Down in the lobby Draco was leaning against the pillar nearest the gigantic front entrance, playing with the military watch again. In the darkness of the bleak interior the green light shone on his pointy features below his hood. His eyes looked beady as they flickered between the various dials and settings. He'd put on some kind of thin black jacket, still somehow looking sharp and proper, and the huge hood was pulled right up over his platinum hair.

I'd ran back to my room and put on tall silver boots and the insane jacket Narcissa had gifted me. When I reached the final staircase he looked up briefly with irritation to take in my boots hitting the floor as I ran to him. I threw my arms around his waste, pulling him off balance as he struggled to maintain his focus on the watch face.

I pulled his face down and kissed him passionately, breaking his efforts to stay composed, "Wow, okay-" he said between kisses and gave in to the sentiment. He eventually held me away from him by my shoulders, staring at my face, "You're not too fucked up, right? Because we can just stay inside-"

"No!" I griped, "Let's go out, it's so lovely. I adore thunderstorms." I spun on the spot in the extravagant coat and pulled him to the doorway.

Outside the rain pattered against newly formed leaves and the weathered stones of low garden walls. The acrid scent of new life and rich soil sweltered around us as we walked down the path into the gardens. Draco had his hands in his pockets the entire time, looking fairly disgusted by the mud he had to step in to follow me around the forgotten gardens and hedges. I paused many times to touch dripping plants and point out their properties to him, eager to share my knowledge. He looked uninterested as he nodded his head in silent observation.

I was entirely enthralled by the landscape that had been so long abandoned. The gardens went on seemingly exponentially and consisted of fruit bearing trees, blossoming varieties of cutting flowers, unique specimens, trimmed hedges, magical and natural plants galore.

The potential was unmatched. "I'll revitalize it all. Nibbles and I, we can work out here every season until it's glorious again," I mused as I stopped to smell a huge yellow flower that was blossoming and he smiled feebly. Several times as we walked I tugged his face to mine for rainy, wet kisses. He was agreeable to it, and I would feel his hands pull me closer by my waste, our hoods hanging between us and dropping water into our hair.

We'd been wandering around for a good forty minutes, now in the orchards when he cleared his throat. I turned to look at him, and he pressed a flask into my hands, "We need to talk about something...serious, Madeleine. Just take some shots first, we can go sit in the old wellhouse and review things."

I analyzed the silver container in my hands in confusion. The rain dripped from both of our hoods as I met his pale gaze, his eyes appeared gray in the stormy day. His face gave away that he was devastated about whatever he needed to bring up. "What's going on?" I asked, my heart picking up speed in a familiar, queasy way.

His lips were pressed into a thin line and he encouraged my hand towards my face, "Everything is alright, a few things just need to change going forward. Now that you know what you know, you've gained back some...independence."

I took a gulp of gin not breaking eye contact and held it out to him. He took one too and gave it straight back to me, shoving it into my chest harshly, "For once, I don't think you should be shy with this." Then he was walking out of the gardens and I tagged along feeling suddenly numb. As the hedges cleared I noticed a decrepit stone building ahead in the field. It was tall and thin, resembling the corner tower of a castle laying detached and upright. There was an arched opening in the front of it that was at least two stories tall, and he drifted listlessly inside to the center where lay ancient looking bricks in a circular orientation with a hole in the middle. Icy, pungent smelling air wafted out of the opening in the ground that was apparently quite deep.

With the covering of the well house in the cavernous room, I pulled my hood off and stared down the ambiguous void. Draco's hand clamped down onto my bent elbow as if he didn't trust me not to topple in head first, which was a fair assumption considering I was now staggering slightly from the gin he'd encouraged me to consume on the walk there.

He encouraged me into a sitting position on the floor of soft hay, with our backs to the stones. We both stared out at the field before us where random, massive trees covered in moss drank in the rain and long strands of unkempt grass swayed.

He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him, the smell of pine infusing the air around us. He sighed heavily and I felt his breath on my cheek, "My mother and I feel it is not safe for you at the Manor given recent events. It was my father that procured the attack on you, and he won't stop there. He thinks you're not obedient or useful and I can't always be here to protect you."

