Thirty

"Well?" Hermione looks apprehensive as she leans against the wall beside the second-floor bathroom doorway, worry in those dark amber eyes, which she's trying and failing to hide as she twists her wand in her hands. He can't help his grin, although he feels a little guilty for it.

"Lupin put me on a mission tomorrow. Reconnaissance," he adds quickly as her lower lip trembles briefly before she firms it and tries to smile. "Nothing major. He says after so long out of the field, I need to ease back into it."

"Good." Her tone is emphatic, a note of relief in it. "He's right. Did he put you with Ron?"

"Yeah." He settles his hands on her hips, leaning in and kissing her forehead, wanting to smooth away the furrows that worry has etched on her brow. He feels too happy for her to be sad. He wants her to be just as pleased as he is. She sighs softly, breath hot through his t-shirt – the same one he was wearing last night. He's scourgified it, so it's technically clean, but once Hermione's cut his hair and he's had a shower, he's putting on a fresh one. A scourgify never does quite as good a job as a proper wash. Hermione tugs him close, her cheek against his chest. "Yeah, Weasley's leading the team."

"Good. Ron's terrible at feelings but great at tactics," she says, a little muffled. "Maybe it's all the chess he plays. Either way, he's an excellent tactician."

"Hm. I feel safer already," he says drily, although he's smiling as he kisses the top of Hermione's head. She's warm and soft in his arms and much more pleasant to hold now that she's eating properly; all her sharp edges have softened, her bony angles more well-covered. He's pretty sure her arse and breasts have grown slightly more generous too. She's filling out her leggings better, and her breasts are a larger handful than they used to be. He fits his body to hers, and fuck, she feels good. He kisses her ear. He feels so happy. He's going on a mission tomorrow, and Hermione is in his arms now; life is perfect. Almost. Her unhappy worry stops him short of labelling this perfection.

"Come on then," she says, pushing against his chest, and as he steps back, he sees the concern clouding her eyes. "I better cut your hair. You can tell me about the mission while I do."

Hermione could've been there while Draco had talked to Lupin and heard all about it directly, but she'd insisted she wanted to take his emptied breakfast tray into the kitchen, and that he should just go through without her. She'd meet him outside the second-floor bathroom, she'd said. Draco was fairly certain that she just hadn't wanted to be there to see his excitement in the moment. He thought perhaps she'd needed a few minutes to collect herself. It was a little unsettling; she seemed genuinely at peace with her decision to tell him to fight but still just as worried about the reality of it. He supposed that was inevitable. The last person who'd worried about him like that had been...well, his mother. Draco thinks of her with a wince. She and his father. They had worried.

Maybe they still did. He wonders if they're alive. And then he wonders: what if Voldemort brought my father back from Europe but didn't kill him? What if I come up against him on the battlefield? He feels sick.

"Hey." Her hand cups his cheek. "What are you thinking?"

He blinks down at her. He's just standing there frozen, like an idiot, one hand pressed lightly against his chest still, the other drawing away from his cheek. "Nothing," he says casually, with a dismissive shrug. "The mission." That was poorly done, but she just eyes him suspiciously before her smaller, softer hand slips into his, and she tugs him through into the bathroom. She transfigures a brush into a stool and has him sit before sliding a transfigured cape around his neck, flipping the lock on the door with a wave of her wand.

"I missed this so much," she says, waggling her wand with pleasure. "I feel like I did when I was eleven and first got my wand. Everything is just so fun, still."

"I just feel like I'm back to normal. It makes me want to learn wandless magic, but they say learning a new technique is like starting all over again. There's a different way of thinking, with wandless." He watches as she transfigures a gleaming pair of scissors out of the soap dish and picks up a comb, placing her wand by the sink.

"Right." She moves to face him, appraising him with one hand on her hip. A thread of worry worms through him.

"Have you ever done this before?"

"I cut Harry and Ron's hair all the time, I'll have you know!" She says, eyes narrowing indignantly and mouth downturned. Draco grins.

"That's hardly a point in your favour, Hermione."

"Oh, shush. It'll be fine. Nothing extravagant, but fine. Short back and sides, and long enough on top to slick back, but not long enough to get in your eyes. Sound good?"

"I guess?"

