Alpha'd by jamethiel.

Beta'd by Pidanka and jamethiel.

From Hermione's POV. Set before the events of Chapter 1.

'Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity [...]'
– The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir

"You look good enough to eat, my dear."

She felt his words on the shell of her ear. Hot, breathy words which caused her spine to stiffen and the fine hairs on the back of her neck to stand upright.

He was close. Too close, but she couldn't see him. He was out of her line of sight, hiding behind her as he examined her. She knew he must be surveying her. He'd dressed her up like a doll.

She was gilded in white and silver: white dress, with embroidered lace accents in such fine grey-coloured thread it appeared to be liquid mercury. It was tasteful, and as one would decorate a drawing room in some grand period house.

She was furnished except for her neck and hands. These were bare of ornamentation.

She turned her head so she could glimpse the side of his face.

His eyes were eating her up. Or the single eye she could see. It was trailing down her body like a hand. Like his hand. Like his hand would be.

Her stomach rolled, and a bead of cold sweat ran down her neck before plummeting into the bodice of the wedding dress.

"I see you couldn't bring yourself to wear the necklace," he said.

His hand swept around her body, enclosing her without laying a single finger on her. His fingers convulsing with a dexterity that didn't seem human. They were long, with perfectly rounded and polished nails. The nails were clipped short. Freshly cut, if she was any judge, and then smoothed with an emery board. No jagged edges which could tear.

The drop of sweat slid down the valley of her breasts.

"And I picked out the rubies with your partiality for Gryffindor in mind."

If she hadn't been able to see his mouth move into something like a smile, she would have almost believed the wounded tone of his voice.

"How generous of you," she said. She couldn't instill anything in her voice. She sounded flat, and like planed wood when all the splinters and grooves had been sanded down until only the grain was visible. Telling of the tree's life before it was cut, and felled, and chopped into workable pieces.

"Wasn't it just," he said, and this time, he did touch her. The back of his hand glanced the curve of her waist. It was a light touch, and hinted at supple caresses.

"I have no interest in jewelry, Malfoy."

"Then we shall just have to consider other means to embellish your neck red."

He showed her his teeth: his canines looked impossibly white and sharp.

Since the final battle, she could count the number of times she'd been aware of Draco Malfoy on a single hand.

The first had been when she'd sat in the audience for the announcement of his father's sentencing – the lifelong verdict – to Azkaban.

They'd been younger then. Or, at least, Malfoy now seemed younger when compared with the man that presently stood behind her, examining her like a piece of meat for the cooking. And eating.

There had been something boyish about his shoulders and adolescent in the way his eyes danced around the large echoey room, seeming to take in everything but the man standing in chains in the middle of the floor.

He had looked at her. It had been fleeting, but their eyes had met over the sea of black hats that was the Wizengamot. His stare had been blank, and like brushed chrome it seemed to have nothing beyond but compounds and alloys.

He'd not looked at her again, and, in turn, she'd actively avoided looking at him.

The capering motion of his eyes had reminded her too much of that night in his ancestral home.

"I would normally comment that it is bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding." He propped his elbows on his knees, turning his chin so he could lean on the heel of his hand and watch her under lazy eyes. "But in our case, the luck really can't get any worse."

It was the first sensible thing he'd said all day, and she silently agreed with him.

She shuffled and tried to find a comfortable position on the chair. The dress Malfoy had ordered for her was figure-hugging and really made for standing up in, and not slouching in a chair – as he'd so graciously pointed out.

The chairs were Ministry official, made of hardwood which had no give, and she'd never actually sat in one before. She didn't normally stray into the Ministry's registry office, what with her own department being on the fifth level of the sub-terranean building. This first level of the Ministry was sufficiently less plush, and these chairs confirmed all her worst fears about monetary attitudes in the Ministry. Not that she hadn't been questioning their ethics for months.

"I wish you'd let me host this wedding at a hotel," Malfoy said, his tone accusatory. "Somewhere, anywhere. Merlin, even the Shrieking Shack." He frowned and adjusted his posture. He was obviously finding these chairs as uncomfortable as she was.