I watched the rain drops dripping from the bricks around the opening to the well house, suddenly aching with a recognizable feeling of rejection, "So...where are you sending me? You're coming wit' me, right?" My voice came out sounding so much more wounded than I intended and he leaned his head against mine as we watched the rain come down. His hair was flopping slightly into my vision over my forehead and I brushed it away trying not to cry.

"No, I can't. You'll be safer acting as an informant amongst the resistance. It will show my father that you are a strong ally, and it will keep you two apart until this war is over." He swallowed loudly, "Potter is weak; he'll take you in without asking questions and keep you safe. It's already arranged; you for Zabini. A trade. He's of the impression you're a prisoner here."

I felt tears springing into my eyes uncontrollably, and the torment in my next words went unmasked, "I don' want to go, Draco. I want to stay wit' you." I tugged at his shirt through his open jacket as the panic engulfed me. I heard myself begin to pant as my lungs jutted angrily in my rib cage.

He nodded, "That's perfect. That's all I need to know. We just have to trust each other and stay alive. When it's over you can come back here." I turned into his neck, sobbing now. We had only begun to understand each other. The love and the trust had finally been coming back.

"I hope you don't think that I'm abandoning you," He whispered.

I shook my head and took in a deep, unsteady breath against his hood, "I don' think dat'. When-when? When are you trading me?" My fingers were so tangled in his sweater that it was tugging him into me. A frog leapt across the opening of the well house without any sense of our nearby tragedy.

His voice was groggy as he spoke through a tight throat, "You have to leave in two days."

"I cannot do dis." My breathing was now ragged as I sat up away from him and tugged my knees to my chest, trying to focus on a mossy planetree a short distance away, "I can't do dis without you."

He wiped a few straying tears away from his eyes with his palm, "Sure you can, Madeleine. You'll still see me, to report on him every week." There was a long pause in the discussion as he waited for me to calm down.

"He's suspicious, so you need to be resourceful around him. Just don't fucking sleep with him." The last sentence changed his entire voice. It came out harsh, resentful and threateningly.

My head rotated dramatically in his direction and we stared at each other's despaired faces for a moment. "You really think I would?" I asked spitefully, "Tell me now, was der ever a 'istory between 'arry and I?" The question hung in the humid air as Draco inhaled rapidly and his face hardened. He glared at his fingers in his lap, rotating his silver rings.

"Not that I know of. But I am aware that he was attempting to materialize a relationship. Allowing such a transpiration is ill-advised; you know I won't be forgiving. It would give me little choice but to do something...drastic." The words were biting now and I saw a glimpse of his obliviated self; possessive, cruel, and impatient. His bright blue eyes had a familiar dangerous gleam and his nose was pulled up in a sneer. He was incredibly effected by Harry Potter that much was clear. The hatred seeped off of him in invisible waves.

I gaped, opening and closing my mouth as I struggled to chose my words with intricacy. He continued to stare into his lap, fuming about some faraway concept. Suddenly I spoke without constraint, "I love you too, Draco. You 'ave nothing to worry about wit' 'arry Potter."

I shut my eyes harshly in immediate embarrassment. I thought surely my heart had just dissolved in my body from the elation and terror of saying the massive statement out loud. I flickered my eyes everywhere as I made my way up to his in horror. I hadn't expected to say it just then my but my body had literally expelled the words against my will.

"Do you mean that?" He asked through hooded eyes, his face looked empty. He was watching me like a predator, searching for signs of weakness.

I was trembling now, "Yes. I do." I reached for his hand in his lap.

He was evaluating my expression and it felt more like an interrogation all of a sudden. There was no sound save for the clinking and splattering of rain and wind. "You've never said that before," he admitted finally.

"Well...I'm saying it now. I love you." I found enough confidence to say it gracefully and my hand drifted up to his neck as I leaned in and kissed him. He smiled against my lips and his arms pulled me into him. We kissed with rough passion as it escalated rapidly, now feeling more connected to each other than ever before.

