FIC: Aresto Momentum (3/3) (Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger)
Title: Aresto Momentum (3/3)
Author: captainraychill
Characters: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger
Prompt Number: # 85
Word Count: ~24,750
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Alternate universe after mid-Book 6/EWE, angst, darker than prompt implies, explicit sexual situations, unabashed romance, infrequent but extreme profanity, alcohol consumption, reference to rape and murder.
Summary: Hermione fills her shopping cart with a jar of honey, a book and a bushel of apples. Why do these things remind her of a certain ferret? Aresto Momentum: a spell which slows down or stops the movement of an object… that which gives you pause and makes you reconsider your path.
Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, etc., this work of art is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to my Beta, you know who you are, for your wonderful input. BF Draco is for you! Thanks also to the Interhouse Mods for your quick answers and generous extensions. And to SnuggleLove54 for the fun and “random” prompt. I think I took it in an odd direction. Hope you like it.
Aresto Momentum (3/3)
CHAPTER EIGHT
REVEALING ALL
Carina watched as Miss Granger appeared out the Pensieve. The witch blinked, adjusting to the light in the chamber, and then snapped her eyes directly to Carina. Master Draco had that same habit of accessing a room quickly, mapping the locations of others, finding threats, wand in hand. A skill internalized during the war.
“Hello,” Miss Granger said, slipping her wand into her pants’ pocket.
“Greetings, Miss,” Carina said. She walked forward, a glass of pumpkin juice balanced on the silver tray she held. Over the years, she had found it helped alleviate the residual dizziness some experienced after leaving the Pensieve.
“Thank you. Are you Kiki?”
“Yes.”
The witch gazed down at Carina shrewdly for a moment and said, “No, you’re not.”
A younger, more timid elf might have grown flustered to contradict a witch or wizard, but Carina was almost eighty years old, and she knew many things, including who she was.
“I am Kiki, miss.”
“No, I mean, Kiki’s not your name.”
Carina’s large blue eyes grew even larger. Hermione Granger was a powerful witch. Perhaps she was a Legilimens, like Master Draco.
“Are you reading my mind?” she asked.
“No, just your voice and your eyes. What’s your real name?”
“Carina Keystone.”
“Carina. After the constellation. I’m Hermione Granger.”
“Yes, Miss,” Carina said, bowing.
“Could you please take me to Mr. Malfoy?”
“Yes, Miss, follow me.”
Carina guided Miss Granger through the maze-like series of staircases and magically hidden doors that led back to the library. She knew Master Draco waited there. When he had left Miss Granger in the Chamber of Memories, he had finished dressing. He had put on his socks and shoes. He had eaten his breakfast and tried to read the paper. Eventually, he had retired to the library and his desk, to wait, drinking Firewhiskey even though it was only eight o’clock in the morning. She hoped he wasn’t drunk.
Carina wondered what was in the memory that Master Draco had taken from Miss Granger’s head, the memory he watched once a month and all day Wednesday. She could have peeked, but it wasn’t her place. The witch didn’t look mad anymore though. She didn’t look any way, actually, her expression as smooth as an egg. Carina wondered what she could say to make Miss Granger love Master Draco as much as he loved her.
She was about to tell Miss that Master had never beaten his elves when the girl spoke first.
“I’ve seen you before, Carina,” she said. “With Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, in a corridor at Hogwarts, the night that they went to the Headmaster.”
Carina remembered that day. They had journeyed north through ice and snow in a bright red train. The compartments had been filled with revelers traveling to Hogsmeade for New Year’s Eve. Master Draco had not wanted to risk Apparition, uncertain of the extent to which You-Know-Who could track him. They had parted from the laughing crowd at the station and walked together, in silence, up the white hill that led to the castle.
Mistress Narcissa disappeared in the snow, a spirit, her white hair and white robes swirling in the wind. There were frozen tears on her cheeks. Master Draco, who had grown taller than his mother the year before, guided her over the treacherous ground, his arm holding her close to his side.
Anyone who witnessed his care of her would never know they had fought for days before the moment she had relented to come to Hogwarts with him. There had been threats and pleas, all in private rooms of the manor. Dark, sad words had been spoken like betrayal and punishment and death. It was one thing not to take the Dark Mark in the first place. It was quite another for a Death Eater to betray the Dark Lord. In the end, the mistress had chosen her son over her husband, a decision that was right but would devastate her for years.
Carina followed them, clutching a black bag that held more than it appeared to and wrapped in a blanket Master Draco had dropped onto the floor as they stood to leave the train. Her feet ached with cold. A stern-looking witch in a pointed hat met them at the entrance of the castle and, without a word, led them to the Headmaster’s office.
He was an old man with a long, white beard and kind, blue eyes. He had seen to everyone’s comfort, even transfiguring a globe into a soft, elf-sized chair by the fire for Carina and handing her a cup of steaming apple cider. She had tried to stay awake as Master Draco and the Headmaster began to speak in earnest but couldn’t, her feet so warm after being so cold, the fire swaying hypnotically.
When she woke up, it was the New Year. She and Mistress Narcissa were in the cottage by the sea. As she unpacked the black bag, she found a note in Master Draco’s slanted handwriting.
Kiki, take care of her.
Although they had received occasional news of his safety from the Order over the next eighteen months, they did not see him again until the day it was all over, when he had appeared on the shore at sunrise with the body of Master Lucius.
“It was brave of him to defect,” Carina told Miss Granger. “He sacrificed his father, and his father meant so much to him.”
The witch didn’t respond.
“He loves his family,” Carina said. “Right after You-Know-Who was killed, he brought his father’s body to his mother.”
“I know. I saw him Disapparate,” Miss Granger said in an emotionless voice. They stopped before a stone wall that blocked the corridor.
Resisting the urge to sigh, Carina snapped her thick fingers, and the wall began to smoke and shift and flicker until it became sinuous black fire. She had done all she could.
She held out her hand to the witch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco heard a sharp hiss and looked up to see two figures emerge from the black flames in the fireplace. He barely noticed Kiki leave the room as Hermione walked toward him. His heart was racing, and it took all of his considerable skill to hide his agitation. He sat in a throne-like chair of leather and carved wood, behind the protection of his massive desk and a half-empty glass of Firewhiskey. His wand was within reach.
The two chairs facing the desk were cleverly crafted. They were slightly too low without appearing to be and luxurious enough to hide other intentional and minute imperfections that gave visitors a sense of unease. The end result was intimidation. Good for negotiation. Or harsh lectures about losing the House Cup.
Granger gave the chairs a cursory glance, then stood between them, placing her hands on the desk.
Her face was inscrutable.
He had expected her to walk through the fire angry, perhaps even shooting off curses. Or fearful and haunted by the visions of the cave by the sea. But she was quiet, almost placid, and utterly unreadable. It was unsettling. Whether or not he knew the reasons behind her emotions, he had always been able to see them clearly on her face or in the turn of her shoulder or the twitch of her hand. Granger had never been able to hide what she was feeling.
In this way, they were complete opposites and the epitome of their Houses. She was Gryffindor, the sword, bravery and sacrifice, revealing all. He was Slytherin, the locket, cunning and calculation, concealing all.
Until now.
He felt a strong desire to reach into her mind, to gauge her temper, but immediately crushed the compulsion. It would be an unforgiveable violation. He wouldn’t do it again.
“What made you change your mind?” she finally asked. “Why did you defect?”
Draco’s every instinct told him to lie, to hide and protect himself behind his customary armor and shields. To be vulnerable was to be weak. But to remain strong now might save his pride but ruin everything else. She deserved to know the truth.
“After I left you that day,” he said, “I couldn’t forget what you’d said to me. I had always assumed that I had no choice, that I had to do as he ordered to save my family. My father’s expectations… I had lived for them all my life. And when I saw him broken in Azkaban, begging me to take the Mark, I needed to restore him somehow, to what he should be. I didn’t understand. I didn’t realize what I was becoming a part of. By December, I knew I was going to fail and die.”
Draco realized, to his horror, that his hands were shaking, and he wrapped his fingers around his glass of whiskey to hide it.
“But you were so certain that Dumbledore would help me and my mother,” he said. “Gyffindor naiveté, I thought. But what if you were right? What if I could change? I knew if I was going to act, I had to act fast. I could hide my thoughts, but not for long, and not in my sleep…”
He paused, took a swig of his drink and paused again before continuing.
“I dreamed of you, of kissing you. And then the dreams would shift into nightmares of the things I had seen and done. It was too much emotion for him not to notice soon. I had days, at most.”
Draco noticed Hermione’s eyes narrow slightly. He had said something that intrigued her.
“Do you still have the nightmares?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
“What do you see in your nightmares?”
No, he thought.
She was really asking him what had he seen and done in service of Voldemort. He had never spoken of these things to another soul. Once, after a week without sleep and half-delirious, he had tried to tell his mother. But she’d shaken her head frantically and placed her cool fingers against his lips. She had needed his strength, then, not his weakness, and that’s what he had given her ever since.
“Did you torture people?” Hermione asked.
“Yes,” Draco said, forcing the word out of his mouth by will alone. “I had to use the Cruciatus in interrogation. And when it would have been too suspicious not to use it in… recreation.”
He saw Bellatrix, smiling, her glossy hair bright with green light, a smear of blood on her cheek.
“Did you rape anyone?” Hermione asked.
“No,” he said quickly.
Leave it at that. Lie to her. You can hide it. She would never know.
“No,” he said again, but he heard the anguish in his voice.
It had been easy to tell which prisoners had been raped. They were constantly fearful, jumping at any noise, their backs against the wall. They never held his gaze but looked away, as if ashamed, and tried to become invisible, their legs pressed tightly together.
“I didn’t rape anyone. But I knew it was happening, and I couldn’t… I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
It was too much to contain. He couldn’t tell her these things and keep his composure. He closed his eyes, ashamed to meet her gaze, and rested his head in one hand.
“Did you commit murder?” she asked, merciless.
“No.”
“But you saw murder and didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Yes, over and over.”
