Through the Valley Chapter 5: Dirty Little Secret, a harry potter fanfic

Author's Note: Again, I would like to thank everyone for their support and reviews! And now, I will shamelessly plug the site Colored Grey and the staff for hosting an amazing Hermione/Draco fanfiction archive. If you're searching for good Hermione x Draco romances, that's the place to go!

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o 0 o Through the Valley o 0 o

By FicklePen.

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Chapter Five:
Dirty Little Secret.

"Why did you leave me?"

It was funny.

The words that fell from her lips sounded as if she had just asked. . .

Incredulous at her own stupidity and Gryffindor impulsiveness, she slapped her hand over her mouth in mortification. Crimson blood rushed to her face and she all but glowed with embarrassment. Two years without him and Draco's remarkably sudden appearance had turned her brain into a sodden lump of inactive tissue. But there was something. . . Something tugging at her insides, pulling and tearing and demanding to question his absence - to question his actions.

Why? Why had he left? After everything. . .

During the following months, Hermione had been utterly lost and confused. It was as if she was searching blindly in the dark for a lifeline - for anything - to keep her afloat. To keep her from drowning without his strong presence by her side. Her grief had been so vast that she couldn't even see the end of it. It was like the tip of a mountain, shrouded and hidden by grey storm clouds.

If it hadn't been for Harry. . . Who knew how long it would have gone on for? So, even when she spoke of her hate for him on that final, summer's day - she knew that her hatred had somehow twisted itself into a dangerous form of love.

The kind of love that left you incomplete and unable to draw breath if that person was more than a few feet away. The kind of love that was boundless and powerful; where the ground trembled and heaved beneath your feet when you locked eyes.

Hermione hadn't believed that kind of love could ever exist. A few years ago, she would have scoffed. Laughed and scoffed and dismissed the stupidity of it all. She was a practical girl, after all. The ground heaving and trembling? Utter rot. . . But the ground did heave. And it did tremble. Gods, she could barely stand upright! And she found that it happened to her with none other than Draco Malfoy.

Hate; love. It was all the same - but she didn't understand it at the time. She loved to hate him and hated that she loved him.

So understandably, she'd been stricken when he had left without a word after her refusal.

Just because Hermione rejected his proposal, didn't mean. . . That didn't mean that she wanted him to leave her. Leave her all alone with the nightmares and the corpses and the blood and . . . And the unforgotten ghosts of loved ones that came to haunt her in the dead of night. . .

It was the sound of a chair crashing to the floor that slapped her out of the stupor she was swimming in.

She blinked furiously, washing away the horrific memories that were scattered before her feet like the dead, shriveled leaves of Autumn - hoping that they wouldn't rustle because every time they did, every time they quivered, she could see. . . See the dead and feel the grief she'd thought she had buried a year ago.

Eyes focused on the present, Hermione watched in pure horror as a slow furnace of blinding rage burned within Draco's lead eyes.

"Draco. . . ?"

He snarled inarticulately; dangerously.

It was apparent that her question had prodded the sleeping snake in a rather unwanted and unwelcome manner. And he was ready to strike out in retaliation.

Unfortunately, she was his target.

A muffled squeak was torn from her lips as he advanced towards her, fists clenching and mouth moving silently - furiously - in words he couldn't seem to speak out loud. She pressed herself further into the wall, as if she could disappear with that single gesture.

As he neared, a bright spark of fear and deep ripple of desire seemed to rush through Hermione; with a dry mouth, she saw him physically shake, radiate and vibrate with white, hot rage.

Dumbfounded and speechless, she watched silently as he picked up a crystal paperweight from her desk and flung it at the wall above her head.

She screamed - shrieked helplessly and a bit fearfully, like a little girl, even as her lower stomach was tingling with something she hadn't felt since he left her. Desire. Pure, raw desire. She screamed and covered her head as shards of glass came raining down upon her head. Briefly, Hermione wondered why she had placed a Silencing Charm on her office. No one could hear. . . She was utterly helpless and alone.

Choking back a sob, she winced as one of the shards cut into her bare shoulder; she shook as another item was flung from her desk to the wall behind her head.

And so it went. On and on and on, until she was trembling and sobbing with utter fright, her insides feeling scraped and raw but the sheer amount of pain she had caused him -

Silence.

There was blessed silence. . . Save for the sound of his breath coming out in great heaves, like frothy giant waves rushing into shore before receding back out in an endless black ocean.

Shivering, she raised her head and almost instantly wished she hadn't.

Oh Gods.

He was looking at her again with such intensity; such anger. . . and longing. If only he would stop looking at her like that. Please stop. Please stop looking! Hermione could tell that he was holding on by a thread - she could see that now - holding on to that last piece of rational thought before it too could be ripped away from him.

