blogombal Chapter 213 213: One Question at a Time
Chapter 213 213: One Question at a Time
Hermione caught the glimmer—she had been watching anxiously for exactly that.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked softly, still leaning against him—still pressing her warmth, layer by layer, to his lips, which were slowly regaining their colour.
"Much better." A faint flush had returned to his face, chasing out the deathly pallor.
"Good." She said it happily, rubbing her cheek against his, intending to make her way out.
"Not enough." He rolled over suddenly, pinning her beneath him—all trace of weakness vanishing in an instant.
He had transformed back into something else entirely. Something hungry. A creature driven by something between need and instinct.
Draco did not want to let her go. He had only just managed to catch this feather.
The feather that had startled at his touch. The feather whose face was growing increasingly red, whose breath was becoming increasingly unsteady. The feather blinking up at him in bewildered unease.
So he looked at her quietly, his gaze settled in her bright, star-like eyes, and whispered, "I still want to pay off that debt as soon as possible. Otherwise I won't be able to eat or sleep."
Hermione opened her mouth, searching for a rebuttal.
How could he repay kindness with this? She had pulled him out of the cold and warmed him up—not offered herself up to be devoured!
But she hesitated, afraid that refusing him would send him spiralling back into misery. So she held her breath, stayed silent, and watched him carefully—as though trying to discern exactly what he intended to do. Whether he actually planned to bite her.
Was that a welcome?
Draco, evidently, interpreted it as one. Her every small exhale sounded to him like encouragement.
He caught her like a fox catching a rabbit—swift, unhesitating, certain.
This world is always fair in its zero-sum accounting: when one rises, the other must fall.
This charitable girl had meant to pull the boy back from the brink. How naive she had been—rescuing him and dragging herself into the fire in the process.
Hermione found it difficult to breathe.
She was suddenly submerged in the depth of his emotions—intense, immersive, undeniable.
He wasn't biting her at all. He was giving back to her—returning the passion she had kindled in him, pouring it over her like something warm and drowning.
How could anyone refuse that?
His hold on her senses was so complete.
The street kisses. The wind and rain on the terrace. The scent of figs. The maddening tension of each breath while he played with her straps. The ambiguous words murmured over her skirt. It all rose in her memory now, vivid and insistent. And everything visible to him had gone pink again; the hidden reservoir within her threatened to overflow.
What made it worse: just as she was helplessly swept under by his steadfast attention, the architect began making bold revisions to his design.
Draco Malfoy—a distinctly reckless sort of designer—apparently found the straps an outdated feature in this particular suite. What he truly wanted, it seemed, was something closer to her heart.
Sometime during the kiss, the silk ribbon was drawn out by his altogether too-accomplished fingers and discarded without a second thought.
If you were to ask this fraudulent French chef: what is the proper way to unwrap something precious?
He would give you a cheerful smile and refuse to answer directly.
Draco preferred demonstration to instruction.
He would show you how to carefully unwrap the finest gift in the world—drawing her freshly pressed skirt down to her waist; how to find the softest thing imaginable and carefully undo the clasp she had only just refastened.
He was quite indifferent to anyone else's admiration—the most unruly master in the world—interested only in teaching the one student he had ever wanted to teach, and in making her understand precisely how consumed he was by the thought of holding something this soft in his hands.
His student, eyes glazing over, told him, "Mind your manners, Draco."
"What do you take me for, a saint?" he asked, his voice low.
"Of course you're not!" she said, going pink.
Draco Malfoy, who had never once been a saint, was entirely unashamed of this fact.
He was busy being happy—because what had existed only in his imagination was becoming real in his hands at last.
"Draco!" she gasped in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"Feeling your heartbeat," he whispered, his hand settling gently over her breast.
Flutter, flutter, flutter.
Smooth, soft, white—like a small bird on the verge of taking flight.
Her heartbeat was quickening. But it was warm.
"Feeling my heartbeat—" she asked, flushing, "—does that require your hands?"
