Encased in Silk

Title: Encased in Silk
Author: Emily
E-mail: emnorth2002@yahoo.com
Pairing: D/Hr
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: JKR owns all of the characters; I just play with them now and again for my own, depraved purposes.
Distribution: Quiet Ones archive, AFF.net, and restrictedsection.org. Anyone else, if you want it, just ask. I always say yes.
Dedication: To Inell, my wicked, wonderful, endlessly inspiring friend.
Summary: Draco and Hermione have a fight. Inspired by the scarf challenge at the quietones yahoo group.


~*~*~*~

Draco lay naked, sprawled across his unmade bed. His hand absent-mindedly stroked the sheets on the other side of the half-empty bed while he thought about how he wished they could be stroking her, instead.

Hermione had left him exactly twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes earlier. Five more minutes, and it would be a whole day. And maybe then, when she’d actually been gone for a whole day, he might finally be able to admit to himself that she truly wasn’t coming back.

They had had a fight, which was nothing unusual. With a relationship like a powder keg, it didn’t take much to set the two of them off. The arguments were explosive, the sex was incendiary, and they both got lots of practice with their reparo spells on mangled clothes and destroyed furniture. Hermione often joked that it was a fortunate thing that she had insisted that they didn’t live in Malfoy Manor. Priceless antiques are, after all, much harder to successfully repair than the relatively cheap furniture that filled their apartment. But there had been no furniture broken in this fight. No clothes had been torn. No knick-knacks had been thrown against the wall in anger, or smashed to the floor in their rush to empty the nearest flat surface to hold their writhing bodies. No fight had ever ended like this in the past. She’d never cried over one of their fights before. And she had never before ended a fight by pulling out her old Hogwarts trunk, loading it with everything she owned, and leaving him behind.

It had been too much of a shock for Draco to believe it. That’s why he hadn’t stopped her. That’s why he hadn’t gone down on his knees and begged her to stay. That’s why he’d let her walk out the door. That’s why he hadn’t moved in twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes. He kept waiting to wake up and find that it was a nightmare, and that he and his lover had *not* had a horrible fight over his *mother* of all things that had ended in her leaving him. He held on to the hope that he’d wake up with Hermione’s delectable body curled against his like always, her long hair tangled around the both of them, and a suggestive smile on her lips as she offered to ‘comfort’ him after his nightmare and make every scary memory melt away.

Draco groaned as the thought of Hermione ‘comforting’ him made his cock harden completely yet again. They’d been having sex when the fight started. He closed his eyes and whimpered softly as he remembered it. Hermione had gotten back into town from her assignment that afternoon. He hadn’t been expecting her for another few days and been thrilled (not to mention, instantly aroused) when he got her owl saying that she had returned safely, and that she planned to sleep until he got home from work. Draco had known exactly what that meant. Hermione put everything she had into her work as an Auror and was always exhausted after a mission, with both her energy and her magic at dangerously low levels. Sleep would recharge her energy, while anything that ignited her passion recharged her magic. And they both knew that Draco’s specialty was igniting Hermione’s passion.

When he arrived home from work (after rushing through the last of his work with a ridiculously goofy grin on his face), he started stripping off his clothes as soon as he closed the door of the apartment behind him. His tie was dropped by the door. His shoes were kicked off in the direction of the living room. His robes lay in a heap in the hallway, followed closely behind by his shirt, his trousers, one sock, the other sock, and finally his boxers as he reached the bedroom door.

She’d been fast asleep, lying on her back on the bed, without even the pretense of a sheet covering her naked body. Draco was, literally, salivating just at the sight of her after nearly a two-week absence, but had forced himself not to pounce on her immediately, no matter how sorely he was tempted. His girl loved to be teased, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to bring her pleasure.

He had started with her feet, left first, then right, firmly massaging the arches while he placed a reverent kiss each toe. She didn’t wake right away, but she did moan in pleasure as her body shifted on the bed. Her eyes started to flutter open when he wrapped his lips around her ankle bone, and by the time he started massaging her calves, she was following his movements with hungry eyes and a lazy, impossibly sensual grin. His hands moved to her thighs at the same moment that his face moved forward to rest between them, deeply inhaling the familiar fragrance of her arousal as he nuzzled his nose against her soft curls.

Her fingers slipped into his hair, fingernails scraping against his scalp and the back of his neck in the way that made him shiver, and he was just about to return the favor and make her shiver and moan and whimper and (if he was lucky) maybe even beg… when there was the unmistakable tapping of an owl at the window. Draco didn’t need to lift his face from her cunt to know the identity of the owl and its owner. The way that Hermione’s body tensed with recognition was unmistakable. She only responded that way when it came to his mother.

It could be said that Narcissa and Hermione did not get along. It could also be said that Hermione loathed Narcissa with a violent revulsion and Narcissa would be willing to pay a very high price to have Hermione completely erased from existence. Both statements would be equally true. Hermione detested everything Narcissa Malfoy represented as a cold-hearted elitist, an unabashed snob, a negligent and enabling spouse and parent, and a traitorous kinswoman. From her position of wealth, breeding, education and influence, Narcissa could have, with barely any effort at all, changed the world for the better. Instead, she filled her life with petty concerns and ridiculous vanities, leaving her son to the abuses of his father, *leading* her cousin to the abuses of her sister, and abandoning the world to the abuses of herself, her husband, her associates and her class.

