Draco kissed like a storm meeting land—with an impatience that was nearly unbearable. His hands grabbed Hermione's waist, pulling her tightly against him. His fingers were deft, whispering over her back, to her neck, trailing like silk.
Hermione's breath hitched, trapped in her throat.
Against all reason, she found herself kissing him back, her lips trailing clumsily after his. For a second, she could think of nothing except the feel of his lips and the salty taste of their tongues together.
And then they parted, breathless, their gazes locked in mutual disbelief.
Draco recovered first, his eyes shining with something victorious.
"You liked that, didn't you?" he murmured, the beginning of a smirk on his face.
Hermione said nothing, lost in shock.
"Nothing to say?" Draco asked, watching her appraisingly. "How uncharacteristic of you."
Hermione shook her head, her mind scrambling to return her to her wits. "What do you want me to say? You just… snogged me out of thin air."
"A 'wow' or a 'Merlin' would be nice. I even get a 'thank you' occasionally," he said. "Not this… prissy silence."
"Prissy silence?"
Draco shrugged, a deliberately lazy grin on his face. "Have I fallen out of practice? I need some sign I still have it."
"What's it?"
"You tell me."
Hermione had finally recovered enough to roll her eyes. "Arrogant prick."
"You liked it."
Hermione didn't protest and that was all Draco needed; his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
"Now that your lips are loosened, perhaps you can tell me something," he said, leaning in close to her ear, voice dropping to a low rumble. "What the hell are you doing here?"
A shiver coursed through Hermione.
Damn him. He knew exactly what he was doing.
"I already told you that, and if that loose cerebral matter you call a brain has already let go of—"
"Uh uh," Draco interrupted, shaking his head. "You think I bought your little spy story? Good try."
"You want to trade a kiss for an interrogation? This is beyond ridiculous," Hermione said. "I'm leaving."
But Draco's arm was still looped around her. And she made no attempt to move.
His lips twisted upwards roguishly, as if to say maybe you need more encouragement. Hermione raised her eyebrows, the unspoken dare passing between them.
Their lips crashed together again. This time, Hermione felt herself pulling toward him—feeling a yearning that seemed stronger than anything she could remember. The kiss was deeper this time, growing fervent, urgent. Draco's hands traced the contours of her body, every movement deliberate, sending waves of heat coursing through her veins.
It's Draco Malfoy.
It's Draco Malfoy.
The thought seared the back of her mind, but she didn't care about right or wrong—not when each caress peeled back the numbness that had settled over her skin like a layer of frost. She let her own hands roam over his shoulders, down the taut muscles of his arms and chest.
One night.
She would allow herself this one night to feel something good again.
Draco's hands were everywhere. Every touch of her neck left her scorched, consumed by a deep longing.
"Come on, Granger," Draco whispered as he pulled away to kiss a trail behind her ear. "Why did you come here?"
"I can't tell you that."
"What do you need from me?"
"For you to let me go," Hermione whispered back. "That's the deal, remember?"
That wasn't what he wanted to hear.
Draco let out a frustrated sound under his breath. His lips were bruising, possessive, desperate as they met hers again.
It felt good, to feel, to have all anxious thoughts chased from her mind. It felt good even as he bit her lip too hard, making her moan at the throbbing pain. He opened his eyes then, to look at her, but he didn't apologize.
As they pulled apart to catch their breaths, Draco slowly traced the hem of Hermione's sweater, down to her collarbone. He went no further, a question in his eyes. Hermione nodded.
In one fluid motion, he yanked the sweater off her, leaving her in her thin camisole. He kissed a line down her neck, then, drawing out a quiver from each spot. Hermione closed her eyes, lost in the sensation, barely cognizant of the fact that she'd wake up with countless hickeys tomorrow.
Draco was almost at her breast when he suddenly stilled.
Hermione opened her eyes to see a look of shock come onto Draco's face. His eyes were wide, settled on her arm, on her pale left forearm.
Oh.
Oh.
"Haven't seen my scar before, have you?" Hermione said, her tone deceptively light. "It was your dear aunt's handiwork."
Hermione's expression was calm but a silent, raw anger suddenly burst inside her. She lifted her arm, bearing the faded Mudblood in its full, jagged glory.
It was supposed to be one night.
One night of forgetting who she was, where she was.
Even this one fucking night had to be taken from her.
A twisted part of her reveled in the horror that flashed in Draco's eyes as he took in the full sight of the scar. His eyes hopped from her arm to her face before they narrowed, seeming to sense her gratification.
"When was this?" he demanded.
Hermione tilted her head. "Last time I was here. You didn't hear me scream?"
Draco sat there with a stony look, his expression utterly unreadable. He sat that way, unmoving, for what felt like an eternity, as his gaze traced the letters of the scar and Hermione's traced his countenance, looking for cracks.
He suddenly rose from the sofa, his movements stilted and forced. It was a startling departure from the finesse he'd shown just seconds ago. He walked to his desk with the heaviness of a man waiting for his own execution, sitting down on his chair, eyes cast on the floor.
"This…" he started, his voice rough.
"What about this?"
"This can't happen," he said.
