They slept throughout the day and into the night. Hermione kept waking up, her fingers finding some part of him to touch, to reassure her of his presence. She was warm, slick with sweat. Leaving the window open had barely helped, especially with Draco's body pasted next to her, radiating heat. And although it had cooled down after sunset, it was hot and sticky again. Unbearably so. She ended up kicking most of his clothes onto the floor, and then the sheets. Hermione was exhausted and concurrently awake, an entirely electric sensation running through, keeping her from properly resting.

She laid on her back, her arms at her side, staring at the ceiling; at the shadows cast by the early moonlight from the window, playing against the walls and the objects in the room. Draco was sound asleep, his breath barely audible. He'd turned over and was lying on his back, an arm over his head, a peaceful corpse. She was jealous of his ability to sleep through the heat; the stifling, heavy heat, assaulting her senses.

No ceiling fan, no air conditioning. She had no wand to cast a cooling charm. If only she knew where he'd kept his wand then maybe she'd be able to do something about it.

At a point she couldn't stand it anymore, she drew the t-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.

...and it was still too hot.

Turning onto her side, she considered waking Draco. She moved closer toward him and placed her palm on his bare chest. He used to always have trouble sleeping. Nightmares often plagued him and sleep was never deep or long. Her absence could wake him, or a phantom noise, all sorts of hauntings in his head. She knew she shouldn't be making these comparisons but they came to her almost naturally, how much he'd changed. Like realizing that blue was not white and white was not blue but they were both colors belonging to the sky. To her.

She studied him in the low light.

His ice blond hair was a little unruly now that he left it alone, and it was shorter than she remembered him wearing it, but other than that, he looked the same. Ethereal… and also a lot like his father…

Hermione wondered if that made it worse for him. If it hurt him to look into a mirror and see the reflection of his loss every day.

Her heart ached for him.

She yearned to comfort him, to take away the pain. All she had to do was hold him in her. That's where he used to hide from things, after all.

In their room… in their bed… inside of her…

It had been a long time since Hermione had touched him. She felt herself grow greedy to do so, with his skin laid bare and open to her. She was bolder now that he was asleep. Not something she would dare try again while he was awake. If he woke he would protest, he'd want to talk about what he did and the last thing she wanted to do was relive it in dialogue.

She wanted to hide him again; she wanted him to bury himself inside of her, and with it the memory.

To burn it. Burn everything.

And she felt it, the burning.

Burning all across her skin.

He made it worse. Made it pool in her core, driving her mad.

She bit her lip as her palm moved over the smooth planes of his chest and across his torso. This body… this beating heart in its chest.

Alive.

Draco. Alive.

Her body felt it.

Calling.

Her palms slid down his chest, admiring the wonder that he could be hard all over and his skin so soft. Her palm slid lower, her fingertips lightly tracing the line of soft hair beginning below his abdomen. She wanted to follow where it ended. And there was this irrational need to touch him there. In those handful of months with Draco, she had never gathered enough courage to put her mouth on him. But her trembling palm longed to slide beneath the hem of his boxers and remove them; to place her mouth on him now and taste him. She wanted him to be hard for her, to be ravenous for her the way he used to be.

He made the slightest movement and she froze, her heart beating violently in her chest at the thought of being caught. She waited and he remained still. Something inexplicable took over her as she continued to move her hand gently, up and down his torso, her fingertips sweeping his soft skin. He stirred again but she did not stop. She brushed against his lower abdomen—once—twice—and then, almost violently, Draco jolted awake. His hand clasped around her wrist in a vice grip like the first time he'd stopped her.

His breath was erratic.

If there was more light he would've been able to see her cheeks stained with her shame. With arousal.

Hermione wanted to explain, but didn't know how.

She opened her mouth, hesitating. "It's so hot," she rasped. And it was. She could barely breathe. His grip on her loosened as his eyes fell down to her bare body. He gulped and she heard the echo of it in the quiet dead of night.

There was a voice warning her to stop, not to scare him away, but there was also a thrill ringing through her body. She leaned in slowly, offering her mouth to him, brushing her lips ever so slightly against his, and his were burning hotter than the room—

A bang rang violently through the silence and they both flinched. It continued growing louder and more frequent. Draco was up in a heartbeat, tugging a singlet over his head, and his wand in his hand—where he had been hiding it she didn't know. Hermione's first reaction was to pull the sheets up around her chest to cover herself.

"What—?"

