Author's Note: This was due for an update. By far the longest chapter. My treat. :) Also, thanks to those who noticed my mistake with the marquis.

Bride
Part 4: You Are No Child
By Callisto Callispi

Age draped the tomb with its chilly blanket of cobwebs and dust. It was an accident that she found herself there. No, perhaps not an accident -- perhaps it was a revelation to come.

She and Draco fought again -- it was over something entirely capricious.

Draco's companion, a marquis from some faraway province, came and enjoyed tea on the verandah with them that day.

As Hermione listened absently to her crunching of gravel and dirt under her satin slippers, she thought.

Blaise, as the marquis insisted that she call him, was a charming man. But utterly ignorant. He denounced the book of alchemy that she held in her arms as useless witchcraft and tilted his lips up at the ribbon marking the page where she last left off.

"Pardon me, sir," Hermione answered coldly, her eyes glinting like metal, "but perhaps you are not aware as to how modern alchemy can benefit our society as of --"

"How?" he asked, sipping his tea, his eyes sparking with amusement. He then turned toward Draco, who sat expressionless as he regarded one of the essays written by a former colleague. "Draco, your lady apparently assumes that women are equal in standing to the gentlemen of the country." A laugh. Hermione's blood boiled. "What have you been making her read?"

"I read whatever I wish, sir. Whatever is in reach of Draco is in reach of me. Perhaps alchemy is demons' play, but I beg that you regard it as science. What can result from alchemy? Numbers of benefits for our society. Sanitation. Medicine. They are all the results of alchemy and its practices," Hermione remarked stonily.

Another smirk. "What dreams you fancy. Think, my dear, and displace yourself from that utopian cloud with which you smother yourself. Sanitation, those pipes, all demand labor which in turn bleeds the treasury dry. Medicine, well, who can tell if it's a healing poison that no sooner as it breaks your fever rots your liver?"

And finding no response to that, Hermione hurled the heavy book at the marquis and stormed out of the room, ignoring Draco's fervent apologies on her behalf.

Shadows thickened as she walked deeper into the tomb. The stony face of an angel, perhaps Michael, stared up at her in solemn interrogation on the door guarding the inner room where the coffin, most likely, was in. The angel seemed to ask her something, and yet Hermione felt that she could not answer.

"Your wings are broken," Hermione whispered as she ran her pale hands over the shattered remains of his left wing. Perhaps it was caused by the storm. Or grave robbers, stealing their way into Draco's tombs to loot what riches the dead lied with.

What was in there? Hermione's eyes grazed over the specks of light seeping in through the cracks. Was the coffin still in one piece?

"There you are."

His voice was so quiet that Hermione barely heard it. But she did, and she turned around, wrapping her arms around herself. For the first time since she entered the tomb, Hermione found that she was cold in her thin, silk dress.

"Your manners were atrocious, both to the marquis and me. And now you dare to run away?" Draco's pale eyes glittered. His mouth was a thin, angry line.

"His manners were atrocious. I can not stand that man's presence. That is why I left," Hermione spat out. With that, she stalked out toward the door.

But in one fluid motion, Draco's hand wrapped almost painfully around her arm and whirled her toward him. He brought her face up to his -- they were so close that their noses were almost touching. Hermione felt a trickle of fear veining through her body.

"You arrogant little wench," he hissed, the grip on her arms getting tighter by the moment. Hermione cried out in pain. "You dare use that tone of voice with me?"

Hermione felt tears sting her eyes. How was he so strong? "How d-dare you touch me like this?" she managed to gasp out. "Unhand me!"

As soon as Draco's eyes widened, Hermione knew that she made her mistake. She wriggled to get free before he could further damage her, but his grip remained firm and unyielding. She screamed as his hand contacting burningly with her face, and she fell to the ground, tears staining her reddened cheek.

"Get up," he said coldly. "Get up!"

When she did not listen, he bent down and hauled her up by the shoulders. She resisted, and screamed once more as he slammed her harshly against the marble wall.

"I give you everything, and this is how you repay me?" he demanded in a soft voice. And his eyes, though glittering, were not dancing with anger. Hermione realized that her sleeve was askew and her shoulder, in all of his commotion, was bare. Her heart thumped.

"You're hurting me."

His hands pressed her arms further against the cold stone wall. "It's less than you deserve!"

"Why are you treating me like this?" Hermione demanded, trying to control the shaking of her voice. "Why do you treat me like a child?"

And for a moment, he did not answer. Silence loomed in the naturally quiet tomb like an apparition after that row. His hands loosened. His stance slackened.

"You are no child," he said simply.

And in that tomb, where everything began to fall apart, Draco kissed Hermione with his burning lips.