Running water. Dripping water. No, that didn't make sense. It must have been something- Hermione meant for her eyelids to snap open, but they fluttered, and dragged, and tried to pull themselves back down again. There was light flickering in the dark, and then across the side of Malfoy's face as she located the source of the touching. He was scowling and his forehead was wrinkled, deeply concentrated on something to the side of her chest.
She felt something peel back from her skin, and then the shiver of a cold cloth brush in tingles of pain. She closed her eyes as the images flooded back to her, and she remembered the sword being pulled out of her chest. The spell must have worked, then. Or she was dead and Malfoy was in the process of hiding her body so-
Hermione sucked in a breath, instinctively turning from the pain, but Malfoy pushed her shoulder back down. Still very much alive, it seemed. It was the bubbling, stretching sensation that came with Dittany, and she clenched her teeth, knowing it would pass soon.
"Your chest." Was that her voice? She sounded like she was talking through a hole in her throat.
"It's fine."
"Dittany?" It was an effort just to speak.
"Yes. I would have got this done sooner, but it was gushing too much blood – the Dittany wouldn't take. I didn't want to cast anything that required too much or prolonged magic."
She opened her eyes, swallowing hard, and he glanced up at her. The candlelight alternated the color of his eyes from bright grey to the dark grey and black of angry clouds, and it tricked emotions into them that she couldn't define anyway.
"Do you want some water?"
She nodded, and he looked back at her chest, wiping the cold cloth against it again. He narrowed his eyes briefly, and then disappeared from her line of sight. Hermione pulled her arms up, and felt like she was pushing them through mud. Lifting herself to her elbows was harder, and her wrist creaked with a sharp pain.
Malfoy held a goblet out to her, and she gave it a questioning look. Had he brought an entire kitchen in his bag? He misinterpreted it, or maybe took it just as he should have, because he set the goblet down and grabbed her shoulders. She bit her lips to keep back the groan at all the aches flaring up, and he turned her to the side enough for her left shoulder to rest against the wall.
"Thank you."
"Here." He held the goblet out to her, and she took it, gulping down the water without pause.
"Thank-" Her mouth fell open as she spotted her three water jars. One was in shards, another had an inch left of the bottom and a jagged piece on one side, and the last had half of a side smashed out of it. "What happened to the jars?"
"They were broken in your bag. There's one bottle of Invigoration Draught left. The map is shot to hell, and only your fruit is left of your food supply. The books will dry, though I don't know when you expected to fit in reading time, and your parchment of the runes is now a parchment of ink blobs."
Hermione's eyes slid shut as she let out a defeated sound, and reached up to clasp her fingers over her forehead. "This is horrible." She looked over at Malfoy, and was caught off guard by his lack of shirt. How hadn't she noticed before? "We, uh…at least we have the Dittany. And our lives, which, I assure you, I was not terribly optimistic about us keeping…before – how long have I been sleeping?"
Malfoy shrugged, and she watched the movements in his shoulders before looking at the cut across his chest. "I awoke about an hour ago. I don't know how long we were out before that, or why the magic left us alone."
Hermione snorted. "Alone? More like repeatedly tried to murder us, and went down kicking, screaming, and sword-swinging." She looked down at his chest again. "Are you sure you used enough-"
"What are you talking about, Granger?" He looked suspicious – Malfoy always looked suspicious before he looked curious.
She couldn't remember a time in her life before this when talking felt like too much work. "What happened to you? You were unconscious when I found you, and you had the cut. The magic wasn't working. The blocking spell lasted a second or two, the banishing spell worked on just a small portion of the magic, or stopped them from hurting us for a few seconds."
"I got sliced with the sword while I was still blind from the light. I cast the banishing spell, and I fell… I'm not sure what happened after that. How did you stop it?"
"You probably got kicked in the head. Is your body sore? They were falling all over us, and stomping on us, and I couldn't stop them. I tried to pull you back to the wall, but…the horde of people, and the running and shoving, and then the men. They broke my wrist." She gave a tired, distant look to her swollen and bruised wrist, like it belonged to someone she'd only heard bad things about. "I'm sorry."
"That…" Malfoy's eyebrows drew together, and he looked genuinely confused. Maybe on how to answer, or how it ended.
"I, uh… So, yes, the spells weren't working, and I remembered that other one we'd been talking about in the library. How powerful they'd be combined, but it was too risky since we didn't know if we could channel that much magic through the small runes, and two in one, and such, so on."
