A/N: I apologize for the abnormally long wait. I had a stack of super stressful homework, and this chapter was generally just a BITCH. I want to thank you all for reviewing (101 reviews. I'm smiling over here) and being patient and fabulous people.

It is with great pride that I introduce bex231, my gorgeous Aussie soul mate, who graciously volunteered to guest-write the end of this chapter. Bec, I cut a bit (okay, a lot), because, as mindboggling as it was, it just didn't fit my style. But I think when you read you'll find a lot of things that you recognize.

That said, I hope you enjoy. 'Nother A/N at the end, because I don't know when to shut up.

Chapter Eight

Fragile

She hung tightly onto his arm the whole way home. He would have been annoyed if he hadn't seen the way his father was looking at her. He really didn't know how to describe it other than creepy. He wouldn't call it a smoldering glare (because there was just no way that his fifty-seven-year-old father was looking at his seventeen-year-old Muggleborn wife with a smoldering glare), but it was freakishly close.

So he pulled her closer to him and glared at Lucius, who smiled back complacently. Bella had chosen to Apparate home, rather than suffocate in the tense atmosphere of the car. Draco wished he'd opted out of the car ride too, but he had to stay with Granger and apparently, Apparition was bad for pregnant women – splinching could be disastrous.

No. Not Granger now. Malfoy. Bloody hell, was he supposed to call her Malfoy? But that was him! Hermione? Um. They weren't friends. They were just husband and wife.

The car stopped smoothly in front of Draco's house and Hermione looked at it with quiet curiosity. He frowned a little. He'd never really looked at it through anyone else's eyes. It was a nice enough house. Big, too. Probably bigger than what she was used to seeing with the Weasels. But it was nothing compared to his father's house.

Erm. He wasn't sure where the jealousy came from. Since when did Granger's opinion matter? She was his… wife. She would deal with it.

They climbed out of the car and Draco turned to his father. "I would invite you in," he said coldly, "but I only asked Becky to make dinner for two."

Lucius kept smiling creepily from the car. "Oh, it's not a problem. I understand that you two want your alone time…"

He might throw up. He was definitely suppressing his gag reflex.

"I'll stop in later this week, though," Lucius added pleasantly. "Just to make sure everything is going okay for you and… my grandson."

Hermione's grip on his arm became painfully tight.

"Good evening, Father." He tugged at her gently and started guiding her up to his front door. He heard the car door slap and the engine start, and felt oddly relieved when the car drove away.

He opened the door and inclined his head slightly. "After you, Mrs. Malfoy."

Hermione stared at him for a long, breathless moment. He recognized the anger in her eyes quite clearly, having been the brunt of it many a time in their Hogwarts days. He waited impatiently for her to get on with it and snap at him. Maybe smack him for his impudence. Something.

He didn't expect her to stand there, gnawing her lip with indecision, before flushing and lowering her head. She stepped inside, and he followed her, frowning.

And then they were standing in the cool air of the front hall, and the tension between them was tangible. They looked anywhere but at each other. Words rose and died on their lips. Utter silence. Utter awkwardness.

This is ridiculous. "Can I take your coat?" he said, too loudly, blatantly ignoring that Hermione was wearing a light sweater, not a jacket.

She flushed again and slipped out of the fluid material, handing it to him. "Thank you."

He fingered the light cotton material and wondered when and why he'd started acting like a house elf in his own home. "If you want to sit down in the parlor," he said, pointing, "I'll be back in just a minute. It's too early for dinner, but I can get aperitifs."

Hermione nodded mutely. Her heart thudded uncertainly as her knees trembled with nerves. She would have been fine if Draco had given her some indication of what to expect. She at least knew what Lucius wanted from her. But this unknown, this volatile… he could blow up at any minute. She didn't know his rules.

She fingered the neckline of her dress while he looked at her for a long moment, then turned abruptly and walked away with her sweater.

Sighing, she looked more closely at the hallway. If she was being brutally honest, Malfoy's taste in décor wasn't bad. It was more a pleasant arrangement of neutral tones than it was the blatantly Slytherin green, silver, black color scheme of the Malfoy Manor. It was actually kind of refreshing.

She rubbed a hand down her arm. She gave Draco her sweater out of politeness, but she was a bit chilly.

For lack of anything better to do, Hermione went through the door into the sitting room, which was surprisingly open and modern. He had to have someone else decorating for him. There was no way that a straight man was so good at interior design. Her proof? Ron and Harry.

She sat carefully on the edge of the long, U-shaped white sofa and looked at her hands, folded in her lap. At the ring, on the third finger of her left hand.

Wearing Draco's ring felt different from Narcissa's. Where the latter was heavy and ornate, and seemed to weigh down her hand, this one was plain and light. It felt right, like it was a part of her. Panic jumped in her gut and she tried to pull the ring off; it twisted, but was stuck magically. She couldn't pull it any higher than her knuckle.

"Thinking about a divorce already, Granger?" said a cold, familiar voice. She jumped, flushed, and hid her hands in her lap as Malfoy slouched back into the room. Behind him tottered a tiny house elf, who staggered under the weight of an enormous silver platter. "Me too, but I don't think Father would like that much."

Hermione watched the elf silently as she struggled to keep the tray flat and slide it onto the coffee table. The girl's lips were taught with disapproval when she saw that Draco made no effort to help.

"Firewhisky?" he said pleasantly, pouring himself a generous drink from a familiar blue bottle.

She grimaced. "No thank you."

He frowned. "Are you sure? I don't know about you, but I could use a stiff drink…"

Instinctively, her hands went to her belly, but she dropped them again, as if feeling the flatness of her stomach was both reassuring and disappointing. "It's not good for the baby."

"Oh." To hide his flaming cheeks, Draco took an overlarge gulp of Firewhisky, and almost spit it out. His eyes were streaming, and his sinuses burned. He had the distinct impression that Grang – Hermione was trying not to laugh at him. "I forgot about the baby."

She made a little face of distaste, and silence swelled between them again.

"This is ridiculous." He pushed a bowl of nuts over to her. "Please eat something. Father will kill both of us if you're not in good health."

She took a walnut. "He'll kill you first," she corrected gently.

"Me first." Draco stared into the electric blue liquid at the bottom of his glass. "Um. Do you want to talk about it?" Do you want to talk about it? What was he, some fucking girl? He did not talk about it with anyone. Least of all with Hermione Gra – Malfoy.

Hermione seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Talk about it?" she repeated dubiously. "I wasn't aware this was the girls' dormitory."

He cleared his throat, the vapors from his drink shooting up his sinuses again and making him cough. "We don't have to talk about the… baby. I just thought it might be nice, you know, if there's anything particular I should know. Weird health things. Due dates. Medical quirks. God forbid my father should kill me."

Her face went oddly blank. "I'm due February 1. There's a follow up appointment at St. Mungo's in a month's time. You might want to watch out when I'm eating because I haven't gotten over the nausea yet," she said dully.

He frowned. "I thought girls were supposed to be excited about being pregnant."

She scowled at him. "Would you be excited to be having your father's baby?"

"Touché." He ran his thumb lightly around the rim of his glass. "Do you want something else? Tea, or water, or…?"

She smiled tightly. "Never thought the Ferret would have manners."

"Never thought the Mudblood would be under my roof."

"Touché."

Another long silence.

Hermione reached out and took a handful of nuts. "Look, Malfoy…"

Draco rubbed his face wearily. "It's Draco, please."

Her mouth twisted into a half-smile, half-grimace. "Draco… This is absurd. We're stuck together for the next… Merlin knows how long. We're going to have to get over the awkwardness at some point."

His fingers tightened imperceptibly around his glass, and his jaw set slightly. "Hermione," he said levelly. "Just because you're my wife doesn't mean we have to be friends. I don't know what my father let you get away with when you were in his house but I'm going to make it very clear that you're living with me now. It doesn't matter if I'm disgusted with my father or if you're a damsel in distress. The fact of the matter is that I don't like you."

"Does that mean that neither of us is allowed to be civil? Draco, this isn't all about me. This is for your sanity, too. Too much silence… can do terrible things to a person." Aha. There was a bit of the anger he'd seen at his father's house. He smiled. Just a bit.