In turn, Narcissa despised Hermione with all the intensity that her inherently apathetic nature could spare. Normally, it was not in Narcissa’s nature to be passionate or violent. She was far too indolent for that. She did not wish to go out and personally bathe in the blood of muggles or feast on their inner organs. She merely wished for all those that were not either of proper birth themselves, or of proper respect and submission for those who *were* of proper birth, to crawl into a hole somewhere and politely and unobtrusively die. She had supported the Death Eater ideology, even if she found their fervor for the cause to be somewhat ridiculous. She, herself, never participated in their practices out of fear for getting blood on her silk robes, or marring her porcelain skin with a tattoo. But despite her usual apathy and indifference to anyone outside of her social station, Hermione came as close as anyone had in nearly thirty years to arousing an actual, passionate response from Narcissa.

Narcissa detested Hermione for her heritage, her upbringing, her ridiculous insistence that she was as deserving and estimable as a witch of *breeding* and, most of all, for her absurd and unaccountable popularity. When Narcissa was young, Mudbloods knew their place and did not attempt to involve themselves in politics or public affairs. They were not war heroes. They were not Aurors. They were not the subject of a dozen different books, or on the covers of countless magazines, or on the VIP lists for every major event. They were not adored or admired or even respected outside of their own insignificant class. Narcissa would have seen more merit in showering awards and recognition on a blast-ended skrewt than on a mudblood. Blast-ended skrewts were repulsive, useless, dangerous, and destructive, but they didn’t pretend to be anything admirable. Mudbloods could learn a lesson from blast-ended skrewts. They could learn that they didn’t deserve to be esteemed. They didn’t deserve to be feted. They didn’t deserve to be popular. And they certainly didn’t deserve to be loved by pureblood, purebred boys like Draco.

When Draco and Hermione’s relationship first began, Narcissa had comforted herself by saying that it was simply a phase. Lots of pureblood boys grew curious about dalliances with lowbred girls. It was silly and somewhat unsanitary, rather like when Draco was four and enjoyed playing in the mud, but it was basically harmless. When the relationship lasted for more than a few weeks, she told herself that it was a wartime romance, brought on by too many lonely nights in emotional situations, and would, no doubt, burn out as soon as the excitement of the battle passed. Then the war ended and the relationship, if anything, grew stronger. The two of them moved into an apartment together, utterly ignoring the fact that as the head of the household following his father’s death, Draco’s place was at Malfoy Manor. Pictures of them on the society page were a regular occurrence, and the photo-Draco always stared at the photo-mudblood with an entirely inappropriate look of love.

So then the matchmaking began. Narcissa decided that the real problem was that Draco hadn’t been exposed to any truly appealing purebloods. Hogwarts was a fine school if education was your goal but when it came to finding a life-mate, especially for a pureblood of standing sufficiently high for the Malfoys, Hogwarts fell woefully short. It must be admitted that attractive, pureblooded British witches were few and far between, and after half a dozen flings in Draco’s sixth and seventh year, he had basically drained the Hogwarts’ well dry. Still, if Hogwarts had been a *proper* environment, he might have resigned himself to settling down with one of them, if only because there were no other options. But with that fool Dumbledore’s insistence on allowing unquestionably-inferior-but-undeniably-attractive mixed-bloods and mudbloods into the school, Draco had, poor boy, been led astray. But if he could only be brought to notice all the attractive, pureblooded witches who resided *outside* of Britain, then there was still a chance that all might not yet be *quite* lost.

It had started with the weekly tea. Nothing Hermione told him could quite convince Draco that all the managers and accountants and overseers he had hired meant that Malfoy Manor did not need at least *some* of his personal supervision to operate properly, so he always apparated over to the manor on Sunday afternoons to see to any business that had sprung up over the week. After an hour or two of mostly useless paperwork that made him feel productive and important, he’d have tea with his mother and then apparate home to Hermione. Hermione used the time, meanwhile, to spend the afternoon with Potter and various and assorted Weasleys, an activity Draco was always quite pleased to miss. The arrangement suited everyone, until that Sunday afternoon just two months earlier when Draco entered the drawing room for tea to discover his mother was not alone.

Belinda Zabini had been the first prospect, a cousin of his best friend Blaise, who had an undeniable dark beauty to her. Unfortunately, Draco knew from Blaise that she also the intelligence quotient of a rabbit. He made polite, if somewhat strained, conversation with her for as long as it took to drink exactly one cup of tea, and then excused himself as gracefully and quickly as possible. He laughed off the event to Hermione and didn’t give it a second thought… until the next weekend, when he arrived to tea to find himself joined by Vladlena Ivanova. She was lovely to look at, as well, which was quite fortunate, since looking at her was all he was able to do. The Russian-born girl didn’t speak so much as a word of English. Draco briefly wondered how his mother had even found her, much less invited her over to tea, but that concern pales beside the realization that his mother was trying to set him up. When he returned to the apartment, he shared his suspicions with Hermione. She was, especially after a detailed description of Vladlena, far from pleased.

With her adolescence past her, Draco beside her, and the strain of the war over and done with, Hermione had shed a good many of her insecurities. But the one insecurity that never quite lost its hold over her was her fear that she was not and never would be pretty. In this matter, it must be admitted that Draco was very little help. All his life, Draco had been fully aware that he was attractive. It never occurred to him to doubt or question something so blatantly and obviously true. And because he had so little doubt of his own, personal attractiveness, he didn’t understand how Hermione could doubt hers.