Too many times to count. At first, he had tried to remember each face, thinking that might somehow make it better. A secret memorial. But there had been so many. Their identities blended together. And, in that way, they were forgotten.
Except for one, a nameless Muggle. Draco still saw her vividly in his occasional nightmares. Not her face, but the bruised and graceful length of her white neck disappearing into Nagini’s mouth as the great snake devoured her.
Shaking uncontrollably now, agitated and angry and defiant, Draco downed the rest of his whiskey and glared at Hermione. If she had not hated him before, which he found hard to believe, she would hate him now. How could she feel otherwise?
“You haven’t forgiven yourself,” she said.
“I don’t deserve it,” he said bitterly. “There is no forgiveness for that kind of cowardice.”
“I don’t agree,” Hermione said without hesitation, and Draco’s eyes widened in shock. “You did not commit evil acts for pleasure. You left Voldemort’s service when others stayed. It was brave of you to defect. We might never have defeated him without you.”
“Dumbledore still died.”
“He was always going to die. You know that. But you didn’t kill him. The minute you heard about the Horcruxes, you knew where to find Ravenclaw’s diadem. McGonagall wouldn’t have known that Dobby could rescue Harry and Ron from this house without information from you.”
“I should have been here, too.”
“You would have set off the wards. And without Dobby, there would have been no help from Ollivander or Griphook. You have done bad things, and you have let bad things happen. But, Draco, you have done good things, too.”
He watched Hermione reach across the desk and take his empty glass out of his hand. As she set it aside, her sleeve brushed his wand, which rolled away from him until she stopped it with a light touch of her fingers. Just out of his reach. Instead of retrieving it, he looked at her, trying to read the thoughts in her eyes.
“At the end of the memory, what did you whisper in my ear?” she asked softly.
He only paused for a moment before saying, “I said goodbye.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said. “Tell me the truth.”
This was it. The moment of choice.
He stared into her dark eyes and imagined the glint of danger in them, of weapons. Knives and arrows and a sword with rubies in the hilt, all ready to pierce him and make him bleed. She was the only one who could destroy him, and she could do it with a word. It went against his deepest nature to lay his soul down defenseless before her.
He did it anyway.
“I said I loved you,” Draco confessed.
CHAPTER NINE
LAST CHANCE
Hermione didn’t react to his revelation. Her eyes glittered, the weapons Draco imagined in them still sharp.
“And how do you feel about me now?” she asked.
It’s not too late. Lie to her. Tell her it was just a crush. Protect yourself.
He felt as if he swayed on the edge of a great fall, his heart thundering at the perilous height, the certain result.
“Draco, how do you feel about me now?” she asked again.
Beyond doubt, he knew this was his last chance, and he took it. He let himself fall forward, into air and possibility and the greatest risk of his life.
“I still love you,” he said. He looked her in the eye despite his fear. “I’ve loved you for years. I had hoped, after I defected, that we might… But it was clear that you hated me despite our attraction to each other that day. You seemed like you couldn’t even stand the sight of me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Couldn’t. Not can’t.
Possessed by this small hope, he took another great risk.
“How do you feel about me now?” he asked.
For a moment, Hermione studied him. He saw expression in her face again. Curiosity. A question. And something else… like wonder and longing combined. She reached her hand out to him across the table, and his breath caught. He leaned forward and slowly reached his hand out toward hers.
“No,” she said. “Your left hand.”
“No,” he said harshly.
He recoiled, his spine slamming back against the leather upholstery of his chair. Without his wand or a glass of whiskey to hold, he pressed his fingers hard against the edge of the desk.
He had diligently kept his Dark Mark hidden from the world since the day it had tortured Hermione. He always wore long sleeves and dressed alone at The Quidditch Club and politely declined invitations to Zabini’s house on the shore. He never took his shirt fully off when having sex, and only had sex with purebloods, just in case. He didn’t want to risk hurting someone.
Especially not her.
Over the years, the skull and snake had faded, the deep black slowly bleaching to chalk white and the enflamed red corona returning to healthy flesh. He didn’t know if they still contained their vicious poisons.
He remembered the day Hermione had uncovered his Mark. She had fallen back onto the floor as if he had struck her and screamed in absolute terror. For a moment, he had been frozen by panic and helplessness. He hated himself for having hurt her. Sometimes, in his nightmares, the Muggle woman with the long, bruised neck became Hermione, her head thrown back with shrieks.
“Draco, give me your hand,” she said.
“No, you know what could happen.”
“Is the Mark still black?”
“No.”
“Have you felt it since he died?”
“No.”
“Then give me your damned hand,” Hermione ordered.
“My damned hand,” he murmured. “Appropriate.”
His humor was just another defense mechanism, and he could tell she knew it. As with all his other defenses, she shattered it ruthlessly. She continued to hold her hand out to him, her face like a queen’s, a power expecting to be obeyed.
As Draco gave her his left hand, palm up, his prayer consisted of one, silent word repeated over and over.
Please…
The moment Hermione touched him, he felt a flare of longing and desire burn through his body. His cock was instantly hard. He wanted to pull her close to him and push her away, to safety, all at once. It was strange, this combination of lust and fear. His breath quickened with both as he watched her delicate fingers roam lightly over his skin. She traced the lines crossing his palm, lingering on his heart line. She slipped her fingers inside the cuff of his shirt and removed his emerald cuff link. Draco held his breath, tense and ready to act within a second if she so much as blinked.
She pulled his white sleeve up his arm to reveal the Dark Mark.
Nothing happened.
For a long moment, neither of them reacted. Then he exhaled hard, and she let out a low, nervous laugh. She ran her fingers up the ravaged skin of his forearm without harm. He shuddered at her touch. A wild, expanding joy filled his lungs. The Mark was powerless.
He was free.
Unable not to touch her, he caressed her arm. Their hands slid back toward each other until they pressed palm to palm, fingers intertwining. He sat on the very edge of his chair now, leaning toward her across the desk. At the same instant, they looked at each other.
Hermione’s smile was breathtaking. Her dark eyes seemed lit from within by an emotion that he could read as clearly as ink on parchment. Happiness.
She had never looked more beautiful to him.
I am yours, he vowed silently. And I won’t rest until you know that you are mine.
“There’s nothing in the way now,” she said.
“In the way of what?”
“Of this,” she whispered.
Almost reverently, she bowed down over his hand and kissed it.
Draco gazed at Hermione as if bewitched to never look away. Her lips were hot against his skin. He felt astonishment and yearning and a love so strong it battered, with each heartbeat, against the inside of his body, for release. A lock of her hair fell forward, brushing his wrist. He reached out with his other hand and tucked the soft curl over her shoulder.
Then, Slytherin to the core, he pressed his advantage by gently stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear.
Hermione gasped against his knuckles. She pulled away sharply and glared at him, her eyes burning with desire. They were both half-crouched over opposite sides of the desk. The energy between them was the energy of the predator, instinct and hunger and power, waiting to strike. Draco’s body was tight, every muscle hard. A desperate ache twisted low in his gut.
He didn’t know who moved first. But suddenly, they were both sweeping parchment aside and climbing onto the desk to get to each other. They came together, on their knees, clasped in each other’s arms. Their lips met in a savage kiss that made Draco so dizzy he almost lost his balance.
Dimly, he heard his wand clatter on the floor. The crash of breaking glass.
Somehow, seconds later, he was flat on his back with Hermione straddling him. He grabbed her hips and pressed his erection up against her, drawing a whimpering sob from her lips. That provocative sound had tortured his imagination for almost six years. He wanted to hear it again and again. They rubbed against each other, in perfect rhythm, growing breathless, until one of her boots squeaked against the polished wood of the desk. She stopped moving and smiled.
“Aren’t you going to tell me to respect the antiques?” she murmured.
“Smash them all to hell. Burn down the house. I don’t care, Granger. Just fuck me.”
She bit her lip and rolled her hips slowly, but her voice was teasing when she finally replied.
“Of course, Malfoy. Since you asked so nicely.”
He didn’t even have time to hold his breath before she pulled her jumper over her head and tossed it to the floor.
CHAPTER TEN
A POWER BEYOND MAGIC
It was madness from that moment.
Her breasts were bare. Small and perfect and tipped with pink nipples. Before he could reach for her, her hands were on his shirt, tearing the plackets apart, buttons flying. She brushed the linen aside and stroked his smooth chest, sending jolts of hot pleasure through his body.
“Take off your shirt,” she said.
Out of habit, he shook his head. The Mark…
“It doesn’t matter. Take it off!”
All his trepidation was swept away by her words and the imperious tone of her voice. He struggled to loosen his right cuff link and shrug out of his shirt.
“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. Her fingers traced the vaulting of his ribs, making his stomach quiver. “Strong, inside and out.”
Her praise filled him with fragile pride. That she could see him that way, when he was so flawed… Could he ever be the man she deserved? Overcome with feeling, he cast his shirt away and took control, pulling Hermione down into his arms.
They both gasped at the contact of skin against skin and held themselves still in the embrace for one suspended moment, absorbing warmth and pleasure. She was so soft, so heavenly. Their heads turned at the same time, a movement as natural as the arc of the sun across the sky, and their lips met in a sweet, consuming kiss.
It was the most perfect kiss Draco had ever experienced, sending his head somewhere up among the stars, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough, not until he was inside her and she was truly his after all these years.
He moved quickly, lifting her with him, until she sat on the very edge of the desk, facing his chair, and he stood between her legs. He wanted to touch her everywhere, explore all the creamy skin she had just revealed, her breasts and arms and the curve of her back. But there wasn’t time. His need was too obsessive, his entire body flushed with fever. His hands reached down to unfasten her pants. The button was cool against his hot fingers.
She reached for his trousers, too, fumbling with fastenings until her fingers slipped inside and wrapped around his hard cock.
“Fuck,” Draco cursed, thrusting into her hand.
Her mere touch almost sent him tumbling over the edge. He grabbed her wrist.
“Slow down,” he begged. “God, you drive me mad.”
He dropped his forehead against Hermione’s, trying to master his rioting body. He was sweating, his breath coming in pants. Her mouth was so close to his that they shared a sultry exchange of breath that made him think of kisses.
