Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger
Word Count: 549 words
"I want to marry you," her words broke the dam, coaxed out by intoxication of his aftershave.
Her mouth snaked up from his naked back up the base of his head; she could almost see how every word left a trail of blood on his skin, like lead, like poison. "I want us to have each other at the dawn of this new era." The ears within the walls continued to listen, so she continued her lie.
"I want to hold onto you as we serve the Dark Lord and conquer the world for him. I want to help you rebuild the Malfoy house into its legacy. I want our heirs to continue the dynasty with our guidance. I want you, as my husband." Her lips rested against the crook of his throat so he would feel her every word.
His grip on the quill tightened and she watched his jaw lock. "So you do accept my proposal?"
"Yes, but stop hijacking mine." Her tongue obediently followed how he guided her, arching his neck like a bow, just the way she liked it. "I've waited for your Yes for five days." His voice was gruff, a bit put-out, almost. "I have the right to accuse that against you, love." His teeth intentionally grazed his lower lip in the way that would make her state.
"Then I'm guilty as charged." One more territorial kiss and it was time for the pre-engagement gift. Reaching into his briefs she had on, she took out the letter which had cost her two nights' worth of sleep and sanity.
He inhaled, covering the rustle of the frayed parchment, and went over the angles once, smudging the ink with his thumb. Her arms wrapping over his collarbone and her nose in his hair weren't meant to seduce, but how his body froze on its way to rest against hers, he might have taken it as such.
The rigid stance of his shoulders echoed her thought: Hope and despair, in one word stitched onto a piece of parchment. T
he brief brush of silver against her scarred arm robbed her of breath and she followed his now bare hand as he fitted his heirloom onto her ring finger; that particular burden felt just like the gravity of a blessed talisman.
"I love you, Draco Malfoy." It came out in an intoxicated rush. "Don't ask me how, don't ask me why. I just do." That feeling you get when you have ended up with something you never thought could have cradled in the palm of your hands, trembling, fearing it could get lost because you felt like you were never meant to own it at the first place: because she did crave it, because she did get attached, because the neatly messily heatedly compiled list of reasons why just kept growing ―
He crushed the parchment within his palm, turned so he could fold his arms around her waist and hitched her against him. Assurance and condemnation… Such a fine, fragile, treacherous line.
"You know I would do anything, Hermione Granger," he pressed his lips to the scar on her neck, "― to prove that I love you more."
Then his smile blinded her, crippled her, and carved open the other way.