Updating twice in the same day? A true Xmas miracle.

Warning: this chapter gets M rated at the end, if that's not your thing please be forewarned.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.


Hermione drifted into consciousness slowly, as she nuzzled into the arms encircling her. Relishing the feeling of comfort and security, she sighed, her body at ease and content.

The arms tightened reflexively around her. She felt hot breath on her neck, sending shivers down her spine that stung in all the right places.

"Seamus," she murmured, her hands running over the lean muscles of his chest.

"Wrong lover," a baritone voice answered in return, softly kissing the crown of her hair.

Her eyes bolted open as reality crashed over her like thunder in a rainstorm.

"Draco, what in the hell happened?"

He looked different in the morning, she decided, with his eyes drowsy and a lop-sided grin gracing his usually hard features. He seemed calmer. At peace.

Ignoring her sudden frantic response, he sighed, almost chuckling, and pulled her back onto his chest, her head resting above his heart.

It was a steady rhythm.

"We fell asleep, love," he whispered, his words like wind-chimes in the morning air. "Don't worry, nothing happened. Just enjoy the feeling."

In comparison to Draco's regulated heartbeat, hers was erratic - the turbulent metronome the only symbol of disorder.

If she was going on instinct alone, neither fight or flight told her to move from his embrace.

The pieces of her memory from the night prior fell into place. She had gone to Draco's bed, not to sleep with him, no matter how desperately she wanted to.

But as a compromise with herself.

After the library the other night, as the climax of moments between them, she couldn't deny any longer that there was something there. It was more than she could explain, as language seemed inadequate in the face of the electricity buzzing between their skin.

The feel of him, even now, so soft and gentle with her body as he ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead, sent fire from her heart to the farthest reaches of her veins.

He was attractive, she wasn't fool enough to pretend otherwise. But this wasn't an attraction. Attraction felt too banal, too commonplace. Quotidian. She was attracted to Seamus, had been attracted to Oliver, to Viktor Krum in her youth.

She was…connected to Draco. The magic transfer had done them in, binding them in an unbreakable link that caused her body to shimmer every time she was near him, his heartbeat to pound in tandem with hers, and her to hunger for the feel of his body - no molecule of air separating their skin.

But she could not do that. Maybe he was in asylum, maybe he had defected. But he was still Draco Malfoy. He was the ex-Death Eater who would be murdered if it got out that they were linked. Seamus would crucify him on the front lawn. And she…god what would even happen to her?

The risks were too high. And as much as she wanted the reward, she could not justify it to herself. Not now. Not with these stakes.

"Draco," she murmured into his neck. "We should get up, we can't get caught leaving here together."

He grunted in response, dismissive, and held her closer. "Everyone can go fuck themselves."

She chuckled, before trying again. "Draco…"

"Hermione, shut up," he responded stoutly, eyes still closed. "If this is the only time we get together before going back to pretending, then let me hold you for another five minutes. It won't kill anyone."

She sighed, defeated, before snuggling back up to him. It was much of a defeat when she so easily surrendered.

Holding him in this way felt different than what they'd done before. Her skin was still burning from where they touched, but in comparison to the ravaging flames of a wildfire, she felt the soft embers of a hearth. She felt whole. The emptiness that had overcome her recently was gone, replaced by the simple pleasure of his hands on her.

"You really are quite the witch, aren't you," Draco murmured quietly, finally peeking at her with one eye, flecks of silver suddenly enthralling her gaze.

"You know me," she replied, twisting her body and lifting herself up on her forearms to look at him. He leaned back, reclining in the bed as he began to brush her hair aside, gently over her shoulder as if he was an artist, and she were his muse . At some point during the night, his shirt had been cast aside, along with her pants. She watched him observe her, and she observed him right back. Only one impression gained a foothold among her tumultuous thoughts.

He was beautiful.

"What're you thinking?" he asked her. She didn't respond, biting the inside of her cheek.

He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, frustration taking over for a moment. "Hermione, I was in classes with you for long enough to know when you're thinking about something. Just tell me."

"I was thinking about how beautiful you looked," she replied honestly, grazing her fingers over the skin of his chest. Spontaneously, and against her better judgement, she swung a leg over him and straddled him, their chests flush against one another.

Almost instinctively, he grabbed her hips, his fingers digging into her skin.

"Changed your mind, did you?" he asked, any attempt at nonchalance bested by the desire burning in his eyes.

She leant down and began to kiss his neck, her lips tracing constellations on his skin. "I wish I could give you an absolute answer."

"Gods, Hermione." Her name was a moan and a prayer. "Why are you doing this to me?"

She opened her mouth to answer, unsure of what was to come out. But before she could change her mind further, there was a knock on the door.

The speed in which she dismounted Draco was remarkable.

"Draco, mate?" Blaise's voice rang through the door. "It's almost noon. You and…uh... you should get up before people start worrying."

The implication was clear.

"I should go," Hermione said quickly, skirting out of bed and grabbing her pants, throwing them back on. Blaise's interruption was a sharp reminder of what she so longed to forget.

Consequences.

Before she left, she allowed herself a final stay of execution.

She leant down and kissed Draco's forehead. "Thank you," she whispered, before darting out the door.

She was gone before he could respond.

Running up to her room, she managed to avoid everyone, and grabbed a towel before jumping into the shower. She set it on the coldest setting, ice-cold water pounding on her back, before grabbing the tiled wall and taking several deep breaths.

What the fuck was she doing?

Every moment she so far had made up her mind - she could not do this - he would touch her, and her resolve would crumble. It was taking the entirety of her willpower to not pull him into a closet and take him then and there.

God, she could just imagine.

She knew the look in his eyes when he was on top of her. Him, looking at her with burning passion, taking her slower, kissing down her body, then back up, the two of them - intertwined, weaved together like patchwork - with him pounding inside her until she saw stars...

She needed to calm down.

It was just the magic transfer, she whispered to herself over and over. That's all this was. It was all it could ever be.

It was because she had given him such a primal part of herself, and it was messing with her head. She felt him always….no…not even. She felt herself in his blood, calling her to him with every heartbeat.

God save us all.

After she had calmed her own heart rate sufficiently, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around her body. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she saw the flush covering her face and chest, a tattoo of her desire and her choice.

Taking a few more calming breaths, she walked out into the hallway.

She regretted it almost immediately.

Seamus stood opposite the bathroom, arms crossed, leaning against the staircase, his expression containing barely concealed rage.

He stared at her for a few moments before speaking.

"Where were you last night?"

She paused, as her stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"

He stood up ramrod straight, his fists clenched at his side. "Don't play with me, Hermione. I swung by your room last night. You weren't there. So, where were you?"

"I couldn't sleep," she said, the lie slipping off her tongue with ease. "I was up and around the whole night."

"Do you blame me for not believing you?" he replied stoutly.

"Do you blame me for not caring?" she snapped back, irritation flaring in her core.

He sighed, the noise almost condescending. "Hermione, what happened to us? What's been going on with you now?"

"Isn't there a better time to discuss this, Seamus? I am in a towel right now."

"It's not like I haven't seen more," he said, taking a step forward, his eyes gaining a possessive edge. She didn't budge.

"Why does that matter, Seamus?" she replied. "We've shagged, you're right. That doesn't give you the right to know what I'm doing at all times, or to have my attention at all times."

"Were you with him?" Seamus asked quietly, his previously dominant eyes now avoiding her own.

Her heart skipped a beat. "With who, Seamus?"

"Malfoy," he replied, regaining the courage to look at her. "Are you sleeping with him?"

"No, I'm not," she answered. It was technically true. "But Seamus, you and I aren't together. We…we've been sleeping together but we aren't together. You don't get to ask me that."