Malfoy stood from his squat near their bags, and her sight grazed down his chest before she blinked it to the ground. "You did it? You combined them? You could have blown yourself to pieces, or killed us, or done-"
"I didn't have a choice." She tried to make her voice come out fiercely, but it just cracked and croaked. "If I had, I wouldn't have done it. I couldn't do it by myself. We might not have been able to together. You were hurt and out, and I couldn't run, because I couldn't carry you. The crowd was too thick and strong to drag you. I had to do something to save us."
There was a strange expression on his face. She'd never seen it before, and she wasn't sure if she should shield herself or stare until she recognized it. It made her feel vulnerable, and she didn't know why.
Hermione looked down, spotting her wand close to where she'd been laying. "It failed at first. I forgot the eivla at the end, and I didn't realize until after there was a pause, and just… I thought I was going to burst into flames. I thought we both were dead. But then I did it again, and I flew back, hit the wall… It must have worked."
He was silent. He didn't speak, or touch anything, or move at all. She thought she should look up at him and take apart his expression, and pick it all apart until she could decide on what he was feeling. She was too tired, though, and when her eyes drifted shut, she couldn't open them again.
*
Hermione stretched before opening her eyes, and tiny cracks went off down her spine. She shifted, moving her legs and turning her head. She was still sore, but besides her wrist, she felt better than she would have thought.
Candlelight was still moving shadows and light across her eyelids, and she opened them slowly, rubbing at the corners. She used her right hand to push herself up to a sitting position, no longer against the wall, and the robe that had been covering her fell to her lap. She looked at it blankly for a moment, letting her mind catch up, and then looked for Malfoy.
Her body gave a little jump when she saw him sitting to the side of her, next to the broken jars. His legs were folded, and his chin was in his hand, his index finger against the bottom of his nose, and his thumb on his cheek. He was just staring at her like a creep, his forehead wrinkled, and didn't even pretend that he wasn't by looking away when she caught him.
He still hadn't put his shirt back on. There were bruises along his shoulders, chest, and ribs. Another on his stomach, near his right hip. He lifted the hand in his lap, and two fingers batted an apple, rolling it towards her. She plucked it from the ground, and ran her thumb across the skin, grainy from dirt.
"Did you sleep?" she asked.
"I'm not tired."
"How long have I been sleeping?"
His eyes dropped to the candle, a quarter of it missing where it had been whole when she fell asleep. Hours, then. "Awhile."
She would have liked to ask him if he'd been staring at her the whole time, but she didn't have much room to ask, considering her past habits. She noticed that he must have ripped the neck of her shirt instead of lifting it to get to the wound on her chest, which meant the least amount of ogling possible. It was more than she could say.
"I can't believe you're not tired," she said. "I mean, I really cannot believe it. You need to get some sleep."
"If I was tired, I'd sleep."
She pursed her lips at him, and rolled the apple back. "So if a vision came into this corridor right now, you'd have the strength to banish it at least, say, three times, and then run the length of two dozen tunnels if needed."
He didn't say anything, and she huffed, pushing herself to her feet. Maybe if he saw- Hermione paused in the middle of her step as Malfoy stood up. A glance of that odd expression flitted across his features, and she thought to move slowly. Like one would do in the presence of big, unknown animals, that had the weapons to kill, but might not know how to use them.
She kept half her attention on his blurry figure at the top of her vision as she walked to the goblet, careful not to spill the water when she picked it up. Maybe Malfoy was scared. He'd been completely at the mercy of the Dark magic, and that wasn't a position anyone wanted to find themselves in. Especially when they were knocked defenseless.
"I thought you were dead," she told him, still unsure if she should even say it. "I actually tripped over you – sorry. And all these people were banging into us, and you just weren't moving. I couldn't find your pulse point at first, I got knocked back. I was so…scared. Absolute panic, terrified."
She drank half the goblet, then put it back. She wanted all of it, but it might have been the only water they had for a little while.
"But then I felt it, your heartbeat, and I knew it was going to be manageable. However we got out, we'd find a way. There's always a way to find, Malfoy. As long as we're both alive, which we are. That's the important thing."
She didn't think he'd lie down right away, but she thought he would settle and stop staring at her. The staring remained, however, and just when she was about to look away, he started towards her. The big, unknown animal had apparently made its assessments of her, and then a decision that began with rocking shoulders and sure steps. Intent slid the strange emotion from his face, and she stood like a wall. Weren't the zebras running at this point? She didn't think they waited for the leaping onto their person.