"Granger…"

"It's Malfoy," she frowned.

"Malfoy?"

"Hermione. Malfoy. Your father made sure of that. If you can't start calling me Hermione, then at least –"

"Hermione!" He didn't even raise his voice that much. Just a tiny wee bit. But she reacted like he'd slapped her. She folded her hands back in her lap and looked down, biting her lip hard against what he was sure was another volley of insults. "It's only your first night here. Please. I don't want to have to punish you."

His father's words. He barely even knew what they meant, but he'd learned long ago that repeating his father usually got him good results. Scare tactics, see. He wasn't expecting Gra – Malf – Hermione to pale and wind her fingers tighter in her lap, pressing her lips together and suddenly becoming very small.

"No My Lord," she murmured, so quietly he almost didn't catch it.

My Lord?

The shot glass shattered in his hand. "I want to make one thing very clear right now, Hermione. I am not my father. I said earlier, Draco will more than suffice."

"Yes, M – Draco." She twisted the ring anxiously on her finger. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." It sort of hit him then: the enormity of what he had gotten himself into by taking on Hermione. He knew it wasn't a choice, but it still felt like it was his duty. And he'd wound himself up with an awfully big duty. Thanks to dear Lucius.

Somewhere deeper in the house, a grandfather clock chimed six. Draco hadn't been aware that time was passing so quickly. Or so slowly. They'd probably gotten married around noon. A quick lunch with Lucius. And so, here they were.

He let himself look at Hermione again. She was very pale, twisting the ring around her finger so fast that he was sure it chafed. Like Granger or not, he couldn't honestly say that he got pleasure out of terrifying people the way some of his… relatives did. It was almost painful to watch, especially in someone who had been so strong. He couldn't help but to wonder what his father had done to break her.

Hermione was breathless. The further the sun set in the sky outside the window she faced, the closer they were to dark, to that awkward after-dinner time. She'd never been one for darkness, but when she'd moved in with Lucius, nighttime activities had taken on a whole new meaning. Draco wasn't Lucius. No.

But she didn't know what Draco would do behind closed doors. She couldn't force another one of those damn nuts down her throat. She'd taken all her nausea medicine that day, but she was sick with fear.

The silence grew until they each would go mad. The tiny house elf came in again with a rag to clean up the mess of shattered glass and firewhisky, and each of the teenagers seemed to snap out of a personal reverie.

"Master Draco, Mistress Granger," Becky croaked, bending down on her hands and knees. "Blinkers is sending Becky to tell you that dinner is served. Master and Mistress would not like their good dinners to get cold. No. Not after Becky is working hard to make dinner the way Master Draco is asking for it…"

Draco stood. "Thank you, Becky. Hermione? Will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the dinner table?"

Hermione stood on shaky knees. She shot one last glance at the stooped elf before she followed Draco out of the room. He wasn't oblivious to her gesture.

They ate in the dining room, which was weird for Draco. He supposed it was a good thing to make the right first impression and all that, and he had told Becky that Miss Granger was going to be a guest… of sorts. But he'd have to clarify very quickly that he didn't live to the rigid societal rules that his father did. Gra – oh, fuck it. Hermione Malfoy wasn't so good that she could go and eat off Draco's dinner table whenever it suited her fancy. She could eat in the kitchen, just like him.

When they had started into the first course, Draco looked at Hermione pleasantly over his wine goblet. "So," he said, trying hard to keep a friendly, even tone. Trying to keep interest in his eyes. "I noticed that you didn't seem too… thrilled to see a house elf."

Hermione's knuckles went slightly whiter as she tightened her fingers around her cutlery. "How many elves do you have?" she said tonelessly.

"Three." He stirred his soup thoughtfully. "Are you opposed to house elves?"

She ignored the question. "Are your three house elves paid?"

A tiny wrinkle of confusion appeared in his smooth forehead, but he laughed. "What kind of question is that? Hermione, no one pays house elves. They don't now, and they didn't ever. Is that some sort of Muggle custom?"

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. "Draco, you're a reasonable person. You took Muggle Studies. Muggles don't have house elves."

"Silly me." He waved at her to go on. "Explain to me where that idea came from, then."