He knew she was beautiful. It was obvious. Head-to-toe, inside and out, morning, noon, and night, in an evening gown, shapeless ministry robes, flannel pajamas or nothing at all (*especially* nothing at all), Hermione Granger was the most arousing, intoxicating, irresistible woman Draco had ever seen. He rarely made a point of saying so, simply because he didn’t see the need. He might as well tell her that she was smart, or that Snape was surly, or that water was wet. Why belabor something so clearly apparent? She *must* know that she was beautiful. How could she not?

He never realized how insecure she was about her appearance. It never occurred to him that she might think, even for a moment, that he didn’t consider her beautiful. The thought never crossed his mind that she might be afraid that a more beautiful woman would steal him away from her. And he certainly never considered just how his mother’s ridiculous matchmaking schemes made her feel. But he was forced into sudden, stark realization when his mother’s owl showed up at their window with an acidly charming note. The letter was simple, merely requesting that Draco reconsider his promise to come spend the weekend with her and Gabrielle, since the two of them got along so well when they met the previous Sunday for tea (an arrangement he had made when he thought Hermione would still be out of town, but had cancelled after receiving Hermione’s owl). The results of the letter were, as intended, far more insidious.

He and Gabrielle *had* gotten along charmingly when they met the previous Sunday. Gabrielle Delacour was a delightful girl, and very pleasant company. She was also sixteen years old and not even out of school yet. Draco treated her much as one might treat a younger sister, to Gabrielle’s enormous relief. She had been sent to the Malfoy Manor at her parents’ insistence, and had been terrified that Draco would propose to her on the spot. They had a hearty laugh over the truth of the situation once Narcissa left them alone ‘to get to know each other better,’ and spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing over Gabrielle’s one visit to Hogwarts when her sister, Fleur, was in the Tri-Wizard tournament during Draco’s fourth year.

They even discussed Hermione, who Gabrielle remembered clearly from the second task. Draco told him about their relationship, which Gabrielle declared to be the most romantic thing she had ever heard. Draco was an enthusiastic storyteller, and he especially loved telling the story of how he and Hermione had gotten together. It was a rare treat for him to have an audience that hadn’t heard about it or lived through it already, and he relished the opportunity to share his favorite tale with an enraptured audience. At the end of the story, Gabrielle bounced out of her seat with the enthusiasm of a truly romantic Frenchwoman to kiss Draco on each cheek and declare him the very best of men.

Narcissa, observing the whole thing through a spyglass that, unfortunately, did not provide audio feedback, took this as an excellent sign. Narcissa was convinced that with a bit of luck and a little careful maneuvering, she could see to it that that bushy-haired tart was nothing more than a distant memory for her son by the time Hermione returned from her assignment. Narcissa re-entered the room shortly after to insist that Draco maintain this developing friendship with the girl by returning on the following Saturday to stay with them all weekend. Since Hermione was out of town anyway, Narcissa stressed, there was no reason for Draco to putter around the apartment by himself. Draco, always fearfully lonely whenever Hermione was on assignment, agreed.

The moment he’d gotten the owl from Hermione, he’d scribbled off a note to his mother to cancel his visit for the weekend. It was a Thursday, and he knew that Hermione would have the next day and the whole of the weekend off to recharge after her assignment. He planned to spend every minute of it in bed with her, spoiling and pampering her and showing her just how very much he missed her while she was gone. A visit to Gabrielle and his mother could wait. Once the note was sent off, he didn’t give it a second thought. He had done his duty to his mother by letting her know. There was no reason to give it any further thought. Instead, he concentrated on the far more pleasurable anticipation of the end of the working day, when he could go home to Hermione. His only concern had been to get his hands (and mouth, and tongue) on Hermione as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, while his hands (and mouth) were full of her, her hands were empty when the owl came tapping on their bedroom window, which meant that she was the one to open the owl post.

Narcissa Malfoy was a clever woman; there was no denying that. Her letter was everything that was vague and suggestive. Depending on the perspective, it could have read like an invitation to tea, or an invitation to a brothel. She never directly stated that Draco and Gabrielle had spent the previous Sunday shagging like bunnies, but that conclusion could easily be drawn. Narcissa was woman enough to know exactly how to play on Hermione’s insecurities, and the note she sent put every single one of them immediately into overdrive.

Draco had been startled when Hermione shoved the note in his face and demanded to know if it was true that he had spent the previous Sunday with Gabrielle Delacour. Draco grew even more confused when a look of pain and bewilderment crossed Hermione’s face when he answered ‘yes.’ Truth be told, a good deal of the argument that followed left Draco confused. They seemed to be talking at cross-purposes, and every thing Draco said, every question Draco answered about how Gabrielle had looked, about the amount of time he had spent with her, about how he had been looking forward to seeing her again that weekend, seemed to hurt Hermione more and more, while Draco was at a loss to determine why.