"We could be married by now and sipping on champagne." He drummed the fingers of his free hand on his thigh. "Instead we're stuck here, waiting like a couple of uncultured rustics, for some bint to check our identities. Because" – and he shot a look at the door, marked registry office, beside where they sat – "we are so difficult to recognise."

Hermione couldn't join in with his complaints.

The longer they had to wait, the longer she was Hermione Granger and not a Malfoy.

They were alone as they waited. The corridor was bare and completely still.

It was like a clock had stopped, and her ears were waiting on the tick. For months, each each tiny jump around the clock's face had been a tally, a countdown, a grain of sand, a descending note, and all to avoid this day.

Now everything was still.

Motionless: glassy and stagnant, like a greenhouse in summer, or a china doll's eyes.

The universe had stopped breathing; there was a hand around its throat.

"There seemed little point in celebrating," – the word 'wedding' wedged in her throat, as did 'marriage' and 'ceremony', so she finished with a self-explanatory – "this."

She dipped her fingers into the ridges of the lace on her sleeve. The lace was sheer, like gossamer, and her skin peeped through the silver swirls and curls. "This isn't the happiest day of our lives for either of us."

There was a pause; a terse silence which gave her the impression that he was mulling over her words. "Did you imagine it would be?" he finally said.

The patterns of lace seemed to coil and curve in on themselves. Ever flowing, ever spiralling, with no escape.

"Yes," she said, looking up and at the blank wall ahead of her, "but that was when I thought I'd be exchanging vows with someone I could tolerate."

He made a disgruntled noise. "Your bluntness is a club to the cerebellum. Although," he continued in a milder tone which could have been described as 'reasonable', "I must be grateful that your attacks are as obvious as a bull in a china shop. I'd dread to think of how deadly you could be if you employed some stealth."

She stuck her nail into her arm. The material didn't tear. "I don't approve of hiding behind words."

"How noble of you to consider yourself above half-truths and exaggeration."

"Noble is the wrong word." She grated her nails up her arm. They bumped against the material, but it still wouldn't snag. She wondered if he'd instructed the dressmaker to sew in an unbreakable charm. He'd possibly been expecting her to rip the dress to shreds the moment it was delivered to her this morning.

"Then what word would you use?"

"Ethical would be closer to the truth." She crossed her hands on her lap, slotting her fingers together like mechanical cogs in a clock.

"Only closer, my dear. Perhaps you favour common human decency? Behaviour that conforms to an accepted standard. But whose standard?"

She clenched her jaw, but kept her eyes averted from him. "There isn't some figurative bar to reach, Malfoy."

His foot tapped a few times. Out of tempo, like a troupe of tap-dancing toddlers. It was provokingly out of rhythm.

She ground her teeth. The scraping of her molars together seemed incredibly loud to her ears, and she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd heard it even above his incessant tapping.

"In your quest for a solution, you must conquer something – but what? The moral compass of the Ministry?" His foot hit the floor. "Me, perhaps."

It wasn't a question; his voice didn't rise with a punctuation mark.

She squeezed her hands, and her knuckles whitened. The skin stretched over the bones, exposing the ridges and dips in her knuckles.

"Ah, there is your dilemma. You can only be ethical if there is a problem to solve. A cause for you to correct."

He laughed. It was bitter and breathy, and it rasped against her eardrums. She felt it on the side of her face and neck, a hot gasping.

"Without your causes, what would be the point of you."

Her shoulders stiffened as his mirth stroked her.

He will press his nose into the side of her neck and sniff and pant into her skin, his body wracking over hers. He will be jagged, his movements jarring and his pushes pointed. He will breathe into her ear, that uneven rasp which spoke of his pleasure. Satisfied, but only temporarily.

He'd gorge on her. Sate himself on her, and in her, and around her. He'd hem her in between his body and a flat surface.

She could almost feel the weight of him. The press of his hips into her thighs. The jockey of his legs along hers.

There was a prickle in her cheeks, like she was being stabbed with a thousand minute needles, as the blood rose and stained. Like a drop of ink, colour blotched her cheeks, and there was nothing she could do about it.

