Notes: Thanks for all the support. This short story is definitely a spot of wicked fun for me.

WARNINGS: Mature sexual content (but not quite explicit... too many metaphors or something like that)

~*~ Four: A Cask of Poison Apples ~*~

An owl screeched in the distance and both their heads snapped up to search for the moon. Time had slipped away again and they had perhaps an hour or less until it reached its height. Hermione forced a shuddering breath into her lungs and looked back down at Tom.

He was staring at her with such painful longing that she nearly fractured under the weight of his emotion. Who was he to desire so her strongly if his ultimate motive was to drain the life from her? How dare he make her feel this way. How dare he give her even the barest hope of a reprieve.

"Why me, Tom? And be honest this time." It was more plea than question, some of her frantic anxiety leaking through at a last.

He raised a finger to trace her brow, then her cheek and finally the seal of her lips. Then he let his hand drop back to the wrinkled fabric of his jacket. "I told you. You were so desperate to be alone."

"But why does that matter?"

"I've spent my entire life alone," he admitted softly, eyes transforming to luminous jewels. "I have been alone so long I don't think I truly recall what it is like to share purpose, to share breath and vitality, with another."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "You were never intimate…?"

Tom shook his head, dark waves sliding across his brow. "You misunderstand. I have always been this… appealing, so I have never wanted for company in matters of intimacy. But I have never shared those moments with someone who could truly understand me. Someone clever and beautiful in equal measure. In short, someone like you." When he smiled up at her it was tarnished by a sadness she wasn't sure she could trust. "I saw through your façade, Hermione, and straight to your loneliness. It is the mirror image of mine. You set yourself apart because you see too much, because you are smarter and will not play such pedestrian games."

She wasn't entirely sure she agreed with that assessment of her personality, but it had given her further insight into Tom himself, which she supposed was helpful. And she had wanted to know, to understand the suffering that clung to him like a shroud. To have lived life utterly alone in this world and then to have suffered in the next. It was enough to pull at her heartstrings, to almost make her wish she could help him.

But she would not sacrifice herself for his mistakes, not even when she could understand the bitter sting of his loneliness, could see the toll of his choices written across his features. While they might be more alike than she cared to admit, he was not more valuable than her life, than the fight she had yet to wage at Harry's side against Voldemort.

So she merely pressed their lips together once more and prayed that time would keep slipping away. His hands traced the line of her bare spine and she shivered against him, driving her hips closer to his. She could feel the curve of his smile against her tingling lips.

"So may I have you, Lady Cobweb?"

Heat surged between her legs and Hermione gasped against his lips. This was the worst decision ever. But she needed more time. Her voice was a breathy moan as she replied, "Yes. Dear Godric, yes, Lord Raven."

In an instant their positions were reversed and she was staring up at the full orb of the moon, still marching steadily upward in the sable sky. His fingers burned tracks of fire and lightning as they slid up her thighs, pushing the ethereal fabric of her gown aside to reveal her black satin knickers. She hadn't been thinking about such an intimate encounter when she'd dressed, but she was suddenly glad of the choice, of the sophistication the lace-trimmed satin lent to the occasion. Tom's breath was hot on her thigh as he dipped his head toward the apex of her thighs. Then his mouth was on her, the thin black fabric the only barrier between them.

Hermione couldn't help the gasp that escaped, the tightening of her fingers woven into his ebony locks. Sweet Merlin. And he hadn't even truly touched her yet. When his fingers began to tug away that final scrap between his mouth and her heat, she could do nothing but raise her hips in compliance and unfettered yearning. Her breath was erratic, her heart pounding out a new beat entirely as she anticipated his next move.

She wasn't disappointed. She'd never imagined a sensation like this, a desire that could bear this much fruit in a mere moment. He became everything to her. The sigh on her lips was him. The rush of heat beneath her skin was him. The overwhelming ecstasy that tore through her and remade her from its scraps was him.

The moon dripped sparkling diamonds around them as she came apart beneath him, as she surrendered to every touch until there was no thinking. No remembering how much peril still surrounded her.

Because the dark boy with ebony hair and eyes of luminous sapphire had already stolen her soul.

When he finally did enter her and break that last barrier between them, she felt no pain. She'd been lost in the haze of their bliss for too long, her nerves trembling with fiery pleasure and that momentary discomfort was swallowed whole by the all-encompassing pleasure that wrung her dry and saturated her anew.

So she clung to him, this dark stranger in a forbidden grove under the perilous light of the moon. She burrowed into him until she could not tell them apart, until she was sure she would remember only the heady and impossible feeling of completion she experienced with him beside her, within her. They fell off pleasure's cliff more times than she could track, their bodies contorting to new and stimulating positions with seemingly infinite energy.

It was only when she began to shake so severely, her muscles no longer cooperating, that they fell back, side by side against his ravaged jacket and stared into the abyss of stars above.

Hermione's breath came in pants, which she tried and failed to control. Godric, what had they done? What had she done?

She turned her head to study Tom and sucked in a breath at what she found. He was completely undone, molten sapphire eyes wilder than the creatures of the forest, lips bruised and swollen and begging for her to return to them. His cheeks were flushed, his pale skin stained scarlet, and his neck and torso were littered with deep gouges and angry bite marks.

The work of her nails and teeth she realized, sucking in a sharp breath. She had written a novel of desire across his alabaster skin. It was grotesque. It made heat stir sharply within her, the throb between her legs growing once more.

"Don't worry," he murmured softly beside her, "I returned the favor."

Hermione looked down at her own bare flesh and gasped again. He was right. The marks were perhaps less angry than those littering his skin, but he'd repaid every scratch and bite with one of his own. They were each a battlefield of lust.

"I…" but she trailed off, unsure of what to say. She should apologize. But she wasn't sorry. What they had done… it had opened a door she hadn't known was sealed shut. Revealed a knowledge she was unwilling to surrender or forget. He had changed her and she could not find it in her to mind. At least not now.