Twenty-One

She's all roses and cream, amber and brown. Limbs splayed wide as he settles over her, nipples dusky rose and the rest of her flushed pinker than usual with arousal, sweat a sheen over her skin, damp on her forehead and temples where it's stuck little locks and wisps of hair down flat. Hermione's eyes are starry and glowing, pupils blown wide, her pink tongue sweeping over her lips, her breath hard and unsteady. Trust radiates off her as she slides her hands over his shoulders and then cups his face as he braces himself over her, fitting between her spread thighs. She's beautiful.

Glorious.

Draco feels a sweet, aching pain in his chest as he dips his mouth to hers, and she parts her lips to him eagerly. Hungrily. Her eyes flutter shut, long lashes fan against her flushed cheeks, and her mouth is intoxicating. Her tongue sweeps over his as he fumbles between them, grasping his cock and fitting it against her entrance as her hips lift to make it easier. Oh fuck. He slides in so easily, her cunt gripping him tightly but so wet, so slick, so hot, and she moans into their kiss, muffled and wavering, her fingers pressing firmly into his face.

He pushes all the way in then, and a groan leaves him even as he locks his hips, pausing to let her adjust. It's so fucking good. His mouth slides from hers, and he buries his face against the masses of her hair, breathing hard. "Are – are you alright? Is that –"

"Yes. More," she murmurs, eager and needy, her hands sliding over his shoulders, clinging on tightly. She's trembling but pushing into him, greedy and wanting, and what did he do to deserve this? Nothing. "I'm okay. Give me more."

So he does as he's told, gladly. He fucks her deliciously slowly, and she feels so good. His universe becomes her body. She is light, and air, and food and drink, and nothing matters but her. Burying himself in her, again and again, his breath a panting rhythm, her moans and whimpers the sweetest sound he's ever heard as her fingers tangle in his hair, and her legs grip his hips tightly. She's soft and hot, arching up into him, sliding her hands over his back as if his scars don't bother her at all. She's vocal too; a stream of words spilling from her lips. "So good – oh god – Draco – nngh – more –"

This is so much more than Draco deserves. He doesn't deserve any of this. Her love, her trust, the way she's letting him inside her despite what he did to her. Despite what he let them do. He can never be worthy of her. He's drenched in blood. Dripping in it. Saturated in the suffering of others. Not just Hermione's but so many people's. So many. He's tainted. Stained. Dirtying her just by touching her. But Merlin, he cannot bring himself to stop. He'd rather die than stop. It would kill him.

This is where he belongs.

In her.

"Fuck," he gasps in her ear as he fucks into her, and her cunt is so wet it makes slick, deliciously obscene sounds every time he thrusts. Perfection. Sweet, wet, blissful perfection. Merlin, the way she's moaning is like life itself. Sweat beads on his forehead, and he feels hot all over, and his dick is a beacon of sheer ecstasy, broadcasting through his nerve endings. This is even better than eating her delicious pussy. Incredible. He finds a faster, harder rhythm, and oh Merlin, he thinks he might just die of this. Her cunt is gripping him, twitching, and he thinks in a corner of his dazed mind that she's somehow doing that on purpose, and he's bewildered and loves it at once.

"You feel – amazing," he chokes out, his mouth finding her throat, suckling and kissing, and her thighs bracket his hips and squeeze, her hands in his hair as he thrusts; his hips are rolling hard and sharp, and she's wailing now, a breathy, groaning discordance, as though she's beyond caring what she sounds like. Her wails are broken and juddering as he rests on one elbow with his other hand clutching her hip, fucking, pounding into her now as she urges him on, and despite the brutal force, this is nothing like the revel.

This is nothing like the way she wept despairingly as he used her, and they all watched.

Because he did. He did that. And Hermione might want to rewrite the past, but she can't, and he'll always have done what he did. He'll never deserve this. But Merlin, he can no longer deny himself, whether he deserves it or not. And maybe Draco's a monster, but he'll be on her leash. He'll kill for her. He'll die for her if need be, and gladly, because his life is hers to spend, whether she likes it or not. And if one day she decides she doesn't want him anymore, he'll go, and she'll never need to know what happens to him after that. But until then, he'll pay penance.

