Uncoffined

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter; I do not earn money by writing this story.

A/N: My utmost thanks to dynonugget and nastygrl for the super fast beta work and all the encouragement.


Uncoffined, Chapter 11

Unexpected

The precious carpet in his study dampened their fall, and for a few seconds, they only looked at each other, still in shock over what had happened.

Then her hands were in his hair pulling him down. Teeth clicking, biting, they took from the other what they could. Draco pushed her skirts up around her waist. The urgency of their movements did not allow the luxury of disrobing. A sharp tug on her neckline widened the diagonal tear that was already splitting her bodice, baring her for him.

Draco sat back on his hunches, looking down on her sprawled out on the study floor, her cheeks tinged pink, chest heaving, curly hair wild around her head. An image flashed through his mind so quickly that he could not grasp and hold on to it to examine it any further, but in that moment, his instincts told him that she was his witch, his female; she had been meant for him since the day she was born. He would reclaim her.

And he would be damned if he would ever let her go.

Towering over her, knees between her thighs, he pulled up his black Death Eater robes and opened his belt.

His cock sprang free, and for a few moments he just knelt there, looking at her with heated eyes.

Their eyes locked, and her arms rose above her head, crossing at the wrists. Her eyes closed, and she tipped her head back against the soft silk of the carpet.

One hand encircled her wrists tightly while the other reached between their bodies, opening her roughly for him.

The pain of his first thrust was exquisite. Hermione made a keening sound that only served to encourage him to take her harder. Her hips were resting on his thighs, tilting them up. The angle made it easy for her to draw her legs toward her chest, opening her core wider for him, to draw him in and keep him close.

Locking her legs around him, she drew her nails over his back, willing him to go faster, to be harsher. When he came, he grasped the back of her thighs and leaned his weight on her legs, folding her in half.

She could feel his warm breath on her neck. Since apparating from the Warren to Malfoy Manor, only minutes had passed.

“I have to go back,” he said against her neck.

She nodded. He had to. And he might not come back.

Draco pushed himself up on his elbows and then to his knees. He retrieved both their wands from where they had fallen on the floor and stood, straightening his robes. After sheathing his wand, he held hers in his hand as if uncertain of what to do.

He finally placed it in the drawer of his desk, where her wand had been kept previously.

“I will not let you go this time.”

Hermione watched in silence as he warded the desk. He took her hand and guided her out of the study and along the halls into the foyer.

For a long minute that was too short for them, he held her.

“Wait for me. I will be back.” Draco kissed her eyes. “If not, the elves will know what to do.”

He had to pry her hands away from his arms in order to step back from her to Apparate.

She stayed silent because there was nothing left to say. The words he had whispered into her ear just before he left echoed in her mind long into the night.

“I think I love you, too,” she said into the empty room. “And I hope you will not hate me.”


***


He did not return that night. After hours of waiting, Hermione went to ‘her’ rooms to shower and change out of the torn robes. The blue guest room had been untouched, awaiting her return. All one hundred and thirty-seven robes were safely stored in the wardrobe, and the silver-backed mirror with matching comb and brush waited for her on the dressing table.

A dark purple and black bruise marred her face where a boot had connected with her cheekbone. Horrified, Nippy had offered salves and potions to heal her, but Hermione had declined. The very real sting of physical pain made the pain in her heart more bearable.

His study was not accessible to her, so she went to the small private drawing room where Draco had read to her or had watched her read many hours, an arm curled around her, his hand tracing her side or stomach or the bones in her hand.

She curled up on the wide sofa in front of the fireplace wrapped in a soft blanket that smelled of him and stared into the flames until sleep took her in the end.

She did not know any longer which side she hoped would win.

She did not know.

And it frightened her.


***


He did not return the next day or the day after that. The manor was silent, waiting with her. Even the portraits that had been eager to voice their discontent with her unworthy presence had fallen into muteness, regarding her with unveiled interest as she aimlessly wandered from salon to salon, heart heavy.

The woven unicorn sensed her distress and followed her from tapestry to tapestry. It made an effort to stay visible to her even when trotting through a magical forest and tried to make her smile by jumping over a bubbling spring of silvery thread like a playful filly.

All over the British Isle, the resistance was causing panic and mayhem, ripping holes into the finely-spun net of Death Eaters. She neither knew the entire strategy, nor places or timings. Useful as this game of double blind was, she feared that someone might have miscalculated – sweet Merlin, for all she knew it could have been Lavender Brown doing the calculations on which this uprising was based.

Hermione buried her head in her hands. She prayed that this was not the final flailing of a body doomed to rot and decay. Could a decimated society like theirs even sustain several days of fighting without extinguishing themselves?