“You tasted like apples,” she said. He remembered with a smile.
“You tasted like honey,” he replied.
Their lips came together then in a kiss that was, impossibly, even more perfect than the last.
“I’m going to touch you now,” she warned him. “If you want to watch.”
In a sensual daze, Draco looked down to see that Hermione had pulled him out of his clothing. He watched as her fingers moved over his length, pleasuring him. Her grip tightened into a tormenting sheath, and Draco’s whole body shook as he pressed into it, groaning. After just a few strokes, he realized if he didn’t do something soon, he was going to come shamefully fast and into her pretty hand.
He reached into the opening of her pants, expecting to graze cotton or satin, but there was just her, spread open for him. His fingers slid over damp curls.
“Fuck,” Draco said again, through gritted teeth. “Hermione.”
He delved inside her sleek, wet heat. God, she was so ready. He found the little pearl of nerves and caressed it with delicate, circling strokes. Hermione whimpered, and her hand fell away from him. The luscious scent of her arousal thickened the air between them. Draco resisted the potent desire to fall to his knees and taste her until she came on his tongue. That would have to wait. His cock was aching for her. He pulled his fingers out and licked one clean, loving her tangy flavor.
“Take off your pants,” he demanded.
Hermione fell back onto her elbows, her eyes shining with challenge and delight. She placed one booted foot in the middle of his chest.
“You take off my pants,” she said.
His cock twitched at her impertinence. Fighting with Granger had always excited him. Despite that, he realized she was slowing down again, giving him time to gain control, and he marveled at how sweet she was.
He slipped off her boots, pants and a pair of ridiculous hand-knitted socks, revealing gorgeous legs and toenails painted robin’s egg blue.
“You are so weird,” he said, squeezing one of her little toes. He quickly took off the rest of his clothes, wanting to be naked with her.
“If I’m so weird and you like me, what does that make you?” she countered.
“Granger, I don’t just like you. I love you.”
Draco couldn’t hold the words in. He didn’t want to. He gave them freely, with joy and no expectation of her returning his feelings. After today’s revelations, it was the just beginning for her. But she would love him back soon. He refused to be in this deep alone and planned to dedicate himself entirely to winning her heart.
“No snappy comeback?” he asked as he stood between her legs and aligned their bodies.
She shook her head, her expression slightly mystified. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Draco smiled, a brilliant feeling of triumph swelling inside his chest.
“Perfect,” he said as he grabbed Hermione’s hips and slammed his cock deep inside her.
He shut his eyes and cried out, beyond words, as intense rapture flooded his senses. She was so incredibly tight. So hot. He held himself sheathed inside her, his legs and stomach trembling as he struggled to maintain control. When he felt her legs lift to cradle his hips, he forced his eyes open. She was glorious beneath him. All lovely, graceful curves. She had fallen back onto the desk, her dark hair spread around her. Suddenly, she made a choking, desperate sound, and Draco found himself staring anxiously into her tear-brightened eyes.
“Hermione, what is it?”
“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Draco… I can’t bear it!”
“Sweetheart, I won’t last if -”
“I don’t care. Just fuck me now!”
Something dark and primitive snarled inside of Draco. He pressed Hermione’s thighs further apart and stared down at their joined bodies. He pulled his hips back, slowly revealing the thick length of his cock, now glossy with her juices. Then, surrendering to his lust, he did exactly as he wanted and began pumping relentlessly into her luscious cunt. Each stoke was brutish and hard, but she liked it. Her enticing little sounds grew wild. His own breaths came in frantic pants. The coil of heat and pleasure inside him tightened with each thrust, until he felt like his blood was boiling. Like his soul trying to rise out of his body through his skin. Needing to touch more of her, he captured one of her bouncing breasts in his hand and brushed the pink nipple with his thumb.
Hermione gasped and came with shocking swiftness.
Draco groaned, closing his eyes tight as her muscles clenched around him. His whole body trembled on the edge, in exquisite agony. He pounded into her with all his strength, almost there. In that instant, he felt Hermione’s hands bracket his face. He opened his eyes and stared down into her dark, fervent gaze.
“Look at me when you come,” she said. “Don’t turn away.”
Captured by her completely, by her eyes and her hands and her cunt, Draco was helpless against the connection she demanded. The beast was inside him, dominant, rutting and howling for release. But so was the man again and all his tender feelings for the beauty beneath him and his desire to be worthy of her.
Draco thrust into Hermione one more time and shattered as he never had before. His gaze never left hers as the devastating fire of his climax burned through him. He saw the wonder in her dark eyes as she watched him, and he knew she could see all his love for her. They were suspended in bliss, together, souls transported.
This was a power beyond sex, a power beyond magic. It was the moment Draco’s life had been leading him to since that winter night long ago when he’d been bewitched by a girl in periwinkle blue.
When he tumbled down from his orgasm, breathless and weak, he pulled Hermione into his arms and fell back into his chair, holding her. All the tension in him, all his fears and doubts, all his scars, melted into soft perfection as they kissed, their eyes finally fluttering shut.
“You’re mine, Hermione,” he whispered against her lips. “Mine.”
Several minutes and several kisses later, still cuddled in Draco’s lap, Hermione whispered, “Can you go again?”
Surprised, he laughed softly. But why should he find that odd? From the very first and more than any other, this witch had challenged him. She had pushed him to the edge of capabilities and beyond in mind and heart and soul. And now, apparently, in body as well.
She placed coaxing kisses along his jaw and then murmured in his ear all the naughty things she wanted to do to him. A chain of sexy, little secrets that had him painfully hard again within seconds.
“I think I’d prefer a bed for that one,” he said in a ragged voice. He placed his hands firmly on her waist. “Hold on.”
“Concentrate,” she said sharply. “Don’t splinch us.”
“I would never splinch us.”
Despite that fact, Draco took a moment to focus with the proper determination before Apparating them onto his large bed.
He immediately rolled her under him, claiming dominance by capturing her hands above her head and kissing her senseless. When he lifted his head and released her wrists, her eyes were glassy.
“To answer your question, Granger,” he said in a low voice as he spread her legs apart. “Yes, I can go again.”
And again and again.
Draco had always been good in bed, but he had never had stamina like this. He had never been with a woman so insatiable. He learned that after wanting it hard and fast, Hermione wanted it torturously slow. And then a bit rough and playful. And then she wanted to sleep and be left alone. But when he woke her up anyway, she’d made love to him with a dreamy, romantic tenderness that had reduced him to her slave. So much so that he almost told her so.
They marked the passing of the day by the changing light on each other’s skin. She touched his Mark so often that he didn’t even notice it anymore by the time he found the lunch left discreetly outside their bedroom door. Draco found all her scars, too. Nothing dramatic like his, just old cuts from the war. The kind every soldier had.
When he thought she had fallen asleep in his arms again and when he least expected a serious conversation, Hermione said, “I never hated you, Draco.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said in a neutral tone, stroking her back.
“I’m sure you thought I did after you defected,” she said, looking up at him. “But I didn’t. It was the Mark. Even though you had Obliviated me, a part of the way it made me feel remained. So did my attraction to you. Like your dreams and nightmares, they twined together and became tangled. Every time I saw you, I was drawn to you and repelled at the same time. It frightened me, so I kept my distance. Built a wall between us.”
Draco remembered her coldness, the wariness and warning in her expression. But then there had been brief moments…
“Sometimes I thought I saw something different in your eyes,” he said.
“When?”
“When I cast my first Patronus. You smiled and hurried toward me - but then you turned away.”
He’d been thinking of kissing her in the Divination classroom when he’d successfully cast the charm for the first time. One minute Weasley had been joking about glowing ferrets, and the next, brilliant white light had blasted out of Draco’s wand to form a great, misty-white eagle that flew around the clearing. He had watched it, amazed, his blood surging with power and hope, and then he had looked at Hermione’s illuminated face. At her smile. Christ, if she had come within arm’s reach of him at that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from kissing her in front of everyone.
But she hadn’t. Her face had changed, and his Patronus had faltered. As the small crowd rushed forward to congratulate him, she’d disappeared into the dark forest.
“I wanted to throw my arms around you,” Hermione said. “I was so proud. You had already proven your loyalty again and again. But a Patronus was irrefutable evidence that you were on our side. And then this…nausea and dread swept over me. I thought, sometimes, I was going insane.”
Hermione sat up, an ivory sheet draped around her body. He wondered if it was a defensive reflex and realized there was more he needed to say. He sat up too, giving her space, only touching the edge of the sheet that touched her.
“I showed you the Mark that day, because I needed help,” Draco admitted. “I was in too deep, and I was desperate and needed someone to stop me. I knew you would try. But when I had the choice before me, I was too afraid to let you help me.”
Countless times, he had regretted not having courage that day. Only eight days later, he had walked into Dumbledore’s office like a surrendering general, his posture rigid, seeking sanctuary for his mother and himself. But those eight days had made all the difference in the world for him and Hermione. The possibilities of what could have been had haunted him for years.
“I’m sorry that I Obliviated you,” he said. “And I’m sorry that I hurt you. I didn’t know how the Mark would affect you.”
“How could you know?” She shrugged and the sheet fell off her shoulder. “I mean, nothing is ever ordinary with Voldemort. I’ve seen Obliviated memories returned in controlled circumstances. My parents’ memories were restored. It was painstaking, but not painful. Nothing like what hit me in the market or in the hospital.”
“Hermione…” He couldn’t help it. He reached out his hand, and she took it.
“Draco, I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I’m just trying to understand why I fell into that state when the memories were triggered. And I keep returning to something Harry said Professor Snape once told him. That Voldemort used Legilimency to plant visions in people’s minds that were intended to torture them and drive them mad. That is was sport to him.”
“Yes,” Draco said, his voice tightly controlled. He had seen this happen, more than once, heard the screams begging for help become the screams begging for death. Death not granted for hours or even days.
Hermione saw the pain in his eyes and moved quickly. She straddled his lap, still half-wrapped in the sheet. His arms instantly circled her, and his cheek rested against the curve of her throat. Surrounded by her scent and her softness, everything in him calmed.
