Thirty-Seven
Hermione is sitting shut up in Lupin's office, hunched over some intercepted messages, when the back door slams open with a crash that shakes the whole house. Fear snaps down her spine as she shoves to her feet, a sudden, blind panic overwhelming her as she drops her quill to the floor, grabs for her wand, and scrambles to her feet. Her first thought is that they're under attack, and her breath whoops in and out, her heart thundering loudly in her ears. Terror makes her dizzy. She thinks of being captured, and dragged off. Her, Harry, Ginny, and Mrs Weasley. Her stomach drops sickly and the world goes funny.
Her sudden movement has knocked over the inkwell, and black fluid is seeping all over the table as her lungs constrict, every muscle in her body frozen.
But the slow realisation sinks in that the wards can't have been breached. The safe house is still secure, Hermione realises, or there would be the wailing of alarms, deafening and swooping in the air. Instead, there is just a thunder of footsteps, anda cacophony of familiar voices – Ron's, Tonks's –filled with fear and worry. And then Lupin's voice rises above the rest, muffled through the office door. "Let me get him on the table!"Oh god. Oh no. The mission. Something has gone wrong. Someone has been hurt. Hermione's feet feel rooted to the floor, her wand slack in her hand.
Draco. It can't be. There's no reason it has to be. It could be anyone. No. It could be anyone, but somehow Hermione knows with an irrational certainty that it's Draco that Lupin is talking about. Get him on the table. Her stomach drops and her pounding heart kicks it up a gear, her pulse loud in her ears. She drags in a wounded, rasping breath and moves, clumsy and fast, her quill crushed beneath her foot as she rounds the table, bursting into a run as she slips her wand back into the holster. Slamming a hand against the wall by the door to stop her mad rush and wrenching it open and all but hurling herself through – all in the space of a few heartbeats, her sock-clad feet skidding on the floor as she sprints down the short hall and brings herself to a stop at the dining room doorway in a flailing slide.
The breath is punched out of her. One hand goes to her mouth as the other one balls up against her stomach, pressing in hard as she gulps for air. "No. No." It is. It's Draco.
He's lying face down on the large dining room table in nothing but his trousers and his boots, and his scarred back is gored terribly, with long, raking slashes right down his spine. Deep, and awful. Blood coats him, dripping down onto the table, and Lupin is bent over Draco with his wand in hand, muttering charms in a constant flow under his breath. He looks worried, and there is an intent focus in his eyes. She sees that Draco's right side is filled with the sort of tension that makes her think he must be conscious, his right fist clenched, but his whole left side is oddly lax, a weird, dead limpness to it. The glint of spine shows through as Draco takes a shuddering breath and his back moves; knobbles of white vertebrae, and Hermione swallows hard. Oh god. It's so bad.
There are others in the room, but Hermione doesn't give a shit. They don't exist. Only he matters. Someone grabs her and tries to draw her back and speak to her as she strides across the room, but she shakes them off – fighting them, lashing out with a mindless viciousness, her eyes still on Draco. Her only instinct is to get to him. She has to get to him. The hands let her go quickly. A familiar voice – Ron – says, "Hey, hey, okay, 'Mione. Okay. Just don't get in the way. And don't move him. He should be okay, but Lupin needs to –" Ron's voice keeps going, but Hermione isn't listening "– while we wait for Siobhan. He can't feel his left side and –"
Paralysis? It makes horrible sense, with his spine showing that way. Whatever has clawed him – a werewolf? – has gored right down until it hit bone, and was stopped by it. It's horrendous. Far worse than the flogging, which had covered more area but wasn't half as deep. It's hard to breathe. She feels numb, and so weird. Maybe she's in shock. She yanks the two chairs out of the way, and they go tumbling to the ground with a clatter as she crouches down so she's level with Draco's head, his face turned toward her across the short expanse of table. He's covered in blood and filth, his hair caked in it, and his eyes are shut, but there's a deep crease between his brows and his mouth is twisted. Agony is written into every part of him, although Hermione is sure they must've given him a pain potion.
Hermione's eyes are dry, but her throat hurts, and her chest feels like it's trapped in a crushing vice, and she feels sick. Her hand is trembling terribly as she reaches out across the table to touch his face. She's nearly afraid to touch him. As long as he lives, she thinks desperately. They can deal with whatever damage remains, but he has to live. If he – if he dies, she can't. She just can't. Can't live without him. Fuck.
