Months of normalcy had made Hermione forget what it was like. The urge to kill was a relentless one. It was a tug in her gut, a weight on her chest, and a buzz in her ear. She spent the rest of the day replaying her moment of insanity as she was pampered like every bride-to-be was supposed to be. As she got her massage, she imagined if the pressure she felt in her back, neck, and shoulders was the same as what the imaginary version of Lucas felt as she choked him. Worse, probably, because he couldn't breathe. There mere thought of it was pure joy.

However, that wasn't all. Lucas had only been the trigger. Her thoughts weaved in and out, showing her flashes of others who had been killed because of her. The vagabond, for starters. Whereas Hermione had been panicked and in disbelief, the memory of it now calmed her. Recalling Rodolphus' death was better, though, because not only had she been in control, but Draco had been there with her. It had been a joint affair, and nothing had thrilled her more than seeing Draco embody Death and speed up his uncle's expiration date.

Hermione's only worry now was that she would lose control in front of her friends. Merlin forbid one of them became her next victim. It made her evening of pampering less soothing than it should have been, and she counted down the hours until her suitemates drank themselves silly into a dreamless sleep. The time ended up being well pass one in the morning, but regardless of the hour Hermione soundproofed her room and sat in front of the fireplace her room came with.

She always hated sticking her head in a fireplace as a Floo activated. It was the biggest headrush even though it only lasted a second, but at least she didn't want to throw up. It was partly mitigated by seeing Draco who was pacing in front of their fireplace at home. At first glance he looked disheveled —worry lines had imprinted deeply into his forehead, and all at once Hermione felt horribly guilty.

"Draco."

Draco stopped mid step, having been completely oblivious to the fireplace activating, and turned to it. He was concerned, that was for certain, but it was apparent that he was also irate.

"Bleeding hell, Hermione, what took you so long?" he demanded. "You can't send a message to me the way that you did and then take ages to Floo Call."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Hermione frowned. "It was a lot harder to get away from everyone than I originally thought. Please, don't be upset with me."

Draco was still angry, yes, but he couldn't stay so for long with Hermione looking like a scolded child. He eventually sighed as he ran a hand through his hair before sitting down in front of the fireplace. "Just tell me what happened today."

"I had a relapse; that's what happened today."

Any traces of Draco's anger disappeared then as he sat closer to the fireplace. "Did any of them see—?"

"No," Hermione answered quickly, "although I wouldn't be surprised if my personal attendant thinks me odd."

"Daphne got you a personal attendant?" Draco chuckled. "Leave it to her to the extra mile."

"Yes, well, I wish she hadn't," Hermione grumbled. "My insanity slipped because of him."

"Him?"

"Focus, Draco. The whole reason that I'm telling you this is because I thought that I killed him."

Draco's brief moment of jealousy was forgotten and his face fell. They had been doing so well and now… "Was that your only episode?"

"If only," she scoffed as she tiredly ran her hands over her face. "My hallucination was a catalyst. Now I can't stop. I keep seeing flashes of that vagabond's death —especially all of the blood that was left behind. Don't even talk about Rodolphus… Although I picture you more than anything," Hermione added, her mouth tilting into a grin. "That's it, isn't it? It's not killing in itself. It's the excitement that you get from it. It's—"

"—unadulterated pleasure," Draco finished. "That need to inflict pain…it can be hard to ignore." A blood rush, Draco recalled, and his thoughts immediately reflected on one Ronald Weasley and how badly he had wanted to smash him to pieces. A smile threatened to pass his lips, but bearing his witch in mind, he refrained.

"I can't afford to lose myself in front of them, Draco."

"No, you can't," he agreed, "and if you're slipping, then that means I won't be far behind. We're going to have to handle it sooner rather than later."

"How soon?"

Draco didn't answer her. Instead, he rose to his feet and held out his hand. Hermione's face disappeared from the fireplace, but moments later her whole figure was coming through. She placed her hand in his, and any anxiety she had been feeling before melted away. Draco kissed her forehead before gently pulling her along, a hum in his throat as he said merrily,

"Let's go hunting."

