Malfoy Manor
20 January 2005
Why is forgiveness easier than goodbye?
She writes it off as either self-destructive behaviour or the best type of exposure therapy known to mankind.
She goes back a week later, finding herself entangled within his bedsheets, somehow convincing herself that this isn't the definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and expecting different results.
His home is split into two wings. The East Wing Draco occupies guarantees privacy, not to mention a remodel that renders the space unrecognisable from the dark and gloomy Manor she remembered from years prior.
She wouldn't call it snooping, but her eyes linger on the desk in his bedroom far longer than necessary when she gets up to use the bathroom once they're through. She sees a piece of parchment hanging out from a leather portfolio.
"What's this?" asks Hermione, taking the parchment and realising it's part of a sketchbook.
He comes up behind her, shoving the object into the top drawer. "Nothing."
She's ruthless, and he's annoyed when she disregards privacy and retrieves the item, opening it.
"Draco." His name mixes with a gasp; she's speechless until a statement slips. "Youdraw?"
He has his own secrets, too.
"They aren't mine," he says.
"These are your initials." She points to the bottom right-hand corner. She expects him to snatch the portfolio back, but he doesn't.
"Okay fine." And as if admitting to treason, he says, "I doodle when I'm bored sometimes."
The pictures could illustrate novels; if this is a doodle, Monet is a finger painter.
"You use magic?"
"For the movement," he says and then explains, "You can't draw using solely magic. Not well, at least. It has to be by hand."
"How haven't you told me about this?"
"It didn't seem important."
She looks at another: a man sitting by a pond, throwing a pebble down the shoreline. The charcoal-coloured figurine moves like a magicked photograph, and the realism within each shade and line leaves her breathless.
"I remember when you did this in third year. That note you passed to Harry before the Quidditch game."
"I certainly hope I've gotten better since then."
Not all of his drawings are moving; some are just sketches of the human form. Still, they make her take pause. Did he think of her breasts when drawing this? Of her legs? Did any part of her slip through in the same way he floods her creativity?
She scolds herself for not digging deeper or noticing what's glaringly obvious.He's always been creative, and she thinks of those 'Potter Stinks' badges, of 'Weasley is Our King.'
"You should have spent more time doing this, not potions or Quidditch."
"It's just a hobby … why ruin it with the pressure of people knowing?"
She feels the statement in her bones, enough that she hands back the sketches, making a Muggle reference that she knows he won't understand.
"I want you to draw me like one of your French girls."
He wrinkles his nose. "What?"
She laughs. "One day, I'm going to make you sit down and watch a Muggle film to completion."
Shockingly, he doesn't argue.
She strips off the clothing she needlessly replaced, and he watches her naked body move toward the fireplace in his room, sitting on the chaise longue, staring over at him.
"Draw me like this," she says, far clearer.
He stifles a groan.
"I'm just supposed to stare at you, naked —"
"Yes. What is it you always tell me? Patience."
She thinks of all the many times he's made her wait.
"Draw whatever inspires you," she tells him, lifting her legs onto the lounge and spreading them ever so slightly.
He smirks, agreeing. On one condition.
"Pervert," she teases him after he propositions her. "But you've got yourself a deal, Malfoy."
"Chin up," he tells her, laying out his supplies on his desk. "Turn your face to the right."
The time moves at a snail's pace, and sweet nothingness is foreplay. The way his eyes rake her naked form, the way he looks up at her, then back at the parchment.
"Let me see."
"Impatient as ever, Granger. These things take time."
But she is moments away from reaching between her legs, parting the slickness pooled between them. What seems like hours is likely only minutes, and when he's done, he shows her the charcoal-covered parchment. It reminds her of a child at Christmas, wearing a smile across his face.
"Done," he says.
She saunters over, staring over his shoulder. "Wow."
"It isn't much —"
"It's stunning."
It's her, sitting atop the chaise lounge. Her drawn-figure moves with more grace than real-life Hermione exhibits, and the charmed animation takes her clothes off, throwing them on the ground. The sketch then spreads her legs, her fingers slipping below her waist.
"You dream of me touching myself — here? In your bedroom?"
"Among other things," he says.
"Hm, is this one of those 'things?'"