Malfoy's fingers skimmed her jaw, and his thumb touched down on the other side before he tightened his grip enough to have a hold on her. Hermione swallowed audibly, and watched his eyes lower to her mouth. The fingers of his other hand brushed the shirt at her hip, and then took a handful of the fabric, balling it into his fist.
Well, all right. She rather liked this decision so far.
His eyes flashed back up to hers, and she reached up with her good hand, cupping the side of his neck. He leaned forward, and she shut her eyes, waiting out a bang of her heartbeat before he kissed her. Her stomach flipped the second he did, and the tingling sensation remained as he didn't even attempt the usual careful beginning.
He kissed her fully and without reserve, his tongue edging into her mouth the moment she parted her lips. His grip on her jaw gave him complete control over the kiss, and for once, she gave it up without a fight. She slid her hand into his hair, and he swayed against her, his pelvis bumping into her stomach. Her nails scratched his scalp when her fingers curled into the locks of his hair, and she felt his hum vibrate against her mouth. Her shirt pulled tight against the front and sides of her as the hand at her hip reached around her waist. He pressed the ball of his fist into her back and drew her against him, his body radiating heat.
Hermione extracted her hand from his hair, wishing she could use both of them, and learned the curves of his shoulders and the feel of his skin. He released her shirt and twisted his hand under it, running his palm over the small of her back, and then up, his fingers tracing along her spine.
His hand fell from her jaw as they captured one another's mouths, released, captured, released, and Hermione pushed to her toes to flick her tongue along the dip in his lower lip. She moved her hand back up his arm, across his shoulder, along his collarbone, and down the curves and lines of his chest. He released a breath of hot air when her palm skimmed his nipple, and his hands moved to the hem of her shirt.
Hermione dropped back to the balls of her feet, panting for air, and he didn't follow. His fingers were still collecting layers of the bottom of her shirt, and her heart started pounding even harder as she lifted her arms. She tried to keep her left wrist as straight as she could as it throbbed at her, and Malfoy slowed to move the fabric gently over wrists before pulling it off the rest of the way.
Hermione carefully lowered her arm to the side, and used her good hand to push back the errant curls that were now sticking up. She looked down at Malfoy's bellybutton as she did so, feeling his eyes on her, and a blush rushed up her face. His hand pressed against her cheek, and she looked up at him as his thumb slid along her lips.
He waited until she met his eyes, and then bent forward, moving his mouth to her neck. Hermione's breath shuddered in as his lips dragged down her neck, and then escaped in a rush when he kissed her skin. She grabbed his shoulder, pressing her lips together at the suction of his mouth. He did it again, harder, and the moan sounded in her throat.
Hermione shut her eyes as he trailed hot, sucking kisses up her neck, staying longer in the places that made any form of verbal affirmation push up from the bottom of her stomach. She felt like she was spinning in a daze, but he still didn't distract her enough for her to miss the pop of her bra clasp coming undone. He pushed a hand into her hair, pulling it back and cradling her head as he moved to the spot behind her ear. Hermione moaned loudly, gripping the back of his neck, and he sucked on the skin again.
His hand moved over her ribs and up, pausing when his thumb was pressed to the bottom of her right bra cup. His lips moved to kiss the edge of her shoulder, and Hermione reached for the strap on her other one, pulling it down. She had accepted the inevitable path of him removing her shirt, and she was tired of anxiously waiting for it between- She jumped a little as the sensation his hands caused on her breasts shot right down to the bottom of her stomach, and his teeth grazed the pulse point in her neck.
"Oh," she breathed, gripping the back of his neck again, and felt the curve of his mouth against her skin.
His thumbs circled, and then dragged over her nipples the same moment he nipped the side of her neck. Hermione made a deep, unrecognizable sound in her throat, and turned her head towards him. He lifted his own, and she kissed him as he cupped her breasts again, sliding her tongue along his.
She felt hot and achy, and like she couldn't get close enough to him. His hands dropped to her hips as she pressed her chest to his, skin against skin, and felt him push back, hard and rigid against her stomach. Her breath caught in a little huff at the feel of it, and his fingers clenched around her hips. She thought she might be trembling, but she didn't know if it was her body or something inside of her.
