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It had been exactly forty-seven hours since the Order had left.
Just under two days. Alone. At Headquarters. With no one else but Draco Malfoy.
Hermione did not know what to do. Staring at the problem in front of her without a solution in mind was not something she dealt with often, but when it did happen it hit her like a freight train. She was stumbling alone through the dark woods, with no light to guide her besides gut instinct.
And even that didn't seem to know what she wanted.
After he had kissed her willow mark, she had run - not walked - from the room. The intensity of the gesture, so simple on its face but infinitely complex beneath, had terrified her. She was too close to something powerful. Something dangerous.
Something she did not know if she could survive.
Hermione had hidden herself up in her room, shaking, shivering; her heart was on fire. The feeling of Draco pressing his lips so gently to the mark on her arm, before flicking his grey eyes up to meet her green ones, was haunting.
She had never been touched before that moment. Not by anyone, at least not by anyone who mattered.
She had said it wouldn't be intimate. She hadn't thought so. Her and Draco? Please. If anything physical were to happen between them, it would be against a table with one of her legs around his hip and her skirt hitched up, satisfying a physical need they were both lacking in the middle of a war.
She hadn't even thought they would look each other in the eye.
"Merlin," she whispered, sliding down the wall and curling into her own arms. What in the world was she doing?
She was genuinely contemplating what sleeping with Draco Malfoy would be like. How it would feel. How they would act, with him inside her as she moaned in his ear.
Was this insanity? Had the mark and the magic transfer infected her bloodstream, sending her spinning into another plane of existence where this scenario made sense.
Because it certainly did not make sense in her reality.
There was still Seamus, she thought weakly, knowing as the words entered her mind that they meant next to nothing.
It wasn't that Seamus meant nothing, it was never that. It was just that it wasn't intimate. It was a shag; it was comfort and it was what she needed in the middle of a war.
Exactly what she thought Draco would be.
But he wouldn't be. She knew that now. He would kiss her and she would moan and fall into the arms of the branded man - who had defected by the loosest possible definition of the term. The man who she had hated almost her entire life. The man she had saved.
And it would burn her alive.
Gods. Who could survive that?
Forty seven hours later, she still had no idea how to approach the increasingly growing elephant in the room.
Or in number 12 Grimmauld Place, she supposed.
The fact that she was even contemplating it showed considerable mental strain. It wasn't that she was genuinely thinking about it. There were factors. There was context. There was an Order that would explode and a lover who would kill him and two best friends who would return to kill her as well.
How did she even get here?
Draco had vacated the library since the encounter. He had retreated to the room he had occupied since that fateful day in Diagon Alley. She knew he was eating; food kept disappearing from the pantry.
But she knew absolutely nothing else.
In response, she curled up in a chair at the table with a whole pile of books. She hadn't heard much from the Order, except that they hadn't been successful in breaking the wards yet. With nothing else to do besides research the mark, she had decided to do her damndest as an Order Member and research wards to see if there was anything she was missing. Just because she had been left behind did not mean she couldn't help. So she fell into old tomes and volumes, the familiarity offering her reprieve from her rapidly shifting reality.
That's what she was doing when he finally returned - approaching the line they were treading at such an alarming speed that she knew he didn't care about the consequences of tumbling over it.
She felt him before she saw him.
The tingles started at her mark - the new gravitational centre of her being. They unfurled from the roots of the willow tree up the branches, spreading to her arms and then the rest of her. Her body - the ultimate traitor - was shaking by the time she heard the door click open.
"Have you been here for the past two days?" he asked, his voice. Keeping her eyes trained on the tome, she saw in her periphery his approaching figure as he took a seat at the opposite end of the table.
"Not for the entirety," she murmured, knowing that it did not matter how quietly she spoke. He would hear her.
The particles that made up the air would part so her voice would reach him.
"Hermione," he whispered in response, returning the favour. No one else was in the building. No one else could overhear. But still they whispered. Who were they trying to keep secrets from? Of course she knew the answer.
Each other.
He sighed when she did not respond, and spoke again. "Look at me."
It was not a demand, she knew that. But her body reacted as if it was, as if she was Imperiused and no amount of willpower could break this man's hold on her. Her eyes flicked up before she could truly consider the consequences.
An increasingly frequent problem she was having.
Draco was staring at her, his jaw visibly tense and his pupils dilated. He looked concerned. Maybe? Was he upset? Also maybe. Besides the obvious tension, Draco Malfoy was a brick wall and she could only see a sliver of light coming through.
But she understood the silver ray easily, as she recognized it in herself.
"What's bothering you, Draco?"
He raised an eyebrow; a simple tilt to demonstrate confusion. "Draco, now?"
Her lips parted in surprise, as she realized he was right. When had she started thinking of him as Draco? Draco - the man who had helped her when no one else could. Malfoy was the bully from her childhood, who had disappeared before her very eyes when she opened herself to his successor.
The switch from his surname to his first name had happened unconsciously, she now realized. But it happened. An undeniable shift. Another centimetre closer to that pesky line.
It looked more appealing with every passing moment.
She shrugged, trying to block out every feeling she had. She failed. "What's bothering you?"
He appraised her for a moment, his eyes tracing her face slowly - with the care of a lover's fingers. She smacked the thought out of her mind.
"You are."
"In what way?"
"You have to admit that something's going on here," he said, leaning forward, his voice suddenly urgent. "You sensed me when I came in, admit it."
She started, her jaw dropping. "How on earth…"
"Because I did, too." He leaned back in the chair, throwing his arm over the top of the frame, trying and failing to look nonchalant. She could see his heart hammering at the pulse point in his neck. "The moment we were in the vicinity of each other. I felt it. From my…my mark, up my arms, and back down again."
He stared at her. A blush crept up her face; she could feel the heat under her skin.
"It has to be the magic transfer," he pressed on, his voice low. Baritone. It sounded like music. "It connected us. That's why we're acting like this. It's why we feel like this."
"Feeling like what?" she mumbled, surprised she was able to form words in her current state of distress.
The look he gave her was piercing. "You know exactly what I mean."
Silence.
She coughed, trying to break the tension. It was an awkward release at best. "I know it's only us in the house, but I have to use this time to help the Order. That's why I'm here, Draco."
He rolled his eyes. "The longer we ignore it the worse it'll be when it strikes."
She glared. "Or it will never strike at all."
He shrugged, his eyes looking up at her through his lashes. The blonde fringes around his eyes looked like fairy dust in the light.
"Believe what you want to, Hermione."
She didn't respond.
"What's the problem with the Order right now?" he said, continuing the conversation as if they hadn't just been discussing the possibility of them shagging. "There's always something."
She sighed, grateful for the brief break from whatever this was turning into. "They're at the South Shore Lestrange Manor. They're trying to get at the cargo stash but can't find out how to lower the wards. I've been trying to figure out if there's a catch."
"Of course there's a catch, Hermione, there's always a catch with them," Draco muttered, lowering his eyes away from her at long last. For some reason, it caused her to stare harder. He could look at her with burning intensity for their entire prior conversation, but not now?
"Like there was a catch for you?" she asked, prodding, resting her elbows on the table.
He nodded curtly. "The murder of a young girl was not the catch I was initially expecting."
"What was then?"
He started. "What do you mean?"
She eyed him, considering her approach. "You said initially. What catch were you expecting from the Death Eaters before that girl? Were you…were you doubting? Initially?"
Silence.
She watched him think it over - the difficulty and contradiction evident on his face as he took a few breaths. After a moment, he began to answer, his words falling into place as they left his mouth, the revelation occurring in real time.
"I'm not sure if it was anything in particular," he started slowly, as he was scared the meaning would be lost if he spoke too quickly. "It was…the whole institution. The job. I…when this all started, I was a kid. I was a child. I was a complete prat."
"Only took you a decade to realize," Hermione interjected. He ignored her.
