Caelum Ignis Ch31: "Lioness"
A Dramione fan fiction
It wasn’t just Snape. It was both of them.
Even stranger, Dumbledore walked into the room first after Hermione opened the door.
She’d thought about using magic to open it, just so she wouldn’t have to deal with Snape right in her face, but in the end she walked up herself, opened it briskly, then stepped a few long paces back as the door swung rapidly inward.
Snape trailed close behind Dumbledore, cloak billowing.
His dark eyes were murderous.
Dumbledore’s face was harder to read.
She didn’t have to ask if they’d walked into the room earlier, before going back out into the hall, closing the door, and knocking to wake them up.
She knew they had.
For the same reason, she couldn’t look at either of them for very long.
She couldn’t really bring herself to stand next to Draco, either.
She ended up opening the door and retreating deeper into the room, past the green velvet chair by the fireplace, the same one where Crooks was still curled up, nose to tail, snoozing in front of the fire. She walked past the table with their breakfast. She walked all the way to the other lounge chair, the one by the window overlooking the grounds.
Books on Dark Magic still lay stacked on a low table to the chair’s right. The thick tome she’d last been reading adorned the top of the stack. The spines didn’t face the door, and that part of the room lay mostly in shadow, but that miniature library from the Restricted Section they weren’t technically supposed to have still felt far too conspicuous.
She stood there, wringing her hands.
She knew she probably looked bizarre.
She felt off-balance, guilty, and strangely vulnerable, in ways she couldn’t possibly have explained, especially given most of what she’d been doing for the past thirty-six hours. She knew, logically, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She hadn’t done anything wrong.
Further, now that she’d retreated to the far corner of the room, she realized she didn’t like being this far away from Draco. It felt deeply unnerving, suddenly, being so far away from him, with two other people in the room.
She couldn’t bear Snape or Dumbledore doing anything to him.
She knew, logically, that they wouldn’t.
They wouldn’t do anything to him, of course, why would they?
She frowned as she repeated the thought again.
The truth was, she had no idea what they might do to him.
Did they even see him as a student at all at this point? Or was he just some dangerous weapon, an illegal, magical aberration they would have put to death at birth, given the choice? Draco definitely posed a threat to the Order. If Voldemort got his hands on him, Hermione was supposed to kill him, wasn’t she? Hadn’t Dumbledore more or less said that to her?
Well, there was no possible way she was doing that.
Maybe they saw her as a threat now, as well.
As she tried to stabilize her thoughts by telling herself she was overreacting, and reminding herself that no one could make her do that, harm Draco, that is, she watched Dumbledore and Snape hover over their bed.
She really didn’t like them being that close to him, or even just looking at him like that. Why weren’t they talking? Were they conversing in one another’s minds? Were they trying to decide what to do with him, even now? How nervous would they have to get about Draco before they tried to kill him? Was that the real reason Snape was still plying him with potions on Lucius’s orders? Were they Dumbledore’s orders, too?
The only way she could deal with their silence and staring was to back away more and focus her gaze out the window. If she could have put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, she might have tried that.
The silence seemed interminable for those few minutes.
She was positive they were looking at her strangely, too, but she didn’t return their looks. Maybe they knew she was unreliable now. Maybe they knew they could no longer trust her to kill him. Maybe they were trying to figure out how to separate the two of them.
Snape moved sharply and swiftly in Draco’s direction, dark cloak rippling.
It happened so fast, she experienced it as a jerk on her magic.
The effect on the room was like a stone thrown into a silent, still pond.
Hermione couldn’t help but turn back towards the bed, and Draco on it, and the two teachers who stood over him.
She saw Snape staring down at Draco’s chest.
“Explain this,” Snape said coldly.
She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or to Draco.
Snape stepped closer to him. Hermione’s hands gripped one another hard enough to hurt. Snape aimed a finger at Draco’s chest, his eyes tracing its faint silver lines.
“What happened? What did she do to you?” he snapped harshly.
He took a step closer, and Hermione couldn’t stop herself.
She took a handful of rushed steps in their direction.
“No,” she blurted.
Draco’s head turned, along with Dumbledore’s and Snape’s.
Hermione looked at Draco, then back at Snape. Her voice came out clipped, tense, even a little shaky, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words as they forced their way out of her.
“You’re too close,” she said to Snape. “You’re too close to him. Back off. I need you to back off of him––”
“Excuse me?” Snape sneered.
She held his death stare, and raised it with one of her own.
“You heard me,” she said coldly. She enunciated each word. “You need to back off. You’re too close. You need to back off of him. Right now.”
Snape stared at her like he didn’t know who she was.
Maybe the most surprising thing about that stare was that Snape didn’t look angry anymore. His anger evaporated, and now he looked disturbed, shocked, even utterly thrown. His eyes narrowed. The stunned expression she saw clearly in his dark irises had a thread of wariness and scrutiny that hardened his stare.
