Forty-One
Day: 1539; Hour: 17
It started in the library, after he had awoken and showered, and the look on his face promised a lot more than conversation. She knows he won't talk about it, that he needs to disappear, for whatever happened to stop flashing through his mind. She knows he needs her, and so she does the one thing she's learned from him that can make her forget an entire world.
She had returned the fire of his kisses, but hadn't allowed her hands to move. His smirk proved he could see through her stillness and silence, and that he knew the half-hooded look on her flushed face too well to be fooled. His body became a weapon; his hard-earned knowledge of hers formed a solid plan. She had dug her fingers into her hips when he finally buried his face between her thighs, breaking silence. When she finally broke stillness, reaching forward to grab his head, to push, and thrust, and have him where she needed him most, it still felt like she won.
When he had stood, bunching her skirt up around her hips and grinding himself against her on moans, she had pushed his hands away and led him toward his bedroom. Well, to a series of hallways before getting completely lost, and he had snorted at her and led her there himself. He was confused, in the space of his bed, when she refused the arch of his hips and his determined steering of her body.
She doesn't know if there is a spot on his body that her hands or mouth do not travel across, burning paths and exploring each inch of him. She discovers new things, like his strange fondness for her tongue between his fingers, and that he hates her touching the back of his knee. He's ticklish when she brushes her lips over his hipbone, curls his toes with her hot breath on his perineum, and gurgles spit when she hums around him. He squirms in a good way when she sucks right beneath his bellybutton, and in a bad way when she kisses the corner between his arm and chest.
She greets all the places she knows cause a reaction, and she meets every new place too. She memorizes the sounds and movements he makes, and tells him she will have to do it again soon to remember them all. She pushes him away and down every time he tries to regain control. Whenever his questing hands are too close to distracting her, she pushes them away too.
She barely manages to escape one time, her senses coming back a second after he has rolled them over. She grabs her wand in determination, and has him on his back with his hands bound to the headboard before he can blink twice. She had been surprised at her own audacity, the fuel of her determination to break him like he had her so many times, and had stared at him in embarrassment for several seconds. It was the hard glint in his eyes, the hitch of his eyebrow, and the short-lived smirk that had her dropping her wand. She had fondled herself as retribution, an inch above him while she blushed and they glared at one another.
He made promises, growled and hissed, and then desperate. He promised her how good he would make it for her, how hard she would get off, how loud she would scream, how crooked she would walk. Then, he promised her days of being trapped in his bed, he told her she better hope he didn't break through the ropes, he promised revenge, and brinks of insanity. She touched, squeezed, sucked, bit, licked until he couldn't form his promises anymore. Until he could only force a word or two out between the sounds of his pleasure, the wild bucking of his hips, the rattle of the headboard as he fought to break his binds.
Finally, finally, finally, his body shaking under hers, the rough, carnal growling broke from his throat to form words. "Please. Please, Hermione."
He sounds as pained as he does desperate, and she grins triumphantly. She had been afraid she wouldn't be able to make him do it. She had been fearing some embarrassing situation, where she would be forced to untie him and let him have at it, because there was no way he could want her enough to beg. She had been imagining a roll of his eyes, or laughing, or that look he gives her when she says something that doesn't match up with the level of her intelligence.
His words repeat over and over in her head. The tone of his voice, the fierce look on his face, the bounce of his body, his fingers curling into fists. All of it, for her. She drove him to this point of incoherency, of crazed lust, of abandon. She's seen him lose control, has made him lose it, but this is different. There is something strong and comforting, powerful and beautiful about it.
Five. Just five times she sinks him into the heat of her, and he's screaming his release. His face is twisted into both pain and pleasure, and the flying, joyful feel of her win begins to cloud into guilt. She stills, gnawing her lip at the contorted face in front of her, slow to relax. She's almost afraid to take him out of his binds, but she does, his arms hitting the bed lifelessly. She grows more worried the longer his body twitches and trembles, and his eyes stay shut.
"Fuck." All rasp, like his voice was dragged over gravel.
"Are...you okay?" She flinches at the smallness of her voice.
One grey eye opens to the world, meeting hers, and the other flutters open as she bites harder on her lip. "You're going to pay for that."
"I'm sorry, I-"
An eyebrow comes up, and his eyes are still dark on hers. "Oh, now you're sorry?"
She looks down at her wringing hands on top of his stomach. "I don't know why I did that. Well, I-"
"You know exactly why you did it." She looks up at the amusement in his voice. "Did you like hearing me beg, Granger?"
She sniffs, raising her nose at him. "I can see why you like for me to so often."
