. Of course he wouldn't want to look upon her face, not after seeing the weight of what she'd done written bare upon her face. There were no excuses, not explanations she could give for what she'd done, because the betrayal has been hers—

"What the fuck are you doing here?" The wave of emotions that was poised over her head, ready to drown her in its deluge, froze. The voice— the voice was all wrong. It was—

Harry. She raised panicked eyes to see Harry and Ron standing across from them, their wands drawn and their expressions murderous.

"Get away from her." Ron's voice was so much colder, so much darker than she'd ever heard it that her heart lurched in her chest.

"Leave. Now." The sound of Draco's low voice felt like a puncture to the chest, the chilling familiarity of it making her ache.

"LIKE HELL WE WILL!" Ron's voice was thunder.

"Do you think we won't kill you, Malfoy?" Harry stepped closer, the tip of his wand steady where it pointed at Malfoy.

"Stop!" Hermione found her voice as she tried to lunge forward only for Draco to snatch her arm in an iron grip.

Ron's eyes blazed as he caught Draco's movement. "Let. Her. Go."

"Petrificus totalus!" Harry's spell followed Ron's words. Draco cast it aside with a wave of his hand before drawing his wand from his pocket with blinding speed.

"STOP!" Hermione shouted as she burst from behind Draco and threw herself between the three of them.

"Get the hell out of my way, Hemione!"

A streak of purple flew from over her head from Harry's wand and hit the wall behind Draco as he dodged it, slashing a hole through it.

"Get the hell out of the way!" Ron shouted at her. "I'll do it— I'll kill you after what your family has put her through—"

Blood pounded in her ears. "I did it to myself!"

"Like hell you did!" Harry's veins stretched against his skin as he all but lurched forward. "Move!"

"I won't." She planted her feet hard, the sole obstruction between them and Draco.

She chanced a look at Draco. His frame was near-trembling with the force of his rage, his focus on the two targets beyond her, on the verge of exploding.

"Just— stop, please. You don't know the entire story—"

Ron's skin was flushed a deep, angry red. "What is there to know?! This is bloody Malfoy! You would defend someone whose home you were just nearly murdered in—"

"It was them! Not him." Her cry was laced with desperation as she caught Harry's rage boil nearer to the point of no return.

She was lurched backward as Draco snatched her from behind and threw her to the side. "Do you honestly believe that I can't take you both?" Draco's eyes flashed.

"Sectumsempra!"

Hermione shouted out a shield as she threw herself in front of Draco once more. "STOP!" she screamed.

Ron paused, staring at the spot on the wall beyond them where she'd deflected his curse to, the wall singed in the aftereffects of the rebound.

She was heaving hard as she stood between them once again. "If you kill him—" her chest burned as she spoke, "you'll kill me too."

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!" Harry seethed, his entire form trembling with his rage.

"HE'S MY HUSBAND!" The words burst from her in a torrent, lingering suspended in the air above them for a moment before crashing down upon them, bathing the room in an irreversible truth.

Her words shattered the thick tension that had been all but suffocating them a moment before, replacing it with a depthless silence. It was as though her words were the precious few they'd had left to speak, each stolen by her outburst and leaving a breathless silence in its wake. Even the expressions on Ron and Harry's faces were like a moment suspended in time, their rage frozen as all they'd thought they'd known was thrown into chaos.

Hermione stumbled backward, the single movement shattering the frozen spell that had held the room's occupants. She felt the heat of Draco's presence behind her, but couldn't force herself to turn and look at him. She could barely do anything, not while she was faced with the expressions on her two best friends' faces that she'd had countless nightmares about for the past year.

She'd pictured this moment in so many ways, so many scenarios, yet none measured up to the devastation of the moment itself. A moment before, their rage had been directed toward her husband, the air itself teeming with tension. But now— what lingered on their faces was something that transcended all that had been directed toward Draco. A hole tore through her chest in tandem with the way six years of memories were shattered, raining down upon them in a shower of broken pieces, each one tearing deep, jagged cuts into her as they fell around them.

Ron's wand clattered to the ground. He stepped backward, his mouth opening and closing before he managed to speak. "What...did you…" his movements were stuttered as he stepped back a few more steps before he froze again, his eyes upon her once again.

This time, the rage was interwoven with a betrayal that burned so brightly that she felt branded by it.

"Husband…" The word came out of Ron's mouth in a way that sounded almost twisted, the word spoken in a timbre that was foreign to her. "Husband."

"Ron," her throat constricted around his name as she watched the heat of a thousand betrayals flit through his expression, "Ron—"

He turned to her, his movements slow and stilted as if he were underwater. "You—" He laughed. The sound was empty and his expression a twisted caricature between incredulity and rage. "I don't believe it. I don't believe that you— you and—"

"It's true."

But it hadn't been her or Draco that had spoken. It was—

Harry.

Harry who looked at her with rage and betrayal blazing in his eyes.

"Harry?" It was all she could say, her body paralyzed with shock.

"Hermione Malfoy." The way her name sounded coming from his lips was akin to a curse, making her stomach turn. "I thought it was a mistake, at first, when I saw it on the Marauder's Map."

Hermione's throat felt like it was closing. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to quell the panic that rose.

"A secret mission for the Order? One where you can only turn up after months? For a damned pregnancy test?!" He fell silent then, heaving as he continued to give her that loathing look.

"It— it isn't true," Ron's lips trembled as he spoke. "It— tell me it isn't true."