She gets on her knees, kneeling beneath the desk and between his legs.
She undoes his belt buckle, freeing his erection that strains tented fabric as she makes good on her promise.
His breathing hitches when she takes him in her mouth, sucking the head of his cock as her hand goes to work below, stroking his shaft and cupping him with the gentlest touch.
"Fuck." He hisses through gritted teeth when she looks up to make eye contact. "You look so good like this."
He's tight, tense, ready to explode as she runs her tongue along the underside of his length, flicking that sensitive spot that makes him writhe. He groans, thrusting into her mouth and gripping the back of her head.
She takes him deeper, choking until her eyes water. She bobs her head, her cheeks hollow, keeping in rhythm with her hands wringing the base of his cock.
"Granger, I'm gonna — fuck."
He's unhinged as he comes, and the power that surges beneath her fingertips skyrockets until it settles behind her chest. She opens her throat and swallows, wiping a drop that leaked onto her chin once he's fully spent. She watches him breathe like he just ran ten laps at a quidditch pitch.
Fuck is right. While she thought sitting through that sketch was torture, sucking his cock made arousal coat her inner thighs.
"Come here, Granger."
Thankfully, he returns the favour with her back pressing Egyptian cotton, and somewhere between her second and third orgasm, she's left wondering if days like this — silly, and surreal, and reckless — are a reward (because it feels so perfect) or a punishment (because their moments together are numbered.)
"Fuck, fuck, fuck — yes."
Definitely a reward because nothing compares to this. To his tongue licking her slit or his mouth sucking her clit as his fingers pump and curl to make her see stars. Those stars form his given name as it slips out as a heady moan, her nails raking his scalp.
"Draco."
She repeats it, and by her third time, an orgasm is rushing through her as she clenches around his fingers, coming against his face.
He kisses her during her comedown, forcing her shaky legs wider.
She needs rest. She needs water. Food.
"I…"
But somehow, she needs him more.
"You want me to stop?"
She shudders right then, shaking her head. "No."
Soon, she welcomes the stretch of his cock, so lost in sensation — the overactive part of her mind going blissfully numb — that she arches her back off the bed, nearly moaning an admission.
"Fuck, yes. I love —… this."
She's horrified at what variant of truth almost slips during her haze. She blames the rush of emotion on sex, and she tries to keep herself level-headed as he smirks, grabbing behind her knee and pushing one leg back.
"I do, too," he whispers.
Malfoy Manor
15 March 2005
It isn't supposed to happen, now or ever, but they've been careless. Perhaps it's the universe trying to take them down a notch.
"This place is fantastic."
She categorises the tour as ecstasy-like. The library of Malfoy Manor is straight from her wildest dreams, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a massive hearth, and chairs scattered throughout. It's heaven on earth.
"You're welcome here — anytime," he says.
It's the perfect way to spend an afternoon: reading, perusing, spending time with him as if the reality of their lives is nothing besides a minor detail that neither of them notices. She briefly lets herself consider what might happen if she never leaves.
And two hours later, when Narcissa Malfoy walks in on her only son hoisting Hermione Granger atop a table in the Manor's library, she learns the answer. Rapidly.
She's glad St Mungo's treatment for an aneurysm is better than at Muggle hospitals because the woman looks seconds away from having one.
"I – er," says Hermione, stumbling over her one-word greeting. "Hello."
"Mother."
"Draco."
Not even a charm can cut through the tense air. She glances at Draco, only then remembering to adjust her dishevelled skirt. She can't look the older witch in the eyes; Narcissa stares at Hermione like a wine stain atop her freshly cleaned carpets.
She forgets they're grown adults for a moment, suddenly feeling like a fourth year who just got caught by their professor snogging in a broom cupboard. This is an inevitably they haven't yet planned for, so she panics — making a vague gesture toward the exit and saying, "I'll just … go."
Hermione holds up her wand, apparating back to her flat before the heaving hyperventilation begins.
His mother knows.
Someone knows, and just like that, their secret of half a decade has a crack inside it that'll let in a flood.
She tries feigning surprise when he arrives fifteen minutes later with a request.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"Of course," she says.
