Chapter Text
Hermione had not realised how much of her life had become waiting until she found herself doing it again. She sat beside Draco’s bed and realised she had become frighteningly good at it.
The room had changed very little throughout the morning. The fire had long since gone low. Somewhere further down the corridor she thought she heard footsteps once, then nothing.
Draco remained asleep.
She had expected his recovery to look more dramatic. She had imagined pain, sweat, restlessness. She had imagined him waking and immediately pretending to be better than he was, because that was what Draco did.
Instead he had slept through the night with a stillness that felt almost unfamiliar on him.
Hermione leaned back slightly in the chair and glanced at him again.
Without his eyes open there was something younger about him. Not innocent - she thought innocence had become a ridiculous concept years ago - but younger in the sense that she could suddenly see traces of the boy inside the man in front of her.
His face appeared softer, his shoulders looked smaller beneath the blanket. Her eyes drifted to the dark veins disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. They were still there, but yesterday they seemed angrier.
She found herself looking again, then again thinking that if she stared long enough she would understand whether his body had finally stopped trying to destroy itself.
Her gaze moved to his hands.
One rested outside the blanket. There was a thin cut across his knuckles she did not remember him having. She watched it for a while, and without thinking she reached and turned his hand slightly in hers.
She never thought she would fall in love with Draco Malfoy.
A year ago, the idea would have sounded absurd to her. If somebody had told younger Hermione that one day she would stand inside Malfoy Manor and look at Draco as though she had found something sacred in the ruins of the world, she would have laughed first and then probably become offended later.
Hermione had always believed that if she studied enough, observed enough, understood enough, she would arrive at the correct conclusion. Her life had been built around that certainty - and maybe arrogance - that things made sense if you understood them.
And yet… she had also always believed Harry would win. Even in the worst moments she had never truly imagined another ending. She had followed Harry everywhere into this war, because beneath all the fear there had always been a conviction that goodness would eventually prevail.
Harry was supposed to win, Voldemort was supposed to lose. The world was supposed to make sense.
Instead Harry died. Voldemort lived… and Hermione ended up here, in love with Draco Malfoy.
She regarded him and wondered whether maybe she had misunderstood certainty all her life. Maybe being intelligent had tricked her into believing she understood people before she truly saw them.
Because once, when she thought of Draco, all she could see was arrogance and cruelty. But the longer she stayed, the more the edges blurred and something else emerged beneath them: survival, grief, courage. Somewhere along the way, without noticing, she stopped looking at him and started looking for him, until all she saw was home.
A soft pop interrupted her thoughts.
Hermione raised her head to find Pipsy standing there with a tray carrying tea, toast and, for reasons Hermione no longer questioned, three grapes.
The elf crossed the room carefully before placing everything down with immense concentration.
Hermione eyed the tray, then Pipsy. “…Thank you.”
Pipsy nodded once. “Miss forgot food.”
Hermione blinked. “…I wasn’t hungry.”
Pipsy appeared unconvinced. Her large eyes drifted toward Draco before returning to Hermione. “Master Draco says hungry and not hungry are irrelevant.”
Hermione almost smiled, that sounded annoyingly like him. She reached for the tea and took the first sip, while Pipsy remained standing. “You can sit.”
Pipsy seemed horrified. “Pipsy is guarding.”
Hermione was perplexed. “Guarding?” She glanced between the elf and the unconscious Draco. “…From what?”
Pipsy seemed genuinely confused by the question. “Everything.” Pipsy’s ears lowered slightly. “Master Draco is Pipsy's family.”
Hermione’s expression softened.
Pipsy continued. “Master Draco remembers things."
Hermione frowned. “What things?”
Pipsy lowered her eyes. “When Pipsy is tired.” Her gaze moved upward again. “When Pipsy likes lavender tea.” Her voice became softer. “Master Draco notices.”
Hermione knew exactly what Pipsy meant - Draco’s kindness never looked like kindness at first.
Hermione glanced down at herself and realised she had not changed her clothes or even washed her face. She had spent the entire night awake, watching him.
She stood too quickly, the room tilted briefly and she pressed a hand against the armchair.
Pipsy’s ears shot upright.
Hermione offered a tired smile. “I’m alright. I’m going to freshen up.”
Pipsy nodded.
Hermione let her attention settle briefly on the bed before turning back to the elf. “Stay here.”
