Catalyst

Disclaimer: None of it\'s mine.

The morning after the fateful Halloween party, Hermione awoke to the rosy glow of dawn filling the room. Groaning and pulling her pillow over her face, she quickly realized it was no use. Draco’s snoring had reached a truly notable decibel level and she found herself wide awake. She pulled herself from the bed, casting an indignant look at the wizard who was evidently enjoying a deep slumber in her bed.

After pulling on a robe and making a trip to the bathroom, she shuffled towards the door, heading for the kitchen. She put on a kettle for tea and settled on the sofa with a book while she waited, curled up in a blanket. Unsettling herself only briefly for the teakettle, she spent the better part of the next few hours absorbed in her book. Eventually she felt herself nodding off as the book dropped from her hands.

“Granger.” A raspy voice sounded somewhere above her.

She cracked an eye open.

“Why on earth would you move out here to sleep?” Draco was standing before her, wearing a skeptical expression and little else as he spoke. He still had on the tattered breeches of his costume, falling low across his hips, and his arms were folded across his bare chest.

“Someone was snoring rather symphonically in my bed,” she informed him, dredging up as much disdain as she could, given the circumstances. As it was, she was having a hard time focusing given the vision before her. He looked impossibly sexy in his half-dressed state, his hair wildly mussed and his eyes flashing in annoyance.

He turned abruptly, stomping from the room.

“Malfoy?”

There was no reply. Moments later he popped back around the corner, eye patch back in position, sword in one hand, and what appeared to be a bottle of hangover potion in the other. He used the sword to slice to dramatically slice the lid off the potion bottle, gulping it down and tossing it aside.

“Draco…” She looked at him warningly.

“I don’t think,” he began, his face impassive, “that I care for your tone this morning.”

He walked towards her slowly. She rolled her eyes, unimpressed.

“Oh, please-“ she began, annoyed, only to find herself lifted and slung over his shoulder. She balled her fists up and hammered his back, clamoring to be put down.

“Quiet, wench.”

Upon entering the room, he kicked the door shut behind them, essentially slamming it in the face of one very disgruntled cat. He ignored the vocal protestations of both Crookshanks and Hermione, tossing her on the bed and pinning her arms above her head with one hand while setting the sword aside with the other. She glared up at him, eliciting an arched eyebrow in response.

“As I suspected.” He gave her a wicked smile. “It’s definitely time to clarify our roles.”

“They were costumes, Draco,” she snapped, cut off by his hand over her mouth.

“Enough.” His grey eyes, or at least the one not covered by an eye patch, were glittering with triumph. His gaze drifted lower, settling on the opening of her robe. With the defiant smile of a naughty child, he deliberately pulled at the sash, pushing the two sides of her robe apart with ease.

“Much better.”

She glared at him over his hand, struggling to protest but only succeeding in sounding a muffled grunt. He laughed softly, using his other hand to trace the lines of her newly revealed skin. Her resolve faltered as his hands moved deftly over her body. She could feel her breathing growing shallow and her previously straining muscles go limp as the sensation of his gentle touches washed over her, his graceful fingers shamelessly exploring the most sensitive areas of her nude body.

Evidently he noticed her reaction as well, as he looked up, the corner of his mouth twitching in a slight smirk.

“Eager, are we? Kinky, Granger. I knew you’d like a bit of role playing.” He watched her contemplatively for a moment. “I’m going to remove my hand now.” He spoke slowly. “Are you going to behave, my little coquette?”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, but found herself nodding as he pulled his hand away.

“Good.” He stood and began to shed his remaining clothing, his grey eyes trained intently upon her even as he did so.

“Wait!”

He froze, alarmed at the urgency of her voice.

“Could you, erm, leave the patch on?” Her voice was barely audible as she blushed furiously, screwing her eyes shut and turning away slightly in embarrassment.

His previously respectable level of arousal went soaring as he watched the flushed witch struggle with the words. His erection was positively throbbing now, red, swollen, and leaking with fluid as he reached down to take hold of it, unable to suppress a moan of relief at the contact of his own hand.

“Granger,” he rasped, “open your eyes.”

She did, rolling towards him, and found herself instantly pinned beneath his firm, heated body. He settled quickly within the cradle of her hips, preparing to slide into her heated entrance, when she wrapped her legs around him and thrusting her own hips against his own, joining them instantly. She gasped as his weeping arousal seared into her, stretching and filling her slick channel.