That's not how it is yet, though. For now, she still wants him with a needy, wanting trust – right now she clings to him, and her body is warm and demanding, her hands tugging at his hair until he turns his head and she can capture his lips with hers. Their teeth clack together, and their tongues meet rough and curling as he keeps moving, and the careless desperation of the kiss makes heat pool in him. He's panting and she's making low groans every time he slams home into the heat of her, and it's a maelstrom of ecstasy. It's bliss. He can feel orgasm creeping up on him. He's trying to hold out but she feels too good, and it's been so long since he came, and –

"I'm gonna come," he rushes out, mouth pressed half against hers so the words come out even more garbled, and she makes a whimper that sears into his brain and locks her ankles behind the small of his back. Trapping him inside her.

"Come then," she tells him, voice shaking and tight. "Come. Draco. Come inside me, please."

So he does.

Immediately and hard.

He thrusts arrhythmically as it takes him; once, twice – a third time, and his pleasure is searing, clenching chaos as he comes inside her with his dick buried deep. "Hnn-nngh." It's a low, faltering sound as his brain breaks apart, his muscles taut, heat radiating off him. He becomes nothing but the wave of pleasure for a moment, everything else whiting out. Just her, and the way she makes him feel. His mouth is pressed against her cheek, open and groaning, his hand digging bruises into her hip. She's whimpering, making high-pitched little moans as she clings to him. There's a primal satisfaction purring in him; he's filled her with his cum, and some very basic, animal part of him is utterly sated by that. Intoxicated by the thought.

The intensity of it leaves him trembling and satiated as he lies slumped over her, his dick still inside her as he places clumsy kisses over her cheek. Her fingers are stroking through his hair, and her legs are still loosely gripping his hips, and she's warm and vital. He pulls back, his dick sliding out of her with a slick sound, and she makes a surprised noise, mouth curving into a smile. She's all flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded and dreamy, radiating bliss.

Draco rolls onto his side, off her, and draws her in close, tucking her pliable body up against his and then reaching down, managing to snag the edge of a blanket and yanking it up over them, tucking it around her gently. She lies with her head pillowed on his right arm, her right arm sliding over his waist as she makes a happy, humming sound. "I love you," she says quietly, voice all husky, and kisses his chest.

"I love you too," he answers, feeling it like a pulse through his entire body; love and satisfaction suffusing him. If he died right now, he'd die perfectly, utterly happy. "That was amazing. You were amazing." She kisses his chest again, her fingers trailing lightly over the edge of his back, sensation drifting in and out as she moves over scar tissue. "Was it all right for you?" he asks uncertainly. He's fairly sure it had to have been good for her from the way she'd responded, but it doesn't hurt to check. Hermione nods, very emphatically.

"Yes." She cuddles closer, her right leg hooking up awkwardly over his hip. "Better than just alright. God, it was incredible, Draco." She sounds drowsy and blissed out as she makes another happy little hum, and he kisses the crown of her head, an ache in his chest. There's a long, comfortable silence as they lie there cocooned together, his hand stroking down her back while his mind begins spinning over the significance of what they'd just done and the way things might play out from here.

"New memories," he says aloud, almost to himself. This hasn't undone what happened, or erased the scars, but it has given them something new. A fresh point of reference. Now when they think of sex, they can think of this instead of the bloodied horror of the revel. He smiles to himself as he runs his hand up and down Hermione's naked back in a lazy caress; she is smart.

"New memories," she echoes, slightly muffled against his skin. She rolls back and looks up at him, her face soft and relaxed, her lips plump and smiling, cheeks pink, and eyes hazy; amber sea glass framed by dark lashes. Merlin, she's beautiful. Like a painting. Maybe not classically beautiful, but so appealing to him, all her features are perfect in his eyes. The column of her throat as her head tips back over his arm leads down to the prominence of collarbones, sharp shoulders, and then the gentle curves of her breasts; each tipped dusky pink. He wants to bury himself in her all over again. She grins up at him, soft, smooth abdomen leading down to the faint jut of pelvic bones at her sides – still too thin – and the swell of her hips, and creamy thighs, the vee of short dark hair at the crux of her thighs obscuring most of her pretty pussy. "You're hard again," Hermione observes with a lazy, delighted smile and reaches down and – absurdly – playfully pokes his erection with one finger. He snorts, surprised, deep thoughts forgotten.

