Hermione sat hunched at her desk, simmering in irritation, and considering the comparable pros and cons involved in blowing out every lantern, lightbulb, and otherwise overly illuminated magical window on all ten floors of the Ministry of Magic.
She'd been passed over for a promotion.
In the grand scheme of things presently vying for her discretionary mental energy, a promotion from Junior Being Liaison to Senior Being Liaison at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures shouldn't have ranked nearly as high as it did.
Hermione being Hermione, priorities being what they were, and denial being what it was, losing this promotion became the final straw that broke her recently undead, part-human back.
She'd been passed over despite the fact that no one knew she'd misplaced the vampire whose transition she was meant to be managing.
There was also the small matter of having been turned into a vampire herself.
For two weeks Hermione had done what, in retrospect, was probably a very poor job of playacting at normalcy.
She'd sucked down that vile plastic cup Malfoy left on his stupidly luxurious Chesterfield without so much as a second thought. Her own blood sang as she'd done so, body warming, thrumming, easing the soreness between her legs and the bruises already blossoming on her skin. It had dulled her regrets, too.
She'd dropped the cup, wiped her mouth, and proceeded to intercept the Vampire Birth Record likely fluttering on fresh parchment to her supervisor's desk.
She'd burned it. Then she'd reported her wand missing and filed for a temporary replacement through the Ministry's wand loan program. She suspected Mr. Ollivander would have taken one look at her and known if she tried to purchase a new one. Furthermore, she wanted hers back.
Every day, tucked between meetings she suddenly had no interest in and cases she had little patience for, she filed fraudulent reports about Malfoy's progress. It was an endless tide of disinterest and duplicity.
When the thirst became too much and she started daydreaming about sinking her new fangs into her coworkers' throats, she would force down a magically preserved—yet still stale—plastic cup of blood she acquired using Malfoy's dispensary account.
She'd become little more than barely contained fury in a part-human body. Morality and impulse control had started feeling like slippery, foreign concepts, constructs designed to place limits on her new reality. She focused her anger on how Malfoy had cost her a promotion. Her wand. Her life. In that order of importance.
A parchment fluttered to her desk; she snatched it from the air and cracked open the wax seal.
In her subtle efforts to locate Malfoy without alerting her supervisor, Hermione submitted several requests to track his family properties under the guise of helping him settle and organize his finances.
She'd already figured out which property in the French countryside Narcissa Malfoy likely fled to. Based on the way Malfoy had discussed his mother's sudden departure from the Wiltshire Manor, Hermione very much doubted he'd sought refuge with her. The Spanish villa Hermione turned up sat in limbo while she waited for portkey authorization. And then there was a property in Florence the Italian Ministry seemed to have misplaced. Incompetence, all around.
She read and reread the new information sitting in front of her, gnawing on the inside of her cheek, hungry, but unwilling to suffer a revolting plastic cup just yet.
A massive real estate preservation project had been registered under the Malfoy name. Well, under Malfoi. Clever, though conceited. He could have chosen any name, but of course he kept the core of his own.
Mont-Saint-Michel. As in, the Mont-Saint-Michel.
As in, an entire island, small city, and medieval abbey. All of it.
The island had been closed indefinitely for a restoration project funded by several large donors, the most notable of which was the Malfoi Foundation.
It was so absurd, so utterly impossible, it had to be real.
"Got you," Hermione breathed, staring at the parchment, uncertain if she wanted to laugh or scream. She settled for something in the territory of unhinged research bordering on obsession.
No estimated time of completion.
French government, both magical and muggle, remarkably mum on the details.
Suspicious and unexpected closure, according to some reports.
Questions about an infestation of deadly molds.
Hermione suspected they had an infestation on their hands alright. Of vampires. Specifically, a particularly repugnant blond one.
By the time she'd thoroughly exhausted every available report regarding Mont-Saint-Michel's sudden closure, Hermione's hands were shaking. Rage over Malfoy's unmitigated gall had something to do with it, though having not eaten in almost two days probably did too.
She opened her desk drawer, ignored the sterile, sealed cup of blood she'd been avoiding, and pulled out a stiff envelope packed with parchment. She'd had it finished and sitting in her desk for three days. Her own legislation: A Revision on the Designation of Non-Wizard, Part-Humans, a proposal by Hermione J. Granger.
She had no authority. She'd been hoping a promotion might lend her leverage, or credibility, or something. No such luck.
Her new designation as a vampire wouldn't stay hidden forever. She'd been asked four times in the last week if she'd done something different with her hair. Apparently it looked nicer. Glossier, or some other such rot she didn't much care about.
She clutched the legislation to her chest. If Malfoy had somehow managed to commandeer a Unesco World Heritage site for himself, there was very little chance she'd be able to hide that she'd failed to properly transition him. And that would be the first of many dominoes to fall, the final one being his crimes against her personhood, her life. He'd turned her. Without her consent, but turned all the same. Distinctions like that meant little to the Ministry.
—
"Oh. Hi, Hermione." Harry barely looked up from his desk. He had his own office. Youngest head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement ever.
Hermione was very happy for him.
Extremely happy.
He had a nice office and a prettily charmed window with customizable light levels.
Envy by way of ambition had always been an ugly thing, and Hermione often struggled to repress it. But it became uglier once Malfoy turned her. It crept like a vine, twisting around her bones, her muscles, her viscera, wringing her of her good nature and leaving something bitter behind.
"Have you been sleeping?"
"What?" Hermione stopped just inside his office.
Harry shrugged, dragging a hand through his messy hair. "You just look—I don't know. Like maybe you've actually been sleeping."
Harry Potter had been barely conscious of anything outside his own bubble for most of their lives and he chose now to take notice? When she was not, in fact, sleeping? And when she probably looked pale and anemic and that was still somehow an improvement?
She ignored him and dropped the file on his desk instead.
"I need to call in a very important best friend favor. Specifically referencing the time I saved you from poisoning yourself with Amanita Virosa in the Forest of Dean. Twice."
Harry Potter could do a lot of impressive things; identifying non-poisonous mushrooms was not one of them.
He sat back in his chair, brows lifted. He blinked. "Come again?"
"I need you to co-sign that legislation." She gestured at the packet. "And then I need you to submit it to the Wizengamot."
"I work for the DMLE."
"You're a department head; you have the right to introduce legislation, anything you want."
Looking baffled, Harry thumbed through the parchments. "What…is it? Why aren't you submitting it yourself?"
"I'll be taking a leave of absence and I'm not sure when I'll be back. And no, you cannot ask me any questions about it."
Harry paused, parchment clutched in his right hand. "You're not going to Australia again are you? The healers will figure out your parents' memories. But they did ask that you not…hover—"
Hermione's chest heaved with a phantom sensation, an echo of how it felt for her heart to pang. "No," she said. "I'm not. But I need you to submit that. And I need you to ensure it passes."
Harry set the parchments down. He shifted in his seat, face scrunched in suspicion. His steady gaze felt like it sought her lies and her secrets and her rapidly unravelling resolve.
"I'm not sure, Hermione—"
"I told you. I'm calling in the highest tier friend favor." She softened, leaning closer to his desk, drawn in by something she might have called hunger with a clearer head. "Please, Harry. I—I can't tell you why this is so important. But that legislation might be the most important thing I'll ever do and I can't even make it happen by myself. I need your help."
Harry let her plea hang between them for the length of time it took him to hear it, acknowledge it, and stand. He nodded. "Of course. I'll get it done. For you, I'll get it done."
Relief almost had her surging forward to hug him. Saliva flooded her mouth, a sting in her jaw. Hunger. The idea that her presence might put Harry in danger had her inching back towards his door instead.