"Draco?" she asks, very small, as she runs her fingers feather-light along his right eyebrow, not sure if he'll register her presence through the pain and shock and the potions they must have given him. But his eyes crack open, watering, the grey glazed, the whites bloodshot. He blinks at her, only one watering eye properly visible from this angle, and a tear wells over, tracking a cleaner path over the bridge of his nose before it drips onto the table. His mouth is tight, contorted with agony as he blinks again, trying to focus on Hermione. She puts her hand on his right shoulder, her thumb rubbing over his skin, clean there where they've cut his shirt off.
"It's going to be okay," she gets out, and her voice is barely recognisable, it's so cracked and hoarse. She wants to say I love you , but that sounds too much like goodbye . And he's going to be fine. Ron said so. He's going to be fine. "You'll be okay." She chokes on a dry sob. Her pulse is still a whoosh and thunder in her ears, and she's cold and clammy, her breath a shaky, shallow wheeze. The way his left side is lying there so limply is so wrong , and while Lupin's murmured charms seem to be making the blood run back into Draco's body and the gashes on each side of his spine are lessening, the gaping slash directly over his spine is just as bad.
Lupin isn't skilled enough in healing magic to repair the kind of nerve damage Draco has to have suffered, Hermione knows. They need a proper Healer. Magic is incredible and could fix nearly everything, but people had to know the correct spells, and perform them properly. Her mind races and spins, turning on itself in her panic. She wished she'd spent her time learning useful healing magic instead of decoding stupid fucking messages that got Draco sent on the mission that did this to him. She hates herself right now.
"Lupin's fixing you up," she tells Draco, trying to be reassuring and probably failing.
Just then, Lupin snaps, "Where's Siobhan? We need her here now. We can't heal the wound down his spine until she repairs his spinal cord."
"She can't be far away," Ron says, and Hermione keeps looking at Draco, her fingers running over his face as she attempts to wobble a smile, and tells him it'll be okay as his left arm and leg lie there awkwardly, dead and numb. Siobhan has to be able to heal it.
"I'm sorry," he says, his gaze locked to hers, dazed and half lost in pain but still clinging to some clarity, and she can smell the aniseed of pain potion on his breath. "I'm sorry, H'mione. I –"
His apology is what makes her tears finally flow. She hitches a sob, and her eyes flood with hot tears. Fuck. " Shh, it's okay. You don't have to be sorry," she gets out past her strangled half sobs, petting her fingers very carefully over his matted hair. He hisses with pain as Lupin's voice stutters for a moment and the spell falters, and she bites the inside of her cheek hard enough that it hurts, and a hint of metal hits her tongue. "Just lie still," she tells him, wiping at her eyes.
"I said – said I'd be careful," he whispers as she leans on the table, her face close to his so she can hear him. Everything else in the room is ephemeral. Unimportant. The universe shrinks to her and him. "I'm sorry. But I couldn't just leave Creevey. I –" Draco's lashes flutter and he seems to lose track of what he's saying as he begins his explanation, stuttering into silence, his brow furrowed in confusion now as well as pain. Hermione lays her hand very gently along the angles of his face, her heartstrings wrenched to a snapping point.
"I'm sorry," Draco whispers again, dazed and stuck in a loop, and Hermione looks up, past Lupin – hunched over Draco's back, still muttering as he holds the wound down Draco's spine stable – her gaze falling on Colin. He's responsible for this. It's his fault. Somehow , it's his fault. She doesn't know what she looks like as she stares at Colin, rage boiling under her skin, like a physical pulse beating through her body, but he goes ashen, misery and stark fear written into every facet of him.
"He saved me," Colin wavers, hugging himself as he stands there in the kitchen doorway, meeting Hermione's gaze with difficulty. "He saved my life."
Of course he fucking did, Hermione thinks dully, her brief, consuming anger toward Colin leaving her in a rush. Leaving her empty of everything but fear for Draco. Her shoulders slump. Of course . He's sacrificed his own safety for someone else, again . First the girl in Kenmare, and now this. This is exactly why Hermione didn't want Draco going out in the field. He has no regard for his own life. None. Her anger seems meaningless suddenly. She dismisses Colin's presence, leaning over the table again and sinking down so her chin rests on the back of her right hand as her left hand returns to soothing through Draco's hair, tracing over his ear and running her knuckles down the line of his jaw. She takes a deep breath, trying to pull herself together. He needs her right now.
"If you keep getting hurt or nearly dying for other people, I'll stop thinking I'm special," she tries to joke pathetically through tears, and it's not funny, but he hacks out a wretched laugh.
