Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (16/39)
Author: moirasfate/ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Plot driven smut, Darkfic, Romance, Drama, Angst...
Warnings: M/F, Bondage, slight non-con, niche play, Dark!Draco, and HBP spoilers.
Summary: Post-Hogwarts - Hermione Granger fulfills Severus Snape's final wish, to journey to Japan to ‘retrieve' something of importance. Set eleven years after HBP.
Author's Notes: This is my first DM/HG ficlet, so please be kind to the newbie! The title of this fic is taken from C.S. Lewis' book, first in the Perelandra Chronicles.

Many thanks to kazfeist for improving this chapter!



Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter Sixteen - Of blood, pity and subtle emotions.



In some myths, Vulcan, or Hephaestus, was said to have been married to the goddess of love, Venus, and so suspicious Vulcan was of his wife that he constructed a fine metal net to catch his wife and her lover in the act of adultery. Thus Vulcan caught Venus and Mars in a compromising position with his net and carried the naked couple to the feet of the gods, demanding justice for his love spurned. The myth ended with Vulcan being abashed as the gods laughed at him and his suspicious nature. Other myths spoke of many wrongs done to Vulcan by the goddesses, including his mother who cast him out of the heavens for she found Vulcan so foul to look upon. In every case, it was safe to assume that Vulcan had a love/hate sentiment when it came to women in general. He was crippled and ugly, but Vulcan was also strong and possessed genius that could out shine the other gods. Even so no one loved him.

Perhaps it was this bitterness, this neurosis, that possessed Draco Malfoy, playing upon already present emotions inside his mind, which drove him to arrogate control over the woman beneath him. Perhaps his new appendage and the likelihood of its creator being who he was, forced Draco to feel bitter about Hermione Granger's resistance to his advances. However, Vulcan was far more merciful than Draco Malfoy, and the alien voice in Draco's head told him to stop...stop hurting himself by hurting the woman that he would call his.

And so Draco pulled back, his mouth bloody from his own wounds which were caused by forcing his luck by harming Hermione, and he pulled back because he was in physical pain, the arm burning unpleasantly and twisting deeper into his sinew and bone. One hand of flesh and one hand of metal rested on either side of Hermione's dripping head, still wet from the bath, and Draco groaned as he felt his cock pulse and his left shoulder ache.

You want her to love you, don't you?

No...I just want her...

But like this?

I don't care.

Hermione sighed through ragged lips, her head feeling as heavy as a boulder. She could taste a mixture of her blood and the blood of the man who hovered above her, his hips resting against hers heavily. She felt as if she had been stunned and was just rising above the affects of a nasty hex, she wanted to vomit and she wanted to sleep. Her body tingled as the feeling returned to her limbs, and overall it was unpleasant. Finally, two minutes passed as Draco only hovered over her damp body, his erection flagging, Hermione had the strength to raise her right hand and punch Draco squarely in the nose.

Blood spurted obscenely as Draco came out of his state of trance, falling off the bed again, clutching his now broken nose. Hermione felt Draco's blood on her face and breasts, but she did not move from where she lay, and felt no pity for the nude man whimpering on the cold wooden floor by the bed. There was no condition that she could not harm him, and she knew that if she did not feel so ill she would like very much to mangle his beautiful face beyond any sort of human recognition.

Draco rolled about on the floor, spilling his blood all over the wooden slats and white rug by the bedside. He groaned, and Hermione did nothing as he made it to his feet and stumbled into the bathroom, muttering curses in a strange, strangled voice. Hermione shut her eyes, waves of nausea ebbing and flowing throughout her body.

He had almost raped her, she thought bitterly. Hermione had clearly sensed in her subdued state that something had stopped him from violating her. As the nausea subsided, Hermione smirked to herself, her lips stinging. She had definitely defended herself with a nice right jab...which was very satisfying indeed.

Moments later Draco re-entered the bedroom, the blood cleansed from his alabaster skin, and his nose healed. It was disappointing to Hermione that magic had to be so handy.

"Get up."

Hermione blinked, feeling that all the moisture from her body had soaked into the comforter on the bed, and despite how cold she was laying nude in the cool air, she did not want to consider moving.

"Sod off," Hermione croaked, the taste of blood becoming a bit more than unpleasant against her tongue.

Draco snarled, his face twisting horribly in the light falling from the bathroom door to his left. "Get up, Granger, you need to be healed and dried."

Again, Hermione blinked. This was not what she had expected. No, she had expected Draco to cast her out of the bedroom without so much as an apology or a movement to appear somewhat regretful. Hermione began to move slowly, but too slowly as Draco moved to the bed and snatched up her left arm, pulling her forcefully to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Stay."