He laughs, low and hoarse, and it almost sounds like a cough. "Why the hell do you look so upset?"
"I don't look upset," she snaps, defensive because it's easier. "You looked like you were in pain, and I didn't mean for tha-"
"That's the first time anyone's ever done that to me," he confesses, and her eyes flash to his. "Next time I know not to let myself hold out so long."
He looks at her at like she's ridiculous, and he reaches up to draw circles above her knees. It is a bit ridiculous to be worried, she thinks. After all, it had been his choice, hadn't it? At any time he could have given in and did what he must have known she wanted. If he refused to, he could have told her no. She laughs at the thought of being such a wanton hussy he would have had to tell her no to stop her efforts. She imagines Draco with an affronted look, covering himself indignantly, and laughs harder.
She opens her eyes when he grabs her hands from his stomach, pulling her forward until she's lying on top of him. His eyebrows are raised, his expression curious as he drops her hands to plunge his fingers into her hair. He stares at her grinning mouth until her laughter fades, and then meets her eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He hums, a hand dropping to ghost down the curve of her back, and smack her bum. "That was very naughty, Granger. I was almost certain you would give up, but you proved a formidable opponent. I didn't know you had it in you. All the same, battle and not the war, hm? I believe I promised revenge."
"Dish best served cold?" she asks weakly, and his grin is wolfish.
"Well, I could always get ice."
Day: 1540; Hour: 11
Colin pulls as tight and hard as a wall when she rounds the corner, and hops to the side like he was riding a pogo stick when he looks at her. A black folder is clutched tightly to his chest, two Aurors flanking him. "Hey."
"Hey, Hermione. How are you?" He's breathless and afraid, and she doesn't know why.
She looks at his immaculate robes, the comb lines in his hair, and the white knuckles against the darkness of the folder. "I'm well. How are you?"
She clears her throat when the question comes out like an accusation, glancing up at the stiff faces of the Aurors. It had been a long time since she had seen Colin, but that's the way it went. There are people she sees almost constantly, and there are others she wouldn't see in a year. At the start of the war, no one really knew anyone's abilities, and the teams were picked at random from the list of available people. When mission leaders grew to know the fighters inside those names, they picked the people they liked, that fought well, and fit the mission. Hermione finds herself paired with a lot of the same people, and when she isn't, it was because they are busy on other missions.
She hadn't worked with Colin more than a dozen times before he disappeared into obscurity. Now, staring at his professional appearance and his escorts, she thinks there might be more to it than the choices of mission leaders.
"I've been fine. Started a project, taking photographs of the war. No action shots...I was in safe houses, and with the healing team for most of them. I want to put on a gallery, but I need approval."
"Oh." It makes sense – Colin always loved his face behind a camera. The presence of the Aurors means he has to be escorted, which can only mean that he's no longer a Phoenix. She doesn't know how she feels about this.
"I... When I was fighting... There are these moments that no one thinks about. They're not as important as the battle. But there are these moments in the safe houses, when people sit around and remember. Or when they forget, and they laugh. I have this..."
She steps back as he fumbles with his folders, two of them dropping to the floor when he tries to open one. He mutters something to himself, shoving the folder out at her. She takes it slowly, glancing at the Aurors, then lowers her eyes to the pages of photographs.
There's faces of preparation, and anger, or fear – it's the time before a mission, she thinks, and feels the deadly quiet in her head that always accompanies it. There's another, an injured line of bodies, and a Healer running panicked, shirt wet with one, five, a dozen different blood types. Two members of the Order, wounded, dragging one another across a field.
"This, uh...this one shot, of a bread basket passing hand to hand of strangers. There's one piece left for the last two, and the guy splits it and gives the other half to the stranger next to him, without a thought."
Mad-Eye with his head down, and someone else's Phoenix band waving in the wind through his fingers.
Colin shifts, taps the edge of the folder in her grasp, and then his hand hovers there. "And that's a moment. You know, people...people should remember them."
Hermione blinks at him, rapidly, surprised at the gloss over her eyes. She doesn't like that he left the Order, but she doesn't hold it against him. He's still there in his own way, in the only way he can handle being there. And people should remember, and know, and see. This is who we were. And the ones that weren't there should know it too. They should know that it had always been far more than colors blasting across the sky. Some part of them should latch on, should somehow get it when they looked at the picture of Moody. Should think, oh. Oh, this is what they gave.
"Thirty seconds," the Auror to her left tells her instead of Colin, sliding his watch back into his pocket.
She never noticed it until Lavender pointed it out the last time they had seen one another. If I'm standing there with an Auror and a Phoenix, even if one of them is talking to both of us, they only look at the other person. Like whoever doesn't fight in the war isn't worthy for eye contact or something. I wanted to hit him with my fake arm. And I mean, where it counts, Hermione. She doesn't know why that is. Respect, arrogance, or some subconscious showing of camaraderie. Maybe it stems from that deep part of herself that tries to force her to think of dark things when she closes her eyes. That tells her the only people who will ever understand are the one who fight with her. In a way, the knowledge of that draws her closer to a stranger than it does to Colin, a man she knows.
That is the breaking of the bread, the Healer as frantic as they would be if it were their own child. It's a common, unbreakable link between all those who had ever seen war. They know the haunted look sweeping your face as clearly as they know their own. And when you know, without a doubt, that the person in front of you knows the deepest, darkest, ugliest things about you because they recognize it in themselves – they don't really feel like strangers anymore. No one's that much of a stranger when you run the risk of dying beside them every day.
"Can I see them some time?" she asks, as Colin pulls the folder from her fingers.
His nervous, panicked face breaks into a smile. "Yeah, definitely. I would like to share them with everyone."
Hermione nods, stepping further to the side. "Good luck."
"Thanks... And hey, Hermione? Take care of yourself."
"Yes. You too."
Day: 1540; Hour: 13
"Aren't you hot with that sweater on?" It is an insanely hot day for the end of August.
He ignores her, because the answer is obvious, even if she didn't get it. Headquarters allows them Cooling Charms, which meant all the rooms were comfortable. They weren't cold, though, and looking at him in a sweater is making her hot. She thinks maybe it's a cold inside himself that he can't shake. There's darkness smudged under his eyes, and she doesn't know if he's been sleeping at all. Their conversations have been forced, or he just stays quiet until she fades into it.
"You know what?"
He stops chewing his bagel for a second, his eyes lifting from the book and sweeping across the room. As if looking for someone or something to interrupt whatever she is about to say. He sighs, resuming his chewing and returns his eyes to his book.
"I know a lot of things, Granger. I'm fairly sure whatever is about to come out of your mouth isn't going to be worth remembering."
She narrows her eyes at him, swallowing her own bite. "Maybe it will blow your mind."
He raises an eyebrow, glancing at her, and looks at her like he'd sooner worship house-elves than believe that. "The explosion of worthless knowledge you're about to bestow?"
"Well, now that you're so ungrateful, you'll never get to know."
"I'm mourning the loss of my life revelations." He likes to fold the halves of his bagel into its own half, which she finds odd. She wonders if it's to limit the horrifying possibility of getting cream cheese on his face.
The only sound in the room is of pages turning, Hermione finding her bagel inadequate now that she is reading about some glorious feast. She wants chicken, steak, and fish. She wants potatoes, and watermelon, and shrimp. She wrinkles her nose when she things logically about combining the last three.
She glances at Draco, clearing her throat, and might imagine the smile that blinks on his face. "Have you ever seen what mayonnaise – like a little left over on a plate – looks like after sitting there for hours?"
He turns his head toward her, eyebrows up, and takes another bite from his bagel. He chews slowly, and the left corner of his mouth turns up just a fraction. He looks beyond smug. He looks like every thing he believes just came into truth in front of him.
She glares at him and he swings his eyes back to his book, the smirk growing, not bothering to answer her.
Day: 1541; Hour: 8
"Didn't you get some salve for that?"
Draco shifts in his seat at the edge of the bed, pulling up the zip of his pants, and glances back at her over his bruised shoulder. "There's nothing in stock that can be used if you're not dying, or coming close to it."
She stretches out across his bed, yawning with the pleasant pull on her muscles. She had thought he left yesterday, until she woke up in the middle of the night to his back on the other side of the bed. She had contemplated moving over toward him, but was back asleep before she could move a finger.
"How did you get that anyway?" she asks, and he stiffens.
She doesn't think he'll tell her, and she's right, judging by the way he ignores her beyond the glare he throws over his shoulder. A warning, she thinks, and she frowns, pushing her foot against the top of his bum. He reaches behind him, grabbing her foot, and then releases it quickly on her gasp. He turns to look at her, but she's too concentrated on the hand hovering over her foot.
"What ha-" She cuts off with realization at the dark bruise circling his entire wrist.
"What?" He pulls the blankets up to expose her feet, and she pulls them back. She hates when people look at her feet. Not that there's anything wrong with hers, but feet are ugly in general.
"Your wrists," she whispers, eying the same bruise around his other wrist. She has a line of a bruise on the underside of both her wrists, and then some red that wraps around them. Draco's bruises are all the way around, dark and thick.