"There was a reason I couldn't kill Dumbledore that night," he whispered, as she watched him admit it to himself simultaneously to saying it aloud. "I wasn't ready for this…for a war, I mean. I wanted attention, fame and glory, but what sixteen year old doesn't? I was a prat and I've paid for it since the day this all began. So there was a catch from the beginning. The whole goddamn war was the catch."
He didn't look at her after he was done speaking. He stared out the small window in the library into the rainy, dreary night, frowning slightly. Hermione was no Legilimens, but she did not need it to know that Draco was re-watching the past three years with the torturous gift of hindsight.
"Was it exhausting?" she asked, unsure if she wanted the honest answer. "Hating all these people, people like me, for their birth?"
He glanced up, a shift so subtle behind his eyes she nearly missed it. "You're different."
She raised an eyebrow. His entire demeanor had changed rapidly. "I'm a muggleborn."
He opened his mouth, frowning, and closed it as if unsure how to respond to that fact.
"See, this is the fucking problem with pureblood supremacy," she muttered, flipping the page in her book. "You all obsess over blood and birthright until you find yourself a muggleborn you like, or are attracted to or whatever the fuck it may be. Now I'm the exception but I'm a muggleborn all the same. A good one or any of that bullshit. Blood is all you can think of unless it's convenient to think otherwise."
He looked stunned.
"You know I'm right," she said, flipping another page. "It's all blood, blood, blood unless you want to get laid or whatever it may be."
She resorted to skimming the page in front of her, trying not to focus on the overbearing silence accompanied by a burning gaze.
"I'm not looking for a lay with you, Hermione," he said at last, his voice more stable than her foundations felt.
"Could've fooled me," she muttered.
"It's not about that," he said, angrily. "It's about the goddamn bliss I feel when I touch you."
He reached forward and grabbed her hand, the gesture so forceful that it surprised her how natural it felt.
She ripped it back before any other sensation could start. She was already lightheaded. Too close to the line.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh cut the crap, Hermione," he said, standing up. He walked around the side of the table, and pulled her up to her feet. She stumbled into his arms.
She was looking over the edge into the canyon below. It looked inviting. Too inviting. All she had to do was fall.
"What the hell?" she demanded, trying desperately to ignore the way he was setting her alight.
"You feel the same way I do," he whispered, turning her around and sitting her up on the table, shoving some books to the floor as he did. The tumbling of the old volumes to the ground sounded like warning bells.
She did not heed them.
"Ever since the magic transfer," he said, reaching up and brushing a curl out of her face, twisting it between his fingers. "I feel you. All the time. You're running through my veins. Every drop of you, all that power…."
He licked his lips. She tried to ignore the burning in her core.
"Touching you sets me on fire," he said, grabbing her waist and pulling her against him. Flush. No space between them for regret. "I'm overwhelmed. It's too much even being near you. But this, oh merlin this. Nothing could be closer to heaven than…than having you. Make me ascend. And if I was going to guess anything, Princess, I would guess that you agree."
She did not merely agree. She acceded. She consented. His hands bruising her skin, his grey eyes invading her space, his lips inches away…
It didn't matter. They were in a war. No one could possibly blame her. It was the mark. This bloody mark was doing this to her, sending her into the arms of Draco fucking Malfoy…
But Merlin be damned. Let the sun and the moon condemn her. Let them turn from her. Let them curse her to the darkness.
At least he would be there.
Would it be worth it?
With that look in his eyes, with the air filled with their magic, and with inches separating them… she knew it would be.
And willfully, she leapt from the cliff.
Lifting her arms around his neck, she pulled his lips down to meet hers.
If there were words God had created to describe a feeling like this, she didn't know them. If there were memories of hers close to this, she couldn't recall them. If there was anything closer to perfection, she wouldn't be able to name it to save her life.
A few days prior, when Draco's lips touched the crook of her neck and she felt the world melt away, she could not have imagined anything better.
Except for him kissing her as tenderly as he was.
