Chapter 3: Pendulum Swings
"Let's celebrate," Malfoy's more evil version declared, the Elder Wand clutched tightly in his hand as he grinned, spiritedly pouring them each a drink upon arriving at his home. My parents are in Scandinavia, he'd already explained, laughing into his glass of Ogden's. They leave me alone often, he added, winking at Hermione, as I'm an undisputed paragon of good behavior.
It had been a messy display of spiraling from there. Spirits alone were something Hermione was woefully inexperienced with, and when paired with a set of intently focused grey eyes, intoxication was an understatement. By the time there were two sets of attentive glances on hers—Get him alone, Malfoy mouthed urgently, gesturing to his doppelgänger—she'd nervously (and half-dizzily) conceded to clear her throat, glancing up and trying, hopelessly, to steady her faltering smile.
"Do you," she began to not-Malfoy, and paused, swallowing an onslaught of nerves. "I'm—a bit tired," she lied quietly, gripping the arm of the sofa. "Is there an extra bedroom, or—?"
She caught the motion of the real Malfoy rolling his eyes; Smooth, he mouthed, but she was determinedly focused on the other version of him, who had run his tongue slowly over his bottom lip.
"There's mine," he suggested wryly.
She forced herself to stay calm.
"Show me," she suggested, feigning confidence, and the grey sparked, suddenly bright with something a jolt near the base of her stomach (itself already warmed by whisky, and further ignited by nerves) informed her must have been anticipation.
"I'm not stupid," he informed her over his shoulder, leading her down the corridor of a darkened wing of his manor house. "You seem to think I'm ruled by my cock," he added with a scoff, blatantly unimpressed, "which I very firmly don't appreciate, but—"
"How did you know to find me?" Hermione interrupted. "Her, I mean."
"I've used the portkey myself a few times," he answered, shrugging. "Spent a bit of time collecting information about you. You'd be surprised how many people have an answer to a question as innocent as 'what's the deal with Hermione Granger,' even when it's some apparently prejudiced version of me that's asking it," he explained, giving her a distinctly wolfish look of interest that sent a furious thrill up her spine. "Though, in all honesty, I had no idea you knew about the Deathly Hallows."
"Who says I do?" she countered, and he smirked knowingly.
"Don't bother trying to cover it up now," he told her, pausing in the long corridor. "I already know you're brilliant."
"I can be brilliant and still not know anything about the Deathly Hallows," she informed him, her breath catching slightly as he turned to face her. By then, the pieces of the world seemed diminished to little more than the basest of what she could see and touch and feel: him, in front of her. The wall, behind her. A distinct and bewildering lack of self-preservation, hovering around her. "The two aren't mutually exclusive."
"Mm," he agreed, his tongue traveling slowly over his lip again. "Not for you, though. Figured out the monster in the Chamber of Secrets too, didn't you?" he asked, though it was obvious he already knew the answer. "You know how to get there, and what it is, don't you?"
She held her breath. "I—yes, but—"
"You brewed a successful Polyjuice potion in your second year at Hogwarts," he continued, and leaned towards her, the crisp smell of him floating up and prompting a shiver. "You know about the Philosopher's Stone too, don't you? That's just a rumor here, you know," he mused, laughing a little, and his breath slid punishingly against her neck. Why wasn't she pushing him away? And worse, she processed with an internal flinch, why didn't she seem to want to?
"I've even heard," not-Malfoy continued, his lips brushing her jaw this time, "that you've been in the Department of Mysteries."
"You've heard a lot of things," Hermione noted, trying not to gasp as his hips aligned themselves with hers. "How?"
"You know, I'm afraid you rather underestimate me. I'm somewhat clever myself," he whispered, and pulled back to look at her, rakish and hungry. He looked at her as a thing to be unwrapped, and then devoured; like a thing to chase, and then ravenously consume. He looked at her, alarmingly, as nobody had ever looked at her before, and she wished the visceral reaction telling her to run hadn't also (confusingly) compelled her to stay, rooting her in place. "There's a few things I could still stand to know, though, if we're being honest."
"Why do I feel like you're rarely honest?" she asked dazedly, her eyes falling shut as he reached for her waist, one finger at a time. She could feel it, the settling of each of the pads of his fingers; index, middle, ring, pinky, primed with deliberation, and then finally his thumb, which smoothed lightly across a single electrified inch of her stomach.