Dumbledore’s bushy gray eyebrows rose, too, but his overall expression only changed subtly. She saw his blue eyes gaze at her over his half-moon spectacles, and while she couldn’t see it exactly, she sensed he watched her even more closely than Snape. He also held up a hand to Snape, as if cautioning him not to make any sudden moves.
The look in Draco’s eyes was decidedly different.
It was also a lot less ambiguous.
Gold and green fire rippled in his silverly irises. His stare was molten. His throat moved in a swallow as he watched her, pure adoration in his eyes.
“Ms. Granger?” Dumbledore ventured cautiously.
Her eyes snapped back to the Headmaster.
“I need you to not threaten him,” she said.
“We won’t hurt him,” Dumbledore said.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, speaking before she knew she intended to say it. “You would if you thought you needed to. You told us both as much.”
There was another silence.
Dumbledore cleared his throat.
“We are nowhere near that need now, Ms. Granger,” he said.
His voice remained calm, steady.
“It would be an absolute last resort,” he continued gravely. “And it is my fervent wish that we never get anywhere close to that point. The only reason it was mentioned at all was to instill the gravity of the situation, given the nature of his magic, and the uses Voldemort would put to it, given the opportunity. Mr. Malfoy, I believe, understands this.”
Hermione looked at Draco.
He frowned slightly as he looked at Dumbledore. He glanced at her briefly, then gave Dumbledore a short, acknowledging nod.
His irises remained tinged with that magical fire when they shifted back to her. She scowled at him, and inexplicably, he smiled. She fought the urge to yell at him for agreeing so easily with Dumbledore, or maybe to yell at Dumbledore himself, to tell him that Draco was the very last person who could be trusted with that kind of “understanding,” given she’d found him hanging off the Astronomy Tower once already.
But Dumbledore seemed to know where her mind had gone.
“If you remember, Ms. Granger, I asked Mr. Malfoy to agree not to attempt that particular ‘solution’ to the problem of his magical condition again.” Dumbledore’s blue eyes held a touch of steel when he looked back at Draco. “He did agree to that, as I recall.”
Hermione scoffed a little, but didn’t speak.
Dumbledore pretended not to hear her.
He motioned subtly at Snape, and the black-haired professor backed away from the bed, and away from Draco. Snape was still watching her, Hermione noticed, his expression now openly wary, like she was a wild animal that might bite either or both of them.
“…We need to know what happened, though,” Dumbledore added calmly.
“She didn’t give him the potions,” Snape hissed. “That’s what happened.”
Hermione looked at him.
Rather than feeling contrite at this, or remotely guilty, anger heated her chest. It flashed hot so quickly, the heat in her lungs nearly choked her. It reminded her of that fire she’d felt the last time she was in his classroom. That trembling, out of control thing she’d felt before she’d cast the fire spell that blew out his windows reignited in her chest.
It flushed her skin, heated her blood down to her fingertips.
“Did you know it would slow down his healing?” she asked Snape. She controlled her voice with an effort. “Did you know that, and tell me to give it to him, anyway?”
Snape’s bewildered look returned before he frowned.
He glanced at Dumbledore, then back at her, and then both professors were staring at her again. Both of them looked openly wary of her now. Snape’s dark eyes studied hers like something he saw in her made him distinctly uneasy.
Dumbledore tried again. “Did you see it heal?” he asked her. “The wounds?”
“No,” she said at once.
She inhaled a breath, fought to soften that fire in her chest.
“No,” she said, her voice a touch calmer. “He was like this when I woke up this morning, sometime after six.”
Both professors looked at Draco’s chest, then back at her.
In that silence, Hermione glanced at Draco.
He openly smirked at her. That heat in his eyes was right on the surface now. He looked like he wanted to say something to her, but not in front of either teacher.
She was still looking at him when he reached out cautiously to the mattress, and patted it next to where he was sitting.
She thought about that.
She thought about the fire in her magic, and how he’d helped her with it before.
Maybe it was safer to be closer to him.
She knew it would likely reassure her.
After that bare hesitation, she crossed the room and climbed up on the mattress next to him. She sat on top of the duvet and blankets, cross-legged in her soft trousers. She didn’t look over when Draco laid a hand on her leg. She glanced up at Dumbledore and Snape instead, now fighting embarrassment.
“I’m sorry if I seem…” She hesitated, then decided not to finish that thought. She wasn’t really sorry, anyway. “But he’s all right now,” she added, a touch warning. “I don’t think he needs any more medicine.” She gave Snape a meaningful look. “I don’t think he needs any kind of medicine. He doesn’t like it. It just seems counterproductive to me at this point. And you said it wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, anyway, Professor. So why should he suffer the side effects, if it’s not even working properly?”