"Hermione, I'm worried about you," he whispered, sounding desperate for the first time. "You…you've been off since he got here, I don't feel like I can reach you."

"We're in a war, Seamus," she said. "Maybe the reason you can't reach me is that I don't want to be reached."

"You've always wanted me before."

"But not anymore," she stated, the words hitting her and the air at the same time. She heard the finality as his jaw dropped. "I can't be the person you rely on to exist, Seamus. I can't."

"I'm not asking you to be, Hermione," Seamus said, his voice bordering a cry.

"Yes you are," she replied, her own certainty increasing every moment. "More than that. You're asking me to be…you're asking me to be Dean."

He stumbled back, like she had slapped him across the face. "What the hell do you mean?"

The words came tumbling out before she could react. "Ever since he died, you've been holding on to me as if I could disappear at any moment. It's made you manipulative, jealous and obsessive. I can't be his substitute. I'm not his replacement. Losing me does not mean losing him twice. I'm sorry that this is the way things went, but what we had was what we needed for a while. But it cannot be what we rely on."

Before he could even say another word, she ducked past him and ran back up to her room.

The door was locked behind her before the tears began falling freely.


A few hours later, after she had cried herself to bits over a relationship lost but a relationship never had, she managed to pull it together enough to go downstairs. Expecting a bit of relaxation after the wands' mission of the prior few days, she was shocked to find the majority of the Order bent over the kitchen table staring at strategy plans.

"What's going on?" she asked, strolling into the kitchen. Having been so focused on the papers spread across the table, the entire team started at her arrival, all eyes darting up to meet hers.

Seamus wouldn't look at her.

She averted her gaze to Lupin. "Remus? What's happening?"

Her old defense professor sighed. "We've got another mission coming up."

"Coming up?" she asked, sensing the answer before it was given.

"Tomorrow."

She took a deep breath, and rubbed her mark reflexively. "Where?"

Lupin paused, the tension in the air increasing as the others looked around awkwardly.

"The Malfoy summer home."

The silence was overwhelming.

"Why?" she asked, her voice brittle as glass. "What could possibly be there?"

"Rumour has it that's where they're keeping some of the captured from that raid of Hogsmeade early September. Do you remember that?"

She nodded, distant screams echoing in her mind. Her mark burned. "You mean Hannah?"

"To name only one," Lupin replied. "We don't want to waste any time trying to get them out, since it's taken us so long to discover where they're being held. Since none of us were injured after the Lestrange manor raid, we want to get going as soon as possible."

She nodded, almost reflexively falling into combat mode. Her mark flickered across her skin. "And so what does this mean? For me?"

There was a look exchanged between some of the elder Order members before Lupin spoke again. He turned back to face her.

"What it means is I expect you and Malfoy to be ready to leave at exactly 8 am tomorrow morning."

Her heart skipped a beat.

"I'll go tell him," she said, before turning and racing back up the stairs.

She did not look at Seamus again.


"Draco?" she whispered, pushing the door open.

He was in exactly the same position he had been in when she had left earlier; reclined, shirtless, but this time with a book in his hands. She fought to keep her breathing even.

He looked up at her. "Yes, Hermione?"

"Lupin sent me up," she said, shutting the door behind her. Flicking her wrist, she wandlessly locked and silenced it behind her, hardly noticing her body doing the action.

Even if it went unnoticed to her, it did not to Draco.

"Do you have something to say to me that you don't want anyone else knowing?" he said slowly, finally putting his book down, tossing it haphazardly to one side.

"We need to invade your summer home tomorrow," she burst out, unsure of a way to break the news gently.

He raised an eyebrow. "That's an odd way of putting it."

She sighed, clenching her hands together awkwardly.. "There's a mission tomorrow and the Malfoy summer home is the target."

She thought his skin grew paler, but when she looked again it seemed to be just a trick of the light.