He would see, and he would know as easily as if he'd read her mind.

The tapping ceased; his breathing increased.

"People don't need to have a point to exist, Malfoy," she said, her voice shaking with the effort of not fleeing. "Their autonomy should still be respected."

His eyes would be locked on her profile. His pupils large and animal-like in how they bloomed. In the dark his eyes would glow. The pale grey a phosphorescent ring around the black. So black, so dark. She would fall.

"How very idealised of you."

There were particles of dust in the air, hanging as if supported by invisible threads, but his words made them swing and jump away.

It was almost like looking at the night's sky: those tiny specks, pricked by the early autumn sun. Except they were as small and as insignificant as they appeared; whereas the stars were bigger than the mortal mind could fathom. Or at least visibility fathom. Mathematically, their size was easier to conceive. However, as it often is with humans, the most common way of grasping at the infinite was literally.

She'd sought for Pegasus last night.

The constellation wasn't at its peak, but she'd been able to see the massive supergiant in the sky. She'd crawled out onto her roof and laid back on the tiles. It had hurt. The tiles were cold and uneven, and there must be some bruises on her back. Pegasus wouldn't rise until the end of the month, but, being one of the larger constellations, it nonetheless dominated the mid-September sky.

Each star made up part of the horse. Algenib for Pegasus's wing. Another was called Enif from the Arabic for nose. This embodiment of the stars wasn't limited to animal, however. There were man-made elements to this celestial horse. The star Markab was called so because it represented the saddle.

It was curious how a constellation, a cluster of orbiting bodies and composed of chemicals, could be mythologised. Yet man still tried to tame and domesticate, by giving this imagined representation of a horse a saddle. The saddle-like star simultaneously asserted man's control over the heavens and reduced this corporeal wonder to nothing more than a prized mule. A living commodity to make man's life as unexacting as possible. The purpose of a horse, even the mythological Pegasus, was to transport the rider from A to B.

The saddle came to define the horse's function: it was to be ridden.

Was her own life going to be constrained by such phrasing?

The Marriage Law was as confining and as derogatory as that saddle, and, like a horse, her body was going to become a means to an end, an end which was not her own.

Enif was the brightest star of Pegasus. While the star was the 'nose' of the horse, she'd always thought of it as the head. It guided the direction for the rest of the celestial body. The head represented the brain, intellect, and reason.

She'd tried to use her head to reason her problem. To come to a solution logically. She'd rallied other witches and wizards affected by the law, produced petitions to the Head of the Wizengamot, and read ninety-eight books on magical law, theory, and practice. She'd presented the authorities with alternatives, statistics, and examples from Muggle history. The drops in birth rates and marriages after the World Wars, and the social and financial incentives which the British government had put in place.

She'd been met by stony silence and furtive glances when she spoke of the measures taken by Muggles over fifty years ago. The implication that the wizarding world was less progressive, less sophisticated, less innovative… was an unpopular one. But, honestly, if they were going to set up a mandatory breeding program in the twenty-first century, then they were going to be called a group of primitive, chauvinistic clowns who wouldn't know their wand from their elbow. As they looked down at her from the high benches, their chests had puffed out, their faces scrunched up, and their entire posture had reminded her of an group of infantile Mandrake roots.

She'd been shivering when dawn had filtered into the blue. The tiles had leached her body heat, and the early morning chill had settled into her bones like winter's frost. She'd kept her eyes trained to the sky, and only when the approaching sun had diffused the horizon red did Enif disappear.

Red sky in the morning.

The sky turned red because of particles. Molecules and tiny particles in the atmosphere scattered the light, refracting the rays along the rainbow, but the colour was determined by what size the particles were.

Red sky was no harbinger of doom; it was all determined by dust.

If the right pressure was exerted, she would shatter like a the top of a frozen lake. It would be freeing to be that fragile: to have the option to be that frangible. She could disintegrate into very small parts, and the breeze could diffuse her into the air. Then she could change the colour of the sky.

