He slid a hand under her bra and grazed his thumb over her nipple. She felt it pebble under his touch and found herself aching for him. She bit her lip and keened softly as he did it again. She was clinging to his shoulders.
He shoved her bra up and squeezed her bare breast. His mouth was hot on the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and she felt him lightly sucking on her skin.
Her hand slipped over his shoulder, feeling the faint sensation of his scars. She stroked them lightly. She ran the fingers of her other hand over his chest, feeling all the dips and rises of his muscles. Memorising what he felt like. He pressed himself against her hand.
He groaned against her neck. Pleasure not pain. The vibration of the sound flooded across her chest, hotter than the burn of firewhisky.
She gasped as he continued to tease her breasts and kiss and suck along her shoulder.
She hadn't known she could feel so many things at once. That the sensations all swirled together and amalgamated in her body, growing into something that felt bigger than her.
She felt awash in sensation and emotions.
She hadn't known his hands and his breath, his lips and tongue, his hard body against hers, the brush of his hair against her skin would affect her emotionally.
She'd had no idea that hearing and feeling him react to her touch and her body could affect her the most of all.
She hadn't known it was like that.
No one had told her. No one had warned her.
She hadn't known
Scrawny. That was what he had called her after seeing her naked, that he'd wished he'd asked for someone else.
She shook.
Another unwanted thought came to her.
She could be anyone. He was just lonely, he'd want anyone who'd touched him.
A lump welled up in her throat, and she couldn't swallow it. Her hands stilled, and she fought to breathe without crying.
Draco noticed. He raised his head from her shoulder and stared at her expression. Then he smiled bitterly, pulled his hands away, straightening her clothes as he shifted her off of his lap.
“You should go now,” he said.
His voice was cold. Hard. Clipped and to the point once more.
His mask had dropped neatly back into place.
Chapter End Notes
Illustrations by Avendell, follow her on tumblr and instagram.
Additional Illustrations:
One of them was on a platter by _knar.m_.
Like a rose in a graveyard by fleureia.
You're like a rose in a graveyard by lwaayys
August 2002
Hermione pressed her lips together as she stared over at Draco, breathing raggedly.
“I'm too drunk. I can't apparate,” she said. “I told you, I cry. I can't help it. I don't know how to hold it all in when I'm drunk.”
She clamped her hands over her mouth and struggled not to burst into tears. They leaked out of her eyes and slid over her fingers.
Draco sighed.
“Why are you crying now?” he asked when she kept choking back tears.
“Because I'm lonely and I'm snogging you and you don't even really think I'm attractive,” she admitted tearfully.
Draco looked at her for a moment and then tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling for a full minute.
“Why do you think I was snogging you?” he finally asked in a tight voice.
The corner of Hermione's mouth twitched, and she looked away.
“Because I'm here,” she said quietly.
“Why were you snogging me?” he asked, looking away from the ceiling to stare at her.
Hermione studied a knot in a floorboard and twisted a curl in her hands.
“Because you treat me like I'm me. My friends treat me like a colleague,” she said in a bitter tone, “Harry and I got into a fight, and then he apologised for insulting me professionally. Like that was the part that hurt me. Somehow — you make me remember that underneath everything I've become in this war, the person I was before still exists.”
She bit her lip as she tried not to start crying again. She snatched the bottle off the floor where it had been abandoned at some point and gulped more of the remaining firewhisky. There was less than an inch left, and she had a lingering hope that if she finished all of it, it would take her to a point of inebriation beyond feeling.
Malfoy looked away from her, and then leaned back and slung his arm over his eyes. When she had finished the bottle of Ogden's, she glanced over at him. His arm had slumped down; he was asleep.
She stared at him for a long time, studying his features in a way she had never permitted herself to in the past. Then, gradually, she found her eyelids closing. She should — she couldn't quite think, but she should do something. Get up? Or perhaps conjure a cot somewhere? Her sight grew dim. She fell asleep still staring at him.