A/N: These two are not done with each other. Happy Valentine's Day, lovers.

Very special thank you to Rhiannon for the thoughtful edits and suggestions!

The room was too large, and too open for her to be feeling like she couldn't breathe.

"Are you absolutely sure you gave him the right plans?" Hermione asked Harry, as she paced the floor.

"Yes, Hermione. That's the third time you've asked me that," said Harry, frowning down at the pile of notes on the table.

"And he had the right Portkey?"

"Yes."

"Did you test the Protean charm on the coin?"

"Hermione." The quiet knowledge in Ron's voice tore at her chest. "I promise you that we did all of it. We never let a single member go without checking everything."

She let out a slow breath. "I know, Ron. But it's been three days. That isn't normal for a routine mission."

Ron fell silent, staring at the mug of cold tea in his hands.

"Look, Hermione," said Harry, raking his hand through his hair. "I know this isn't usual. But Malfoy's one of the best fighters we have. He'd know how to handle himself if he ran into trouble."

"Yes, but –" Hermione started to say.

"We'll send someone out to look for him tomorrow, okay?" said Harry. "I can't risk sending another person out today, not with the news we've been getting from Liverpool."

"Then I'll go," said Hermione, speaking loudly to hide the tremble in her voice. "I have a copy of the plans. Just give me a Portkey and a coin. Actually, no. Don't bother. I know where they are–"

"Uh, Hermione–"

"No, Harry," she said, rounding resolutely on him. "I'm not waiting until tomorrow. If we get word that Malfoy's dead because we were too busy sitting around–"

"Ahem." A cool voice sounded behind her. Hermione spun around. The first thing she noticed was that Malfoy was bleeding from a cut below his right eye. Then, she noticed his knuckles were scraped. He was leaning against the doorframe in a way that suggested he had injured his ribs. His hair was dishevelled and fell over his eyes. And his eyes were a stormy grey and reminded her of –

"Right then," Hermione looked away, trying to ignore the sudden thundering in her chest. "I see there is no reason for me to be here anymore. Excuse me."

Malfoy made no attempt to remove himself from the mercilessly narrow doorway. He stood there, tall and solid as a wall, one eyebrow raised at Hermione as she squeezed past him.

Her instincts had been right after all. From the looks of it, he appeared to have been in a nasty fight. There had to have been enemies at the church, either using it as a hideout or plotting an ambush.

But she'd let Harry deal with that, Hermione decided as she took the stairs up to her room, trying to still her shaking hands. As far as anyone was concerned, this was where her concern for Draco Malfoy ended.

Two things were true.

One - Malfoy was on the other side of this door. Hermione knew that because the wood panelling was dark, almost black, with a silver serpent's head as the doorknob. No one let Malfoy forget who he was, and she supposed this was his way of owning it and proving them all wrong.

Two - he was hurt, and he knew that she had seen his injuries.

Hermione wasn't quite sure how these two truths added up in the vast, unknowable equation of things, but she knew she could not turn back.

That morning was the first time she had spent more than a few seconds in the same room with Malfoy since their time together in that house six months ago. He had passed her in a corridor once, tall and dressed all in black, and she remembered the back of his hand brushing her hip as he walked by. Another time, she had Apparated straight into a kitchen to find him drinking with other people. He looked at her over the top of his glass, one arm slung across the back of his chair, and she Disapparated without a second thought.

With every cell in her body screaming at her not to knock, she knocked.

A brief silence followed. Hermione contemplated bolting while she had the chance. But, just as she steeled herself to knock a second time, she heard a click behind the serpent's head.

Taking a deep breath and absently tucking a stray curl behind her ear, she opened the door.

Malfoy was moonlit, stretched out on his bed, with his head propped up against a pillow. His chest was bare, each line and dip of muscle exactly as she remembered. A white bandage was wrapped around his lower chest, just above his navel. She followed the lines of his abdomen down to where they disappeared under the grey sheets draped over his legs.

He was watching her in a way that made her stomach twist. She had seen that look in Crookshanks whenever he hunted, but something about it also reminded her of the way he used to watch thunderstorms from under the blankets. It made her feel powerful, but also utterly helpless.

"You know that you're in my bedroom, don't you, Granger?" he said, his voice low and thick with the sleep she must have roused him from.

Something fluttered low in her abdomen. "Are you…" she swallowed. "I mean… what happened out there?"

He said nothing for a while, grey eyes flicking briefly down her body before meeting hers with such an intensity that she felt immobilized. He moved to sit up a little straighter, wincing slightly as he did. "Church was being used as a hideout," he said. "There were three of them in there. Sometimes four."