He pauses, looking down at them for four seconds before grinning wickedly at her. "I told you that you were lucky I couldn't break them. You have no idea how badly I wanted to get to you. They were also the only things I had to release some tension on...and there was a lot of tension, wasn't there?"
She flushes for two different reasons, but his fingers don't make it past her ankles once he glances at the clock. He gives a pull to her big toe as he pulls away, standing up from the bed and grabbing his shirt.
"I thought the window was closed last night."
"It was." She gives him a confused look.
"Then I wonder how that animal died on top of your head, Granger. It looks worse than it usually does...and-"
"I had to brush it last night," she bites out, glaring at him. Couldn't he find something else to insult her about?
His eyebrows come up, his amusement clear on his face before he pulls his shirt down over it. He's laughing when his head pops back out, and it continues as he leaves the room. She doesn't get it. Prat.
Day: 1541; Hour: 18
Wind kicks up dirt, and it hits the side of the ruined building like rain. Pebbles rolls across the large dirt circle, the cracked stone floor, and one hits her trainer as she scans the room. It might have been a ballroom or a dining hall once. The entire East wall is blown out, the West rising and falling in a jagged semblance of construction. Still, behind her, a pair of wings and a single leg is mounted in the corner, where she guesses a cherub once decorated. She imagines that the room had been opulent once, a declaration of wealth and class, fine-tuned to the beautiful things in the world.
Now the entire house laid in ruins. Remnants were scattered: the glint of a bracelet, the charred velvet and lace drapery, a doll with a burned face and one dull blue eye that makes her wonder why there is always a creepy doll, half a witches hat, a pair of leather boots, the intricate carvings in what might have been the leg of furniture or moldings. She doesn't know what happened here, though she can't say she doesn't want to.
It is an almost perfect circle of dirt, and in that circle are the ruins of a home, statues, a hole where a pond might have been, a fountain, a chair standing ominously in the middle of the path from the bent over gates. It is a barren landscape of deserted half-structures, a graveyard of humanity. People once swept across this ballroom, dreamt in these bedrooms, loved in the courtyard. People lived and died, and all that is left are these structures, this edifice of their lives.
In a thousand years, would this be all that was left for them too? Someone would come upon Hogwarts in the middle of a fallen civilization, and wonder at the lives that might have lived within those strong, magical walls. They probably wouldn't even know that magic existed. Would they even find anything they couldn't give a plausible answer to? Maybe why the sticks of wood were polished, or the staircases dropped off into space, or why there was protective gear with the brooms in the shed. They would tear the portraits apart looking for technology, and maybe men would die in an effort to keep the Mirror of Erised.
Would all they see is macabre symbols of lives, loves, and wars long gone? Maybe they would know nothing of how it mattered – how they had lived and breathed it, died for it. Would the world only know that they had been there, once, and nothing else? Some strange society of delusional people who thought themselves magical, and only whispers in hidden corners would speak the possibility of truth.
Or even in just a hundred years or so, when there would be no one left who even fought in the war. Maybe it would all fade and disappear under comfort, routine, the 'normal' way of life that this war had given them. The war would be something obscure, some marked words of history, or buried in the wonders of oblivion. It would rage only in the memory wells and Pensieves of those who had been there.
It isn't just about the war, though. It's about the people. It's about Neville, Seamus, Fred, Justin, Mandy, the Pat- It's about all of them. Because tombstones are never enough, and when there is no one in the world left to remember the people that they were, they are just grey markers in the distance of other lives. It is an almost impossible feeling, the one that takes over her then. The desperate, undeniable urge to leave a mark on the world. She does not want them to be forgotten. She does not want to be forgotten. Not in a thousand years, not in twenty. The cruelty of-
She twirls, her trainers squeaking and the pebbles popping. Ron lifts his hands up at the end of her wand, and for a second, fear steals his features. There is still apprehension when she drops her aim, so she shoves him in the shoulder. He pushes her back hard enough for her to lose balance, and it's amusement on his face now when she looks up from her spot on the floor.
"Thanks, Ronald," she snaps, pushing herself up.
"Where are we supposed to find this Pensieve anyway?"
"The-" She stops, cocking her head at him, and fumbles in her pocket. "Headquarters. Now."
She's in front of the gates before Ron even gets his hand in his pocket, and she holds the coin up to the row of Aurors. "Hermione Granger, Order of the Phoenix."
They inspect her coin for two seconds, already knowing her face, and turn simultaneously to dismantle the wards at the strange noise of approval from the woman in front of her. Hermione can hear the pops behind her, but is too busy rushing forward to look.