She pushed her hand across his upper back, and when he rocked his hips forward, her own answered in an instinctive knowledge of her own want. His hands tilted, and then his fingers curled into the waist of her jeans. Hermione's heart slammed in her chest, and she tried to tell herself through the fog of her mind that this was the moment when lines were drawn. Then Malfoy flicked his tongue against the tip of hers, and the only lines she was concerning herself with were the ones she found in the shape of Malfoy's mouth and body.
He made quick work of her jeans and knickers, pushing them over her hips and down to her knees. For several seconds she felt absurd through all the heated haze in and around her as she kicked everything off her feet. But then Malfoy was unbuttoning his trousers with a speed her stumbling hands wouldn't have reached, and they were down with his shorts before her palm made it halfway up his chest.
She felt him sway as he toed his shoes off, and then yanked his feet from out of the pile. His hands cupped her face as he pulled his head back, sucking in air. Hermione moved her mouth to his jaw, kissing her way to the side of his neck. He pushed a hand under and into her hair, his chest heaving against her own, and wrapped an arm around her waist. He pulled her into him, and she released a hard breath at the hot length of him against her skin.
She heard his breath catch when she kissed a spot at the bottom of his neck, and he moaned when she sucked the skin. It vibrated against her lips, and she swore she could dedicate hours to this spot just to hear him do it again. She was reluctant to leave it, but Malfoy was more insistent on capturing her mouth again, and she couldn't say she minded that much.
They swayed as he led her back three steps, and his arm slipped from around her, his hand skimming her bum before rising to her hip. "Lay back."
She swore the sound of his voice echoed into her chest and down to the center of her ache, and she almost waited just to hear him say it again. She awkwardly hunkered down, putting her hand behind her and onto something soft. Malfoy followed right with her, kissing her again as soon as her bum hit her robe.
He lifted his head to look at something behind her head, and he reached up to shove it back before looking down at her. Hermione pulled in a deep, slow breath at the sight of him. The mess of his hair, the darker, hooded eyes, the pink cheeks, and his red, kiss-swollen lips. His gaze tracked across her face, and she wondered if he was taking in the same details. His hand skimmed over her right breast, her ribs, her side, and to her thigh. She spread her legs wider the second he pushed to do it for her, and he settled between her thighs.
Hermione lifted her head to press her mouth to his, unsure of why she did it so softly, but he quickly had her kissing him back like she was trying to claim his mouth as her own. His hand left her thigh, and her hips bounced as his finger pressed into her, drawing a whine from her throat.
Malfoy moaned lowly and muttered something against her mouth, pumping his finger four, five times. Hermione lifted her hips, needing more, and more, and everything, and Malfoy shifted above her. Her hand clenched on his shoulder, and his mouth slid to her cheek as the tip of him prodded against her. Her heart skipped, and a wild impatience sprang through her, but then his hips rocked, and he was buried inside of her.
A deep, guttural sound shook through Malfoy's chest, and Hermione groaned loudly, her head falling back. Malfoy pulled his hips back and snapped them forward, back, forward, and she wrapped her legs around him as his mouth moved to her throat. She felt full and whole, and every rock of his hips sent a wave of pleasure up her body, until she was drowning in it, and him, and let it take her completely.
*
Her wrist was throbbing, rudely destroying the warm and drowsy contentment that was trying to cocoon Hermione. She winced as she brought her hand to her chest, and upon feeling skin, watched dozens of images from the night before flash through her mind. She could feel Malfoy's arm under her neck, their sides pressed together, and the curve of his hipbone against the back of her hand.
She blinked her eyes open, and then turned her head to look at him. A muscle in his arm tightened and relaxed, and his eyes were shut. They must have both fallen asleep. Hermione let out a heavy breath as quietly as she could at the thought of how lucky they were nothing had attacked once they were asleep. She should have got up and got dressed, but everything had felt so good, and she had much preferred the warmth between his arms than the cold of the tunnel.
Stupid.
Hermione sat up, glancing back at Malfoy, but he didn't move. The light of the candle was deep in the cylinder of wax, and the tunnel was dim, but she still managed to find her clothes. She forgot her bra, and her head went through a sleeve in her shirt, and her knickers were up to her thighs before she realized they were backwards. She kept remembering pieces from last night, and the phantom touches he had marked into memories on her skin, and all the different sounds she could make come out of him.
She was flushed and flurried as she packed their things away into their bags, ate a pear, and then made use of empty book pages while trying not to feel guilty or give herself paper cuts. She was desperate for several cleaning charms, but she needed to wait until Malfoy woke up in case it brought the Dark magic.