Pipsy shook her head. “No. Pipsy comes.”
Hermione almost laughed. “I think I can survive crossing the corridor.”
Pipsy remained completely serious. “Master Draco would want Pipsy with Mistress.”
Hermione's throat tightened unexpectedly. She peeked once more at him sleeping, and nodded. “…Alright.”
Pipsy moved after her like a silent shadow, keeping vigil over Hermione’s every movement.
Hermione crossed into the lab and stopped in front of the mirror. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes and a looseness to her posture. Slowly she turned the tap and let cold water run over her fingers before bringing both hands to her face. The shock of the temperature grounded her enough that she stood there for one breath and allowed herself exactly one breath where she did not think about the antidote or the Order or what happened if Draco woke up worse.
Unfortunately her mind betrayed her almost immediately. She wondered whether he was awake, and she became annoyed because she had left him less than five minutes ago.
She lowered her hands and met her own reflection.
This was becoming ridiculous. Years of surviving by herself and somehow she had become incapable of crossing a corridor without thinking about whether the man she loved had enough blankets.
She let out a quiet breath. “You’re becoming embarrassing.”
Pipsy nodded. "Mm"
Hermione's head turned surprised, and the elf froze.
“…I wasn’t talking to you.”
Pipsy considered that, and nodded again.
Hermione reached for a towel and pressed it against her face. When she lowered it, the bedroom door opened.
The sound echoed through the room with enough force that Hermione knew instantly that whoever stood on the other side was not a friend.
She turned immediately, finding Lestrange in the doorway.
Her mind refused to process it, because this was Draco’s room, no one ever came into Draco's room, and Draco was unconscious.
Lestrange closed the door behind himself and let his attention drift around the room without hurry until it found Hermione.
She straightened.
He held her there. “The little whore does not have anyone to defend her now.”
Hermione’s fingers tightened slightly around the towel.
Lestrange took another step.
Hermione’s heartbeat became loud enough that she could feel it in her throat. “You need to leave.”
The word came out steadier than she felt.
For a moment he only looked at her, and then his mouth curved like she had said something amusing that belonged to a world in which Hermione Granger still had some authority.
“Leave,” he repeated softly, taking another step, and Hermione moved back, barely enough for her heels to brush against the marble threshold of the lab.
Lestrange’s smile disappeared. “You have no power here. You belong to me.” He moved his hand so quickly that Hermione thought the room itself had moved, and then pain burst across the side of her face and the towel slipped from her hand.
She did not fall, but only because the marble caught her. She could not hear anything except the rush of blood in her ears.
Hermione touched her cheek without thinking, and the humiliation of the gesture burned worse than the pain because she knew he wanted the evidence of it, wanted to watch her register what he had done and where she stood, and how little her defiance meant when there was no wand in her hand.
Pipsy moved before Hermione could. The elf appeared between them with a crack of apparition.
“No touching Mistress,” Pipsy said, and her voice was high and brittle with rage. “Bad man is not touching Mistress.”
“Pipsy, no,” Hermione said at once, but the words were too late.
"Mistress, ah?" Lestrange sneered at the elf with idle distaste, and without thinking twice kicked her hard enough, sending small Pipsy flying across the floor near the foot of the bed.
Pipsy made no sound and Hermione’s entire world narrowed to the stillness of her body on the carpet. “Pipsy.”
She dropped beside her without thinking of Lestrange, without considering that he was still standing behind her with his wand and his entitlement.
Her hands hovered uselessly over Pipsy’s tiny shoulders because she was suddenly terrified of touching her wrong.
“Pipsy, look at me.” The elf’s eyes were closed. Hermione’s breathing changed with fear.
Behind her, Lestrange kept talking, but it passed over her like weather because all she could see was Pipsy’s hand curled against the carpet, and something inside Hermione snapped.
She stood slowly. Lestrange was speaking again when she turned, mentioning Draco, but Hermione reached for the first object her hand found on the bedside table and threw it before he finished the sentence.
It missed him, and glass shattered against the wall.
He stopped speaking.
Hermione picked up another object, then another thing.
A silver-backed brush glanced off his shoulder. A book struck the doorframe beside his head. A small crystal decanter exploded against the floor between them, its fragments skittering everywhere.