Snape blinked at her, a faint outrage in his dark eyes.
He controlled it with an effort, and looked at Dumbledore.
The headmaster’s poker face was much more convincing.
He nodded thoughtfully.
“We are open to discussing that, certainly––” Dumbledore began.
“No,” Draco said, his voice colder than hers.
It occurred to her only then that he hadn’t spoken a word until then.
“––No discussion,” Draco went on. “Hermione’s right. It’s not helping me. It makes me weak and sick and dulls my senses and emotions… it probably slows my thinking, too. I’m not sure why any of those things would be the goal at this point, for anyone apart from my father. I think spending nearly eighteen years feeling doped and nauseated and depressed is enough. And if Hermione’s right, and it actually prevented me from healing as quickly or as well as I would have otherwise…”
He gripped Hermione’s thigh tighter.
“…then I don’t see how it can’t be making me weaker in other ways. Clearly, it didn’t harm me to stop taking it.”
“It is too early to say that, Draco,” Dumbledore warned.
“It’s not his fault you’re afraid of him,” Hermione snapped. “…Professor,” she added as an afterthought, feeling her face flush when she realized she’d almost not said it at all. “He can control it. You’ve seen him control it. He helped me control it the other day. I think he’s been controlling it in spite of the medication, not because of it––”
“Nonsense,” Snape hissed. “Of all the preposterous––”
But Dumbledore raised a hand, cautioning him again.
“The fact remains,” Dumbledore stated calmly, his eyes still on hers. “Draco has only been off the medication for twenty-four hours. A medication that he has, as he just stated himself, been taking for the better part of eighteen years. One day is not long enough to evaluate the effects of taking him off it.”
“Then we’ll begin evaluating those effects now,” Draco said.
His voice sounded less emotional than hers, but also held more of a warning.
Dumbledore sighed.
He folded his arms, and rocked a little on his heels.
“You must know you are not being particularly convincing right now,” he remarked conversationally, his voice holding the barest trace of his own warning. “Either of you,” he added, staring at Hermione over his half-moon glasses. “I do not raise that point to discount the logic of your arguments, but to make you aware of how you might be coming across, both in terms of demeanor, and the overall situation we have found in here.”
Hermione felt her cheeks burn hot.
She opened her mouth, but Dumbledore raised a hand.
“Again, this is not a rebuke,” he cautioned. “It is a simple observation. You are entitled to your emotions. You must realize that, given who you both are, the intensity of those emotions might make Professor Snape and myself a touch nervous.”
Hermione felt more than saw Draco look at her. His eyes took in her flushed cheeks, likely picking up on her embarrassment. Anger left him in a heated cloud.
Dumbledore might have felt it, too.
He abruptly changed tacks.
“What about the books?” he queried calmly. “Were either of you able to read from the volumes I sent to you prior to Draco being injured? Ms. Granger? Mr. Malfoy?”
Hermione remembered what she had read, and glanced at Draco.
For the first time, she felt a flicker of nerves.
It was impossible not to connect what she’d read to… well, to this.
Clearly, Dumbledore was making those connections, too.
She tried not to think about how odd they must look from the outside. Some part of her tried to evaluate that oddness objectively. She imagined how different she must seem compared to how she used to be, maybe more than Draco.
“I did read them,” she said, her voice subdued. “I haven’t read all of them yet, but I did read quite a few sections from at least three books about Konstantin Petrov and his wife, Antonia. I read about the theory of their connection.”
“Ah.” Dumbledore glanced at Draco, then back at her. “And has Mr. Malfoy seen those pages himself?”
She shook her head, and plucked at the blanket with her fingers. “No.”
“Have you discussed their contents with him?” Dumbledore inquired.
“No.” She swallowed. “Like I said, he’s only been well enough this morning.”
She glanced at Draco, who lifted an eyebrow. She fought not to think about what they’d done that morning instead of discussing their reading assignment from the Restricted Section. After a pause, Draco turned his gaze warily back to the headmaster.
“What are you talking about?” He focused on Dumbledore alone, his voice sharp. “What is it in those books that I’m supposed to know?”
“I will let the two of you discuss that after we leave.” Dumbledore glanced at Snape, and another of those silent communications seemed to pass between them. Dumbledore’s gaze returned to Hermione. “We will conduct this experiment with the potions for a few days, as well. Let’s say a week? Barring any problematic issues before that time?”
His voice grew openly warning.
“I would hope you would let one of us know immediately, Ms. Granger, in the event any worrisome side effects, health problems, or extreme behavior manifested as a result of him stopping these medications so dramatically without any kind of tapering off?” A bushy grey eyebrow rose. “…Even if Mr. Malfoy would rather if you didn’t inform us? I will trust that you shall continue to keep Mr. Malfoy’s best interests in mind, even apart from his dislike of the effects of the potions themselves?”
