Burning Eyes

Don't own anything except the plot.
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I awoke to dappled light stinging my eyes. I looked about gingerly, peering through the branches. My body ached and I felt worse than I had the first time Hermione drank from me. Hermione. Mustering every ounce of will-power I sat up and looked around.

She lay on the ground next to me. My first thought was panic. Oh, Merlin, I've killed her! But I calmed myself enough to really look at her. The barely discernable rise and fall of her chest reassured me. That's when I noticed the faint flush of pink on her cheeks. I'd succeeded. She lay curled on her side, where we'd succumbed to the night. I gently rolled her onto her back.

Gone was the slight golden tint of her skin. Now she glowed roses and cream. The darkness of her hair stood out against the paleness of her flesh. Instead of tightly curled spirals of irrepressible locks, her hair was straighter, wavier. Like the perfect hair of a shampoo advertisement. And woven throughout the sable strands were perfect threads of platinum blonde, not unlike mine. The faint freckles that were so charming had also bid a hasty retreat. I brushed my fingertips across her lips. They parted, allowing me to feel the warm exhalation of breath.

She was alive. No longer consigned to life's hinterlands. I wanted to shout for joy.

Instead I took out my wand and Apparated us to my flat. Not even the sharp crack of landing had woken her from her slumber. She rested in my arms, flawless, like Sleeping Beauty awaiting her kiss. I laid her in my bed and a quick Divestio had her naked and warm on top of the coverlet. She was lovely in all her splendor. I covered her before my baser nature got the best of me. I needed to check the damage of my night with her.

The mirror in the bathroom reflected that I looked as bad as I felt. Dark circles ringed my eyes, I had huge, livid bruises on my neck that radiated from the two puncture wounds. No perfect healing for me this time. This time I had suffered to bring her back. I would do it again if I had to.

I ran a bath and tossed a few peppermint leaves into the water. The soothing scent rose up to calm my jangled nerves. Sinking into the hot water, I sighed and plopped a duck into the bath. It quacked indignantly and paddled away. It was staggering. I'd actually reversed vampirism. The potion from that loony old wizard worked. I couldn't keep Hermione hidden in my flat forever. How would I explain it to her parents? The Weasels? Pothead? Indeed, the entire world? Pass it off as mistaken identity?

No. Even they weren't that stupid. If I went with the truth, I would have every unsavoury creature from the underworld crashing through my door. Apparently, I'd unleashed a tiger. And all because I wanted to fuck Hermione Granger.

Shit.
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She didn't awaken for a week.

I busied myself tending her, buying her clothing. I had no idea where her flat was, if she had even lived in something as mundane as a flat. I hid from my co-workers but by the fourth day, I had to tender my resignation. Even though I busted my arse in my department, my colleagues always thought I was spoiled and useless - a fairly inaccurate description. No matter. The lost income was merely play money and I had plenty of that.

She decided to grace me with her sentient presence on the sunniest afternoon of the season. I'd dressed her in an icy pink gown, simple and pure. She looked like a sculpture, so still had she been. Until then.

A gasp and then she jack-knifed upright in bed. I saw her heaving with breath, eyes wide like a newborn's. She looked 'round the bedroom, surveying the unfamiliar surroundings and then her gaze met mine. I could see the spark of recognition. She no longer looked lithe, predatory. She looked as harmless as a mewling kitten. I'm not sure if I liked that.
Then her eyes turned hard and accusing.

"What in the bloody, blue blazes did you do?" Ah. This was familiar territory.

"I brought you back from the dead, Hermione."

"Did I ask you to do that?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because I couldn't be in your world and I wanted you in mine." A simple truth. Her shoulders slumped, all defiance drained.

"Do you realize what you've done?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does if you want us to live more than a week!" she snapped. She flung aside the covers and attempted to get out of bed. The enforced inactivity didn't lend itself to that sort of exercise and she flopped back to sit weakly on the mattress. "Dammit. I think I might have taken it better if you'd have lied and said you loved me."