After a long pause, he leaned back slightly and said, “Tell me your theory.”
He could practically feel the swotty, little student in her vibrating with excitement, and he smiled.
“Well, in the Muggle world, some psychologists… mind healers believe that bad memories inflicted by abuse can be repressed, forgotten, in order for the victim to cope with the trauma. But the memories are never completely gone. And you are never completely healed until you go through the pain of facing them and dealing with the truth. Do you see?”
“Obliviation repressed your memories of the cave by the sea,” he said. “But they weren’t completely gone.”
“Right, and when the memories started to return, they tried to torture me and drive me mad again.”
“But he’s gone. The Mark has no power anymore.”
“Even you didn’t know that until this afternoon. It had the power I gave it. I think I was really battling with my own mind. To overcome fear. To remember. When you took me to Chamber, I was almost overwhelmed with nausea. I practically collapsed into the Pensieve.”
“Hermione,” he said, alarmed. He pulled her hard against him.
“I’m all right, Draco,” she said, stroking his back. “I’m all right. Since I came out of the Pensieve, I’ve felt fine. I didn’t just see everything in your memory. I really remembered it myself, and it wasn’t as awful as some of the possibilities I’d imagined. I’ve faced the truth, and now, I’m free.”
“The curse is broken?” he said, kissing her neck.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said breathlessly. “Isn’t the mind fascinating?”
“Granger, only you would fall into a coma, and take it as an opportunity for research.”
She said something then about subconscious and memory and perception, but he was more fascinated by the intoxicating scent of her skin. He nuzzled her jaw and breathed in deep. Her pulse beat wildly beneath his lips, and she forgot what she was saying. Draco smirked. He loved shutting her up almost as much as he loved listening to her.
Effortlessly, he lifted her and tossed her onto her back. She was a beautiful, indignant, tousled heap, twisted up in a sheet. One leg was revealed from its curving hip to its silly blue toenails. And one breast, with a nipple as delicate pink as the petals of Peruvian Aurora flower. In seconds, he was over her, kissing her, his fingers pressing deep inside her wet heat.
This would be another happy memory. He was building a private collection of them. The next time he conjured his Patronus, he would have choices. So many choices, all Hermione.
An hour later, at sunset, she murmured something unintelligible.
“What?” Draco asked, still panting from his climax.
“I need to owl my friends,” she said, so sleepy he could barely understand her. “Let them know I’m safe. That I didn’t kill you.”
“At this rate, you might kill me yet.”
“Oh, shut it,” she muttered, clumsily swatting at him.
“I’ll owl them,” he said. “Want me to invite them around for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Mmmnnn. Invite some of your friends, too.”
“One step at a time, sweetheart. I’ll go talk to Kiki about it.”
“Her name is Carina.”
“What?”
“Keystone. Kiki’s not Kiki. Like T. S. Eliot’s cats. Tell her I’m sorry about the mud. I wonder what Dobby’s real name was…”
In the very next breath, she was asleep. Draco realized with profound pleasure that, for the rest of his life, he would have the privilege of listening to Hermione Granger mumble nonsense before she fell asleep. He brushed her tumbled hair over her shoulder and stroked a path down her arm and hip. With a little sigh, she shifted, her legs falling open to reveal a tempting strip of pink as she turned.
Draco groaned. How would a man resist? He opened her fully to him and nestled his face between her thighs to taste her again.
Ten minutes later, certain he’d given Hermione an interesting dream, Draco donned a robe and walked down to the library.
All evidence of their earlier passion had been whisked away. Discarded clothes gone, glass swept up, scattered papers neatly stacked. He was sure he would find his emerald cuff links in their box in his closet in the morning. His and Hermione’s wands lay side by side on the desk. In a pile beside them were several urgent messages owled today. Without reading them, Draco took out a white quill and length of parchment to scratch out a quick note.
“Kiki,” he said.
With a soft pop, the elf appeared beside him.
“I see I’ve received several owls today,” he said.
“Yes, Master, and one Red Howler from a Ginny Potter, but I took care of it.”
“Thank you for that,” Draco said as he finished his letter and handed it to her. “Give this to Vellian, to deliver to Harry Potter immediately.”
“Harry Potter? The cross-eyed boy?”
Draco glanced down fondly at the loyal, old elf. She was so skilled he could barely see the humor gleaming deep in her blue eyes.
“I think we both know by now that Potter’s not cross-eyed,” he said. “But he does still walk like a girl.”
“Of course, Master.”
“We are expecting company for dinner tomorrow night. Several of Miss Granger’s friends. There will need to be a birthday cake. I’ll owl Mrs. Potter a Howler to ask what flavor…”
Draco’s sentence trailed away as he was suddenly struck by a vision of Hermione licking icing off her fingers. Then licking icing off his fingers.
“We can work out the details later,” he said quickly. “Where are the items Miss Granger placed on the dining room table?”
Kiki Disapparated and then reappeared within seconds, handing a white canvas bag to Draco. He took the three objects out of the bag and placed them each on his desk.
The book. The apple. And the jar of honey.
It certainly was a random collection. Hermione could have lived her whole life without seeing these three objects together, without the memory being triggered. He could have lived his whole life, truly alone and longing for her. The thought chilled his blood. He was a fool to have been such a coward.
Turning to happier thoughts, Draco picked up the jar of honey. Hermione had tasted of honey the first time he’d kissed her, and he was more than ready to taste that sweetness again, on her tongue. And elsewhere…
“I’m going back upstairs,” he said. “We’ll talk about the party in the morning.”
“Would you like me to bring up some tea or biscuits, Master?” Kiki said. Her glance flickered to the jar in his hand.
“No, thank you, that won’t be necessary,” he said with a particularly wicked smile.
EPILOGUE
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Carina Keystone, now only called Kiki by Narcissa Malfoy, had been the head house elf of Malfoy Manor for 49 years. She had served the Great Family of Malfoy for 81 years. And in that time, she had seen some crazy shite, but she had never seen anything to compare to the way Master Draco and Mistress Hermione fought and kissed.
She remembered the first time Mistress Hermione, then Miss Granger, had come to the manor and how she and Master Draco had shown off their spells to each other, so eager to impress. The young witch had traipsed mud all over the dining room table that day, but it had been her birthday, and she had also made the master very happy. That was worth a little mud.
Two Decembers later, Miss Granger had become Young Mistress Malfoy. And by the end of the following October, at dawn on a snowy day, Master Scorpius had been born.
“So what did you think of the second half of the play?” Carina asked. As the theatre was illuminated, she turned to the only other occupant of the Malfoy box, a small boy with white-blond hair and dark eyes.
“I liked the part with the sword and the giant snake getting decapilated,” said Scorpius Malfoy.
“Decapi-tated, Master.”
“Decapitated. Did Uncle Neville really do that?”
“Yes, he did.” Carina didn’t mention that the giant, evil snake had once lived in their house and terrorized her staff.
“And Mama and Papa destroyed Hufflepuff’s cup and Ravenclaw’s di-dem? With basilisk fangs?!”
“Yes.”
“And then they kissed?” Scorpius scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue to suggest this was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.
“They did kiss, but not until much later.”
“I wish they would stop it,” the boy muttered. “They kiss all the time.”
“Yes, they do. But that’s what the hero and heroine of a story do after the story ends happily. They kiss each other all the time.”
“Carina.” Scorpius sighed with dramatic patience. “The play’s named after Uncle Harry. He’s the hero.”
The old elf took firm hold of the young boy’s hand, preparing to Apparate home.
“He isn’t the only one,” she said with conviction.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
Carina Keystone, aka Kiki:
Love this elf! All quotes below are from Wikipedia.
Carina: “Carina is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship…”
Keel: “A structural keel is a large beam around which the hull of a ship is built… serves as the foundation or spine of the structure, providing the major source of structural strength of the hull…”
Keystone: “A keystone is a wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stone into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. This makes the keystone very important structurally.”
So, obviously, Carina is of no importance at all - ha ha!
V-V Day:
Victory Over Voldemort Day, modeled after World War II terms, V-E Day (Victory In Europe) and V-J Day (Victory In Japan or Victory Over Japan). This would be an interesting way to say, yet not say, Voldemort’s name as well.
The unnamed spell that Draco uses to burn off the ropes binding him while on the dining room table was inspired by Vipera Evanesca, the counterspell that vanishes conjured snakes (used by Snape during Draco and Harry’s formal duel in Second Year).
Licentia Recludo, a spell created for this fic:
In Latin, Licentia - permission, Recludo - to unlock
This spell summons the keys to the cabinets in Draco’s Chamber of Memories.
Of course, Hermione’s book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Warner Books, 1960. From Chapter 15:
“In ones and twos, men got out of the cars. Shadows became substance as lights revealed solid shapes moving toward the jail door. Atticus remained where he was.” This is the scene of the attempted lynching of Tom Robinson.
Eight of Cups tarot card meaning from biddytarot.com:
Minor Arcana, Suit of Cups: “The Eight of Cups is a card of change and transition… The young man in this card has turned his back on all he has accumulated or accomplished before. He disappears by night into a barren and difficult terrain… His journey is undertaken because of a sense of restlessness and unhappiness experienced as a result of achieving all he has desired, yet finding those things to be less fulfilling than expected… He is embarking upon the spiritual journey because he has not found deep satisfaction in the things of the world, the things with which he is familiar.”
Palm reading, active and passive hands:
Worth Googling. Fun to play with here, in relation to the Dark Mark on Draco’s left arm, the side of his passive or inherent traits (since he’s right-handed).
Somnus, a spell created for this fic:
In Latin, Somnus is a variation of the word sleep. I envision this spell as a gentler method than the Stunning Spell to render someone unconscious.
Severus Snape on Voldemort’s Use of Legilimency, Order of the Phoenix, Movie:
“In the past it was often the Dark Lord's pleasure to invade the minds of his victims, creating visions designed to torture them into madness.” My reference to this was very close in wording, so I thought I would include the original. I believe it’s a direct quote from the movie, not the book. My source was Harry Potter Wiki online.