"I don't wan' do – that with them, though," he manages meaningfully, and there's a wicked flash that makes his eyes molten for a second, his mouth making a curling, filthy smile. She doesn't know how he manages to even think of that through the pain, but he does, and it makes her want to laugh and cry at once. His voice trails off though, and she only catches the end –"...you're special," he whispers, a faltering smile on his lips and his heart in his eyes, and then pain contorts his features again, and his eyes screw shut. A wheezing groan shudders out of him. Oh god.
Hermione feels panic surge up in her like a torrent. A storm. Her heart feels as though it's going to beat right out of her chest, and she's clammy with cold sweat, her cheeks wet with tears still. Her fingers shake as she smoothes back Draco's hair and tells him it's okay, even though it's not. Not even a little bit. She can't stand the pain he's in, and she's so scared that they won't be able to fix the nerve damage the claws have raked into him. He would hate that. It would kill him to be crippled like that. Hermione wouldn't care, beyond Draco's unhappiness, but he would be miserable.
And then she hears Siobhan's voice, and oh, she's never been so fucking happy to hear that Irish lilt in all her life.
"I love you," she says now, blinking back tears and swiping at her wet cheeks as the Healer takes over from Lupin, the woman sounding sure and calm. It feels safe to tell him now, somehow. "I love you, Draco. Siobhan's here now. You're going to be okay, very soon. You'll be fine."
He doesn't answer, his lower lip caught in his teeth, biting it hard as whatever Siobhan does hurts. Hermione swears under her breath, pausing in her small, tentative touches as she lifts her head and looks at his back again. Laid bare in front of everyone in all its scarred glory – oh, how he'll hate that when he's healed. He's never wanted anyone to see the wreckage of his back, and while the scar liniment has been improving it rapidly, it's still badly marred. When scars are already healed like his had been, they take more time to fade.
Siobhan is murmuring quietly, and as Hermione watches, the remaining, gaping slash down his spine begins to seal slowly – so slowly she almost doesn't see it happening at first. Healing very gradually back together, from the inside out, as – presumably – the nerve damage is slowly mending. Oh, thank Merlin. Thank Siobhan. Hermione suddenly loves the frustrating, close-minded Healer with a gratitude so intense it overwhelms her. "It's healing," she tells Draco, voice soft in his ear, her heart racing, trying to provide him small reassurance as he lies there helpless, his eyes shut and his teeth indenting his lower lip hard. "Hang in there. It's healing. You'll be okay."
Draco manages the barest nod but doesn't speak. But when Hermione runs her fingers over his lower lip, trying to save it from being bitten right through, he shudders and kisses them like he can't help himself.
She stands there, upper body pressed over the table so she can be close to him, her heart in her throat, whispering comfort as best she can as Siobhan continues her soft flow of incantations. Lupin had cleared the room of everyone as soon as Siobhan arrived, following after them himself, and it's just her, Siobhan, and Draco in the dining room. Her fingers brush over his face and his gore-streaked hair. His right hand creeps painfully up by inches to find a resting place on her upper arm, his fingers curling around it. He's not with it. In shock, probably. Blood loss, agony, and pain potion all combine to make him dazed and absent. He slurs when he speaks in that pained whisper, and he keeps apologising.
It's awful. She hates that. Hermione doesn't care that he broke his stupid promise. He shouldn't be sorry. He didn't do anything wrong except being ridiculously fucking noble, and self-sacrificing. And she can't be angry at him for that, as much as she might want to be when he's healed.
Siobhan shoots her a tight, quick smile after a couple of minutes when Hermione looks up, and she knows then for sure that he'll be fine, and relief washes through her, making her feel weak and shaky. She wobbles a smile at Draco. "You have to stop doing this. You're a Slytherin," she tells him, sniffing wetly, her chin trembling as she tries to hold back tears that now are more from relief than fear and horror. "You're supposed to be – be ambitious and cunning, not blindly running in and saving people. You're acting like a Gryffindor."
He twitches his lips in a pained smile. "T-take that back," he retorts in a rasp, and it's a reassuring sign that he can even think to banter, but the pain that lingers in his voice makes her want to start crying again. And then there's a sound at the doorway, and Hermione looks up as Lupin enters the room again, holding out a vial of potion to her.
"A stronger potion for the pain," he says, with a tired smile. "It should sedate him for a while – if you can convince him to take it. He kept refusing more pain potion out in the field."