"I am, aren't I?"

"You know...I know it might not always be this easy," she says seriously, fingers closing over the head of his dick, walking down the shaft and cupping his balls. It tickles. "I'm not stupid enough to think that this will fix everything and that every time will go this well and that we won't have nightmares or...issues, anymore." She grips the shaft of his dick firmly, and he lets out a tiny moan despite himself. "But right now, I rather think I want to do it again."

Merlin. For a second, he stares at her wide-eyed, unable to process what she's saying, it's so unexpected. So unlikely. "Again?" he repeats dumbly, all the blood rushing from his brain to his dick. She nods. "Again," he says then, a confirmation, and when he kisses her, he's smiling. They both are.

Hermione feels like she's glowing. Radiant. She's feeling a sheer contentedness she didn't think was possible. Sure, she's sore. A little tender. But not like she was then; no, not even close. It's worlds apart. Incomparable. This is the pleasant, swollen tenderness of two rounds of fantastic sex that had felt utterly amazing. She'd come three times in the end, to his twice, and now she lies flopped on the bed bonelessly, leaving a puddle of cum and her own juices on the sheet. The mattress dips as Draco slides back into bed, in his boxers now, and she rolls her head to look at him, murmuring a thank you as he passes over her new wand. She cleans the bed with a wave of her wand and then stretches out beside him on her side as he lays back against the pillows.

She feels both light and heavy at once. Liquid. Contented. There's a fragility to the feeling – every good feeling she has is fragile, after all, always teetering on a knife's edge of memory and emotional trauma – but she feels good. Draco's opened the curtains, and the mid-afternoon sun is streaming in over the bed and her naked upper body. The blanket is tucked around her waist, but she doesn't feel self-conscious or cold. His eyes are dreamy as he looks down at her, leaning back lazily on the pillows with his forearm behind his head, and for once, she sees no guilt in his eyes. No self-loathing.

"Now, when I think of sex," she says, twirling her wand in her fingers. "I'll think of this." She smiles at Draco giddily, beaming until her cheeks hurt. "Like I said before, I know it doesn't fix everything, but I'm so glad we did this. I feel like I should thank Harry for making me decide to take the leap." Draco's face darkens, and it's like reality is bleeding back in, reminding him of all the bad. Hermione wishes she hadn't mentioned Harry. Shit.

"I won't be thanking him," Draco says, rubbing at his jaw. "Even if it did work out amazingly." A flicker of a smile lightens his features for a moment before he frowns again. "What happened before I got out there?"

"Nothing... Not really. He was just going on about – well –" She can't say it. She won't. It's not going to help anything, and it doesn't matter. Things had worked out in the end, weirdly. What Harry said isn't relevant. She'd rather just forget about it – and she definitely doesn't want to tell Draco.

"Hermione..." The mood shifts, and Hermione bemoans the loss of easy serenity as Draco eyes her, his tone hard. Why does he have to know?

"Fuck, why does it matter?" She rolls onto her back, rubbing her hands over her face in frustration before looking up at him, half upside-down. It's not fair. "What difference does it make? It worked out, didn't it? Can't we just leave it?" She sits up, pulling the sheet up under her armpits, knees to her chest. "Let sleeping dogs lie?"

"No. Because you looked like you were going to rip him apart with your bare hands. That's why. You were hysterical," he says patiently as though she's a child, although there's an edge of irritation in his voice. "You were kicking and screaming, and –"

"God, okay! That's enough!" That silences him for a moment. But he's looking at her still, waiting, his features cool and blank. There's no wriggling out of this. He looks at her with that expression; somehow demanding, implacable, his grey eyes steel and stone, flint sharp, and she knows she's going to cave. She hates Harry, suddenly. Hermione doesn't want to say. She doesn't want to tell him – Harry had been cruel and horrible, and she doesn't want to inflict that on Draco. And yet here she is. She wraps her arms around her knees, misery crawling up in her belly. She wants to go back to bathing in the afterglow. But there's no going back.