"I'll tell you something true right now," he offered, and leaned down, brushing his lips against hers with an impossible softness; a delicate hardly-anything almost-nothing that was met with a rush of something wild in her. It was, among many things, the insane realization that she was kissing Draco Malfoy—only it wasn't, and that was even crazier, and what was the craziest of all was that she liked it, she liked it, she liked it—
"I'm going to kiss you," he confessed against her lips, a breathy spill of sweetness into her mouth. "And then I'll do it again," he added, making it true, "and again, and again—"
She gasped as he guided her legs apart, strategically placing his thigh against her; encouraging her, moving against her, moving with her.
"—and I suspect you're going to like it," he finished with a laugh, as she felt her knees go weak, letting him pull her with him into his bedroom; she let him toss her back on his bed, let him slide a hand into her jeans, his palm flat against her stomach as she keened beneath his touch. The thumb he'd pressed to the M on her wrist—to the span of her waist—slipped with ease under the button of her jeans, dragging down the zipper, and continued its unhurried descent against her until she gasped, a desperate breath he trapped effortlessly with a satisfied growl between her lips. It seemed unlikely to end there. It seemed unlikely she would want him to.
She let him touch her; let him savor her and devour her. She let his hands smooth over her, enveloping her, like the settling of an ocean wave. She took her rewards, too, where she wanted them; let her gaze rove over the contours of his chest to catalogue the shapes of his motions, matching them piece by piece to each paralyzing result. She followed the movement of his lips, watching them as he spoke her name; she watched them on her skin, too, and the way his tongue slid out between them, alighting just to taste her. She craved him, she ached for him, she coveted him. She wanted him and she had him, had all of his attention; had him catching in the light that streamed in from the window, moonlight cast about his shoulders and dripping in shadowed rays against his back.
But before she did all that, she watched him put the Elder Wand in the drawer of his nightstand, tucking it away before pulling her into his arms, thoroughly distracted.
Draco was uncomfortably aware of every spare breath in the room once he and Granger's parallel self had been left alone, observing with palpable disquietude that she hadn't let a single one of his dodged glances go unnoticed. Either she held her liquor particularly well, he thought, or he held his own extremely poorly, finding himself dizzied by either the liquid in his glass or the disarming look on her face (or worse: both).
"So," not-Granger said eventually, her lips brushing against her glass. "She's going to steal the wand back from him, isn't she?"
Draco choked a little on a swallow, promptly coughing up a lie. "No—no, of course not, she's just—"
"Don't lie to me," not-Granger advised, smiling at him as she slipped her bare foot into his lap. She slid the arch of it against his thigh as he forced himself back against the leg of the sofa, yanking his entire spine as rigid as the antique frame; as unwavering as his centuries of infallible breeding. "It's not a very complex plan, first of all, and more importantly, you're not nearly as practiced at it as he is."
"He's not a very good liar either," Draco muttered, and she laughed, letting her head fall back as the sound of it drifted musically into the air between them.
"No, he isn't," she agreed, setting her glass down and shifting to crawl towards him; easing him back, first, and then towards her, until somehow (impossibly, he was sure) he'd undergone the mechanization of drawing her into his lap. "You both have at least that in common."
"You're seducing me," he commented, letting his hands settle loosely on her hips as she shrugged, not bothering to deny it. "Which is odd," he added vacantly, suffering a moment of instability he wished he could blame on the whisky, "as you have nothing to steal from me."
"Nothing but your loyalty," she mused in his ear, and he stiffened, pulling back to stare at her.
"What?" he asked, startled.
"You don't even like her," she reminded him, and paused for a moment, waiting for his denial, before adding, "I could take her place, Draco."
He shuddered at the sound of his name on her lips. "I—you—I couldn't—"
"We could work together," she suggested, her voice so low and so tempting he had almost no choice but to lean in to listen, permitting her to whisper little mutinies, little dissident beguilements in his ear. "You and I both know you don't actually want the wand," she added, laughing a little. "You're just making excuses because her insufferable morality is part of the deal, isn't it? But it doesn't have to be."