She didn't have to wait long. She was pretty sure he had built in survival sensors for when someone looked at him in his sleep. Or maybe just when someone was looking closely enough to try remembering every way each part of him had moved the night before. She was busy with his shoulders when the outstretched arm slid down the empty place beside him, and then shook like the limb had gone numb.
Hermione pulled her knees to her chest, and watched her fingers trace tears in her jeans. There was a nervous tension cramping her stomach, and awkwardness thickened the air around her. Would he ignore it happened? Would he try to do it again? Would he just look at her until she wanted to dig her way out of her skin?
Hermione raised her chin and looked at him, aware he'd been looking back before she saw it. "Hi."
"Hi."
"I fell asleep, too. Thankfully nothing happened. We were sleeping for…awhile."
"Awhile?"
"The candle is near gone. It had only been a bit more than a quarter burned when I woke up yesterday, and it couldn't have burned that much before we fell asleep." She paused, and looked back at him from the candle. "Not that that was…short or anything, it's just not… It's a slow burning candle. That was a perfect amount of time considering the-as we both… It was what- It didn't have to be longer."
Hermione stared at him like the train crash of her words was happening on his face, and apparently it resulted in his amusement. His lips didn't move, but she could tell by his eyes – if his mouth had been hidden by something, she would have sworn he was smiling behind it.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked.
"I did." He stretched, and she watched his robe slip down to his stomach.
"Are you sore?" She grew flustered the more the corner of his lips lifted. "The people, the magic, it was very bruising."
"I'm practically broken."
She rolled her eyes, but then he got to his feet. Her visual receptors and mind went spastic for a moment as she tried to process every inch of everything. "Your, uh, clothes are over there."
"…Unless they already happen to be on my body, a little more direction could be helpful."
Heat swarmed her cheeks, her eyes flashing wide up to his face, and then away, Hermione, away. "Right there, behind you."
He was standing a few feet away from her completely starkers, and he expected her to not look? It was impossible. Like moths and flames, or car accidents, or art in museums, or a very attractive, naked man that she had happened-
"You folded them?" He sounded incredulous as he flicked his wrist and the shirt unfolded, but then he laughed before she could answer, low and rumbling.
She glared at his back, but lost her anger somewhere around the top of his bum. "Sometimes I'm torn between strangling you or kissing you," she told him, before she could stop herself from being too honest.
"I've felt the same more often than I'd bother to count. Sadly, strangling is illegal." He clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth as she smiled behind her knees, wondering just how long he'd been thinking of kissing her. "I've looked it up," he said, pulling his shorts over his bum.
"Maybe we should strangle one another at the same time, and both claim self-defense."
He bent to grab his trousers, and then turned to face her. "Yes, because the considerable combination of our fury will surely wait until we've both perfectly orchestrated our mutual murders to start at the exact same second. You'll carry lists of the best researched positions in which to achieve our goals, and in the end, all your work will be for naught when I've forgotten the watch."
She narrowed her eyes at him, fighting back the curve of her smile. "You sound like you've thought about this."
He shrugged a shoulder, working on the buttons of his trousers. "I just have the stunning capability of assessment and planning within seconds, rather than the unfortunate Gryffindor trait of battle first, and plan halfway-through-if-we've-got-the-time."
"That's untrue – I am a very thorough planner. I-"
"The first time we saw the same vision-"
"Voldemort."
"You flew back out of your chair and pulled your wand. The instincts I relate to, but you still pulled your wand."
"That was because there was an immediate threat, and I was going to defend myself. You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same."
"I'm telling you that I saw him as well, and I didn't draw my wand. A moment of thought and you realize it can't be real. When this all started, you told me you followed a rabbit down the hall, and how you cast at things and it didn't work. They weren't going after you, they weren't threats, but you battled first and researched second."
Hermione sniffed, raising her chin. "Well, I'm proud of that trait, then."
He smirked, grabbing his wand from the floor. "Yet you denied it first."
She shrugged. "It's in my character to battle you first." He huffed a laugh, and she grinned, watching him walk down the tunnel. "Hey, Malfoy?" He twisted back to look at her. "Thanks for healin-"
"Make sure you eat something before we leave. I don't want to listen to you deconstructing the different growls of your stomach again."
Hermione frowned as he kept walking.