She was living, or rather un-living, in a nightmare. And it was Malfoy's fault.
"I have one more favor," she began, fingers on the door handle. "Do you have any unregistered portkeys to France laying around?"
—
Hermione landed in Paris with an unpleasant lurch in her navel. She hated portkeys. Being a vampire made them slightly more bearable, but only just.
Her new condition made most things—most physical things, at least— more bearable. It was strange, feeling powerful, strong, in a body that for her entire life had been fine but never impressive. Hermione's mind was impressive, her body was just a part of the deal.
From her bag, Hermione pulled a silk scarf and sunglasses. Even on an overcast day, shade was essential. Harry only had an old portkey to Paris in his office. Specifically, a portkey to the visitor's entrance to the French Ministry. Hurriedly, Hermione slipped away from Wallace Fountain and through the muggle repellent charms that obscured the portkey arrival area from public view.
Having already shredded her Vampire Birth Records with her home ministry, she didn't think her arrival would ping as anything unusual, just a visiting witch. Regardless, she wanted out of the city as fast as possible. She partly expected French Aurors to descend at any moment, shouting for her to hand over her temporary wand.
She gripped it tighter inside her sundress's extended pocket. She wanted nothing in common with Malfoy, but she couldn't imagine having access to a wand taken from her. She was just as much of a witch as she was before he'd—
She shook herself, bleeding into the muggle world.
Not trusting her replacement wand to apparate her a long distance in an unfamiliar country, Hermione rented a car with a well-placed Confundus to circumvent the fact that she had no license.
For the first time in years, she drove a car. Her reflexes were better now than they were when her dad had taught her the summer between fifth and sixth year. She'd spent most of the instruction trying not to wince every time she shifted gears. That, and her ribcage was still something of a bruised, tender mess after the battle at the Department of Mysteries. Her seatbelt rubbed it in just the wrong way.
Her usual anxiety behind the wheel of a car dissolved into a strange sense of invulnerability. For three and a half hours driving primarily on the A11 towards Normandy, she almost enjoyed herself. She made fantastic time, too, annihilating the four hour estimate.
She stopped at the barricade announcing Mont-Saint-Michel's restoration plans.
Hermione rolled her eyes, slamming her car door shut. She pulled out a small notebook where she'd scribbled a week's worth of sunset and tide information. According to her last-minute research, she didn't actually have to worry about the small walled city becoming an island during high tide outside of a full moon cycle. The next full moon wasn't for a few days, and she planned to be long gone with her wand before then.
Even without rising tides to contend with, the monastery was an intimidating sight: a huge, self-contained city walled off from the outside world. A narrow road cut through saltwater, stretching to the abbey like a lonely plank. It felt distinctly one way, and she hated the disquiet it sent skittering across her skin. Goosebumps studded her flesh.
Overcast and gray, the beach was eerily quiet, imposingly so. As if whatever life had once been here, via nature or tourists or the roll of a tide, had all been silenced or scared away.
It nearly scared her away, too. Anxiety picked her to pieces, tearing her resolve to shreds. She wanted to turn back. To leave. To find a portkey and flee the country.
She drew in a deep, stabilizing breath. There were probably notice-me-not charms urging her elsewhere, making her overly cautious.
Hermione reached deep, found her fury, her sole fuel for the last two weeks, and let it burn away the magical effects that might scare her away.
She approached the single length of fence blocking the narrow causeway. An affixed sign boasted a whole list of safety concerns. If Hermione were a muggle, she probably would have been warned off.
But as it stood, the closer she got to the fence, the more aware she became of the subtle magical influence urging her away. She stepped around the fence, a pitiable barrier because of how the road slumped into the sea on either side.
Once on the other side, her thoughts about leaving vanished. Her hot resolve doubled, tripled in size. She scowled.
Her wand had probably cast that magic.
Draco Malfoy was a dead man. Even more so than he currently was, because Hermione was going to kill him.
She pulled her scarf and sunglasses from her face. With the sun dipping to the horizon, she could escape the claustrophobia involved in hiding from too bright light.
She looked at the enormous structure looming ahead of her.
It was genuinely absurd.
An entire abbey.
A walled city.
What effectively amounted to a whole island.
In the distance, a flash of movement. Hermione squinted, leaning into the sharpest, cleanest vision she'd ever had.
At the other end of the causeway, Malfoy leaned against a stone archway.
She really, truly, was going to kill him.
Her power walk was something of a stomp, outrage fueling every footstep as she crossed from mainland France to the world heritage site Malfoy had the audacity—the sheer arrogance—to more or less buy for his own purposes.
Part of her was surprised the French Ministry hadn't already swarmed the place and shut him down. She wondered how many Confunduses her wand had performed for him in order to pull off this truly astounding real estate fuckery. He'd probably thrown a lot of money around too.
Malfoy leaned against what could only be a century's old stone archway like he was having the most delightful day. Like he owned the place.
He looked smug.
She hated him.
Closer still, Hermione forgot that despite what he'd turned her into, she was still a witch. His amusement didn't crack once, not as she stomped right up to his person. Not as she reared back. And not even when she launched herself at him with two week's worth of anger demanding she claw the smug little smirk from his pale, pointy face.
He'd ruined her.
She planned to ruin him. Take her wand. And then figure out how to fix the mess he'd left her in.
He took all her choices, her future. He took everything from her. And for what? She'd already given him her body, laid down everything she had on a good faith deal she might help him, might learn something from him.
His was a highway robbery of her personhood.
Before she could so much as graze him, fingers poised to strike like claws with all her pent up frustration, Malfoy disapparated with a crack, leaving her alone at the base of an empty castle.
—
Hermione gathered herself, adrenaline ricocheting off her ribs, thundering in her skull.
Malfoy wasn't even hiding.
Why else stand at the entrance and watch her approach? Let her get close enough for anger to overtake her, only to vanish and leave her alone again?
Hermione examined the relatively narrow, cobbled road ahead. The abbey itself loomed above; she assumed he went there. Why buy this place if not to use it? Of course, he could very well have apparated to Versailles for all she knew. Maybe he planned on weaseling his way into purchasing that next. The pompous arse.
No, she had to assume he'd come here for a reason and that he wouldn't leave just because she showed up and made a vague attempt at scratching his eyeballs out of his head.
As the sun set, she refused to let the empty shops and businesses lure her into a state of unease. It was unsettling, creepy even, how observed she felt in what effectively amounted to a ghost town. She straightened her spine, moving with purpose. If Malfoy was watching her from some terribly dramatic perch, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing discomfort steal her momentum.
She paused at what looked like a transition between the outer city and the abbey at large. She should have had more of a plan than go to Mont-Saint-Michel and wring Draco Malfoy's neck. But she hadn't exactly been thinking clearly since she'd woken with a new thirst soldered into her jawbone and her wand long gone.
She drew in a deep breath and, on the exhale, shouted into the cavernous corridor ahead of her. "Malfoy!"
She refused to play cat and mouse with him. Especially not when she felt more like the mouse than the cat. She was meant to be the one doing the hunting.
"Granger."
Hermione jumped, spun, and found Malfoy standing—or rather, looming—several feet behind her, partly obscured in the shadow cast by a tall stone wall.
A severe line bisected his forehead as he narrowed his grey eyes at her.
"Give me my wand," Hermione ordered, grip tightening around the replacement in her dress pocket.
"You drank the blood." At the end, a tiny lilt. Intended as a question. The line in his forehead deepened.
"I don't have a death wish. Nor do I intend to let you win. Now give me my wand, Malfoy."
