Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger

Setting: medieval au (?)

Word Count: 1801

Tag: Princess!hermione, Knight!draco

"Good evening, my lady."

Hermione jumped from hovering over the parchment and her ink-soaked quill splattered over her white dress.

"Malfoy!" She wanted to come across angry, but the arched corner of his mouth whisked her annoyance away just for a split second, however, she caught the bruise along his jaw line in the next. She fought the urge to ground her teeth because she was not going to show him how much she cared.

Malfoy noticed the direction of disapproving eyes and rubbed over his chin absently. "I was distracted." He defended himself, and grumbled under his breath about weasels and red hair.

Hermione returned to her table, took the presser and rolled over the drying notes before setting the sheets of music back into the pile and at the centre of her table.

The candles around her study bounced off the bronze bedposts, the marble floors and the bronze of her hair. Gone were the intricate headdress and pins and jeweled flowers, her mane of hair was untamed, slightly damp from a bath so that the ends curled up, the rest bushy and wild. Draco moved forward, his eyes never leaving her delicate neck, the slender line of her cream shoulders, and the landscape of her body that seemed far too fragile for her own good. He glanced away before he could not stop himself and took off his gloves. "Have I disappointed you, my lady, for I had lost the match this afternoon?" He kept his head down, bowing to his superior, his ruler, his conqueror.

She hid a smile and waved a dismissive hand. "You could have done better with that trick I have spent countless mornings teaching you."

He managed a wolfish grin, "I must be sorely distracted from the lack of sleep to pay attention to your every minute detail."

"You got predictable," her thumbnail scratched at her lower lip; her own tell, unconsciously betraying her, "Unfurling and clutching your fingers around the handle twice before you strike?"

"It is not a tell-tale for an un-trained eye." He commented, shrugging.

A hint of betrayal flashed across his princess's eyes, "Hm, that did not explain why you lost out to Weasley."

Was he going to? Lord Weasley was gentle, caring and he would make a better companion for her: Hermione Riddle deserved a gentle soul, not a man as himself, whose intention of courting his precious daughter was to raise in the king's court at the first place. He had thought, by infatuated with his king's daughter, surely her father would understand where his loyalty belongs: however, he got more than he thought was enough. He wore the circle's armour, he was taught by the army's strongest, and he was in the princess's bedroom and her under his skin.

Draco cleared his throat, caught her hand so their right arms aligned. "Perhaps I would like to be trained properly some more."
She stared at their arms, pale against tanned skin, and her breath hitched; everything her father had taught her: only love those who give you power; love them back and drain theirs for yourself. This soldier, her father's ward no less, gave her power, but it was not the power King Riddle had taught her to collect: the most dangerous yet the ultimate strength: lo-

Both of her hands grabbed hold of him and she pulled him down from his towering height to where their foreheads touched, the tip of their noses brushed against and where their lips could connect. It had been two fortnights too long since she had done this, since his touch and his scent erased all the doubt, the fear and the obligations she had to struggle with in order to live with the fact that she was going to take the throne as she turned twenty in a month's time.
Sometimes, she could not look him in the eye because it was as if his grey orbs would speculate what had she and her father done to their enemies that day, and when he moved to touch her, she would be examining the cracks of her fingers for blood that he thought might have not been washed away. Salazar, if only the poor Weasley boy knew what she did in her spare time, besides training under Dolohov and Lestrange in potion making and duelling, was to sit at the high table while Tom Riddle plotted to take another kingdom and destroying even more lives. She never lifted a finger to hurt anyone, but she knew that time was near, and she already had the murder gene and his blood running through her veins.

And this boy, this brave knight-to-be, was in love with her. How foolish, how stupid, how pathetic, how cruel this must be how her own dose of salvation tasted, how her soul could be cleansed: by dragging the other's soul to hell with her.

"Are you leaving with me or not?" She spoke too quietly, but his lips moved along with her words that shot into his heart. He held on her brittle wrists and tugged her free from his hair; he could see her visibly deflate as she brought up the taboo topic that hung as thick as fog, clouding both of their judgement.

She was striking, Draco observed in awe because she was indeed a masterpiece: one long thin braid in the forest of her hair hovering over her white dress, her collarbones exposed to his eyes and his eyes only, her full mouth red from his stubble; but she was stubborn and once she had set her mind onto something, she could never let it go. "Why must you ask that of me? You know why we cannot." She could have his world and it would never be able to compete that of what she was entitled to. All he ever dared to hope for was to stand by her and within her full control to the realm in the palm of her hand.

"We cannot?" Suddenly, Hermione could see how her rope of redemption was slipping further from her fingers. Here he was, thinking that her plan to run away was his influence and was going to destroy her life. Her visions came in-and-out of focus as anything she had looked for was disappearing right then and there. "You are the one who refused."

"I did that for you, and I will do it until you come to your senses." What was she doing, thinking he was capable of allowing her to give up her birthright?

"I want you to do this for me. I am throwing away this life so we could be together." So I do not have to bare the weight of my father's cross.

"You are going to lose everything." He whispered harshly, fury flaring within him. To exchange for a flimsy future with an elopement that would put them in Riddle's way of rule?

She had so much more to lose: his gentle mother and the disgrace excuse of a father who failed at their commander's order; she was giving up her crown, to all the luxury in the world he could never afford, to toy with the idea that she need not have to worry whether there would be food on the battered table, or whether she would be able to have healthy children. All he could give her was the skill upon his sword and the vow that he was hers to dictate, hers for comfort, and hers to love. No matter how he tried, he could never reach up high enough for her.

Had they not known each other since birth, Hermione would have thought Draco was once again reconsidering, but the hardness of his jawline told her otherwise. He was convincing her, convincing himself that they should not even consider this. But she could never tell him why; she could never tell him she wanted to save her soul; if she did, she would not be the Hermione he was in love with, she would be the girl who was as cowardly as he had painted his own father to be, and she would become the illusion he would throw away. She knows why he was in love with her, and those were all the wrong things to be in love with her for.

But how could she tell him, once she took her father's place, they would be nothing more? Her father would only allow the union between her and the Potter boy from the land he had set his sight upon to conquer next. A powerful joining alliance, no more talks of romance or heart. And she would not love her Draco without the promise of being his completely, body, heart and soul. This was their only chance.

"I already lost the moment I saw you, Draco." He snapped his eyes closed; he could not bear to have his name upon her lips. He could never erase it, despite the fruitless attempts to do so.

His heart twisted and surrendered, he gathered his lady, the jewel numerous suitors craved, the heir his kingdom needed to survive on, into his arms and fastened his arms around her warm body. "So we depart." They matched, he marvelled, from head to toe, from one soul to the edge of the other. But he was not going to be the man to keep her from being great.

She had her hands on his face, brushing his hair from his eyes with trembling fingers. "So you can take me as your wife." That was the only way he could have her.

"So you take me as your husband." The the only way he wanted her to have him.

She wounded her arms around his strong shoulders to tell herself he was real. "So I could bear you blonde children."

His knees wanted to stagger back as he took the hit from something he could never have now, "So I could make our daughters princesses of our own kingdom," With the colour of her eyes, the twitch of her lips and the mischief of her smiles, "And our sons the bravest knights the land has ever known."

Her ring finger that bear the weight of the Riddle ring seemed lighter already; she could be at peace at long last she was sure she was going to break into relieved sobs. "So we start our lives together."

He would remember how bright her eyes shone when she thought he was agreeing with her.

He would look back and relive how she had sagged deeper into his arms and made him feel that he was needed.

He would anticipate the fury she would unleash when she realised he was gone in the coming dawn.

"I love you." So I will let you go.

A/N: ...