She thanks Lupin profusely as she takes the vial with shaky fingers and uncorks it. "It's just a pain potion," she tells Draco gently. "Drink up. Please?" It takes her several minutes – he's stubborn when he's hurt, and it seems he doesn't want to pass out, preferring the pain, the idiot, Hermione thinks with a frustration born of worry. But eventually, she succeeds in persuading him to drink the potion. The whole thing makes her think dizzily of the night he was flogged. Drunk and in pain, vulnerable under her hands. That night she'd only had alcohol to give him.
Moments later, Draco's eyes slide slowly shut. The crease between his brows softens slightly, and his mouth relaxes just a fraction as his fingers go slack on her arm. A drowsy sedation overcomes him, blotting out his awareness of the pain as Siobhan keeps working, frowning in concentration. Hermione stares at his face. Filthy and still etched faintly with pain. She wants to cling to him. To kiss him. To collapse into a puddle and cry. Only the last is an option right now. But instead, she struggles upright, picks up one of the chairs she'd knocked over, and sits down, heavily. Her legs feel like jelly, adrenaline still flooding her system. She stares at Draco's back as Siobhan skilfully knits nerves and flesh together again, feeling shocky and weak.
"Here." Out of the corner of her eye she sees Lupin hold out a mug, and she takes it without thinking. It's tea. "Drink," he says as he pulls up a chair and sits beside her. "It'll help." She does as she's told, her eyes never leaving Draco. "He's going to be fine," he says softly. "The nerve damage is the tricky part, but for a trained Healer it's straightforward, just time-consuming. He'll be mended before you finish your tea." He smiles at her, sympathetic and gentle, and Hermione nods stupidly, still staring at Draco's wounded back. She knows Lupin's not lying, and he'll be almost as good as new very soon, but somehow, that doesn't quash the fear still surging through her. She won't feel better until he's awake again, the pain gone from his eyes.
Everything feels achy when Draco blinks to a groggy awareness. He's lying on his face on a soft, squishy surface, and he appears to not be dead. He thinks he might only be wearing boxer shorts. "Hermione?" he murmurs, his eyes cracking open. He remembers her being there while they worked on him, overflowing with her frantic fear for him. It's all blurry in his mind, vague and broken thanks to the pain and the potion they'd tipped down his throat against his wishes in Mould-on-the-Wold, but he remembers mumbling apologies to her, and her tearful reassurances. And then her talking him into swallowing another potion, and then…nothing?
"Hermione?" He tries to move and roll over to his side, and the relief he feels when his left side responds to the command is exquisite. He's lying on his right side on a bed, and he is only in boxers. It's their bed, he thinks. It's dim, and his vision is all fuzzy. He blinks, and rubs at his eyes with his left hand, which appears to be working exactly as normal. Thank fuck. It seems the Healer fixed him.
"Draco. You're awake." Hermione's suddenly in view, lying down in front of him so he can look at her without moving. Her firewhisky eyes are all bloodshot and swollen around as she puts her hand on his shoulder, her voice thrumming with a tight worry. Her cheeks are streaked with shiny tear tracks that glimmer in the low lamplight. He thinks it must be early evening; he's facing the drawn curtains and he can see faint light in the gaps, like the last traces of sunset. "Be careful. I'm not sure you're supposed to be moving."
"Siobhan healed me?" He blinks, trying to clear his head.
"Yeah. She said –" Hermione's breath hitches suddenly and she sniffles. Her hand runs down Draco's left arm from shoulder to hand, settling over the back of it. His skin is clean. He thinks they must have scourgified him. Her hand is small and delicate compared to his, her nails bitten. There's a tiny mole by her index knuckle. "She said she fixed the nerve damage. Is it –?"
He twists his hand over and snaps up hers, and she starts in fright. He laughs, hoarse and quiet, as he shakes off the fog of unconsciousness and things slot together in his head. Relief surges through him. They killed Nagini, and he's alive, and not paralysed. Wood's death is a grim aspect, but it doesn't take away his happiness – Draco didn't know the man. It's sad, but it doesn't bother him. He hopes Abbott is okay. He doesn't give a shit about Shacklebolt. Overall, the mission was a resounding success.
He beats a little pattern on Hermione's palm with his fingers, demonstrating they all work just as well as always. She sighs, her shoulders slumping, and sniffles again, her lower lip full and quivering as she clearly fights back tears.