Lestrange’s surprise lasted only seconds, but Hermione did not need more than that. She moved like a woman possessed. Every object she hurled at him felt like liberation - for every time she had stayed silent, for every moment she had been afraid, for his disgusting hands, and for Pipsy.
She threw another book that hit him in the chest.
His expression darkened. “That is enough.”
He raised his wand, but Hermione did not cowered; instead, she rose to meet him.
Rage consumed her so entirely that she felt it ripping through her, spilling out in every direction.
The room flashed in a blinding light, and Lestrange was hurled backwards.
Silence followed so completely afterwards that Hermione could hear her own breathing. She stared at him and at her hands.
Her fingers were shaking. She could not understand how she had done it, but Lestrange was on the floor and her magic still trembled in the air around her.
Pipsy had not made a tiny sound behind her. She turned immediately and dropped to her knees again. “Pipsy, can you hear me?”
Pipsy stirred.
Hermione almost sobbed with relief. “There you are,” she whispered, pressing one trembling hand near Pipsy’s shoulder without putting weight on her. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”
Pipsy blinked at her slowly. “Mistress is hurt.”
Hermione shook her head, even though her cheek was throbbing and her hands would not stop shaking. “I’m fine. Don’t talk.”
Pipsy’s attention drifted past her, and her expression changed.
Lestrange had pushed himself upright. The amusement had vanished from his face. Blood was smeared across his skin, and his clothes were torn.
"Sectumsempra"
Hermione turned to protect Pipsy with her own body, but the elf was faster.
There was no time to stop her, no time even to say her name, only the sight of Pipsy standing between Hermione and the spell.
The curse struck, and Pipsy fell backwards into Hermione’s arms.
Hermione caught her and felt the blood spread instantly across her hands.
“No,” she said, though she did not know whether she was speaking to Pipsy, to Lestrange, or to every god that had ever watched this house and done nothing. “No, no, Pipsy, no.”
Pipsy’s eyes were open but unfocused.
Hermione pressed one hand where the blood was worst and the other behind her head, terrified by how light she felt.
“Mistress,” Pipsy whispered.
“Don’t,” Hermione said immediately, she could not survive another goodbye in this house. “Don’t speak. Stay with me. Pipsy, stay with me, that's an order.”
Pipsy blinked slowly. “Pipsy promised.”
Hermione’s tears fell before she realised she was crying. “What?”
“Promised Mistress Narcissa,” Pipsy breathed, each word smaller than the last. “Pipsy protects.”
Behind her, Lestrange moved, but Hermione did not turn around. She could not. Her hands were red. Pipsy’s breathing beneath them had become shallow and uneven. She stayed hunched over her, shielding the dying elf with her own body while her bloodstained hands hovered above the wound and she whispered the counter-curse again and again.
She knew he would kill her too. She could hear it in the shift of his clothing, the movement of his wand in the air.
Hermione braced herself and waited for the curse to hit, but nothing happened because one moment Lestrange was standing behind her, the next was thrown against the wall, Draco’s hand held him by the throat.
He was barefoot, pale as death, and still dressed in the clothes he had collapsed in. His gaze moved from Pipsy to Hermione’s face, then lower to the red mark darkening across her cheek.
The black veins that had begun to recede returned in full force. Draco’s eyes turned bloodshot.
“What the fuck—” Lestrange struggled for breath, unable to pull away from Draco’s face. “—are you?”
Draco did not move. “Your executioner.”
Hermione had seen Draco angry. She had seen his arrogance, his cruelty. She had seen him exhausted, and breaking beneath impossible choices. But she had never seen this.
There was an eerie silence around him. A terrible stillness so complete it made him feel otherworldly.
Lestrange seemed to realise it at the same time Hermione did, because whatever insult had been forming on his mouth disappeared.
“She is my wife—the Dark Lord gave her to me,” Lestrange said quickly, and the absurdity of the statement might have made Hermione laugh under different circumstances, but Draco gave no indication he had heard him.
He only raised his hand.
Lestrange’s wand flew across the room so fast it cracked against the opposite wall and fell somewhere beneath the desk.
Draco glowered at him. “On your knees.”
Lestrange stared, and stayed standing. Draco did not repeat himself, he only flicked his wand.
Lestrange’s knee buckled under an invisible force as he crashed to the floor.
Hermione’s arms tightened around Pipsy. “Draco,” she whispered, though she did not know whether she was calling him back or warning herself.