Hermione couldn't speak, could say nothing to refute the truth that had now created a chasm between them.

The longer her silence stretched the more Ron faltered, his eyes searching her expression for any hint of a lie. His face fell as he searched harder and found none.

"Ron," her voice broke. "I—"

"Don't." He turned and tore across the room, through the door and into the night beyond.

"Ron!" she cried. Her feet carried her toward where the door still stood ajar, her heart in her throat as the vicious look he'd given her haunting her.

She was halfway across the room when there was a blur in the corner of her eye, a storm sweeping past. She turned just in time to see Draco disappear up the stairs, a torrent of pent-up rage. Her mouth went dry. She'd chosen. It hadn't been a conscious thought, but she'd done it all the same. Every step toward Ron had been a step away from him.

And then she was moving, across the room and up the steps, following the throbbing pulse at the back of her mind that guided her towards him.

She paused halfway up the steps, having nearly forgotten that Harry still stood in the same place, rage and betrayal rolling off of him in waves. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. "I'm...I'm sorry for a lot of things. But not him." Not him.

She continued up the steps without another word, not stopping until she stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall that was pulled firmly shut. He was there, right there, yet her hand was frozen mid-air. She knew what awaited her beyond the door — a storm of rage that waited to descend upon her. She forced her fingers to close around the knob, trying to ignore the way they spasmed. Then the knob was turning and the door creaked open slowly.

The bedroom was dark, lit only by the slivers of moonlight that slid across the room. Draco stood in the middle of the room, his back turned to her and his posture rigid. She stepped closer to him, her eyes already blurring with the tears that gathered there.

"Draco," she breathed. "I—"

He was upon her in a second. She slammed back into the door as he crowded her, bearing down on her until all she could see was him. He was breathing heavily as he looked down at her, eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

He slammed a fist into the door just beside her head. "Why?"

Hermione sobbed. "I— I—" What could she say? There was nothing — nothing that could make them whole again, undo what she'd done.

He descended even closer, so near that she could feel his breath upon her, see the veins straining against his skin. "You. Are. Mine." His voice was a low growl.

She was frozen where she stood, her breath caught in her chest as she waited for him to unleash his torrent of anger upon her—

His lips descended upon hers. They were hard and bruising as they pressed against hers. She was frozen for a shocked moment, caught between the heat of his body and his mouth against hers as he kissed her—

—kissed her—

And then she was kissing him back. She lifted her hands and pressed them against his chest, only for him to snatch them and slam them back against the door. She gasped against his lips, pressing back against him as she took him in, drinking in whatever he decided to give her.

Tears leaked down her cheek as she opened her mouth and granted him entrance, deepening the kiss. He tasted of everything she'd ever wanted ever needed. The wetness on her face smeared between them as he kissed her harder, and she gasped and sobbed into it, letting him take, take, take— whatever he wanted. Whatever he needed.

His lips were rough as they tore from hers and he made his way down her neck, suckling hard at the skin there and moving his way down, suckling and biting as he went. She gasped as he tore her shirt down the front and continued kissing and biting the skin there.

She moaned. "I—"

He grabbed her by the waist and flipped her around, pressing her hard against the door. He tore her ruined shirt from her frame before he moved to her leggings, tearing the thick material down until she stumbled in her haste to kick them away.

She gasped as he pressed her harder into the door, her cheek thudding into the wood. He was doing this, he was doing this here and now— "Silen—silenci—" she stumbled over the word as he shoved three fingers into her core.

"Stop." His voice was gruff in her ear. She felt the bare skin of his hips against hers before his cock slid inside. "Let them hear." And then he slammed forward, pressing her harder into the wood with every punishing thrust.

"Please, please, please," she gasped and moaned.

His pace was punishing as he continued to slam into her. It was— so good, so much better than she could have imagined, because he was there, and he was inside her, he was everywhere—

He pulled out and dragged her backward, walking them back until he pressed her forward and she stumbled backward onto the bed. The silence was thick with tension as he stood and watched her, eyes dark. She was bared to him entirely, bruised lips and skin, bared cunt and legs splayed wide. He was still tightly coiled, his skin dark in the low light where she could tell that it was flushed as red as the tip of his hard cock that still pointed at her from his open trousers. There was an inferno burning within him, the heat of it focused on her as he stepped closer.

She moved slowly as she raised her fingers to her brassiere, pulling open the front clasp and letting it fall away. She held his gaze the entire time, somehow knowing that if she dared looked away the spell of the moment would be shattered.

She let her mental walls fall. I need you. I need you. I need you. I—

He was upon her again. She fell backward as he pressed himself over her, propping himself up with one arm while using the other to guide his cock into her. His eyes roved over her, growing darker at each strangled gasp she let out as his cock slowly filled her.

"Draco," she moaned. He started to move then, rolling his hips as his eyes held hers. This was no less animalistic, no less possessive — his every movement whispered his dominion over her. The torrent of emotion within her built higher and higher, the waves threatening to crash over them.

She let them.

She let the force of her emotions wrap around them, bathe them, drown them, knowing words were nothing compared to the torrent she unleashed on them.

I need you. I need you. I—

I love you.

Tears leaked down her cheeks as her emotions overwhelmed her. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love you.

And there it is.

As always, for updates on my writing progress or just to chat with me, you can check my tumblr (blankfishxx), my Facebook (Blank Fish), or join my Discord server: (remove all *'s, of course): h*t*tps*:*/*discord*.g*g/*GH6N7Sn.