"Of course," he said softly, his voice threading with quiet mischief. "Or would you prefer I use my mouth?"
"No—" she said, her voice unsteady.
Draco knew this was perhaps rather excessive—but he had no self-control to speak of at the moment.
His soul was full of jagged edges, all of them aching for something soft to wrap around them—something to quiet the helplessness he couldn't put into words.
Besides, she was looking at him. And her looking was closer to acquiescence than refusal.
In an instant, fireworks ignited in his mind, one after another.
He gazed at her, kissed her lips, but found the sensation at his lips growing distant—all his awareness had migrated to his hand.
"Hermione—" he asked her softly, "if I were very taken with a feather, would I be permitted to hold it?"
"If you like—of course you may—" she said, puzzled. "Why ask that now—at a time like this?"
"Because I need the feather's permission first." He looked down at her and smiled softly.
"I imagine a feather would find that rather hard to refuse," she said quietly.
So he closed his hand—and held her, unobstructed, in his palm.
Draco had spent the entire day imagining what that would feel like.
But when he finally had his wish, he found that imagination had done a poor job.
Oh—such softness. Such warmth. Such an entirely undone sensation.
She was more perfect than he had ever imagined—as though made precisely for him; now perfectly in his hands, everything exactly as it should be.
"Draco—" Hermione whispered, suddenly very aware of her own heartbeat.
This enigmatic boy always found a way to reach her most guarded places—making her abandon all her vigilance, all her resistance, all her principles, without her quite knowing how.
She had anticipated he would try. She had known he would try to hold her, and touch her, and make her increasingly flustered.
It had been written in his eyes from the moment they were on the sofa—every stroke of it clear as ink.
Though she was terribly shy, she hadn't resisted. But she hadn't expected him to move quite so quickly.
He was looking into her eyes, his touch careful and steady. She gazed back at his captivating face and murmured his name again.
The sparks leaping in her heartbeat—or perhaps it was his touch—made it hard to breathe.
Then came the sensation of her thoughts shutting down entirely.
His name pulsed through her mind. His scent filled her lungs. His gaze was all she could see.
It seemed as though the world outside had collapsed in the torrential rain—and only this room was real.
Only her heartbeat was real.
And no matter how fast it beat, it seemed unable to escape the warmth of his palm.
"Draco—" she kept calling his name until he responded.
"What is it, Hermione?" His voice was very soft and low—as if afraid of startling something fragile.
In the quiet room, she could hear her own breathing and his, wound together—like a conversation without words.
"What did you want to say—" he murmured, gazing at her.
She looked up at him. His face was growing redder and redder—she found she could study it for a long time, the colour rising in his cheeks.
"Tell me," he said, his voice hushed.
"I don't know." Hermione drew a breath. "Draco, I—I always want to call your name."
Draco's grey eyes found her pupils and saw in them a light he liked very much.
"Then call it," he said, still gazing at her. "I don't object. I like hearing you say my name. And I'd prefer if you kept calling it—and didn't call anyone else's. Only mine."
As he spoke, a strand of hair fell across her forehead, and Hermione's composure scattered.
"Remember," Draco said quietly, his gentle tone carrying a quiet, unmistakable edge, "you may only call my name in a moment like this."
"What—moment?" Hermione asked breathlessly.
He pressed his cheek to hers and breathed low into her ear.
"Hermione Granger—in bed, you may only ever call the name of Draco Malfoy. Understood?"
This bold, possessive declaration made her breath catch. She found herself instinctively clenching her fists, as if the demand had consequences she hadn't yet let herself imagine.
He held her gaze and pressed further: "Promise me."
"I don't think so—" She struggled to reclaim her breath. Or her reason.
"Please say yes," he whispered, looking at her with those gentle, sorrowful, fragile eyes—as if he might come apart in the next second if she refused.
"Will you only ever call my name in bed?" he breathed.
So she blushed—stared into his eyes—and said, "All right."
Completely unreasonable. And yet she couldn't be angry. Couldn't refuse.