Years of prowling for victims had given the Malfoys a list of places where they could go "hunting." They were often poor towns with a high homelessness rate —easy prey for the couple who were now walking along the streets in the dead of night. Hand-in-hand Draco and Hermione went, smiling at each other every now and again as they rode the growing high that the prospect of a kill would bring. Draco was still humming too, giving the air an ominous feel that may have once scared Hermione, but it didn't now.

"Him," Hermione said suddenly. Draco stopped walking and looked at where she was gesturing with her head. There was an alley up ahead, and sitting at the start of it was a homeless man picking at his nails. "He looks hungry, Draco. We should feed him."

"Aren't you generous," Draco smiled as he held onto her hand tighter. They continued their walk along the deserted street until they had made their way to the alley and stepped into it so they were partly hidden in the shadows.

The homeless man looked up at each of them in turn, clearly bemused at their presence. After a few moments of a staring contest he gruffly shouted, "Wha' do yer want? I'm busy!"

"Yes, we can see that," Draco chuckled. "Nail cuticles are just filled with nutrients."

"Piss off."

"Oh, we can't do that," Hermione shook her head. "We came all this way to offer something to you."

"Yeah? Like wha'?"

"Food," she answered sweetly as she knelt down in front of him. "We have a big house with plenty of it. Come with us."

The homeless man's mouth had dropped. He stared at Hermione first —her inviting grin, wide, warm eyes and nod of her head in an effort to encourage him. Then he looked up at Draco —a stylish fellow for sure. He wore pants too decent for such a late hour, his hands hanging on the rim of his pockets, and a smile like the woman, but more mischievous.

He turned back to Hermione and licked his dry, cracked lips. "Yer mad."

"Only a little," Draco answered from above. He was shushed by the woman, a girlish giggle coming from her after before standing. It was only then did the poor degenerate realize that she was wearing a pink dress. No, no, a slip designed for sleeping.

"It'll be our good deed for the day if you came with us," she urged. "You can eat however much you like."

"I… I don't think—"

"You want to come with us," Draco interrupted with the directive. Hermione watched how quickly the homeless man relaxed at his words, and that's when she noticed Draco's wand in his hand. "You want to come with us. You're not scared."

"I want to come with you," the homeless man repeated as a glaze slipped over his eyes from the Imperius Curse. "I'm not scared.

"Good," Hermione happily replied. "Take my hand then."

The homeless man did just as Hermione said, and with his hand in hers, and her free hand in Draco's, they all disapparated. They landed in the middle of their living room, and before their guest could gasp in surprise and fear, Draco's wand was going again. Calmer and less afraid, Hermione was able to lead the homeless man into their kitchen. Draco sat him down and they talked while Hermione prepared a plate with leftovers from their refrigerator. It made her laugh really, how easily the Imperius Curse could lull someone into such a false sense of security. How it removed what was odd to replace it with the normal. It was a beautiful curse, truly.

The food was finished and Hermione set it down on the table. Basic desires trumped logic every time, and even with Draco's wand now stowed away, the homeless man no longer cared that he was with strangers. He was in a nice home. He was eating good food. He was having a better time than he had in years —maybe even in his life.

"Enjoying yourself?" Hermione asked as she leaned against the kitchen island. Across from her the homeless man was nearly finished with his plate, eagerly chomping along with occasional lip smacking.

"Oh yes, mam. Thank you, mam."

"Of course! We also mustn't forget dessert."

"There's dessert too?" His eyes lit up brightly as he put down his knife and fork. "What is it?"

"Red velvet," Draco said with a grin. He had just closed the refrigerator door and pulled out a glass case with a cake inside. "I hope you don't mind. The Missus likes cold cake."

"Chilled," Hermione corrected. "I like chilled cake."

"Tomato tomato," Draco rolled his eyes. He set the cake in the middle of the island and turned behind him to grab a large knife. Hermione began to gently tap her fingers on the countertop as she watched her soon-to-be husband walk around the counter's edge and to the homeless man's side. More specifically, she watched the tip of the knife he held as it tenderly raked the marble countertop.

"Tell me," Draco said at a half-whisper to their guest. He picked up the knife, a soft, skin-crawling shing reverberating in the air as he did so. Standing at the homeless man's side, Draco gestured to the cake with the knife's point. "How big of a slice do you want?"

"Fairly decent, if you don't mind."

"Sure."