She'd expected it, but his words still pelted her like ice, cruel on her exposed skin.
"Because you can't stand the sight of my scar?" Hermione asked, her voice steady despite the emotions warring just beneath her skin.
He said nothing.
"Your people... they did this," Hermione reminded him, her words deliberate, harsh.
Draco's growl filled the room. "You think I'm not aware of that?" he snapped.
He turned his head toward Hermione, who now clutched her bare arms in the chill of the room. For a moment, it looked as if he wanted to come back to her. It looked as if he were about to rise to his feet, continue his trail of bruising kisses, and lose himself in her again.
But he didn't.
And as his gaze slowly raked down her body, Hermione could tell he'd put a shield up, through desperate willpower, self-loathing, or something else, she couldn't be sure. But his eyes were dark as he ground out, "Go, Granger."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Go away, Granger. Now."
"You're letting me leave?"
"Go to your room."
"Oh."
Hermione sat silently without making any motion to get up. If her mere presence was provocation, she would stay.
"For fuck's sake, leave, Granger!"
"To… the closet?"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"Just go!" Draco roared, his voice echoing through the room. He stared at Hermione, a wild, furious look in his eyes. "Go to your room and lock the fucking door!"
His hands were shaking and the arched windows started rattling.
He was losing it.
For what reason, she didn't know.
She didn't want to know. It hurt to guess.
A window pane burst with an earsplitting crack. She flinched and covered her head, sharp glass raining onto the floor, one shard bouncing off the sofa, grazing her ankle.
Hermione looked down at the shallow cut, blood blooming under her probing fingers. Draco was folded over, his head buried in his hands, his form rising and falling as he heaved in unsteady breaths.
The windows were still rattling as she fled.
Morning unfurled its gray light through the cracks of the closet door, casting a pallid sheen over everything it touched. Hermione lay awake on the narrow bed, sheets tangled around her limbs. Her mind was a tempest of indignation, replaying the previous night's events over and over again.
As soon as she stepped out of the room, Draco stopped in his tracks. He flashed an insincere smile at her as if he'd practiced it.
"Morning, Granger."
Hermione crossed her arms, glaring. "Let me out of here, Malfoy. Now."
"No time for pleasantries, huh?"
"Why would I be pleasant to you, Malfoy? Unlock the door and let me out. That was our fucking deal."
"What deal?"
"Don't play stupid with me," Hermione snarled. "I'm done with your games. I'm done with all of this. I'm leaving, one way or another."
"I thought that after last night, you'd want to stay a bit longer," Draco said, his voice slicing through the room with a saccharine edge. "You seemed to have had a good time."
"You did, too," Hermione returned, murder in her eyes.
"I did enjoy using you," Draco said with a low chuckle. "Don't flatter yourself thinking it meant anything. I haven't brought a woman into my bed in a while and I wanted to get something… quick and easy."
"Then why didn't you?"
"What?"
"Then why didn't you?" Hermione repeated, biting each word. "Why didn't you bring me into your bed? If my memory doesn't fail me, you never finished using me."
Draco shrugged on his outer robe, thinking of an appropriate response.
"You're simply not worth the effort," he finally said, abruptly turning on his heel, reaching for the doorknob. "Don't miss me too much. I'll be back soon."
He disappeared, the hinges rattling loudly behind him. A lingering scent of fir and frost hovered in the space he'd occupied, and Hermione cursed under her breath.
Her demands unmet, she had no choice but to hunt for a different way out. Her broken wand was still displayed prominently on Draco's nightstand and she tried picking it up again, but she could only grab it for milliseconds at a time before her fingers spasmed, forcing her to let go.
Marching around the room, she hunted for an idea, a tool, anything. She moved into the greenhouse, picking up the small wooden bench from the mulch.
This might do.
She ran with it at the glass walls, only managing to bang against them loudly and bruise her ribs.
Hauling the bench back into Draco's room, she set her sights on a new target with a steely look. She hefted the heavy seat above her shoulders, using her entire body to pitch it against the window pane Draco had broken the previous night.
It slammed against the glass before dropping, clattering noisily against the stone. Rebounding, it flipped over on the floor, almost hitting Hermione in the shin. She was about to slam her fist into the glass in frustration, when she noticed it.
A tiny fracture. In the window.
It was as if she had cast Wingardium Leviosa on herself, with the way her chest rose in excitement. In that instant, she was free. Images of her reunion with the Order flooded her mind: the near-suffocation from Tonks hugging her, Bill's pat on her shoulder, the heavenly smell of Fleur's éclairs, Merlin Hermione, we thought we'd lost you to that arsehole family forever.
Her arms were fatigued but pure adrenaline coursed through her, making the bench feel half its weight. Hurling it forward, she nearly fell from her own momentum, but the bench made contact again with a beautiful, sickening crack.
The fracture grew, splitting into lightning bolts that stretched half the height of the pane.
Hermione hoisted the bench up again, hurling it even harder than before.
The window shattered, shards collapsing in the most exquisite kaleidoscope Hermione had ever seen.
She barely noticed a glass shard nicking her hand as she pushed herself onto the waist-height windowsill. Holding her breath, she stuck a tentative hand through the opening.