She gets this overwhelming urge to busy her hands, so she starts a pointless show of preparing dinner, grabbing random things from her kitchen cupboard. Pasta. Canned tomatoes. Garbanzo beans. Ah, she has some two-week-old celery in the fridge and a head of cabbage. Nothing goes together, but she tells herself it'll be some variation of spaghetti and salad, asking casually, "What did she say?"
"It's not what she said."
He looks away, explaining his father's reaction with an aura that could define the word sullen.
She sighs when he's through. "Disownment seems a bit dramatic. Don't you think?"
"You don't get it."
"Then help me to."
He doesn't elaborate, but when he says, "They're all I have," it drives the point home.
"Draco —"
"I wish I could do it: marry her, inherit this life I thought I always wanted..."
She holds him, and he's the one bordering hyperventilation this time, shaking as he whispers, "I can't go back."
"So don't," she says. "Stay here."
And she means forever, but she knows one night is already too much.
After dinner, they stay on her sofa until midnight. She makes him watch an old film, insisting no one feels worse after watching those black and white features.
When he takes her that night, it isn't like before. He traces her hips, caresses her face.
He tells her he loves her right before it ends.
But he's gone come morning, and she's left wondering if forgiveness is a feeling or an action and why she cares enough to write a letter stating that this latest stunt is reprehensible.
You've made your choice.
She gets to say it in person two weeks later when he shows up on her doorstep.
"Why am I here?" he asks, repeating her unfriendly greeting. "Well, you blocked your Floo and put-up anti-apparition wards —"
"Yet somehow, you still didn't get the message?"
She moves to shut the door in his face, but he catches it with his foot.
"Granger –"
"You've made a choice," she quoted her letter, putting all the anger she couldn't convey on a page into her tirade. "You're marrying Apolline, and that's swell because your parents love her and don't get into a screaming match with her and —"
"Can we just go back to where we were?"
"Oh? Secret acquaintances who shag every few months for the rest of our lives? You're getting married."
He's silent.
"Don't ever speak to me again, Draco."
Hermione's Flat
6 April 2005
He makes a liar out of her yet again, and 'one last time' turns into ten times later.
Forgiveness is definitely a feeling because she's always been terrible at expressing hers, so they just circle this drain of avoidance while waiting for reality to wash them away.
It's a Tuesday night, and he's still at her flat from over the weekend.
"Salazar's last fuck — you too, Granger?"
Her biggest secret holds up her second biggest secret, the cover and his face sharing an eerie likeness.
She flushes, quelching panic. "I like romance novels."
"The Healer and I?" He holds up another one, studying the pile with piqued interest. "Pansy reads this garbage, too. Says it's raunchier than a 'Wands Up!' magazine. This Noah Clark person needs another hobby."
She resists stomping both feet like a child, heat rushing into her cheeks.
"She's popular. What's wrong with that?"
"How do you know it's a 'she'?"
"I just — … You're right, I don't."
"What's this one about?" he asks, picking up another. A hangman's noose decorates its front cover, and Draco reads the title aloud.
"Heavy Hung —"
"It's set in seventeenth-century Salem. A witch falls in love with a Muggle at a rather inconvenient moment in history."
A woman falls for the wrong man.
"It's a play on words," she explains.
He smirks knowingly. "Hm? Is that all?"
And even though the innuendo in his tone matches the book's weak plotline and an overabundance of sex, she grabs it, shooing him away from the pile.
"You should leave."
They're surfacing the danger zone.
Harry and Ron are getting suspicious. Ginny tries setting her up on a bi-weekly basis. How long can she spend Friday nights hunkered at a desk writing about a love she doesn't believe in? Can she say she never wants a relationship? Can she write about love when it's foreign and unreachable?
She's getting a headache, and he notices something amiss.
"I have a big day tomorrow," she says before he can ask another question. "You should go home."
As if learning her secret wasn't bad enough, the look he gave her could rival a stunning charm.
"God will smite us both for this."
"For this?" she repeated.
"Yes... this."
When he kissed her this time, it felt like sinking to the bottom of that ocean. Deluded as this may be, she trusted it, taking her final inhale before drowning in his sea of promises.
Let her be hung for this.
"Show me," Philip whispered against her lips.
"Show you what?" asked Sara.
"Your world."