"Four?" Her heart sank horribly. "Who were they?"

"Death Eaters."

There was venom in his words, passing through each syllable so subtly that anyone else would not have heard it at all.

"I didn't move for two days," he continued, his eyes still fixed on her. "Tried to collect as much intel as I could. But they found me on the third day."

A part of her wanted to go up to him, to run her fingers down his cheek and brush the hair from his eyes, but the space between them felt like concrete. "What happened then?" she said, when she found her voice again.

He tensed his jaw, a memory flashing behind his eyes. "One of them jumped me from behind. Bound my hands while the others took turns…" he trailed away, brushing his thumb across the bandaged part of his ribs.

She pulled in a sharp breath. "How did you escape?"

He remained silent for a few moments, and she thought her nerves might catch fire from the way he was looking at her.

His eyes were dark as he spoke. "Vicissim Vi."

Her heart leapt to her throat."You… you used… my…"

He didn't need to answer, and he knew it. The last time they were together, he had raged at her for trying to use that spell, for risking her life for something so unproven. And now, he was telling her he had used it himself. That her magic had coursed through his veins.

She hated that she was still standing by the door, paralyzed by something she could neither understand nor dare to confront. She wanted to go to him, to take him in her arms, to melt under his touch, but she felt frightened, trapped inside her own body.

"Why are you here?" Malfoy asked suddenly, something shifting in the air between them as his voice spiked in frustration.

"I… I just wanted to – " she stammered.

"To what?" he hissed. "See for yourself how badly they fucked me up? Count how many bones they broke?

"What? No, I–" she protested.

"See for yourself, Granger," he said viciously, and as he started to tear at the bandage around his ribs, she felt that unspeakable solidness between them shatter.

"Draco, stop!" she cried, closing the distance between them and catching his hands in hers.

"You'll be pleased to know," he growled at her, panting. "That I can't move without passing out from the pain and I have to be on constant numbing potions to even function like a normal human being. Go tell your friends that and then you can all have a good laugh."

"Draco, that's not what I–"

"Or maybe you came to finish the job. Kill me while I can't defend myself, is that it?"

"No, Draco…" She was so close to him now that she could see that the skin around his cuts and bruises was already starting to heal, translucent and shimmering in the low moonlight.

He looked at her with shining eyes, and his voice took her breath away.

"Then what do you want from me, Granger?"

She dared to reach out and touch him then, tracing her fingertips along his jaw. He leaned into her touch, not once taking his eyes off her. She hated herself for not seeing it before. She hated that his body had to be broken for her to finally see the ache that surged like a cold wave behind his eyes.

"Tell me where they hurt you," she breathed.

He licked his lips slowly and swallowed. "Left leg, just below my knee."

She turned and slipped the blankets off his leg. A purplish yellow bruise bloomed where he said. She leaned forward and brushed her lips as gently as she could over the skin, feeling his knee twitch beneath her as she did.

"Where else?" she asked, turning back to him.

His lips were parted now, and he was breathing harder. "Here," he said, delicately touching his left rib.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned down, exhaling softly over his injury as she kissed it.

"Where else?"

His breath hitched as he inhaled. "Here." He took her hand and brought it under his left eye.

"Oh, Draco," she whispered as she lowered her face to his, skimming her lips over his scar.

He swallowed again, hard, and angled his face toward hers. "Actually, I think they hurt me everywhere."

"Unlucky bastard."

Where their first kiss raged like wildfire, this one burned like a fever. She cupped his face and drew him into her, into a quiet, private refuge she knew she would never give anyone else. And he chased it and inhabited it completely, like a man with nowhere else to go. He raised his head from his pillow at the same time that he grabbed the back of her head, taking only what she was giving him and nothing more.

She opened her mouth and moaned as his tongue slipped in. He kissed her deeply, his tongue dragging and rolling against hers in a way that made her clench deep between her legs. It made her shiver.

"I thought you wouldn't come tonight" he said against her mouth. "This house is crawling with people."

"I tossed a coin," she said and felt the smirk on his lips. "Now, don't move."

She raised herself on her knees and crossed over him, lowering herself gently to sit on his waist. He looked so beautiful to her this way, looking up at her with dark, hooded eyes, his perfect, moonlit chest rising and falling under her.

She reached out a hand and brushed her thumb over his jawline. "Tell me what you want, Draco."

He brushed his lips across her knuckles, licking and sucking gently on her fingertips. "I want you to take that off," he said in a low voice, nodding at her camisole.