Her question was cut short when Draco clasped a hand over her mouth and raised his wand to his lips. "Wait here," he whispered.

She watched, frightened as he left the room. Was it the M.L.E? Had they found him?

The pounding stopped and so did her heart. And she expected anything other than the familiar voice coming from the living room, frantic and angry.

"You weren't supposed to take her, Malfoy, that was the deal!"

"Well, you can thank Potter for that!"

Hermione grabbed for the nearest t-shirt in the pile of them and yanked it on. Stumbling out, she came face to face with a flustered—

"Ronald!" she exclaimed. "W-what, what are you—what's going on?"

"I can't believe you dragged her into this," he spat. "This wasn't the plan—"

"And what was?" she demanded wildly. "Ron, have you known, did you… my God, of course," she breathed, her eyes darting between the two wizards. It was all starting to make sense. "Why would Draco break into Azkaban to kill Greyback when you already have the highest level of security clearance…"

Ron heaved a heavy sigh. He walked to the window by the small dining table and drew the curtains closed. "We don't have time for this," he muttered under his breath, seemingly unperturbed by Hermione's discovery of his duplicity.

"Make time," she growled, glaring at them.

"The night after the Memorial Ball, I was following Pansy," Draco began quietly. "I wanted to see her—wanted to catch her alone. I missed my friend, I was upset—"

"I was meant to meet her that night," Ron chimed in.

Draco's mouth twisted in disgust. "Imagine my surprise when I bumped into Weasley."

"After throwing a few hexes we called a truce, although I wager I'd have won that—"

"We realized we had a common enemy," Draco interrupted, cutting Ron short. "Between the two of us, it didn't take long to track down Yaxley."

"And Greyback?" she asked, knowing the werewolf's ending already.

Draco glanced at Ron. "There was still a few drops of Basilisk poison hidden in my bedroom at the Manor when I went back. It was enough to do the job..."

She had understood the toll Fred's death had taken on Ron and his family, on them all, but… Ron, he could never… he wouldn't, he… except, he had.

Draco had been in Voldemort's inner circle, knew where Yaxley might be hiding, had overheard things at the Manor, but Ron, he was in a position to track anyone, provide Draco with security clearance, with portkeys and anything else he'd need… like a wand… a new identity to get in and out of New York unsuspectingly.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she frowned at Draco.

He looked at her with such deep regret that it almost hurt. "You already love one murderer…"

Hermione's eyes fell to the floor. Perhaps Davies had been right—there was something very wrong with her, wrong with them all. How could there not be when she wasn't angry that they'd killed Greyback and Yaxley, only disappointed that they'd lied to her.

Draco read her expression and misconstrued it entirely.

"I couldn't let Greyback live either," Draco ground out between clenched teeth. "Once I remembered, I couldn't forget. I made it a condition of the agreement—"

"Malfoy seems to have forgotten the other," Ron muttered distractedly, his eyes peering through the slit of the window.

Draco sighed. "To stay away from you," he supplied.

"And I don't recall framing Nott for the murder part of the deal either," scowled Ron, letting the curtain fall close and turning to Draco with narrowed eyes. "What the bleeding hell were you thinking putting Yaxley's wand—"

"Wanker deserved it—!"

"Should've known not to trust you—"

"He should be locked away in Azkaban like the traitorous rat he is! Probably plotting to get Hermione back as we speak," he snarled. "And Potter, that meddling—"

"There's no time for this," growled Ron, turning back to the window in agitation. "They've found you Malfoy. You have an hour, maybe minutes, who the hell knows!"

"What?" Hermione breathed. "How?"

"They've traced you," replied Ron.

"Impossible," scoffed Draco, his eyes glinting dangerously. "I'm cloaked. My magic is untraceable."

Ron nodded his head toward Hermione. "Hers isn't."

"But I didn't," she spluttered. "I don't even have a wand. I—" The heat… it hadn't felt normal and her skin had been… she met Draco's knowing eyes.

Her lips rounded in a little, "Oh."

"Here," said Ron, tossing Draco a spinning top. "Your mother sends her regards."

"Where?" he asked, curling a fist around it.

"She didn't say. Time to go 'Mione."

Then Ron took Hermione's hand.

"Wait—" she gasped, snatching it away, stepping back quickly.

"We don't have time!" he pressed. "Kingsley's waiting for authorization from the Minister of France to come and retrieve Malfoy, and the UNSC are probably already on their way. Looks like your polyjuice act royally pissed off Davies."

