Post coital bliss had never felt so good, for both of them.

Even though the Malfoy heir hadn't actually penetrated her, it felt equally euphoric. Neither of them could remember when was the last time they had been pushed off their limits when it came to activities as such. When was the last time either of them had climaxed so quick, that it was actually embarrassing, not to mention, still, beatific. It was no secret that neither of them was a virgin; while Hermione had had her fair share of sexual situations with the youngest Weasley male, Draco could confirm his the equal delight he felt when he had shagged Pansy from when they were, what you would call, 'a thing'. Question was— why did this particular one moment felt endearing?

"Do you think that eating the apple was justified?" Draco suddenly breathed onto her skin. He was close, very close. She could almost feel his mouth pressed in a hard line against her shoulder blade. Hermione felt herself closing her eyes for a second, imagining his lips on her skin again, her lips parted and then, she sucked in a sharp breath. Opening her eyes, she realised that it was largely due to the fact that Draco's fingers were treading dangerous territory— down her shoulders towards her right breast. She couldn't see his face as he was behind her but she could almost feel him smiling against her neck. And then she remembered that he had asked her something.

"What?" she sounded dumb, it wasn't something she was used to.

"Did you think that eating the apple was justified? In the garden of Eden?" she sensed him sitting up, ever so softly, tracing the skin on the back with his slender fingers; drawing away absent mind patterns on her body. She made out a couple of wild waves from an ocean as he swooshed his fingers over her bare back, then, a heart, followed by another one, just below her neck. It was a teenage thing, being in love, doing silly things as such and then laughing about them when you grew up and remembered them. It was the circle of life. You gathered these small moments up in your brain and stored away the emotions you felt at that very moment in your heart, locked away, until you're ready to hold out the key in front of your face, wiggle it before your eyes and tempt this new person you've become— tempt them into opening that locked chamber once again after all those years and maybe, just maybe, become that person you once were, carefree, young, juvenile, happy and, above all, in love.

"Well?" he brought his lips up to her cheek and gave it a lingering kiss. In one swift motion, Draco gathered her effortlessly in his arms and spin her around on the bed so she was facing him. Eye to eye, brown to silver, love to destruction, hypnotic.

Draco kept his grip on her shoulders.

"Yes." she finally muttered, not knowing a sliver of what he was on about. For all she cared about, he could've asked her if the world revolved around the sun and she could've said, "No, you."

"I think that," she sat up, pulled a sheet over her naked body and turned to give him her full attention. Brushing a lock of platinum blond hair from his forehead, she sighed as she closed her eyes again. "That eating the apple was justified. Maybe perpetual happiness in the garden of Eden was extremely boring and I also think that Eve didn't want constant joy, nobody does. We all want pain to drive us, prolonged bliss seems too unreal, too monotonous. No, you want to the pain, too. I like to believe that she could tell something was fishy going on," at that they both broke into laughter, her heart clenched. "No! I am serious! Hear me out." Another laugh. "Nobody believes in everlasting ethereal, not even Eve." she kissed his cheek, slow and steady.

Draco regarded the witch before him with a new kind of feeling— a feeling that made his heart race; not in the panic kind of way he had been subjected to all his life but the loveable kind of way, like magic but it was internal; splashing a soft and subdued sectumsempra at his heart rather than emitting from the tip one's wand externally. It was so new, all of this stuff involving feelings and emotions. He couldn't help but contemplate when he would fuck up because that was, after all, inevitable. Having absolutely no experience of such behaviors to adopt to, Draco knew he would fuck up. His only hope was that Hermione won't let him, not in the first place. Truth be told, he didn't know why he had asked her that question. Considering that he had actually come in here to ask her about the book Snape gave him to decipher recommending who other than the brightest witch of her age? But he had wanted to know, he had wanted to know if she could make that connection he was hoping her to.

Could she see that she was indeed, Eve? - That the forbidden apple was the love they shared for each other? That he was the sin she had taken up her sleeve the moment she had enchanted him with their first kiss even after being told not to by so many people?

Guess even a mind as complex as Granger's could not take such a leap, but it didn't matter, for he knew and that was enough.

"Ah, but you're forgetting the temptation of sin, of breaking the rules, going against what you've been told all your life." Draco was satisfied to see the shock wash over her, so she hadn't considered that aspect after all. Why would she, though? She was a good girl, always went by the rules. Why bother with that part when you didn't even intend to do it in the first place?

"Go on." Hermione encouraged him. She pulled her bottom lip on between her teeth. Draco realised that she was leaning in, closer and closer.

"Well," the Slytherin started, "You can't overlook the aspect of it being a sin. God specifically told her not to eat it. He told her not to, even then, she did it. Do you know why?"

