Antidote for Death

Title: Antidote for Death

Author: OliversBludger

Rating: Adult

A/N: Please, be gentle.  I haven't written in quite some time, so I may be a bit rusty.  Constructive criticism is welcome, and if I made any mistakes, feel free to let me know.  Thanks!

Thanks: My fantastic husband who supports my strange, strange fascinations...

Sex is the antidote for death, so they say. After all, what better way to prove you are alive than having sex? Every living thing on this earth reproduces in some form, therefore, everything has sex of some kind. Let us not forget the obvious fact that sex does, indeed, create life. It is natural that, in response to death, men and women crave the life-affirming activity that will fully convince them that, despite all that is caving in around them, they are still alive.

This, perhaps, was what brought Harry Potter and Hermione Granger together in the most intimate of ways. This, while watching so many living, breathing, innocent creatures fall around them was what they both needed. They needed affirmation. They were desperate for it. They needed to know that, no matter how many lives were ceasing, how many final breaths were being taken around them, their hearts were still beating. They were still alive, still fighting. They needed to know that all hope was not lost.

It started as a simple act of comfort. Hermione had melted down, sobbing desperately and mournfully into Harry's shoulder. So many people, she had said. So many lives...gone. Harry had rocked his best friend gently, caressed her hair, kissed her temples, presenting every act of comfort he could muster while the hopelessness settled over his own psyche once again.

He had no idea why he did it at the time. Only Hermione's logical, research-based explanation shed even a sliver of light into is intentions. All he knew at the time was that he desperately needed to not only be as close as humanly possible to Hermione, but also that he needed for her to feel that he was truly there.

He kissed her. It was not the chaste, delicate kisses they had occasionally shared prior to this moment. It was hungry, passionate, demanding...even desperate. He wanted the kiss to say everything that Hermione needed to hear, but somehow, he knew that it would not be enough.

Harry lay them out across the bunk, the pair clutching one another desperately, as if any moment the other would disappear and leave them alone. Their kisses were deep, their hands roamed freely and hungrily, and when Harry entered Hermione in one smooth stroke, pushing past her maiden barrier, they were too consumed in one another to even consider halting for something as trivial as pain. Harry's thrusts were strong and went as deeply into Hermione as he could, and their mingled cries were both of pleasure and of anguish.

They lay together after crashing down from their shared, intense high, a tangle of limbs attempting to steady their breathing. Harry rested his head upon Hermione's delicate bosom, his body still quaking, his arms wrapped tightly around her neck almost to ensure that she could not ever leave him.

A small hiccough caused Harry to raise his eyes, and the beautiful creature before him grasped his face and brought his gaze in line with her own tearful one.

"Please, Harry," she pleaded. "I need you. Please...you can't leave me. I don't know...what I would do..."

"Shhh," he comforted, shifting his weight so that he was lying next to her. She relaxed into the crook of his arm, her face buried in his chest as he brought the quilt up to cover their naked forms. "I'm still here, Hermione. We're still here."

They slept in one another's arms that night, mutual heartbeats temporarily being the only affirmation that they were, indeed, alive.