His nostrils flared. "Fuck."
He moved quickly, faster even than her new reflexes could react to. His fingers wrapped around her upper arm, yanking her through the threshold and into the abbey proper.
With her free hand, Hermione pulled her temporary wand from her pocket, intending to stun or maim or otherwise incapacitate him for having the audacity to put his hands on her. But she'd barely thought a spell before he snatched the wand from her grip—so impossibly fast—and pocketed it for himself.
She opened her mouth to snarl, to fight back, to claw his flesh from his bone if she must, but he turned them, one hand suddenly in her hair and pulling her head back with it. Neck exposed, shoved up against a stone wall, and thoroughly outmaneuvered in a series of several blinks, a high whimper escaped Hermione's throat.
Her scalp burned where he yanked on her hair, tension at her roots sending painful warning bursts shooting from her skull.
"You weren't supposed to actually drink it ."
In darkness now, Hermione's new enhanced vision took over, making use of every last drop of rising moonlight. It turned the world silver. Sharp.
Hermione bucked, writhed, contorted her body in whatever fashion might free one of her pinned arms and rip the snarl from Malfoy's face. He only shoved her harder against the stone. If she were still human, if he hadn't done what he did to her, she imagined her bones might have snapped from the force.
"Quit thrashing you insufferable chit."
One of his hands encircled her throat, squeezing such that she stilled, eyes finding his. Finally, she felt fear. Real fear that suggested she roll over and offer her soft underbelly, not fight to the death.
That wouldn't do.
"Give me my wand."
"Why did you drink it—why would you— why? "
"Wanted me to pick death, did you?"
"That was a lie," he snarled, nails digging into her neck, palm pressed against her throat. She might have asked what he meant if she'd been able to breathe or speak. "You weren't supposed to believe me. I thought you'd research or call me on my bluff or—you believed me and yo-you've— fuck ." With a shove, he released her, tearing himself away.
Hermione sucked in a breath, slumping against the stone wall. "I researched everything." She braced her hands against her knees, steadied her breathing, and rose to her full height again. "I researched every last drop of information I could find." Anger almost numbed, static in her head. Her voice croaked when she finally mustered up the courage to ask, "If I didn't drink it?"
"You would have been fine."
This time, she did manage to claw at his face, reeling back for a slap and letting her nails dig into his skin when she made contact.
This time, he didn't move, didn't avoid it. He stood perfectly, eerily still, as she dragged her nails down his cheek, leaving bright red lines behind.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"I'll never feel better again. You lied! You said if you didn't drink, you'd die. That it was the choice you'd been given—"
He closed the space between them again, and Hermione's shoulders connected with cold, rough stone bricks. "It might surprise you to hear this Granger, but I much prefer a dressed up version of my past over the reality where I was bitten, tortured, and forced to feed."
"So there's only one kind of bite?"
Malfoy blinked, confusion crossing his grey gaze. Up close, watching that small expression, he almost looked like the version of him she'd known when they were children. Normal. Human.
"That's what you want to know? Gods you really are unrelenting. Yes, Granger, there's only one kind of bite and the only way to become a vampire is to drink blood after. I was feeling petty and spiteful and annoyed—"
"—so like yourself—"
"—and I left the blood and took your wand and I can't believe you didn't research it first. You're impossible."
Hermione's vision blurred in anger. She refused to let him win, but a lack of sustenance had started making itself known. She felt it in the weak tingle washing over her limbs, making white noise out of her skin, fuzzing her out.
"I'm impossible? You've essentially killed me."
"I gave you a choice. You picked poorly."
"I didn't have enough information. I wasn't informed. And you left me there with your choice. You're a fool if you expected me to choose any other way."
Hermione's words caught, throat closing. With horror, she realized how painfully close she was to crying. Furthermore, how near Malfoy stood to her, watching her with a mix of fury, confusion, and pity plastered across his annoyingly aristocratic features.
It honestly shouldn't have been a surprise to her that he ended up a vampire. He'd always had the bone structure for it. Sharp and severe and belonging to an entirely different time.
As she watched him, her vision dimmed, narrowing, a tunnel of black closing in on her.
"Granger? Are you—when was the last time you fed?"
She didn't answer, scowling up at him as he towered over her. She wobbled.
"Are you kidding me, Granger? After all that about how I had to eat and now you—"
She didn't hear the rest. A rush overtook her hearing, sounding serenely like the ocean, the crash of waves. Malfoy's arms were warm stone wrapped around her waist.
—
Hermione woke to something warm wetting her lips, trickling into her mouth. Her eyes flew open.
She was laying on something soft—a chaise or a sofa or a bed, she didn't care to find out—and Malfoy sat next to her, a goblet in his hand and a look of severe annoyance on his face.
"You're a hypocrite."
Hermione let her tongue slide along the roof of her mouth, coating her palate with a metallic tang. Her jaw ached, a release of saliva and thirst all in one. She swallowed.
"I'm aware," she said.
"I've decided I won't apologize. I did what I did and so did you."
"You're horrible."
"You're not so great yourself." Malfoy moved the goblet closer to her mouth.
Hermione screwed her lips shut and, like a disagreeable child, refused with a shake of her head.
Malfoy set the goblet on a nearby table. Hermione watched as some of the blood inside sloshed up over the edge.
"Whose is it?" she asked, watching a burgundy stream drip down to the table. Her limbs still felt heavy, unreal. Like they weren't really hers. She couldn't tear her gaze from the blood now pooling on the table beside her head.
"A volunteer."
Hermione blinked, trying to force her focus on something, anything, other than the blood. Something about the idea of a volunteer made her stomach turn. At least with the portions in little plastic cups she could live inside a happy cognitive dissonance where her food simply came to her and not from anyone.
"I'm going to be sick," she said, trying to sit.
"Only because you're starving."
Hermione shot him her meanest glare. It felt petulant, but she committed. She began pushing off her elbows, intending to go anywhere that didn't involve laying with Malfoy tending to her like a sick nurse.
"Lay back down." The order made quick work of her muscles.
She laid back down.
She barely realized she'd listened until she blinked, head against a pillow. Malfoy let out a sigh. "Good. That's good. Just— listen for once."
Hermione stiffened, something in her spine reacting to what felt like the most meager scrap of a compliment.
She tried sitting up again.
"Stop that."
She laid back.
Malfoy lifted a brow.
Hermione's stomach twisted. Her brain stalled, warm and fuzzy, flooded with a strange satisfaction. In a series of two commands, she'd been entirely undone of the constant stress that existing and thinking and decision-making required of her. She sank into it, ignoring the flurry of questions asking if she'd obeyed because she wanted to or because she had no choice. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. If Malfoy noticed anything unusual about the nature of her compliance, he didn't voice it.
He lifted the goblet again, watching her carefully. His finger found her bottom lip, pressing her mouth open as if on a hinge.
He tilted the goblet and made another demand. "Just drink."
She let him keep her mouth pressed open as he tilted the goblet. Her eyes didn't leave his the entire time he poured.
She shouldn't have forgotten how much she wanted to murder him. How badly she wanted her wand back. How obnoxious and annoying and entitled he was. How his lies and negligence had forced her into a new life as a non-wizard, part-human.
But she did, lost to the blood coating her tongue, her palate, her throat. She felt only the sting in her jaw and the rush of pleasure thrumming in her veins, happy to have sustenance, to feel alive.
She'd felt strong before. She'd had enhanced senses, felt powerful. But swallowing real, fresh blood had her blooming: a wilted flower brought back from the brink.
