:::Dance with Me:::
Days passed. The pressure of the future, the uncertainty of it, weighed heavily on both Hermione and Draco. November 1st loomed like an execution date over both of their heads, and though they tried to live despite the dread, they couldn't escape the growing awareness that time was running out.
It was late in the night. Hermione was curled in close against him, her head lying comfortably on his shoulder. Their hands were joined together and resting over his heart. Draco could feel it pounding, the solemn beat of a war drum, and wondered if she could feel it, too. He could smell her hair, that light, floral scent that had become so familiar. Though he'd slept without that scent for most of his life, he wasn't sure he'd ever grow used to not having it once it was gone again.
She was asleep. He could hear her slow, even breathing through the silence, the sound methodic, melodic, like the whisper of the wind against the autumn leaves. But Draco was wide-awake, and not even the sweet sound of her breath breezing in and out or the feel of her body next to his could lull him to sleep. He was too aware of the nothing that awaited him in the coming days. Brief flashes of his future kept flickering before his eyes, and everything he saw was black and bleak and cold as ice. It chilled him even now, knowing that in a few short days, he'd no longer be able to hold her like this—that he'd no longer be able to protect her, that he'd be a danger to her instead.
His fingers tightened around hers, his thumb caressing her wrist in circles. The skin there was smooth, soft, like stroking the petal of rose. He looked down to where their hands were joined, to the place where her palm flowed into her forearm. There was a tiny blue vein running through, barely visible against her translucent skin. He rubbed his thumb across it, wondering. How many scars sliced through it underneath the spell? Had she already cut there? Or would his slash be the first?
The thought that underneath the magic, one scar would be his doing had sickness churning in Draco's stomach. He hated that he would have to hurt her, that he would have to add to the lines that crisscrossed over her body—hated that once he did, it would make him no better than the sick bastard who had provoked all the other ones.
"What are you doing?" Hermione's voice was whisper-soft and serious.
Draco didn't look away from her wrist to see if her eyes had opened. It took a long time for him to answer, and when he did, his voice was low.
"Deciding," he told her ominously.
Hermione tilted her chin to look up at him. His steel-grey eyes were intense on the skin at her wrist, as if trying to see past it to the flesh underneath.
Or maybe trying to see past the magic to where the jagged skin was raised and indented.
What had he decided… about her blood, about her? She didn't ask. Though she wanted—needed—to know, she didn't press him for more.
Slowly, she lowered her head back down to his shoulder, closing her eyes again.
The light stroking paused. "Aren't you going to ask me… what it is I have to decide?"
Hermione kept her eyes closed. "If you were going to tell me then you would have already," she said with a sigh. There was a pause. "I'd rather not talk about it, anyway," she added in a whisper.
There was a still, silent moment, and then she felt his thumb continue its light exploration of her skin. "Neither would I," she heard him say, just as soft.
Minutes passed by in solemn silence. Draco shifted, letting his chin come to rest against her hair. Her breathing had evened out again, and deepened, as if with sleep. "Are you still awake?" he asked hesitantly after a while.