"I'm so sorry. . ." Why she whispered those watery words, she didn't know. She would never know. But. . . She was sorry. Sorry for making him lose the proud iron grip on his control. Sorry for asking that stupid question. Sorry for refusing him. She was sorry, sorry, sorry. . . And she wanted him to know that.

He was on her in an instant.

Growling and pinning her down to the empty desk - devoid of all her possessions that were now scattered and laying broken on the floor. Like her heart.

Trapped. She was trapped. Trapped beneath him, beneath his fury, his need. . . His infinite longing. It was there, all burning and blazing brightly in the cold, bottomless grey stones of his eyes.

Lower lip trembling, Hermione looked up as he sneered and leaned over her prone form upon the desk, still panting with unfettered anger.

"Fuck, Granger! Fuck you!" His lips were so close to her own as he held her down, breathing into her mouth and warming her deadened insides. "You don't get to ask that question!" So much anger. . . So much hate in those words but behind it, she heard his aching need. She heard it and felt it as he held her down and pressed his desire against the inside of her thigh. "You have no fucking right to ask that."

Eyes locking, body quivering beneath his, she raised her chin in defiance. "Why not? Why can't I ask? I have every right." He was growling by the time she finished speaking.

She didn't expect his next, brutal words.

"You have no right, because you said NO!" Hermione held back a whimper as he hissed into her face and shook her so forcefully that the back of her head banged roughly against the oak desk - two years of pent up anger finally unleashed. People say that you always hurt the ones you love. . . She never meant to cause him this much pain. She never meant to.

Biting back another sob, she began to whisper so quietly that he had to almost press his ear against her mouth. "Draco. . . I never told you to leave. . ."

He froze. . . Froze as his eyes battled her own for a single shred of truth.

She gave it to him in spades.

Hermione poured all of her love, her disgust, her hate, her passion; her utter fucking need for him into that one gaze as she showed him, showed him all of her dirty, little secrets. She showed him how bereft she had been without his presence these past two years. Showed him that even though she was content to the outside world, on the inside - inside she was so bloody lonely without him, without his touch. Lonely without someone to battle her at every turn; someone to keep her on her toes.

Someone to rip her apart with cutting insults at the slightest chance, before fucking her senseless and proving - just proving that his harsh words were only that. Just words. Just a fake battle to make the lust and passion between them seem all the more sweeter.

It just proved that his words were lies and the truth of the matter? The truth was that she was the most beautiful thing on this planet to him, and that nothing, nothing could replace her. . . Merlin, she opened every door to her soul, every window, every nook and cranny so that he could see exactly what these past two years had been for her.

Hell. Torture. Pure hell and complete torture - especially when she let herself think about him.

And Draco saw.

God of Gods, he saw.

She allowed him to see the truth of the matter in her eyes and she watched as his anger ignited and escalated even more, spiraling upwards and away - this time at himself.

"Bloody hell, you stupid bint - "

His harsh words were drowned against her mouth as his lips found hers once more. And he kissed her for the second time that afternoon. Desperately - feverishly - almost as if she would slip through his fingers like priceless grains of sand. It was as if he was drinking something from her and he was so parched that he couldn't seem to stop. She could feel it; she could feel all of his anger leeching into her own skin as she absorbed it through her mouth, sucking it out as though she was drawing poison from an open wound. Perhaps she was. . .

Merlin, she couldn't breathe!

She was vaguely aware that Draco's movements were rough and jerky, none of the fine Malfoy finesse seemed to remain as he wrapped her legs around his hips and ground his throbbing erection against her heat. Nothing about him seemed refined as he shoved his hand clumsily up her dress before angrily pulling at the line of her underwear, almost ripping the delicate lace before deciding to push it aside as he used his free hand to tug roughly at the zip of his trousers.

Oh God, she could feel it. He was so close. So close to completion; so close to coming full circle from their painful last moments together.

But just as he was about to fill her - fill her body, her heart, her empty soul and the void - she heard a distant knocking and the unwelcome sound of her friend's voice.

"Hermione. . ? It's me, open up!"

They froze together in their risqué tableau, their eyes seeking one another out in shock and dismay.

Before Hermione could register what was happening, Draco had kissed her roughly once before righting himself from the edge of the desk, pulling her along with him.

"This is far from over, Granger." His eyes smouldered with dark, unfulfilled promises as he flicked his wand at himself, then at her, to straighten out their dishevelled appearance. It was done so casually, as if it was second nature and that there was nothing odd about the fact that he was about to fuck her against her desk.

"Get rid of him," he growled quietly, eyes flashing and never leaving her aching body.

Hermione swallowed, shivering and nodding with anticipation.

Yes, this was most definitely not over.

If I had the chance, love,
I would not hesitate.
To tell you all things I never said before.
Don't tell me its too late,
Cause I've relied on my illusion,
To keep me warm at night.
And Ive denied in my capacity to love,
But I am willing to give up this fight.

- Sarah Mclachlan.

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