"Fuck," she mutters. He waits. "He told me that you enjoyed it." It comes out in a small, tight voice. She looks down at her knees, a weird, uncomfortable shame churning hot in her stomach, her lungs squeezing tightly. She can feel the heat creeping over her cheeks. She wants to be sick. It's a fucking awful thing to have to say. Silence fills the air. Silence crushes the air. She feels breathless, frozen. Draco doesn't make a sound. Not a single sound. The silence stretches out. She stares at her knees.

"I went a bit spare after that. I think I was screaming at him. I think I told him that...that of course you did –" he makes a sound now; a choked, harsh noise, but Hermione surges on "– because if you didn't, well, finish, then it wouldn't be very believable, and that it was mechanical. It was physiological. It wasn't because you liked...hurting me. I know that, Draco." Her breathing is shallow and too fast, her fingers digging into her wrists as she clutches her arms around her knees. "I know it wasn't – I mean, I was there. The biggest complaint I had at the time was that you took so fucking long to get it up," she says, trying for flippancy and going horribly wrong. He makes another miserable, horrible sound.

"I – Don't –" he tries and then falls silent with a quiet curse. Hermione remembers it all with a bleak kind of clarity. It's chaotic in her mind because, at the time, she'd been dazed and shocky, her head spinning – but it's vivid chaos in her memory. It hasn't softened with time. She remembers the pain, and the violation. The way he'd hit her. Her face swollen, her breasts bruised. Other people's blood slicking her skin. The way he'd shaken from the Cruciatus. That grunt of pleasure as he'd come. God. She can't stand it. It still makes her just as sick and horrified as it did two hours ago.

Her breath is coming short and heaving. She forces herself to look up at him, her fists clenching. He's staring at her, a hopeless kind of despair written on his face. His shoulders are slumped, his expression wretched – all pale skin and scars, and beautifully toned muscle sliding under his skin as he shoves his fringe back off his forehead. His brow is furrowed; he seems to still be searching for words and coming up empty, and self-hatred is settling bleakly on his features. Fuck. She's not having Harry and stupid memories ruin something amazing.

Without letting herself think any further about it, Hermione scrambles out of the blankets and crawls awkwardly onto Draco's lap. He moves automatically to accommodate her, his arms coming up around her and pulling her close. And then she's naked and straddling him on her knees, and his face is buried in the crook of her neck, his arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She reaches out for the sheet, pulling it roughly around her hips.

"I enjoyed it," he says, numbly. He takes a shaky breath. "I hated it, but you felt so good. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced, but it felt good. And – and –" He falls silent like a clockwork toy that's wound down. One of Hermione's hands cradles his head, and the other is pressed to his back. His scar tissue is rough and uneven to the touch as she tries to comfort him. Is this messed up? She isn't sure. She doesn't care. It's still strange to be the one comforting him instead of vice versa. It makes her feel stronger. One of them needs to be the strong one. They can't both fall apart at once.

And when they were at the mansion, he was always strong. Always so strong. He's entitled to fall apart a little now. She had her turn down on the porch just earlier; now it can be his.

"Harry's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about," she says, trying very hard to keep her voice even and matter-of-fact. His hair is silky soft to the touch, and she can feel his heart thudding against her chest through his, as though it's trying to beat right out of him. A bird beating itself senseless against the cage of his ribs. "He wasn't there. He has no fucking clue." Her voice turns sharp. Her fingers curl in his hair. No one else had been there. It had been them two floating alone together in an ocean of pain and fear, and no one else has the right to judge.

Hermione is sick of judgement and the way it gets under her skin. The way it crawls into her brain and nests there, growing doubts and uncertainties. Siobhan, with her cool, detached pity and distaste. Harry and Ron with their bewildered, loving horror. Tonks's silent concern. Oddly, Ginny and Lupin are the only two people who Hermione's very close to that don't seem to actively judge. They don't understand, but they don't cast judgement.