“He’s not an animal,” she muttered angrily. “I’m not his keeper, or some kind of prison warden. You can ask him yourself, not treat him like––”
“He hasn’t noticed in the past,” Snape cut in, his dark eyes piercing. “When the dosages stopped being effective. The Headmaster is simply asking you to try and be more objective than than he is able to––”
“He’s sitting right there!” she snapped angrily.
“I’m aware of that––”
“Isn’t he your godson?” She glared up at Snape. “Why do you talk about him like––”
“It’s fine, Hermione,” Draco murmured softly. He kissed her temple. “It’s okay.”
She fell silent.
Draco’s hand again squeezed her leg.
Snape continued to watch them both warily. He made a motion towards the bureau that might almost have been construed as polite, had it been done by anyone else.
Hermione, realizing he’d meant the gesture for her, bit her lip, and nodded, once.
Snape strode up to the wooden dresser and began pulling potions off the polished wood and returning them to his bag. He left two bottles of the pain-relief potion, two bottles of the Dreamless Sleep, and one bottle of the healing potion.
He also left the essence of murtlap salve.
“You may return the rest to me in class, if they are not needed,” he said crisply.
Hermione didn’t answer.
Snape left the room, the bottles in his satchel clinking softly as he made his way out the bedroom door. He didn’t look back, or close the door behind him.
Dumbledore lingered.
“I must apologize,” the headmaster said, his voice studiously polite. “We should not have come in without prior notification.”
“No, you bloody well shouldn’t’ve,” Draco muttered.
He gripped her leg more possessively.
“It won’t happen again,” Dumbledore said calmly. “I think you should both be well enough to return to class and your prefect duties tomorrow?” he added, a slight lilt that implied this was almost a question. “Unless I hear otherwise from you by the end of the day, I will assume this to be the case. I suggest you get some rest until then.”
Dumbledore glanced at Hermione, his blue eyes smiling wryly over his half-moon glasses. “And perhaps share your findings with Mr. Malfoy, if you get the opportunity, Ms. Granger. I believe there might be much for you both to talk about.”
She couldn’t help biting her lip.
“Sorry, professor,” she blurted, hesitant.
She still wasn’t sure she meant it exactly, but she was self-aware enough to know she’d hardly been deferential to either Dumbledore or Snape since they arrived. She’d behaved nothing like her normal self since they came into the room––certainly not in any way she would’ve ever dreamed of doing with any teacher at Hogwarts, even a few weeks ago. Hermione from three months ago would have been in complete shock if she’d heard the way she’d just spoken to the two of them.
Dumbledore held up a hand. “It was my apology to make, although I appreciate the acknowledgement that you might be somewhat more…”
Draco stiffened next to her.
Dumbledore definitely noticed.
“…on edge than you are normally, Ms. Granger. Under the circumstances, however, I find that completely understandable. I apologize again for our rude invasion of your privacy. It was inexcusable.”
Draco grunted, but didn’t answer.
Hermione nodded, and did her best to smile.
She wasn’t sure she really pulled it off.
“I would still like to meet with you, Ms. Granger,” Dumbledore said next, his voice still carefully polite. “Our meeting was obviously unable to occur yesterday morning, as planned. Shall we say Monday morning in my office, instead? At your first free period?”
“Okay,” she said. She flushed again, and added, “Yes… Headmaster. Of course that’s fine. My first free period is at ten.”
“Excellent.” Dumbledore smiled. “That should give us some time to talk, at least, and perhaps address some of your questions. In the meantime, the more you can read from those books, the better.” He glanced at Draco. “And you, as well, Mr. Malfoy. Perhaps Ms. Granger could communicate any questions you have by tomorrow, in addition to her own?”
Draco grunted a second time.
Hermione couldn’t tell if Dumbledore minded Malfoy’s quiet editorializing or not.
In any case, the headmaster seemed to take that as his cue to go.
After the door closed, they both sat there, listening, for a few seconds more.
Hermione got up cautiously from the bed after she thought she heard an additional door shut from further away. She crept over to the bedroom door, opened it, and walked just as cautiously to the balcony on the upper floor landing.
“They’re gone,” she called back to him, relieved. “They’re both gone.”
She walked back to the bedroom, shut the door, and climbed back on the bed. Draco wrapped his arms around her and pulled her roughly and tightly to his chest, so that she was halfway into his lap. He swallowed, and she saw his throat bob.
“I fucking adore you,” he said, his voice thick. He kissed her temple, and squeezed her tighter. His mouth fell to her ear. “You are a fucking queen,” he murmured. “A vicious, sexy lioness with sharp, ruthless claws.” He kissed her face, kissed her again, and chuckled. “…I don’t think I’ve ever seen my godfather look like that before. He looked actually afraid of you.”
She smacked his leg, but smiled in spite of herself.
He squeezed her again.
“Are you hungry?” he purred in her ear.
She shivered from his voice, then thought about the question and nodded.
“Starving,” she admitted.
He kissed her mouth. He kissed her again, and deepened it, his hand fisting in her hair. Her arm wrapped around his neck, and he let out a murmured groan against her skin. He tugged on the collar of her shirt, and looked down at her breasts.
“You’ve got love bites all over you,” he murmured. “Did I do that when I was fucking you?”
“You sound proud,” she snorted.
“I might be a little proud, yes.”
He started tugging on buttons down the front of her pants. “How hungry are you?” he asked. “Too hungry to wait maybe twenty, thirty minutes?”
She laughed as he started pulling the cotton trousers down over her hips and legs, and then yanking them off her feet. He pulled off her knickers after that, then her shirt, then her bra. He had her lying naked on top of the bed again, but when she reached for his pants, he pushed her hands away, and crawled down between her legs.
She blushed and squirmed when she first felt his breath down there.
He wrapped his arm around her thigh and hip and yanked her closer.
She let out a little squeak… at least until he pressed his whole mouth against her and kissed her deeply. She let out a shocked cry, then a gasp when he kissed her harder. He groaned against her as he strained his tongue deeper, then licked up the length of her before sucking on her clit, then lowered his head to kiss her again. His fingers followed his tongue, and then he had two of them inserted to the knuckle. He curled them up and rubbed and stroked deliberately, finding a spot so sensitive, she nearly lost it right there.
He groaned louder when she squirmed up against him.
Her mind went utterly blank.
Godric, the times others had done this to her… Krum, the one muggle bloke she hadn’t told Draco about… neither had done it like this. There was no hesitation with Draco, no squeamishness, no caution or even gentleness. He licked and sucked on her clit and cunt like he was was starving and she was food.
His magic rippled over her like when she’d first woken up, and after a few minutes of focused attention from his tongue and lips, she was half in a trance, her fingers clenched in his hair. He groaned against her, again and again, and his fingers went back to fucking her until she was lost. Right when she was building, though, he stopped entirely.
He kissed and sucked on her inner thighs.
She could feel him marking her skin, but she didn’t care about that, either.
She let out a disappointed, whimpering sound, and he licked all over her slit and clit before he raised his head and smirked at her.
He wiped his mouth and caught hold of her hips, turning her over onto her stomach.
“I’m not going to get sick of feeling it this way for a while,” he murmured.
He pulled her hips up, his hands massaging her waist and belly and the small of her back until her spine relaxed and her muscles melted. When she looked back at him, he was staring down at her, still massaging and stroking her spine. He yanked her back more, then bent over her, pressing his chest into her back.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
She tensed, slightly unsure what he was asking, but his hand wrapped into her hair.
“Nothing that drastic yet,” he assured her. “I just want to try it from behind.” He rubbed her spine. “I want to look at you like this.” He closed his eyes, and let out a low groan. “I might want to come on your back.”
She flushed, but felt herself relaxing under his hands.
“Is it all right?” he asked again.
She nodded, and his fingers tightened in her hair.
She felt him position himself behind her. Before she could suck in a breath, she felt the head of his cock right at her entrance. He rubbed himself in her slick, then began to glide into her slowly. She was sore, and even with how wet she was from what he’d just been doing, she gasped out a little cry. He was halfway in her then, and his arm wrapped around her from behind, caressing her swollen clit.
“Are you all right?”
“Godric,” she gasped.
“Should I stop?” he asked.
“No… no… don’t stop.” She was already getting wetter and relaxing under his hands. The shock of being sore began to wane as he eased into her. “No… I’m okay…” she gasped. “I’m okay…”
He was all the way in her then. He let out a weak groan.
“Fuck,” he said. “Merlin’s wand. You feel so good, Hermione. You feel so fucking good.”
She let out a whimper when he ground deeper.
“Salazar…” He let out a heavier groan. “I can’t believe how good this feels…”
The angle was different.
Not like she’d in any way gotten used to the first angle, but it felt completely different compared to earlier that morning. He eased out of her, then bucked in harder that time, almost out of control, and her hands fisted in the sheets. He was panting. His palm flattened on her upper back, between her shoulder blades, and she fought to relax. She ended up on her chest on the bed, her arse in the air, as he gripped her hips.
“Hermione,” he gasped. “Hermione… you feel so insanely good…”
He filled her so completely she felt paralyzed under him. He had her pinned and her body controlled entirely with his weight and hands and cock.
Her cunt gripped his cock and he groaned louder.
She felt that fiery heat building in her chest again.
It grew nearly unbearable––
“Salazar,” he choked out. “What are you doing to me?”
She let out a strangled cry when he arched into her a lot harder.
