The Shattered Dragon

Chapter 26: The Pumpkin Shell

"Will you come visit me again tonight?" He asked, curling his fingers around hers, tugging her hand across the table. "We could...read or have tea or...."

"Fuck," she said, smiling. "Isn't that what you really want?"

His mouth opened and closed but he didn't let go of her hand.

"I want you, yes, always, of course" he said, looking over his shoulder, wishing he could be half as blunt as Hermione ever was. "But that isn't all you are. I would never force you to do anything..."

"Except live in a mansion and become one of your stable of whores. You would force me to do that," she snorted, one eyebrow arched high.

"I..."

She stood then, letting go of him, but he was surprised to see a smile on her face, pink in her cheeks.

"I'm teasing you Draco," she said. "I know I'm essentially trapped here."

"Hermione,"

"No, honestly," she said, stepping back to cross her arms over her chest, avoiding his gaze. "I've read the Veritas, I know what it's like beyond these walls. It's getting worse for us. There's nowhere else for me to go, safely, until things change on the outside. I just...I wanted to tell you somehow that I don't feel like a prisoner anymore. And ever since...well, I appreciate you keeping...damaged goods around."

She was still smiling, but her lips trembled as she traced a finger over the grain of the table. He took a deep breath and stood, leaning in to kiss her forehead and a quick brush of his lips over hers. Somewhere in the background he heard a fork drop to the floor.

"I think you told me six months ago that we're all damaged goods, remember? And I..." he paused, biting back the words he wanted to use. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

It was Draco's turn to smile at her, gathering up his scrolls and books as if late for something.

"Don't wait so long to come see me tonight, Sparrow. Right after lineup I'll be waiting." He shouldered past her and turned to speak over his shoulder, his voice near a whisper. "It's not like you to give up hope, Granger. I don't like how it looks on you. Things are changing, I promise."

She went to his room at eight thirty, wearing his favorite yellow satin pajamas with her hair in a half braid, just like it had been the first night he spent with her. She told herself that it was all going to be different this time...Draco would remember the passion he had for her and not hold back, not treat her like one of the tiny crystal kittens that Umbridge used to keep perched on her shelves. Draco would remember how strong she was, what she'd been through, how thick her skin had become...so thick in fact that it was immune to gentle touches, softness and affection. She didn't trust those things, they never felt as real as rage and want and hunger. A soft touch of his lips on her cheek felt forced, but his fist in her hair, holding her mouth against his: that let her know that she was truly needed. Wanted.

"Draco?"

She opened the black lacquer doors without knocking and found the front room empty, the fire dormant, a cigarette still smoldering in a heavy crystal ashtray. The door to his bedroom was half closed, a gold glow of light pouring out into the dusky room.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Shrugging out of her robe and laying it over a chair, she wandered over to his desk where the piles of scrolls and sealed messages from owls was growing. There was another copy of Hogwarts: A History, battered and worn, dogeared pages and stains on the cover sitting amongs the clutter. Beneath it a list sat out, his black quill laying across it: