A/N: I am so sorry about the delay, guys. I just got really bad writer's block and didn't know where to go with this. I'm going to try to be as reliable as possible with the updates from now on. I'm really sorry. In any case, the first part is kind of dark, and the second part has smut, so…watch out for that, I guess. It's kind of emotionally charged, and I'm not sure how I feel about how it turned out. Oh well. Here it is.
Hermione's POV
Two months later…
Tonight seems different. The walls of my room seem darker, the portrait frames are empty, and something isn't right, I just can't place my finger on it. I haven't seen any of my friends in person in nearly two months; with all of us working at the Ministry there hasn't been time yet. I've been panicked and terrified all morning; more news has arrived from the Ministry: starting in about a month, Ministry officials will be sent out to perform consummation checks, followed by pregnancy checks, to be repeated monthly until a pregnancy is confirmed. And once conception is achieved, the Ministry checks will continue each month to ensure that the foetus is developing normally. The consummation of the union has been the most unsavoury prospect, just the idea of sleeping with Malfoy makes my stomach turn; I haven't been able to eat much lately, but today I've been so sick I almost thought I was pregnant anyway. I've been trying to regain some weight, but to no avail; I'm just as stick-thin as I was at the very end of the Final Battle, and I'm disgusted by it.
I sit on the bed, a pot full of black ink next to me, and pen a letter to Ron. I do this to assure him that I'm okay, and to assure myself that there is someone out there that cares whether or not I am okay. I do this for both of the twins, for Harry, for Ginny, and sometimes for Luna. Work makes consistent visits increasingly difficult. My parents' absence weighs heavily on me, but I simply do not have the time or resources to locate them right now. Carefully, I sign my letter and leave all three pieces of parchment laid out on my nightstand to dry overnight. Somewhere downstairs, a door clicks unlocked and shuts with a resounding slam. Footsteps echo all around the Manor, empty save for me and Malfoy.
He probably wants to discuss this new pressure from the Ministry. I'm going to have to sleep with him. Well…what if I have sex with a different person, would that fool the Ministry checks? I snatch the torn, crumpled remains of the letter out of the draw of my nightstand and hastily scan the dull, dry language until I find the paragraph about the incantation: "…designed to detect the DNA of the woman's husband in any conceived zygote, embryo, or foetus. The specific incantation used will notify the spellcaster of infidelity if it results in a pregnancy, which will void the conception. The woman may choice how to proceed with her child, however, if she does decide to give birth, it will not count as one of the two children she is expected to bear, regardless of whether or not it is magical, as its bloodline will become impure and its familial relation void." Sly bastards thought of nearly everything, didn't they? I roll the letter back into its crumpled ball form and cram it back into the drawer, sliding it shut angrily just as the bedroom door opens.
Malfoy enters, shutting the door behind himself as though someone else might interrupt, and leans against the wall with his arms crossed defensively over his chest. He is dressed nicely, as usual, with black pants and shoes and a black collared, button down shirt. Extrinsically, with aristocratic features, stormy eyes, and platinum blonde hair, he's quite attractive. Intrinsically is an entirely different story. I've endured him only a little while over a month and he hasn't changed a bit. He's argumentative and temperamental, volatile and prejudiced, judgmental and insufferable. He picks fights with me over every little thing, refuses to speak to me unless we're rowing, and remains unbearably entitled. Little by little, though, he gets better. He doesn't call me Mudblood anymore, like that remnant of his father has been washed away. We mostly go about our own lives without acknowledging each other except to bicker. We make our own meals and eat them separately, sleep on our own schedules, work our own hours. I'm quickly ascending the Ministry hierarchy in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and I'm currently pressing my higher-ups to pass more legislation to improve the rights of house elves and other traditional subservient beings. Malfoy is working at St. Mungo's to become a Healer. Either the training itself is incredibly stressful, or being out in the Wizarding World with a name as reviled as Malfoy is, because he comes home every night looking like he's been sobbing, in worse shape than he was during sixth year. It almost makes me feel bad for him. But not quite. Not after how he's treated me, no, I think he should experience it.
His eyes are cold steel and he does not acknowledge me in any way, simply leans against the closed door and waits, as though I've called him in myself to talk and he's waiting for me to initiate a conversation.
"Malfoy," I start, after several long moments. The air in the room feels like a frozen compress pressing into my being.
"Granger."
"Why are you here?"
"Just wanted to check in," he says tonelessly. My eyes go immediately to the silver band around his wrist, where his arms are crossed tightly. Poisoning him. Forcing him, little by little, drop by drop, to tolerate me. To hate me a little less. Maybe.
