Nightmares and Nocturnes

The Day Boy

Chapter 17: The Day Boy

Hermione woke slowly, the gradual warmth of the room filling her lungs as she registered the restful stillness in the air that meant Draco, the glow of him that spilled light into her eyes and enveloped her.

"I don't want to leave," he murmured, running his fingers up her arm; the path of his touch led past her shoulder to the slope of her neck, the curve of her cheek, and then swept rapturously across her lips, her mouth parting as she caught her breath.

Today -

"Do you have to?" she whispered, turning to face him, and he closed his eyes, the pale lashes floating above the thread of his cheek, his hand pausing reverently against the line of her jaw.

"Yes," he said simply, and then his eyes fluttered open, the grey sharpness melting from steel and catching the light as he looked at her. "And I'm coming back to you, and then - "

His breath caught as she turned her head, pressing her lips to the lining of his wrist and scraping her teeth against the skull and the snake that stood between them.

"And then," he continued, watching with fascination, "we'll find your ravens."

Together -

She shifted herself against him, finding comfort in the pressure of his chest against hers, in the thud of his heart that served to anchor the skidding rush of her pulse. His breath slid across her cheek and she lifted her chin, suffering a fleeting bout of wonderment at the receptive growl that left his lips - at the knowledge that she had done it; that what he hungered for - what made him weak, and what made him wild - was her.

Had she been standing, her knees would have buckled; it was immense, the power of being captive in his gaze, of being swallowed by his need, of being trapped by her own wish to be closer, closer, closer -

She gasped as he kissed her, the taste of him still foreign; still dynamic and changeable despite having had it, despite having had him. She ran her hand along the line of potency in his spine; felt him, like a surge under her fingers, and tried not to bend in worship; fought not to bow in veneration, that he would not become the holy ground beneath her feet - a reluctant hero, she told herself, eyes closed, a man who runs -

A whisper. A boy, so steeped in sun -

"Hermione," he whispered into her mouth, supplication and homage, and what he offered in reverence she thrust back at him in compulsion, helplessly leaning into the way his voice shattered through her bones, reflex and instinct and intuition and -

Inevitability.

She shuddered and braced herself against him, balancing her vacancy against the edges of where he ended. A single movement, a shaky breath, could tip her; to where, she thought, to what, and her mind whispered again -

Inevitability.

"What is it you need?" she murmured, and he, his gaze cloudy and unfocused, blinked confusion away as she forced a punishing space between their hips. "What are you looking for?"

He swallowed, straining to reach reality. "In France?"

She nodded. Truth, she asked, and waited.

"Complicated," he muttered, his gaze dropping to the line of her collarbone as he slid his tongue across his lip, his voice cracked and hoarse. "I don't know, precisely."

She lifted a hand like she would catch his meaning from his lips, then let the words slip through her fingers as she sighed. "Then why?"

"Smith went there once," he said, closing his eyes. "Right before I found you."