He was a bit surprised when she put down her spoon primly and straightened in her chair. "I've known a fair few house elves in my day. Just because I'm Muggleborn doesn't mean I'm completely ignorant. I do have eyes, and it's quite clear that the Wizarding community uses house elves to take advantage of free labor. It's not a balanced contract."

He had to try hard not to roll his eyes. "Hermione, that's the point. It's a house elf's nature to serve humans."

"No, it's not." She tossed her hair a bit, and for the first time all night, he thought that he saw a bit of light in her eyes. "It's not normal. No species is ever made to be completely submissive. And even if they do enjoy service, they should get benefits out of it – pay, sick days, vacations. They're intelligent beings, and they have every right that we do to fair treatment."

"You sound like you're reading off a script here." He was amused now at her naivety. "Explain it all to me then, oh wise one."

She didn't hide the eye rolling. "You're just as bad as Ron," she huffed. She adopted a tone that was frighteningly similar to the Weasel's. "Hermione, they like slaving away. It makes them happy. Offering them freedom will just make them think you're not grateful for everything they do."

He choked. "Offering house elves freedom?"

"It's what Harry did to Dobby," she sniffed self-righteously. "And look how he turned out."

The amusement was turning slowly into confusion, and the annoyance than invariably follows. "Dobby?" he repeated incredulously. "Dobby the house elf? Surely you can't mean…"

Hermione had turned pale again. "I thought you knew about Dobby."

"Dobby…" He was still playing the name over in his head, unable to believe that that nutter of a house elf might have had anything to do with Hermione. "Dobby the house elf?"

She nodded.

"Potter set him free?"

"What did you think happened?"

He let out a short, hard laugh. "Hermione, coming from my family, what would I automatically conclude in a situation like that? Think for a minute."

A gasp of horror. "You thought your father killed Dobby?"

He shrugged, a bit uncomfortable by the wide-eyed stare she fixed on him. "It wouldn't have been the first time."

She drew herself up proudly, still looking horrified. "I always knew that wizards were corrupt. It's no wonder Dobby was unhappy. That's why I created S.P.E.W., of course."

"Spew?" What the hell was she going on about?

She frowned. "Not spew. S.P.E.W."

He looked at her blankly. Was there a difference?

"Honestly." She had slipped unconsciously back into her normal bossy tone. The familiarity of it was comforting. It made her feel like less of a stranger. "I swear you boys are all the same. It's not spew. S.P.E.W. stands for Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

This time he managed not to choke, but he spluttered into his goblet all the same. "Society for the Promotion of –"

"Of Elfish Welfare," she confirmed. "I founded it in fourth year. Don't look like that, Draco. It's a pressing issue."

"I see."

"No, really. Just look at Dobby. He wanted nothing more than to earn a decent wage for his work, and to be free to choose his own employers. But he couldn't, because your" – here, her voice shook with rage – "abusive father refused to let him go. Once Dobby became a Free Elf, he was able to choose his own way and find a much more stable position at Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore treats him humanely, offers him a Galleon a week, and gives him days off. If S.P.E.W. could just raise more awareness about the mistreatment of house elves, then maybe we could…"

Draco didn't want to laugh. Really, he didn't. It was horribly disrespectful of him, and it wasn't even that funny, but it was just that she was so serious about it, so impassioned by something that they both knew would never take hold… And for Merlin's sake, she was campaigning for house elves. Not even the house elves cared.

He realized quickly that she wasn't laughing with him. Instead, her mouth was closed, her hand over her lips like she could force the words back in. Her eyes were huge again, trained to his face. There was something in them. An emotion that he'd seen when he'd gone with Aunt Bella down to Diagon Alley and the pedestrians had all turned to look at her. It was like the way that people at the Ministry looked at his father, when he swept by with his billowing black robes and swirling hair, his eyes flashing.

It was an emotion that he knew very well. It came with its own unique smell and tension. It sent his heart thrumming and twisted anticipation in his stomach.

It was fear. People had looked at him with serious dislike before. Or contempt. Or nervous reactions. But never downright fear.

He didn't know what his father, what Bellatrix, what the Dark Lord saw in making people afraid. It just made him feel uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" he said, as gently as he could.