"Good. Because that's about all I can do," she teases, flashing him a smile, small and nearly shy, as she starts combing his hair. She's careful and efficient, close enough to him that he can smell the faint citrus scent of her deodorant, her braid falling over her shoulder, her breasts right in his eyeline. She combs his hair gently back from his forehead and presses a kiss in the middle of it, startling and warm, and then puts her finger beneath his chin, tilting it up and kissing his mouth with a soft hum of satisfaction. "So. Tell me about the mission."

"I'm not sure if I should while you're cutting my hair." She rolls her eyes and then moves around behind him, still combing. And then there's the first metallic snick of the scissors, and he resists the urge to flinch and hunch his shoulders. "We're going to Kenmare."

"Oh," she says as she pauses in her snipping, as if she knows exactly why, and Draco realises belatedly that she likely does – she was probably the one who decoded the information regarding Kenmare. She confirms that with what she says next, the scissors beginning their crisp snick‐snick-snick again. "There's a Snatcher encampment there. Where it seems they're funnelling the Muggle women through?"

"Yeah," Draco admits, wondering how the way Voldemort is treating the women makes her feel. He'd never told Hermione that the reason Voldemort had wanted her was to breed her, and he never will, unless she outright guesses it. The Dark Lord had always been fascinated with genetics and mutations, to the best of his limited knowledge, and Draco is painfully well informed about the hybrid abominations he'd attempted to create. Unholy couplings, forced even on pureblood witches if they'd earned his displeasure – or the Dark Lord himself attempting to use potions and spells to impregnate non-humans and beasts. Draco suppresses a shudder.

"Lupin wants us to gather as much information as possible over the next few days, with a view to taking the place out once we have the lay of the land."

"Good," Hermione says grimly, the snick of the scissors a little more vicious than usual, and Draco winces to himself, concerned about the quality of the haircut. Oh well; if it's too bad, he'll just clip it short all over. It'll look ridiculous for a month, but she's the one who'll have to look at him. "How much reconnaissance will you be doing?" She still sounds tense, and he remembers that it was during a reconnaissance mission that she'd been captured.

"Lupin says Weasley's usual is three days for something this size, which seems cautious," he tells her, trying to be reassuring, but genuinely does think it's very cautious – as a Death Eater, they went striding in without a second thought. Usually with the assurance of superior numbers, but not always. And he'd always come out alive. "I'll be careful, Hermione. Really. I swear."

"I can't believe a word you say," she says, voice tight, comb raking through his hair at the back of his head. The back of his neck feels weirdly bare, and his hair feels much shorter.

"Hey, c'mere. Stop butchering my hair for a moment and look at me."

"I'm not butchering!" She sounds a little teary, but she does as he says. Her eyes are wet as she stands in front of him, scissors in one hand and comb in the other.

"Hey. I know. I'm just teasing." He meets her eyes steadily. "I swear, Hermione, on my love for you, that I will be careful."

"If you mean that," she says with a sniff, totally unmoved as she eyes him knowingly, "then tell me what you were thinking about before."

Shit.

He swallows drily. He has to be honest, or she'll never trust him again. "I was thinking about my parents." Her lips part, shock shaping her expression.

"Oh. Oh, I didn't –" She's immediately apologetic and remorseful, and Draco shakes his head, dismissing her apologies. He's said it now. He may as well keep going.

"I was wondering if they were still alive. And what happens if I meet my father on the battlefield," he says, feeling a little ill. Hermione presses her lips together so hard they go white, and nods helplessly. And then:

"Wh-why would they be dead?"

"Because I left," he says dully, staring past her shoulder at the wall, unable to hold her gaze any longer.

"Oh my god." She looks as nauseated as he feels, staring at him with ashen cheeks and wide eyes. "So because of – of me?"

"No!" He's vehement. "No. Not because of you. Because I left."

"I convinced you to, though. You wanted to stay." She looks slightly panicked, and he can tell she's about to spiral. "Is that part of why you wanted to stay? Because you never said. You never... I knew you wrote to your mother, but –"

"They would've wanted it," Draco cuts in, saying the words firmly, just as much for his sake as for hers. It's important to remind himself of that. His mother, in particular, had always wanted him to get free of the Dark Lord's grip if he ever got the chance. "I know that. They would want me to. Most of the time, I try not to think about them," he explains, as Hermione takes a shaky breath and centres herself, smudging a tear off her cheek. "It just fucks with my head. I don't know how the Dark Lord punished them –" the idea of his mother being punished by being used in one of Voldemort's experiments enters his head, and he wants to vomit "– or whether they're alive or dead. So I just don't."