Hermione frowned; she knew Draco hated her, but to command her to 'stay' like some canine was a bit too degrading. Draco moved back to the bathroom, and Hermione could hear him shuffling about. When he returned he had donned a white bathrobe and thrown a damp towel at Hermione's face. Hermione caught the towel and began dabbing at the blood that was beginning to congeal on her face and breasts.

"My wand would have sufficed," Hermione intoned bitterly and blinked as Draco moved into the bathroom again, to return with her wand, tossing it on the bed at her side. At this, Draco left the bedroom for the sitting room, and by the sound of glass clinking, Hermione knew that Draco was helping himself to the mini-bar. It simply would not do if Draco were to become any more inebriated, but by this point, Hermione could only hope that he would drink himself into oblivion and leave her alone.

Painfully, Hermione rose to her feet and puttered into the bathroom, snatching the only other bathrobe from behind the door and pulling it on to cinch it tightly about her waist. In the now unfogged mirror, Hermione surveyed what Draco had done to her lips and needless to say, it was not pretty. Wiggling her wand which she had extracted from her pile of clothing on the floor, Hermione sealed the bites and gashes in her sore lips, wishing with all her might that she were home and in her own lavatory with her own stock of healing salves and potions. She was homesick, and knew that Millie and Neville were probably worrying themselves sick over her absence and lack of communication.

Limping from the bathroom, Hermione flicked her wand to clean the blood from the floor, noting that bloody, Malfoy-sized footprints were tracked into the sitting room as well. Drying and cleaning the bed with several waves of her wand, Hermione forced herself to move into the sitting room where Draco sat on the couch, a line of small bottles of wine and liquor littering the coffee table before him. For a long moment, Hermione stared at the back of Draco's dishevelled blond head, wishing that he were someone else. There were a handful of other men Hermione would have preferred to be in her presence at the moment.

"Your jab is still painful, Granger," Draco muttered from the couch, not bothering to turn and look at her. Hermione could not help but smirk. Of all the men she had ever known, Draco Malfoy had been on the receiving end of her fist more than once.

"You should see my upper cut," Hermione mumbled, wondering if it were wise to start a conversation with the volatile wizard while he was indulging in more drinking. A drunken Draco Malfoy was more unpredictable than a sober one.

"I'm sure if we continue suffering each other's presence, I will see it," Draco grumbled, opening another miniature bottle of wine from La Vis, a local winery and pouring it down his throat like a bitter potion.

Hermione's eyes fell to the floor and the bloody footprints. Again, she flicked her wand and the blood disappeared. There had been so much blood that night, and it made Hermione think that she had seen too much blood in her lifetime... She was not squeamish about blood; she had never had time to consider the fact that it could have disgusted her, even during the War. There had been times, all those years ago, when Hermione had to literally wade through blood, particularly at the Battle of Little Hangleton, and even then Hermione did not mind, as she was more concerned about surviving.

Harry had never gotten over his dislike for the sight of blood, and Hermione remembered that Harry, despite being one of the strongest people Hermione had ever known was more susceptible to becoming ill at the sight of the smallest amount of blood. Harry dreamt of blood, smelled it constantly, which only revealed how mentally frayed he was becoming during the War. Even after the War, when Hermione was laid up in the hospital, Harry could not stand to stay long enough to visit for the smell of blood permeated everything in the field hospitals set up after St. Mungo's was inundated with casualties. Hermione wondered about Harry then, after not thinking about him for what seemed like ages. Hermione smiled to herself sadly, wondering if he had fainted at the sight of blood when Harry's first child was born...Sirius James Potter, now nearly nine and living a happy life in South America...

Hermione's breath shuddered as she exhaled. Harry had moved on...without her or Ron. They were no longer the 'Golden Trio,' but a part of their collective past sat on the red couch drinking himself into an early grave when everyone believed he had passed on long before Tom Riddle or even the man's sire. Hermione felt her eyes prickle with tears and wondered why.

She felt pity for him, but not so much that she would allow herself to feel anything more than such a base emotion merely the simplest level of pity... He was strong and weak, very misunderstood and unstable, and Hermione knew that he had allowed himself to feel as if he needed her. Why else would he stipulate that she stay by his side? There were various, even obvious reasons. He wanted to re-establish himself and with Hermione Granger's help, Draco Malfoy would do so. All the things he had said to Yuki Matsumoto that last night in Japan had been true and Hermione could see no other option than to let herself be used in that capacity...