"You're really not going to listen to Harry, are you?" she asks Draco, a teary laugh catching in her throat.

"Potter is an idiot," he says, face still buried against her hair, and he sounds like he's smiling. Just a little.

"Exactly." She combs her fingers through his hair, trying to be pragmatic. It's oddly easy in the wake of their sex, as though the intimacy and endorphins have calmed her. Oxytocin has drugged her into an unnatural calm. Hermione will take it. "We both know what happened, Draco. We both know you didn't want to. Not really. We had no choice." She sighs. It's bizarre that what had happened that night at the revel was the same basic act as what they'd just spent nearly the past two hours doing. They couldn't be more dissimilar – the only alignment in both that he had penetrated her, and climaxed. But everything else – everything – had been diametrically opposed. The two acts couldn't have been more different.

"Potter still shouldn't have said that," he says, dragging her out of her wandering thoughts, sounding heavy with a dull anger.

"No. He shouldn't." Hermione turns her head and kisses his temple. "He was an utter git." Draco lifts his head and meets her eyes, his hands splayed wide on her sides, fingers warm. Their eyes are inches apart, and his are so pretty, even red-rimmed and a little bloodshot; silver sickles blotted with inky pupils and shaded by those thick, dark blonde lashes. They shine wetly, the complicated emotions in them too tangled to make sense of. "But in a way, I'm glad. Without him opening his big mouth, we might not have done this."

She can see the play of emotions over his face; the way that, over the space of a few heartbeats, he shoves them down, forcing himself to assume a semblance of normality. "When you put it that way," he says then, a faint, lopsided smile shaping his lips. That dull anguish is hidden, the self-loathing nearly gone – Hermione is sure it still all lurks beneath, but she doesn't know how to address that. She can't demand that Draco show her his pain. And what would she do if he did, anyway? Hermione can't fix it. So she kisses him instead, slanting her mouth soft and searching over his; a lingering, tender thing as her fingertips scritch over his scalp.

The only thing she can do is show him that she loves him, without loathing, shame, or regret.

A while later Hermione slides on one of Draco's t-shirts and wriggles into some leggings, and then sits on the edge of the bed, holding her wand and trying to recall the contraceptive charm she'd learned well over a year ago from Ginny, and then never had cause to use. "I hope I remember how to do this properly," she says, slightly nervous, wondering if she should just ask Ginny.

"So do I," Draco says emphatically, looking nervous too now as he sits on the bed beside her, fully clothed again. He's tried casting the charm himself, but her wand refuses to cooperate for him; the first attempt fizzled into nothing, and the second had put off sparks that had spattered tiny pink marks over Hermione's stomach. He'd refused to try a third time. He's shown her the wand movements, but for some reason, she can't seem to get it to work. Maybe she's too nervous.

"What if I think I've done it right, and it just doesn't work? Maybe I should just ask Ginny." Hermione wishes she'd thought of this before the sex, but she'd hardly been in any fit state. She swallows hard, weighing up the options. Shit. How mortifying. But pregnancy isn't something to be flippant about. Neither she nor Draco are capable of parenting right now. Certainly not in the middle of the war. Maybe not ever. She hasn't really thought about it until now. She wrings her hands together.

"Shit. Fuck. Maybe." Draco shoots her a worried look, charmingly out of his depth, and Hermione wants to smile despite the seriousness of the situation. "Would she do it for you?"

"Yes, of course." She fiddles with her wand, an anticipatory embarrassment already welling up in her stomach. She feels sick. She can't imagine Ginny will keep that secret from Harry. "I'll need to figure it out eventually, though. Unless you get your wand back. Because I can't run to Ginny every time we...you know. Merlin." She grimaces at the thought.

"You're perfectly capable of doing it, Granger," he says dryly. "You've just worked it up into a big deal in your head. You've psyched yourself out. I'm sure next time it'll be fine if you do it beforehand –" it works for several hours either side of sex, Hermione knows "– just not this time. When we've already..."