*
"I'm getting so tired of seeing stone. At least there are portraits and tapestries around Hogwarts, but here…stone. Sometimes I think of them as sounds."
Malfoy's forehead wrinkled as he shot her a look. "You think of what as sounds?"
"The floor. I step on the bigger stones with sharp edges, it's boingrr, soft edges, bom. Small ones with cracks are urcha, no cracks are dee. These ones are bimbim."
"…How long have you been doing this?"
"Two days, I suspect. But see, it's…" She waited to step forward. "Bom, boingrr, deedee, bimbim, dee, tra, lala, la, la, la, buhdum, buhdum, bom."
She couldn't make out the emotion behind his look in the wave of light. "Is that the whole reason you were hopping about yesterday, and then told me your thighs had gone suddenly numb?"
"Er, yes," she muttered. "I don't actually have Numbing Syndrome. I'm not even sure if that exists."
His laugh echoed down the tunnel, and she thought she liked that sound a lot more than the ones in the stones. Maybe she could make the large, sharp-edged ones with the cracks the sound of his laughter. Or maybe she'd go insane if all she heard in her head for an hour was a disjointed rhythm interlaced with laughing.
"Do you ever think about what we must sound like to other things?" she asked him. "We can't hear the difference in the stones we step on, but maybe an ant beneath the floor hears it like music."
"Or like the ceiling is about to crush in on him."
She shrugged. "Things are different to everyone. It's like a painting that a group of people say is tragic, emotional, and beautiful, and all I see are a bunch of paint splatters."
"Or a group of people see a magical creature with teeth fit to rip out a throat, and all you see is something to love."
Hermione hummed. "That would all depend, really, but I agree with the point. We perceive how we feel. That's why they say love is blinding."
"Or we feel because of how we perceive. Attraction comes before love, and in order to be attracted to something, you have to perceive it first."
"But you perceive only part of it, based off knowledge of earlier perceptions, which have resulted in feeling a certain way about certain things. It's like how people love underdogs. No one loves the underdog with all the odds stacked against them unless they feel like they've been or are the underdog themselves, in something else."
"Perception still came first. Everything is unknown until it is perceived, and once it is, that perception is always there to shape feelings about it."
Hermione nodded, glancing over at him. "But perceptions can change."
She saw him look at her from the corner of her eye as they rounded into another tunnel. "Yes, they can."
"You know, when I was little, I used to think thunder was people walking over the floor of heaven, rain was the dust that came down, and lightning was drawn up from the earth so they could see us as they passed. Then when I got my Hogwarts letter from McGonagall, I wondered if storms were caused by wizards, and it was Merlin putting on a show for me."
Malfoy huffed a laugh, giving her an incredulous look. "Merlin whipped up an entire storm just to entertain you? I see you've always been-"
"I was the only magical person I knew! I thought it was him showing me…" she paused, waving her hand in the air, "I don't know, this whole other world I was part of and belonged in." Malfoy's smirk slipped. "That I was meant to be in it. And that idea, that perception, helped to bring me here. So even though I know better now, sometimes the ridiculous and stupid perceptions are worth it. Because they make us do things that changes us for the better in the end."
Malfoy was silent, and she went back to playing her stone music keys.
*
Hermione took the jar back from Malfoy, and then took another gulp. She cradled it between her arm and chest as she screwed the top back on, silently thanking repairing charms once again.
"There's…" Malfoy trailed off at the sound of footsteps in the next corridor.
Hope sprung briefly in Hermione's chest, but then a laugh rang out, and the hope dropped with the chill down her spine. She stepped back in time with Malfoy, and he killed his light before she could. She kept her wandlight trained on the end of the corridor so he could see where to aim, but readied herself to end the spell in case she needed to cast as well.
A hand pushed around the corner, fingers drumming on the wall, before Bellatrix sloped into view. Her lips curled into a smile as she looked at Malfoy. "Draco," she sing-songed. "I was thinking of a game-"
He must have been doing his assessment and planning bit, because he waited until then to cast a blocking spell, when Hermione would have shot it at her head the second it appeared. He had immediately fallen into a proper duel stance, but he relaxed when Bellatrix flew back. His grin was slow and sinister, and combined with the way her wandlight lit his face, he looked evil, and as dangerous as she'd ever seen him.
Hermione sensed something before she felt it, but she only managed to start turning when something slammed into her back like a group of scorching knife blades. Hermione's back arched as she cried out, staggering forward. She sucked in a tight breath, and spun around, casting a blocking spell into the dark.