However, Hermione wondered at Draco Malfoy. He had taken advantage of her by taking her to bed that night at the ryokan. She could not think of it as 'making love' because there was no 'love' involved, and if she wanted to think of that night for what it truly was, Hermione would have to crudely say: the night she let Draco Malfoy 'fuck' her. It was raw and impassioned, more so out of need and the affects of alcohol, but the 'need' part was what troubled Hermione. Draco Malfoy's insufficient ways of persuading her to let him once again 'fuck' her had been ineffectual to put it mildly, and now he was drinking more alcohol for no other reason than to soothe his spurned libido or so it seemed as Hermione saw it.

Granted, Hermione had enjoyed his attentions, as sadistic as they were, that night at the ryokan; the gods knew that Hermione had been celibate for too long. The way he had taken her, subdued and bound, had aroused her so much more than any thing any man she had been with had done. Hermione was not one to demand anything from a man who found his way into her bed, and she knew that it was wrong of her to be so submissive to the whims of past lovers. Perhaps that was why she had always walked away from relationships so unsatisfied.

Of course, the idea of ever being in anything other than a semi-business relationship with Draco Malfoy was ludicrous. He was not someone Hermione thought she could ever love, let alone like enough to invite over for tea. He did have that dangerous 'bad boy' appeal, but Hermione Granger was not far from turning thirty, and all of her romantic, schoolgirl fantasies had been driven out of her after she dated Ronald Weasley...

So why did Hermione, much to her dismay, feel an itch deep in her womb and a hot damp sensation between her thighs just by thinking that Draco Malfoy could give her something no man ever could? She was barking, that was what she was! Even as she leaned against the doorjamb, gazing at the lamplight from the table beside the couch casting warm light into his silvery hair, Hermione felt as if she would not mind having Draco Malfoy do what he said he had wanted to do earlier. Provided he knew that any unnecessary or unwelcome roughness would be rewarded with not only a broken nose, but a broken jaw as well. She was barking mad, and she knew it...he had almost raped her, he had hexed her it seemed with the use of his enchanted prosthetic, and he had shown himself to be as unstable as building a house on a foundation of sand. So why did Hermione rub her thighs together to try to abate the ache in her sex?

Hermione's eyes fogged slightly, wanting nothing more than to press Draco Malfoy's smug, angelic face to her clit and have him lick. Hermione sighed, and then blinked furiously as she felt a strange niggling presence at the edge of her mind.

"You surprise me, Granger," Draco said in a velvety purr, and Hermione realized that he had turned on the couch and was smirking triumphantly, his eyes locked on her flushed face.

How soon she had forgotten how well trained he was, but she did not force his presence out. Should she tease the equivalent of a mad dog or simply lock him out of the bedroom and bring herself to completion by her own means? What had come over her? Was it the fact that her own thoughts were suddenly not her own, and she was seeing a scenario playing itself behind her eyes thanks to a certain Draco Malfoy?

In her mind's eye, she saw herself writhing on the bed, a silver haired figure between her thighs lapping at her pussy like a cat lapping milk. She saw herself riding him, his face a picture of ecstasy, moving to raise up to clamp his teeth on her pert right nipple...

"Stop..." Hermione panted, falling against the doorframe, trying to break the spell that had Draco Malfoy overwhelming her mind. She had had her eyes closed, and opening them, she saw two of Draco standing over her, his face only inches from hers. When had he left the couch, she wondered idly.

"You could have it so good, Granger... I could give it to you, if you only asked," Draco whispered huskily, his hands clutching her shoulders and pulling her closer. "However you wanted it, Granger...I could give it to you."

Hermione licked her sore lips, and again tried to force out the image of Draco Malfoy's glistening cock sliding in and out of her body, pounding into her shivering body from behind.

"All I ask is that you let me have you...wherever and whenever..."

Hermione groaned softly, her will bending as the image of Draco Malfoy's face wet from her essence, his tongue teasing the puckered ring of flesh, his hands holding her legs up, her knees on either side of her head as he lavished his attentions on a part of her body that most men she had been with avoided. His eyes were hooded and darkened with desire as he flicked his long, pink tongue sending shivers through Hermione's imagined form and into the very corporeal form that crumpled against the Draco Malfoy who held her in the door way to the bedroom.

"We could make our current arrangement into something far more pleasurable for the both of us if only you give the word..."

Oh, how she wanted to just say the word and feel everything that she was seeing in her mind, but Hermione knew...she knew that there was nothing more to Draco Malfoy's words than simple lust, and that was something that did not settle well with Hermione. She knew that all Draco Malfoy held for her besides hatred was lust, and that was as fleeting as a warm breeze in a winter blizzard.

It was silly, perhaps, but Hermione wanted to be loved and cherished for who she was and not used as a casual 'fuck buddy.' As tempting as it was, the images coming quicker now, Hermione knew that Draco Malfoy was the last person in the world that would love her or care for her beyond a good shag.