The final straw came when Hermione, with tears starting to fill her eyes, stated that if her coming home early was keeping Draco from being where he wanted to be then she could leave again. Draco, trying desperately to figure out what on earth was going on and what idiotic thing he had said to make the woman he adored begin to cry, dazedly replied that he was sure that Gabrielle wouldn’t mind him visiting her some other weekend. Draco’s answers had already convinced Hermione that he had slept with Gabrielle the weekend before, but she had been willing to think it was a one-time thing, possibly even caused by his mother (Merlin knew, Hermione knew she was capable of it) spiking his tea with an aphrodisiac. But if he wanted to go and ‘visit’ her again, then that meant he really *wanted* her. Her worst fear had come true: Draco didn’t want her anymore. She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed while she told him that she wouldn’t stand in his way, and then she grabbed her wand. With a few flicks of her wrist, she was dressed, packed, and out the door.

Draco had been utterly dumbfounded. He still wasn’t quite sure what it was they had been fighting about, much less why this ridiculous fight was making Hermione so upset. And he certainly didn’t know how to respond when she left. She had *never* walked out of an argument with him. Arguments between the two of them were never left unresolved. They’d yell and scream and throw things and get right up in each other’s faces, instead. Occasionally, wands were drawn, and Hermione once got so angry that she invented on the spot a spell that cursed him with red hair for a solid week. (He refused to leave the house until she found a counter-spell.) There was no silent treatment with Hermione. There was no ‘I need to go somewhere and think about this’ from her. She was never the type to run off in tears to her girlfriend’s house where she could eat chocolate and ice cream and complain about how all men are evil. He never had to go after her. And now that she was gone, he didn’t even know where to begin to *look* for her. He told himself that that didn’t matter, since she obviously didn’t want him coming after her. If she had wanted that, she wouldn’t have left.

The clock ticked slowly, inexorably counting off the seconds. Twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine minutes, and a tear formed in his eye. He practically held his breath for the next sixty seconds, hoping that something would change, that time would stop or that the door would open or that the world would end, anything that would keep him from having to accept that she had left him and wasn’t going to come back. Holding his breath did no good. The seconds continued to pass, and before long, it had been twenty-four hours that she was gone. He groaned as he rolled over, the biggest movement he had demonstrated in hours. He groaned again as his erection rubbed against the sheet. As if he needed yet another thing to make this the worst day of his life, he had an erection that wouldn’t quit.

He had been so hard the day before, thinking about coming home and making love to Hermione, and it seemed as if he got only harder when he got home to find her naked in bed. Even the argument after the owl arrived had done nothing to make him soften; arguing with Hermione always aroused him. He’d still been on the bed, his mouth hanging open and his aching cock pointing out proudly when the apartment reverberated with the sound of the door slamming behind her. Lying in the bed where he had shared so many ecstatic nights with Hermione kept his erection at a minimum of half-mast the entire time, and spending twenty-four hours without release was uncomfortable at best.

He had tried ‘to take the matter in hand’ all day long, but he hadn’t had any luck. He hadn’t expected to. All of Hermione’s out of town assignments had taught him the hard lesson that he was too accustomed to Hermione’s touch on his body, and the feel of her soft, warm hands against his skin, and the blazing perfection of her body closed around his erection to find true pleasure in anything else. Every inch of Hermione was warm and yielding and soft as silk to rub against or rub inside. In her absence, his own Quidditch-roughened hands were a very poor substitute. His touch simply didn’t satisfy him. His hands, along with his thoughts and fertile imagination, were enough to bring him to a fevered pitch of desire, but only Hermione could bring him release. When she was gone on assignment, the only way he was able to keep from exploding from sexual frustration was by stimulating himself with something of hers.

He’d touch her things, running his hands over the papers scattered on her desk, tracing his fingers over the notes written in her small, precise handwriting, and running the feathered end of her quills over his body. Sometimes, he’d position himself in their closet, burying his face in the soft material of her shirts and skirts, rubbing himself against the material while he breathed in her scent. Often, he’d wank in the shower using her body wash on one of her washcloths. The best option, however, was the one that he used the least.

Sheets that smelled like Hermione and sex got him off like nothing else, short of Hermione, herself. When he missed her so badly he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d pull the sheets loose from the mattress and wrap them around his body, covering his skin in the smell of her and him and *them* together. He’d remember all the things they had done to make the sheets smell like that, and his orgasm would literally explode out of him, draining him to the point where he would, almost invariably, pass out. The cum-covered sheets were beyond the help of a cleaning charm when he was done, needing laundering that would wash her scent away along with his release. That left this as a last-resort option, since it could only be used once. He usually saved it till the day before he expected her home, so he could comfort himself through the majority of her absence with the smell of her on the sheets while he slept. He had lost count of the number of times Hermione had come home from an assignment to find him still fast asleep from his explosive orgasm with a blissful smile on his face and the tangled sheets snaring him, glued to his skin with his dried-on release.

Usually when she woke him, he’d pounce on her immediately, taking her on the bed, the floor, the couch, the large, cushy chair by the window, her desk, or any other vaguely flat surface he could find. Hours later when Hermione convinced him that she simply *couldn’t* stay conscious through another orgasm, they’d put fresh sheets on the bed and then go to sleep with his body curled possessively around hers until they gathered enough energy for round two. He hated that she had so many out of town assignments, but Merlin, he loved celebrating every time she came home.

But she wasn’t coming home this time. She had left him, and taken every piece of herself with her. There was nothing left he could comfort himself with: no photographs, no clothes or trinkets, no hairbrush with those curly, familiar strands, no soap in the bathroom carrying her scent, no quills, no stationary, no books, no *anything* that felt or smelled like her. Even the sheets on the bed (she had obviously changed them when she got home) carried nothing more than the faintest trace of her scent. There was nothing left of her. Nothing left behind for her to come back for, except for him, and he, obviously, was something she no longer wished to keep.