A satisfied, almost sexual sound slipped from her throat. If she hadn't been so relieved to consume something delicious, she might have been embarrassed by it. As it stood, the blood dripping into her mouth was the most delightful thing she'd consumed in two weeks, maybe more.
She didn't recall any mortal meal having the same effect on her bloodstream, on her body. She'd scarcely felt so satisfied by feeding in her entire life.
When it was done, Malfoy tipped the goblet straight again, setting it back on the table. She realized she had a hand wrapped around his wrist, back arched, mouth open.
She felt obscene, unreal. Otherworldly.
Malfoy looked at her like she was some kind of unbelievable entity.
The hand that had been holding her lip descended, resting against her décolletage.
"It's intense," he said finally. "Feeding in the first few—well, I'm not sure."
With every ounce of willpower thumping in her veins, Hermione forced herself to release his wrist. She held her breath, not wanting to see his hand rise and fall where it rested against her collarbones. She was caught in a strange cycle with him, pushed and pulled by crashing tides between a debilitating anger and an unraveling want. She shouldn't have wanted anything from him, except to see him dead. Yet for some reason, the muscles climbing her spine wished for him to tell her to relax, to order her mind quiet.
He moved, sitting back, expression stretched between annoyance and amusement.
"There you are." Hermione blinked. He clarified, "That brain of yours is working again. I can practically see the complex thoughts leaking out your ears. A word of warning: the blood can make you feel invincible. You're not. Don't do anything stupid."
"Give me my wand."
"Give me mine."
Hermione scowled as he stood. "Give me my wand," she repeated.
Malfoy nearly looked bored. "Give me mine. Was my note unclear?"
"I don't have it."
"Then I'll be keeping yours. The back up, too, I think. Seems you have a propensity for attacking me. Would hate for you to have unfettered access to magic for that. Vampires are volatile, haven't you heard?"
"I'll kill you."
"My reasoning exactly."
He strode to the door. In a flash of horror, Hermione realized the room she was in had one exit, and he blocked it. The window opposite her was tall and narrow and likely very far off the ground.
Malfoy swung the large, heavy door open. Hermione's spine twitched, neck tense at the creak and scrape of century's old iron hinges.
"I've warded it," he said with a wave at the door.
"I assumed."
"Silenced, too. Don't try jumping out the window, either."
Hermione's feet hit the floor. She couldn't possibly reach the door before he had it slammed and locked in her face, but a sense of self-preservation required she do something.
"Stop," he said as she stood.
Hermione didn't move. "Am I your prisoner now?"
"Until I decide what to do with you." He shut the door with a heavy thud, bolt sliding into place. Locked in, just like that.
Hermione didn't bother testing it. She didn't bang on it with her fists, plead for release, or cry over her circumstances. She sat back down on the small bed and picked up the goblet. She stared inside, contemplating, before she dipped her finger in, swiping for whatever droplets clung to the edge.
Her finger came away ruddy, slicked with blood.
Frowning, she looked at the door, half expecting observation. She would have no one witnessing this weakness.
She laid back and slid her finger between her lips, letting the taste of blood settle on her tongue. Her cheeks hallowed, sucking.
—
Hermione stayed locked in that room for a full day before she saw Malfoy again. It gave her just enough time to truly contemplate the extent of her idiocy.
She realized now, having consumed real sustenance, that she hadn't been thinking straight before. Not even close. Her thoughts had been lost in a resentful fog. Unfamiliar with the potential and limits to being a vampire, she'd thought she could come to this place and take what was hers.
She'd lasted a woefully unimpressive series of minutes wherein, if Malfoy had been meaner, he could have easily snapped her brittle bones.
Instead, he fed her.
Before that, he'd looked…appalled? Aghast? Furious she'd actually consumed the blood he left for her.
He had no right to be furious about that. She did.
She'd been pacing her room, testing the borders of his ward magic—magic she bitterly could not seem to forget had been cast by her own wand—when the heavy iron latch opened again. A moment later, the hinges creaked, door swinging open.
She crossed her arms. Agitation was all she had.
For a moment, Malfoy stood in the doorway and said nothing, did nothing. He just waited.
She waited.
They waited.
For what?
Hermione sincerely doubted either of them knew at this point.
Finally, she broke the quiet. "Have you decided what to do with me, then?"
A twitch caught on the corners of his mouth before he spoke. It gave her a glance at his canines. Sharp, like hers were now too. "No," he said. "Not even close. If anything, I know less about what I want to do with you today than I did yesterday."
"And why's that?"
He frowned. "I've been considering obliviating you and dropping you off with one of my contacts at the French Ministry with full disclosure of your"—a pause as his gaze dragged up and down her body—"status. Now, I'm not so sure."
Dread dropped in Hermione's stomach. Of all the things he could have done to her, obliviation was probably the worst of them. He couldn't possibly know what she did to her parents, what the healers in Australia were still trying to solve. He had no way of knowing she now gave a wide berth to mind magic, knowing the full tragedy in all it could do.
Draco sighed. "Unfortunately, I learned some very interesting news from back home today…" he trailed off.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blood lolly. He tossed it to her.
Before she probably wouldn't have caught it. Now , she barely blinked and it was in her hand.
"Have a snack," he said. "I'm running low on blood and I wasn't expecting company—at least none of the kind that eats like me. I have a volunteer coming on the full moon. I'll get more then. A few changes of clothes, too."
"I don't need blood."
"Of course you do."
He left it at that, turning with a nod she took to assume she was meant to follow.
She did, desperate to escape her pretty prison.
Down a corridor, she followed, crossing through a lush courtyard that reminded her so keenly of Hogwarts she ached with nostalgia.
Hermione focused on Malfoy's bright blond hair as she trailed behind him. It was overcast again: grey clouds for a grey mood in a grey place with a man of grey morality, if she was being generous with her assessment.
He probably had her wand in his pocket that very instant. If she could just get a jump on him—
"I wouldn't try anything violent if I were you. I'm much better fed and I have a wand, two in fact."
"What tremendous irony," she groused to his back.
"Try to contain your feral baby vampire impulses for a few minutes. It's irritating having to sidestep your lunges."
"How did you know I was thinking about..." She trailed off, inundated by a fresh fear about the safety of her own thoughts. Had he been using Legilimency on her?
"I can practically feel your impending violence in my own skin. It's very distracting."
"Practically or actually? Is that a—vampire thing?"
He huffed an exasperated sound, pausing at an archway. He finally turned to her. "If I've learned anything about you in the past few weeks, Granger, it's that information is your currency. Why would I tell you something like that for free?"
He turned again, sweeping through the doorway. Hermione followed into a cavernous, impressive space. She didn't know what any of these rooms were when this place had been an abbey, or a tourist destination, but Malfoy appeared to have wasted no time converting this particular space to a library.
Precarious shelving and large, ornate bookcases lined the walls: what looked like a haphazard assortment sourced from every antique shop in Normandy. The furniture, too, looked ancient and ornate.
She felt her mouth open, eyes wide as she surveyed the rows of books.
Malfoy made an indelicate snorting sound behind her. It struck as strangely human. And he wasn't even fully human anymore.
"Knew the books would do it for you. You're practically a caricature of yourself, you're so predictable."
He walked to the long reading table at the center of the room and picked up a folded parchment.
From a distance, Hermione easily spotted the Daily Prophet lettering written across the top. For a beat, she wondered what he could possibly want her to see from it. And before she could run through the several dozen realistic possibilities, and the several hundred less realistic ones, he opened to a middle page and read aloud.