She crossed her arms and hooked her fingers on the underside of the garment. As she made to lift it off, he closed his hand around her wrist.

"No," he said. "Slowly."

She had thought about him since that day, perhaps too many times than she'd care to admit. The memory of their frenzied lovemaking lived just under the surface of her skin, raising goose pimples or sending heat to her cheeks at inopportune moments. She had glimpsed his tenderness in moments so brief and fleeting she thought she had imagined it, but here it was now, stripped and bare before her.

He watched as she lifted the camisole slowly up her body, past her belly button, pausing just before the underside of breasts, enjoying what the mere sight of her bare skin was doing to him. He groaned as she raised it above her breast, reaching a hand out to palm and caress them, one by one.

"So perfect," he whispered, as he rolled her nippes between his fingers. It made her start to throb between her legs and she felt herself getting wetter, sure that she had begun to soak through her knickers and onto him. She started to roll and grind her hips, pressing her building urgency down against him.

His eyes flashed like a storm back up to her. "Come here, love," he groaned, squeezing her breast in his hand. She shifted herself slightly higher on his chest and leaned down, guiding it into his mouth as she arched her back.

"Yes…" she moaned, as he sucked her nipple and flicked his tongue against it. Every little thing he was doing struck her deeper now, hitting parts of herself she had barely been aware of the last time. Her body arched instinctively into him, giving itself to his every urge and command, every nerve in her body coming alight and responsive to his touch.

He placed small, suckling kisses on her nipple, before releasing it and kissing slowly along her chest as he moved to the other.

"You're getting so wet, Granger," he growled as he laved at her skin with his tongue. "I can feel it on my stomach."

She rocked harder against him, feeling her slickness on her inner thighs. "Is there something else you want now, Draco?" she whispered helplessly into his hair.

"Take that off."

His words alone were enough to send shivers throughout her body. And he knew it, watching every bob of her throat and every stutter of her hands as her self-control began to slip.

"I want you to sit on my face."

War did this to people, Hermione realised as she slipped her knickers down her legs before flinging them aside. War sunk its fingers into time and promised to take it from them at any moment. And Malfoy knew this, perhaps better than anybody. Hermione crawled slowly up his chest, taking care not to touch his injuries, until she was kneeling over his head.

"Fuck," he said, his breath ghosting along her inner thighs, his head lifting up towards her. "Granger, please."

She whimpered softly as she lowered herself onto his face, feeling his tongue dart out against her folds. The feeling was pure rapture, and she had to clap her hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. He dragged his tongue up and down her opening, flicking her clit every time he swiped up. Her thighs shook and she braced herself against the headboard as he pushed his tongue inside her.

He began to fuck her with his tongue, sweeping it in and out of her, tilting his chin up so he could go deeper. In response, she ground hard against his face, unable to stop small breathy moans from escaping her lips.

"...taste… just like the last time..." His voice was muffled and slurred and she looked down to see his nose and cheeks glistening with her arousal. He stared back up at her as his tongue continued to thrust and twist inside of her, and she saw something predatory flash in his eyes just before he took her clit between his teeth and sucked.

She cried out, throwing her head back as her walls began to flutter around his tongue. "Draco," she moaned, angling her hips to allow his tongue to go even deeper. "I'm going to…"

"... going to… come– all over my mouth…" He was starting to ramble, his words falling erratically against her skin, his hips starting to rock up and down. "...taste every drop–"

She felt two of his fingers slip inside her, past the knuckles and to the hilt, and start to drum fast against her walls. At the same time, he took her clit fully into his mouth, tugging, sucking and working it until everything exploded.

She came hard with a long, shuddering moan. He pressed his tongue deep inside her, drawing her pleasure out and lapping languorously at her release as she pulsed around him.

When she glanced down at him, she found his face slick from her orgasm and his eyes as dark as the secret that hung between them.

She lifted herself off him, her mind still hazy as she straddled his hips again and leaned down to kiss him. She tasted herself on his lips, delving her tongue into his mouth to learn the depth of his longing. He kissed her back with fervour, his hands coming up to tightly grip her waist.

"Granger…" he started to say.

She shushed him and put a finger on his lips. "It's my turn."

He groaned softly at her words and looked at her in a way that made her chest pang. She arched against him, feeling his erection press against the small of her back. She raised her hips, barely sliding the opening of her cunt against his tip as she moved down his body. He bucked against her with a helpless grunt.

"Try not to move, Draco. You'll hurt yourself," she whispered, her mouth now hovering above his cock. He stared down at her, eyebrows drawn together, cheeks flushed, his still-wet lips parted.