"I'm babbling," she said quickly. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my place to critique your household ideas. If you want house elves, the more the merrier. Who am I to tell you that you can't keep them?"

She couldn't even meet his eyes.

Before he really thought about it, his fist made contact with the smooth mahogany of the table, and their plates jumped a few centimeters off the table. "Damn it, Granger, get over yourself."

She shrank further into her chair.

"Stop looking at me like I'm a monster. I'm not the nicest person, I'll admit it, but I'm not my father. I'm not going to… God, I don't even want to know what he did. I'm not like that. No chains, no whips, no torture. I'm not going to hurt you, okay?" He tried to soften his voice. "I'm not here to hurt you. I don't see eye-to-eye with my father on a lot of topics, and his methods of punishment are one of them. You're allowed to have and express an opinion here, so long as you're respectful about it."

"I'm sorry," she squeaked.

"Stop apologizing." A headache was building between his eyes. He sighed heavily and stabbed his fork at an errant leaf of arugula. "You didn't do anything wrong."

She lowered her head; her smooth brown curls gleamed in the candlelight. "I know this is weird for you," she said to her plate. "It must be totally bizarre, to have your father's…"

"Slut," he provided helpfully.

"Slut." She winced slightly. "To have your father's slut in your home. But it's weird for me, too. Lucius has his… rules. It's hard, sometimes, to tell what he expects, and I'd just started getting him figured out when this whole… mess started. Now I'm with you and I don't know what you want from me. I don't know how you'll react. If you'll be like him, or…"

"I'm only going to say this once," he said, the words sounding stiff as he almost quite literally forced them out of his mouth. He was loath to make her this promise, but it had to be done. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not my father. I'm not a barbaric pedophile. While you're in my – our – house, you don't have to worry about things like that."

She took a listless bite off her plate. He could tell she didn't believe him. He wasn't totally sure that he believed himself.

***

Their dessert bowls had been cleared twenty some minutes ago. Their cups of tea were empty. The candles had been burned down to nubs that flickered spastically and dripped copious amounts of wax onto the table runner. Draco's watch read ten o'clock. Though there were no windows in the dining room, they both knew that the skies were dark, the sun long set.

They'd dragged out dinner as long as they possibly could. Through either a stroke of sheer luck or an incredible subconscious foresight, Draco had requested a full four courses of dinner, plus tea. They'd had a sort of unspoken agreement to eat slowly, and the lack of conversation made time drag by even more painfully.

But there was no ignoring it now, when the house elves were darting around the room as discreetly as possible, moving around them to take down the candles and to pull off the tablecloth. Taking their napkins off their laps and sweeping around their feet on the floor.

It wasn't until Blinkers snapped his fingers to put out the last of the candles, then left the room and left the two of them in near-total darkness that Draco realized he could only prolong the inevitable for so long. He pushed his chair back, and the scraping of the legs against the floor was so loud in their thick silence that they both jumped.

"Do you want to have a bit of a fire?" he heard himself asking.

"A fire?" her voice was breathy.

A fire? "Erm, yeah. There's a fireplace in the sitting room, if you wanted to –"

"Yes!" She jumped out of her chair, and it fell to the floor behind her. Dear god, anything to keep them out of the bedroom.

He took her to his – their – sitting room, and she perched on one end of the couch while he started a fire. He stepped back, and took his place on the other end of the couch, as far away from her as possible. They looked at the flickering fames that danced in front of them, silent.

Hermione looked at Draco fleetingly, smoothed that cream dress over her knees and then dropped her head into her hands, kneading at her temples like her head was about to explode. Draco knew the feeling.

How could she just sit there and say nothing? She was normally quite talkative, wasn't she? He tried to remember. He'd never really taken the time to examine Granger, but it had at least seemed like she talked a lot. She had to. She was a woman.

She'd annoyed the hell out of him at school – nagging him about his work, defending Potter and the Weasel. She was the only Mud – Muggleborn who'd ever really stood up to him. Why couldn't she stand up for herself now? Or at least give him some sort of clue…?