She got lost in him when he began fucking her slowly, heavily, letting out a low sound with each thrust. He paused a few times to experiment with angles and rhythms. He found one of each they both liked and went back to gasping with each thrust. When she glanced back and up, his face had a sheen of sweat. His pupils were blown out, his eyes half-lidded.
“You’re so tight,” he murmured. “Merlin, you’re so wet and tight…”
His fingers stroked and teased her clit while he gripped her shoulder from behind to hold her against him. He braced his knees against the outside of her legs to keep her arse in the air. He experimented again until he found an angle she liked even better, and then she was moaning, writhing under him as he rubbed up deliberately against that achingly perfect spot inside her.
“Hermione…” His fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder. “Fuck,” he managed. “I can’t hold out much longer…” He angled into her harder, and she whimpered. “That sound you make,” he panted out. “Merlin’s tits…”
He did it again, and she must have made a similar sound because his skin abruptly grew hotter. His magic strangled hers, enveloping her in heat. She felt something inside both of them twist out of control.
“Fuck,” he gasped.
She could see his magic again.
It rippled over her arms, blurred her vision, filled her lungs, her chest.
It was like breathing fire, but it felt so much like him.
He slammed into her almost violently while he stroked and rubbed her clit with the heel of his hand. Her vision whited out, and an orgasm wrenched out of her without warning. She nearly screamed when it wound higher, but that fire around him cut her breath. She could only lie there, groaning weakly as the spasms wracked through her, her hands fisted in the sheets, writhing under him and away from his hand when she got so sensitive she couldn’t stand it.
He slowed to a near stop without pulling out.
He ground against her and she felt him waiting for her to calm down, for the spasms to stop. Then he was gradually building himself.
A second orgasm did make her scream.
He gripped her shoulders from beneath in his arm and hand. He clasped her to his chest and fucked her into the mattress as he came, his whole weight on her. She felt some part of herself completely surrender to him.
His magic was so far in her now, she could barely breathe, but somehow, it still wasn’t enough. Her arm wound partway around his back, maybe to pull him closer. She gripped his arse and he arched into her deeper, breathing hotly against her neck.
“Salazar…” he managed.
He was still spasming inside her when her eyes swam back into focus.
That gold and green fire made her so relaxed she could barely move. He seemed to cover every inch of her skin. She felt drugged, like he’d completely taken her over in some way. She didn’t try to fight it. She couldn’t feel any part of herself that wanted to fight it.
Still, a nagging voice told her maybe this wasn’t normal.
Maybe sex didn’t normally feel like this.
He pulled out of her carefully, and she winced, jerking when it hurt.
She was definitely sore now. When she turned over and glanced up at him, she saw the same awareness in his eyes.
“Sorry.” He winced as he looked her over, his eyes and voice contrite. “I’m going to have to control myself, because I’m not kidding, I think I would fuck you every few minutes if you let me.” That wince returned to his eyes. “I’m sorry if I was too rough.”
Before she could get her mind moving well enough to answer him, he fell to the bed next to her, and let out a groan. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly up against him. He stroked her hair out of her face, then pressed his face next to hers.
“Did you like it like that, though?” he asked, quieter. He kissed her mouth, then her throat. “Was it okay, otherwise?”
She closed her eyes, breathing in his skin.
She tried to think about his question.
Once she had, it struck her as ludicrous.
“I can’t feel my body,” she admitted. “I’m still vibrating and I feel like I could go to sleep right now or eat everything on that tray by myself. So I’m going to go with yes…”
He let out a low, rumbling laugh.
He kissed her face, massaged her lower spine with his fingers.
She melted into him as he did it, and suddenly she really could go to sleep. Maybe they could blow off the books until that afternoon.
That gold and green fire still heated her skin. It was lulling––alien and intense, yet strangely familiar and comforting and, yes, lulling all at once. It just felt like a part of him now. She couldn’t really see it as separate from him anymore, much less as some illness or “condition” that somehow detracted from who he was.
She wondered if he was like this with everyone.
She wondered if this was how any girlfriend or partner of his would feel during sex. She wondered if Pansy Parkinson felt like this while he was going down on her, while they snogged and she gave him head, and they did everything but shag all of last year.
She knew she was asking herself those questions in part to try and establish some modicum of distance between her and Draco.
She also knew the thought of him doing this with someone else made her feel sick to her stomach. She knew she got jealous, especially with him, but now, the intensity of those feelings went beyond anything she could see as rational or acceptable or remotely healthy.
None of her friends would think it was healthy, either.
She knew it wasn’t okay, how completely wrapped up in him she felt already.