Hermione looked up to meet his gaze, a breathy little whimper escaping her lips as she did. The pale silk of his hair was impossibly mussed, rivaling Harry’s untidy strands on his worst day, while his expression was strained as he fought his arousal, a muscle twitching near his jaw. His right eye was smoky with desire and trained intently upon her face and the eye patch covered his left. He looked every bit the part of the merciless marauder, plundering and using her for twisted pleasure.

She moaned softly and rocked against him, pleading without words. He said nothing in response, but managed to look complacent even in his heightened state of arousal as he began to thrust his hips against hers, his jaw dropping slightly as he moved. Despite his desperation to maintain the façade of a ruthless outlaw, he couldn’t contain the low groans and soft grunts plunged into her.

He leaned forward, his lips just next to her ear, his breathing heated against her neck.

“You love it,” he whispered harshly. “You love being at my mercy, totally helpless to my sinister intentions.”

She shivered at his words and the husky tone of his voice and he had to fight from coming on the spot as he felt her begin to contract around his throbbing, almost painful, erection. He reached between their bodies, sliding his fingers to where they were joined and locating the tiny bundle of nerves that was now swollen and begging for stimulation. As he manipulated it, perhaps with a bit more force than usual, he leaned in once again.

“I told you that I’d be the only one to besmirch your honor.” There was no denying the satisfaction in his strained voice this time.

Hermione felt the coil of tension break, gasping for breath as she flew over the edge. It took little more than the rhythmic contractions of her tight channel around his overheated arousal to trigger his own orgasm. His breath was hot in her ear as he panted and moaned, his hips thrusting weakly as he emptied himself into her, collapsing after he was spent and burying his face in her neck.

“Draco?” Hermione’s voice was tentative as she broke the silence after several minutes.

“Mmm.” He appeared to be half asleep.

“How much do you remember about last night? I mean, you remember all that besmirching nonsense that you said.”

He grunted in response.

“I was just wondering if you remembered anything else from later in the evening.”

He rolled away from her slightly, forcing his eyes open and looking at her blearily.

“Is there a point to this little inquisition?” His words were harsh but his eyes were softened with affection as he regarded her.

She squirmed uncomfortably, unsure of how to play it off now that it was evident he had no memory of referring to her as the woman he loved. She supposed that she should drop the subject as gracefully as possible, but the question of the truth of the statement had been gnawing at her ever since he’d said it.

“Well,” she began carefully. “You just said something that you’d never said before.”

“Did I?” He sounded totally unconcerned. “What was it?”

“Just something that you called me.”

“Like a nickname?”

“Not exactly. More of a reference to our relationship.” Her cheeks were positively burning now.

He tilted his face towards hers, looking more interested suddenly.

“Well. I’m sure I wouldn’t have said whatever it was had I been sober.”

Her face fell and he suppressed a smile, now confident that he had been right in his inferences of her cryptic remarks.

“But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t entirely true,” he finished, dropping a gentle kiss on her cheek.

Her brown eyes snapped to his face. His lips were curved into the lazy smile that never failed to set her heart aflutter.

“Are we definitely talking about the same thing here?”

He sighed. “I can only assume from your rather ineloquent clues that you are referring to some sort of confession of an emotional sort, which leaves few options, really.” He looked at her speculatively. “I do, you know. You know the saying, I’m sure. In vino veritas.” His silvery grey eyes were lit with a depth of emotion that left her breathless.

She scooted closer to him, burrowing against his chest. “I do too,” she whispered, almost inaudibly, as she felt his arms close around her, holding her tight as she breathed deeply of his scent. He pulled one of the soft blankets over their cooling bodies as they drifted off into a decadent mid-morning nap.


*A/N*: Sorry so short, but I wanted this event to stand alone. The L-word, that is, not the pirate sex. Although that too, come to think of it.

Thank you so much to everyone reviewing! I’m glad that (I think…) most of you liked the pirates. Clearly I did (specifically pirate Draco) as he, erm, made quite the reappearance here. In answer to a few questions, the costume they were looking at first was indeed the Leia getup from Star Wars. I’m quite fond of that scene myself. Perhaps it could be used.

Anyhow, pretty please review and thanks for reading!