"Fair enough," Hermione says, moving to the side of his head and starting to comb and cut again. Snick. Snick-snick. "I guess I do the same with my parents. So – what would happen if you met your father on the battlefield? Couldn't he defect? Wouldn't that be good?"

"Not if my mother's alive," Draco says grimly. "If my mother's alive, my father will have to return to the Dark Lord. But if he's seen by another Death Eater to be sparing me, they'll both be killed." He suddenly finds himself less enamoured by the idea of fighting and more convinced that his parents are alive than he's ever been. Voldemort wouldn't just waste two purebloods, especially one who was still willing and able to fight for him.

"Well then," Hermione says after a long pause, in which only the sound of the scissors echoes through the bathroom. "You'll just have to make sure to kill or capture any other Death Eaters." She says it so assuredly. So confidently. She moves to the other side of his head after working around to the back and making a few snips here and there. White-blond locks slide down the cape and scatter on the floor at his feet.

"I appreciate your belief in my skills," he says, "but I'm not sure how easy that will be."

"If you need to do it, then you'll do it," she says as if she believes he'll be able to rise effortlessly to any occasion. "You always do."

Draco supposes, rather grimly, that she's not entirely wrong. Besides, it's probably better in this case to be overconfident and not fret endlessly over the possibilities rather than make himself sick with worry. "He's probably still in Europe anyway, if he's alive. The Dark Lord would've likely just punished my mother," he says, hating that, "because that would hurt my father too. And keeping her alive gives him leverage over my father. And, he probably thinks it gives him leverage over me too, if it ever comes down to it."

"And it doesn't? Give him leverage over you?" Hermione asks tentatively, fingers soft on his hair, scissors snipping as though she's an expert.

"No. You're my leverage now."

When the haircut is finally done, she vanishes the drifts of hair and whips off the cape, turning it back into the bar of hand soap, doing the same with the stool when he stands and runs his fingers through his hair. It feels much shorter and neater. Lighter. He's feeling lighter too, after their conversation, and his excitement at being able to go on a mission has returned. "How do I look?" he asks her, and she flaps a hand at the mirrored cabinet over the sink.

"See for yourself. I think I did a pretty good job, but you might hate it."

He kisses her temple and manoeuvres around her, staring at himself in the mirror. The scar cutting from just below his left ear and up to beneath his eye is always the first thing he notices these days; a fleeting acknowledgement. It doesn't bother him as much as the ruin of his back, aesthetically. It may be on his face, but it's just a thin, inoffensive purple seam that is slowly fading in lividity. As for his hair... It looks good. He slides his hands through it and riffles the back. Short back and sides, and a few inches on top. Long enough that he can slick it back neatly with Sleekeazy's how he's always liked to, but short enough not to fall in his eyes if it's unstyled.

"Wow."

"You sound so surprised," she says, with a smile, coming up behind him and kissing the back of his arm before peeking around it playfully to poke her tongue out at him in the mirror. "I told you I'd cut Harry and Ron's hair. All the time."

"Then why does it always look so bad?" He asks as he turns away from his surprisingly professional haircut to loop his arms around her waist.

"Hah, true. Harry because that's just his hair," she ticks off on her fingers, "and Ron because he never washes it." Then she adds with a brisk efficiency: "You should have a shower. You're going to get hair everywhere, and it itches me. I'm going to get the scar liniment and wait for you upstairs. Your clothes are over the towel rail." Hermione goes up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and then he lets her slip from the circle of his arms, shifting out of the way so she can crouch down and rummage through the cupboard under the sink. She finally pulls out the squat, purple glass jar of liniment and waves it in childish triumph.

Draco grins at her, heart feeling too big, emotion nearly choking him. She's radiant. Wonderful.

"What?" she asks as she picks up her wand and shoves it in the waistband of his leggings, seeming to feel his gaze on her, and bemused by his smile. He has to clear his throat before he speaks, not trusting his voice.

"You," he says, hoping Hermione takes it the right way as he goes on. "You're so much better than you were." She flushes but doesn't look displeased, just awkward.