She'd sat up; she wasn't going to find her resolution in the stars.

Today was the September equinox: an even split between night a day. Twelve hours before Pegasus was visible again, and by that time she would be married.

She heard the shift of expensive fabric.

"Well, are you not going to ask me the same question?" he said, and he managed to inject his clipped upper-class accent with a lazy drawl.

She unclenched her hands and felt that slight burn which indicated she'd cut her palm. "Which question?"
"Whether I imagined my wedding day to be some maudlin day of happiness."

She angled her head so she could see him.

He was wearing a Muggle suit, and she wondered if it was on her behalf. Recently, she'd only ever seen him in suits. Maybe it was his ploy to lull her into a false sense of security: a superficial way to make it appear as if he was no longer bigoted and corrupt. It would look good on the front of The Daily Prophet. It had looked good. The paper's caption last week had been flattering: 'Hermione Granger's fiancé seen in Diagon Alley in Muggle attire.'

When she'd read that, she'd asked him if he bought from Gieves & Hawkes on Savile Row, London. She'd meant it to be biting, but he'd calmly replied that he would never be so plebeian as to buy. He acquired, instead. She'd had no idea if he meant his suit or the company of Gieves & Hawkes.

His mouth widened as their eyes met. It wasn't a smile exactly. It was thin; then again, Malfoy did have thin lips. They were fine, but there was no cupid's bow to soften: the middle of his top lip peaked to an almost vertical apex, like of the summit of two distant mountains.

When stretched, his lips looked bleached.

"It's only basic civility to ask, Granger."

She pressed her own lips together.

The second time she'd seen him, she'd just undertaken a position at The Department for International Magical Cooperation. It was a low-ranking job as an undersecretary for the Magic Office of Law, and she remembered Ron teasing her, telling her she was a ninny for starting her Ministry career at the bottom of the ladder.

She couldn't quite summon up the sound of Ron's voice, but she recalled, with precise clarity, the way his face and his eyes had crinkled in laughter. The pale red of his lashes which quivered as he shut his eyes, closing off their forget-me-not blue.

They had all been in The Three Broomsticks drinking, or, in Hermione's case, sipping on an orange juice. Harry had dubbed it a final hurrah before they entered the great and strange world of full-time employment.

Her face had been pulled in an prolonged smile as she listened to Harry and Ron's chatter, and their Trelawney-like predictions on their Auror careers. It seemed as if they would be detaining numerous Dark wizards every week and would still be able to clock off at five each evening.

She'd said nothing, but kept her glass covering her mouth.

There had been the cursory glance their way – Ron had chosen a table in the middle of the room. He always did. Now, she thought this might have been some shallow grab at fame on his part. Extending their importance in the wizarding world, to the point where he almost shoved it into people's faces. Not that anyone seemed to mind. They'd not had to buy a drink all night.

As they moved from Butter Beer to Fire Whiskey, she'd still been startlingly sober. It had been an evening which had tested how much orange juice she could drink before giving up and moving to plain water. Even that proved too much for her bladder, however.

It was a universal truth that all pubs in Great Britain, whether wizarding or Muggle, had ghastly ladies' loos.

The floor would always be wet, there was never any toilet roll, and there was always that annoying beep from the air freshner which hadn't been refilled in months.

The men's toilets were just as awful, but they didn't seem to mind as much. This was perhaps because they didn't have to sit on a cracked toilet seat.

She'd looked towards the far side of the room. She could have cursed Ron. Due to him advertising their status in the pub, she'd now have to navigate her way to the toilet and dodge her way around groups of witches and wizards who would try and engage her in conversation. Which wasn't a problem normally. But right now she needed the loo.

She couldn't have taken a direct route because the cameraman from the Prophet was lingering, oily, by the bar, and there were a group of teenagers gawking and wearing Harry Potter t-shirts directly in front of where she sat.

Standing up, she'd made her excuses – not that Harry and Ron were paying her that much attention – and started skirting the edge of the room. Very much taking the long way around.

She hadn't noticed him until she was on her way back from the bathroom.