"Harry Potter, head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, Chosen One, Savior of the Wizarding World, and Recipient of an Order of Merlin, First Class, introduced legislation to the Wizengamot today—this is yesterday's paper, by the way. There's a bit of a delay getting them here—pertaining to the classification of non-wizard, part-humans. He is the first head of the DMLE to introduce legislation not directly relating to his department's jurisdiction in six decades."
Hermione froze. Perhaps she would sink into the floor and become one with the mosses making a mosaic of centuries-old stones.
Malfoy mumbled as he skipped ahead before engaging in his performance again. "Ah, yes, you'll find this part interesting. One must wonder why Harry Potter's childhood friend, Hermione Granger, an employee in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and cosignatory on Potter's proposal, wouldn't submit such legislation relating to her own department herself. Blah blah blah—she is historically known to champion for what she has called 'disenfranchised magical creatures'—blah blah blah—when the paper reached out to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for a comment, the paper was informed that Miss Granger filed for a leave of absence starting the morning the legislation in question hit the Wizengamot floor. The Prophet has been unable to locate Miss Granger for a comment."
When Malfoy finished, slapping the paper down onto the table, silence bloomed around them. It lingered on bookshelves and the cracks between stone bricks, swirling with open air from the huge windows opposite them, ebbing and flowing with the tide beyond the castle walls.
"I can't very well obliviate you if you're actually doing what I asked," Malfoy finally said, looking annoyed by the idea.
"I'm not doing it for you."
He frowned. "No, I suppose not. All that activism was mostly for show, was it? You only care enough to get this legislation moving now that it impacts you."
"It was not for show. I care deeply for the creatures and part-humans I'm trying to help."
"I'm sure you do. Or, did. Bit different from this side of the mortal coil though, isn't it?"
She'd had no options before. She didn't really have any now. She'd just strong-armed Harry into doing something unheard of. It had required she take a leave of absence. It required subterfuge. Secrecy. Lies.
She'd fled the country.
This kind of action wasn't a sustainable solution for long term progress and Malfoy was mad if he didn't see that.
Even if it worked, it would only work for this one thing. She'd struggle to find employment once the Ministry found out about her new status, and they would find out. And then she wouldn't be able to help anyone.
Malfoy was being a prat.
An arse.
And inexplicably, she thought she might cry.
"Sit down. You look ill." Malfoy's voice startled her. He didn't wait for her to actually listen. He simply pulled out one of the stiff wooden chairs at the reading table and gestured for her to sit.
She pointedly took the one opposite him instead.
"Eat it," he said, tilting his head at the blood lolly she'd long since forgotten she was holding.
"I'm not hungry."
"Merlin's fucking—" he broke off. Rounding the table, he snatched the lolly from her hand and tipped her chair back.
Her stomach jolted, a sensation like falling: halfway to the ground already. Malfoy held her chair steady. She blinked, orienting herself, staring straight up into Malfoy's face.
"I seem to recall you enjoying these," he said, holding up the lolly with one hand.
Her chair rocked only the smallest bit; his grip was steady, holding her effectively horizontal, teetering on two wooden legs.
Malfoy popped the lolly in his mouth, rolled it around, and pulled it out again.
"I'm impressed you're resisting as well as you are," he said. "Once you gave me a taste…well. It's much harder to hold back. I'm sure you've noticed."
He lowered the shiny, wet lolly to her lips. She kept them sealed shut.
Sticky against her mouth, sharply metallic when inhaling through her nose: intense need exploded in Hermione's jaw, racing through her blood stream.
"Come on. You were so good before." He paused. "Open up."
His command slipped beneath her skin. The temptation was too much. She could nearly taste it seeping through the seam between her lips.
Her tongue surged forward, just a taste.
Her eyes rolled unwittingly, jaw relaxing. Malfoy seized the opportunity and shoved the lolly in her mouth.
He switched to holding her jaw instead of the lolly, sealing her mouth shut and keeping it that way.
"If I'm not allowed to starve, neither are you," he said, face lowered so that it hovered just above her.
Scared and starving, the lolly flooded her with relief.
He must have seen the compliance, the submission, holding her steady as she sucked the candy, because a smirk wormed its way to his face.
"Good. Finish it."
He held her there, balanced on a chair, hand gripping her chin and jaw such that the lolly remained firmly in place. Agonizing minutes passed as sugar and blood dissolved in her mouth.
She breathed through her nose, sinking into the satisfaction of having fed. It was a floating feeling, almost untethered from her own body, balanced by Malfoy, doing what he said, and being rewarded with sustenance in doing so.
When the lolly was gone, she tapped the side of Malfoy's trousers with her fingertips. Her eyes had closed at some point and she wasn't sure when.
Gently, he tipped the chair legs back to the floor and released her chin. He pulled the paper stick from her mouth.
When she opened her eyes again, Hermione had the good sense to remember to glare at him.
"You're much more agreeable with your mouth full," he said.
"You're disgusting."
His smirk didn't waver. "If you say so." He still hovered, half bent over her. He tapped the Daily Prophet on the table, then slid it closer.
"Do you think it will pass?"
"Harry promised he'd make it happen. He has—more influence than he realizes."
"Will it allow us wands again?"
She cringed at the collective us and all its implications. She didn't want companionship with him.
"Yes. Easier access to education, too. Better employment protections. More resources for St. Mungo's."
Malfoy finally straightened. "You can move as you wish. But until your legislation passes and my wand is returned to me, I'll be holding onto yours."
Hermione balked. "It could be debated for weeks."
"Then you'll be here a very long time, won't you?"
"My leave of absence only covers until the end of the month."
"Oh well."
Before he left her there, sitting in a strange library, he turned back, as if adding in an afterthought. "I've been curating this collection using every contact and favor owed to the Malfoy name." He waved a lazy hand at the books around them.
"Your point? I've seen a library before. I might like books but I'm hardly about to drop my knickers because of a few shelves."
"Oh no? This is probably the most complete library of vampire related works in the world. The number of personal journals alone…" His gaze lingered on a distant shelf. "They were only given to me because I'm one of their kind now. You can read whatever you like. I left a few starter options on the table for you."
He'd called information her currency; his offer felt like little more than a bribe.
—
Free to do as she wanted, but still ultimately a prisoner, time passed strangely, an unruly ebb and flow. Hermione considered leaving, wondering if Malfoy would stop her.
He still had her wand, and pride wouldn't allow her to go having accomplished nothing.
She considered setting a trap, tricking or otherwise overpowering him in an attempt to liberate her wand by force.
It was impossible to set a trap for a man—part-man—she could never find. Not that she went looking.
She considered, in deeper, more traitorous parts of her consciousness, what it might mean to simply stay. To accept a loss of control and just be. To read all the irritatingly rare and precious books he'd sourced. To wander an empty, ancient abbey. To wait for her legislation to pass. To file a motion for the return of Malfoy's wand. To then get hers in return.
It felt like inaction, like waiting, like giving up. She hated it.
And she hated that it was her most logical option.
On the evening of the full moon, Malfoy's volunteer arrived. After subsisting on blood lollies and meager rations of fresh blood, refusing Malfoy's offer to join him in a feeding required more resolve than she would have preferred.
Instead, Hermione spent most of the moonrise standing on a balcony, watching as the tide crept upon the causeway connecting Mont-Saint-Michel to mainland France, marooning her with Malfoy and his meal.
It was strange, feeling like a part of nature and an aberration to it. Like the tides she watched lived as vividly in her bloodstream as they did on the shoreline. In daylight, the sun washed her out, a low tide exposing her wants and inconsistencies and constant questions about the purpose of her own existence. At night, the moon pulled the tides high and flooded her with a strange certainty, an unknowable sureness that lured her towards Malfoy and this lifestyle he'd foisted upon her.
She used to hate the night; it meant insomnia, unrest, the impending start of a new day and a new list of tasks to accomplish.
Now, she floated under the moonlight, tides contained beneath her skin. Supported and safe and alive in a way she hadn't known was possible.
It was hunger that drove her inside at last. She assumed there would be a blood lolly waiting by her bed; Malfoy kept leaving them there.
Hermione hadn't eaten all day. It was her own personal martyrdom at this point, a thing she could control.
Descending a cramped, spiraling stone stairway, a peculiar sound stole her attention. Blood, too. Sharp and metallic, floating through ancient corridors to find her, tempt her.
She'd already told Malfoy she wanted nothing to do with the barely-out-of-Beauxbatons tart who'd come to volunteer her blood to him, but curiosity compelled her to forget her own intentions.
She followed the sound, followed the blood, into a part of the abbey she'd yet to explore, more dark corridors and rooms she'd never seen before.
She approached a half open door.
Inside, Malfoy lounged on a chaise with the aforementioned Beauxbatons tart gyrating in his lap.
As Malfoy sank his fangs into the girl's neck—eliciting a keening moan—he opened his eyes and, even though Hermione stood in shadows, he met her gaze.
Fully clothed and they couldn't have been more indecent. The girl straddled his lap, rocking atop him with her head thrown back, lolling, giving him full access to her neck. Her simple, satin slip dress was a crumpled mess, wrinkles mapping every place Malfoy had put his hands on her. A strap dangled from her shoulder; the hem had ridden up to rest at the top of her thighs.
And Malfoy, in his usual pompous set of dress robes, looked infuriatingly put together.
Blood dripped down the girl's neck, leaving an intricate kind of biological tie dye staining the fabric of her dress.
A violent sting of hunger preceded Hermione's blush. Blood rushed to the surface of her skin, mortified by her voyeurism, by being caught.
Malfoy kept his mouth latched to the girl's neck, large hands nearly encircling her waist. She moaned, head limp as she ground against him.
Hermione couldn't tear her gaze away. Not as her mouth ran dry, desperate for a taste of the ruby red blood dripping from Malfoy's mouth and down the girl's back. Not as she panted and moaned, as vocal as if she was being fucked right there, despite the fact that Malfoy's sustained eye contact with Hermione made the girl an interloper in something else.
When Malfoy finally pulled his mouth away from the girl's neck, it was smeared with blood and purpling around the dark red circles that indicated his puncture wounds. She tilted, dismounting and landing limp on the cushions beside him.
Malfoy spread his arms wide against the back of the sofa and made no move to conceal the clear erection tenting his trousers. He kept watching Hermione, as if the force of his stare kept her present to bear witness.
Finally, slowly, he thumbed an errant drop of blood from his chin, sucking his finger into his mouth. And when he pulled it out, he asked a question, quiet in a way Hermione wouldn't have heard at all if not for her highly attuned supernatural senses.
"Hungry?"
She backed away. She returned to her room with her heart hammering in her throat as she ripped open the blood lolly on the bedside table, sucking every last drop from it.
—
The next day, page three of Daily Prophet detailed Harry Potter's legislation woes. Malfoy slid the paper to her with a goblet of blood as she read at the library's reading table.
"It was too late to request a second volunteer," he said. "But Sandrine was generous enough to provide extra during her draw."
"Is that what it's called when your volunteer writhes on top of you?"
"No, that's called fun. We've had some of it before, you and I, so I know you're familiar. But no, after she's had some replenishing potions there's a much more clinical draw process to supply me for the week."
"A week?"
"It won't be pleasant, but we'll be fine with rationing. Not as if you eat much anyway. I'm having a second volunteer come next time."
"You think I'll still be here by then?"
His index finger came down on the paper sitting between them, directly atop a photo of Harry speaking to the Wizengamot.
"I think you'll be here much longer than that."
Hermione huffed. "I will not."
—
She was.
Rationing through the week was worse than not eating at all, she learned. Having a little something—either via the candies Malfoy kept leaving or from the small goblets he presented every morning—opened up a door to her desire.
Just shy of midnight after a long week of hunger, two new girls arrived at the abbey entrance.
Hermione watched from a window as Malfoy walked them up the winding cobbled streets to where they would…engage in a transaction.
"Tell me they're of legal age," Hermione asked, arms crossed as they stepped into what she had started thinking of as the main entrance hall.
"Of course they are, Granger." Malfoy's reply was short, clipped as if he'd been offended on the girl's—and they certainly looked like girls—behalf. He took their traveling cloaks and hung them on a coat rack. "Unlike our beloved home, feeding on magical persons is permitted in France, though highly regulated. I pay for them. They're thoroughly vetted professionals."
He lobbed them a conspiratorial smile, sealed with an overly dramatic wink. The girls simpered and giggled and it did wonders to suppress Hermione's appetite.
"Will you be joining us, Granger? Or do you intend to continue martyring yourself?"
With a call out like that, she could do little but frown, clench her arms tighter around her middle, and refuse.
Draco fed in the courtyard that night, sounds bouncing off old stones and drifting through drafty windows.
—
"You're only hurting yourself," Malfoy said, sliding her a goblet the next morning.
She'd barely slept, she'd just read some terribly uncomfortable accounts about blood and feeding as aphrodisiacs, and the sight of a nearly full goblet of blood had her mouth literally watering.
"You don't get to decide that my enacting what little power I have in this place, as your prisoner, makes me a martyr." Never mind that she'd thought as much herself.
Malfoy tapped his fingers against the table. "You're a nightmare. Leave if you want."
"Give me my wand and I will."
"You know what, you can have the one you came here with. But your original? That's my incentive and I'll be keeping it."
"Then I can't leave."
"You won't, it's different. Where will you go anyway? I assume you've managed to keep your new status under wraps for now—since news like that would be all over the papers in a heartbeat."
"Yours wasn't."
"And I paid far more money than you can ever hope to see in your lifetime to keep it that way." Hermione reached for the goblet, ignoring Malfoy's smug, imperious face. "You won't be able to hide it forever, you know. This life? This set up I have here? I realize you're woefully ignorant, but this is the best. You should be enjoying yourself—thanking me."
"Thank you? And how would you prefer to receive my effusive thanks?" She affected her most snotty tone, which he cut down with a severely lecherous look. "Not happening," she snapped.
Malfoy sighed. "Look Granger, you're usually a nightmare, but you've been exceptionally nightmarish as of late. I've shown you great hospitality and you've done nothing but act like a brat. Unlike you, I have no intentions of deluding myself; fucking you was fantastic. And if you'd stop being so uptight all the time, maybe accepted your new reality and tried enjoying yourself, you and I"—he made an exaggerated pointing motion from himself to her and back again—"could be having a lot more fun here."
He rose from the table; this had already been the longest he stuck around after bringing her blood. "I'm tired, frankly, of entertaining your delusions. When you'd like to try actually enjoying your new life, let me know."
—
Hermione had no delusions, she told herself. She avoided Malfoy. She read in his library. She accepted the blood he brought her with begrudged thanks because she refused to be the ungrateful picture he'd painted her as. And she certainly did not think about what actually enjoying herself in this place— with him —would look like.
Days passed. Her legislation didn't.
The Wizengamot debated. So did Hermione.
The tides rolled in; they rolled out.
Hermione's leave of absence ended. She didn't return.
The longer she stayed in a strange, lonely castle with a vampiric version of a man she once knew, the less real her old life felt, detached from her by time and space and a literal body of water.