"Are you ready for that, Draco?" she asked, softer this time, fighting every urge she felt to rush forward and hold him.

Her feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.

He sucked in a breath. "As ready as I'll ever be. My parents might be there."

She nodded, her sympathetic side taking over. He frowned.

They looked at each other for a few seconds.

An errant thought drifted into her mind. This might be their last moment together. That was always true in a war, but this was the first time since he'd arrived that he might not, or she might not, return the next day. The realization hit her more strongly than she'd care to admit.

From the expression on his face, she thought he may be considering it as well.

"So," he started, his voice gruff. "Are you staying here again tonight, or is it Finnigan's night?" He seemed to aim for casual, but there was an angry undercurrent to the comment.

"I…" she began, the words dying in mid air before she could complete the sentence. What would she even say?

He raised an eyebrow, and Hermione watched his heart rate speed up at the pulse point at the base of his neck. The spot she had kissed just that morning, her lips tasting his skin. Her gaze lingered on the spot for another moment, and the final puzzle piece fell into place.

The events of the previous few weeks cycled through her mind - snapshots of film from a camera. Every kiss, each forbidden touch, they danced across her memory as she remembered every decision she had made on the matter, and every time her blood screamed at her to do the opposite.

And suddenly, it didn't matter. She didn't care. The contours of her view, of her reality - the war, the Horcruxes, Seamus - it all faded away until it was indiscernible. Her life was fog on the water. Her lenses adjusted and in that moment, the only person in the world that made a goddamn difference to her was lying half-naked in a bed, twilight breaking through the mist.

She had decided. They were linked. And that was that.

Just say it, Hermione. "I ended things with Seamus."

Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it had not been that. "You…you did what? Why? Was it…was it because of..this?"

She noticed that he didn't say 'us'.

"Not completely, but I won't say it didn't factor in," she admitted, taking a tentative step forward; approaching the abyss. "Ever since…ever since the mark…no…before that. Ever since Dean died, Seamus has been off. He's been holding on to me so tight I can barely breathe. I think I've been filling Dean's place for him. I'm his new best friend, so that he never had to really deal with the death of his old one. And I can't do that anymore. I can't be the person holding him together. Because what happens when I'm gone."

"Don't say that," Draco snarled, a tangible venom in his voice. "Don't ever say that."

Hermione ignored his outburst. "It's in the realm of possibility. We are at war. Seamus and I, we can support each other and hold each other up. But I can't hold him together. I'm too busy doing that for myself."

"Besides, I haven't felt right being with Seamus for a while. Not since…" she trailed off, suddenly losing the nerve to say what she had been internally screaming for weeks.

They say the eyes are the mirror to the soul, and in that moment she agreed. Because she knew from the sheer desire emanating out of Draco's silver orbs that he understood.

Some things do not be said aloud to be true. They just are.

Before she could even blink, he had stood up and was in front of her. He gripped her hips and slammed her against the door.

"Tell me you don't want this, and I'll stop," he whispered, his eyes dancing over her face, yearning for her approval. She had never been looked at so desperately, as if she were the Fates, this man's string of life in her hands. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll go back to bed, and never bring it up again, and you can go upstairs and we'll go on that mission in the morning and never again imagine that we could've had this."

She opened her mouth, and with her blood screaming, and her magic pounding and every inch of her flesh craving him, she whispered the only two words she could ever have said to him in that moment.

"I can't."

The words were said. Their fates were sealed. And gods, the only word she could use to describe it was grateful.

His lips slammed against her, devouring her taste. His fingers gripped her hips with such fierceness that she could feel the bruises forming, almost as if her blood was breaking open for him. She melted under it. The only thing she could feel was heat, radiating off him, off her, off them.

She raised her arms and wrapped them around his neck, meeting him with equal fervor. Her body sang in response to touching him. And without a doubt in her mind, she knew this was right. Because sin could not make her feel this complete.