He been in the corner of the pub, tucked into a booth, and bent in talk with a group of Goblins. While their conversation seemed clandestine, and as if it was being conducted in whispers, she hadn't believe it was underhand. All the Goblins' faces had been friendly, or as friendly as Goblins could look. Their teeth weren't bared, and their claws weren't extended towards Malfoy's throat – which would have been a classic sign of aggression in Goblins. If that had been the case, she would have felt the need to intervene. She'd said to herself that this would only be in order to avoid extra paperwork in her new job.

Rather than go past him again, she'd made sure to walk through the throng of people.

She'd sipped another orange juice and wondered what he was doing at The Three Broomsticks. Obviously conducting some deal, but it couldn't be anything illegal given that their discussion was happening in a popular pub during the Friday night rush. Even Malfoy wouldn't be that stupid, especially with Harry, Ron, and her sitting not ten meters away. Maybe he hadn't seen them? No, there was no way that Malfoy hadn't clocked them the moment he'd entered the bar.

Harry and Ron's voices had rolled over her as she slid her eyes over to where Malfoy sat.

His face had been open, but open like a painting: created. His eyes had been focused on his companions, his mouth undulated with rapid movements when he spoke, and he nodded with apparent sympathy while he listened.

Her eyebrows had quirked when he'd waved his hand at the Goblins' protests and reached inside his robes to produce a handful of glittering coins. He'd dumped the lot on the table, gulped the last of his drink down, and stood up.

She'd almost spat out her juice as Malfoy practically bowed over the table. He pressed his thumb to the outstretched hand of the biggest Goblin, who must be the leader. Her eyes had narrowed as she'd peered over the rim of her glass and glared. She couldn't believe he'd had done that. Touched what he would have once dubbed a 'lesser race' and partaken in a traditional Goblin gesture of respect.

A deal must have been struck, only she had no idea what.

She'd leaned back in her chair to try and get a better look.

What was he doing? Was he...smiling?

Malfoy had been politely smiling at the Goblins, and the world hadn't stopped turning. But that controlled stretching of his lips had seemed constructed, too impeccable: as if he'd learnt these facial expressions from a manual.

How to interact with Goblins 101? Speciest: the dos and don'ts? How to lose your bigoted ways in ten easy steps? Step One: Realise that you have to pretend you do not consider yourself the centre of the universe.

He'd appeared to not see her, Harry and Ron as he strolled past them and out of the door. She was certain he'd been pretending. He, like her, had probably wanted to keep his head down and get out of this packed bar.

Nevertheless, it was fortunate that Harry and Ron had been so preoccupied that they'd failed to notice him.

She'd been grateful for that. Malfoy always set Ron's teeth on edge.

Ron had thrown his head back and laughed.

She couldn't remember his laugh. It had probably sounded beautiful.

Ron had turned and smiled at her, a genuine and slow smile. He'd reached out and placed his hand over hers.

She'd felt nothing as she answered his smile.

"Now she wants romance," he said, but from the way he stared into the sky, she presumed this was more to himself. "Although this garden is a sad excuse, more of a courtyard really, but what should we expect from the Ministry really?"

There was a scraping sound as he pushed his nail under the peeling paint of the garden archway.

"You should see the gardens at the Manor. Begonias for days –"

He was wittering. She was standing under some desperately decrepit archway on the ground level of the Ministry, and Draco Malfoy was wittering at her. If it wasn't for the sharp pain in her lungs, she might have thought she was delusional.

"– and in March the Calla lily blooms. This lily by itself isn't the most impressive sight, I grant you, but when there is a forest of them it is quite astounding –"

The panic had only been fluttering in her stomach when she'd made a break for it and retreated along the corridor and towards the garden. Now it was rioting.

He'd followed her. She was beginning to get the impression that he would always follow her: almost on her heels, his footfalls in time with hers.

Each step behind her and brought her situation into sharp reality. There was something about the echo; it was the only sound, but it bounced and recoiled off the walls until it was all she could hear. That heavy pounding which drowned her breaths and her heart.