"I—" he began weakly, jolting forward as she moved against him. Shifting her position, he supposed, or purely tormenting him. For a moment, the intent was unclear, until it very suddenly wasn't, and then her hands were on him, traveling an unfamiliar path. "It's not—"
"Let him keep the wand," she suggested, her fingers sliding up the back of his neck, twisting and coiling into his hair as she lowered herself against him, the motion of her hips ruthlessly hypnotic as they shifted on his lap.
"She'd—she'd never let that happen," Draco managed gruffly, trying not to let his mouth fall open as not-Granger let her hands slope forward over his shoulders, her fingers spreading across his chest. Her fingers, he thought miserably, and her hands, her lips her hair her face her body—Granger, whom he'd secretly wondered about for years, hating himself through every second it—only not Granger at all—Granger, except eleven hundred times more tempting—except awful and insane and fucking irresistible—
"You don't know what she's like," he continued, dismayed to find his voice alarmingly hoarse. "I could never get away with not taking that wand with us—"
"What if you didn't have to worry about her?" not-Granger—NOT Granger, Draco adamantly reminded himself—offered demurely, leaning back to meet his gaze with her fucking golden brown eyes, her absolute vision of innocence that was now, somehow, veiled with an oppressively coquettish charm; an undeniably entrancing disregard for rules, or consequences, or anything, it seemed, aside from wrapping him around her fucking beautiful finger. "What if," she murmured, brushing her lips lightly against his, "I took care of it for you?"
"What?" Draco asked, breathless, but then she was kissing him, pinning his shoulders to the useless sofa he was leaning against and slipping her arrogant tongue into the helpless deficiency that was his speechless mouth. She made a show of tasting him, of biting lightly on his lip, and then leaned back to watch his eyes flutter open, a smile creeping across her face.
"You want me," she told him. "Don't you?"
He gulped. He fucking gulped.
"I—"
"Not her," she said, and then corrected herself with a laugh. "Well, maybe you want her," she permitted, with a confusing brush of Granger's signature primness that was abruptly tainted—improved—by her roguish smirk. "But you want me more."
He shook his head, fighting to breathe. "I—that's not—"
"You're an absolutely horrific liar," she whispered, and kissed him again, her quick fingers slipping to the strip of skin that remained (that she had shamelessly taken stock of, damn her) between the untucked hem of his shirt and the band of his trousers, prompting an immediate shudder. She deepened the kiss, tugging his head back by his hair, and he gave in with a growl of resignation and fury, ripping the shirt over her head and pausing to stare at her fucking perfect breasts; just like he'd imagined but better, less restrained and more—more—
More his.
"You want me," she said again, and with a final conflagration of his misgivings, he flipped her back onto the floor, marinating in the sound of her laughter as she tore his shirt open, pulling him against her.
"Fuck, I really do," he muttered with incalculable, ineffectual agony, pressing his lips to the skin of her abdomen and tracing his tongue down to the button of her jeans; savoring her, even as his heart creeped up to beat itself against his throat.
Fuck, he thought again, I really, really do, even as his fingers closed around the pocket watch; the cold and dull and unfeeling metal that sat in the pocket of her trousers. He slipped the portkey from her pocket, aflame with the worst kind of hunger (read: confusion, desperation, devastation) and with a confusing clash of temperatures, he tugged her jeans down her legs, cursing himself breathless with anticipation.
It all happened so quickly.
"Malfoy," Hermione said urgently, grabbing his half-dozing form by the shoulder and throwing his shirt at him. Jesus, Malfoy, she thought, grimacing at the evidence of his misbehaviors, did you really—
Oh well, she amended with an internal sigh, recalling the sordid details of her own evening and withering in resignation. She thought, unwillingly, of the closed door she'd left behind her, and all the things she'd left inside it; the sensations that had been stolen and inhibitions that had been lost, which she hoped her mind would be merciful enough to forget, if only for the general purpose of survival. So that she could move forward without perpetually staring over her shoulder, lost in a handful of hours she'd cast off at her back.