After all, she had been the one to coax him out of his inexplicable sadness in the first place.
She'd meant to talk sense into him—to stop him from making impossible demands. But her voice seemed to have slipped under the bed somewhere and couldn't find its way back.
Not long ago she'd thought the straps were dangerous. Evidently, the bedroom itself was more dangerous still.
No—it should be said that Draco Malfoy was the most dangerous thing of all.
Even his tears were dangerous.
She had walked straight into the net he had woven with them.
A net she couldn't escape. A net as tender as water. She was caught—only caught—in it.
"Good... Hermione... remember... you are mine... Hermione... only ever mine..." With a soft, stubborn exhale, Draco held her close, kissed her deeply, and pressed himself against her.
She was his sweet longing. His most beautiful dream. His illusion made real.
His painkiller. His lullaby. His undoing.
She was his salvation at the bottom of the Black Lake, the warmth he'd drawn from the Astronomy Tower, and the light that had kept him standing before the Dementors.
She was the only beauty he could find in this chaotic world—and every beautiful word that existed should be used to define her.
She was his. She could only be his. She had to be his, no matter what.
He always wanted to hold her close. He never wanted to let her go.
Amidst the trembling she couldn't suppress, Hermione felt as though her body were a young beehive—startled into shivering by the sudden beating of a hundred wings.
She tried to recover her composure. Or rather, her voice.
"Draco... please... stop..."
Her words were muffled against his lips, unsteady and incoherent—nothing like her usual self.
"What, Hermione—don't you like it...?" He looked at her, his eyes dreamy.
She's so beautiful. Unbearably so. Like a flower with petals thin as a cicada's wing.
Draco Malfoy's favourite flower.
And perhaps she was right—perhaps such a flower ought to bloom proudly on the branch, rather than be carelessly plucked and shut in a cold bottle or a fancy, useless box.
Who could bring themselves to be rough with this flower? Not him—he was too afraid of crushing the thing he loved most.
She was the only rose he had ever truly loved.
He loved every part of the rose: every beautiful petal, every delicate sepal, every proud thorn.
She should bloom before his eyes forever—untouched and unhurt by anyone.
He loved her. Her soul most of all.
He loved free spirits, independent spirits, bright spirits.
He had once spoken harshly to Krum—said with great self-righteous certainty: "Her soul is free."
And yet he knew, in the deepest part of himself, what a despicable hypocrite he was. He could never be that noble. That selfless. That magnanimous.
Because right now, Draco Malfoy did not want to let Hermione Granger go—would do almost anything not to—and he was utterly helpless against the cunning, selfish parts of himself.
He ran his thumb across the soft curve of her, studied the look in her eyes, and asked again, "Don't you like this?"
This flower had absolutely no idea what sort of person it had gotten itself mixed up with.
The flower was busy humming softly, its face deepening into a rosy red.
"That's not what I meant..." she said.
"So you just—like it," Draco said, with insufferable smugness.
He closed his eyes again and resumed his entirely selfish, wholly unreasonable behaviour.
"Mm... I do like it... but it's too much..." Hermione said drowsily, letting her eyes close, surrendering the pretence of objecting.
She didn't actually mind his touch. He was very gentle.
She even found it oddly endearing. Completely irrational—but there it was.
"It's a bit much..." Draco murmured in agreement, thoroughly absorbed.
Then he caught himself—and a wave of regret crashed through him.
His voice went sad again in an instant, and he immediately pulled back, wanting to give her space, to give her back her freedom.
"Merlin—I promised I wouldn't do anything excessive. I'm sorry..."
"It isn't that bad," Hermione said quickly, alarmed that he might fall back into that sad spiral. She pressed down on his retreating hand. "There's no need to apologise."
"Even so, I should stop..." Draco buried his face in her thick hair, drew a long breath, and tried to collect himself.
She was right. He had gone too far—though he had no desire whatsoever to stop.