She'd broken into the garden. Smashed the 'closed for the weekend' sign with a slightly too-violent unlocking charm.

The colours had spun. Blues, greens, with pricks of yellow and pink for flowers. Everything was so bright. It was like nothing had shade, and what she was seeing was the raw pigment. Saturated, and her eyes had soaked it up.

She groped the air.

"Granger?"

She clung to the fine material of his jacket. It was soft under her questing fingers.

He made a noise of approval.

"I must know –" he sounded so warm, so gentle as his hand crept around her waist "– what has persuaded you in this change of attitude. Just so I may employ it in the future."

There were a few roses remaining on wooden arch they stood under. Withered husks of deep colour that smelled slightly too sweet. A sweetness of decay.

"It will be awfully useful when I want to fuck you."

She wrenched away from him and grasped for wooden lattice. As the frame shook, a few petals fell. They fluttered red before her eyes.

She gulped the sickly-sweet air. "Shut up."

"Tell me, are you ever tempted to answer me civilly?" He braced his arm on the top of the arch so he could lean over her.

More petals fell, and their velvety texture tickled the tops of her feet.

"Never." She'd had to force that single word out. She wanted to say more, wanted to curse him, but she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, then she wouldn't stop until her voice gave out.

The air between them vibrated with his chuckle. "We are meant to be getting married at this precise moment. You're not getting cold feet are you?" He theatrically sighed. "It would certainly be a case of my loss, and the Dementors' gain. Honestly, I have to be a preferable option to perpetual imprisonment."

She tried to look past him and at the mass of dry leaves and veiny flowers. Perhaps if she focused on something else, she could squash whatever was squirming inside her like an animal. Trap it, and bury it.

"I'm not a bad shag, Granger. You never know, you might enjoy it."

Sex.

It was always sex with Malfoy.

He seemed to ignore the actual marriage part of their circumstance. It was as if the marriage certificate would be just another slip of paper to sign, and their vows – if she could call them that – were recycled words, like reciting a spell before raising a wand.

Maybe he was trying to make her refuse him? Taunt, parade, and leer at her so she'd back out and be sent to Azkaban. To have the life sucked out of her by the Azkaban guards. Like the fall of dirt on a coffin, their breaths would rattle off stone walls.

What a choice. To have the life sucked out of her by the Dementors, or her happiness squandered by Malfoy.

"Two words." He bent down, and his teeth gleamed in the afternoon sun. "I do. And then you are mine."

There was no lie in his eyes.

There was no trick with his words.

There was just hunger.

Hunger in him. In the way he leaned over her as if to pounce, and in his smile. It was as a gash, a bloody wound. So red, and as if he'd been gnawing on his mouth for years. Staving off the craving with the taste of his own blood.

He was starving.

Visibly salivating over her, as if the light catching his eyes was saliva, the whiteness around his irises were jaws, and his pupils the dark tunnel of his gullet.

He was going to gobble her up, swallow her whole.

It was a devastating discovery.

He wanted her.

He'd told her how much on several occasions and all in the past few weeks.

I want to fuck you, Granger.

It was as if the law had unlocked a rampant interest in her. A dizzying amount of interest. He looked at her like she was rare, but collectable; like a butterfly. Poison in the pin was an old lepidopterist's trick. She was something to fasten to one place, and hold behind glass, and admire for the play of light on her pretty colours.

I need to...

Always that same monosyllabic language, as if he was imagining the act as he spoke. It was in the briskness of his words, the way his mouth jerked on the last 'k', and the perpetual amusement that danced in his eyes like a Hollywood vaudeville act.

...fuck you.

He sent ripples of awareness through her mind and body.

Gods, Granger.

A tight knot of understanding in her lower belly.

I'll strip you.

A warning in her brain, like the tinny sound of a smoke alarm when the batteries had gone flat.

Worship you, my dear.

Each corner of his smile pierced her, and opened up that small part of her that was hers and no one else's. A skewer in her heart. He twisted it, and punctured into her.

Under my hands.

The pain was palpable. Spiking her diaphragm as she tried to regulate her breathing.

Eat you.