"Got to hand it to her, she does have work ethic," murmured Draco under his breath.

Ron held out his hand for Hermione to take again. "Come on—"

"No," she protested. "I'm not—Draco, tell him—"

"If you stay with Malfoy, you'll become a fugitive as well. Don't throw your life away, your career, the people that love you—"

"Draco," she urged. But he was standing still, making no move to stop Ron and his eyes bore into hers, dejected and withdrawn. When she called his name again he gulped and averted his eyes.

"I didn't think it through," he stammered. "When I brought you here, I… I shouldn't have. It wasn't right."

Hermione tugged at the hem of the t-shirt which hung low and loose on her tiny frame.

"I was angry," she winced, "and confused. But we fight, and we make up, that's just what we do, what we've always done—!"

"We can't go back to the way it was, we can't pretend, I already told you—"

"Okay!" she cried, clutching to him, worried he may disappear without her at any moment. "Okay, I won't, I won't push you, we can just, we can start over, go slow."

His eyes grew wide, almost frightened, dancing over her face. "We don't know the meaning of the word."

"Hermione," came Ron's clipped voice. Stern and crisp. "It's been four years. Things have happened. Bad things. You aren't the same people you were. You don't know him—"

"Be quiet, Ron. Right now, I'm not sure I know who you are either."

She turned to look back at Draco beseechingly but he was shaking his head, squeezing his eyes shut. "Weasley's right. You should go back home."

And she smiled. Smiled at how stupid both of them still were after four years.

"What are you talking about?" she said, almost laughing. "Draco, I am home."

Draco opened his mouth and then closed it again, hesitating. His fingers fell to his forearm, to the Dark Mark, catching himself before he could claw at it.

"What kind of man would I be if I asked you to stay?" he rasped.

Hermione brushed the pad of her thumb along his bottom lip. "The kind who doesn't need to ask."

"I had a feeling it would play out this way," sighed Ron impatiently, extracting something from his robes.

Her wand.

A flood of relief washed over her at the sight of it and she took it from him, hugging him tightly. He wound his arms around her, squeezing back. "I always knew he'd take you away from us," he whispered sadly in her ear. "I'm going to miss you 'Mione."

"Me too," she breathed.

"Do me a favor, will you?" he said, releasing her. "Don't get caught."

With one single nod to them both, Ron disapparated with a crack. It was probably the closest thing she'd ever get to approval from him.

She turned to Draco and held out her hand.

"It's time to go."

"Wait," he breathed shakily, looking around the small apartment. "I—I'm not ready. I have things, things I need to take."

Hermione sighed knowing there was no more time to waste. She entwined her hand with his, reassuring him. "We have everything."

He blinked, almost surprised as if she'd reminded him of something he'd forgotten. His fingers tightened around hers. Without another word, he placed the spinning top on the smooth surface of the table and spun it. It turned, faster, and faster, twisting, spinning, till a wisp of glittery silver appeared and Hermione leaned in closer, compelled by curiosity; by the beauty of it, but then there was a blinding flash and she screwed her eyes shut. When she opened them, they were no longer at the flat in France.

In fact, she had no idea where they were.

A/N: So the title of this chapter triggered my memory of this cringe-worthy poem I wrote when I was 15. I've attached it so everyone can enjoy the lameness that was me when I was a wee teenager. It is kinda fitting though in the scope of this Dramione (But honestly, this is just face-palm worthy poetry I just had to share. LOL. Learn to laugh at yourself guys, it saves you a lot of grief!) :D

The Runaways

And she said baby I want to do something crazy tonight,
For this feeling, it can't be mentally right.
And I know I could tell you in simpler words,
But my heart has my tongue-tied
The captivity, it seems, absurd.

And this night needs more than a fight.
Old routines, they've run their course
Vodka sprite, drink till light.
I bought cigarettes, a gun, and a car.
Let's chase something down,
Something that'll take us far.
This town's gotten old.
No surprise
No delight.

Like lovers in quarrel, let's pray
Maybe we'll be forgiven someday.
Till then pack your bags
We can only repent.
For the things we said
With hurtful intent.

So this bridge, we'll drive across tonight
Don't look back at the burning sight.
You lit the match that set the fire
I covered it up by claiming my own heart's desire.

I love you dear, is all I'll say
These pretty colors you've made
Reflect today.

[The sound of sirens deafened others,
while we went out to play.
And the pretty flames
Danced a trance forever
Singing O'Happy day.]