She also knew most of her was totally fine with that. A lot of her unease came from the fact that she wasn’t bothered by it at all, if she was being honest. That couldn’t be normal, either, could it? It wasn’t normal to just surrender to someone like this, certainly not when there were so many potential implications for both of them. She shouldn’t be letting their magic get entwined like this. She should be holding a least some of herself back, should she? After what she’d read about Konstantin and Antonia Petrov, shouldn’t she be more wary of all this? Was any of this fair to him, when it came down to it?
Godric, she was so comfortable.
His hands felt so bloody good. His chest felt good. He smelled good.
She really could fall asleep…
When he released her, and rolled off the side of the bed, she let out an annoyed sound.
She watched him pull on his pants. He pulled on his trousers next.
“Why?” she asked plaintively.
He laughed.
He sounded so… happy.
“I’m getting food to bring as an offering to my hungry little lion,” he said, smirking. When he saw her start to get up, the sheet wrapped around her, he held up a hand. “No. Stay where you are. I mean it. I’m bringing it to you.”
“We’ll mess up the bed,” she complained.
“We’ve already done that,” he said. “You might want to look down.”
Frowning, she did look down, and flinched when she a good-sized spot of blood, larger than her hand, decorating the middle of the light blue sheet.
“Oh,” she said, nose wrinkling. “Sorry.”
He burst out in another laugh as he carried the tray over.
“Did you just apologize to me? Are you insane?” He watched her pull the covers up, and the duvet, so they wouldn’t be sitting on the spot of blood while they ate. “If you’re worried about the elves, don’t be. It’s not anything they haven’t seen a few thousand times before.”
She blinked. “At Hogwarts, you mean?”
She found her pink shirt, and tugged it over her head.
He watched her, then shrugged. “Well, I didn’t mean that, but yes, probably.”
He set down the tray, and moved over to sit on the other side of her. She considered getting up to find her own trousers, but in the end decided not to bother. She wanted a shower, anyway. She wrapped part of the duvet over her lower body and sat up cross-legged next to him. He whipped off the silver lid, and her stomach immediately growled.
Another snorting laugh burst out of him.
She couldn’t help staring at him. She watched in bewilderment as he grinned at her, his silvery eyes locked on hers. She’d never heard him laugh like that before.
She’d never seen him smile like that, either.
In the six years she’d known him since they were first-years together on the Hogwarts Express, she’d never seen that exact look on his face. She hadn’t heard him laugh exactly like that with his friends around the school, nor with Pansy or any of the other girls she’d seen him with over the past few years. She hadn’t heard that laugh once in Hogsmeade or London or at the Quidditch World Cup, or any of the other places she’d encountered him.
The realization hurt her heart.
The intensity of that pain maybe should have worried her a bit, too.
She leaned against the wooden headboard, a cup of coffee warming her hands.
She closed her eyes for longer than a blink, then took another sip.
Draco was drinking tea, but she saw him looking at the coffee with interest.
“Did you get enough to eat?” he asked.
She opened her eyes all the way, blinked, and focused on him.
She looked around at the empty plates, and figured Dobby would probably be pleased with them for finally, properly decimating one of the meals he’d brought. Between the two of them, they’d eaten nearly all of it: two omelets with cheese, mushrooms, and spinach, bacon and hashed brown potatoes, two bowls of fruit, two glasses of juice, a large bowl of oatmeal with blueberries, butter, and raisins, a bowl of yogurt and granola.
Draco ate significantly more than she had: not only his own omelet and potatoes and bacon, but the entire bowl of oatmeal, most of the yogurt and granola, both glasses of juice, half of her bacon and most of her hashed brown potatoes.
She was completely stuffed.
She wondered if he could have eaten more.
“I’m full,” he assured her. “I’m contemplating a shower. Clean clothes. And then maybe getting into those books Dumbledore mentioned?”
She nodded, thinking about his words. She felt a slight resentment for having to move from her entirely comfortable spot, but she knew he was right. They needed to talk about what she’d found in those books. Wistfully, though, she wished they could go outside instead. The weather had improved a bit. She wished they could walk around the lake, like normal students, and maybe go visit Hagrid.
She sighed.
They couldn’t do that, though.
“Do you want the shower first?” she asked. “We can take turns in the bath, change, then meet downstairs?”
He grabbed her hand, and started moving over the bed.
“I have a better idea,” he said.
She tried to hold onto the duvet, but had to give it up, letting it slip through her hands. She got up from his bed, naked below her long-sleeved shirt, and let him lead her to the door. He brought her downstairs, into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
“I really am sore,” she warned him.
He shook his head. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
He pulled her shirt carefully over her head and tossed it to the floor. Without taking his eyes off her, he shucked off his own pants and trousers and tossed them down, too. Still staring at her heatedly, he tugged on her fingers for her to follow him into the hot water.
The high pressure shower felt positively heavenly.
The only thing that felt better was his fingers rubbing shampoo and then conditioner into her hair, then soap over her whole body. He rinsed each thing off with just as much care, and then he was kissing her where they stood in the shower.