Sometimes, when she looked out across the channel, she imagined she saw a distant shore, what should have felt like her home but didn't.
She'd forgotten to make Malfoy miserable, to steal her wand, to take back some measure of control. She'd almost, dare she acknowledge it, come to enjoy the simple monotony of her days, of all the time she spent doing whatever she pleased within the confines of the castle. There were no memos constantly fluttering above her head, no schedule to organize, no meetings to attend, no endless uphill battles to fight against incompetent coworkers and disinterested supervisors.
Another week passed and by the time Malfoy's volunteers— conveniently always girls, and she didn't think that was a coincidence—arrived with their pretty smiles and delicious heartbeats, Hermione told herself if Malfoy was right about anything, it was about how she only hurt herself by abstaining. She was a different being with different needs. She did herself a disservice by constantly suppressing them.
That, and their game of cat and mouse had started looking more like a game of chicken. Chicken required daring, and Hermione was a Gryffindor.
Malfoy's brows lifted when she followed as he led the girls up to the chamber where Hermione had first found him feeding. She assumed it was his personal quarters; she would have preferred he chose the courtyard again.
As Malfoy closed the door behind them—he'd left it open that first night—the look he gave her wasn't one of self-satisfaction or superiority. His eyes were dark, predatory, eager.
He led the girls to the long sofa. "Draw first tonight, ladies. I think it would be best to ease my guest into it."
Hermione prickled. "A guest, am I?"
He left the girls at the sofa where they'd begun what looked like a suspiciously clinical IV process, rounding on Hermione with his irritating tower that allowed him to loom so severely. "I only locked you in the one night. You've been free to leave for weeks."
Pressing her lips together and smothering a snappish retort, she struggled not to squirm. Blood had started flowing across the room; she could smell it. Sharply metallic and swirling with a salted sea breeze, it practically reached out and drew her in.
She jolted when Malfoy's palm slid along the side of her neck, fingers tangling into the curls at her nape. He flexed, gripping rather ungently. It angled her head up just a bit, holding her still.
"Just relax for one night, Granger. You might even find you enjoy this life a little bit—I've certainly discovered some benefits since following your instructions to stop punishing myself." He leaned closer, voice lowered. "Take your own advice."
She didn't know what to say. A stubborn refusal to let him win, even if he was suggesting her own counsel, had her ability to respond stalled in her throat, just by where his palm still rested against her neck.
Finally, she chose the most neutral statement fighting for attention. "I'm hungry."
Malfoy smiled, a true, fang-bearing smile. It lit him up: bright teeth, bright hair, bright moonlight bathing them in a silver wash. He backed away, several purposeful footsteps, until he stopped at the sofa, sinking onto it. "Come sit."
His words displaced Hermione in time, back to Malfoy Manor, back to that shadowed room where she'd done something like this once before, where he'd said that exact thing. There had been stakes then she hadn't even realized, her mortality hanging in the balance. Without that, how could any present risks be worse?
She wasn't afraid of him. She refused to be. And she was hungry.
"Besides," Malfoy began, "we should be celebrating. The Prophet thinks your legislation will pass in Monday's vote."
Delectable relief climbed the column of Hermione's throat, tasting like victory. She wanted to taste something else, too. She approached, pausing when her shins brushed his trousers.
"There she is." Malfoy's smile gleamed, sharp. "That's the Granger I've been looking for."
All in. Doubled down. And desperate not to lose, Hermione threw all caution to the wind. Rather than sit beside him, she lowered her knees to the cushions on either side of his hips, settling herself in his lap. She allowed her wrists to rest casually, carelessly, on his shoulders.
With an innocent lilt she asked, "Like this?"
If anything, Malfoy's grin spread wider. "I like this game Granger. Let's keep playing." He motioned for one of the girls and suddenly, he held a pale wrist between them. Hermione couldn't bring herself to look at the arm, torso, and entire human being attached to it. If she focused only on the wrist suspended between her and Malfoy, she could do this.
"It's simple," Malfoy said, mouth hovering just over the girl's flesh. He rested the tips of his canines against her skin; Hermione ignored the anticipatory inhale that came from either herself or the girl, she wasn't sure. Slowly, he broke skin, two tiny pools of blood welling before his lips landed against her flesh, creating suction, obscuring Hermione's view.
Her heart thundered, pulse a loud roar in her head. It was only as she waited, and with very little patience, that she noticed Malfoy's other hand resting on her hip. Except not resting: kneading.
When Malfoy disengaged from the girl's wrist, ruby red stained his white teeth, darkening his lips. Hermione's focus darted between the girl's wrist and Malfoy's teeth, temptation torn between the two.
"Still nervous?" Malfoy asked, perhaps divining her hesitance.
She didn't answer, couldn't.
Pretenses and patience clearly abandoned, Malfoy dropped the girl's wrist and reached for Hermione's hair instead. He pulled her face close to his in one swift movement, mouths a breath from touching. On her surprised inhale, she nearly tasted the sweet, dense, delicious blood still dripping from his pointed canines.
She couldn't tear her eyes from them, nor from the smear around his lips. Coppery fumes inundated her senses.
She watched his mouth when he spoke. "Why don't we start small?"
In a blur, he'd found the girl's arm, drawn another deep pull from her veins, and discarded her again. With only a modicum of embarrassment poking through an overwhelming lust, Hermione realized she was panting, breath heavy and hot as she watched Malfoy's freshly crimson-smeared mouth say, "Take what you can handle."
He opened his lips just enough that the invitation was clear; she followed the path of another drop of blood pooling at the tip of one of his canines. She refused to think, refused to back down. She leaned closer, tongue darting out to steal that drop of blood from his fang.
She melted, body a wet clay against his hard stone. Distantly, she heard herself whimper, hand gripping the front of Malfoy's robes.
His smile only showed off more of the blood in his mouth.
She leaned in again, sucking his bottom lip. Her eyelids fluttered, eyes rolling, a fuzzy static exploding across her skin. Malfoy's grip in her hair tightened, pulling. Pain flaring to life across her scalp brought Hermione a scrap of her sanity, opening her eyes.
"That's it," he breathed, words and lips and the faintest taste of blood brushing up against her mouth. "Just enough to take the edge off."
It might have felt condescending if not for the way desperation demanded she do whatever it took to have more more more.
She surged forward again, mouth on his, searching for blood and release and relief. For a series of bloodlust drunken seconds, it was bliss. A commingling of blood between them, shared by the slide of tongues and press of lips. It was only as they broke apart, Malfoy moving to drag his fangs along her neck, that Hermione realized feeding from Malfoy and kissing him had just become one in the same.
She should have cared.
She didn't.
"A shame I can't take from you anymore," he said against her throat, pressure from his teeth so intense she wondered if he'd broken skin.
Even in her haze, Hermione managed a weak, "You took everything from me." It was hard to feel resolve when Malfoy's mouth sent a hot rush exploding from every point it touched, when he rocked beneath her, undeniably hard. She took the friction, working herself against it, seeking more.
"I suppose we'll have to share." His whisper came against her ear, having dragged his teeth up the column of her throat, across her jaw, and to the tender place just below her ear that sent shivers rushing down her spine.
In a blink, his strong hands maneuvered her: from straddling his lap to sitting with her back to his chest, fingers digging into her hips as he pulled her against him, blatant and unrepentant in the way he ground against her.
The hem of her dress had risen to mid thigh; he could have had his hand on her skin in a single motion if he wanted. She assumed he would want at some point, and she couldn't deny much of her own wanting, too.
She'd been here before, done this before. And somehow, she cared just as little about the consequences as the last time. Except there weren't any bargains on the table, just a seemingly unquenchable thirst.