With his mind focused on his depression, his body responded on autopilot to roll over again and release the pressure off his sensitive erection. Unfortunately, he wasn’t paying much attention, and he rolled straight off the bed to land with a thump on the floor. He just lay there on the floor for a long moment, laughing bitterly at himself and how pathetic he had become. But when he turned his head, the laughter died on his lips as he caught sight of it. The scarf.

It was a simple little thing, just a small scrap of scarlet silk barely long enough to tie around Hermione’s elegantly slender neck, but it was Hermione’s favorite. She had bought it for herself when she was twelve years old, the summer before her third year at Hogwarts. It was the first time she had visited France since discovering she was a witch and was, therefore, her first visit to the phenomenal Parisian Rue des Ciels Elysees, the French equivalent to Diagon Alley. The scarf was a souvenir that she had treasured in the years since as a symbol of what it was like to discover that she was a witch and had entrance into the impossibly wonderful world of magic.

And just a week and a half before, the day before Hermione left on her assignment, Draco had spent all night touching and teasing and pleasuring every inch of his beautiful witch with that very same scarf, caressing her through the immeasurably soft material until she was completely undone, trembling and begging in his arms. When she reached that point, the scarf was discarded while Draco shagged her into unconsciousness. The scarf remained forgotten where it had fallen behind the bed, and had escaped unnoticed when Hermione packed her things.

Draco snatched at the scarf eagerly, holding it up to his nose and inhaling blissfully. His forgotten erection twitched painfully at the scent of Hermione covering the material. Eagerly, he rubbed his face against the material and groaned in pleasure. The softness of the material combined with the smell of Hermione’s release was almost enough to let him image he was rubbing his face against her thighs, teasing her with the stimulation before arriving at his final prize. With a groan of pleasure, he ghosted the scarf down to his neck, trailing it lightly over the skin and imagining it was Hermione, leaving a trail of baby kisses as she explored him to her heart’s content.

Draco’s breathing grew labored as he scrambled back up onto the bed, keeping his eyes closed as he continued the fantasy. One hand slipped down to grip his aching erection while the other hand brought the scarf back up to his nose for a quick, deep sniff before lowering it back onto his torso to tease and torment his erect nipples through the silk. The hand stroking his erection tightened as pleasure shot through his body at the sensation and he groaned Hermione’s name, over and over again.

His eyes flew open as an idea occurred to him and he immediately reached over to the nightstand to grab his wand. A simple Engorgio charm suited his needs perfectly as the small square of silk expanded out until it was nearly as tall as him and just as tall as Hermione. Pinning one end of the material between the mattress and his cheek, he rubbed his face against it blissfully, soaking in the scent and the softness while his hand teased his body through the material. His neck, shoulders, chest, abs, and thighs trembled in pleasure as he groped them through the silk, imitating the sweet perfection of Hermione’s remembered touch.

There was a very large part of him wanted to draw this out, to tease every inch of his body over and over again with the Hermione-soft silk and feed the illusion that he had his love in his arms, but his erection had grown downright painful, and he knew it couldn’t wait much longer. Every muscle in his body was tense and strained, his breath came in pants, and tears had formed in the corners of his eyes at the mingled pleasure and pain of holding off his orgasm. His erection was swollen to an almost frightening extent, and Draco knew the moment had come.

His right hand dropped away from his erection to his balls as his left hand slid down to enclose the silk-covered hardness. Moaning Hermione’s name in a swelling crescendo, he gripped the silk around his cock and tugged hard, literally screaming as his orgasm released, tearing through him as he came. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed over Draco and he literally sobbed as his body drained itself completely. Then his hips stopped jerking and his erection deflated and the tears of release turned into aching soul-deep sobs of sadness and loneliness while he continued to cry out Hermione’s name. She was gone. She was really, truly gone from him and that was the last release she would give him, the last pleasure he would be able to take in his beautiful witch who he loved so dearly.

The pain blocked out everything else, to the point where he didn’t hear the cleaning spell muttered from the doorway of the room, or the footsteps approaching the bed, or the shift of the mattress as someone climbed onto the bed. He wasn’t even aware, at first, of the hand stroking its way through his hair while murmuring gentle, soothing words. It was the lips that finally managed to catch his attention. Soft, warm, unforgettably familiar lips brushed against his hair, his neck, and just behind his ear in that little spot where he was ticklish. The feel of those lips made the sobs stop as abruptly as if a switch had been turned off while Draco held his breath and lifted his head, wondering if he had finally managed to drive himself mad.

His eyes locked with that familiar cinnamon gaze and he decided he really didn’t care if he was crazy or not. Insanity seemed rather pleasant, thus far, and more pleasant still when his beautiful illusion transferred her kisses to his face, kissing away the traces of the tears while telling him over and over again that she was sorry, so terribly sorry, and could he ever forgive her? He answered by wrapping his arms around her, pleased that his illusion felt real enough to touch as he cradled her body against his, humming softly in pleasure as he nuzzled her hair.

“This is nice,” he sighed. “Almost feels real.”

Hermione pulled back, startled. “Almost?”

Draco nodded. “I never knew insanity was so enjoyable.”

“Insanity?”

Draco frowned at her response. “Are you going to keep repeating everything that I say? Because the real Hermione wouldn’t do that.”