Slowly, and almost hesitantly, Hermione forced Draco from her mind and stumbled back into the bedroom and out of his cold arms.

"You hate me," Hermione stated firmly, her vision clearer, but her body weak and the scent of her arousal assaulting her nose like an accusatory finger that she had almost given in. It was frustrating, she wanted him, but she did not want him...and her body was screaming out at her to just forget that he was not someone to invest any real emotions in.

Draco leaned his silver shoulder against the doorframe in the place of where Hermione had been standing, his face passive, but his eyes catching the combined light from the lamp in the sitting room and the light streaming through the bathroom door.

"So you say," Draco answered, his voice hushed as he gazed at her with as much tenderness as he could muster.

"You have said so yourself, and again I ask you: if you hate me so, why do want to even touch me with some semblance of desire?"

Hermione grasped at the front of her robe, pulling the lapels together to hide as much as her skin as possible.

"I can hate you and still want you, can't I?"

Hermione shook her head. "The fact that you hate me makes me want to hex you, and because you seem to want me makes me want to run from you, damn the consequence of the ridiculous oath I took with you."

"But our feelings for each other are mutual, Granger. We hate each other, but we want to indulge in each other, can't we just do that?"

Hermione sighed. "I would hate myself if I did that."

Draco smirked, his lips curling slightly at the corners of his mouth. "Don't you already hate yourself, Granger?" he purred.

Hermione pursed her lips. "No. I'm not like you."

"Ah, a low blow. Shall we now resort to a verbal spat? Does it turn you on, Granger?"

"Stop it."

"I want you, now...you, Hermione Granger...Mud-Muggleborn. For the time being, do you not want those attentions?"

Hermione said nothing, holding her robe a bit looser. She could not deny her instinctual urge to jump on Draco Malfoy, wrap her legs, lame and all, around his slim hips, and pierce her body on his flesh.

"I would regret it later, when you are through with me, and I can get on with my life. I will think about how I was stupidly weak, and you'll be laughing all the way to your grave remembering how you bedded the Mudblood who was nothing more than a passing fancy," Hermione muttered bitterly.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Before that night at the ryokan I had not been with a woman in years..." Draco muttered bitterly in return, crossing two arms before his chest.

"I don't believe you."

Draco chuckled. "I expected you wouldn't. But who would want to be with a broken, maimed wizard unless I paid them? Even as a teenager I had no problems wooing a silly little Hufflepuff or daring Gryffindor to my bed deep in the Hogwarts dungeons, but I was whole then, stupid and young. Do you want me to pour my heart out to you, Granger? Tell you what it is like to lower myself to buy a cheap whore in Edo only to see disgust in her eyes as I emptied myself on her face?

Shall I tell you about my sexual escapades, about my first time or the last time before you in excruciating detail? Shall I tell you that I have never loved anyone because no one has ever loved me? Shall I lie to you and tell you that I raped Pansy because she deserved it? She did not deserve that monster of a husband she was forced to take, and I freed her by filling her womb with my seed? That she knew who I was and lamented to the point she took her own life?"

By now, Draco was shouting, but stood stock still in his pose leaning against the door, his arms clutching each other before his wide chest.

"Shall I tell you that I want you because you have always been the one I have wanted? The one I always wanted to humiliate, the one I have always wanted to dominate? Shall I also tell you that I wanted to lose myself in you those last months before I unleashed Greyback and the others upon Hogwarts?"

Hermione flinched, and backed away so that her back knocked against the frame of the French doors leading out to the snow-covered balcony. Draco's face was crumpling, and his chest was heaving under his arms. His face was flushed from intoxication and raw emotion, and even his eyes glistened with unshed tears. Hermione was more frightened than sympathetic, and was glad that her wand was tucked in the pocket of her robes.

"Shall I tell you that you were my ideal, as bossy, pathetic and weak as you were?" Draco said softly, his voice beginning to falter. "And now, you're here, with me...all grown up and alive after a War I was too much of a coward to participate in...on either side. And you're beautiful and refined, wearing your battle scars with dignity, while I...I was hidden away because I was a liability, a burden and a shame to everyone and everything.

You see why I hate you, Granger? You see why I want you?"

Hermione could not open her mouth to say a word fit enough to be heard. This pitiful man who stood in the doorway could not meet her eyes, and every time that he said the word 'hate' he really meant 'love' in some twisted fashion that Hermione could not begin to understand. It was agony to look at him, his true emotions now playing over his clouded face as plain as day, and Hermione felt her lower lip trembling. The power of Draco Malfoy's words made her want to weep. She wanted to cry for him and for so many other people...just as she had cried many times over Severus and herself.

