Closer

The Harry Potter books are the property of JK Rowling. The song Closer is the property of Nine Inch Nails. The dementia involved in combining the two is entirely my own. ;)

Draco Malfoy blew across the grounds of Hogwarts with the intensity of a roiling storm
cloud, his black robes flapping behind him as he strode over to Hagrid\'s paddock for
Care of Magical Creatures. Crabbe and Goyle trailed in his wake, less than an
afterthought to the pale blonde Slytherin. His long legs crossed the grass in a handful of
strides. His expression of arrogance and disdain didn\'t waver as it came to rest upon The Boy Who Lived and his friends.

With a squeal of delight Pansy Parkinson rushed forward to grab Draco\'s arm and lead
him over to the other Slytherins. \"Oh, Draco!\" she simpered, her pug-like features
crinkling into a very self-satisfied grin. \"You just have to see the new robes that my
mother sent me for the Graduation Ball!\" Pansy brushed her fingers up the expensive
fabric that covered his arm. \"Maybe I could model them especially for you later,\" she
breathed and winked at him.

Draco fixed her with a smile that came nowhere near his icy grey eyes. \"As generous as
the offer is, Pansy, I\'m going to have to pass,\" he informed her abruptly as he prised her
fingers loose. He and Pansy we so alike in many ways—twisted and bitter, disillusioned
and empty. He loathed her for those same qualities that they shared. He raised his eyes
to look over the top of Pansy\'s head, and his eyes darkened as he locked stares with the
Muggleborn darling of Hogwarts. She turned her attention to whatever that red-haired,
pauper Weasley was saying, and Draco returned his glance to Pansy. \"I have other plans
for this afternoon,\" he purred as she led him toward Hagrid\'s latest batch of monsters.
He needed it like an addict.

Draco had sided against Voldemort\'s followduriduring his sixth year. He had passed
information directly to Dumbledore. Every letter and article sent to him by Lucius,
everything that he gleaned from Crabbe and Goyle, he\'d given it all to Dumbledore.
Eventually it led the Headmaster and his cadre to a time when Voldemort and his band of
Death Eaters would be vulnerable. That had been April of Draco\'s seventh year.

That final confrontation inedined perfectly clear in Draco\'s memories, and he could
remember the scene down to the last detail. Draco had been the one to kill his father,
Lucius Malfoy. It was a task he would have trusted to no one else—not after everything
that man had done. Draco hadn\'t been sure what to expect when the man he\'d idolized
and hated for most of his life was finally lying dead at his feet. Lucius had richly
deserved it really, but Draco had felt neither triumph nor grief. In fact, Draco had felt
nothing. In the months since, he\'d continued to feel nothing except during those fleeting
sexual rendezvous when he could lose himself in her pulse, in the taste of her, her breath,
her body. He just had to make it until four, and he would be able to be with her again.

Draco hurried up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower in an attempt to outpace his own
footfalls. Windows and paintings rushed past unseen in his desperation to reach the top.
How much further did he have to go? Two flights? Twenty? Finally, the door came into
sight, and Draco flung it open, panting as he stepped inside.

She stood waiting for him with her back to the door. Her robe was spread out on the cool
stone for them. Draco\'s summer robe immediately joined it on the stone floor. She
gazed back over her shoulder at him, and her brown eyes appraised him calmly while she
waited for him to make a move.

Draco stepped forward, and with a relieved sigh he wrapped his arms around her waist,
pulling her tightly up against his chest. The scent of lavender drifted up from her hair
and filled his senses. His fingers sought out those lavender scented curls, as he drew her
face closer to his own, seeking out her lips with his hungry mouth.

From the moment he touched her, he was able to feel again. As he devoured her honeyed
kisses and twined his tongue with hers, the deadness inside him receded. He wanted that
terrible emptiness to disappear. He wanted to feel alive. He needed to get closer to her,
and it was making him crazed.