"I feel it. Mostly." She fidgets with the jar of liniment. "I hope this helps you. Fighting, I mean."

"I hope so too." He shrugs. "But it can't make things worse."

Her face darkens. "Unless you get hurt. Or –"

"But I won't." He reaches out and flips the shower on, effectively cutting off that line of thought. "I'll be fine, Hermione. Go upstairs. I'll be five minutes."

"Shirt off and lie down," Hermione says with a gesture as Draco comes in and shuts the door behind him, and he obeys, peeling his shirt off, crawling onto the bed, and flopping down. He's in light grey joggers, low on his hips, and she can see the waistband of his black boxer shorts peeking out. Scarring aside, he's looking glorious. All wiry, defined muscle, lean and practical rather than bulky, his straight, broad shoulders and narrow hips making a vee of his back. He looks like he could be a statue, she thinks, not for the first time. So perfect, even with the scars. Maybe even because of them – what they represent. Hermione doesn't care about getting rid of them altogether. She just wants to make sure Draco's mobility isn't affected.

His haircut looks good, she's relieved to see; he's dried it with a charm, and it sits nicely. She did a good job, Hermione thinks, satisfied as she opens the jar of liniment and kneels on the bed beside his back. The sunlight falls across his head and shoulders. He pillows his head on his forearms, face turned toward her. His expression is happy; features relaxed, his one visible eye half-closed, his lashes screening it so that only a sliver of grey iris is showing. She doesn't feel happy. Nerves are tangled in her stomach in a knotted ball, and worry gnaws at her. It feels all sick and wrong.

She hates this. But she couldn't keep being selfish forever – Hermione knows that. Draco needs this more than she needs to keep him safe. Besides, she can't really keep either of them safe. Not while there's a war on. They need to win first. She sighs, and tries to focus on his back, lying before her. From upper shoulder blade to waist, it's a wreck of deep scarring; mountain ranges and valleys of scar tissue, crinkled and jagged, as though tectonic plates have been particularly active beneath his skin, crumpling it up ugly and purple-silvered. She did some of this. Guilt digs through her with sharp, bony fingers. Hermione inhales and settles herself as she lets the breath out. She dips some ointment out of the glass jar, and it's chill on her fingers, with an overpowering smell of menthol.

"Sorry if it's cold," she says softly and folds forward to kiss his shoulder; unscarred, smooth skin, nearly pale as white marble in sunlight. He makes a happy sound at the touch of her lips and she smiles, a little thread of her worry unwinding and dissipating in the face of his contentment.

"I'll be surprised if I can feel it at all," he says with a wry look, an eye opening properly and searching over her, and Hermione winces. She kisses his shoulder blade, over the scars, his skin uneven and yet soft beneath her mouth.

"Can you feel that?" she asks, her liniment-coated fingers resting on his shoulder, careful not to get the ointment everywhere, her mouth still next to his skin. Her eyes lift up to his face, and he shakes his head, his mouth a thin line.

"No."

Hermione licks a long stripe up from where her mouth hovers, and she sees Draco react when the sensation registers about halfway through; a little shiver rippling through him. "I felt that," he says. "Did you just lick me?"

Hermione snickers. "Yes."

"It was very wet," he says, amused, and she smiles to herself.

"Good." And then, Hermione straightens and takes the lid off the jar to dip up a bit more liniment. She'll need a lot – she'll have to ask Tonks to order more in because she wants to start applying it twice a day. "That's the whole point of this," she says and smears the first fingerful of liniment on, up near the top edge of the scarring, the smell of menthol rising in the air. Draco flinches slightly, obviously able to feel the cold cream. "Mobility mostly, but sensation would be nice too." His one-eyed gaze is on her face; she's aware of it as she focuses on his back, rubbing the liniment in firmly. She can feel the magic soaking into her skin; if she had any scars on her hands, this process would get rid of them too, eventually. "I'd like you to be able to feel it when I touch you."

"I can, sometimes," he says, voice quiet. It's mostly a lie, and they both know it. He takes a little breath. "I suppose it'll look better too."

"I don't care how it looks," Hermione says firmly as she scoops up more liniment, slathering it well over most of his upper back and moving down as she gets more, using both hands. She's definitely going to need more jars of this stuff. This one application will take a quarter of the jar. He twitches when the cold lotion goes over the parts of his skin that still have nerves as she generously smears it all the way down to his waist.