Author: captainraychill
Characters: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger
Prompt Number: # 85
Word Count: ~24,750
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Alternate universe after mid-Book 6/EWE, angst, darker than prompt implies, explicit sexual situations, unabashed romance, infrequent but extreme profanity, alcohol consumption, reference to rape and murder.
Summary: Hermione fills her shopping cart with a jar of honey, a book and a bushel of apples. Why do these things remind her of a certain ferret? Aresto Momentum: a spell which slows down or stops the movement of an object… that which gives you pause and makes you reconsider your path.
Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, etc., this work of art is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to my Beta, you know who you are, for your wonderful input. BF Draco is for you! Thanks also to the Interhouse Mods for your quick answers and generous extensions. And to SnuggleLove54 for the fun and “random” prompt. I think I took it in an odd direction. Hope you like it.
Aresto Momentum (3/3)
CHAPTER EIGHT
REVEALING ALL
Carina watched as Miss Granger appeared out the Pensieve. The witch blinked, adjusting to the light in the chamber, and then snapped her eyes directly to Carina. Master Draco had that same habit of accessing a room quickly, mapping the locations of others, finding threats, wand in hand. A skill internalized during the war.
“Hello,” Miss Granger said, slipping her wand into her pants’ pocket.
“Greetings, Miss,” Carina said. She walked forward, a glass of pumpkin juice balanced on the silver tray she held. Over the years, she had found it helped alleviate the residual dizziness some experienced after leaving the Pensieve.
“Thank you. Are you Kiki?”
“Yes.”
The witch gazed down at Carina shrewdly for a moment and said, “No, you’re not.”
A younger, more timid elf might have grown flustered to contradict a witch or wizard, but Carina was almost eighty years old, and she knew many things, including who she was.
“I am Kiki, miss.”
“No, I mean, Kiki’s not your name.”
Carina’s large blue eyes grew even larger. Hermione Granger was a powerful witch. Perhaps she was a Legilimens, like Master Draco.
“Are you reading my mind?” she asked.
“No, just your voice and your eyes. What’s your real name?”
“Carina Keystone.”
“Carina. After the constellation. I’m Hermione Granger.”
“Yes, Miss,” Carina said, bowing.
“Could you please take me to Mr. Malfoy?”
“Yes, Miss, follow me.”
Carina guided Miss Granger through the maze-like series of staircases and magically hidden doors that led back to the library. She knew Master Draco waited there. When he had left Miss Granger in the Chamber of Memories, he had finished dressing. He had put on his socks and shoes. He had eaten his breakfast and tried to read the paper. Eventually, he had retired to the library and his desk, to wait, drinking Firewhiskey even though it was only eight o’clock in the morning. She hoped he wasn’t drunk.
Carina wondered what was in the memory that Master Draco had taken from Miss Granger’s head, the memory he watched once a month and all day Wednesday. She could have peeked, but it wasn’t her place. The witch didn’t look mad anymore though. She didn’t look any way, actually, her expression as smooth as an egg. Carina wondered what she could say to make Miss Granger love Master Draco as much as he loved her.
She was about to tell Miss that Master had never beaten his elves when the girl spoke first.
“I’ve seen you before, Carina,” she said. “With Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, in a corridor at Hogwarts, the night that they went to the Headmaster.”
Carina remembered that day. They had journeyed north through ice and snow in a bright red train. The compartments had been filled with revelers traveling to Hogsmeade for New Year’s Eve. Master Draco had not wanted to risk Apparition, uncertain of the extent to which You-Know-Who could track him. They had parted from the laughing crowd at the station and walked together, in silence, up the white hill that led to the castle.
Mistress Narcissa disappeared in the snow, a spirit, her white hair and white robes swirling in the wind. There were frozen tears on her cheeks. Master Draco, who had grown taller than his mother the year before, guided her over the treacherous ground, his arm holding her close to his side.
Anyone who witnessed his care of her would never know they had fought for days before the moment she had relented to come to Hogwarts with him. There had been threats and pleas, all in private rooms of the manor. Dark, sad words had been spoken like betrayal and punishment and death. It was one thing not to take the Dark Mark in the first place. It was quite another for a Death Eater to betray the Dark Lord. In the end, the mistress had chosen her son over her husband, a decision that was right but would devastate her for years.
Carina followed them, clutching a black bag that held more than it appeared to and wrapped in a blanket Master Draco had dropped onto the floor as they stood to leave the train. Her feet ached with cold. A stern-looking witch in a pointed hat met them at the entrance of the castle and, without a word, led them to the Headmaster’s office.
He was an old man with a long, white beard and kind, blue eyes. He had seen to everyone’s comfort, even transfiguring a globe into a soft, elf-sized chair by the fire for Carina and handing her a cup of steaming apple cider. She had tried to stay awake as Master Draco and the Headmaster began to speak in earnest but couldn’t, her feet so warm after being so cold, the fire swaying hypnotically.
When she woke up, it was the New Year. She and Mistress Narcissa were in the cottage by the sea. As she unpacked the black bag, she found a note in Master Draco’s slanted handwriting.
Kiki, take care of her.
Although they had received occasional news of his safety from the Order over the next eighteen months, they did not see him again until the day it was all over, when he had appeared on the shore at sunrise with the body of Master Lucius.
“It was brave of him to defect,” Carina told Miss Granger. “He sacrificed his father, and his father meant so much to him.”
The witch didn’t respond.
“He loves his family,” Carina said. “Right after You-Know-Who was killed, he brought his father’s body to his mother.”
“I know. I saw him Disapparate,” Miss Granger said in an emotionless voice. They stopped before a stone wall that blocked the corridor.
Resisting the urge to sigh, Carina snapped her thick fingers, and the wall began to smoke and shift and flicker until it became sinuous black fire. She had done all she could.
She held out her hand to the witch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco heard a sharp hiss and looked up to see two figures emerge from the black flames in the fireplace. He barely noticed Kiki leave the room as Hermione walked toward him. His heart was racing, and it took all of his considerable skill to hide his agitation. He sat in a throne-like chair of leather and carved wood, behind the protection of his massive desk and a half-empty glass of Firewhiskey. His wand was within reach.
The two chairs facing the desk were cleverly crafted. They were slightly too low without appearing to be and luxurious enough to hide other intentional and minute imperfections that gave visitors a sense of unease. The end result was intimidation. Good for negotiation. Or harsh lectures about losing the House Cup.
Granger gave the chairs a cursory glance, then stood between them, placing her hands on the desk.
Her face was inscrutable.
He had expected her to walk through the fire angry, perhaps even shooting off curses. Or fearful and haunted by the visions of the cave by the sea. But she was quiet, almost placid, and utterly unreadable. It was unsettling. Whether or not he knew the reasons behind her emotions, he had always been able to see them clearly on her face or in the turn of her shoulder or the twitch of her hand. Granger had never been able to hide what she was feeling.
In this way, they were complete opposites and the epitome of their Houses. She was Gryffindor, the sword, bravery and sacrifice, revealing all. He was Slytherin, the locket, cunning and calculation, concealing all.
Until now.
He felt a strong desire to reach into her mind, to gauge her temper, but immediately crushed the compulsion. It would be an unforgiveable violation. He wouldn’t do it again.
“What made you change your mind?” she finally asked. “Why did you defect?”
Draco’s every instinct told him to lie, to hide and protect himself behind his customary armor and shields. To be vulnerable was to be weak. But to remain strong now might save his pride but ruin everything else. She deserved to know the truth.
“After I left you that day,” he said, “I couldn’t forget what you’d said to me. I had always assumed that I had no choice, that I had to do as he ordered to save my family. My father’s expectations… I had lived for them all my life. And when I saw him broken in Azkaban, begging me to take the Mark, I needed to restore him somehow, to what he should be. I didn’t understand. I didn’t realize what I was becoming a part of. By December, I knew I was going to fail and die.”
Draco realized, to his horror, that his hands were shaking, and he wrapped his fingers around his glass of whiskey to hide it.
“But you were so certain that Dumbledore would help me and my mother,” he said. “Gyffindor naiveté, I thought. But what if you were right? What if I could change? I knew if I was going to act, I had to act fast. I could hide my thoughts, but not for long, and not in my sleep…”
He paused, took a swig of his drink and paused again before continuing.
“I dreamed of you, of kissing you. And then the dreams would shift into nightmares of the things I had seen and done. It was too much emotion for him not to notice soon. I had days, at most.”
Draco noticed Hermione’s eyes narrow slightly. He had said something that intrigued her.
“Do you still have the nightmares?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
“What do you see in your nightmares?”
No, he thought.
She was really asking him what had he seen and done in service of Voldemort. He had never spoken of these things to another soul. Once, after a week without sleep and half-delirious, he had tried to tell his mother. But she’d shaken her head frantically and placed her cool fingers against his lips. She had needed his strength, then, not his weakness, and that’s what he had given her ever since.
“Did you torture people?” Hermione asked.
“Yes,” Draco said, forcing the word out of his mouth by will alone. “I had to use the Cruciatus in interrogation. And when it would have been too suspicious not to use it in… recreation.”
He saw Bellatrix, smiling, her glossy hair bright with green light, a smear of blood on her cheek.
“Did you rape anyone?” Hermione asked.
“No,” he said quickly.
Leave it at that. Lie to her. You can hide it. She would never know.
“No,” he said again, but he heard the anguish in his voice.
It had been easy to tell which prisoners had been raped. They were constantly fearful, jumping at any noise, their backs against the wall. They never held his gaze but looked away, as if ashamed, and tried to become invisible, their legs pressed tightly together.
“I didn’t rape anyone. But I knew it was happening, and I couldn’t… I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
It was too much to contain. He couldn’t tell her these things and keep his composure. He closed his eyes, ashamed to meet her gaze, and rested his head in one hand.
“Did you commit murder?” she asked, merciless.
“No.”
“But you saw murder and didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Yes, over and over.”
Too many times to count. At first, he had tried to remember each face, thinking that might somehow make it better. A secret memorial. But there had been so many. Their identities blended together. And, in that way, they were forgotten.