"I'm fine. It seems Siobhan is as skilled at physical healing as she is shit at mental healing," he says with a wry smile as he drinks in Hermione's presence. Her hair is escaping a messy braid, and she's in that chambray shirt she loves, that he got her when they escaped Voldemort's mansion. She's lying on her side, left hand under her head, and her eyes appear to be searching over him the same way he's looking at her. And then she crushes herself against him, her face against his chest so her head is tucked beneath his chin, her hands curled up between them, her right one sneaking out to curve over his side. Delicate fingers, pressing firm over unscarred skin.
She's crying like her heart is breaking, and he slides his arm over her and tugs her snug and close. "Hey. Hey. Calm down. It's fine, I'm okay," he says and kisses her head. "Shouldn't you be comforting me?" he asks, teasing. His back hurts, but he's quickly shaking off his grogginess, and considering the afternoon he's had, he feels pretty damned good. Tired and achy, but okay. Good enough to get up and fight again if he had to.
"I-I'm suh-sorry," Hermione sobs, all muffled. His chest is getting rather damp as he rubs her back. She sniffs. "I was just so scared. It was like the mansion all over again, and they said there was spinal damage, and –" She clamps her mouth shut, stemming the cascade, but she's breathing unsteadily, and her fingers are very tight on his side.
"Hey. I'm fine, Hermione," he tells her. A bit of guilt swims up. He knows how frantic he would've been if their positions were reversed. If she'd been brought back in that state, it would have ruined him. Devastated him. And he'd told her he'd be careful. He'd joked about it with Weasley. Well, it's all fun and games until a panther animagus attacks you, he thinks, remembering it as if through a foggy window. He pats her back as she struggles to get control of herself. "Take a deep breath. Come on. Deep, slow breaths."
"I know how to breathe," she snaps as she draws back, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve, and he suppresses a smile. At least when she's indignant, she's not as distraught; distracted from her fear and stress. She sits up, settling cross-legged as he gingerly rolls onto his back. She reaches out. "Oh, careful," she says again, hovering nervously over him on her knees but not trying to stop him. It takes him a moment; he's stiff, and cautious, and Hermione stuffs some extra pillows behind him swiftly, but when he settles onto his back, it feels okay.
"Do I have yet another set of scars for you to try to get rid of?" he asks as he leans back against the stack of pillows, his voice cracking slightly, throat dry. Hermione reaches quickly behind her to the bedside table and passes him a mug of what smells like herbal tea.
"Drink," she says, then goes on, watching him carefully as he sips the lukewarm tea, her tears dried up now, but her eyes still puffy. "Not really, actually. Lupin and Siobhan sealed the wounds really well. They're barely noticeable compared to the other scars. Just four long, thin silver stripes." She pauses. "They told me it was an animagus."
"Yeah. A panther." He remembers again. Throwing Creevey out of the way before it hit him, slamming the air out of him. Like being slammed into a wall at fifty miles an hour. Its fangs bared above him. Its claws in his back. Fuck, that had been so close. It could have ripped his throat out. He'd nearly died, and a shiver of fear runs through him as he looks at Hermione, sitting tailor-fashion with her knees pressed up against his thigh. She's pale and drawn, small. Fragile, as she gnaws on her lip, watching him drink his tea, dark shadows beneath her warm amber eyes, which are filled with the kind of boundless worry for him that only comes from love.
Draco realises then, watching her watch him, that he really doesn't want to die.
Not just because Hermione needs him, but because he – selfishly – wants to live a life with her. The sort of life he took away from so many others. And it's not fair, and he doesn't deserve it, but he doesn't give a damn right now. He wants to be with her, every day, forever. He doesn't want to die, and never get to grow old with her. He swallows hard.
"I'm sorry," he says, nearly a whisper, meaning it. He's sorry he scared her. He's sorry he nearly died. He's sorry he's been so reckless with his life. "I mean, I'm not sorry I saved Creevey –" But in retrospect, if Draco had let Creevey take the hit, he could've killed the animagus as soon as it slammed the younger man onto the floor. He would've used the Killing Curse before it managed to gore or kill Creevey, and maybe they both would've gotten through the situation with less injury. Draco just hadn't been thinking. He'd been reacting on instinct. Better me than someone else, he'd thought. And he thinks he needs to stop doing that.
"I'm not sorry I saved Creevey," he repeats. "And I'm okay now, so it turned out alright in the end. But I should've been smarter about it.