He pushed my jacket down and I shook my arms out of it. "It's freezing," I whispered between kisses, not sure of how far we were really going to go in a well house in May.

"Don't worry, I'll warm you up," he said in a deep voice, ripping his own jacket off. He reached both hands behind his head and tore the white hoodie off in one move and my eyes glued themselves to his fit physique. He laughed lightly, "You always stare at me like that."

I bit my lip as I pulled him back into my arms. "Is it really dat shocking?" I whispered against his lips. He started bunching my dress up, his fingers were wild under the fabric as he gathered the garment and pulled away from my face to lift it off. I let him guide my arms up and suddenly I was naked in the hay in just panties, feeling timid in the opening of the well house.

He shoved me back by pressing his hand against my chest and pushing hard. I fell into the hay as he pulled off his joggers and then pressed himself over me, between my legs. He hovered to admire my chest with raised brows. "I'm really going to miss these," he teased in a breathy voice.

My fingers were impatiently pulling at his boxers, "I want you right now." He had stooped to kiss along my neck and jaw line when my hand made it's way into the black boxers and I stroked him sensually. He began to shake over me and moan into my neck. I was throbbing so hard I couldn't focus on anything else but getting him inside of me.

He seemed to be on the same page; his hand made it's way down and pulled the fabric down. His fingers shoved my panties aside as he teased my clit. My head rolled to the side in ecstasy, hardly noticing that the frog from earlier had taken shelter within the well house opening mere feet away from us. It watched with juvenile understanding of the debauchery before it.

Then he was pulling away from me and his kisses trailed between my breasts. His spikey hair was over my belly button and his fingers had looped themselves around either side of my panties when I realized what he was doing. "Non!" I yelped shyly, pulling at his hair.

He looked up at me with hazy eyes, "You're not even going to let me try?"

"Try?" I panted in bewilderment, "'ave you never gone down before?"

He smirked, "You're the only girl I've ever been with. So no, not yet." My heart was fluttering with anxiety. The fact that he'd never done it before almost made it worse.

"I don' think you'll like et," I murmured nervously.

"I'll decide that," he said, waiting for me to give in to his typical demanding stare. I laid my head back into the hay submissively and stared at the ceiling several meters above me. There were ropes and pulley's dangling there from another era. I tried to focus on how they were connected to each other as he slid my final piece of clothing off. My back arched instinctively as he kissed down the inside of my leg, gripping both of my thighs tightly and I shut my eyes trying to ignore my humiliation.

His lips reached my core and I bit my lip still wincing as he began using his tongue in ways that seemed particularly practiced. It couldn't be that he'd never done it before and I let a moan slip that I instantly regretted. I opened my eyes to look at the frog and concentrate on the fact that I was letting him do it as practically a favor. It wasn't as though he would have another chance to do it unless we were suddenly unfaithful to each other.

He was now using his fingers and his tongue and I cried out as ripples of sensations shot through my body. I tugged at his long hair and he finally came back to me. He kissed me again, pushing his nose into mine and I felt him entering into my soaking core without hesitation. We both groaned, now quite familiar with the rhythm of each other's bodies. The rain had picked up it's intensity, now a seemingly solid sheet of downpour that was misting into the well house. Our naked forms entwined erotically and hungrily for the other.

He pulled sharply on my golden hair so my head would move to the side and kissed my neck and shoulder. "Say it again," he begged.

"I love you, Draco," I answered in a throaty voice, digging my nails into his back and with that he dug harder and deeper. He found my face again and we jammed our tongue's against each others. When I couldn't contain my peak anymore I cried out loud, suddenly aware that I was no longer under the pregnancy protection charm and that we were being reckless. He came with me as he always did, kissing me painfully hard.

Under the safety of the well house we came to a stop, naked and wild in the hay. The bullfrog by the doorway croaked awkwardly as though it felt violated by what it had witnessed. He kissed my forehead and we closed our eyes, feeling overwhelmed by the love between us.