She realized that Draco Malfoy was mad, and perhaps had been raised to be so merely by circumstance and by his family situation, which had formed him into the man he was at that very moment. He was mad in the sense that he had been deprived of much and saturated with too few things that a normal family could and should have given him. Had he been in another's place, would he have grown into a man like Ron Weasley or Neville Longbottom, both Purebloods; into a man who knew the love of family and friends, lovers and wives? Would he have never taken the Dark Mark, to end up maimed and secreted away for eleven years? There were too many 'what ifs,' and Hermione knew that now, as she stood on the opposite side of the room of her oath bound companion, there was little that could be said or done for Draco Malfoy.

He was lost, and he was very aware of the fact. It was startling, but Hermione knew that he could only see his salvation and redemption in her...the one he loved and hated the most in the entire world. What could be done?

Nothing...from what Hermione could see.

Besides feeling pity, Hermione felt frightened, unsure, and unsafe around Draco Malfoy, but as an undercurrent to all of that, she felt attraction and arousal. Beneath her fear and loathing, she wanted, somewhere deep inside, to be near him. It was surely the affects of the oath, but Hermione could not be completely certain anymore. In any case, she wanted to succumb to Draco's declarations, take him in her arms and tell him...tell him that he had been forgiven and that it is never too late to make his needs, his wants, into something more than dreams. Hermione did not say these things aloud, her eyes searching the floor, but she felt as if the air between them changed, and she felt as if whatever malice Draco had for her melted away.

Pushing off the doorframe, Hermione stood to her full height, her eyes searching Draco's troubled face, his eyes glued to the floor beneath his bare feet. She wanted him because she needed to feel something more than pity and discomfort, and most of all the ever-present loneliness that flowed over her soul day after day since Harry and Ron had distanced themselves from her in their own search for belonging.

Moving to the right side of the bed, Hermione pulled back the comforter to slip inside. Untying the sash of her robe, she shrugged off the terry cloth and shivered.

She had known love and care while Draco Malfoy had only an inkling of what it could mean. Just for tonight, Hermione would relent.

She slipped under the cool covers and rolled to her left side, studying Draco who had tears dripping from his long eyelashes, his shoulders squared and his flesh and false arm clutching his elbows fiercely. Hermione took a breath, and then two more, she knew she might regret it and prove herself to be making a huge mistake, but something besides her libido was screaming out to her...

"Shut the lights out, Draco, and come to bed," she whispered softly, her voice floating across the space between them and caressing Draco's ear like a soothing melody.



* * *



She pities you.

I don't care right now.

She is your woman.

Yessss...

Draco kissed her lips with a tenderness that seemed totally out of character, but Hermione did not mind too much. His fingers, flesh and metal, were in her hair, cradling her skull gently as he plundered her mouth, his tongue teasing hers and tasting her mouth. She tasted like wine and blood, and Draco groaned as he began to taste his own wine that he had drunk earlier in her mouth.

Her thighs were on either side of his hips, and the wet juices that were so warm against his lower belly were flowing so freely that Draco's turgid cock twitched as it seeped down through his thatch of pale pubic hair. He moaned as she wrapped her slender arms about his neck and pulled his chest against the globes of her breasts. Mouth trailing fire down her throat, Hermione closed her eyes as Draco pulled his right hand from her hair to grasp her left breast in his large palm. Resting his weight on his new left elbow, he lifted himself to look down at his partner in the nightglow of Trento from beyond the glass of the French doors. Her breast was a bit too large to fit completely in his hand, and as he squeezed the mound of flesh, the nipple poking out from between his middle and ring fingers, Draco bent down to take the pebbled flesh between his lips.

Hermione sighed, and buried her fingers into the hair at the back of his head, savouring the silky luxury of his blond tresses as he circled his wicked tongue around her aureole. She had never liked her breasts much, too large and a bit saggy, but it did not matter too much at that point as none other than Draco Malfoy was paying homage to those breasts like a reverent devotee to the divine image of Woman.

Moving to honour the other breast, Draco held it with his left hand which was cold and made Hermione's nipple harden instantly. Hermione did not want to think about that silver hand touching her, and then she thought of nothing as Draco snaked his right hand down along her body, fingers spreading her labia and flicking her clit roughly.

Hermione began moaning, unable to control her voice any longer, her heart beginning to pound painfully in her chest. Biting down slightly on her nipple, Draco grinned into her breast as he thrust a long digit inside Hermione's quivering and very slick pussy. Eliciting a squeak and a deep moan, Draco licked a path down her belly, pushing the covers on his back off the two of them, the cool air making the hair on his right arm rise. Slipping a second digit inside, Draco knelt between her legs, pressing his thumb against her clit. The response was ever so favourable in Draco's darkened eyes as he pumped his fingers into his woman's body, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. Muscles clamping down tightly, Draco hissed, knowing that if he were to thrust in her just then, it would not be long before he was spent and milked by her body.