"I'd understand if you did," Draco says neutrally, and Hermione frowns, glancing at him to make sure he sees her expression.

"Well, I don't." Her frown deepens. "Besides, I did half of this." She trails greasy fingertips down a knotted ridge that goes from the right shoulder blade to the left side of his waist. He took this for her, and from her. His nails have fully grown back now, but his back, the fading burns, and the scar on his face are lingering reminders of how she was forced to hurt him. She wonders sometimes if he resents her. He doesn't seem to.

"Don't," he says softly, expression sad, and no – there's no resentment there. "Don't blame yourself, Hermione. Please." His mouth is tight with his sadness, and Hermione can't answer how he wants, so she just shrugs.

"Well, like I said – I don't care how it looks." She smooths her hands gently over his back, wishing she could kiss it and show him just how little she cares, except it's greasy with the liniment that stinks of menthol so strongly her nose is nearly running.

"You can press harder, you know," Draco says, not mentioning her guilt, thank Merlin. She doesn't want to talk about blame, or trauma, or tomorrow. She wants to be here. Now, in the moment, with him half-naked in front of her.

"A proper massage?" she asks, and he nods, catching his lower lip between his teeth, one eye wide and innocent, and oh, he looks so sweet like that. "It won't hurt?"

"I'll let you know if it does." He smiles faintly, that visible eye shining mirror-bright. The sun is painting him golden as he shifts on the bed, settling more comfortably.

Hermione goes up on her knees over him so she can use her body weight, and as she presses the heels of her hands hard on either side of his spine, Draco's lashes fall shut, a fan against his unscarred right cheek. He sighs, a release of tension, and she can feel how tight his muscles are. Part of her is worried she's going to injure him – split a scar open – but she knows that's irrational. He's fully healed. She slides her hands in increments out toward his shoulder blades, pressing deep into the tissue along the way as she tries to get to the muscle that lies beneath the scarring. He groans, forehead furrowing.

"Are you –?"

"I'm fine. Salazar's sake, that feels so good."

She keeps going.

"Oof." He groans again as she pushes her thumbs down either side of his spine. "Fuck, that's sore, but good. Don't stop," he mumbles, eyes still shut, head pillowed on his forearms. So she keeps going, the task oddly mesmerising, a waking dream. The scent of menthol hangs heavy in the air, like a blanket pressing down on her. Tomorrow falls away, and her fear with it. He's warm under her hands, and the soft, blissful noises he makes are lovely. Hermione loses herself in the moment as she kneads and presses, and maps his back; this new topography more familiar to her than the smooth skin he'd had all his life before.

This is the back she saw, horrified, when Draco stumbled drunk and agonised into their room, having taken the flogging to protect her. Even though he knew it would only be buying her time, not a permanent fix. Tears sting her eyes, but he can't feel them drip on his scar tissue. He only feels the firm pressure as she leans over him, using all her strength to push the heels of her hands into muscles that are taut with months and years of tension. He makes muffled little groans and exhalations of relief as she slowly eases the tight knots. He'd sacrificed his back just to buy her some time.

Merlin, she doesn't deserve him.

If he can sacrifice his own body to try fruitlessly to keep her safe for just a little longer, she can put up with some fear to help him heal emotionally. To perhaps find closure in fighting. She sniffles, and glances quickly away when he blinks his visible eye sleepily open, fixing it on her.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She doesn't sound it – she knows that. "I'm fine. Just – shut your eyes and enjoy it." The words are hoarse and strangled, tears blurring her vision as she stares at the window with a clenched jaw, trying not to cry properly. A cloud-chased sky is visible beyond rooftops, and Hermione breathes slowly and steadily. From the corner of her eye, she sees Draco's mouth downturn slightly, but he jerks a nod and shuts his eye, turning his face down into the bed more – hidden in the hollow between forearms and sheet. The muscles in his shoulders flex and bunch with the movement, and Hermione watches the way the scars shift. A tear drips on the back of her hand.

She'd taken care of this back.

It had been one of the first times she'd touched him, rather than the other way around.