"This was why I didn't want you fighting," Hermione says, a tension in her features, and he thinks she's fighting back tears. "But I can't even be mad at you because you nearly died , and you're hurt, and you did it all to save someone." She shoots him a helpless, frustrated look. "How can I be angry at you for that?"
"I agree wholeheartedly," he says, smiling as he sets his mug of tea aside. "You definitely can't be angry."
Hermione huffs a laugh and sniffs wetly, burying her face in her hands for a moment and sighing. She looks up at him. "God, I love you so much."
"I love you more," he says, and he's sincere behind his playful retort. Draco doesn't see how she could love him more than he loves her. She is everything. She's his redemption. The woman who was a light in the suffocating dark. Who brought him out of it, despite his best efforts to lose himself in the absolution of death. She gave him something to live for, and then the hope for more than just survival and endless guilt. Whatever atonement he finds through the Order now is because of her. Because she made him leave Voldemort's mansion instead of giving up and dying.
Hermione leans over him then and kisses him, her mouth soft and her tongue teasing, awakening arousal he thought injury and exhaustion would've made impossible. Her kiss is undemanding, and Draco parts his lips, pushing into it just a little, his tongue sliding lazy over hers, and shocks of pleasure jar through him. His newly healed nerve endings light up with sweet, sparking pleasure. His hands find her face as the tail of her braid brushes over his bare chest, thumbs sliding along the sharp edge of her jaw, and then one hand curls behind her head, at the nape of her neck, while the other slides down, over her shoulder. Cupping the ball of it in his palm, the bones pressing up beneath her skin.
Draco feels as though he's suspended in a bubble as they kiss. There's a fragility to the moment. He's still slightly affected by the potion she'd given him earlier, he thinks; light-headed and a little high. And flooded with relief at the fact that he's alive, and has the ability to move his left hand again, as he tugs her into his lap. She slides onto him, straddling him as the kiss deepens. He's sitting mostly upright against the pillows, and her hands are on his shoulders, then chest, and then jaw. Playing through his hair, which has the rough cleanliness of a scourgify to it, her fingers moving easily through the locks. She's seeking out every part of him available to her with greedy fingertips, like she's trying to memorise and map him, and she's making needy little whimpers into his mouth that are doing things to his dick.
He knows she must be able to feel him getting hard; it's not subtle, and she's straddling him so that the front of her pelvis presses against his rapidly hardening shaft. It has to be pushing right against her clit, he thinks distractedly as he sucks on the tip of her tongue. She makes another whimper and rocks against him as if to confirm his theory, and that makes him whimper as sensation lights up his dick, radiating outward. Fuck , that feels good. But then near-death experiences have a way of heightening sensation. He suddenly wants to lie her down and fuck her hard and deep. She curls her fingers around his ears and licks boldly into his mouth – oh yes, tingles shoot down his healed spine – before sucking on his lower lip, her hands sliding to his shoulders.
"Salazar's sake, I want to fuck you so badly," Draco mumbles as she pulls back, and their lips separate with a filthily wet sound that makes his stomach twist deliciously, want surging up in him. His skin feels too tight, heat radiating off him as he imagines the feel of her cunt clenching down on him. The softness of her breasts, the moans she makes as he sucks on her nipples. The way the delicious curve of her arse feels in his hands as he grips it, and squeezes. Kneads. Needs. Fuck, he really does want her, with an intensity that almost surprises him.
"Really?" she asks him disbelievingly. "Right now? God, Draco. Just a few hours ago, you were lying on the dining room table with –" Her smile vanishes as she remembers, and he tugs gently at the tail of her braid.
"Hey. I'm okay," he reminds her, although his lust is dampened slightly by the sudden realisation that he was shirtless and all but unconscious in front of everyone. He suppresses a grimace and pulls her in for another, brief kiss. Warm and firm, his lips taking possession of hers for a moment – his tongue fucking delicately into her soft, sweet mouth and making her shiver and moan. He draws away just as swiftly as he captured her mouth, and she takes a little, broken breath, her fingers pressing over her lips. He thrusts his hips up to remind her of that, too, and she sways on his lap with the movement, grabbing at his shoulders and making a stifled sound as his erection nudges firmly against her through their clothes.
"But yes, really," he says in answer to her first question, and smirks lopsidedly. "Right now. You know I always want to, Hermione," he adds, and her cheeks go a lovely shade of pink as she catches her lip between her teeth. She's glowing in the lamplight. Her hair is gleaming dark and fluffing out of its braid, her tired, puffy eyes shining amber, and there are little stress lines around her kiss-damp mouth. She's beautiful. Fucking gorgeous.