A cry in her blood.

"Fuck." His curse bit the air.

She blinked into his face. Her pupils swayed, like a pendulum, as she tried to focus, but all she could feel was him.

There was the subtle scent of his cologne; something woody with undertones of wealth.

He, however, was a bit blurry. As if his features had been coloured with chalk pastel then smudged.

He was standing in front of her and holding her elbow. Centred, like gravity. Grounding her to the earth like dirt.

If it wasn't for the sleeves of the dress, his hand would be on her skin.

"You've gone a deathly colour, my love."

She became aware that his other hand was under her chin, tilting her face upwards. Then two fingers on her carotid artery. She felt the jumps of her pulse. Rapid, like the hurdles in the Olympics.

"Breathe," he said in an instructing tone of voice. "Then hold it."

She didn't. She couldn't. She didn't want to.

There was a ringing, a high-pitched hum which felt almost out of reach of her ears. She knew there wasn't any sound. It was her brain: it was being denied oxygen and was signalling to the rest of her senses that something was wrong.

"Do it. It's a Muggle technique I learnt after I was released," he added, like he was name-dropping.

Her heart rate was heavy, her arms twitched with each push of blood, and her fingers closed painfully tight around the arch.

"Effective and quick. Do it, Granger."

As if he was afraid of puncturing her skin, the pressure of his fingers on her neck lightened.

"I'm going to count to ten, and then you are going to breathe out."

The pain sliced the underside of her lungs, but she inhaled, and air scoured her teeth.

"One. Two. Three –"

His count was slower than the standard second, like he had his own internalised clock. She found herself following the measured beat of his voice. It was simple, the next number was expected, and she had no compulsion to interrupt.

"– Five –"

She was able to see him properly, but before she could focus on him, she swivelled her eyes away. The layers of foliage behind his head were crisp, and she followed the slice of one leaf to the next.

"– Nine. Ten."

In anticipation of him telling her to, she exhaled.

She counted three more of his long seconds before he broke the silence.

"Better?"

As she nodded, his nails skimmed down her neck. He briefly dipped into the hollow of her throat.

"Where did you learn that?" she asked, falling back to questions and information.

He trailed her collarbone. "Just something I picked up on my travels."

"Travels?"

It would be easy to tilt her head and offer him her neck.

Some small, giddy part of her demanded that she do this.

To look up at him through the tangles and briars of her hair, and then, like closing a curtain on the first act, to demurely lower her lashes back down.

To the wagging tongues and eager eyes of the Ministry officials and staff, the scene might have been romantic. Two figures framed by an archway of roses. They must look like something on the cover of a cheap paperback. But she didn't feel like a heroine, and Malfoy certainly wasn't a hero.

"I've been something of a curiosity," he said. His finger reached the limit of her dress. His thumb slid along the edge, skirting the hidden parts of her skin with the tip.

He was like a general before a battle: testing the limits, and scouting out the enemy terrain.

A shiver weaved up her spine, and she imagined it as a spark which was zig-zagging up between her vertebrae. Her skin would break out in gooseflesh and become evidence of his fingers on her. He would think her so easy to conquer then.

Her body was the land; her will his enemy.

"I had no idea that people could find you so interesting."

As if the wind has picked up on the chilly tone of her voice, a breeze rustled through the garden. It shook tendrils of her hair and set the leaves and the roses free. The leaves and petals spiraled around them, similar to sycamore seeds, before corkscrewing to the ground. Like rice, she thought.

The roses were dying, and Malfoy's grip on her elbow was increased, inversely printing the lace pattern on her skin.

"Well –" a smile in his words "– you are one of the few people who appears to not find me utterly fascinating."

He thrust the finger under her dress.

"Whereas I find you," he said, and stroked the untouched skin, "very entertaining."

She raised her hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear; on the way back down, she shoved his hand out and off her.

"I'm not an afternoon's diversion," she said, and jostled her shoulder into his chest to hurry him away.

He made something like a snort, but there was a leer in it. "I would imagine you'd take much longer than an afternoon." He did take a step back. "No more than a week, though. You are entertaining, Granger. Just not captivating."