Her hands push and her biceps ache as she does what she can to erase the memory of the burden he's carried from his muscles. This back: coated in blood, laid down to yellow fat and gleaming bone. Hermione remembers she had wanted to scream in frustration when Draco had said she couldn't use magic to heal him. She had spent days nursing him through it. Through the agony, and the fever, changing bandages soaked through with sweat, blood, and weeping fluids, cleaning tissue that was turning to infection, and half holding him up as they stumbled to the bathroom. She had watched his back heal, and she'd tended it carefully. And then she'd had to undo all her own work herself when she'd tortured him.

Fuck. She remembers the way he'd screamed. The way he'd begged.

She gulps and sniffs as she locks her hands one atop the other and presses them to one side of the base of his spine. He turns his head slightly at the sounds of her sniffles. "The menthol," she lies, although to be honest, the heavy scent is stinging her eyes and nose slightly still. He makes a little hmm, and lets it go. Hermione knows he's not fooled, but he's still letting it lie, and she's thankful. She pushes down on the other side of his spine, and he grunts, and something clicks.

"Nngh ..." he breathes, and if that sound wasn't so relieved, Hermione would be worried she'd done something to hurt him. "Fuck, that's amazing," he mumbles. "Why have you never done this before?"

"Because you insisted you wanted to keep your damn scars," she says helplessly, frustration coiling up in her. Hermione had wanted to do this. It was him who hadn't, stubborn and immovable. Just as bad as her. She laughs through tears, wet and hitching, and droplets spatter on unscarred flesh. He flinches, feeling it.

"Shit," he mutters, and then he's rolling over with a grunt and a heave, sitting up with his hands braced behind him, staring at her, his head cocked to one side. He shifts and reaches out his right hand, caressing her cheek. "Why are you crying?" he asks, groggy with relaxation, and he's bewildered and upset as he trails his knuckles over the bones of her face.

"I don't know," she says, although that's not exactly true. It's his back, and it's the torture, and the mansion, and tomorrow. His eyes are steady on hers, calm, and grey as stones. " Everything," she says in a wobbly voice, and Draco shoves himself back against the pillows and then holds his arms out.

"Come here," he says, softly.

She does, after wiping away her tears. Clambering onto his lap, her knees bracketing his hips as his hands slide large and careful over her back, and for some reason, instead of burying her face in the crook of his neck, she kisses his parted lips.

"Oh," he says, muffled against her lips, and then his hands cup her face. She tastes mint – him, as she licks into his mouth – and salt. She thinks the latter is her own lingering tears as their mouths seal together, open and soft and hungry. Nudging and pressing, her tongue slicking over his. She needs to be close. She needs him inside her. If she could, Hermione would crawl inside his skin and nestle beside his heart, but she can't.

The kiss deepens. Her need builds, a sense of urgency seeded in her chest and growing fast. Draco's going to Kenmare tomorrow and it's only reconnaissance, but that was what got her captured. He could be captured. He could die. Today could be the last day she sees him alive. Oh god. Her shirt comes off over her head in one frantic tug as she breaks away from him, and she catches a glimpse of him staring at her wide-eyed and confused before she leans in, taking his face in her hands and kissing him with a sharp, thoughtless need. His hands find her sides, just barely brushing over her breasts, and he makes a satisfied sound low in his chest.

His urgency builds as hers does, he matching her. His hands sliding over her back, gripping her bum, holding the nape of her neck, the base of her braid, palming awkwardly over her breasts. His lips teasing and pushing, and his tongue honeyed and sweet, making pleasure shiver from her mouth right through every nerve ending. Hermione feels heated, and needy, and impatient. She wants all of him. All of him now. Forever. She wants to lock him inside her body and never let him free. Hers. He's hers, and he's going into danger, and she can't stop him. It feels so terrible. It feels like dying. The fear, and he hasn't even gone yet. He's still in her arms.

"Merlin, you're so beautiful," he says as she pulls back, scrambling upright on her knees over his lap and shoving her leggings and knickers down as far as they will go – not far enough. Draco's too busy staring raptly at her to help her as she struggles to get one leg out of her damned clothes. He steadies her with a hand on her shoulder, but the other is on her left breast, and his eyes are eating her up. He's devouring her with his eyes, and she just wants him in her. Not looking. His cock in her cunt. Fucking her. Filling her. Locked together, her legs gripping his hips, her arms around his neck, his mouth at her temple, and her cheek, and her lips as he thrusts, jolting her whole body each time he fucks home, driving her into the mattress.