"Well," she says, and then leans in and kisses him again, brief and somehow overflowing with happiness. Draco thinks maybe Hermione is feeling the same giddy relief as he is. He's not sure if she's feeling the same sudden, irrational onslaught of overwhelming lust; that would be a lot to expect, given the situation. But then she's scrambling down his body, on all fours, until she's kneeling between his thighs. Her eyes are bright and catch the light, and she has that sweetly determined look on her face that usually heralds something new and interesting.
"What –?" he begins, as her fingers curl beneath his waistband. A suspicion grows in his mind and he gulps. His blood feels hot in his veins, and his skin is prickling all over. His dick is achingly hard, and he wants desperately to push it into her soft, gripping slickness. He's not that much of an invalid. He's healed. He's fine. He can easily haul her back onto his lap, and push his dick into her, and have her bounce up and down on him until he comes.
Fuck.
Yes, that sounds good. His dick is straining his boxers as she pulls the waistband up and away from him, and he can feel the blood rushing into it. He's hypersensitive; just the whisper of fabric on his dick is a frustrating sensation. He's filled with an insistent, hot need. He could push her over the edge of the bed, standing there with her face against the covers and her arse in the air as he stands behind her and fucks her sweet pussy.
He wants her. And she's teasing him; her eyes contemplative on the shape of his dick inside his boxers, her pupils blown – dark, glazed pools, which make it clear she wants him.
"You shouldn't exert yourself," she says with a wicked faux innocence, dragging him out of his thoughts as she lets his waistband snap back down, barely avoiding his dick and making him inhale sharply with a second of terror. Hermione grins at his stuttering breath and then licks her lips as she kneels there, unbuttoning her shirt and shrugging it off. Underneath the shirt, she's wearing one of her thin white vest, and he can just barely see the shadows of her nipples. His dick twitches involuntarily, and she makes a wanting, pleased sound. She grips the shaft through his boxers and squeezes carefully but firmly. He moans.
"Oh fuck," he breathes, and then, his brain working slowly, "what're you doing?"
She looks at him, so determined. "I want to suck it until you come, again," she says, voice full of bravado, licking her lips again, but he can see the nerves shivering in her. Fear is sharp under her skin, and bright behind the lust in her eyes. Draco tries to hold in another groan of sheer want and anticipation, not wanting his desperation for her to do exactly what she's saying, to put pressure on her to perform. Yes, she sucked it during the sixty-nine – which had been amazing – but that didn't mean he expected her to do it again. He knows full well that he can't have any expectations. That isn't how things work between them. Draco takes what he's given, and he's so fucking grateful for it because she gives him so much, considering.
"You don't have to," he tells Hermione, but she's already yanking his boxers down with quick, sure movements, and he's not stopping her. In fact, he lifts his hips to make it easier for her, his heart in his throat and his dick desperate for her hand, and her mouth. Merlin, her mouth. Hot and wet, her tongue slicking and swirling around the head of his dick. Oh fuck. Just imagining it is making his breathing tight and shallow, the urge to come a quickening drumbeat, his whole body thrumming with it. Draco wants to do things that he can't, and it's driving him insane. He accepts it, but it's killing him at the same time. "You really don't."
"I want to." She shoots him a nervous glance. "Just be still," she says, and he is.
He keeps his hands to himself. A small part of his brain just wants to shove her head down on his dick and fuck her throat, except that would trigger the fuck out of her, and he doesn't want that. So instead, he grabs a fistful of the bedcovers and breathes as Hermione curls her hand around his dick and squeezes, moving it up and down as she folds forward on her knees. And now her open mouth is just a few inches from his dick as she leans down, and she looks obscene and beautiful at once, her eyes heavy-lidded and her cheeks flushed, and then her lips close over it.
"Fuuuuck," he whimpers on an exhalation, embarrassingly involuntary and hoarse, his fist clenching in the covers. She swirls her tongue and sucks, so hot and wet. His hips bump up immediately in an involuntary reaction, and she pulls her mouth off with a pop of suction and shoots him a look.
"Be still," she tells him, and he drags in a sharp breath and nods fast and obediently.
"Y-you're in control," he remembers to say, belatedly and breathlessly, not that she usually seems to need that reminder just lately. "You're in control." And Merlin, she is. She has all the control. Her fingers trail over his inner thighs and then up over his balls, and he gulps. It tickles, and feels fantastic and infuriating, and he wants her mouth back.