The grandfather clock in the corner seemed to have slowed down as the minutes dragged on, full of the sound of the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the flames. He was hyperaware of her sitting six feet away from him, her face blank, her body still and tense.

He let out a strangled sigh that sounded too loud in their silence. "Okay, look…"

She turned her head slightly.

"You're…" he gritted his teeth. "You're right." Those words sounded so wrong on his tongue. "We're both in the same boat here. Neither of us wants to do this, but both of us have to, and it's a miserable, creepy thing, and we're just sort of…"

"Draco, you're babbling."

He took a deep breath and balled his hands into fists. "Alright, let's just get this over with."

"Get it… over with?" she said faintly.

The flames in the grate had flickered down into glowing embers. They sat in semi-darkness. He swallowed around an awkward lump in his throat. "Erm. Yeah. I can take you on a bit of a house tour first, if you like. Show you where things are at."

She nodded. "I'd like that."

"So you know the sitting room, and the dining room, and the parlor. There's a guest room through those doors there, and my library is here…" Slowly, they started moving through the house together. "Here's the toilet… If you go through those doors you get to the kitchen, but the elves don't like it much when you go in there without their permission. So these stairs…." They climbed the stairs very slowly. Almost too slowly. He gave her time to admire the artwork on the walls, which was uninteresting. Just portraits. Family portraits.

"Through this first door here us my office. There's another toilet just down that hall. Across here is another guest room – it's probably just about the right size for a nursery, but we can talk about that later. This room really has no meaning. I'm sure we can find something for it. Right now, it's just storage, but I'm open to shifting things around. Through here are the showers…"

And they stayed for a long time, examining the showers. Hermione found her bag of toiletries on the counter, and worked to arrange them in a non-obtrusive space. Draco thought he might even count the floor tiles – or maybe the little flecks of gold that wound through the marble of the tub – that would take longer.

But when Hermione ran out of bottles and Draco's head was hurting, they both knew they couldn't keep it going on for much longer. Draco reached out his hand for the golden handle that linked the master bath with the master bedroom. He had to drag her inside.

"Hermione, I told you I won't hurt you." The gentleness of his voice surprised him. She was Hermione Granger. The Mudblood he'd hated for six years. And how here he was, about to fuck her on their goddamn wedding night. The Rational Draco in his mind sneered at him, but he brushed himself away.

Her face was blank, vulnerable. He took her hand. She let him.

They stood in his room, unsure of how to proceed with one another. Draco reached up, somewhat hesitantly, to brush her hair behind her left ear, then letting his fingers brush slowly down her cheek down to her chin, the tips grazing her lips. Her breathing hitched slightly.

The last time that Draco had had sex, it had been a quick grope with Parkinson in the fifth floor broom cupboard between the portrait of Emily the Earnest and Margaret the Misplaced. Parkinson, for all her lack of facial beauty, possessed a certain talent for defying orders and twisting her body into physically impossible pretzels to achieve the highest amount of personal pleasure. It had been clumsy, sticky, and satisfying. This… not so much.

He didn't even know how to start, and she sure as hell wasn't taking any initiatives.

"Remind me why we have to do this?" she said, shakily.

"Hermione, this is The Dark Lord we're talking about. He doesn't give a fuck, so long as the results entertain him."

Her hands had somehow wound their way around his neck, and her smooth fingers against his throat made him swallow hard, feeling the pressure of his Adams apple against her skin.

"Do you think it would be okay if… I kissed you?"

She didn't even sigh in resignation. She just lifted up her face. He flicked his wand and closed the drapes, lowering the light in the room to a sort of soft glow. She stood, waiting for him, her upturned face shown into sharp shadows in the lighting.

His heart hammering in his throat, he leaned in and pressed his lips softly against hers. She let him kiss her awkwardly for a few, painful moments before she tightened her arms and drew him closer to her, running her tongue over his lips until they parted.

I think you'll find that I have extraordinary tastes, actually. It was clear that Lucius had taught Hermione a thing of two. He hated to admit it, but she did know what she was doing, and chances were that she didn't get any of that knowledge from Potter or the Weasel.

He could tell that she was bored with his pace, but she didn't dare push him. Her lips were insistent on his own, but she wasn't forceful. She just let him kiss her, and did some wicked things with her tongue and his that he didn't know were possible.