It went through.
Hermione's eyes widened, a broad smile brightening her face.
She was free.
She was free, as long as she could scale the stone wall of the Manor and get down to the ground without breaking her neck. There was a ledge below the window—if she could hang from that, then transfer to the ledge of the window below, it would only be about a three meter drop.
She wasted no time, clambering through the aperture gracelessly. She kept one hand on the inside, with the other grappling for purchase on the ledge. Her body hung halfway out the window and she did a quick sweep of the grounds to confirm no one was outside.
Once fully outside, she carefully transferred both hands to the ledge, lowering herself slowly. Her fingers clenched onto the frost-kissed edges, feet dangling precariously. The bitter wind whipped around her, testing her grip.
The frost was melting with the heat of her fingers, cold water dripping down the inside of her arms. She moved her legs around, scanning the wall, but she couldn't find a section protruding enough for her feet to balance on.
If her feet couldn't find purchase on the walls, she would slip.
The reality of her situation gripped her as fiercely as the biting cold—the stones were slick and her feet couldn't grab on. Her fingers losing strength by the second, Hermione cursed herself for not thinking through a contingency plan.
"Shite," she muttered, her breath visible in the air as puffs of white. Her pulse beat a frenzied rhythm, a staccato beat that matched the tremble in her limbs. Her resolve wavering, she tried to hoist herself back up, but her arms couldn't find the strength.
Fuck.
As her body swayed, the wind flirting with her fate, Hermione knew she was a breath away from plunging into the walkway below.
She tried estimating the distance: around seven or eight meters. She'd break a few bones, but she might still be able to hobble off the property. The real challenge was to land correctly—was it better to try for a direct foot landing or a roll off her back?
Her left pinky slipped, then her ring finger, and there was no more time to think. She braced for the fall.
And then, a distant crack.
Draco materialized above her an instant later, his expression a dark storm of alarm.
"Accio!"
He snarled the spell and Hermione's body jerked up toward him. His apparition was so startling that she gasped, her heart lurching with a cocktail of relief and resentment.
Draco climbed up the windowsill in a single step, his arm unyielding as he encircled her, seizing her by her waist. His forearm jamming against her ribs like a crowbar, he hauled her inside with a haste that bruised.
"What the fuck was that?" he spat, after he'd brought both of them down from the windowsill. He shook her shoulders roughly, his eyes wide with rage.
"I told you I was leaving," Hermione snapped back, the adrenaline making her jumpy. She wrenched herself out of his hands.
"By trying to kill yourself?" Draco bit out, his voice dangerous. "You could've just asked me to do the honors."
"I need to leave, Malfoy! And I don't care if I break a few bones in the process! You've forced my hand, haven't you?"
"You're not leaving, Granger," he growled. "And I haven't forced... what the hell did you do to your hand?"
He grabbed her wrist before she could flinch away, examining the shard of glass that had embedded itself deeply in her right hand. She'd barely even felt it as she'd climbed the ledge, but as she stared at it now, it began to throb, hot blood pooling at the edges.
Draco swiped his wand, muttering a healing spell. The glass Vanished with a sharp pinch, and the cut closed itself into a red-streaked abrasion. He dropped her wrist as she stared at him, her mouth parting before she closed it again.
"I didn't ask you to do that," she said, frowning.
"And I didn't ask you to dangle off my window ledge, forcing me to Apparate back in the middle of an important meeting and save your sorry, idiotic arse!"
"I don't need saving, Malfoy. We wouldn't be in the position if you'd just let me leave!"
"You're not leaving." Draco looked at her, his gaze burning.
"Yes, I am," she said, but she faltered as he stepped closer to her again, backing her against the sill. The glass crunched noisily beneath his shoes, but he didn't seem to notice.
"You're not leaving," he repeated, his voice dropping.
"Have you already forgotten the terms of the deal?" Hermione snapped, determined to ignore the traitorous fluttering in her chest. "Do you need me to put it in writing? Register it with the Ministry? Call in a notary?"
"It was never a deal, Granger. You're in absolutely no position to make demands."
"Oh, it wasn't? But you seemed to enjoy taking your share of it already."
"I'm not letting you leave and that's final." Draco's jaw clenched as he glowered at her, the dim light of the room reflecting off the hardness in his eyes.
"How—"
"Want to know why?" he cut her off, their shoes meeting as he pushed himself forward.
"Yes. Please."
"Because you're mine, Granger," Draco hissed, his face barely a breath away from her. "That's why."
Hermione scoffed, but her breath caught in her throat at the ferocity of his expression. Then she swallowed, numbing herself.
"Don't get all romantic on me now," she taunted, plastering on a hollow smile. He stared down at her.
"I mean it, Granger. You're not going anywhere unless I let you."
"Then you'll have to save me from far more idiotic escape attempts."
Before Draco could fire back a response, an unfamiliar shape skimmed over the estate's wards, a blur of motion against the monochrome sky. Hermione's gaze snapped toward the still-broken window, squinting as she saw a bronze figure.
Her jaw fell open.
She could recognize the outline of a Prolixus cage anywhere.