Secrets and Masks

45. In another life

16th December;

"Did you really have to break that muggles arms like that?"

"Yes."

"And behead that other one?"

"Yes."

A cold hand gripped the small of her waist, the other closed around her throat, keeping her pinned in place while his lips and tongue fought with hers.

"And that last soldier?" she asked, trying to keep her voice a snarl, acidic, but hearing the malice die through her breathlessness. "Was killing him really necessary?"

"Yes."

"I can't believe you," Hermione murmured between kisses. "You went too far."

"No, I didn't." He pressed her against the wall and deepened their kiss. "He deserved everything he got."

"No," another kiss, "he didn't." She fisted her fingers in his hair and yanked his body tight against hers, not caring if it hurt him, only that she needed him closer. "You-" kiss, "-could have-" kiss, "-let him go."

"No, I couldn't."

"Yes, you could."

"No, Granger." He let go of her throat and wordlessly cast a slicing charm down the front of her Death Eater robes. He pushed his hand inside the fabric so he could palm and squeeze one of her tits. "He had to go."

"No, he didn't. He-" Hermione yelped as Malfoy pulled her bottom lip between his teeth and bit down. "Ouch!"

"How about you stop fucking talking," he growled, releasing her lip and moving to attack her neck, "and start taking your clothes off."

She moaned and knocked her head back against the wall as he licked across the pulse in her neck. She felt dizzy, lightheaded, and it had nothing to do with the bump she'd received on her head in battle.

Oh God, this was so wrong. Half an hour ago, they'd been on a battlefield. She'd been under the Hex and casting Avada's as quickly as she could throw her arm while Malfoy and Narcissa disintegrated everything and everyone in their path.

She'd broken out of the Hex just as the battle had begun to draw to a close, come back to her senses as the majority of the Death Eaters had apparated away and four muggle soldiers had her backed into an alleyway, but rather than ruthlessly slitting their throats - like she would have done if she were still under the Hex's influence - she'd tried to Imperio them to 'play dead' and hide until the battle was over.

But, of course, Malfoy didn't want to take chances like that. He'd quickly killed the soldiers and started screaming at her to be more careful.

She told him that there were no witnesses, that most of the Death Eaters were already gone and there was no reason for him to kill the muggles.

He told her that they'd signed their death warrants the moment they'd raised their guns at her.

As they'd apparated back to his manor, she'd told him she wasn't trying to break out of the Hex, that it'd just happened, and he'd shut her up by pushing her against the wall and kissing her.

And that was what had led them here. Pressed against each other in her bedroom. Covered in blood and ash from the battle, covered in death yet clinging onto one another like a lifeline.

She wrapped one of her legs around his waist, and without her needing to tell him what she wanted, Malfoy hooked his hands under her thighs and picked her up. She wrapped her other leg around him and kissed him over and over again as he walked them across her bedroom.