“Draco, I am the real Hermione!” his lovely illusion insisted, growing increasingly bewildered when Draco smiled again, obviously pleased.

“Oh, that’s much better. That sounded just like her.”

“Why do you think I’m not real?” Hermione asked, trying a different tack.

“Because the real Hermione isn’t coming back here. She doesn’t want me anymore,” Draco stated calmly, his hands happily occupied playing with her hair. “That’s why she left. If she was just angry, she would have stayed and we’d have argued it out, like always. But she didn’t stay this time. She left. And she took everything with her so she wouldn’t have to come back. That must mean she doesn’t want me anymore.”

This time it was the illusion’s eyes that filled with tears. “Oh Draco, that’s not true,” she insisted, cuddling closer to him while stroking his face gently with the tips of her fingers.

“Why else would she leave?”

“Maybe because she thought you didn’t love her anymore?” Hermione offered, her voice cracking a bit in spite of herself. “After all, you said that you wanted to be with Gabrielle instead of me… I mean, instead of her! And she… she spent her whole assignment working as quickly as she could because she wanted to come home early to be with you, and meanwhile, you were at the manor having an affair with Gabrielle, and—”

“I never had an affair with Gabrielle,” Draco interrupted.

“You… you didn’t?”

“Of course not. Why on earth would Hermione think that?”

“But the things you said! How much you ‘enjoyed’ her company and the then that note from your mother, talking about how ‘affectionate’ the two of you were, and—”

“Gabrielle and I drank *tea* together. An entire pot, actually, with a couple of scones while I told her about how Hermione and I fell in love. She was quite impressed. But then, she is sixteen, and I suppose that’s a rather romantic age for girls.”

“And… that’s all?”

“Well, I think we had some biscuits along with the scones, but I really don’t see why—”

“You didn’t sleep with her?” Hermione interjected.

“No, I didn’t sleep with her. She’s sixteen! What kind of pervert do you think I am?”

“But she’s…”

“She’s what?”

“She’s beautiful,” Hermione whispered, her eyes downcast.

“Yes,” Draco agreed with a puzzled look on his face. “She is. And so is her sister who, by the way, I haven’t slept with, either.”

“And I… I mean, *her*… I mean… Hermione’s not… that is to say, she isn’t…”

“Isn’t what?” Draco demanded, becoming more confused and impatient by the minute.

“Isn’t beautiful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hermione isn’t beautiful, alright?” Hermione stated, starting to get a bit aggravated herself. Just because she knew she wasn’t beautiful didn’t mean she was all that comfortable talking about it. It was rather like poking at a bruise that never quite goes away. “She isn’t beautiful, and all those other girls, those girls your mother throws at you every week, those girls who come from the right kind of families and the right kind of bloodlines, they’re beautiful!”

“Not as beautiful as Hermione,” Draco insisted.

Hermione looked at him in shock. “Merlin, you really *have* gone crazy,” she whispered.

Draco shook his head impatiently. “Of course I have; how else could I be having a conversation with a Hermione-shaped figment of my imagination? But it’s not crazy to say that Hermione’s beautiful. So are you, for that matter, even if you’re not real.”

“I’m not beautiful,” Hermione insisted, shaking her head. “And neither is she,” she added hastily a moment later.

“But you *are*,” Draco replied softly, reaching a hand up to caress her face. “You… you won’t disappear if I show you, will you? Because I want to, so badly, but I don’t want you to disappear. You’re not real, but you’re the closest I can get to the real thing, and—”

Hermione cut him off with a gentle kiss to his lips. “I won’t disappear,” she promised.

Draco returned the kiss, with interest, sliding his body on top of hers. “Let me show you how beautiful you are?” he pleaded.

She looked away, suddenly bashful. “I… I’m not,” she insisted weakly.

“You are,” he answered, smiling sweetly. “I’ll show you. Can I…” his voice trailed off for a moment, and when he raised his eyes to look at her again, he looked almost bashful. “Can I pretend that you’re real? That you’re really my Hermione?”

“I am. I’m yours,” Hermione whispered in reply. “All yours. Your Hermione.”

The scarf was crumpled between them, but Draco gathered it up and smoothed it out. Covering his hands in the silk, he began gently stroking her face.

“Do you like that? Does it feel good?” he asked, smirking slightly when she purred in wordless agreement. “That’s what you feel like. Soft as silk. You’ve got the most beautiful skin I’ve ever touched: so soft, so smooth, so perfect. I can’t keep my hands off it. Especially here,” he added as he dropped his mouth to her breast, sucking and nipping on one while he played with the other through his silk-encased hand, punctuating his caresses with softly spoken words.

“You have such gorgeous breasts. I feel like a pig sometimes, the way I stare at them, especially when we’re in public. When we’re at parties and you’re in those sinful green dress robes of yours, I find myself trailing off in the middle of sentences, offending important dignitaries, and, one time, even getting beaten over the head by an elderly witch with a large handbag because I caught sight of the curve of your breasts across the room and forgot about everything else.” Hermione whimpered softly under the triple pleasure of his touch, his mouth, and his unbearably sensual words.