Draco quickly brought the knife from one side of the man's neck clear across the other. His shock was palpable, and he fell off his chair onto the floor, a pool of blood streaming out and encircling his head.

"Are you having a slice, Draco?" Hermione asked as she grabbed another knife from their rack and lifting the cover off of the cake.

"Yes, I think so," he said as he set the bloodied knife on the table and sat down where the homeless man had been. "Is there any ice cream?"

"French Vanilla," she replied, taking it out of the freezer and setting it on the counter. "One scoop or two?"

"One, please."

Hermione cut two slices of cake and added a scoop of ice cream onto small plates. Red velvet and French vanilla were such a lovely dessert combination, and the happy couple sat in silence for a while as they ate and savored the sweetness.

"What else does Daphne have planned for your bachelorette party?" Draco asked once he licked his spoon clean. He was always a fast eater when it came to something sugary.

"I'm not sure. She refuses to tell me until the day of," Hermione sighed.

"And what time do you have to wake up in the morning?"

"Breakfast is at eight, so seven, I imagine. Why?"

"Just counting how many hours I have left to ravish you," Draco answered. Hermione looked up from her plate, the edges of her mouth curled up as she licked away remnants of cake and ice cream from her lips.

"Is that so? Well, we shouldn't waste the time then."

Hermione pushed away her plate and walked around the kitchen's island until she was face-to-face with her fiancé. It was from this side that she could fully see the homeless man on the ground, his mouth hanging open as his face bore all the horror in the world. The blood around him certainly added to the grotesque picture.

"Next time, let's not kill anyone in the house," Hermione said. "It makes such an awful mess."

"Anything you say, love," Draco agreed as he pulled her in by the waist and kissed her cheek. "Anything you say."

After a less than quiet night with his soon-to-be wife, Hermione went back to the spa hotel before the rest of the women could miss her. That had left Draco to deal with the mess.

Rigor mortis had clearly set in, and that often made disposing a body (magically or otherwise) rather difficult to do alone. That was why cleanup crews with the Ministry's mortuary division often employed three or more wizards and witches. Charms didn't cling to the dead as well as one would think. Death was dark. That was why dark magic often worked best when dealing with the macabre and, well, with death. The only way Draco was going to get rid of this body properly was going to be with another wand to strengthen the necessary charms. With a sigh, that meant he was going to have to owl his father.

When said man had entered the kitchen, Lucius wasn't surprised, per se, but clearly this was not the task that he thought his son needed his help with. The older Malfoy looked between the corpse on the floor and his son who was sitting on the other side of the kitchen island and having his morning breakfast.

"Why didn't your fiancée help you?"

"This requires time, and she had to go," Draco told him as he set down his knife and fork onto his plate. "She snuck out of her bachelorette party for this."

"Did she?" Lucius didn't hide his smile at that information and turned his gaze back to the dead man on the ground. "I find that interesting. While Miss Granger has taken to our way of life, I didn't think that she would seek out to kill someone so willingly."

"Hermione hasn't taken to anything," Draco rebutted, but on the inside he felt like a liar. Yes, she was on board with killing someone at their engagement party, but he wasn't about to tell his father that. Instead, he removed himself from his seat and took his dishes to the sink. "She was slipping, and we took care of it."

"Well done," his father praised. "The last thing that we need is for one of you to lose it in front of all of the wedding guests."

Draco scoffed. "Can you imagine? Hermione and I have been drama-free for months. I don't think either of us want to delve into it again."

Lucius didn't say anything, but yes, his son and the future Mrs. Malfoy had been living comfortably ever since their engagement party. Had it not been public knowledge that the pair had been arranged by the Ministry, one would think that they had organically come together. However, he couldn't deny that at least some form of true affection had to have blossomed. It took months for this murder to happen, and Lucius was straddling between what to feel. On the one hand, more time between kills meant less suspicion would be drawn, and on the other hand, Draco cared for a mudblood.

"Ready?"

Lucius was snapped from his inner thoughts to find Draco with his wand in his hand and standing at the head of the body.

"Where are we taking it?"

"Basement. Well, roughly three 'floors' below it," Draco amended with a cocky grin. "We can burn it to ash down there."

Author's note: My favorite part of this will 100% be the fact that Hermione and Draco just casually ate cake and ice cream with a dead body on the floor. That is all lol.

-WP