"So fucking gorgeous. All peaches and cream, and your tits, and hips, and hair..." He pulls the tie off her braid as he lists his pretty flattery in incoherent drifts of words, and while ordinarily she might love it, right now she questions his sanity. Who cares about hair. She can see his erection, eager to escape its confines, and that's what matters.

"Forget that," she tells him, frustrated, and tips off him sideways, hitting the bed on her back, legs in the air, half kicking and half dragging her leggings and knickers off as he watches her with an amused, lazy grin. "Trousers," she snaps at him, breathless, as she scrambles to her hands and knees, looking at him. He huffs a laugh, but his trousers and boxers come down with brisk efficiency, his cock sticking up almost ridiculously. God, she wants it.

And then Draco's telling her: "Come here," and she does, and she's astride him, over him, her hands resting on his shoulders as he feels between her legs. She's not very wet – she wants it, desperately, but her body hasn't caught up with her frantic brain, and he turns his head away, hand to his mouth, and then he's rubbing over her vulva, and she's all wet with saliva. And then he has his cock in his right hand, his left hand on her hip, and he's guiding the two of them together. His cock pushes into her, just the head sliding inside – this delicious intrusion that her cunt twitches around as if trying to pull him further in, and he groans as she lets her forehead fall to the crook of his neck.

"Ohh..." Hermione wavers as she lets herself sink down, very slowly, and it's exquisite. He fills her, and she can feel his heart where their chests press together, and taste the salt on his skin as her mouth opens on his neck in a sloppy not-quite-kiss, his hands on her body, shifting and moving constantly like he's trying to press his touch into every inch of her. His mouth is by her ear, and he's making soft little groans as she slowly moves up and down, his cock sliding easier and easier as she gets wetter. "More," she says. "More." But she can't move the way she wants. She's too slow. Too uncoordinated.

Draco's fingers catch in her half undone braid, and then he's cradling the nape of her neck and holding her still against him as he moves them both a little. A shift here, an adjustment there, and then she's still on top, but he's in control, her upper body draped over his, his hands on her bum, and his hips moving, and he's fucking her down onto him even as he thrusts up into her, and oh god, it's so good. So good. Hermione's fingers catch in the short strands of his hair, she mouths at his neck, grabs his shoulders, and short, huffing groans are fucked from her throat, husky and shapeless. Every part of her mind is focused on the sensation blooming in her core, and it radiates outward through her. Her whole body is pleasure.

He says something about making her come, and she shakes her head no against his neck, her fingers pressing over his lips. It's not about that. It's about this. Him inside her. Her around him.

They're caught in bliss, together. Caught in each other.

She can feel when he's getting close; can feel the tension suddenly building sharply, and the way his breathing shifts, going from fast to outright ragged, the way his fingers clutch tighter. As she feels him start to tip toward the edge, she curls her fingers gently in his hair and pushes two fingers into his mouth. She's inside him too now, she thinks incoherently. His teeth grip her digits carefully, his tongue swirling and sending electricity through her. "Come," she tells him, close to his ear, her fingers tightening in his hair, moving her hips with his thrusts. "Come, come now."

He sucks on her fingers as he comes as if it's involuntary, a broken moan stifled behind his lips, his hips slamming up as he pushes her body down, his cum filling her, his thrusts juddering until he's done, spent. His head falls back against the pillows, his fingers slackening on her bum, and she sighs; blissful. Contented. Draped over him, her face still buried against his neck, her fingers pulling from his mouth – and he catches her wrist in his hand, and kisses her fingers gently before letting her go, his arm sliding around her back. He's out of breath, his heart thudding quickly, and he combs his fingers through her hair, totally undoing her braid.

"I love you," she mumbles against his sweat-damp, saliva-licked skin, his cock still inside her, slowly softening.

"I love you, Hermione. Always." He presses a kiss to her head, against her hair, shifting her so that his cock slips free, trapped now between their bodies, cum slowly seeping out of her. She shuts her eyes tightly. "It'll be okay, tomorrow. I'll be careful."

Hermione nods, tears welling in her eyes again. "I know," she whispers, unable to trust her traitorous voice.

"I'm coming back."

"You'd better," she says fiercely, holding her tears down by sheer force of will. "Or I'm coming after you. Wherever you are."