I make a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat. I was expecting disgust, or authority, or rage, but here we are, like he doesn't know what to do with this new development, like he had forgotten we'd have to consummate the union at some point, or forgotten how conception works or something. When a crazy mommy slips a love potion into an unsuspecting daddy's drink…my mother gave me books about this sort of thing; during the third and fourth years at Hogwarts, the task of sex ed falls on the head of the Hospital Wing, Madame Pomfrey, who also utilised books far more than lectures to save everyone the embarrassment. She made sure we did our reading; she didn't want the responsibility and liability of teenage pregnancy to fall on her shoulders. Contraceptive potions were easily accessible and spells were taught early on. The extensive library was a great resource for that particular topic, the basics, the bare minimum of the biological function of reproduction, nothing pleasure, nothing love, just "this is how we keep our numbers up." And this is what this is, this passionless, reluctant union, how shameful and contaminated I am to taint the purity of the Malfoy offspring with my filthy blood in my filthy veins and no one wants to touch me, I can see it in his eyes, cold steel and his clenched jaw and flickering sneer.
"I want to know you," I say quietly, practically to myself. But he has come and gone, and I doubt he has heard me. I doubt it truly matters. Whether I know him or not, this is happening. And I don't know if knowing him will make it any more pleasant.
Later, as the whistling of the wind in the night stabs nostalgia through my chest, that unbearable longing for the Gryffindor dormitory and the warmth of the common room, I lie in the chilly sheets and wonder if even the most damaged people can be good somehow.
Get me out. Oh God and Merlin, get me out, before he does anything, before he—
"Going somewhere, Mudblood?" Malfoy drawls, his trademark sneer plastered on his face, his eyes filled with cold amusement. I'm in a corridor of Malfoy Manor; it's like Hogwarts with its overabundance of winding corridors, each one nearly identical to the last. I'm lost in the labyrinth of torchlights and portrait frames, each oil paint face jeering, hissing, cackling, my ears are filled with a screeching cacophony of bone-chilling noises. Their angry eyes glaring at my disgrace, the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Zabinis, their aristocratic, arrogant faces, aquiline, the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the rest that aren't blood traitors. The Rosiers and the Parkinsons and the Notts. Every hallways lined with paintbrush memories of the dead, every corpse edging Malfoy closer to me with serpentine voices, Please!
"Malfoy," I whisper, and I am so, so broken and cowardly, I can't find my wand on me and I will fight, but I know that I cannot succeed against him alone, not when I can barely budge my feet further down the hall, the doors are gone, my empty stomach turns somersaults in my abdomen, Please, Merlin, don't. Don't.
And suddenly he's here, he's right here in front of me, his eyes boring into me, burning my skin, everywhere they sweep over my inadequacy, his palms are cold against my face, holding my head in place, Look at me! Look at my power, my power over you, how beautiful, what beautiful control, look at me! as though I can hear his serpentine thoughts reverberating within my own head. My back hits the wall, hard against the jutting knobs of my spine, the dull thud shakes the picture frames from the wall and they fall back again, a legion of purebloods now carcasses with their gleaming silver eyes and their misguided pride and his hands tighten on my shoulders, I feel his fingernails through my shirt, no. No.
The jeering eyes of the portraits lining the hallway, watching, their faces lighting up with sadistic anticipation, hatred and spite and I just want to tell them that sometimes I wish I was dead just as much as they do, right now there is nothing, nothing I wouldn't give to be dead. "Come, now, Mudblood," he says, his voice dripping with condescending cooperation, like he's talking to a misbehaving toddler. "I'd have thought you'd have accepted your place here by now. For the so-called 'Brightest Witch of Her Age,' you're acting quite daft."
Stop, Merlin, just, please don't, please—
"Granger!"
Everything is hazy and slow, and my vision blurs on the edges as I pry my eyes open. Someone's lit the room. "For fuck's sake," I hear the voice say again, muttering, half angry and half exhausted. Malfoy. The name pops into my head and I sit up stock-straight, scrambling away from him. He's leaning over me, boring holes into my skull, his grey eyes bloodshot and narrowed in annoyance. A glance toward the window tells me it's still nighttime; somehow I must have roused him awake.
"You were having a nightmare."
I remember. My heart is beating out of my chest, and the only thing keeping me from turning my wand on him is the fact that he doesn't have his on me. I don't say anything; why would he care to know that the jaded eyes of his pureblood predecessors have screamed for my end for two months?
"You woke me," he continues. His tone is flat, not angry, just emotionless. I don't apologise for anything. I'm not sorry, and I won't be, not even if he ever is. There's nothing for me to be sorry for. He stares at me a long moment, our eye contact charged with mingling anger and fear and something I can't place, and my face is an expressionless mask and his is as well and there is nothing to say right now. He stands and turns, walking out the door. He throws me a fleeting glance with an odd look and closes the door behind himself, plunging me back into unsettling darkness.