When she didn't speak he took the opportunity to stand up on his feet and stretch his soaring limbs over his head. It had indeed been a rather rough night for the both of them. He still couldn't believe what they had done just hours ago. Like he said, so new, all of this. "I'll give you a hint, it may or may not have something to do with you. Come to think of it, you and Eve have got quite much in common." with that, he went outside on nothing but his jeans hanging loose from his hips, it was a truly orgasmic sight.

Hermione sat dumbfounded.

Did he just walk out on her in the middle of the talk? He walked out on her, period? Just when she was about to throw a tantrum, he returned with a thick volume in his hands. His slender fingers securely wrapped around the spine. It was an old book with leather covers, a hardback like the ones used to have in their libraries in probably ancient medieval times. By the time he brought the item directly in her line of sight, she noticed that the yellowed pages were ready to fall any given moment now. It looked like it had been dipped into the Pacific Ocean and had been left there for a lifetime. The fact that it could still be recognized as a book was beyond her. The debate on Eve and the forbidden fruit was suddenly the last thing Hermione wanted to talk about. This new article before her seemed more intriguing than anything else she had laid her eyes upon for quite some time now. She knew that books likes this held the epitome of knowledge.

Guilty as charged, Hermione Granger was truly hungry for all the knowledge she could get her hands upon.

"What's this?" she sat up straighter and pulled Draco's shirt from under the pillow where it was half hidden. Putting it on, she tossed her curly hair to one side and grabbed the volume in her hands, her fingers running over the rough surface.

"A book." he said stupidly.

Hermione gave him a "are you serious" look.

This was the hardest part— how on earth did he start this conversation? Hermione had no idea of his frequent escapades to the Manor with McGonagall, she had no real idea of what was going on with him, of his mother's death, or the fact that his dark mark had made his life a living hell even when he had assured her that it was nothing? He hadn't actually lied to her but dear God, it felt even more horrible than actually lying. It was very important that he chose his words carefully. "Look Granger—"

"Oh so we're back to Granger now? Lovely." she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

So that wasn't the smartest thing to start with.

"Hermione," he dragged each perfect syllable, "You know that I've been..."

"Keeping secrets? Lying? Being oh so private? Yeah, I know, what next?" she supplied with such ease that it made him quiver. Dating Hermione Granger was an art itself, it was like a rough canvas that had to be smoothed out every now and then because you just couldn't find the heart to ruin the big picture. The end result was worth it, and that was why he still tried.

"It's for your own—" he tried.

"Good yes, I've heard that one too," she skimmed through the pages, roughly pushing her untamed curls behind her ears ever so often as she tried to make out even one word in the uncanny book. Her slim fingers flicked through the pages as she paid little to no mind what Draco was saying, her full focus now on the book.

"Look, if you keep on interrupting me I'm going take that back," Draco jerked his head slightly towards the book held tightly in her hands. At that, her eyes hardened.

Good, now we're on the same page.

"At least tell me you're not going to use it for a dark purpose." her eyes searched for sincerity in his, it was momentarily relief to know that she was not going to ask more questions, not now at least, he had been planning on telling her though, it was a good thing he could do it at his own pace. "Never again." he managed to tuck away the wild curl she had been struggling with minutes ago and pressed a tender kiss to her temple. No, he wasn't the naive boy now who he once was, the same boy who had cowardly followed behind the evil monster with only by a push from his father, no he was better than that. A year had changed him, and maybe, just maybe, it had to do a lot with the girl sitting before him, eyes soft and lips parted. "I just don't want you to get hurt." just when he thought that he couldn't fall more in love with her, she throws that at him. How did she expect him to function with so many new feelings swirling inside him like a whirlpool, a whirlpool of emotions?

"I won't." Draco promised her taking her hand in his, it fit in like clockwork. "Not if you help me deduce a thing or two about this book. A trusted source has recommended you next in command to do it, he was sure you won't disappoint." he gave her a small grin, "Yes Hermione, I'm talking about Snape, he lives in a portrait now. You can close your mouth now," on cue, he pushed her jaw up with the finger of her free hand, still keeping the other one in her own.

"Oh wow— I have so many questions, how did he—"

"I'm sure we can discuss that later baby, right now, however," Draco cast one glance at her face and then down to the book on her hand, "The key to saving the world all over again lies right in your hands so please, be a good girl and do your boyfriend a favour already." he could tell she had questions, bloody hell it was Hermione Granger, of course she would have a huge pile of them. The key, though, was to save them for later when they were tangled together in the comfort of the soft sheets and smiling like love sick teenagers, he'd tell her the whole story then, right now, they had bigger problems and Merlin knew how much time they had left up their sleeves. They had already been slacking so much.

