Hello, my lovely followers. This is like the calm chapter before the storm. Unfortunatley I have an essay to write for the uni and I tend to focus too much on this fanfic. Please, bear with me and feed me with reviews. I promise I will not desert this story, after all I have the plot figured out. Maybe I'll manage to update around the fifteenth of May. Enjoy your reading.
Inspirational music: I turn to you by Melanie C
Chap. 15 Breathings
"No, please don't! I'm begging you! Please don't hurt me! No, no!"
Scabior was usually a light sleeper, due to his snatcher nature. It was as if he had a constant need to be awake and use his energy instead wasting hours on sleeping. It was also an advantage in his trade to sleep with one eye open in case of emergencies and dangers. Now his ears were disturbed by the female mumbles and screams which had roused him.
He sat up and whipped out his wand in the darkness; a reflex from years of living on the edge. His keen eyes searched the dark tent for intruders but found none. Feeling more awake, he trained his eyes on the tossing figure on his bed. 'She's having a nightmare.'
He got up, ignorant of his scarcely clad body as he hurried to his distressed prisoner. She was wrapped tightly in the blanket and her forehead covered in sweat. A few brown strands lay stuck to her face and did not move even when she turned her head rapidly. Scabior figured she would rather be woken up than continue to walk in the torturous land of nightmares. He cast Lumos and put the wand in his messy hair to free both his hands.
He sat down on the bed and leaned forward.
"Hermione, wake up," he said softly but she only let out another pained moan. With a sigh he reached for her shoulders and shook them gently. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped loudly as she bolted up, and knocked him in the nose.
"Ow, what the 'ell, 'ermione!" he grunted as he leaned back, clutching his poor nose for dear life. She panted heavily, probably because of her recent nightmare and the chock at seeing him so close. He felt something wetting his fingers and could suddenly only smell metal. The horrified look on the woman's face confirmed his suspicion that his nose had begun to bleed.
Before he could react she had launched for his wand and pulled it out of his tangle. The light was extinguished and fear gathered in his core for a millisecond at this unexpected event until she lightly tapped his nose and breathed out, "Episkey"
Scabior gasped when his nose was being painfully but quickly fixed. Once the pain had worn off he let go of his nose and narrowed his eyes; she had his wand. She seemed to realize the same thing and turned her scared eyes to his. As a lonely tear escaped the corner of her eye and slowly trickled down, leaving behind a trail of watered skin which gleamed in the once again gloomy tent, Hermione opened her hand and dropped the wand in the small space between them. Scabior snatched his life-depending weapon and tossed it across the tent to his own simple bed.
Completely forgetting his bloodied hands, the only remaining evidence of his injury, he grabbed the woman's arms, staining her white sweater and hissed, "Who gave you permission to take my wand?" She began to tremble in his hold and said in a weak voice, "I'm so sorry, it was just a reflex. I swear, it was only my instinct."
"It was yer instinct to steal my wand?" he snarled and bared his teeth menacingly.
"No Scabior, my instinct to heal you."
His eyebrows lifted upon hearing this surprising explanation. He had suspected she had wanted to use the wand to attack him and then run away from the camp. But she seemed to tell the truth, after all, she had let go of the wand quickly and even in the darkness he saw her beautiful eyes shimmer with both unshed tears and honesty. Suddenly Scabior became aware of his firm grasp of her arms and released her. She brought her arms around herself and sniffed.
He remembered why he sat on her bed in the first place and explained with a calm voice, "You were having a nightmare so I tried to wake you up." The shudder that went through her body did not escape his observant eyes.
"Don't you take your potion for it?"
In a shaky voice she blurted out, "I wanted to try to sleep without it for one night. I thought it would be alright. Guess I was wrong."
With that Hermione burst into tears in front of a very uncomfortable Scabior. He rubbed his bristles absentmindedly and thought that maybe she would feel better if she got whatever upset her off her chest.
"Care to share with me what you dreamt about?"
She hiccupped and mumbled with a broken voice, "There was a dark room. I was trapped in there alone when Bellatrix Lestrange entered with the intention to harm me. She beat me until every inch of my skin hurt. She...she laughed at me and said that now I was going to be damaged on the inside as well." Hermione closed her eyes and rocked back and forth. "And then, she let that man into the room. Only this time he did rape me and no-one came to help me. I was all alone."
She sobbed loudly, unable to further keep her emotions in check. Scabior swore in his mind. Clearly she still needed the potion to sleep without being haunted by those who had harmed her. He was enraged by the obvious fact that those cruel people still, even in their absence could make her cry. Gently this time he reached for her upper arms and pulled her forward, towards his chest, finally getting an opportunity to satisfy his need to comfort her when she was sad. She did not resist but rested her head in the space under his chin and wept.
As he held her, Scabior recalled a distant memory from his time at Hogwarts. He had been stuck in the infirmary after getting into a fight with two fifth years; doing quite well for a third year until they broke his arm. As he lay in the soft bed resting Madame Pomfrey had walked by, a protecting arm draped over the shoulders of a tiny first year boy. He had cried over a deceased family owl. Scabior had silently observed the scene from his position. The mediwitch had lifted the upset boy onto a bed and seated herself beside him before she hugged him to her chest, soothing him. At the time, Scabior had thought it to be awkward to witness the nurse comforting the young pupil but now he embraced the memory, as it gave him a hint of how to calm Hermione down.
He held her close with one arm placed on the small of her back and buried the other hand in her soft brown waves. She kept shedding her tears like before, only this time Scabior could feel them making their way down his torso. An especially distressed sound from the woman made him begin to rock her slowly as he hushed her.