"Yeah. No. It's too risky," she agrees, shoulders slumping. "Merlin damnit, I'll go ask Ginny."

Hermione tames her hair a little and pulls on a baggy jersey, Draco kissing her temple and shooting her an apologetic glance as she leaves their room. She checks Ginny's room, hoping against hope that she's there – but she's not. Of course not; that would be too easy. With a sigh, Hermione slips down the stairs to peek into the sitting room. The radio's on, and Ron's there playing chess with Justin, Molly knitting industriously, while Ginny and Harry occupy the couch. Ginny's stretched out on the end facing the door, thankfully, her feet up on Harry's lap as she flicks through a National Geographic.

The redhead looks up as Hermione gestures toward her, trying to communicate her urgency silently. She raises her brows and Hermione mouths 'come here' and Ginny gets up, a quizzical expression on her face as she pats Harry's knee and murmurs something in his ear. He twists his head and looks up at Hermione over his shoulder, and guilt and curiosity are written all over his face as their eyes meet. Hermione looks away, feeling as though what she's done upstairs is printed all over her face. The two witches retreat to the nook by the stairs where they have a modicum of privacy, no one around, and Hermione's cheeks flame hotter as she faces Ginny. She feels sick with nerves and embarrassment.

"I hate to ask you, but – could you cast a contraceptive charm for me?"

"Oh." Ginny looks at her in blatant surprise, flipping her hair back over her shoulder and eyeing Hermione assessingly, looking her up and down as if she could somehow see the evidence of sex on Hermione. God. She feels exposed. "Well, I could," Ginny says. She bites her lip, dark eyes worried. "First, are you okay though? I mean... Because earlier, we all heard you and Harry on the porch, and –"

Hermione nods emphatically. "Yes. Yes, actually. I'm fine. Honestly, Ginny." A smile creeps over her lips unbidden as she remembers everything they'd done earlier. How wonderful it had been, despite the imperfections and the lingering trauma. Ginny's own expression relaxes as she takes in Hermione's; the smile, her blush. Hermione feels like she must be practically exuding nerves, mortification, and happiness. "I'm better than fine," Hermione insists, meaning it. "I'd do the charm myself, but I've never actually needed to do it, and I'm all...well, I can't seem to get my head together, and I don't want to mess it up."

Ginny snickers, her expression understanding and amused at once. "I had to ask Angelina, the first time. I think first-time charm jitters are fairly common," she confesses. "No one wants to mess it up. The best is if you get into the habit of doing it –"

"Before the sex?" Hermione guesses, cheeks still hot, and Ginny grins and nods.

"Exactly." She nods at Hermione's wand, clutched in her hand. "How about you have a go, and then I'll do it too, to make sure."

"Thanks, Ginny." Hermione chews on the inside of her cheek before asking: "Can you not tell Harry?"

The redhead winces. "I mean, I won't tell him. But I have a feeling he might guess, and I don't want to outright lie to him, Hermione." She looks apologetic. "It's none of his business what you asked me though, and I'll tell him that." That's really not good enough, but Hermione reluctantly understands. She wouldn't want to lie to Draco either. Except this all but guarantees that Harry's going to find out, and then he'll tell Ron, and Merlin only knows how they'll react. It's a bit too late now, though – Ginny already knows, and Harry is bound to be suspicious and ask what they were talking about. Fuck. Hermione sighs and nods.

"Thanks, Ginny," she says again, forcing a smile to her lips.

"Malfoy," Potter says, yanking Draco out of warm, idle recollection. He looks up from the two mugs of tea he's just poured; one of Justin's weird Muggle ones. Tropical Blast it's called, and it appears to be mostly pineapple and coconut. It smells nice, at least. But for now, the tea is forgotten. Draco sets the kettle down and leans back against the bench, folding his arms over his chest, trying for casual arrogance and probably failing. The Boy-Who-Lived and Weasley are standing in the kitchen doorway through to the dining room, and neither of them looks overly happy. It's clear Ginevra's blabbed. Well, fuck.