Maybe something would come out of this after all, even if it hadn't really been him; maybe something in front of her was better than what was behind her. Or maybe—in the only safe option her poor battered brain would permit her—maybe nothing would happen, and somehow nothing would change, and in the face of everything she now knew (a new world, a new universe, a new set of secrets to hold in the dark), everything would still be precisely as it was—maybe, maybe, maybe—
"Malfoy, we have to go—"
It was chaos, turmoil, disarray—not-Malfoy skidding in from the hall after her, his cheeks flushed and eyes wild, a look in his eye like don't, you wouldn't, you couldn't, how could you, don't, don't—the other version of her looking furious, incandescent, ablaze, lunging after them like the strike of a match—her own fingers tightening around the wand—"I've got the wand, Malfoy, we have to leave now"—him struggling to his feet—"Let's go, grab my hand"—a touch, a yank, a sudden suction—a tumble, a fall—
A stumble, a darkness, a sense of loss—how could you, how could you, how could you?
It all happened so quickly.
For the second time in less than twelve hours, Draco woke with a start, lying on his back in his bedroom and suddenly jolting up in alarm, gasping.
"Granger," he choked out hoarsely, his heart pounding. "Granger, how did we—"
"It's okay," she said from somewhere beside him, gripping his shoulder and stilling him, her fingers cool and stiff. "You—you hit your head on something," she explained, grimacing, "but I've got it."
She held the Elder Wand out for him.
"We're here," she said. "We're safe."
He turned to her, forcing himself to breathe, and nodded slowly, taking the wand from her hand. "Right," he murmured, and then looked around, feeling for the portkey. "Where's—where's the—"
"Here," she said, offering it to him. He reached for it, fumbling slightly, and then aimed the Elder Wand at it, his breath catching in his throat.
"I," he began, hesitating. "Are we sure about this?" he asked, meeting her eye.
She grimaced in sympathy, or possibly commiseration. "Paradoxes aren't meant to coexist," she reminded him quietly, her hand tightening around his shoulder. "I know that it's—that we're—" She flushed, dropping her gaze. "I know it was different with them," she admitted. "Different than it is between us." She bit her lip, forcing a shrug. "But still."
He swallowed. "They don't belong in our universe," he confirmed aloud, more for his benefit than hers.
"No," she agreed sadly, shaking her head. "They don't." She paused, the grimace twitching into a tentative smile. "But it'll be okay, Draco," she added, testing his name on her tongue. He felt something ease comfortably in his lungs at the sound of it, and managed a hesitant nod.
He set the pocket watch on the ground, aiming his wand at it. "Reducto," he murmured, and watched as the portkey was abruptly blown to pieces, shards of silver thrust into the air. Almost as quickly, it dissipated into nothing, swept away on an inexplicable breeze.
"They're gone," he exhaled, feeling tightness in his chest. She's gone, he thought, and shut his eyes, wondering why it hurt quite this badly if she was right there—she was right there, the real Granger, and maybe all wasn't lost—
"Come on, then," he said wearily, gesturing to the door. "Let's... I don't know. Find Potter, I guess." He sighed. "And Ollivander and Lovegood, I suppose—"
"Who?" she asked reflexively, and then froze, mouth promptly snapping shut.
Draco jerked to a halt, slowly turning to face her.
"Lovegood," he repeated, forcing himself to remain calm. "You know who that is, don't you, Granger?" he asked, stepping forward to look at her; to see her, to make sure his eyes and his recalcitrant mind were firmly in agreement, before he reached out, fingers curling helplessly around her shoulder. "Don't you, Granger?"
Her lips twitched into a smirk. "You fucking idiot," she murmured, and he released her with a start, breathing hard.
"You," he gasped, his hands all but shaking in disbelief. "You—but you—you had the wand," he stammered frantically, staring down at it. "This is the Elder Wand, and it wasn't supposed to be—it was—she was the one who—"
"I made a deal," she explained flippantly, shrugging. "He was amenable. You have a war to win, after all," she reminded him, a wary smile crossing her face. "You need this more than he does." She paused, gauging his reaction, and then clarified, "We need it," before holding an unwavering hand out for his.
He stared at her, blinking; torn and uncertain.
"Draco," she ventured uneasily, taking a step towards him. "Say something."
It seemed like an eternity before he found his voice; but then, after a moment—
"Thank god it's you," he gasped, yanking her into his arms and burying his lips in the side of her neck.
Hermione opened her eyes slowly, something throbbing in her head.
"Malfoy," she muttered, feeling nauseated. "What happened? I thought we were—"
"You know, considering everything," Malfoy remarked, lowering himself to sit beside her on the sofa, "you should really start calling me Draco."
