Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 44: XLIV

February 22nd, 1999

The sheets clinging to the damp, naked flesh of her side are Slytherin green - and she's thinking that should feel stranger than it does.

She's always had bad timing. Always had bizarre epiphanies and aimless trains of thought strike at the wrong moments. And this feels like the absolute worst moment to be wondering what her fifteen-year-old self would be thinking - this moment, with Draco Malfoy's strong, pale hand splayed across her bare hip, holding her in place; with her knee hitched up high to accommodate and her hair clinging to the pillow with sweat; with those Slytherin green sheets gathered into her fist as her breath catches around a moan; with him pressed against her back, quiet gasps sweeping across the nape of her neck as he slides in and out slowly - slower than he ever has - because she asked him to.

And yet she's wondering all the same. Figures her fifteen and sixteen and even seventeen-year-old selves would all be horrified to find that their future held a moment like this. Because surely, the universe can't have tilted so far on its axis that she's staring at serpent-adorned bed curtains as those warm, electric pulses surge up from between her thighs. Surely, it can't be Malfoy - Draco - she's letting do this. Surely, it can't feel the way it feels.

But it is. And it does. And it's sunken in before, but never quite this deep. Because before, every time always felt so spur-of-the-moment. Unexpected collisions in even less expected places.

This, however - this is deliberate. Letting him tow her along the deserted corridors and down the all too familiar Dungeon steps. Letting him lead her wordlessly through the common room, a few Slytherins still awake - none of them even looked up. Watching him cast silencing charms around his four-poster, with the sleeping form of Blaise Zabini not two meters to the left.

And a part of her is realizing why she blurted out those ridiculous words in the boathouse.

To her, the bed is a symbol, and Hermione has never shared a bed - a real bed - with anyone. Not with Viktor. Not with Ron. Not even just to sleep. There's something too personal about it. Too vulnerable. It's incredibly different from those pillows on the floor of the Divination classroom. It's as if-

Draco's lips glide from the pulse point on her throat to the shell of her ear, grip tightening on her hip ever so slightly as he rocks in a little deeper. Still so torturously slow.

"If you're going to solve puzzles in your head while I'm inside of you," he murmurs, voice a little ragged, "the least you could do is include me."

Hermione tilts her head, nose brushing his unexpectedly. She speaks against the corner of his mouth, each slow thrust moving her lips across his cheek. "You want to help me solve a puzzle?"

His hand frees her hip, palm splaying out across her thigh - sliding up along the tendons to the crease behind her knee. The delicacy of it mixed in with the way he rolls his hips makes her shiver and buck against him.

"Well yes, if it's so much more interesting..." He slides in to the hilt, jolting the breath out of her. "- than this."

She's left panting for several seconds, eyes falling shut as she fists the sheets tighter in hand. The word, "Faster," falls from her lips in a hiss.

Draco hums into her shoulder. "Odd. I seem to remember you begging me to go slow."

She scoffs instinctively, the jerk of it proving interesting with the way they're connected. He tenses. She groans.

"I did not beg you for anything."

His lips part against her pulse, teeth grazing skin as he speaks in a breathy croon meant to be her own. "Please. Oh, please please, Draco - fuck me slow."