"Lisette," Malfoy said, summoning one of the girls.
By way of not being able to avoid it any longer, Hermione finally looked at the girl now standing in front of her. She was probably closer to Hermione's own age than the word girl implied. She had deep auburn hair pulled up and away from her neck and bright blue eyes rapidly losing real estate to growing pupils. Most notably, though, Hermione sensed a rapid, fluttering heartbeat thundering beneath her skin. If she focused closely enough, she could nearly see it pulsing against her throat.
A sting had Hermione's mouth watering, hands reaching for Lisette on their own accord.
"Good. Beautiful." Malfoy's praise was hot in her ear, his hands gripping even harder against her hips.
In an easy movement that had Hermione's breath catching, Lisette lifted the hem of her skirt so she could straddle Hermione's lap. Her weight pressed Hermione harder against Malfoy; his low groan didn't escape her notice.
Demurely, and with a graceful line from shoulder to head, Lisette bared her throat, as if simply waiting.
Malfoy dragged his teeth against Hermione's neck again, and she knew it would leave pink scratches behind. His hand left her hip just long enough to reach out to Lisette's, guiding her closer. As she moved, she dangled her arms across Hermione's shoulders in just the same way Hermione had done to Malfoy mere minutes before.
Even closer now, Hermione's jaw ached with an impulse to sink her fangs into Lisette's neck.
"Go on," Malfoy said, a commanding whisper in her ear. Hermione tilted her head and watched him sink his own teeth into Lisette's wrist.
Lisette gasped, whimpered, and tilted her head further, exposing as much of her neck as was possible: invitation clear.
Smelling the fresh blood just beside her, Hermione leaned forward and latched onto Lisette's neck.
So sharp, her fangs met no resistance, sinking into Lisette's soft skin with the efficiency of a scalpel. Then came the blood, flooding her mouth with a hot, overwhelming rush. Dimly, she realized she'd latched onto Lisette with her hands too, taking possession and control of the body in her lap. Malfoy made a noise against her neck, lips pressed to her skin again.
"That's enough," he said, strangely gentle.
Hermione indulged in one last pull, pooling blood in her mouth, before she released Lisette's throat.
"Hold it," Malfoy said, and Hermione knew, even without more information, he meant the blood in her mouth. She obeyed: still, static. Dim questions about whether or not she could actually disobey felt like they ought to be more important than they were.
Slowly, Malfoy's hand ascended from her hip, over her ribs, greedy with the way it slid over her breasts, before finding her throat. Higher still: her jaw, and then, her cheeks. He dug his fingers into the side of her face, contorting her mouth.
The blood spilled out, streaming down her chin, her chest.
"You are an enormous pain in my arse. A hypocrite and a nightmare. But gods , when you let go. Look at you." He released her cheeks, hand descending with the blood on her face, smearing it into her décolletage. His fingers skimmed her flesh as they approached the strap to her dress, slipping it off her shoulder, exposing one of her breasts.
He wasted no time following where the blood had descended; she couldn't help but watch, eyes fixed on his red-stained fingertips as they smeared a path from the center of her chest to her nipple, turning light pink to bright crimson. He teased her, finger circling, before he brought his thumb and forefinger together to a pinch.
She moaned, a shameless sound, body arching.
"Out, both of you. Prepare a goblet before you go."
Hermione had very little time to register the loss of Lisette's weight in her lap before Malfoy pulled her other dress strap down, finding her other nipple and matching the torture that had him alternating between delicate swirls with blood-stained fingertips and quick, hard pinches that stole her breath.
Hinges creaked, a door opened and closed, and Malfoy pulled her from his lap with a careless kind of strength that had her feeling like she weighed little more than a porcelain doll. He slammed her down onto the sofa cushions beside them.
He hovered over her in a heartbeat, one hand around her throat, pinning her neck to the sofa. Hermione's eyes bulged in a flash of terror. Time moved with a viscosity not unlike blood, flowing, clotting, flowing again.
Malfoy reached for a goblet on the table beside them, hovering it above Hermione's head. She sucked in a breath, realizing for the first time that the pressure around her throat restricted blood, not air.
"Open," he said. She did, letting her jaw hinge.
He poured, a messy stream mostly in her mouth, but splattering on her cheeks too, down her chin, a quick diversion where he trailed lower, painting over her exposed chest, before returning to her open mouth.
"Take it all," he said. She did, swallowing against his palm.
Her vision blurred, blacking. As she moved to pry his hand from her neck, he released her, mouth descending to her chest. She gasped, her hand diverted to his hair where she left red streaks behind in his bright blond.
His mouth was hungry, vicious in how it sucked and nipped and dragged against her skin. In a quick movement, he pulled her dress down over her hips, ripping the fabric where the bodice was too narrow to fit without having undone the zipper first. She might have had protests about his consideration for her things if not for the way he ripped his way into her knickers too, mouth landing on her without preamble or permission.
Hermione threw her head back, overcome by the fresh blood and intense pleasure making a mess of her. She wasn't herself, except that she was only herself. Broken down to her most basic, carnal components. She was a vampire in need of blood, a body in need of release. And here she was, spread on a piece of antique furniture in an isolated place, being feasted upon as if she was a meal of her own.
She squirmed, torn between a need to break for air and dive headfirst. Malfoy pinned her hips to the cushions, tongue merciless in how it devoured her. And when it was too much, when her fingers and toes had twisted to tense, spring-loaded traps ready to snap, he pulled away.
Agile fingers made quick work of his belt, button, and zip, dragging his pants down enough to free himself as he sat back on the sofa and hauled her up, straddling him again.
The blood pounding behind her eardrums sounded like the rushing tide separating this place from her home, this version of herself from one that existed before. She sank onto him with a whine, panting.
Malfoy's hand gripped her arse; she expected a series of fingerprints bruised into her skin by morning. His other hand found her hair, yanking. "Merlin this cunt," he said before licking a broad stripe of blood from her breastbone. "The way I have dreamed about this cunt."
"Miss me, did you?" Hermione managed, the first coherent words she'd spoken in a distractingly long time, so lost to sensation.
He thrust up into her with a grunt. "Against." Another thrust. "My better." Another. "Judgement."
Hermione anchored herself with her hands on his chest, holding herself steady as her breath caught and her thoughts blurred. She tilted, forehead resting against his shoulder, a boneless body defined by pleasure and nothing more. It must have been quite a sight: her, completely naked, smeared in blood and essentially limp on a mostly clothed Malfoy, peppered with his own blood stains, including a streak she'd left behind in his hair, but still much more kempt than she. He hadn't even removed his outer robes.
Hermione's hands slipped from his chest, lost to his robes as he pistoned into her, a series of grunts against her neck.
Her fingers curled around a smooth wooden handle. Her magic swelled, singing to life as her pleasure peaked, wrenching a whimper from her as she panted against Malfoy's shoulder. He groaned, following her with a series of thrusts that had his pace faltering, a messy finish.
Sanity returned in stages: blood-high leveling out, orgasm waning, magic settling.
She pulled her wand from inside his robes and placed the tip to his throat. At some point, Malfoy's head had fallen back against the sofa, eyes closed. He didn't open them, but his mouth curved into a smile, bloody teeth bared.
His hand on her arse flexed, hips thrusting against where he was still seated inside her. His command was simple: "Go on then, do it."
Her fingers twitched, body and mind registering the order. It crashed over her, an unexpected wave. Curiosities about compliance surged in relevance, suddenly everything: she either had her autonomy or she didn't. She was a witch. Or she was a vampire. She had control. Or she had none.