He spun them around, and walked her backwards. He held her hips, lowering her onto the bed with a gentle fierceness she had never before experienced. He fell on top of her, ripping off her shirt so quickly buttons hit the opposite wall.

Like he had that night in the library, he took a moment to appraise her. And he looked just as awestruck as before.

"My beautiful princess."

"No waiting," she panted, arching her back up, trying to bring their bodies together again. She demanded contact. "Ever since the magic transfer…I've needed this."

He leant above her and trailed kisses down her neck. "We're linked, you and I," he murmured. God, she felt like she was burning at the stake, waiting for him. "You run inside my veins, princess."

"Draco," she moaned, barely holding back a cry. "I need you."

"What do you need, love?" he whispered, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

The moment before she answered hung in the air, compelling them for eternity.

She took a deep breath, as she passed the point of no return without regret, trepidation, or concern.

Abandon thought and let the dream descend.

"I need you inside me."

His breath hitched, and the openness in his face shattered any conception of doubt.

"I live to serve, your highness."

Before she could blink, he was playing with her pant buttons, ripping them down her legs, followed by her panties. She lay before him as she is, not for the first time, but for the most important time.

He ripped his own off swiftly and for the first time ever, she saw all of him.

He was like marble, a statue crafted by the gods themselves. Every line of him was perfect, from his jawline to the lines on his hips leading down to his member. She reached up and clutched his hips, imagining for a moment how it would feel to really feel him.

He was panting above her. As she held him, and felt his blood, her magic, pumping through him, she felt more powerful than she had in her life. This man, this beautiful godlike man - he was hers. And no one, not human or divine, could take that away from her.

She moved one of her hands down his chest and held him, firm in her hand, as she began to stroke him so slowly he almost collapsed in anticipation.

"Tease," he muttered, moaning above her, thrusting into her hand.

She stopped stroking. He nearly cried out. "What was that, love?" she replied, arching up to kiss the hollow of his neck.

"God I fucking love that," he panted, taking her hands and slamming them down above her head. She moaned. Him in control while knowing that she was the one with all the power that had her trembling for him.

"Last chance to back down, princess," he whispered. His eyes almost broke her with intensity.

"Not a chance in hell," she replied, green meeting grey and magic exploding from both.

That was all he needed.

Before she could even blink, her legs were spread apart, and he was inside her.

When magic had been created, whether from a god, or a spark of intuition, or something else entirely, the world had tilted. As power enveloped the planet, those who had been blessed with the gift were filled with a feeling they could never describe afterwards.

But Hermione Granger, for the first time ever, understood how they had felt.

As the man who held her magic in his veins, and her body in his hands, thrust into her, slowly at first but faster as she cried and begged and met him thrust for thrust, she felt it. Whatever had been passed down for generations, through witches and wizards that had eventually resulted in her, she felt it. Even with the knowledge of her muggle heritage, the power she felt in her hands came, with utmost certainty, from generations of powerful witches before her.

Their eyes never broke contact. If they had, they would have noticed the sparks expelling from them. They would've noticed the glow surrounding them. They would've been shocked that such a carnal act, one they had both experienced before, could ever create such a result. This wasn't sex. This was indescribable bliss.

"Morganna, Hermione," Draco burst out, burying his face in her neck, as he thrust inside her. It was the feeling of all the magic she had given him funneling back to her, connecting them in a way that he wished so desperately that they would've been connected the whole time.

Hermione was right. This feeling wasn't human. This was so much more. As she felt him so fully inside her, she knew she would never feel fully human again. This was bliss. This was ethereal. This was what magic was supposed to be.

"Just touch me," she whispered, barely getting the words out through all her pleasure.

His hands never left her body. They were the link that had been broken between the two of them and now reformed. They were now seared for eternity.

As they came undone, panting, and the world came undone with them, Hermione knew that nothing in her entire life would ever be the same.

This was what magic was supposed to be.

And she felt indescribably and irreversibly complete.


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