Chapter 33

Hermione slept on her front with her hand tucked up to her face. Draco had never really seen her like this before. Light was dawning outside the window. It had been a long night, an exhausting night. Turns out that once he started fucking her, he couldn't stop. It was as if the floodgates of denied desire had cracked and then collapsed.

This had changed things, and he didn't know how. He didn't know how to feel. On one hand, he was incredibly sated. This tension had been between them forever. So what did this mean now? This was her game plan, and that he would, in the end, release her. He didn't see how.

But he had walked away before, and there had been violence and death, and she'd gone into slavery. In that period of darkness, he hadn't sought her out. He'd known where she was, and he'd left her there. At the same time, he'd known she was safe there. Ollivander was a gentle man, and for her, it had been a better household for her to be in.

It wasn't as if he'd placed her there, as such. He'd allowed it. When she was being auctioned, he'd known someone sympathetic would try to save her.

Even after the war ended, he hadn't sought her out—until he had. To his own mind, he'd convinced himself it had been a spur of the moment thing, an opportunity to torture his old enemy. He'd come for her, like he'd always said he would. To defeat her once and for all, he'd told himself.

They were still battling, apparently.

Her back expanded slightly with each breath. Did she dream of him? What did Granger dream of? The past? That time before all this bullshit happened? When they were bright-eyed and hopeful for the future. When she was the one who made him burn with annoyance.

He was still burning.

The air was cold and he turned his attention to the window. The birds were chirping, and there was absolute stillness outside. It was still inside too, and maybe there was a degree of stillness inside him too.

He wanted to sleep, but he wasn't sure he trusted the stillness. Did he trust her? What was to stop her from putting a knife in his gut? Well, she might have done it by now if it wasn't for the charm that stopped her from harming him. Had it crossed her mind?

Maybe that had been a fitting end for him—killed by Hermione Granger. Ironic, but fitting. Because in all honesty, he couldn't see some other future ahead of him. There was no tolerable future. All he knew was that he was alright right in this moment. Everything was still.

Turning back, he slid into bed, feeling the sting of the warmth. He shifted closer, but didn't touch her. The scent of her filtered into his mind again. And the desire was there. A desire that had finally been given acknowledgement.

So now what?

There was desire in her too. He felt how much she wanted him. Every touch, every kiss—she was there with him. Her body responded to him. The soft noises she made when she came. The curious degree to which he loved it when she did. And then spending himself inside her—it was… cathartic. He hated using the word, but it's how it felt.

He'd been with a lot of girls in his time, but it had never felt raw.

Relaxing his body, he closed his eyes. Tiredness called, but he was afraid he'd sleep endlessly. Or maybe the more correct way of looking at that statement was that he wouldn't want to stop sleeping. Maybe this was the thing that tipped him from suicidal to dead. She knew the state he was in, because like he knew her better than anyone else, she probably knew him better than anyone else. But did she care?

Him killing himself would release her. Yet it hadn't been something she'd mentioned. Was that her game plan, but she hid it? No, that's where the Slytherin psyche and Hermione's psyche differed. Hermione did try to deceive, and she was very good at it, but she didn't lie. Not directly. At least not to him.

Turning his head toward her, he opened his eyes. She hadn't moved. Her hand was still tucked up, and silently, he reached his towards hers, letting the edge of his knuckle make the barest touch.

Maybe that's what he'd do. Take off the charm that stopped her from hurting him to see if she would stick a knife in him while he slept. Firstly, he was curious, secondly, it would take care of the suicide thing. Lastly, the guilt would plague her for the rest of her life, and he wanted that. If she killed him, he wanted her to think of him every time she closed her eyes, in every still moment, clouding every moment of happiness. That would please him.

Shifting carefully, he grabbed his wand and silently undid the incantation, then settled back to sleep. For some reason, he felt better. This felt more honest in a way. Mostly, he was curious about what she'd do, and he was ambivalent about the outcome.

Now her freedom was well within her grasp. All that remained to be seen was if she'd take it.

-0-

His mother had summoned him, and he went to seek her for the appointed time, finding her in the small parlor she liked to use in the afternoon. Glass windows made it seem as if they were sitting in the garden, but the chill from outside was kept at bay.

"Darling," she said with a smile as she looked up and saw him. She looked tired and old. When had that happened? "How delightful to see you."

She made it sound like a surprise. "You summoned me." He took a seat opposite her at the small table, and she proceeded to pour him tea. Clearly, this was to enable some type of discussion.

"How are you? I feel like I hardly see you, even though you're here. We're glad you are here."

"I'll be returning to my house soon."

"I, we, wish you'd stay a little while. This is your home and it will always be."

Something he absolutely didn't want to do. He also knew his parents wanted to keep an eye on him. They worried. It could be said they had cause to.

"What is it you wish to speak about?" he said bluntly and his mother gave him one of her chiding looks. He'd received those looks all his life.

"I just wanted to highlight that it might be time for you to get married."

His eyebrows rose, and then he laughed. What about his state right now suggested it was a good time to bring in an irritant? When the focus of his life right now was to see if his mistress would murder him.

"Someone who loves you, and will take care of you. It would be good for you to focus on the future, on family life."

"I'm not sure love is a concept understood by whatever girl you have in mind," he said with a snort. "I don't need anyone to take care of me."

"Every man needs a wife," she stated matter of factly. "Men don't do well on their own."

Was this urgency due to Hermione? Of course it was. They feared her. They probably should. "The answer is no."

"But Draco," she started.

"I would gut her within a few weeks," he replied sharply. "I'm not saying I won't ever reach a state where it would be a good idea, but it isn't now." He wanted to rise and storm away, but he wasn't a child anymore. "I think a better path for me would be to return to work."

"Yes, I could see how that would be helpful. You've gotten too caught up with distractions."

By distractions, she meant Hermione. "I think that is an issue you will simply have to accept as a given for now."

His answer didn't please her, but the idea that he would put Hermione to side and marry some pureblood princess was ludicrous. Part of him recognized it was what he should be doing. But he knew it was completely out of the question. He would rather set his house on fire with him in it.

"You father is going to France for a little while," she said, recognizing that discussing the topic further wouldn't achieve anything.

"You should go with him."

"No, I couldn't."

"Nothing about what's going on with me is something you can fix," he said. "It's simply the truth."

It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it was the truth. She was afraid for him, and she had right to be. Just like she had right to be afraid of Hermione. They were so inextricably linked at this point that whatever outcome would happen would be between them. It was perhaps not a state a mother wanted to be in, and he did sympathize. He sighed. "If I could magic this away, I would. All I can do is go through it."

"We're just afraid you are focusing on the wrong things. That this, your relationship with her doing you more harm than good."

"Maybe it is. I don't know, but I can't do anything else right now. I've set this up, not her. You do know that? And I think it was always going to happen." He never confessed things to his mother. "This was always going to be."

"I don't understand why you've put meaning in that girl. She's just some interloper. She never belonged here."

"She belongs with me," he said with finality, wishing they understood that this was something they shouldn't interfere with. They'd tried; it hadn't worked. It won't work now. "You simply have to accept it."