Except for one, a nameless Muggle. Draco still saw her vividly in his occasional nightmares. Not her face, but the bruised and graceful length of her white neck disappearing into Nagini’s mouth as the great snake devoured her.
Shaking uncontrollably now, agitated and angry and defiant, Draco downed the rest of his whiskey and glared at Hermione. If she had not hated him before, which he found hard to believe, she would hate him now. How could she feel otherwise?
“You haven’t forgiven yourself,” she said.
“I don’t deserve it,” he said bitterly. “There is no forgiveness for that kind of cowardice.”
“I don’t agree,” Hermione said without hesitation, and Draco’s eyes widened in shock. “You did not commit evil acts for pleasure. You left Voldemort’s service when others stayed. It was brave of you to defect. We might never have defeated him without you.”
“Dumbledore still died.”
“He was always going to die. You know that. But you didn’t kill him. The minute you heard about the Horcruxes, you knew where to find Ravenclaw’s diadem. McGonagall wouldn’t have known that Dobby could rescue Harry and Ron from this house without information from you.”
“I should have been here, too.”
“You would have set off the wards. And without Dobby, there would have been no help from Ollivander or Griphook. You have done bad things, and you have let bad things happen. But, Draco, you have done good things, too.”
He watched Hermione reach across the desk and take his empty glass out of his hand. As she set it aside, her sleeve brushed his wand, which rolled away from him until she stopped it with a light touch of her fingers. Just out of his reach. Instead of retrieving it, he looked at her, trying to read the thoughts in her eyes.
“At the end of the memory, what did you whisper in my ear?” she asked softly.
He only paused for a moment before saying, “I said goodbye.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said. “Tell me the truth.”
This was it. The moment of choice.
He stared into her dark eyes and imagined the glint of danger in them, of weapons. Knives and arrows and a sword with rubies in the hilt, all ready to pierce him and make him bleed. She was the only one who could destroy him, and she could do it with a word. It went against his deepest nature to lay his soul down defenseless before her.
He did it anyway.
“I said I loved you,” Draco confessed.
CHAPTER NINE
LAST CHANCE
Hermione didn’t react to his revelation. Her eyes glittered, the weapons Draco imagined in them still sharp.
“And how do you feel about me now?” she asked.
It’s not too late. Lie to her. Tell her it was just a crush. Protect yourself.
He felt as if he swayed on the edge of a great fall, his heart thundering at the perilous height, the certain result.
“Draco, how do you feel about me now?” she asked again.
Beyond doubt, he knew this was his last chance, and he took it. He let himself fall forward, into air and possibility and the greatest risk of his life.
“I still love you,” he said. He looked her in the eye despite his fear. “I’ve loved you for years. I had hoped, after I defected, that we might… But it was clear that you hated me despite our attraction to each other that day. You seemed like you couldn’t even stand the sight of me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Couldn’t. Not can’t.
Possessed by this small hope, he took another great risk.
“How do you feel about me now?” he asked.
For a moment, Hermione studied him. He saw expression in her face again. Curiosity. A question. And something else… like wonder and longing combined. She reached her hand out to him across the table, and his breath caught. He leaned forward and slowly reached his hand out toward hers.
“No,” she said. “Your left hand.”
“No,” he said harshly.
He recoiled, his spine slamming back against the leather upholstery of his chair. Without his wand or a glass of whiskey to hold, he pressed his fingers hard against the edge of the desk.
He had diligently kept his Dark Mark hidden from the world since the day it had tortured Hermione. He always wore long sleeves and dressed alone at The Quidditch Club and politely declined invitations to Zabini’s house on the shore. He never took his shirt fully off when having sex, and only had sex with purebloods, just in case. He didn’t want to risk hurting someone.
Especially not her.
Over the years, the skull and snake had faded, the deep black slowly bleaching to chalk white and the enflamed red corona returning to healthy flesh. He didn’t know if they still contained their vicious poisons.
He remembered the day Hermione had uncovered his Mark. She had fallen back onto the floor as if he had struck her and screamed in absolute terror. For a moment, he had been frozen by panic and helplessness. He hated himself for having hurt her. Sometimes, in his nightmares, the Muggle woman with the long, bruised neck became Hermione, her head thrown back with shrieks.
“Draco, give me your hand,” she said.
“No, you know what could happen.”
“Is the Mark still black?”
“No.”
“Have you felt it since he died?”
“No.”
“Then give me your damned hand,” Hermione ordered.
“My damned hand,” he murmured. “Appropriate.”
His humor was just another defense mechanism, and he could tell she knew it. As with all his other defenses, she shattered it ruthlessly. She continued to hold her hand out to him, her face like a queen’s, a power expecting to be obeyed.
As Draco gave her his left hand, palm up, his prayer consisted of one, silent word repeated over and over.
Please…
The moment Hermione touched him, he felt a flare of longing and desire burn through his body. His cock was instantly hard. He wanted to pull her close to him and push her away, to safety, all at once. It was strange, this combination of lust and fear. His breath quickened with both as he watched her delicate fingers roam lightly over his skin. She traced the lines crossing his palm, lingering on his heart line. She slipped her fingers inside the cuff of his shirt and removed his emerald cuff link. Draco held his breath, tense and ready to act within a second if she so much as blinked.
She pulled his white sleeve up his arm to reveal the Dark Mark.
Nothing happened.
For a long moment, neither of them reacted. Then he exhaled hard, and she let out a low, nervous laugh. She ran her fingers up the ravaged skin of his forearm without harm. He shuddered at her touch. A wild, expanding joy filled his lungs. The Mark was powerless.
He was free.
Unable not to touch her, he caressed her arm. Their hands slid back toward each other until they pressed palm to palm, fingers intertwining. He sat on the very edge of his chair now, leaning toward her across the desk. At the same instant, they looked at each other.
Hermione’s smile was breathtaking. Her dark eyes seemed lit from within by an emotion that he could read as clearly as ink on parchment. Happiness.
She had never looked more beautiful to him.
I am yours, he vowed silently. And I won’t rest until you know that you are mine.
“There’s nothing in the way now,” she said.
“In the way of what?”
“Of this,” she whispered.
Almost reverently, she bowed down over his hand and kissed it.
Draco gazed at Hermione as if bewitched to never look away. Her lips were hot against his skin. He felt astonishment and yearning and a love so strong it battered, with each heartbeat, against the inside of his body, for release. A lock of her hair fell forward, brushing his wrist. He reached out with his other hand and tucked the soft curl over her shoulder.
Then, Slytherin to the core, he pressed his advantage by gently stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear.
Hermione gasped against his knuckles. She pulled away sharply and glared at him, her eyes burning with desire. They were both half-crouched over opposite sides of the desk. The energy between them was the energy of the predator, instinct and hunger and power, waiting to strike. Draco’s body was tight, every muscle hard. A desperate ache twisted low in his gut.
He didn’t know who moved first. But suddenly, they were both sweeping parchment aside and climbing onto the desk to get to each other. They came together, on their knees, clasped in each other’s arms. Their lips met in a savage kiss that made Draco so dizzy he almost lost his balance.
Dimly, he heard his wand clatter on the floor. The crash of breaking glass.
Somehow, seconds later, he was flat on his back with Hermione straddling him. He grabbed her hips and pressed his erection up against her, drawing a whimpering sob from her lips. That provocative sound had tortured his imagination for almost six years. He wanted to hear it again and again. They rubbed against each other, in perfect rhythm, growing breathless, until one of her boots squeaked against the polished wood of the desk. She stopped moving and smiled.
“Aren’t you going to tell me to respect the antiques?” she murmured.
“Smash them all to hell. Burn down the house. I don’t care, Granger. Just fuck me.”
She bit her lip and rolled her hips slowly, but her voice was teasing when she finally replied.
“Of course, Malfoy. Since you asked so nicely.”
He didn’t even have time to hold his breath before she pulled her jumper over her head and tossed it to the floor.
CHAPTER TEN
A POWER BEYOND MAGIC
It was madness from that moment.
Her breasts were bare. Small and perfect and tipped with pink nipples. Before he could reach for her, her hands were on his shirt, tearing the plackets apart, buttons flying. She brushed the linen aside and stroked his smooth chest, sending jolts of hot pleasure through his body.
“Take off your shirt,” she said.
Out of habit, he shook his head. The Mark…
“It doesn’t matter. Take it off!”
All his trepidation was swept away by her words and the imperious tone of her voice. He struggled to loosen his right cuff link and shrug out of his shirt.
“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. Her fingers traced the vaulting of his ribs, making his stomach quiver. “Strong, inside and out.”
Her praise filled him with fragile pride. That she could see him that way, when he was so flawed… Could he ever be the man she deserved? Overcome with feeling, he cast his shirt away and took control, pulling Hermione down into his arms.
They both gasped at the contact of skin against skin and held themselves still in the embrace for one suspended moment, absorbing warmth and pleasure. She was so soft, so heavenly. Their heads turned at the same time, a movement as natural as the arc of the sun across the sky, and their lips met in a sweet, consuming kiss.
It was the most perfect kiss Draco had ever experienced, sending his head somewhere up among the stars, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough, not until he was inside her and she was truly his after all these years.
He moved quickly, lifting her with him, until she sat on the very edge of the desk, facing his chair, and he stood between her legs. He wanted to touch her everywhere, explore all the creamy skin she had just revealed, her breasts and arms and the curve of her back. But there wasn’t time. His need was too obsessive, his entire body flushed with fever. His hands reached down to unfasten her pants. The button was cool against his hot fingers.
She reached for his trousers, too, fumbling with fastenings until her fingers slipped inside and wrapped around his hard cock.
“Fuck,” Draco cursed, thrusting into her hand.
Her mere touch almost sent him tumbling over the edge. He grabbed her wrist.
“Slow down,” he begged. “God, you drive me mad.”
He dropped his forehead against Hermione’s, trying to master his rioting body. He was sweating, his breath coming in pants. Her mouth was so close to his that they shared a sultry exchange of breath that made him think of kisses.