Draco loosened her red and gold tie, slipping it off and tossing it carelessly aside as he
worked the buttons of her blouse open enough to reveal the swells of her breasts and the
satin of her bra. She had his shirt halfway off already, and Draco was anxiously
anticipating the feeling of flesh on flesh in her embrace.

He needed this human contact as surely as he needed air. He\'d never been given much
affection before. Even as a child his own mother\'s gestures towards him had been
perfunctory, for the benefit of appearances—the sending of sweets, the appropriate
distance for him to go away to school. He\'d never known simple physical gestures such
as hugs.

Not that outsiders would ever have guessed. Narcissa Malfoy had always been obsessed
with the way she looked to others, and even Draco couldn\'t be sure what kind of core was
hidden beneath her facades. For her own reasons she had stood against Voldemort,
probably sensing his eventual downfall, and Lucius had killed her for it—even though her
blood was pure. Yes, her blood was pure. So what did purity of blood matter? That had
shattered the last of Draco\'s illusions about his father. Draco had meant every word he\'d
said to Potter during their third year discussion of the murder of Potter\'s parents. Draco
would\'ve wanted revenge—the murderer dead at Draco\'s hands. Draco had gotten w
he
he wanted. Why hadn\'t he felt something at that victory?

Draco was drawn back to the chestnut-haired girl kissing a butterfly light trail over his
collarbone. He felt her warm, wet tongue tracing a path down his chest, and Draco
mo. S. She was so full of warmth, of love, of faith, of all the things that he lacked.

Her hands were sliding over his hips, as her tongue sought out one of his small nipples
and teased his flesh gently. Tears leaked from the corners of Draco\'s steely grey eyes, as
he whispered to her what he wanted. \"Break me apart,\" he hissed. \"I\'m so tired of
feeling hollow. Fill me up, and make me into someone else,\" he pleaded. By the sadness
in those brown eyes, he knew she\'d understood. Then he gave himself over to her
completely.

Draco felt her running her fingers over the bulge of his erection, as he she stroked him
through the hindrance of his grey trousers. Draco threw his head back as his breathing
sped up, and he let his fingers dance down her back and over her buttocks. He squeezed
firmly, slipping his fingertips beneath her skirt and pressing them into her crotch. The
cotton of her knickers felt damp against his skin, and Draco smiled as he buried his
mouth against the sensitive skin of her neck and pulled her down onto the cloaks with
him.

Draco nibbled a path down her delicate throat, paying extra attention to the great pulse
thrumming beneath her skin. He could feel her moan reverberating through his lips, and
he reveled in her responses to him alone.

He lay sprawled half atop her, sliding his leg upwards between her slightly parted legs to
create a space for himself, and then he shifted his body over hers as he slid his fingers
into her open blouse. He felt her nipples straining against the thin satin in his palms, and
he traced the circles of them with his thumbs until she raked her nails down the muscles
of his back just hard enough to leave thin pink trails etched against his pale skin.

Pushing down the white satin cups, Draco grasped her dusky nipples between his fingers.
He alternated between rolling, pinching, and tugging on them with his strong fingers. As
she arched against him with a rocking of her hips, Draco nipped at the taut buds of flesh
and ran the backs of his fingers up her arms, across her shoulders and throat, until his
fingertips stroked her flushed cheeks. He blew across the peaks of her breasts, still wet
from his mouth, and was rewarded with her involuntary shiver. Then he returned to
sucking and nipping at her, while he caressed the soft skin of her stomach and her legs.

She flung away his belt and undid the fastening of his uniform trousers, pushing them as
far down his hips as her arms would reach. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his
ass, tight from all the years of Quidditch, and she pushed him forcefully against her hips
as Draco undid her skirt and pulled back long enough to toss it and his own pants out of
the way.