“You better get out,” he told her. “Or I may be less good.”
She snorted, then stepped out from behind the shower door and into their suddenly enormous-seeming bathroom. She couldn’t help watching him behind the glass wall as he started scrubbing shampoo into his own hair.
Then, sighing, she dried herself off with one of the big fluffy red towels she’d been given, and wrapped it around her body. She squeezed the excess water out of her hair, put on a muggle, leave-in smoother she’d been using to make it less unmanageable, brushed her teeth, and washed her face in the hopes it might open her eyes, or make them less puffy, at least.
She used the drying spell on her hair after she’d left the washroom altogether, since it was completely full of steam by then.
She walked up the stairs to his bedroom, still wearing her towel.
Unbelievably, Dobby had already been there.
He and possibly other elves had stripped and remade the bed, taken the food tray and all of their empty glasses, cups, and mugs, and vanished her dirty clothes, presumably to the laundry downstairs. Hermione grabbed the books she’d brought upstairs, felt a twinge of regret for not finishing her coffee, then walked out of his room and into her own.
She dropped the books on her bed, then changed into muggle clothes.
She grabbed clothing meant only for extreme comfort––a white T-shirt, warm, dark, thick leggings, a long, heavy, cable-knit, Scottish jumper she’d bought while on a muggle shopping trip with her mother in London. Right as she finished pulling on long, wool, forest green socks to match the jumper, she heard the bathroom door open downstairs.
He reached the top of the staircase as she left her room.
Like she had, he wore nothing but a towel.
He stared at her in the leggings and sweater, his eyes visibly heated.
“You look good in green, Granger,” he smirked.
“Don’t think I wore it for you,” she scoffed.
“Oh, you definitely wore it for me,” he said.
“You are ridiculous.”
“And you are fucking gorgeous… and now all fuzzy and warm and sexy as fuck, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to keep my hands off you for long, despite what I said.” He walked forward and tugged on one of her curls. “Maybe we should ditch the books and go for a walk. We can snog by the lake. Being outside, where any tosser could come along and potentially see you naked, will help me control myself, at least.”
She huffed at him, but smiled, in spite of herself.
“We can’t be seen together, and you know it,” she scolded. She indicated what she held in her arms. “Books. Remember? We have to actually be responsible for part of today.”
“Part of today.” He smiled. “Not the whole ruddy day and night, then.” His eyes grew predatory as he looked her up and down in the muggle clothes. “Which means I’m not the only one thinking dirty thoughts. Good to know.”
“As much as I’d like to claim credit for that, I told you––”
“You are sore, yes,” he said, before she could figure out how to word it. “I promised not to fuck you, or do anything else that would make that worse, and I definitely won’t, but I’m sure we can find other ways to… expend energy.”
She huffed at him again, but felt her cheeks warm.
“I’ll be downstairs,” she told him a little haughtily, indicating the books.
He nodded, and gave her another sideways smile.
She began walking towards the stairs, feeling his eyes on her as she left.
It hit her that everything had changed between them again, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that yet. One thing that felt true: it was going to be harder to pretend to the rest of the school that they couldn’t stand one another.
Worse, she didn’t really want to hide it anymore.
That was insanely dangerous thinking, though, and she knew it.
She should be more focused on what to tell her friends that would get them to back off, Harry in particular. But Hermione had some choice words for Harry already, given he’d nearly killed Draco a few days ago… and Ron, well, he’d seemed more focused on getting himself laid than on whatever Hermione might be doing with Draco. She wondered if he’d managed to talk Lavender into spending the night in his new dormitory yet. If he had, Hermione suspected Ron would be distracted by that new development for a while.
If Ron was anywhere near as enthusiastic about losing his virginity as Draco seemed to be, Ron might not be around much regardless of her own dating status.
When she reached the bottom floor, and saw what waited for them on the wooden table under the window, she could have kissed Dobby.
A pot of coffee with one mug sat under a stasis charm. Right next to it, a pot of tea with a china cup and saucer, also sat under a stasis charm.
The red coffee mug had a big, elaborately drawn, gold “H” painted on it in shimmering glaze. The cup and saucer had silver and green details over the bone-white china, with a highly stylized “D” on the side facing her.
Hermione looked between them, and her smile widened.
She couldn’t be absolutely certain, of course, not having been very good at predicting the emotions or thought processes of house elves in the past, but it certainly felt like an indication of approval, if not the elf’s out and out blessing.
Her smile faded at the thought.
Why would her and Draco being together please Dobby? Draco talked like he’d thought Dobby’s reaction would rather be the opposite, for reasons he hadn’t spelled out.
Maybe she needed to ask Draco more about his childhood at the Manor.
Maybe it was also time for Hermione to have her own conversation with the elf.