It wasn't the fire she initially expected. It was safety. It was a slow burn, a single flame keeping her warm in the dead of night.
It was exactly where she needed to be.
His lips were softer than she would have thought. They moved against hers in tandem, devouring her taste. She was honeysuckle on a hot summer's day.
She moaned under him.
She could feel him smirk in response.
Impatiently, he climbed on top of the table, forcing her down until he was pressing her body into the wood with the full weight of his own. Not to be a passive actor in her exile from the garden, she started pulling his shirt off, only parting their lips long enough to get it over his head. She reached down to unbutton her own, until there was nothing between them but skin and longing.
He pulled away for a moment, his eyes widening as he looked down at her chest. He stared at her as if she was art; a masterpiece for his eyes only.
"Merlin," he rasped. "My beautiful princess."
She didn't correct him.
He leaned back down and attached his lips to her neck. She could feel him bite down, sending shock waves through her as he left a mark. He was branded into her. His lips trailed down her neck to her chest, him slipping her bra to one side before attaching his mouth to her nipple.
He bit. She moaned.
Was this sin? Was this how Eve had felt as she took a bite of the apple, condemning humanity to the lowlands? Because if it was, Hermione understood.
Draco Malfoy was her original sin.
His fingers were gripping her hips, sure to leave bruises the next day. His tongue was painting stories across her breasts, and she was ready and willing to complete the narrative.
"Don't stop," she murmured, her chest heaving. "Don't stop touching me."
"Not fucking ever, princess," he promised, sealing them together as his mouth covered hers.
His lips returned to her chest before continuing his descent. She could not breathe. She could not think. There was her. There was Draco. That was it.
He kissed down her stomach before reaching the top of her waistband. If she had not been lying down, she would have tumbled over.
Those grey eyes flicked up to meet hers, begging for permission.
She nodded, unable to hesitate in the face of such overwhelming indulgence.
His fingers undid her top buttons and pulled them down, leaving her lying under him in just her underwear. He did not allow her time to be embarrassed for her choice of practical white cotton panties. His ravaged groan was all the assurance she needed.
"Glorious," he whispered, before kissing lower and lower.
Jesus Merlin Christ.
She wasn't quite sure how long she was on that table. It could've been an eternity or a mere few seconds. His tongue tracing her slit, kissing her clit, worshipping her folds - there was no pleasure above this.
This moment with Draco seemed to exist outside of time - outside of the whole bloody universe - as she was transported further from herself than she ever had before, her soul reaching the heavens, before crashing back down as she came undone below him.
She gasped and moaned, grinding her hips against his face as he drank her in like wine in a vineyard. She had reached the bottom of the canyon; no way to climb back up. But it did not seem to matter.
Not when this was possible.
He had climbed back on top of her to kiss her lips again. The musky scent on his breath was intoxicating; addictive. But with her, in the afterglow, he was tender. Yet the passion could not be contained. It crackled around them like electricity.
Magnetic.
After a moment, he pulled back to smirk at her. "Weren't expecting that, now were you Princess?"
With nothing else to say, she shook her head.
He reached up and stroked her cheek, before flicking his thumb over her lower lip. She nearly growled. "Who could care about blood when this was possible?"
"The entire Death Eater side," she replied, still breathing heavily.
And that's when it hit her, shattering the pocket universe they found themselves in as she was propelled back into her own reality; war and darkness.
And a defected Death Eater on top of her in the moonlight.
"Princess?" Draco murmured, concern appearing on his face. "You've gone white."
"That's it," she whispered, sitting up and shoving him off her, trying to get herself under control, before jumping off the table and grabbing one of the books they had haphazardly thrown to the floor.
"What's it?"
She flipped through a few pages before finding what she was looking for. When she did, the sigh of relief was overwhelming. She handed the volume to a confused Draco and pointed her finger at what she had found.
"It's always about blood."
Raising an eyebrow, he read it over quickly before a smirk appeared on his own face.
"You sly vixen."
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