His expression had that frightening emptiness she associated with Occlumency, except this went deeper. This did not feel controlled.
Lestrange tried to push himself upright, but Draco stepped closer and the movement made him stop.
“You came into my rooms,” Draco said quietly.
Lestrange’s breathing turned uneven.
Draco tilted his head slightly. “You touched what is mine.”
Lestrange’s face twisted in fear. “Listen to me Malfoy, we can settle this. You want the girl? Take her—”
Draco took another step. “I have listened to you for months.”
“I listened when you spoke to her as though she was an object. I listened when you threatened her.”
His wand moved slightly.
Lestrange made a strangled sound and bent forward just as some invisible pressure had closed around him.
Draco’s expression did not change. “But I am tired now.”
Lestrange tried to speak, but Draco silenced him with another sharp movement of his wand.
“No. You have spent enough time making me listen to you.”
He crouched slowly in front of him, though Hermione saw the way his body resisted the movement, saw the strain in his shoulders and the tremor he suppressed before it could reach his hand.
Draco was not well.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Lestrange glared at him.
Draco’s eyes moved briefly to Hermione, to her cheek, to Pipsy, then returned to him. “What did you do?”
Lestrange swallowed.
“You are going to answer me,” he said, with a softness that made his threat worse.
Lestrange’s attention shifted to Hermione, that was his mistake.
Draco moved. The spell was wordless, and Hermione did not know what it was, only that Lestrange gasped and gripped at his own chest like the air was dragged from him.
“Look at me,” Draco said, lifting his wand.
Lestrange seemed genuinely afraid.
Hermione stared down at Pipsy, whose breathing had become too shallow against her. “Wait.”
Draco froze. His back remained turned to her, but his wand stopped moving.
Hermione lifted her eyes to Lestrange. “I want to do it.”
Draco turned, and stared at her like she had spoken in another language. “No.”
Hermione shifted carefully, lowering Pipsy as gently as she could against the rug before standing. Her hands were still red. Her cheek still burned. Her body trembled with shock and magic.
“Hermione,” Draco said in warning, almost pleading. “No. I don’t want you to kill anybody else.”
Hermione stepped closer. “You don’t get to take every unforgivable thing and leave me with clean hands, Draco, because my hands aren’t clean anymore.”
“Hermione—”
“No.” Her voice broke, but she did not stop. “You keep looking at me as though I’m still the person I was before this house. And you believe that if you damn yourself enough, I get to walk away untouched.”
She swallowed. Behind him, Lestrange watched them both unable to move under the force of Draco's magic, and for once Hermione did not care. “But guess what, Draco? I have changed too.”
Draco shook his head faintly. “You are not me.”
Hermione stepped close enough now to touch him. She lifted her hand and pressed it against his chest, exactly where his heart beat too fast beneath her palm. “No,” she whispered. “But I am with you.”
His heartbeat stumbled.
“My soul is not hidden somewhere safe, waiting for you to come back to it.” Her eyes burned, but she refused to look away. “My soul is where yours is now.”
Draco’s face crumpled almost imperceptibly.
She reached for his wand but he did not release it. Their hands remained locked around the same piece of wood.
His fingers were cold. Hers were shaking.
“Let me,” she said. “His punishment belongs to me.”
The wand settled into her palm.
Lestrange tried to move without success. His body was locked in place under invisible chains.
“Rot in hell.” She punctuated each word. "Sectumsempra."
Instead of a clean curse, the magic became jagged and uncontrolled, vicious enough that the walls themselves seemed to recoil.
Lestrange screamed in agony as the curse consumed his skin.
Draco moved behind Hermione, one arm catching around her waist as the force of the spell nearly sent her backwards, and she realised dimly that he was holding her upright, not stopping her.
Hermione’s hand lowered, the wand slipped slightly in her grip. Draco’s hand covered hers, gentle despite everything, and slowly took the wand back before it could fall.
Hermione stared ahead; her whole body was shaking now. Draco turned her carefully toward him.
She expected - hoped- he would realise she had crossed that invisible line and finally see what she had been trying to tell him.
But Draco only seemed devastated… for her.
Hermione’s breath broke. “I told you,” she whispered.
His attention lingered on her face. He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I know,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. “I know.”
Hermione lowered her gaze to Pipsy. “Help her.”
Draco kneeled against his elf, and touched Pipsy’s shoulder lightly. His hand disappeared inside his sleeve. When he pulled it back out there was a small silver blade resting against his palm.