Cho'sPOV
"Would you stop micromanaging me for one bloody day? Merlin, it's like living with my bloody mother all over again, but at least she could cook!" Fred shouts, slamming a frying pan down on the kitchen counter with a resounding clang. I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the countertop, glaring at him. I'm trying to help him make this place a bit more livable, and here he is being disrespectful when all I want is for him to hear me out for once. We must have had this argument four or five times a week for the past two months.
"I'm just saying, if you could contain your experiments to one area, and not do them in the bedroom, cleaning around here wouldn't take all bloody day and every spell in the goddamn book," I shoot back. There's no reason for him to be difficult, and after nine separate potions mishaps in the span of two weeks, resulting in such pleasantries as the living room floor freezing into an ice rink, a bathroom wall going up in flames, all the food in the fridge turning a nasty shade of green, and a couple other nearly impossible to properly reverse disasters, I'd really appreciate some more help from him in this arena. I don't hate him through and through; he has a decent sense of humour, and he's a nice enough human being, but after a particularly challenging afternoon of assisting him in draining out a full-blown kitchen flood after he somehow managed to rupture a pipe or something, I'm getting really sick of his disorganisation.
"And I'm just saying that I can take care of cleaning up the messes myself! You don't need to insist upon turning up with your self-righteous nose in the air to help set everything right again, then bitch and moan about the job being difficult and walk around acting like a bloody martyr about it all!"
"Well I wouldn't help you if you didn't actually need it, but as it happens, you and George don't always know what in the name of Merlin's dress robes you're doing, so someone has to step in! This is my home too, and I want to be able to actually come in the door without having to worry about some ill-fated attempt at a potion melting through the walls!"
He steps closer to me, imitating my stance with his heavily scarred arms crossed over his chest. Vaguely, it occurs to me that both of us are still soaked with water, and that my clothes are dripping on the tile of the floor I just helped him dry. I would have taken care of this earlier, but as soon as the flooding was under control, he set about nonchalantly making bacon and pretending nothing ever happened. His eyes are angry and fed-up, but then again, so are mine. I retrieve my wand from the opposite end of the counter and cast drying charms on myself before reluctantly doing the same for him and setting my wand away again. He glares at me steadfastly.
"How about you worry about your work, and I worry about mine? You have your own studies to attend to, I'll keep the shop running, and you can keep your controlling self out of the matters of home regulation?" he says, advancing on me. I stand my ground, against the countertop, still meeting his gaze with the same mild fury. "I know all this comes down to is you wanting me to get a 'real' job, Chang. But I want to make it very clear that I'm getting sick of you thinking you can tell me how to live my own bloody life, and I want you to stay the hell out of it, got that?"
"I'll start staying the hell out of it once it stops affecting my ability to live under the same roof as you, Weasley," I growl, surprised at my own defensiveness. I can feel his jagged breath on my face, feel his radiating body heat, and I wonder suddenly when he got this far into my personal space, but I'm afraid that walking away, putting distance between us, is only going to make me look like I'm giving up or cowering. I start to wonder about a lot of things. When I started swearing so much, when I started thinking of this flat as mine, or as home.
"You'll start staying the hell out of it right now, because you're getting on my last nerve," he hisses, setting his hands on the counter on either side of me. Neither of us currently has a wand in hand, which is a mildly comforting consideration. He's not going to hurt you, though. He wouldn't.
His face is mere inches from mine, his arms trapping me with my back against the counter, but I stand my ground. He's not scary anyway, with his battle scars and unkempt hair and bright eyes. Get a hold of yourself! It's the bracelet; keep your mind on the argument at hand! He's impulsive and emotion-driven, there's no way I'm going to get through to him when he's angry, he's not thinking rationally now, if he ever was in the first place anyway. His face is rigid and his jaw is clenched tightly. He stares at me spitefully, eyes burning into mine, and in this moment I am angrier with him than I have ever been before, and my whole body feels like it's on fire.
"You've gotten on my last nerve already, Weasley," I snap.
His upper lip twitches oddly. "Listen, Chang, you're a good enough person beneath all that bitchiness and undeserved martyrdom but until you fix those things, I paid for this place and you're only going to get as much respect from me as I get from you." He inches forward until his breath washes over my ear and says in a harsh whisper, "So you'd better learn to respect me."
