A/N:Well, hello there. How are you all doing?
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****** WARNING Beware Of Hot Stuff ******
"Hermione Granger, what else can I do to lift your dress?"
She was panting, her eyes trembling, and she dared not look at him.
"Nothing," she said.
"Exactly." His eyes were sharp as a cheetah's. He repeated the word softly. "Nothing."
Hermione suddenly rembered what he had said about the "Secret of Nothing," and her face flushed red.
Why does every word he says seem to carry a hidden aning?
But he stopped teasing her and, with surprising seriousness, began applying ointnt to the bruise on her leg.
His fingers, coated in a thick yellow paste, moved toward the injured area.
Like a dragonfly grazing lotus petals with the tip of its abdon—touching down gently, little by little, then darting away again.
The ointnt slled unpleasant, but Hermione didn't find it offensive just then.
"Does it hurt when I touch you like this?" He slowly raised his eyes, his gaze soft and tentative as it brushed across her face.
There was a note of pity in his voice. "If it hurts, tell —I'll be gentler."
"It's all right," Hermione murmured. "It doesn't hurt much. Thank you, Draco."
Her attention wasn't truly on the pain. It was on sothing vaguer, more difficult to na.
For instance: he was kneeling solemnly before her on one knee—nothing like his earlier playful manner—his black trousers pulled a little tight by the posture.
For instance: his breath had unconsciously drifted closer to her skin, as though grazing her bruise, or as though attempting to scald her, slowly and deliberately, with warmth.
For instance: he lowered his lashes again and focused intently on applying the ointnt. She couldn't see what expression was hidden beneath those downcast grey eyes, but she could feel that his gaze—burning and precise—was like so kind of laser, searing that small patch of blue.
"Hermione Granger, sotis I think—" Draco said, "—that you are too reckless."
His fingers spread the ointnt in careful, tentative strokes, gradually tinting her bluish, pink-white skin with a honey-coloured hue.
He looked at the colour and sighed.
"But you're so delicate. You scrape at the slightest touch. You bruise at the slightest knock."
"Delicate?" Hermione retorted imdiately, bristling at the description. "When have you ever heard cry out in pain? I'm not afraid of pain or suffering."
"I know... I know..." Draco whispered.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to his past life.
Back then, she had always followed Harry and the others on their adventures and had always co back with injuries. Scratches on her face. A sprained elbow. One thing after another.
His eyes had always found her scars. He had told himself it was only because her recklessness irritated him.
He had never known a girl who cared so little about her own body.
The Slytherins called those marks proof of carelessness. The Gryffindors called them dals of courage.
That courage—admirable, even awe-inspiring—was a kind of courage he knew he would never possess.
"I'm not saying you aren't strong. You're independent and brave, and I have no intention of claiming otherwise—" he said, his voice quiet, slightly halting.
"Good, because you'd be wrong," she said, with a hint of smugness.
"But just because you don't cry out doesn't an you're not in pain..." Draco's voice faltered. He couldn't finish.
His eyes unexpectedly filled with tears.
He rembered how Bellatrix had used a knife and the Cruciatus Curse on her—how Hermione had scread throughout, yet never once begged for rcy. Not a single word.
He had never known anyone more stubborn than her.
Like the weather's sudden turn that afternoon, his high spirits collapsed all at once.
His fingers stilled. His eyes fixed on the bruise.
In an instant, his heart contracted—shrivelling like a fig left too long in the scorching sun.
He's behaving strangely, Hermione thought.
He seed genuinely sad. And all because of a bruise? That was rather foolish.
"Draco, you silly thing—I'm not so porcelain doll. Don't make such a fuss," Hermione said, no longer bothering to be shy, a trace of fond amusent in her voice.
She reached out and tried to smooth his hair, hoping to reassure her overly anxious Slytherin boyfriend.
He reacted quickly—looking up and catching her wrist.
As if searching for evidence, he turned her arm over and examined it carefully, inside and out. Then, slowly, he exhaled.
A very strange reaction, Hermione thought.
Draco must have so peculiar fixation on her arms. She had noticed his odd attitude toward them long before now.
What was stranger still was the deep, lingering sadness on his face.
Hermione was genuinely baffled—so baffled that when he suddenly pressed his lips to the inside of her arm, she had no desire to pull away.
Because the boy before her was looking at her with such a fragile expression. As though he would shatter if she refused him.
He held her wrist, his gaze fixed on the shifting light in her eyes.
Like a feline lost in obsession, he pressed his warm lips and tongue to the bare skin of her arm, tracing it slowly, as if healing sothing that couldn't be seen—even though there were no wounds there.