Running his silver hand down her chest to her lower belly, he pressed down as her hips began to buck to meet the thrusts of his fingers. Her eyes snapped open as he bent down to press his mouth over her clit, catching the nubbin of flesh between his front teeth. Her body buckled and she sat up despite a strong silver hand on her pelvis as Draco sucked roughly on her clit and pumped his fingers quickly in her body. With another nip, she came...screaming like a woman who had not experienced a true orgasm in her life.

Still panting and convulsing, Hermione whined as Draco pulled his wet fingers free and began licking them with relish, his eyes flashing in the dim light filling the bedroom. With his left hand he spread her legs wider, took his erection in hand, and began stroking it as Hermione started to come down from her sexually charged high. Grasping her wrist, Draco pulled her right hand downward to wrap it around his cock, his silver hand folding over hers to show her how to stroke him and with what pressure.

Hermione met Draco's eyes, expecting to see a smug smirk on his face, but was pleasantly surprised to see his pale brow pinching and his lips parting as she stroked him. Again, Hermione noted that he was wider in girth than long, but still much bigger than most of the men she had ever been with. The combination of velvet softness and pulsing stiffness made Hermione lick her lips and twist her wrist to achieve a specific effect...that made Draco moan raggedly, his head falling back and his eyes squeezing shut tightly. It was empowering to see his face so bared and raw, and to know that she was the one causing him to seem so human...so aroused, and by her, no less.

"Hermione..." he whispered, lowering his sharp chin, his voice sexually charged with an energy that Hermione had never before felt. There was something more to their coupling than lust, Hermione was struck with realization, but she could not identify what it was...

Grasping her wrist and pulling her hand away, Draco smiled, making his face so handsome, nay, beautiful, that Hermione shivered as he leaned forward, his right hand resting next to her shoulder, his left around his erection, rubbing the purple and weeping head across her soaked flesh. Hermione moaned and wrapped a hand around Draco's neck, pulling him closer.

Pressing the tip of his cock against her, Draco released his flesh, and moved too quickly for Hermione to react. He wrapped his arms about her shoulders and devoured her mouth as he thrust inside making Draco swallow Hermione's scream. Arms wrapping about his shoulders and right leg wrapping about his waist, Hermione finally could scream her pleasure as Malfoy bit down into her left shoulder.

They grasped each other as if they were about to be pulled apart, never close enough. Right hand gripping at her thigh, Hermione felt a shimmer of magic pass over her crippled leg, and soon Draco pulled her stiff leg around his waist as well, sending his cock deeper into her body. The pace was rough and hard, and with every pant, Hermione sobbed as Draco alternated between kissing and nipping at her throat. It seemed that if she let go of his shoulders, she was sure she would drown in the sensations that threatened to overwhelm her, stop her heart, and suck the air from her lungs. She felt as if she were dying a wonderful death, moving closer and closer to the blinding light of the other side.

But it was not the 'other side,' as Draco twisted his hips, the tip of his cock pressing against a secret spot that had eluded Hermione for some time now...it was 'la petite morte,' the little death...and Hermione sang out her release, her fingernails digging into Draco's flesh and her voice rising and falling as Draco stilled over her, sweating and panting. The strength left Hermione's arms, and she fell back heavily. Draco pushed himself up, his hair damp tendrils about his face, his lips stained with traces of where he had brought blood from her throat. Hermione buried her face into the side of the pillow under her head, shivering as Draco pulled her legs up so that her knees hooked over his shoulders and his arms wrapped around her thighs.

He said something breathlessly that Hermione could not quite catch in her state of blankness and harsh breathing, and then he began again, the new angle sending new electric sensations down Hermione's spine and to her brain. She could feel sweat in the crooks of her knees and at the small of her back under her body against the bed, but most of all she could feel Draco struggling for control over his own body as he continued his pursuit of making her lose control again and again.

Hermione grasped the bed sheets with both hands as Draco rolled her slightly, gracefully removing her legs from his shoulders and straddling her right thigh, bending her left leg up so that it was crossed over her body. Another angle and Hermione was getting dangerously close to the edge again. The sway of his sac against her thigh was tickling her, but it only added to the growing swell of molten heat in her lower belly. Draco grunted and gasped as Hermione's pussy clutched him at this new position, and he swore loudly and met Hermione's teary eyes. For a long time they gazed at each other, the need very clear in their eyes, and Draco set his jaw and thrust faster making Hermione sob in earnest out of pure frustration that her climax was so close yet so far away.