"I know I am," she says, and a wicked little smile that makes Draco's stomach flip flickers over her lips as she wraps her hand around his dick again, sliding up and down for a moment before letting go. She glances up at him, still smiling. She's teasing him. And he loves it. The fact that she's comfortable enough to do it is amazing. She leans in, and the tip of her tongue laps light and wet up the shaft, and he huffs a breath that isn't quite a moan. He feels dizzy with lust. His balls have drawn tight, and his dick is so hard he thinks he has no blood left in his brain. He wants her so badly.
"Say please," she says, and actually kisses his dick before pulling back and looking at him expectantly.
"Please," he says, immediate and emphatic. "Fucking please."
Hermione smiles, dips her head again, and answers his pleas. It's incredible. Heat and desire wash through him, and oh, her mouth is like heaven. It's an effort to hold still as she envelops the head of his dick in a soft, sucking heat, her tongue constantly swirling and flicking, her hand moving on him easy and fast. He is not going to last long. This is going to be embarrassingly quick, Draco thinks, as his breath drags in and out fast, and his hand flexes in the bedcovers instead of her hair.
It is. He doesn't know exactly how long it takes, but as soon as Hermione pushes her mouth down further, taking most of his dick into her mouth, the building pressure snaps. "I'm gonna –" he starts and doesn't finish, a gripping pleasure lancing through him as she keeps sucking, trying desperately to hold off on coming until she pulls her mouth safely away. But she doesn't, still sucking hard and deeper than before. He suddenly doesn't think she's going to stop. Oh Merlin.
"You don't have to –" he tries, expecting her to finally pull her mouth away and replace it with her hand, but instead, she does the opposite. She pushes down until the head of his dick hits the back of her throat, and he moans, and comes in her mouth. "Oh fuck," he gets out, strangled and low, his climax pulsing through him in rippling waves as he watches her swallow down his cum.
He thinks it might be the best thing he's ever seen in his life. "Oh fuck," he says again as Hermione pulls her mouth off his dick and kneels back, licking her damp, flushed lips and then wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looks a little stunned, as if she can't believe she just did that, kneeling there and staring at him with wide, pupil-swamped eyes.
"Shit," he mutters and yanks his boxers up, the warm, stupid glow of orgasm draining away fast. "Hermione?" He touches her hand, where it rests limply on her knee and thank Merlin, she blinks and refocuses, life coming back to her eyes along with a rueful smile. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just – I didn't expect to do that." She swallows and grimaces faintly, and Draco remembers his cold tea and grabs for the mug, passing it to her. She smiles, small and wobbly, before she takes a drink. "Thanks," she says ruefully, passing the mug back to him and then clambering out from between his legs, curling up next to him. She leans into his side, cheek to his chest, and sighs as he slides his arm around her. It sounds contented rather than traumatised, and Draco relaxes slightly.
"If I'd known I'd get this kind of treatment for hurting myself, I would've gotten injured ages ago," he says with a blissful sigh, trying to lighten the fragile moment, and then winces as she smacks him on the stomach.
"That's not funny." But she kisses him over his ribs, and he can feel her smile against his skin.
"Careful. I'm injured," he protests, and she thumps him again, but lighter this time, huffing a laugh. And then they lie there in silence, and he listens to her breathe, steady and even, as he luxuriates in the sleepy relaxation of orgasm. Her head is on his chest, and her arm over his stomach, her right leg half flung over him. Both of them are alive, and safe. It's perfect.
"You killed Nagini," she says a while later, rousing him from a near doze. He may be healed, but he feels exhausted and achy now, as if the last of the pain potions have worn off. They probably have. He yawns.
"Well, Lupin did. I was busy gasping uselessly on the floor at the time."
"Don't," she scolds, and clutches him a little tighter. "My point is, the snake is dead. And she was the last horcrux. They're all gone now," she says, and he hums an assent. And then they both fall silent again. They both know what that means. Voldemort is as vulnerable as he will ever be. If there's ever a time to strike, it will likely be soon. Draco doesn't know how he feels about that. He wants it to be over, but at the same time, the thought is oddly unsettling. Both the idea of the Order facing down Voldemort, and the idea of them either winning or losing.
He wants to win, of course. But the thought of the war being over is something that Draco can't wrap his head around. He doesn't know how to be a normal person. He doesn't know how to live without war. Hermione sighs, somehow a complicated sound, and he looks down at her and love wells up in him, knotted and aching in his chest. He'll figure it out. For her. He'll have to.