Hermione stilled immediately. His expression softened slightly. “It’s alright.”
Which unfortunately did absolutely nothing to reassure her.
His attention returned to the blade and he turned it once between his fingers. “This won’t hurt her.”
Hermione watched him press the blade into his own hand, blood appeared immediately.
He lifted his bleeding hand above Pipsy and whispered something Hermione didn’t recognise. The blood did not fall, instead it suspended itself between his fingers and the elf. Thin silver threads appeared through it. Draco exhaled softly and closed his eyes for only a moment before the threads drifted downward and settled over Pipsy’s body like a blanket.
The blood drew itself back into the tiny elf’s body. The silver threads moved across the jagged skin, sealing the wounds.
Pipsy blinked, looking around slowly. “Mistress is safe.”
Hermione caught her immediately in a hug, and in return the elf's tiny hands reached immediately for Hermione’s face.
Pipsy looked genuinely upset. “Mistress got hurt.”
“I’m alright,” Hermione swallowed, and covered Pipsy’s hands. “But you can’t do that again. Please, Pipsy… you can’t.”
“Pipsy promised.” Pipsy twisted her fingers together. “Mistress Narcissa said that Miss is family.”
Her ears lowered. “And Pipsy protects family.”
Hermione pulled Pipsy closer before she could think too much about it.
Draco scanned the room at an unhurried pace. “Take her to Snape.”
She felt uneasy leaving him there. “And you?”
“I’ll clean.”
She looked around, and realised he wasn’t talking about the room at all.
By the time Hermione returned from Snape’s quarters, the corridors were quieter.
The late afternoon sun had lowered behind the western side of the grounds, and its golden light slipped through the tall windows.
She walked more slowly than she needed to, though she did not realise it at first. Snape had taken Pipsy from her arms with no visible surprise. He had simply said, 'Put her there,' resigned, because there was nothing left in the world capable of shocking him.
Pipsy had protested weakly the moment Snape touched her, insisting that 'Mistress needed guarding and Master Draco would be very displeased if Pipsy failed to return immediately', and Snape had glared at the elf with such dry contempt when he said, 'Master Draco can join the lengthy list of people displeased with me. Lie still.'
Pipsy had been alive when Hermione left her, more than alive. Cross, exhausted, frightened and still trying to sit up despite Snape threatening to sedate her if she continued behaving like an imbecile. Hermione had stayed until the worst of the shaking stopped, until Snape confirmed the bleeding would not reopen if Pipsy did not insist on dramatic self-sacrifice in the next hour, and only then had she allowed herself to step back.
She had left Draco in that room with Lestrange's body and the consequences of what they had done. She had left him because he had asked her to, because Pipsy needed Snape, because some part of her understood that Draco needed to decide what remained of that room before she came back, but now each step felt heavier than the one before it.
She did not know whether she was returning to Draco collapsed on the floor from whatever strength he had left, or to a version of him closed so far inside himself that she would not know how to reach him.
When she stopped in front of his door, her hand remained on the handle longer than necessary. She could feel her own pulse through her fingers. She could still smell blood though she had washed her hands three times. She could still feel Pipsy’s weight against her chest.
She breathed once, opened the door and stepped inside.
The room was clean - at first that was all her mind could process. It was restored so completely that the violence that had happened inside seemed almost impossible if her body had not still been carrying the memory of it.
The broken glass had vanished from the floor. The furniture had been repaired and placed where it belonged. The marks on the carpet were gone. The air no longer carried the residue of dark magic, instead she could smell a faintly floral scent coming from the open windows. The curtains moved with the afternoon breeze, and everything looked almost peaceful.
Then she noticed the candles.
They floated everywhere, not in neat rows or elaborate symmetry, but suspended throughout the room in uneven constellations, some near the ceiling, some lower by the windows, some drifting slowly above the bed and casting small gold halos over the walls.
Their enchanted flames did not flicker, instead they moved gently. The sun had not yet set, so the candlelight did not overpower its light but joined it, gold against gold.
On the desk, on the windowsill, beside the bed and in a silver vase, there were white roses from the gardens.
Draco had done all of this.
Draco had taken the blood and replaced it with candlelight. He had taken the violence and replaced it with flowers from his mother’s garden. He had taken the room back from Lestrange, from the war, and without saying a word he had given it back to her.