"Why?" she asked groggily, pressing a hand to her temple. "I mean, I guess," she muttered, and then blinked, trying to steady her vision. "Where's the wand?" she croaked. "And the—the portkey, where's the—"
She stopped abruptly, watching the expression on his face gradually come into focus.
"You're not Malfoy," she croaked, and he tossed his head back, laughing.
"I am, actually," he said, winking. "The better version, as promised."
"What the—"
She shifted away from him, struggling to back away. He, meanwhile, merely watched her, unapologetic and unmoving, with that same smile of amusement that she'd somehow—infuriatingly—come to expect.
"Did you—" She stared at him. "Did you kidnap me?"
"Kidnap is a strong word," he said, shrugging—an absurd reaction, in her view, and not much aided by anything that came after it—"albeit not entirely incorrect, I suppose. I wanted you, so I took you. As it happens, I'm rather intent on getting what I want, and it turns out that what I want is you." He paused, arching a brow. "Are you upset?"
"Of course I'm upset!" she retorted indignantly, as the realization of what had happened suddenly struck her with vicious force, jarring her entire consciousness. "Malfoy was going to destroy the portkey," she registered with halted apprehension, "and—the wand—"
She felt her breath catch. "The wand," she sighed with relief. "He'll know it's not me if she doesn't have the wand—"
"Oh, she has the wand," not-Malfoy commented blithely. "I let her go with it."
"What?" Hermione squeaked. "Why?"
He shrugged. "I only need you," he said. "If I'd known you were an option, I might never have bothered with the Elder Wand at all. After all," he added, shifting towards her, "I highly doubt anyone on earth could stop me with you by my side." He reached for her wrist, his thumb tracing over the M. "If," he murmured, "you wish to be by my side, that is."
"But I could be trapped here," Hermione realized, nervously chewing her lip. "And Harry and Ron, they're—they'll be alone, and—"
"They exist here too, you know," not-Malfoy said. "Well, I assume, though I'm quite good friends with Harry, actually. We share a certain desire for justice, you see," he explained, as if it were a clever joke, or perhaps a wild understatement, "and we're a rather united front on the whole bringing-down-Grindelwald thing." He shifted again, closer—much too close, or would have been, had she not resolutely lost her mind already—and gave her a spectacularly vulnerable look of sincerity. "We need you, Hermione."
She half-shivered at her name on his lips.
"Is this version of Harry as horrible as you are?" she asked him, trying not to stare at his mouth. In the light of day it was no less compelling, and in flashes—between blinks—she saw it in shards of moonlight again, whispering promises to the curves of her hips.
"Far less horrible," not-Malfoy said, leaning towards her. "Almost not horrible at all, in fact."
"I see," Hermione said, forcing a swallow.
"We could try to find another portkey, or make one. You're certainly brilliant enough that we could figure it out eventually. I only hope that in the meantime," he mused, his own gaze dropping to her lips, "before I help you return to your other life, you might give me an opportunity to prove how badly I want you." The corners of his mouth jerked into a smile, as if he'd confessed something intimate by accident. "How badly I need you," he amended at a murmur.
She hesitated, not quite giving in. Was it a threat, or an offering? With him, it was difficult to tell, and she couldn't rule out the possibility of both.
"Why me?" she asked instead.
"I have a war to start," he reminded her easily. "You would help me win it."
Succinct. Dangerous. The pause of a pendulum swing. She stifled a whimper as he tilted her chin up, his fingers floating delicately along the column of her throat.
"Oh, is that all?" she forced out, aiming for wry, or dispassionate. Instead, she arrived somewhere near breathless, and felt him smile against her lips.
"Not quite," he whispered.
He kissed her. Release, she thought. Breathe in, breathe out. No toes. Dive in. Static hummed in the air and thrilled in her veins; for a moment, captivity was a snare, but not a noose.
"I won't forgive you for this," she said, eyes still closed, and she felt the laugh that rose up in his chest, rumbling from somewhere in the depths of him.
"Good," he said. "I didn't ask for forgiveness."
a/n: For unicornshenanigans, for whom I would literally deny nothing, and who is therefore to thank and/or blame for this WIP. From here... all new material. Thanks for reading!