It ought to have been a thrilling gesture—one no girl could easily resist.
But his eyes were full of lancholy, and Hermione didn't think he was sending any romantic signal.
He rubbed his cheek against her arm, leaving it warm and damp, and sighed.
The sigh was heavy—drawn not from his lips but from sowhere buried far beneath him, beneath layers of ancient ice. So profound. So desolate. So lingering.
Draco closed his eyes, no longer able to et her curious gaze.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice unsteady. "I'm so sorry..."
"Draco, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" Hermione asked, startled. "It's just a minor injury—and even if it's partly your fault, I'm not blaming you—"
She had been so frightened by his sudden, intense stare that she'd fled in a panic. She'd knocked herself against the corner of the table—that was the cause of the bruise.
Though she had herself to bla for being careless, didn't she?
And yet he still frowned as though tornted, murmuring "sorry."
With a shuddering exhale, he pressed his eyelashes to her arm and made it wetter still.
Hermione thought she could detect a strange, bitter, salty sll in the air.
His expression was heartbreaking.
All of this, over a small bruise?
In this mont, he had none of his usual cunning calculation, none of that faintly oppressive, condescending air—only a strange, childlike openness.
The whole thing was equal parts exasperating and touching. Hermione knew she had to say sothing to pull him back from this unnecessary grief.
"It's okay," she said, in her most reassuring tone. "I'm not angry with you. I forgive you, Draco—you didn't hurt ."
"I didn't protect you." He looked up, choking back tears, his eyes filled with a sorrow she couldn't na.
"I bumped into the table without thinking, rember? I wasn't paying attention. I was hit by the edge."
The word edge hung between them.
"I—" Draco's lips twitched.
Her unintentional words sotis filled him with despair—especially when they sent his mind hurtling back to the crystal-shard-strewn floor of Malfoy Manor.
Hermione raised her free hand and stroked his back. "It was just an accident," she said softly. "You couldn't have stopped it. No one could have. Everything happened too fast."
Draco looked at her with mournful eyes.
He wanted to tell her that he might have had a chance to stop it. That he'd had countless opportunities.
But he had been too much of a coward. He'd lacked courage. He'd hesitated. He hadn't been able to bear what it would cost him.
"Draco, don't do this—you're worrying ," Hermione said, frowning.
She studied him, her mind beginning to wander. "Are you under too much strain? Have things been difficult while we've been apart?"
His sadness might have sothing to do with a painful mory being stirred. His parents, perhaps?
She couldn't help but wonder.
Why else would he carry ointnt with him at all tis?
"Co sit here—don't kneel." She tugged him up to the edge of the bed, so she could look at him properly without having to look down.
She cupped his face in her hands and studied him closely. There was a faint bluish tinge beneath his eyes.
You wouldn't notice it unless you were this close. His eye sockets were deep enough to hide it—but at this distance, there was nowhere to hide.
Was he having trouble sleeping again? Did he struggle to rest in an unfamiliar bed, as she sotis did?
Hermione sighed. "Have you been suffering?"
Draco shook his head slowly, his expression still tinged with sorrow, his hand still holding her wrist.
"You can tell anything," Hermione said softly, brushing her fingers across his cheek.
Cool, damp, and pale.
"There was a ti when I felt I wasn't worthy of your affection," Draco said, his gaze flickering downward, his thumb moving slowly across the inside of her wrist. "I could never be as noble as you."
Hermione Granger had never betrayed her friends—not even under the most terrible tornt.
Nothing in Draco Malfoy's upbringing had ever taught him to be like her. To endure that much for others and not utter a single sound.
His mother had always told him: "My little dragon, nothing in this world is more important than you. Never wound yourself for anyone else's sake."
He couldn't be as open and honest as she was—couldn't share himself so freely.
He couldn't even tell her all of his secrets, even after trying so hard to open himself up.
Draco Malfoy was, at his core, profoundly selfish.
He had stolen her—pulled her away from her friends—and yet could never stop wanting to possess her.
He was consud by an obsession. No one could take her from him, not even she herself.
He couldn't help but want to build a glass do around her, to keep her safe inside where no breeze could blow her away—not even the storms he himself created.
He was probably beyond saving.
A slight frown on her face could set him on edge for hours. The rest shadow of sadness in her eyes undid him entirely.
And her scars—even the smallest one—broke sothing in him.
As for her screams—if she made even a sound that recalled that night, he would fall apart on the spot.
He must be completely mad.