His fingers brushed their way up the backs of her smooth thighs at the same time as he
slowly nuzzled his way down her belly taking the time to explore her thoroughly with his
mouth. She whimpered and ran her fingers through his now disheveled platinum locks,
as he kissed her through her tiny knickers. He could feel her desires as distinctly as he
felt his own. Her arousal was an aphrodisiac cocktail of pheromones, and he intended to
drink deeply of it.

He burrowed into the core of her with his demanding kisses, driving her along by giving
her only half of what she wanted. Only half of what they both wanted. Draco snaked his
fingertips under the edges of the last fabric that covered her from him and inched the
cotton knickers down her shapely hips, staring into her wild and helpless eyes. That was
how he felt too. He was helpless against the pull of her. She was gravity itself. Without
her his entire world would blow apart. Everything about her made him want her closer.

He kissed his way down her skin following the knickers as he eased them down her legs,
then he made his way back up the insides of her calves, her knees, her thighs. He teased
her with the heat of his breath against the juncture of her hip and over the dark triangle
where she most wanted to feel his mouth now. She gasped as he delved into her with his
tongue, licking like fire—a slow burn over her screaming nerves. He scraped his taste
buds over her engorged flesh, as he inserted two of his fingers into her and bent them in a
beckoning gesture that sent her hips writhing against him. She was too ready, and he
soon had to pull back leaving her frustrated, hot, and fervent.

She pulled his face upwards, and tasted his lips with the tip of her pink tongue. Then she
covered his lips with her own, as she pushed him onto his back. He didn\'t need the
foreplay. He was already at the end of his tether, but the teasing was almost a ritual,
winding them up until they were mad with lust—until the passion became animal in
nature.

Draco rubbed her shoulders as she kissed along his chest and licked his abdomen,
pushing her pointed tongue into his navel. Her hair dragged over his flesh as she led him
further and further into temptation. He nearly leapt out of his skin when her rounded
nails clawed their way up his muscular thighs and under the lip of his silky rs. rs. They
were the last barrier left, and she continued to ignore the slight raises of his hips, hinting
at how much he wanted her to remove them. She continued to cover his body with lines
of pink scratches, until he nearly yelled at her. With an amused chuckle she finally
pulled away the unwelcome garment, and bent her head to his throbbing groin.

Her lips were terrific and he moaned throatily as she licked the sensitive underside of his
erection from the base to the tip, pausing to tickle the cluster of nerves just below the
glans. Her palms gently cupped and squeezed his testicles as they tightened against his
body. Draco gritted his teeth fighting to hold back as she took him into her mouth and
began to move in long strokes. He heard his own moans and whimpers, echoing off the
stone, as he begged her to stop before she sent him too far. \"No,\" he groaned. \"I need to
be inside you, dammit!\"

He felt her pull away, and he looked down at her, afraid that he had said something to
offend her. He felt the prickle of tears in his eyes again as he caught her expression, full
of desire and warmth. How could she look at someone like him with such an expression?
He felt more whole as she crawled up his prone body and caught him in another kiss,
never losing that visage of longing.

Draco pinned her beneath him hooking his hand behind her left knee and drawing her leg
up along his side. His positioned himself against her and clutched her hips tightly,
staring hard into her eyes as he drove into her. She moaned in pleasure and wrapped her
legs around his back, and in return he used his hot breath to caress her neck and her ears.

He could feel her tensing her muscles around him to vary the sensations, and he rode her
harder. Her soft body yielded beneath him, accommodating him in her slick depths. He
wanted to hear her screaming his name as he brought her to climax. He wanted her to
yell it loudly enough for everyone at Hogwarts to hear. He was tired of keeping
everything secret, of keeping everything inside. He slammed into her harder and faster
still, pounding her with his hips until they were both yelping with each thrust, crying out
a spiraling song of need to the rafters, screaming for everyone to hear the tension building
under the friction of their hips.