The spell lit five curses that were racing towards them, and as many Death Eaters shadowed in the tunnel. The blocking spell blew it all back, and Hermione hit her knees before the suspension ended, yelling, "Down!"
She heard the spells crash into stone, and then Malfoy yell the banishing spell. Hermione lit her wand on a gasp, lighting an empty tunnel. Her back was burning and throbbing, and it felt harder to breathe, like she was pulling it in through some sort of straw. Malfoy's footsteps were quick behind her, and her strap pulled against the side of her neck as he dug into her bag.
She wheezed in a breath, and saliva crackled in her throat as Malfoy shoved the back of her shirt up. "Fuck."
That wasn't good. That meant it must have looked nearly as bad as it felt. Hermione clenched her fists and teeth as she heard the cap of the Dittany being taken off, but Malfoy stopped moving behind her.
"What?"
"I have to stop the blood first. It'll push the Dittany right out-"
"Shove it in."
"What?"
"Is it a puncture? Shove it in. The dropper, shove-"
"I'm not shoving it-"
"I can't breathe, just shove it in!"
She heard Malfoy's teeth clink together, and when she tried to straighten up, he pushed her forward again. She bit down hard enough to fear her teeth snapping, but the scream forced its way up from her stomach when the dropper plunged into the wound.
"You told me to fucking do it!"
Hermione couldn't function to pull in a breath as things began to mend themselves together on only one section of the pain. She leaned forward until her forehead was touching cold stone, and her breath shook in. Again, again, until she was gasping with it, and the ache in her chest disappeared.
Her breath came in clearer, and the deeper pain ebbed. "Better. Why—"
"Did you want to wait with the others, or are you going to-"
"Others?"
"There's five punctures. Four are still unhealed-"
"Oh, God. Give me a moment."
He yanked her robe from her bag, and she heard him bundling the fabric up before he pressed it to her back. She could feel his breath on the nape of her neck, coming nearly as fast as her own. She spread her hands against the ground, trying to calm herself enough to deal with the pain.
"We'll wrap it."
"You want to wait for the blood to stop?" he asked. "I can cast a spell to stop it, but it might bring another vision."
"No, I mean…I'll wrap my back. Use my robe for now. They're just punctures, so if I keep them wrapped and clean, I can deal with it. Do you still have the numbing-"
"Until the bleeding stops?"
"No, all together, the end, no Dittany, dealing-"
"Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "Did they hit you in the skull and I can't-"
"We don't have enough! It's a waste—"
"We'd still have more left if we used it now-"
"And we're going to get more injuries, and we're going to get worse than this-"
"Perhaps I'd take your word for it if you were the one staring at the giant fucking holes in your back-"
"We have to start choosing which injuries to use it on, and-"
"They're holes, not scrapes. If it gets infected-"
"I'll keep it clean," she told him, reaching to grab the ends of the robe to wrap it around her. "I can manage-"
"You're in an underground tunnel, fighting for your life half the day, and you expect to keep it clean, manage it, and ca-"
"Yes, now stop arguing with me! I'm in pain, and if you'd just let go of the robe-"
Malfoy snatched it out of her grip and off her back, and she jumped when he cast the spell to stop the blood flow.
"The visions-" she started to say.
"I don't care," he spat.
"I- No!" She scrambled forward, her breath catching at the sharp pain in her wrist and back, but Malfoy's arm shot around her waist and hauled her back. "Do not-"
His hot air hit the shell of her ear like a hurricane. "I will bind you to the fucking floor, Granger, and if you struggle, the Dittany is going to end up wasted-"
"You're wasting it now! It's my back, I feel the pain, it's my choice! I'm not-"
"And I'm not carrying you through tunnels while fighting Dark magic because you refused to heal gaping wounds, or explaining to the Ministry why you're dead! If it wasn't serious, I wouldn't give a shit, so can you trust my opinion once in your stubborn fucking life!"
Hermione closed her eyes, and her fingers curled into fists. The last thing she wanted to do was waste it when they didn't know how long they had left in the tunnels, or what injuries might come after. If Malfoy severed his arm tomorrow, they'd need much more than what they would have after this.
She could blow him down the tunnel right now if she wanted to, but he was asking her to trust him, and that was somehow more unfair than if he'd stolen her wand and took aim at her with his.
"Fine. But don't heal them until they're shut. Just enough. Just."