"Whether it's worth it is for to decide. And right now, I think you're being rather foolish." She looked surprised—as though the conversation had taken a turn she hadn't anticipated. "Draco Malfoy, don't tell you want to end things! Those are exactly the things people say when they want to break up."
Draco Malfoy—the boy in all of Hogwarts least likely to suffer from insecurity.
Had his parents managed to wear him down this much in just two weeks?
"Of course not. Hermione, I've never once thought about being separated from you. I absolutely refuse to accept the possibility," he said, a stubborn glint flashing in his eyes.
Hermione exhaled.
Draco took a deep breath, steadying himself, reminding himself that she was whole and unhard—that the knife hadn't touched her.
"I know I'm being foolish. I've just missed you too much, and worried too much."
"You are being foolish! Completely foolish." Hermione couldn't bear to look at his miserable expression any longer. His anxious, self-reproaching look was, sohow, quite pitiful.
She moved closer, pulled him into a hug, and buried herself in his arms.
"I love seeing you act silly for . But I don't love seeing you sad. Don't be sad—we finally got to see each other."
"You're right..." Draco murmured, tightening his arms around her.
When she was near, the hollow ache of loneliness dissolved. The darkness in his heart was lit by her presence.
He rubbed his cheek gently against hers, letting her warmth chase away the pain, letting her sweet, soft scent envelop him.
She made him feel at peace.
He nuzzled closer. His platinum hair tangled with her brown curls.
He breathed her in—his nose tracing slowly from her cheek down through her thick hair.
Hermione lifted her face from his shoulder and looked curiously into his eyes.
Those eyes. Those captivating, glass-clear eyes.
Gentle, sorrowful, soft—and faintly fragile.
Hermione thought they would look even better if the sadness could be lifted away—leaving only the delicate fragility exposed.
He seed to be hurting over sothing. She didn't know what, but she could feel it.
She pressed a tentative kiss to his lips.
Cold. Desolate. Salty.
He didn't move. His long dark lashes blinked slowly, as if he were suppressing sothing—as if the desire to kiss her back had gone out of him entirely.
This will not do, Hermione thought, with sudden, anxious resolve.
She gently took hold of the hair at the back of his head, and decided that first, she would have to wipe the saltiness from his face, his lips, and his heart.
She traced him the way he had once traced her—trying to lick away the tears that kept multiplying on his cheeks.
Then she tried to coax the saltiness from his lips, one soft press at a ti.
He'd nearly cried away his clean waterlon scent, she thought with a trace of regret—and then wiped away another taste of salt.
Draco was impossibly stubborn. Like a lancholy museum statue of a beautiful young man: beautiful, yes—but utterly still.
He remained passive. Numb. Distant. But she was not discouraged.
She hadn't wasted her efforts—she could hear his fingers tightening their grip on the sheets, could feel the faint, involuntary tension returning to his body. But that wasn't enough. She wanted him alive and present—not rely reviving finger by finger.
She still had so way to go.
After a while, the endless coaxing finally wore out her patience. She drew back, and with a flash of bold inspiration, she pressed the cold statue down against the bed—and was rewarded with the sound of his breath catching unevenly.
That's more like it, she thought, with no small amount of smugness.
She hadn't imagined he would topple so easily—and he had the nerve to claim he wasn't thin!
Their weight startled the soft mattress, which trembled and bounced beneath them, much like his heart.
Draco had never imagined she could look so beautiful above him.
Pure, resolute, and gentle—like a pink-white feather settling over him.
Who could resist her? Hermione Granger could do anything to him.
Draco's frozen mind finally began to thaw.
The abyss that had been closing around him retreated. And those once-lifeless grey eyes—now pierced by her radiance—began to fill again, slowly, with sothing warm.
The feather had no idea of its own power. She was smiling—focused, patient, sweeping everything before her.
His cheeks, his lips, his soul.
The feather swept away all the accumulated dust, the broken rubble, the glass shards.
She traced his hair, his cheeks, his ears with gentle hands—softly murmured his na again and again—humd a cheerful little tune—blushed—and told him how much she liked him, how much she'd missed him, how happy she was to see him, how wonderful it felt every ti she kissed him.
If she could say these things to him in person—looking him in the eyes—what did it matter that the Ring Letter's little act of spying had happened at all?
Draco realised he would always prefer her words said directly to his face, with those beautiful eyes looking back at him.
This direct, honest, beautiful feather—like the finest brush—was setting aside her boundless shyness, filling in everything that had been left hollow. She was nding him, and she didn't even know she was doing it.
He stared at the ceiling. A smile—a real one—finally crossed his face, and a flicker of joy lit up his eyes.
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