Another nudge and Draco pulled out of Hermione with an audible pop, only to grasp her hips roughly and pull her upward and around. Hermione was surprised by Draco's display of strength, and soon found herself on her knees, her upper body pulled against Draco's chest and his cock thrusting upward into her body. She choked on a cry as Draco's silver arm wrapped around her body just below her jutting breasts, and his right hand snaked down her belly to began rubbing her clit in jerky and shaky circles.

He was grunting into her right ear, and occasionally rested his sweaty forehead against her shoulder. Hermione was edging closer and closer as Draco pinched her nipples between cold, metallic fingers. Juices flowed thickly from between Hermione's and Draco's thighs as well as dripping to the mattress below their knees, at the scent and feel of it, Draco bit into Hermione's earlobe gently to run the tip of his tongue along the shell of her petite ear. Hermione moaned as her hands found Draco's hips behind her and moved to grasp his buttocks. Draco seemed to chuckle and picked up his pace to the point where his sticky sac began slapping a rhythmic beat against Hermione's body.

"Gods..." he hissed in her ear, his silver hand sliding from her breast to her throat, constricting her breath only slightly. Hermione groaned, grasping Draco's firm bottom tighter, the slick sound of his entrance into her body along with the slap of flesh against flesh filling the room. Pulling her head back with his left hand so that it rested against his neck, Draco applied pressure against her throat causing her to slip into a violent, gasping climax. Draco roared as he pounded up into her body, her inner muscles threatening to push him out. Holding her close, Draco’s roar turned into a sob as he let his seed spill up into Hermione in strong and pulsing spurts, his body far too tempted by Hermione's flesh to hold out any longer. Slipping his hand from her throat, Hermione gasped for breath, still in the throes of her orgasm. She bucked against Draco's spent body; thankful for the hold he had upon her body to help anchor her to the present.

Slowly he released her, letting Hermione fall to the bed and roll onto her back, her legs tangled with his as he fell back onto his haunches, panting with audible gasps and gulps for air. He stared down at her in a mixture of shock and exhaustion, but what he did next startled Hermione and roused her out of the foggy afterglow of her intense release.

Spreading her thighs again, Draco knelt down, kissed the insides of her legs, and immediately clamped his mouth over her oozing orifice. Hermione grunted as she felt his hot tongue enter her, tasting and sucking out the mixture of her arousal and his seed from her body. Surprised was only a little of what Hermione felt as his nose brushed against her red and swollen clit. When he pulled away, he crawled up her body, resting his sticky and spent cock and hips against hers and wrapping his arms about her head, pressing his mouth against hers. Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but soon felt Draco's sticky tongue swish about inside her mouth. His eyes were open and wide, staring eerily down into hers as she swallowed the nectar that flowed from his mouth to hers.

It seemed obscene and forbidden, like a strange dark ritual that had an unknown significance to Draco...tasting their combined fluids, and taking it into their bodies again. Hermione whimpered into Draco's mouth as their tongues battled. Draco blinked his eyes, and the odd _expression in his argent orbs disappeared, and he swallowed what essences were left in his own mouth. Tasting her lips once again, Draco slowly shut his eyes to nibble at Hermione's swollen and dry lips. Ending the kiss, Hermione gasped for breath, the bittersweet taste of their combined juices slipping hotly down her throat. She opened her mouth to question Draco, but he had shifted atop her body, rested his sweaty, shaggy blond head over her heart, and was, within seconds...fast asleep.



* * *



Dawn woke Hermione much earlier than she would have liked, but since they had not pulled the shades over the French doors, the sunlight was harsh as it reflected off the snow on the rooftops beyond the balcony. She woke to find a snoring Draco Malfoy using her left breast as a pillow, and his arms wrapped about her waist. He had not moved from the position he had fallen asleep in all night. Granted they had only gone to sleep a few hours before, but Hermione felt as if Draco had rested his heavy head on her breast for days.

Trying to extract herself from Draco's embrace was proving difficult, for every time Hermione tried to move, his embrace would tighten. The silver arm that was slung across her waist was warm after resting against her heated skin for some time, but it was the arm that tightened as she tried to rise out of bed and dislodge Draco's ragged and sweaty blond head from her breast. As much as she wanted to nip into the bathroom to wash out her dry mouth and use the loo, it seemed she had to physically wake her companion to ever be free of his arms.

After unsuccessfully trying to shake him, pinch him, or speak sternly in his ear, Hermione lay back and sighed. Perhaps if she pissed the bed it would wake him, but Draco rose up suddenly, looking toward the bedroom door.