“You tasted like apples,” she said. He remembered with a smile.
“You tasted like honey,” he replied.
Their lips came together then in a kiss that was, impossibly, even more perfect than the last.
“I’m going to touch you now,” she warned him. “If you want to watch.”
In a sensual daze, Draco looked down to see that Hermione had pulled him out of his clothing. He watched as her fingers moved over his length, pleasuring him. Her grip tightened into a tormenting sheath, and Draco’s whole body shook as he pressed into it, groaning. After just a few strokes, he realized if he didn’t do something soon, he was going to come shamefully fast and into her pretty hand.
He reached into the opening of her pants, expecting to graze cotton or satin, but there was just her, spread open for him. His fingers slid over damp curls.
“Fuck,” Draco said again, through gritted teeth. “Hermione.”
He delved inside her sleek, wet heat. God, she was so ready. He found the little pearl of nerves and caressed it with delicate, circling strokes. Hermione whimpered, and her hand fell away from him. The luscious scent of her arousal thickened the air between them. Draco resisted the potent desire to fall to his knees and taste her until she came on his tongue. That would have to wait. His cock was aching for her. He pulled his fingers out and licked one clean, loving her tangy flavor.
“Take off your pants,” he demanded.
Hermione fell back onto her elbows, her eyes shining with challenge and delight. She placed one booted foot in the middle of his chest.
“You take off my pants,” she said.
His cock twitched at her impertinence. Fighting with Granger had always excited him. Despite that, he realized she was slowing down again, giving him time to gain control, and he marveled at how sweet she was.
He slipped off her boots, pants and a pair of ridiculous hand-knitted socks, revealing gorgeous legs and toenails painted robin’s egg blue.
“You are so weird,” he said, squeezing one of her little toes. He quickly took off the rest of his clothes, wanting to be naked with her.
“If I’m so weird and you like me, what does that make you?” she countered.
“Granger, I don’t just like you. I love you.”
Draco couldn’t hold the words in. He didn’t want to. He gave them freely, with joy and no expectation of her returning his feelings. After today’s revelations, it was the just beginning for her. But she would love him back soon. He refused to be in this deep alone and planned to dedicate himself entirely to winning her heart.
“No snappy comeback?” he asked as he stood between her legs and aligned their bodies.
She shook her head, her expression slightly mystified. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Draco smiled, a brilliant feeling of triumph swelling inside his chest.
“Perfect,” he said as he grabbed Hermione’s hips and slammed his cock deep inside her.
He shut his eyes and cried out, beyond words, as intense rapture flooded his senses. She was so incredibly tight. So hot. He held himself sheathed inside her, his legs and stomach trembling as he struggled to maintain control. When he felt her legs lift to cradle his hips, he forced his eyes open. She was glorious beneath him. All lovely, graceful curves. She had fallen back onto the desk, her dark hair spread around her. Suddenly, she made a choking, desperate sound, and Draco found himself staring anxiously into her tear-brightened eyes.
“Hermione, what is it?”
“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Draco… I can’t bear it!”
“Sweetheart, I won’t last if -”
“I don’t care. Just fuck me now!”
Something dark and primitive snarled inside of Draco. He pressed Hermione’s thighs further apart and stared down at their joined bodies. He pulled his hips back, slowly revealing the thick length of his cock, now glossy with her juices. Then, surrendering to his lust, he did exactly as he wanted and began pumping relentlessly into her luscious cunt. Each stoke was brutish and hard, but she liked it. Her enticing little sounds grew wild. His own breaths came in frantic pants. The coil of heat and pleasure inside him tightened with each thrust, until he felt like his blood was boiling. Like his soul trying to rise out of his body through his skin. Needing to touch more of her, he captured one of her bouncing breasts in his hand and brushed the pink nipple with his thumb.
Hermione gasped and came with shocking swiftness.
Draco groaned, closing his eyes tight as her muscles clenched around him. His whole body trembled on the edge, in exquisite agony. He pounded into her with all his strength, almost there. In that instant, he felt Hermione’s hands bracket his face. He opened his eyes and stared down into her dark, fervent gaze.
“Look at me when you come,” she said. “Don’t turn away.”
Captured by her completely, by her eyes and her hands and her cunt, Draco was helpless against the connection she demanded. The beast was inside him, dominant, rutting and howling for release. But so was the man again and all his tender feelings for the beauty beneath him and his desire to be worthy of her.
Draco thrust into Hermione one more time and shattered as he never had before. His gaze never left hers as the devastating fire of his climax burned through him. He saw the wonder in her dark eyes as she watched him, and he knew she could see all his love for her. They were suspended in bliss, together, souls transported.
This was a power beyond sex, a power beyond magic. It was the moment Draco’s life had been leading him to since that winter night long ago when he’d been bewitched by a girl in periwinkle blue.
When he tumbled down from his orgasm, breathless and weak, he pulled Hermione into his arms and fell back into his chair, holding her. All the tension in him, all his fears and doubts, all his scars, melted into soft perfection as they kissed, their eyes finally fluttering shut.
“You’re mine, Hermione,” he whispered against her lips. “Mine.”
Several minutes and several kisses later, still cuddled in Draco’s lap, Hermione whispered, “Can you go again?”
Surprised, he laughed softly. But why should he find that odd? From the very first and more than any other, this witch had challenged him. She had pushed him to the edge of capabilities and beyond in mind and heart and soul. And now, apparently, in body as well.
She placed coaxing kisses along his jaw and then murmured in his ear all the naughty things she wanted to do to him. A chain of sexy, little secrets that had him painfully hard again within seconds.
“I think I’d prefer a bed for that one,” he said in a ragged voice. He placed his hands firmly on her waist. “Hold on.”
“Concentrate,” she said sharply. “Don’t splinch us.”
“I would never splinch us.”
Despite that fact, Draco took a moment to focus with the proper determination before Apparating them onto his large bed.
He immediately rolled her under him, claiming dominance by capturing her hands above her head and kissing her senseless. When he lifted his head and released her wrists, her eyes were glassy.
“To answer your question, Granger,” he said in a low voice as he spread her legs apart. “Yes, I can go again.”
And again and again.
Draco had always been good in bed, but he had never had stamina like this. He had never been with a woman so insatiable. He learned that after wanting it hard and fast, Hermione wanted it torturously slow. And then a bit rough and playful. And then she wanted to sleep and be left alone. But when he woke her up anyway, she’d made love to him with a dreamy, romantic tenderness that had reduced him to her slave. So much so that he almost told her so.
They marked the passing of the day by the changing light on each other’s skin. She touched his Mark so often that he didn’t even notice it anymore by the time he found the lunch left discreetly outside their bedroom door. Draco found all her scars, too. Nothing dramatic like his, just old cuts from the war. The kind every soldier had.
When he thought she had fallen asleep in his arms again and when he least expected a serious conversation, Hermione said, “I never hated you, Draco.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said in a neutral tone, stroking her back.
“I’m sure you thought I did after you defected,” she said, looking up at him. “But I didn’t. It was the Mark. Even though you had Obliviated me, a part of the way it made me feel remained. So did my attraction to you. Like your dreams and nightmares, they twined together and became tangled. Every time I saw you, I was drawn to you and repelled at the same time. It frightened me, so I kept my distance. Built a wall between us.”
Draco remembered her coldness, the wariness and warning in her expression. But then there had been brief moments…
“Sometimes I thought I saw something different in your eyes,” he said.
“When?”
“When I cast my first Patronus. You smiled and hurried toward me - but then you turned away.”
He’d been thinking of kissing her in the Divination classroom when he’d successfully cast the charm for the first time. One minute Weasley had been joking about glowing ferrets, and the next, brilliant white light had blasted out of Draco’s wand to form a great, misty-white eagle that flew around the clearing. He had watched it, amazed, his blood surging with power and hope, and then he had looked at Hermione’s illuminated face. At her smile. Christ, if she had come within arm’s reach of him at that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from kissing her in front of everyone.
But she hadn’t. Her face had changed, and his Patronus had faltered. As the small crowd rushed forward to congratulate him, she’d disappeared into the dark forest.
“I wanted to throw my arms around you,” Hermione said. “I was so proud. You had already proven your loyalty again and again. But a Patronus was irrefutable evidence that you were on our side. And then this…nausea and dread swept over me. I thought, sometimes, I was going insane.”
Hermione sat up, an ivory sheet draped around her body. He wondered if it was a defensive reflex and realized there was more he needed to say. He sat up too, giving her space, only touching the edge of the sheet that touched her.
“I showed you the Mark that day, because I needed help,” Draco admitted. “I was in too deep, and I was desperate and needed someone to stop me. I knew you would try. But when I had the choice before me, I was too afraid to let you help me.”
Countless times, he had regretted not having courage that day. Only eight days later, he had walked into Dumbledore’s office like a surrendering general, his posture rigid, seeking sanctuary for his mother and himself. But those eight days had made all the difference in the world for him and Hermione. The possibilities of what could have been had haunted him for years.
“I’m sorry that I Obliviated you,” he said. “And I’m sorry that I hurt you. I didn’t know how the Mark would affect you.”
“How could you know?” She shrugged and the sheet fell off her shoulder. “I mean, nothing is ever ordinary with Voldemort. I’ve seen Obliviated memories returned in controlled circumstances. My parents’ memories were restored. It was painstaking, but not painful. Nothing like what hit me in the market or in the hospital.”
“Hermione…” He couldn’t help it. He reached out his hand, and she took it.
“Draco, I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I’m just trying to understand why I fell into that state when the memories were triggered. And I keep returning to something Harry said Professor Snape once told him. That Voldemort used Legilimency to plant visions in people’s minds that were intended to torture them and drive them mad. That is was sport to him.”
“Yes,” Draco said, his voice tightly controlled. He had seen this happen, more than once, heard the screams begging for help become the screams begging for death. Death not granted for hours or even days.
Hermione saw the pain in his eyes and moved quickly. She straddled his lap, still half-wrapped in the sheet. His arms instantly circled her, and his cheek rested against the curve of her throat. Surrounded by her scent and her softness, everything in him calmed.