She poked out her tongue and licked him in one long, smooth stroke. He gasped as he reached a hand down, curling his fingers into her hair. His breaths were beginning to fall harder, his chest heaving and falling in the corner of her eye. She continued to lick up and down, collecting the moisture at the top with the tip of her tongue before gradually coating him with it.

His right knee twitched, fingers tightening their grip on her hair as she took him in her mouth. A moan slipped free from his lips as she sank down on him, dragging the flat of her tongue along his length. He grabbed a fistful of sheets in his left hand, his knuckles straining.

He began to thrust into her mouth, as much as his injuries would allow, moaning loudly when he hit the back of her throat. The sound of his pleasure shot straight to her core, which was leaking with renewed arousal. And so she took him completely, sucking her cheeks in and playing with him using her tongue as she built a steady rhythm around his thrusts.

"Fuck… yes… Hermione…" he started to say, and when she glanced up at him, his head was thrown back and his eyes were screwed shut and it pleased her to give him even a moment of relief in this cruel, unending war.

She began to suck harder each time she enveloped him, coaxing his release with nothing but her lips and tongue.

"Hermione…" he moaned. "Hermione… wait…" His cock, now glistening wet, popped free from her mouth as she looked up at him.

"I want…" he panted, looking at her with a giddying mix of tenderness and need. "I want to finish inside you."

Nothing else mattered to Hermione at that moment. The edges of her world blurred and all of her senses honed in on giving him what he wanted, what he deserved after everything he had been through. She nodded and raised herself up on her knees, lining her entrance above his cock.

"Please, Hermione…" he said, brushing his thumb along her hip.

The sound that left both their mouths was transcendental as she took him inside her. He filled her completely, spreading her open and stretching her as she moulded herself around him. Her hips met his as she sank down and she began to ride his entire length, the slapping sounds of wet skin meeting and mingling with their cries of pleasure. He bucked up to meet her in turn, and they found their rhythm instantly, betraying what their bodies never forgot.

As he raised a hand to cup her face, he gazed at her like he had never seen such a perfect creature in all his life.

She moved more deeply against him, squeezing gratuitously around his cock every time she came down. He fucked her with concentration, and she watched as beads of sweat broke out on his chest, making him gleam like a Roman statue in the rain.

He was so beautiful like this, surrendered to his own passion but determined to give her everything she was giving him in equal measure. She rolled her hips against him, arching her back until she felt herself growing taut as a string.

His breathing grew erratic again and little words of encouragement tumbled from his lips as he tilted his hips and drove into her from a new, more exquisite angle.

"So perfect… yes, just like that…feels so fucking good…"

She was teetering on the edge now, and she fell forward, framing his head with her forearms, and let him fuck the orgasm out of her.

The second time was blinding. It burst from between her legs and flooded her brain, rolling like a tidal wave to the tips of her toes. His whole body tensed as he finally let himself come, filling her and coating her walls with his release just like he wanted.

She stayed on top of him for a while longer, feeling him soften inside her as they both caught their breaths. Then, she gingerly lifted herself off, exhaling softly as his cock slipped out of her. She curled carefully up by his right side, snaking an arm around his waist.

Before long, they fell into that familiar, squeezing silence again, the one that made it feel like he was slipping from her grasp. He looked out the window, staring vacantly into the black night.

"They're moving Dark Artefacts tomorrow, at an old warehouse in Liverpool," he said blankly. "I've told Potter. You'll need to take no less than five people."

She raised her head to look at him, brows furrowed in confusion. "Why are you telling me this?"

He tensed his jaw. "I'm giving you an out, Granger."

"What, why?" she asked, as her heart jerked in her chest.

"Because," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, now damp with sweat. "The Healers are making me stay here for at least another few days. And this mission shouldn't take more than two days, three tops. I'll make sure to be gone by the time you get back."

Hermione's chest contracted painfully at the emptiness in his voice. "Don't say that, Draco."

"Why not?" he scoffed, almost cruelly. "I've seen you, Granger. You can't bear to be in the same room with me if there are other people around, you won't even fucking look at me–"

She silenced him with a kiss, deep and slow and true. It was as much to shut out the truth of what he was saying, but also to tell him something new.

"I won't leave you, Draco," she whispered against his lips.

She knew the world had changed the moment the words left her. Changed into something new, unrecognizable, frightening and wonderful. But, as he threaded his fingers through hers, she knew they would face what was to come together, and so she lay her cheek against the hollow of his neck, listening to his heartbeat slow to a steady rhythm.