My retort catches in my throat. I am so goddamn angry with him right now, his disrespect and disorganisation and disregard for my wishes, but something in his vengeful expression tells me now isn't the time for this anymore. I haven't moved my eyes from his, even though the air around me feels charged with electricity and my heart is beating out of my chest. "Make m—" I try to hiss back, but his lips cut me off, abrupt but silently expected. Don't, Cho, it's just the potion…but then, it's going to happen eventually, right? Now's as good a time as any. I have no idea what I'm doing, why this is happening so quickly, so suddenly, except for the fact that it needs to, so it might as well.
His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling my head around, he is so unlike Cedric but I can't bring myself to stop him, truth be told I don't quite want to. His lips devour and mine fight back, meeting his fire with more, singeing the edges of his raging spite. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer until he presses against me, until I can feel his hips holding mine into place against the counter. One of his hands stays in my hair while the other runs under my shirt and deftly unhooks the back of my bra, leaving me to wonder where he learned to perform that so quickly. Hell, I can't unhook my own bra one-handed. I slip my arms through the straps and the garment falls to the tile floor, but I keep my shirt on. I can't be bothered to break from him to take it off, and apparently Fred doesn't care all too much because the same hand slips under my shirt, circling my hardened nipple and pulling a reluctant moan from me. I don't want him to know the effect of what he's doing to me; I'm too stubborn and proud, but he's making it hard to stop myself. His fingers clamp down on it and pull hard, and my eyes fly open in shock, the pain radiating through my body but mingling with pleasure. The fingertips resting on my scalp yank hard, pulling my head backwards, and his breath hits my ear again while his fingers work painfully on the other nipple, pebbling under his harsh ministrations. "Learning anything, Chang?"
I grit my teeth, too proud to answer him, but I press my hips against his, feeling the visceral need burning straight to my core, hoping he'll get on with it before I have to try to switch us. I start to unbutton my jeans, pulling the clothing away until I am pressed against the kitchen counter wearing nothing but my t-shirt and my blue and green underwear, the kind that's not particularly seductive or even slightly sexual but now is not the time to worry about it. He takes his hand out of my hair, leaving my scalp rather sore, and focuses instead on slipping a hand into my underwear, his fingers seeking out my clit, rubbing mercilessly until I'm grabbing onto his shoulders and shirt sleeves, tugging at the belt loops of his pants, unable to say anything, just moan his name and thank Merlin that George and Katie aren't here because I can't be arsed to cast silencing charms at the moment. I hear the sound a belt being undone and I marvel at his ability to do things one-handedly, and then I feel the air hit me as my underwear is lowered and I nearly cry at the loss of his fingers. My mind is scattered and I can't form coherent thoughts or sentences, all I can think about is the end goal of all of this, and I know it's approaching as his hands dig into my waist, lifting me up and setting me on the kitchen countertop, pushing my shoulders back carelessly until I'm flat on my back and my knees are hooked over his shoulders and I hear his belt hit the ground. His hands close around my breasts again, running over the flesh and tweaking my nipples, far less painfully this time.
And then suddenly he's there, pounding into me unceremoniously, and I feel some pain as I adjust to him but the pleasure overrides it as his fingers continue to tease my nipples and I start to rub my clit, my back arching off the counter to meet his fingers and my walls tightening around him. Eventually he removes his hands and grabs my hips, fingernails digging deeply into my skin, slamming into me viciously. He leans over me again, his body flattening against mine and kisses me forcefully, until I can't concentrate on that anymore and my mouth breaks away from his to fall into an "O" shape, filling the room with loud, wanton moaning and his strangled breathing until my vision goes black on the edges and my body shatters into a million little pieces and I feel him shooting deep inside me, like tiny fireworks lighting up my being from the inside out. He relinquishes his grip and steps away, casting cleaning charms for once and getting dressed again. I lie on the kitchen counter ineffectively, my thighs soaked, my shirt pulled up to expose my breasts, my arms sprawled out to the sides, my breath coming out in heaving pants. The room comes together again, my eyesight gradually refocusing. I sit up, my head still spinning, and pull my shirt down over my torso. Use my wand to clean my sticky skin, pull my underwear back up, put my pants back on. The thought strikes me that we've just consummated.
He looks at me awkwardly, like he doesn't quite know what to say after this. It changes things, doesn't it? I can tell he wants to make some thoughtless, obnoxious joke, but he's restraining himself. "I should head down to the shop," he tells me, his voice rather quiet. "See if George wants to switch with me."
I nod. I don't know what to say. I lean against the countertop, not yet trusting my knees to be steady enough to support my weight. "I'll see you tonight," he says. His eyes narrow, scrutinising my reaction, my silence. Suddenly, his arms wrap around me for a brief moment, the first physical contact we've had that wasn't angry or primal. I hug him back, but my mind is far from here. He turns and heads to the shop. I make my way to my bedroom. My. Our?
It should have been Cedric.
It always should have been Cedric.