"Ronald Weasley, Order..." And the rest is lost as she runs farther away, up the incline to the manor.
She waves the coin at the two guards on the porch, who throw the door open before she's even up the steps. McG- Minerva is running down the staircase when she skids into the foyer. She can hear pounding steps from the ceiling above her and the porch behind her. Her adrenaline, and an overall lack of sports when she was a child, make her almost miss catching the black box tossed her way.
Being called for backup is never a good sign. What makes it worse is that they always went in blind. No maps, no plans, no idea. The Portkey usually leads to the mission teams meet-up point, and if no one on the team is there, it becomes a matter of locating the flying spells or sparks in the air. Being called for backup means they enter a very bad, dangerous situation. It always scares her more than assigned missions do.
Another box sails over her shoulder as she rips hers open, grabbing the earring hard enough for the hook to pierce her palm. She closes her eyes as the world blurs, her body following the pull at her bellybutton, and breathes through the spin. She opens her eyes at a blast of cold air, stumbling over a rock as her feet touch the ground.
She blinks rapidly to adjust to the lighting, four times, and then there is a hissing sound and something slamming into her chest. Her wand comes up, but her hand is stopped by a body, a wrinkle of fabric, as the other flails for balance. Her eyes dart up, finding blond before grasping the lines of Draco's face. She is positive she is about to fall, her hand smacking into his shoulder and clutching down, before her back hits a wall, oxygen rushing out in a choking gasp. She thinks her chest might be broken, indented under his hand print, like he could draw his fingers in and grasp her heart.
Her groan of pain matches his own, and she belatedly realizes that she just iron-gripped his bruised shoulder. She releases it, wheezing in a breath, and his hand relaxes marginally. Which is good, because she's pretty sure if he pushed any harder, he would have squished her heart up into her throat, or just broke through to the wall behind her. His face is stretched into anger and confusion, and he might be just a little panicked with the way his eyes are flitting about her face.
To her right, near her feet, she can hear the sound of Ron grunting. Over Draco's shoulder, Harry is grabbing the arm of someone and practically flinging them into the shadows, only to do it again to the next person who appears. Everyone looks startled, and she has no idea what is going on.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Draco seethes, and when he breathes in, it sounds exactly like the blade of a knife, scraping metal.
"What do you think? You activated the coin." She grabs his wrist, wrenching his hand away to place her own on her chest, rubbing the soreness.
"We didn't activate anything," is growled to her left.
The look on Draco's face is entirely suspicious, and his eyes dart to his right and his left, scanning. Ron pulls himself from the ground, sputtering, and his shoulder brushes hers as he falls back onto the wall. Behind Draco is a manor, four windows lit on the second floor. There isn't more than a couple meters between the wall they are standing against and the front door. It seems they have just interrupted the team right before they initiated their plan of entry. They had almost blown the mission – they very well might have.
"Someone must have activated them on accident."
"They can't be activated on accident," Hermione whispers harshly to the stranger's voice.
"None of us activated them. It had to happen in the past ten minutes, right? I didn't see anyone doing it." Another voice from the shadows.
"There was probably just an error with the coins. The magic on them is old-"
"What the hell does that matter?"
"-just malfunctioned."
"Shut up," a new voice hisses, and Hermione can hear the edge of panic to it.
For a single second, no one breathes. In the distance, from the house, is the soft sound of classical music. The music begins to swell, but then it is lost again, under breath and shifting feet. "Did anyone tell anyone else about this mission?"
"I'm sure they'll come right out with it, Harry." She can practically feel Ron casting heavy, suspicious looks at everyone.
"Portkey out." Draco breaks his eerie silence, all tense, and she realizes that she's still grasping his shirt. She doesn't let go.
"What?" she murmurs back, and his eyes meet hers for a second before he speaks again, raising his voice a fraction to meet more than her ears.
"Portkey out. We've been compromised."
"I think that's a little drastic," the deep, rasping voice at her left ear says.
"We shouldn't let this pass up. Someone is obviously home, and they-" a female voice starts.
"Potter," is all Draco replies with, because Harry must be the leader.
Anything that Harry might have said is gone under a heavier silence. It is that hectic second of emotion between the action and the reaction, but that stillness is all it takes to lose. Hermione can see the bright yellow streams over Draco's shoulder, that second of a pause all around, before she grabs Draco and pulls him sideways. He doesn't move more than two inches, his eyes on hers with surprise before rolling up into his head.
A squeak pushes up from her throat, there's a scream from her right, and then she is covered by a blanket of numbness. The darkness follows immediately, Draco's weight sagging down from her hands, and her collapsing after him by a second.