After a long pause, he leaned back slightly and said, “Tell me your theory.”
He could practically feel the swotty, little student in her vibrating with excitement, and he smiled.
“Well, in the Muggle world, some psychologists… mind healers believe that bad memories inflicted by abuse can be repressed, forgotten, in order for the victim to cope with the trauma. But the memories are never completely gone. And you are never completely healed until you go through the pain of facing them and dealing with the truth. Do you see?”
“Obliviation repressed your memories of the cave by the sea,” he said. “But they weren’t completely gone.”
“Right, and when the memories started to return, they tried to torture me and drive me mad again.”
“But he’s gone. The Mark has no power anymore.”
“Even you didn’t know that until this afternoon. It had the power I gave it. I think I was really battling with my own mind. To overcome fear. To remember. When you took me to Chamber, I was almost overwhelmed with nausea. I practically collapsed into the Pensieve.”
“Hermione,” he said, alarmed. He pulled her hard against him.
“I’m all right, Draco,” she said, stroking his back. “I’m all right. Since I came out of the Pensieve, I’ve felt fine. I didn’t just see everything in your memory. I really remembered it myself, and it wasn’t as awful as some of the possibilities I’d imagined. I’ve faced the truth, and now, I’m free.”
“The curse is broken?” he said, kissing her neck.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said breathlessly. “Isn’t the mind fascinating?”
“Granger, only you would fall into a coma, and take it as an opportunity for research.”
She said something then about subconscious and memory and perception, but he was more fascinated by the intoxicating scent of her skin. He nuzzled her jaw and breathed in deep. Her pulse beat wildly beneath his lips, and she forgot what she was saying. Draco smirked. He loved shutting her up almost as much as he loved listening to her.
Effortlessly, he lifted her and tossed her onto her back. She was a beautiful, indignant, tousled heap, twisted up in a sheet. One leg was revealed from its curving hip to its silly blue toenails. And one breast, with a nipple as delicate pink as the petals of Peruvian Aurora flower. In seconds, he was over her, kissing her, his fingers pressing deep inside her wet heat.
This would be another happy memory. He was building a private collection of them. The next time he conjured his Patronus, he would have choices. So many choices, all Hermione.
An hour later, at sunset, she murmured something unintelligible.
“What?” Draco asked, still panting from his climax.
“I need to owl my friends,” she said, so sleepy he could barely understand her. “Let them know I’m safe. That I didn’t kill you.”
“At this rate, you might kill me yet.”
“Oh, shut it,” she muttered, clumsily swatting at him.
“I’ll owl them,” he said. “Want me to invite them around for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Mmmnnn. Invite some of your friends, too.”
“One step at a time, sweetheart. I’ll go talk to Kiki about it.”
“Her name is Carina.”
“What?”
“Keystone. Kiki’s not Kiki. Like T. S. Eliot’s cats. Tell her I’m sorry about the mud. I wonder what Dobby’s real name was…”
In the very next breath, she was asleep. Draco realized with profound pleasure that, for the rest of his life, he would have the privilege of listening to Hermione Granger mumble nonsense before she fell asleep. He brushed her tumbled hair over her shoulder and stroked a path down her arm and hip. With a little sigh, she shifted, her legs falling open to reveal a tempting strip of pink as she turned.
Draco groaned. How would a man resist? He opened her fully to him and nestled his face between her thighs to taste her again.
Ten minutes later, certain he’d given Hermione an interesting dream, Draco donned a robe and walked down to the library.
All evidence of their earlier passion had been whisked away. Discarded clothes gone, glass swept up, scattered papers neatly stacked. He was sure he would find his emerald cuff links in their box in his closet in the morning. His and Hermione’s wands lay side by side on the desk. In a pile beside them were several urgent messages owled today. Without reading them, Draco took out a white quill and length of parchment to scratch out a quick note.
“Kiki,” he said.
With a soft pop, the elf appeared beside him.
“I see I’ve received several owls today,” he said.
“Yes, Master, and one Red Howler from a Ginny Potter, but I took care of it.”
“Thank you for that,” Draco said as he finished his letter and handed it to her. “Give this to Vellian, to deliver to Harry Potter immediately.”
“Harry Potter? The cross-eyed boy?”
Draco glanced down fondly at the loyal, old elf. She was so skilled he could barely see the humor gleaming deep in her blue eyes.
“I think we both know by now that Potter’s not cross-eyed,” he said. “But he does still walk like a girl.”
“Of course, Master.”
“We are expecting company for dinner tomorrow night. Several of Miss Granger’s friends. There will need to be a birthday cake. I’ll owl Mrs. Potter a Howler to ask what flavor…”
Draco’s sentence trailed away as he was suddenly struck by a vision of Hermione licking icing off her fingers. Then licking icing off his fingers.
“We can work out the details later,” he said quickly. “Where are the items Miss Granger placed on the dining room table?”
Kiki Disapparated and then reappeared within seconds, handing a white canvas bag to Draco. He took the three objects out of the bag and placed them each on his desk.
The book. The apple. And the jar of honey.
It certainly was a random collection. Hermione could have lived her whole life without seeing these three objects together, without the memory being triggered. He could have lived his whole life, truly alone and longing for her. The thought chilled his blood. He was a fool to have been such a coward.
Turning to happier thoughts, Draco picked up the jar of honey. Hermione had tasted of honey the first time he’d kissed her, and he was more than ready to taste that sweetness again, on her tongue. And elsewhere…
“I’m going back upstairs,” he said. “We’ll talk about the party in the morning.”
“Would you like me to bring up some tea or biscuits, Master?” Kiki said. Her glance flickered to the jar in his hand.
“No, thank you, that won’t be necessary,” he said with a particularly wicked smile.
EPILOGUE
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Carina Keystone, now only called Kiki by Narcissa Malfoy, had been the head house elf of Malfoy Manor for 49 years. She had served the Great Family of Malfoy for 81 years. And in that time, she had seen some crazy shite, but she had never seen anything to compare to the way Master Draco and Mistress Hermione fought and kissed.
She remembered the first time Mistress Hermione, then Miss Granger, had come to the manor and how she and Master Draco had shown off their spells to each other, so eager to impress. The young witch had traipsed mud all over the dining room table that day, but it had been her birthday, and she had also made the master very happy. That was worth a little mud.
Two Decembers later, Miss Granger had become Young Mistress Malfoy. And by the end of the following October, at dawn on a snowy day, Master Scorpius had been born.
“So what did you think of the second half of the play?” Carina asked. As the theatre was illuminated, she turned to the only other occupant of the Malfoy box, a small boy with white-blond hair and dark eyes.
“I liked the part with the sword and the giant snake getting decapilated,” said Scorpius Malfoy.
“Decapi-tated, Master.”
“Decapitated. Did Uncle Neville really do that?”
“Yes, he did.” Carina didn’t mention that the giant, evil snake had once lived in their house and terrorized her staff.
“And Mama and Papa destroyed Hufflepuff’s cup and Ravenclaw’s di-dem? With basilisk fangs?!”
“Yes.”
“And then they kissed?” Scorpius scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue to suggest this was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen.
“They did kiss, but not until much later.”
“I wish they would stop it,” the boy muttered. “They kiss all the time.”
“Yes, they do. But that’s what the hero and heroine of a story do after the story ends happily. They kiss each other all the time.”
“Carina.” Scorpius sighed with dramatic patience. “The play’s named after Uncle Harry. He’s the hero.”
The old elf took firm hold of the young boy’s hand, preparing to Apparate home.
“He isn’t the only one,” she said with conviction.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
Carina Keystone, aka Kiki:
Love this elf! All quotes below are from Wikipedia.
Carina: “Carina is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship…”
Keel: “A structural keel is a large beam around which the hull of a ship is built… serves as the foundation or spine of the structure, providing the major source of structural strength of the hull…”
Keystone: “A keystone is a wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stone into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. This makes the keystone very important structurally.”
So, obviously, Carina is of no importance at all - ha ha!
V-V Day:
Victory Over Voldemort Day, modeled after World War II terms, V-E Day (Victory In Europe) and V-J Day (Victory In Japan or Victory Over Japan). This would be an interesting way to say, yet not say, Voldemort’s name as well.
The unnamed spell that Draco uses to burn off the ropes binding him while on the dining room table was inspired by Vipera Evanesca, the counterspell that vanishes conjured snakes (used by Snape during Draco and Harry’s formal duel in Second Year).
Licentia Recludo, a spell created for this fic:
In Latin, Licentia - permission, Recludo - to unlock
This spell summons the keys to the cabinets in Draco’s Chamber of Memories.
Of course, Hermione’s book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Warner Books, 1960. From Chapter 15:
“In ones and twos, men got out of the cars. Shadows became substance as lights revealed solid shapes moving toward the jail door. Atticus remained where he was.” This is the scene of the attempted lynching of Tom Robinson.
Eight of Cups tarot card meaning from biddytarot.com:
Minor Arcana, Suit of Cups: “The Eight of Cups is a card of change and transition… The young man in this card has turned his back on all he has accumulated or accomplished before. He disappears by night into a barren and difficult terrain… His journey is undertaken because of a sense of restlessness and unhappiness experienced as a result of achieving all he has desired, yet finding those things to be less fulfilling than expected… He is embarking upon the spiritual journey because he has not found deep satisfaction in the things of the world, the things with which he is familiar.”
Palm reading, active and passive hands:
Worth Googling. Fun to play with here, in relation to the Dark Mark on Draco’s left arm, the side of his passive or inherent traits (since he’s right-handed).
Somnus, a spell created for this fic:
In Latin, Somnus is a variation of the word sleep. I envision this spell as a gentler method than the Stunning Spell to render someone unconscious.
Severus Snape on Voldemort’s Use of Legilimency, Order of the Phoenix, Movie:
“In the past it was often the Dark Lord's pleasure to invade the minds of his victims, creating visions designed to torture them into madness.” My reference to this was very close in wording, so I thought I would include the original. I believe it’s a direct quote from the movie, not the book. My source was Harry Potter Wiki online.