"It's alright, love. I've got you, you're safe here. You're safe." 'With me,' a possessive voice in his mind added but he suppressed it, concentrating on the witch in his arms.
The occasional shivers in the other body declined after some time and he heard her breathe heavy against his wet chest hair. The warm air hit one of his exposed nipples. He was awfully aware of the sudden rush of arousal coursing south as the nipple hardened. But Merlin, he would be damned if he scared her with his own desire. Reluctantly he pushed her away slowly, immediately missing her warmth as the chilly air hit his naked skin, although it did help him to fight down his lust.
Hermione felt exhausted but comforted as Scabior let go of her arms carefully. She brought up her sleeve to dry the few lingering tears on her cheeks. With bleary eyes she watched the motionless man who sat near her. It suddenly occurred to her that she had cried onto his bare chest. Oh Godric, she could even see the traces of her sadness among the dark chest hair.
Regardless of her inexperience with men, the sight of his toned torso so near her made her heart leap. He looked very good. And now that she thought about it, he carried with himself a scent of fresh apples, and something else she could only describe as wilderness. It suited him and calmed and excited her at the same time. She waited in silence for something, anything from him but was unsure of what she exactly expected.
He exhaled before he muttered, "Take your potion already."
A thump of disappointment at his dismissal of their rather intimate moment struck her but she complied and found the rejected bottle and a spoon on the floor beside her. Scabior played with his fingers as she drank a whole spoonful, thus assuring herself that her mind would not create more nightmares this night. Once she had put down her things Scabior lightly tapped her knee hidden under the blanket and made to leave which panicked her.
Desperately she launched her body to grab his hand, almost losing her balance and tumbling off the bed in the process. He haltered his movement but frowned at their joined hands.
"I'm sorry, I... It's just that I want you here."
He stared at her and she blushed in embarrassment. Yet she continue in a hurried exclamation, "I have trouble falling asleep when I'm alone in darkness with my thoughts. I know it's silly but I can't help it, I get scared. But it usually helps if I sleep next to somebody; I did it with Harry recently and everything felt fine again."
Too busy with her ranting, she missed the flinch in Scabior's otherwise stony features and the gleaming look of revelation in his dark eyes.
"Anyway, I was just wondering, oh this is so mortifying, if you would consider sharing my, or well, your bed tonight. You only have to lie here until I'm asleep. I know I'm beyond audacity for asking this of you but it would, as I was saying, help me through this night. Could you do it please?"
After her last word Hermione breathed in much needed air and saw him looking at her with curiosity. 'Oh shit, I've made a fool of myself,' she thought with increasing fear of rejection. To her surprise Scabior began to intertwine their linked fingers and a corner of his mouth twisted.
"Well, it's not polite to deny a lady such a request," he smirked and came back to the bed.
Hermione's stomach fluttered with equally relief as nervousness; no matter how you looked at it, she was to share a bed with a grown man who most certainly was not a friend like Harry. She shifted to the side, making room for his bigger body while he lifted the blanket to get in. A loud squeak was heard from the poor bed, undeniable protesting against the added weight on it. Hermione giggled at the amusing noise and Scabior let out a snigger in a masculine voice. However the short respite from their current situation was soon over and Hermione found herself too jittery to go to sleep just yet. Scabior turned his head to her.
"Do you know who is the best teacher at Hogwarts?"
Caught off guard by his random question she blurted out, "McGonagall?"
He shook his head the best he could against the pillow and drawled out in a deadpan tone, "Dementor."
Despite Hermione's otherwise intelligent brain it took some while until she understood the joke, since she was not familiar with any jokes from the wizarding world, if one of course did not count the Weasley twins fooling around. She began to chuckle along with a very cheerful Scabior.
"Fancy hearing another one?" the snatcher asked in an eager voice which Hermione could not bear to destroy.
"Let's hear then," she said with a smile and Scabior got the look of a child who had found a rare Chocolate Frog Card.
"Okay, who are the weakest creatures in the world?" This time Hermione had learnt her lesson and shook her head immediately and Scabior continued, "The inferi or..."
"Or what?" she wondered, confused by his unfinished sentence.
"That's it, beautiful. The inferior's the weakest creature, obviously," he exclaimed and rolled his eyes in pretended annoyance at her stupidity. She laughed but even in the dusky tent Hermione could see what he did; his dark irises contrasted with the white colour around them and she caught the way the brown circles went.
"Hey! I bet you wouldn't understand ninety percent of the muggle jokes I know," she retorted and pouted. He snorted with laughter until those deep brown eyes settled on her outstretched lower lip. Hermione's mirth gave way for the returned anxiety. She retracted her lip and yet his gaze stayed fixed on her mouth. His eyes darkened and he seemed to be completely obsessed with her lips. Hermione felt anew a flutter behind her ribcage as she was being so thoroughly studied by the burning gaze of a man.
For a moment she thought she got a lump in her throat before it strayed upwards and developed into yawn. That brought Scabior back to reality and he blinked rapidly.
"Aww, look who's tired. Time to sleep, eh?" he teased, as if he did not want to recognize his strange behaviour just a moment ago. But Hermione did not bother to question him, feeling rather sleepy after the eventful night. She brought the blanket over her arms and mumbled with closed eyes, "Goodnight Scabior."
Right before she entered the dreamless tranquillity she heard him respond quietly, "Sleep tight, beautiful." which made her fall asleep with a smile.