"I could love you, Hermione." Her head shot up at that. "But not as you were. You were eminently unlovable in your previous state."

I got up and went over to kneel in front of her. I forced her to look at me. "Give us a chance."

"How am I supposed to do that? Every piece of slime that walks this earth will be crawling after us and I don't know if I have the strength to outrun them."

"We will survive," I said with far far more confidence than I felt. "I am a wizard and you, my dear, are the brightest witch of our age. I should think we will come out quite fine." I smiled, to reassure her. "Have you forgotten who my father is?"

"How could I?" Finally, a smile, albeit a wry one. "He managed to make most of my school years a living hell."

"That's the Hermione I know. Good Lord!" I was astonished when I finally looked right into her eyes.

"What?" She searched my face worriedly.

"Your eyes."

"What about them?"

I helped her up and over to the full length mirror. She looked at herself fully, taking inventory of all the changes in her body, most remarkably, her eyes. They were not brown, not in the strictest sense of the word. They weren't even that fever bright honey colour brought about by her vampirism. No, they were altogether different. The centres of the irises were bright bluish-grey and they were flecked and ringed with the brightest topaz. They were eyes to hypnotize and seduce. Combined with the flawless skin, the rippling, tortoise shell hair, she was undeniably a knockout. More glorious even than in her undead state.

I could see the wheels clicking in her head. "What did you do? How did you turn me back?"

"A potion I got from Emmanuel Borgin."

"That old humbug?"

"He's proved that he's far from a humbug, Hermione."

"How deeply did I drink from you that night?"

"Deep enough," I answered vaguely.

She turned to me, eyes boring into mine. "Don't obscure the truth. I can still hear you, you know."

And she could. I could feel a sensation like fingers prying through my brain, picking over my memories until she found what I was desperately trying to sublimate.

"Merlin's teeth. I almost killed you."

"But you didn't," I said cheekily.

She moved slowly, sinking heavily into my recently vacated chair. She was silent and I knew she was thinking. "I've taken on some of your physical traits." She looked at her hands. They were longer, the fingers finer-boned than they were.

"I can't say that I'm disappointed in the changes." She flashed a self-deprecating grin at her own vanity. "However, mere physical beauty won't overcome what will happen."

"Have you forgotten Old Sluggy's little vampire friend Sanguini? He moved freely back and forth."

She visibly perked at that. "Yes...I had forgotten. Perhaps you're right." We lapsed into silence once more and I was again enthralled by her. I wanted to bed her right then and there.

"Not quite here and now, Draco." She chuckled. "At least let me have breakfast first."

I laughed out loud, so startled by her ribald humour was I. "Feeling better?"

"Not really. But one has to keep a stiff upper lip at times like these. Come here."

I walked over and stood before her. "Closer," she commanded. I knelt.

She ran her fingers over the wounds and bruises on my neck. "Terrible. I've always loved your skin."

Hermione leaned in and I automatically tensed. She paused. And instead of the fiery furnace of her mouth; I felt puffs of sweet, warm breath before her lips descended to soothe away the hurt with her kisses. My skin tingled with each gentle press. Tender heat was left in each caress' wake. Pinpricks of feeling raced up and down my nerve endings. These kisses were unlike the kisses we'd shared in the past. She did not seek to dominate me. I did not want to be subjugated. I was being comforted by Hermione Jane Granger and I reveled in it.

When she pulled away, her generous mouth was pulled in a genuine smile. It was the first I'd seen since our days at Hogwarts. It warmed me to my toes. I self-consciously ran my fingers over my neck and was surprised to feel nothing but smooth skin, no scabbed wounds, no stinging bruises. Hermione's smiled widened as I got up to look in the mirror. Sure enough, there was nothing there. Not even a bit of pink to suggest that anything had happened.

"You're welcome."

"And you as well."