Or was it already over? Was she the only one left in her magic castle, cut off from a reality that might be too harsh to endure?

On the third day, she stood in the library before the portrait of the wizard who had once so rudely rejected her.

“Sir?”

The venerable Lord Malfoy arched a white blond brow.

“May I ask you a question, sir?”

He nodded curtly, not speaking, but not turning his back on her, either. Hermione took a fortifying breath.

“What will happen if ... if the current Lord Malfoy dies?”

The wizard looked stricken but composed himself quickly.

“The manor will shut down until the rightful heir comes to claim it.”

She had not noticed any change in the building, but what exactly did shutting down mean? Literally closing the shutters in front of the many windows, shutting out the light and elements? Or would this be more of a magical concealment? Was she to wait like sleeping beauty for the one and only person to be able to break through the wards to deliver her from her prison?

“What ... what if there is no heir?”

The portrait no longer tried to hide his concern and shifted nervously.

“Draco has not returned to the manor for several days.”

“Yes,” she confirmed, although he had not spoken in a questioning tone.

“He left in a state of great distress.”

“Yes.”

“He is alive. The manor wards have not change.”

“Thank you.”

Hermione turned to leave, hoping that Draco was hiding or had been captured and was being treated well. The possibility that the resistance had lost and he was too busy torturing her friends to come home was inconceivable. The possibility that her friends could be the ones torturing him flashed before her eyes as a horrific, but not entirely impossible, scenario.

“Miss?” Hermione turned back to face the portrait. “There will always be an heir. The Malfoys do not die out. The family magic and the manor make sure of it.”

Hermione furrowed her brow at the cryptic statement but nodded nonetheless before she left the library.

She turned and leaned heavily against the door of Draco’s study. She always felt close to him here. Her head traced the polished door handle. How many Heads of the Malfoy family had touched this piece of metal, had sat behind the large desk and contemplated business, family matters and probably the Dark Arts, if she wanted to be truthful with herself.

The door handle gave way under the slight pressure of her hand and the door swung open. In an instant her heart dropped, thinking Draco must have died for the wards to admit her. But the wards would have shut down not open up, would they not?

Hermione took a few careful steps into the room. These were blood wards. How could the one at the door simply melt away?

The Elizabethan Lord Malfoy who had talked to her in the library only minutes ago now took up the frame of a fearful-looking witch in stiff Victorian robes.

“As I said, there will always be a Malfoy heir, Miss, the family magic will ensure it.”

Blood wards.

“Even though we tend to emphasise the purity of our lineage, I assure you that there are more important issues. The family understands that and has done so in the past. Repeatedly.”

Hermione felt light-headed.

The blood wards melted away at her touch.

There will always be a Malfoy heir.

Survival of the family before purity.

Her hand went to her stomach.

“Draco must be in mortal peril for the wards to allow the mother of the heir access.”

It was too much.

She blinked away the tears and stumbled to the desk. The drawer gave way without the slightest resistance.

She had to go.

The truth would come out, and he would hate her. Hate her so much.

Hate them.

She would not know how to forgive herself, then how could he?

Her wand was in her hand when she heard the sound of apparition in the room.

Draco stood, robes torn and smeared with blood, skin marred and streaked with dirt. The very light blond of his hair was dark and caked from a cut just above his left ear.

He looked at her, startled, taking in her distraught appearance, the tears on her face and the wand in her hand.

“Jeanne?”

“I am sorry,” she said. “So sorry.” Her voice broke, and she disappeared before his very eyes, out of his study and once more out of his life.

Draco was unable to move and stared numbly at his desk, where Jeanne had stood mere seconds ago.

There was no time to perform the necessary apparition tracking spells. The resistance was only minutes behind him and without her; he did not want to run.

A solitary crack announced the arrival of a wizard outside the gates and the wards shivered as they were attacked.

The repeated cracking as more and more members of the resistance appeared told him it was time for a decision.

The wards would hold as long as he lived, and some of his ancestors had indeed closed themselves off from the world until governments had changed, generations had passed and any digression on the part of a Malfoy had been conveniently forgotten. The Malfoy family had risen from the ashes like a phoenix more than once.

Draco directed his steps to the main entrance door and opened it resolutely. He lowered the wards and a few of the wizards at the border to his property lost their footing upon the unexpected loss of resistance.

The former High Reeve of South East England stood in his battle-worn robes before them. Regal, as if greeting his guests for the annual charity ball. His arm made a sweeping gesture towards the inside of the house.

“Gentlemen,” he said, voice steady, inviting the resistance into his childhood home.


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