There was some tiny little part of him that was screaming at him to stop. This was wrong. Wrong. All wrong.

The hand he had in her hair slid down her neck, over her collarbone, resting for a moment at the top of her breast before moving on the strap of the cream satin dress and smoothly sliding it down her shoulder, his hand following her arm until it reach just above her hand, leaving goose bumps in its wake. He pushed the other strap down and slid the dress off smoothly.

She stood in front of him unflinchingly as his breath caught in his throat and the dim lighting played graceful shadows across her torso with the rise and fall of her quick breaths. His eyes were drawn to two spots: first, to the dark spot on her right hip. A birthmark. Just a small blotch of darkened skin. He'd found a birthmark on Pansy's back when they'd first begun to fool around and it had really turned him off. But this one… He swallowed hard and moved his eyes up her torso, where they landed on the Malfoy crest branded into her breast, just barely visible over the lace of her bra.

"You… have nice skin," he managed, disgusted by the way that his body reacted to the sight of her. He didn't know what made him say that.

A soft May breeze rustled the drapes and the candles flickered, throwing their bodies into dreamlike relief as they pressed against each other again. He moved her hands up to his collar, and she made her way through his buttons smoothly, running her hands complyingly over his chest.

He pulled her down onto the bed as she shrugged his shirt off. Like she could read his mind, she moved under his lightest touch, bending wordlessly when and where she wanted him. If she noticed his Mark when she pulled his shirtsleeves off, she made no comment.

They moved together almost gracefully. She was clearly used to this, and she fell into familiar patterns. He, on the other hand, was satisfied just to have some measure of control over someone, something for once in his life. Her certainty soothed him.

And so, in the dimming light of their room, Hermione brought Draco to new heights that he'd never dreamed of when he was with Pansy, and never had reached when he was alone in the dark. When she rolled off him, they were both sweaty and sticky, and not a single word had passed between them.

His arms oddly empty, he reached out for her and pulled her into his chest. She let him hold her stiffly, still not saying anything. He could feel the reluctance in every line of her body.

They lay together, their breathing slowing and falling into a rhythm. His heart was still fluttering in his chest, trying to pull itself back together and stop feeling so guilty. It was suddenly and abundantly clear why his father liked her so much. He'd taken all her will away: not once had Hermione done anything that Draco had not indicated he wanted. Nor had she protested against anything he did to her.

Not that he'd ever fantasized about her or anything, but he didn't think that he would have imagined sex with Granger being like that at all. Surely, she had to have some sort of spark, some sort of will. Back at school, she'd gotten into many a fight with Weasel. She'd snapped on the teachers who deserved it. She stood up for herself. Something about her obedience was almost a turn off, in that it was so heartbreaking.

Warm darkness wrapped around them like a cocoon, making time still as they each hung, suspended, in their own thoughts. After what could either have been a few minutes or an eternity, Draco heard the soft sound of sniffling. He tightened his hold on her ever so slightly, and shifted as if in his sleep to press closer to her, but aside from that, he didn't react. Clearly, this wasn't something he was meant to see or hear. Her tears were hot on his bare chest.

And he wondered what had happened to Hermione Granger.

Quelques petits mots à vous tous… (Sorry. My brain is still in French mode. French school will do that to you. Translates roughly to "A/N goes right here.")

Just a word of caution – I start real school next week, and it's going to be at least twice as hard as school normally is for me, because it's all in #$!ing French. And I'm really scared. And we all know a) what school does to an author; b)what stress does to an author; c) what writers block does to an author; and d)what personal crises do to an author. Therefore, I cannot promise a quick update. The best that I can guess is two weeks. Which, considering the update times on some fics, isn't that bad. I've been spoiling you. But I still feel bad.

Also… I know what the answer will be for a select handful of you, but if I told you that I have to pick between spending my time on fanfiction or spending my time on editing the novel I've had sitting, lonely, in the archives of my computer since December, how understanding might you be? There's a difference between being inspired by something, and working on something that's actually good for the soul. My inner Muse is slowly dying.

Love you all!!!!!

Lily