Draco stroked her with his fingers, not touching her clitoris itself but instead stroking the
deeper nerves that connected to it. \"Cry out my name. I want to hear it soaring like a
prayer from your lips when you cum,\" he whispered, panting into her ear as her back
began to arch beneath him. Her muscles locked around him tightening with every
whimper at his deep thrusts. He growled as her nails grated over his back, and her hips
bucked wildly beneath him.

\"Draco!\" she called loudly, her eyes closed in pleasure as her body thrashed beneath him.
He stared down at her possessively enjoying the climax that he could bring her. \"Oh,
God, Draco!\" she moaned as her body contracted in pleasurable spasms beneath him. He
couldn\'t hold back any longer.

He lowered his lips to her ear again, as he held her hips rigidly beneath his and humped
her desperately. The tightening in his balls was long past the point of no return and he
felt himself releasing in a wave that seemed to shatter everything in it\'s path down to the
last nerve-ending. \"Please, Hermione,\" he gasped. \"Oh, God! I love you.\" The words
tore themselves from his throat before he could stop himself, and he collapsed on top of
her with an exhausted sob, as she stroked his shaking body to calm him.

Hermione rubbed her cheek against his, as the tears came. The grief that Draco had been
suppressing for the past two months had finally forced its way through the walls he\'d
built up, and all she could do was to hold him and kiss him until it passed. \"I love you
too,\" she whispered against his white-blonde hair as she held him tight and rocked him in
her arms. She kept one leg hooked over his hips while the other wrapped around his legs.

After the final fight against Voldemort, she\'d spent a week in the hospital wing alongside
Draco Malfoy due to their various injuries. He\'d seemed not just changed but haunted.
Maybe it had started out like another of her missions of mercy. She couldn\'t bear to see
the proud Malfoy look so broken with eyes as dead as Sirius\'s had been after escaping
Azkaban. She\'d tried everything to get him to open up, and she\'d watched in defeat as he
repeatedly turned away from her attempts to get him to talk. He hadn\'t even fought her
about it. He\'d simply turned his back to her, turned that lifeless gaze away from her.

It wasn\'t until she\'d touched his hand one day that she\'d discovered the secret. He hadn\'t
let her in, but he wasn\'t pushing her away suddenly. She\'d extended the gestures to
stroking his hair or his face. Physical affection had been the only place he found comfort,
and she had given him as much as she could. Hugs and kisses that had started out so
innocently had expanded to suit his need, and his need had been overwhelming.

He\'d finally started talking about what had happened, although it had been with that same
dead spirit. Then as cracks started to form in his armor, Hermione had caught sight of the
real Draco underneath it all. He was certainly not perfect, but she\'d found herself
growing to care for him deeply. Herm kis kissed Draco\'s eyelids tenderly. When he
opened his slate colored eyes, they were filled with pain but very much alive.

\"I hated him when I found out that he\'d killed my mother,\" he confided quietly. \"Not
that she was some kind of loving saint or something, but she was my mother. Everything
he\'d taught me was a terrible lie, and no matter how pure her blood he was ready to kill
her in a heartbeat. He could probably have done the same to me, couldn\'t he?\" Draco
continued, verbalizing one of his deepest fears.

He sniffed and lowered his head to her chest, as she petted his hair. \"I also hatim fim for
using me, for all the lies. So I knew that I couldn\'t ever let him walk free. I don\'t think
he ever expected the Avada Kedavra from me. He just looked shocked as I spoke it. And
I stood over him, and felt nothing. Why didn\'t I feel anything?\" he asked. \"Maybe I\'m
just another monster from the Malfoy family. I don\'t want to be that anymore…\"

\"You\'re not, Draco,\" Hermione assured him knowledgably. \"You lost everyone you\'d
cared about. You\'d lost everything you believed. First you had to deal with that, and
then you had to find your reason to live.\" She whispered against his temple, as his fingers
caressed the flat planes of her stomach.

He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand gently. \"Yeah, and I suppose I
still have a lot to learn about living,\" he sighed.