Her throat tightened so suddenly that she had to swallow before she could breathe properly.
Draco stood by the window with one hand resting against the frame, looking out toward the gardens rather than at her, though she knew he had heard her enter. He had changed clothes; his shirt was clean and his sleeves were rolled to his forearms, but his hair remained disordered. Still, he was standing, and when he turned his eyes were clear.
Hermione’s gaze dropped, searching automatically for the dark veins that had spread beneath his skin for days. They were still there in places, faint shadows beneath his throat and wrists, but they had retreated.
Draco followed her gaze. His attention dropped briefly to his wrist before settling on her again. There was no triumph in his expression, only a strange tired understanding.
“It’s easing,” he said, his voice rough from rage and whatever magic he had used to undo the room. “Not gone, but easing. I think he was causing the largest part of it.”
She crossed the room before either of them could say anything else.
She did not plan it. She did not think about whether he was too weak or whether she should be careful. She simply reached him, slipped both arms around him and held on with a force that made him inhale sharply against her hair.
His arms came around her slowly, one hand settling against her back and the other rising to the nape of her neck. Hermione pressed her face into his chest and felt his heart beating beneath her cheek.
“I thought you would collapse before I came back,” she murmured, the words muffled against him, and she felt rather than saw the small breath that left him.
“And leave you vulnerable?” he argued. “Not again.”
Draco’s hand moved against her hair, she held him tighter, and after a moment she felt him lower his face into her curls. He did not kiss her there. He only stayed, breathing her in, proving to himself that she had returned.
Draco was the first to speak again. “You’re finally free.”
Hermione lifted her head. His eyes searched her with an expression so soft it frightened her more than his rage had done.
Hermione understood him so completely that her anger flickered through the relief.
He meant Lestrange, but not only Lestrange. He meant the marriage, the immediate danger. The chain that had wrapped itself around her since the moment she was brought here.
But beneath all of that, beneath the obvious, she knew he also meant himself. She was free, and now the honourable thing would be to step back and let her remember how to exist without him.
She reached up and touched his face. "I know what he was and what he represented. I know what is over now that he’s gone, but don’t stand here and tell me I am finally free and the only thing left for me to do is walk away from you.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not what I meant.”
“It is part of what you meant.”
He turned away, and that was answer enough.
Hermione kept her hand against his cheek and waited until he faced her again. “I am going to stay, Draco.”
“You gave me reasons to leave,” she continued in a low voice. “You gave me reasons because you thought I needed them, because you thought that if you made yourself the only sinner between us, I would choose whatever future you decided I deserved. But I am here. And I will keep choosing you. I will keep coming back to you until you finally understand that you do not get to decide this alone. We are going to be together.”
The room seemed suspended around them in candlelight and gold, and Hermione suddenly became aware that this was the first time since she entered Malfoy Manor where no immediate threat stood between them.
“You are an impossible woman, Hermione Granger,” he whispered, almost frightened by it, and bent to capture her mouth.
Hermione blinked in surprise. She had expected more resistance from him.
“Wait—” She pulled back slightly and searched his face. “Does this mean you’ll stop? You surrender?”
Draco scoffed softly and pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “I surrender to you.”
Then he bent and lifted her into his arms. Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her towards the bed.
With her hair spread around her like a halo, she looked almost unreal. And Draco, standing against the sunset spilling through the windows, was an avenging knight finally returning from war.
But when he reached the bed, he did not lie beside her, he knelt.
He pressed a kiss to one of her legs, then the other. Slowly, finally having all the time in the world.
His eyes stayed closed. “Just this time.” He murmured.
Hermione frowned. “What—” But she stopped. He was not speaking to her.
His mouth moved again. His voice softened further. “Just this once…”
Then he moved upward, pressing another kiss against her thigh. “Tell me it’s me.”
Her throat tightened. Because somehow she understood - Draco was not asking for permission, he was praying. Praying this was real. Praying that nothing would take this away from him.
Hermione reached down and cupped his face. “I am yours and you are mine.”
He opened his eyes. She watched the words reach him. Watched him believe them.
His lips parted slightly as he repeated, quieter this time: “I am yours… and you are mine.”
She helped him out of his shirt. They fumbled a little, awkward in a way that felt strangely young, as if the war, grief and all the impossible things between them had disappeared and left behind only two people trying to learn each other.