"There's someone at the door," he announced in a very husky and dry voice, his hair sticking up from his head in every direction, and the back of his long hair resting in tangles against his muscular back.

Hermione sighed in relief as he rose from the bed and donned his robe. In his wake, Hermione escaped to the bathroom to care for herself a bit. Washing her hands, Hermione examined the damage to her skin, bruises dotting her body, some of which seemed almost unexplainable. She stared at her face in the mirror and the chapped skin of her lips. Sighing, she began applying toothpaste to her brush to methodically brush her teeth just as her dentist parents had taught her to do.

She had done it...done it as in slept once again with Draco Malfoy. Did she feel regret?

Surprisingly, no.

Did she feel a bit better toward the companion forced upon her?

Surprisingly, yes.

She did not trust him, per se, but something had changed almost imperceptibly, and she wondered if it had something to do with his treatment of her while in bed. Their episode in the bedroom had seemed so much more emotionally charged, positively charged...

Spitting the paste suds into the bowl of the sink, the water running from the tap, Hermione rinsed her toothbrush and cupped her hand under the facet to rinse her mouth and spit again before searching about for her floss. Pulling almost a meter of floss, Hermione began her routine, all the while staring at her face in the mirror, doing mental checklists.

She would need another contraceptive potion in a week in a half, her monthly coverage slowly beginning to run out. A once-a-month potion of her own creation, and now on the markets for witches, was what she took ever since she had started dating after her fiasco of a relationship with Ron. The potion worked very much like Muggle birth control, and in four days, she would begin her menses. Hopefully in four days she would be home...

Hermione also remembered, with a disenchanted sigh, Draco had mentioned that they were going to a dinner party. Whose dinner party she had yet to find out. Who in the world would invite Draco Malfoy after he had been missing and presumed dead for the last eleven years? And whom did Draco know besides Divina that lived in Italy? It could not be a recent acquaintance, and she remembered Draco alluding to an old friend.

It struck her as she tossed her used floss in the small waste bin under the sink.

Blaise Zabini.

Hermione frowned at herself in the mirror, pulling out her wand to charm the tub to begin filling. She had taken a bath the night before, but the way her skin felt and the way her leg ached, she wanted another bath. Slipping into the bath, sighing at the comfortable scalding warmth she had become accustomed to in Japan, Hermione resumed her thoughts.

Zabini had been a Slytherin in her year, and an acquaintance, if not a friend of Draco's. Zabini had been in the 'Slug Club' with Hermione, but she had never really spoken to him. All that she really remembered of the boy while she had been at Hogwarts was that he was generally quiet, but haughty. She clearly remembered that Ginny had considered Zabini a 'poser,' but as to why, Hermione could not remember.

Blaise Zabini was a tall, black boy with greenish eyes, and from what Hermione remembered about the boy during the War, Zabini had been one who had been decidedly neutral during the whole thing. In fact, before the Battle of Little Hangleton, Zabini had left Britain with his mother to go to her ancestral home in Italy. From what Hermione knew of Zabini's mother, she was a Pureblood and had married at least seven Pureblood wizards, all of which who had died mysteriously and given the Zabini family much of its wealth. As to Blaise's father, no one seemed to know who the man was, but that he was black, tall, and quite rich. Blaise took his father's name, and took his mother's prejudices against Muggleborn and half-blooded witches and wizards.

After the War, Blaise was seen occasionally in Britain at social functions to help the Reconstruction. Although neutral, Zabini contributed money to the rebuilding of much of Diagon Alley and the remodelling of St. Mungo's. The last time Hermione had seen Zabini had been three years before at a charity ball benefitting the establishment of an orphanage for children who had lost their families due to the War. Hermione remembered that Zabini had grown into his tall body, filling out his dress robes handsomely. He had grown his hair long and kept it in long braids with silver beads at the ends. On his arm was another ex-Slytherin Pureblood who had decided to fight on the same side as Hermione and the Order of the Phoenix, one Daphne Greengrass. Hermione also remembered that Millie had spoken well of Daphne, claiming that her family was one of the very few noble Slytherin families in all of Britain.

That was all Hermione knew or remembered about Blaise Zabini, and she wondered if her assumptions were correct and if so, when and how had Draco made himself known to his ex-schoolmate. She sank into the water, wetted her hair and began scrubbing her body from head to toe. By the time she rinsed off, Draco began shouting through the locked and warded door for her to quit holding up the bathroom...and that if she wanted to ever eat again to let him in to use the loo...


With that a long day began, not alluding to the fact that that evening, she would walk into a den of vipers with only Draco, and one other person to make her feel somewhat safe...