He shifted his body lower on the bed until his face was level with her belly. He trailed the silk over it gently, but soon replaced the material with his lips, tracing soft kisses against the skin and nuzzling it gently with his face. “I’ve dreamt about growing a baby here,” he whispered, his voice sounding almost reverent. “I never told you before; we never talked about children; but I can’t stop myself from thinking how wonderful it would be to have children with you, babies that would be *ours*. Yours and mine. Sometimes I pass pregnant women on the street and think how gorgeous you would look like that, big with our child.” He pressed one more painstakingly gentle kiss against her belly before sliding down further on her body.

Hermione tensed with anticipation and lifted her hips eagerly when she felt his breath between her legs, but he merely slid the scarf underneath her hips before bypassing that area to trail a series of kisses down her thigh from her hipbone to her knee. “I love your legs,” he purred. “I lose my mind every time you wrap them around me when I’m inside you. Feels so good. But they really drive me crazy when I watch you walk. I’d recognize your walk anywhere: fast and confident, with just enough sway in your hips so that no one can help noticing your delectable arse.” His hands cupped her backside underneath the scarf, squeezing it gently through the material. “I’m always tempted to walk right behind you, so no other man can ogle you, but then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the view myself. And it is a gorgeous view.”

He tugged on the scarf, forcing her hips to rise while he lowered his head. He planted a soft kiss on her curls before lowering her hips, lifting one of the edges of the scarf that lay spread out to the side. He trailed the tip over the lips of her pussy, not opening them but merely caressing them with the silk. “Remember the night before your assignment?” Draco murmured in a breathless tone. “Remember the things I did to you with this scarf? The way I cut off your senses one by one until you couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear or taste, couldn’t do *anything* but feel? Remember the way I slid it inside you with my fingers? The way I dragged it across your flesh? And then, at the end, the way I wrapped it around my cock and fucked you with it?” Hermione moaned as her hips bucked up, but Draco refused to give her the pressure she craved.

“I won’t be doing that tonight,” he whispered. “I want you too badly to tease. I need you too desperately to hold anything back. Draco’s hand dropped the silk as he shifted his body fully on top of her, so they were face to face. “Gods, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Your mesmerizing eyes, your gorgeous, tempting mouth, that delicious curve of your neck, and the way your hair frames your face when it’s spread out against the pillow. You look like an angel. A fallen angel, fallen right into my bed. And I’ll keep you here as long as I can.” Without warning, he slid fully inside her, causing both of them to groan in pleasure. Draco buried his face in the curve of her neck, muffling his words, but Hermione still heard him clearly.

“I won’t let you go.” He pulled out, and drove into her harder, starting a forceful, almost desperate rhythm between their bodies. He reached down to the abandoned ends of the scarf and wrapped them behind his back, tying them in place around his waist to fasten her body against his. “Being inside you is the closest a Malfoy will ever get to heaven, and I refuse to give that up. I don’t care that you’re not real. I don’t care that I’m going out of my mind. All I care about is keeping you. The real Hermione doesn’t want me anymore, but you’re still here, still with me. And I won’t let you go.”

Hermione babbled soft words of comfort in his ear, telling him that she’d never leave him, that she loved him, that she never wanted to be anywhere other than in his arms. He sighed in pleasure at her words, holding her closer, driving into her deeper, and thanking whatever gods existed for such a happy insanity. Even though it wasn’t real, it was still far more than he deserved. He reached a hand down between their bodies, seeking out her clit. Even though she was an illusion, he still ached to please her. He smiled in satisfaction at the sound of her keening and the feel of her muscles tightening around him, smoother than silk, encasing him in pure pleasure as he reached his peak. Panting slightly, he was in the process of covering her face in soft kisses when he was distracted by a loud pop from the living room.

“Draco?” a familiar voice questioned. “Where are you, mate? My date cancelled on me so I thought I’d pop by and see if you were up for grabbing a bite to—” The bedroom door opened to reveal Blaise Zabini. “Merlin’s balls!” he exclaimed when he caught sight of the still-entwined couple on the bed. Always the gentlemen, he immediately and deliberately stepped back out of the doorway, out of view of the bed. “Hermione! You’re home early,” he stammered.

Hermione giggled. “Hi, Blaise!” she called cheerfully. “Don’t suppose you could chuck in my clothes from the living room, could you?”

“Clothes? Oh, right! Here you go!” Moments later, a bundle of clothing sailed through the doorway into the bedroom.

Hermione squirmed underneath Draco. “Let me up, love, so I can get dressed.” Numbly, Draco obeyed. Something in this situation didn’t make sense, but with his mind hazy from his explosive orgasm, he was having trouble figuring out what.

Quickly and efficiently, Hermione slipped into her jeans and t-shirt (leaving off her bra and panties, Draco noticed) and tossed Draco his bathrobe from the closet, which he obediently put on.

“It’s alright, Blaise,” Hermione announced, opening the bedroom door. “We’re both decent now.”

“The two of you? Decent? I know better than to believe that!” Blaise smirked, crossing the room to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Welcome home, milady. When did you get back?”

“Just yesterday,” Hermione answered. “We got finished early.”

Draco entered the doorway, a bewildered look on his face. He had finally realized what bothered him about the situation. “You see her?” he questioned Blaise urgently.

Blaise rolled his eyes. “Yes, Draco. I caught a glimpse of your girl. I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to. But how was I supposed to know she had gotten home early? Besides, I barely saw anything more than your scrawny arse. Be an angel, love,” he said, turning to Hermione, “next time, you be on top.” He leered at her playfully. “I daresay I’d like that view much better.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to reply, but was distracted when Draco rather abruptly sat down on the couch, wearing a very dazed appearance.