"Okay, okay, okay, I have no idea what that mean and I'm hoping you're going to tell me soon enough so I don't look like a complete idiot in the aftermath." her eyes roamed the pages, she recognized the text to be Latin, but then, flicking open another page she realised that it was in Hebrew. Her suspicions were confirmed when she reached the end of the whole book only to find out that the entire book had been written in different languages. The text ranged from Latin to Hebrew to finally French, and this was only the ones she could barely make out given the smudged pages, the characters were difficult to highlight in such circumstances but she had done it, no wonder Snape had recommended her for the task, he had known she would've been able to do it. Hermione snatched the wand off the bedside table and hit the book with a soft blue light, it was a spell completely unknown to Draco, so he just sat there watching her, clearly impressed but not surprised, he knew she would've been the perfect one to take over such a tricky task.

"Look-" Hermione gasped, Draco looked down to see words starting to appear on one of the yellowed pages, standing bold as they rose from the pages only slightly, much like braille, you could touch the words and feel the text. She used the same spell on the next five pages, out of which, only three worked, the rest, still smudged and barely recognizable if not for the characters of the script alone. "Well, there must be a different spell for the rest of the pages,we got lucky on our first try, got to keep trying." she gave Draco an apologetic look and he could've sworn that he had wanted to knock some sense into her, couldn't she see that she had managed to get three pages in readable condition?!

Not even McGonagall had done that!

"What do the three pages say? You got any idea?" Draco leaned over her shoulder as be tried to get a better look at the words, not even getting one bit. Each page had one small paragraph on either sides, leaving the rest of the page completely blank. It seemed to be some kind of instruction set given that they had been numbered, that much he could tell.

"Grab my book from the shelf outside. It says Advanced Latin Learning. I bought it years ago, didn't actually go through the full thing, might come in handy now." as she had instructed, Draco reflected accordingly. Seconds later, he came back with another thick book which Hermione practically yanked out of his embrace, flipping through the pages and occasionally coughing thanks to the dust accumulated over it past all these years.

"Scourgify." Draco pointed his wand at the book.

"Thanks, ugh, love you." she pouted and Draco chuckled.

Her eyes went back to the two books again. "Right, so let's do this. I'm sure we can decipher at least one of these, considering that these are six on total, one on either side of the page, let's just pick the smallest one, that way we can use less characters and create less hassle." she turned to Draco who only held up his hands, "You're the expert, Ms Granger."

With a nod of affirmation, Hermione picked the paragraph on the second page's back side. It had only three lines, was honestly the best option out of the rather longer ones on the other pages. The book she had ordered Draco to bring served as a dictionary to translate each word, took her some time but she knew that she was getting there. Although the words didn't form one coherent sentence, she still wrote the words in English above the text for each word, given the fact that sentence structuring would be different in Latin than in English due to differences in tenses and words themselves.

It was only when she crossed out the last word, she tried to put together to words on a rational sentence, with Draco leaning behind her.

"This doesn't make any sens—" but Draco had already snatched the quill from her hands and scribbled the words himself. He wanted to formulate a sentence so bad right now, now that he knew that at least he wasn't treading in open waters for nothing now, it had to make sense, some kind of sense, after all.

Draco pressed the quill to the book again.

I've done my work, I've done my work, I've done my work.

The same line had been repeated thrice, thus, not taking much time to be deducted but what did it mean?

"Hermione." he hissed, his hands freezing, "You missed one last word." Hermione followed his gaze down to spot where he was staring. A simple word to the eyes but no meaning in the books.

"I couldn't find that in the book. Why? What is it?" when he didn't speak for a while, Hermione started to panic. What was so bad about this? Had she missed something?

"Draco?" but he wasn't listening, his eyes were trained on that one word at the end of the page, a signing off, a ritual, a tradition.

He remembered he had done the same.

"That's because it's not a word." he stated, voice shaking as the book dropped from his hands and suddenly, he felt lightheaded, his world was spinning and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was wait for the spinning giddiness to either envelope him in its embrace or pray for it to stop, be didn't know which one was better. He made out Hermione screaming his name in the background and trying to shake him out off this limbo state he was pushed into but he didn't know if it was working.

Hermione had now picked up the book and judging by the look on her face, he knew that she had read the word he had scribbled right over the foreign text.

Dolohov.

He could recognize that secret name anywhere, no matter what text had he used.

It wasn't just a plain book no, it was the journal of the death eaters themselves. One that Bellatrix had kept all these years, he remembered it now, how she used to torture each individual and to express her feelings of gratitude to the Dark lord, keep a journal to have him updated on what every death eater was doing in order to improve her loyalty towards the dark lord, how many people they killed, how many did they plan on killing in the coming days, how many children and women specifically killed.

And what did Dolohov mean by this? Had he been referring to killing people too?

Draco remembered being hit by a half hitted stupefy when he was a young teen just because he had decided to peer into the journal for curiosity's sake. His mother had come in between the mad woman and him just in time to take half the blow, how he remembered now.

The journal had severed as a tool to trigger his memory, the same memory his mother had washed away many years ago.

Oh what was he going to do now?

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