She could hear the shrug in his voice, and that sharp smile, and the air of unabashed luridness made her blood boil.

She jerked her head up and stared at him for the first time in what felt like a century.

She raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms. "For someone who is adamant that you do not find me 'fascinating', or 'captivating', and whatever throwaway phrases you'd use, you've expended many hours trying to convince me differently."

"Because it amuses me, my dear. It might be a foreign concept to you."

"The stripping of our civil rights is not amusing."

"I beg to differ." He cocked his head to the side, looking at her like she was a curiosity. "This is the most fun I've had in years."

She wanted to hurl words at him; to let them pour through out of her like molten lead down a castle meurtriére.

"If my reaction earlier wasn't enough to convince you," she said, icily, "then I shall make it quite clear. You –"

She saw his father in him then, or rather how his father had been. It was his eyes. They were like some great stone wall. Colourless, and steep. To gain purchase, she'd have to shove her fingers into the pits between the stone, and even then it would be a scrabbling climb: full of scrapes and cuts.

She recalled how his eyes had been, jumping, dancing, and never able to focus on one thing. Here, he was locked on her. It was a stare so like his father's: proud, and full of the promise of overbearance… yet, there was a lack of disdain.

The absence of hate was perturbing enough to make her stutter and halt.

"Spit it out, Granger. We haven't got all day."

He still sneered like his father, however.

She tucked her hand into the crook of her elbow, and, out of his sight, dug her nails into underside of her arm. For a few seconds, she closed her eyes. It was easier to remember who she was when he wasn't fixed on her.

"Please," she said, "just stop. Stop baiting and provoking me." She winced at the smallness of her voice. "And touching. Stop touching."

"You touched me first."

"I was confused."

She squeezed her eyes further shut as the silence lingered.

"I understand you perfectly."

"Thank you," she said, rushing, "for earlier when –"

"Pardon, Granger, I hate to interrupt," he said, "but I can't have you deluding yourself into thinking I did any of that out of any concern for you. I simply do not wish to have it going about the Ministry that my bride was a gibbering mess before she married me."

She didn't open her eyes until his footsteps had gone and only the wind remained.

The third and final time she'd noticed him was last summer. This was also the one time he'd spoken to her. Only a single word each; however, it was the only exchange they'd had in years.

"Granger."

He'd inclined his head as she walked by.

He'd been leaning against the wall beside the lifts and as the call button had been lit and flashing orange, she'd concluded that he was just waiting for the lift. Innocently waiting, with no alternative motivation.

She'd been so surprised to see him on her floor at the Ministry that she'd almost dropped the stack of papers she'd been holding – the files and forms from the Troll king, who now, after many years, wished to attend that year's International Confederation of Wizards and Magical Creatures. If she had tripped, like her feet had wanted her to, then she wouldn't have wagered a single Knut on him bending down to help her pick the papers up off the floor.

She had glanced at him, but the glance had turned into a stare.

His hand was stilled as if caught on motion capture film, and in the act of raking the hair off his face. It was silky looking and almost feminine in length. Like the lines of a wheat field, she could see where his fingers had groomed and pushed and the strands into artless design.

Her stomach had fluttered in a way which she hadn't been able to define. She'd felt a sting of guilt thought as if she was betraying a dear memory.

His eyes hadn't strayed from her face. There was a precision to his gaze, and his constricted pupils tracked her progress down the corridor. They were like dots made by a black permanent marker. It had made her wonder if he always viewed the world through a pinpoint.

"Malfoy."

She'd not stopped walking.

There are some eyes that can eat you.

I always go to the Erl-King and he lays me down on his bed of rustling straw where I lie at the mercy of his huge hands.

He is the tender butcher who showed me how the price of flesh is love; skin the rabbit, he says! Off come my clothes.

– The Erl-King, Angela Carter

Influences in this chapter:

The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

The Prince, Niccoló Machiavelli

The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir

La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats

Labyrinth (1986)

Next chapter will also be from Hermione's POV.
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