“You’re real?” he whispered, looking at Hermione with a combination of fear and hope.

“Blaise, maybe you’d better go,” Hermione stated softly, never taking her eyes off of Draco. “I’ll owl you later.”

Blaise took one look at the couple and nodded his agreement. With a loud pop, he disapparated, leaving Draco and Hermione alone in the living room.

“You’re real,” Draco repeated, his voice sounding more certain this time. Hermione nodded, crossing the room to sit beside him and take his hand.

“You came back,” he stated, turning her hand over in his and tracing the lines of her palm with a careful fingertip. “Why?”

“I shouldn’t have left in the first place,” she admitted. “But thinking that you might have slept with Gabrielle; might even be planning to sleep with Gabrielle *again*; it just hurt so much that I couldn’t stand it. I thought getting away would make it easier. But it only made it worse. I realized that running away wouldn’t do any good, and decided we needed to talk it out, like we always do. That way, we could decide together whether what we have is worth saving or not.”

“I never touched Gabrielle,” Draco interjected quietly.

“I know that now,” Hermione assured him. “When I got home and saw you on the bed while you…” Unaccountably, Hermione blushed, and Draco couldn’t stop a small grin from spreading across his face. One of Hermione’s more adorable traits was how easily she blushed, no matter how many depraved things she was willing to do and have done to her in the height of passion. “You were… and you kept saying my name. It…” her blush grew darker, “… it turned me on. A lot. So I got undressed and stood in the doorway where I could watch. But then you came, and you started crying, and I just wanted to be close to you and make you stop hurting.”

Draco nodded, remembering the way she had joined him in bed. “You said you thought I didn’t love you, and that you believed I wanted to be with Gabrielle instead of you. You don’t still think that, do you?”

Hermione shook her head. “No, Draco. I know you want to be with me.”

“And you know there’s no one else that I want, right? You know you’re ten times more beautiful than any of those silly witches my mum keeps throwing at my head. You do *know* that, don’t you?”

Hermione blushed again and looked away. Draco cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him again. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. What can I do to convince you of that?”

Hermione smiled tremulously. “Just love me,” she answered.

A slow smirk blossomed on Draco’s face. “I can do that.” With the speed of a born seeker, he shifted Hermione onto his lap, pulling her into a searing kiss. “I love you,” he sighed into her ear. “I love you and you’re gorgeous and I’m going to take you to bed and not let you out of it until you believe me.”

Hermione giggled and tightened her arms around his neck. “I think that’s a very sound plan,” she concurred in her most studious tone, trying to maintain a serious countenance through the grin that threatened to break out over her face.

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her back into the bedroom, laying her out on the bed and joining her immediately. “I just thought of a wonderful way to convince both you and my mother that you’re the only witch for me,” he commented as he slipped off his robe and slid a hand underneath her shirt.

“Mmm?” she murmured, barely paying attention to his words as she concentrated on his gorgeous body and wickedly gifted hands. “What’s that, love?”

“Marry me,” he replied, doubling his attentions to put her in as receptive a mood as possible. His plan fell through when she froze as the words finally processed.

“Did you just ask me to marry you?” she choked out in a strained voice.

“Yes,” he confirmed, holding his breath while he waited for her answer. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to wait.

“Yes!” she squealed, throwing herself in his arms and showering his face with kisses. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Draco chuckled as he gathered her closer, planting a possessive kiss on her lips. “Excellent,” he purred. Gently, he removed her from his lap, smiling reassuringly when she made noises of protest. Grabbing his wand, he gripped it firmly in one hand while holding onto the scarf in the other. With a swish and a flick, the engorgioed red scarf spun and twisted and shrunk until it was a small, solid, perfectly formed, red silk ring. “I’ll buy you a diamond tomorrow,” he promised, slipping the ring on her finger with a satisfied smile. “But this will have to do until then as proof that you’re mine.”

“Always yours, Draco,” Hermione responded, lifting her hand to kiss the new ring on her finger. “Always.”

Draco pulled her back onto his lap and drew her into another sweet kiss. Moments later, he pulled away with a chuckle. His eyes twinkled when Hermione looked at him questioningly. “My mother will be appropriately furious about this, you know,” he explained with a smirk.

Hermione’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “You really think this will upset Narcissa?” she asked in an innocent tone that didn’t fool Draco for a minute.

“Oh yes,” he answered, smugly. “She’ll be incensed.”

“Can we start planning the wedding tonight?” she asked eagerly.

Draco laughed out loud. “Not tonight, love. We’ll be busy tonight, celebrating the engagement.” Deftly, he unbuttoned her jeans, slipping his fingers inside to show her just how he planned to celebrate.

“Oooh, yes,” Hermione gasped, wriggling against his hand. “We’ll plan tomorrow. We’ll *celebrate* tonight.”

“I love you, Hermione,” Draco whispered. “Promise me you’ll never leave me again.”

“I promise,” Hermione replied, planting a soft, chaste kiss against his lips while her hand tenderly caressed his cheek. “I’ll never leave you again. I love you, Draco.” He pulled her hand away from his face to press against his lips, kissing the ring that marked her as his. She responded by tugging his hand over for her to kiss, as well.

“Now,” she stated, that mischievous twinkle back in her eyes. “Back to celebrating.”


THE END