Draco took her in without speaking. The emotion remained visible on his face in a way he no longer seemed interested in hiding.
Hermione reached out and rested her hand against his chest. He shuddered beneath the touch. He took her hand and pressed a reverent kiss against her knuckles.
Hermione smiled softly and turned his hand over before guiding it to her own chest, above her heart.
His attention lifted to hers. There were no words, there was no need. They understood each other without them. His voice brushed against her mind. "I love you, Hermione Granger."
Her breath caught.The feelings inside her became too large for her chest, and tears gathered. “I love you too, Draco Malfoy.”
When he finally helped her out of the dress, she lay back against the sheets and he moved above her, bracing himself on his arms - not trapping her, only surrounding her.
The first kiss landed against her forehead. “I am yours, Hermione.” He whispered in her mind again.
The second against her cheek. "I am yours." And this time there was wonder in it. Like he still could not believe he was allowed to say the words.
When he kissed her mouth, Hermione smiled against him, whispering back: “I will never leave you.”
The space between them was sacred. This was never about hunger, or pleasure alone. It was simply two people, after surviving too much, deciding to stop surviving alone.
When Draco's naked body finally aligned himself to her entrance, Hermione held her breath in anticipation.
He captured her lips - while pressing inside her - breaking all the physical barriers, whispering in her mind his love for her.
Hermione in turn, held him tighter, pulling him against her chest.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
They could no longer tell whose voice the words belonged to. They just kept repeating them to each other.
Draco moved slowly at first, careful in a way that felt almost reverent. Hermione held his face and smiled. "Give me all of you, Draco." And so he stopped holding back.
They moved together in a synchronised rhythm. The moment was so intimate, that it became impossible to discern where one of them began and the other ended, because body and soul recognised each other and had become intertwined.
Even their magic hummed in response. Light spilled from them in thin golden rays that rose towards the ceiling and wrapped around one another until they became impossible to separate.
She held him closer, breath uneven beneath the sweat, desire and love.
Their eyes never left each other, afraid that anything would break that reality, and make them realise this was just a dream.
Draco buried his face against her neck, licking, sucking, marking her skin. "I want to live inside you, and never leave."
The confession in her mind undid the last of her restraint. Her own orgasm came crashing through her, and at the sight of her coming undone in his arms, Draco was struck by the overwhelming need to spill everything he had inside her, to leave traces of himself everywhere in her life, to become impossible to erase, to be woven so deeply into her existence that no force in the world could separate them again.
Her fingers slipped into his hair, tugging lightly, drawing him back to her. "Never—" she panted, "never leave."
She made her point by forcing her legs tighter around his waist, taking in every last drop of him, driven by the same desire of being marked.
Hermione did not know when she fell asleep.
They had simply remained together while the evening softened fully into night and the candles continued drifting quietly through the room.
She remembered lying with her head against Draco’s chest.
She remembered his hand moving slowly through her hair. She remembered speaking at some point and not remembering what she said. She remembered him answering.
She remembered thinking she had never seen him look peaceful before.
The last thing she remembered clearly was his hand resting over hers.
When she woke, her hand moved automatically across the mattress finding it empty.
She pushed herself up slowly, she squinted, adjusting to the darkness and then she saw him.
Draco stood near the laboratory door. His back rested lightly against the frame and his head was turned slightly toward the bed, though he did not seem to actually be looking at anything.
She sat up further. “Draco?”
His face softened immediately when he saw she was awake.
Hermione turned to him. “What are you doing?”
His eyes found hers and he smiled. “Nothing.”
She frowned. Her attention drifted briefly to the door before returning to him. He held her gaze, the smile remaining peaceful.
She searched his face, trying to understand whether this was another attempt to let her go, but all she found was love. “Come back to bed.”
He pushed himself away from the doorway, crossed the room, and climbed back in.
Hermione immediately moved closer; her arm found him. He held her close, kissing the top of her head, softly. "Go back to sleep."
His hand moved automatically to her hair, and she breathed him in. “I love you, Draco”
She felt him smile against her forehead. “I love you too, Hermione.”
She opened one eye. He was still looking at her.
She frowned. “What?”
His expression softened. “Just looking at you.”
She searched his face for another second, then she closed her eyes again and settled closer.
His hand remained in her hair. His breathing remained steady, and eventually sleep pulled her under again.