"Yes, stop. But then why are you still holding my hand?" Hermione said, after a pause—though she rubbed her chin contentedly against him as she said it.
"And why have you been pressing closer to my hand?" Draco asked with difficulty, his throat moving.
"I don't know..." Hermione's voice faltered, feeling she should not have had this pointed out to her. "Oh, do shut up, Draco."
Draco fell silent, looking aggrieved.
The girl couldn't bear his wounded expression, so she started ruffling his hair again. She had a real talent for it—her fingers turned him into a lazy, contented cat, rumbling softly in his throat.
His hand still couldn't bring itself to leave. She seemed in no particular hurry to push it away, either—shifting to make more room for his occasional, hesitant touch.
Her rationality had completely dissolved. He had to try to gather up the scattered pieces of his own and put them back together.
He exhaled heavily and said, reluctant but honest, "We probably ought to leave this suite. It's too dangerous here."
"Agreed. Definitely too dangerous." She opened her eyes, glanced at the light outside the window—then moved her hand closer to his again. "The rain has stopped."
"There are still a few drops on the windowpane," he said, looking at the faint streaks on the glass, then back at her—his hand still twitching slightly—in a tone of studied detachment: "And my hand may be going numb. It needs to rest."
"All right, then. Another half hour is fine." She lifted her flushed face toward him, revealing the pink blush spreading down her neck, and unreasonably pressed her heart still closer to his hand, making him dizzy. "As long as... you don't go sad on me again. And don't do anything too excessive."
What a contradictory request—particularly given that she was clinging to his hand like a Muggle refrigerator magnet.
"Yes, I went too far." The vein in his arm flickered, and he couldn't quite help giving her a small, involuntary squeeze that made her breath catch. "Hermione Granger—you're entirely innocent in this matter, aren't you? The responsibility is entirely mine?"
"Entirely yours," she said stubbornly, her heart hammering.
She felt like a water bottle with a loose cap—about to spill over.
"It's all your fault, Draco Malfoy."
The small figures in the full-length mirror clearly had other opinions. But they had no way to voice them—only to stare in astonishment at the rose-gold girl. She clung to the boy who looked so fragile, in a wilful and utterly spoiled manner, telling him "don't move, don't go too far" and "don't be sad, don't leave."
The boy—ears burning red—was clearly in considerable distress. But he had no choice but to comply, frowning all the while.
At least the bitter tears were completely gone.
"You witch," he said, with feeling. And yet he was willing to obey her every command and serve her faithfully.
"Yes, that's me," she said, not the least bit sorry about it.
Ruffling his hair, the wilful little witch was bossy and altogether pleased with herself.
However—as a cunning Slytherin—Draco Malfoy always knew when to press, when to retreat, and exactly which methods to employ in pursuit of his objectives.
"Just one question," he said, gazing at her softly. "Does kissing count as going too far?"
Under his captivating gaze, she looked at him with slightly unfocused eyes and said, "I—don't object to kissing."
So he set about creating an even more thoroughly dazed Hermione Granger with a combination of thorough kisses and careful, attentive hands.
As she became increasingly lost in his kiss, she grew less and less aware of what his fingers were doing—her initial vigilance ebbing away.
The perfect opportunity for a Slytherin to move.
Draco smiled.
Victory was in sight.
He could now progress to the next phase of his plan—which required resolving only one small problem.
One question at a time.
The question: she was ______ already. Was or is?
He intended to find out firsthand.
He began to explore, very carefully. His hand started to move—patient and deliberate—tracing slowly down her ribs, past the curve of her waist, under the hem of her skirt, and along the inside of her thigh. Inch by inch. Learning the territory.
"Draco... I'm a little frightened." Hermione breathed softly against his lips, her face blazing.
He was touching the inside of her thigh—just a small distance from her most private secret. It was so sensitive there that even the gentlest touch could make her dissolve entirely—melting like ice cream, sticky and sweet, straight onto the soft sheets.
"Oh—sorry—I'll stop." The boy nuzzled her affectionately, his warm face pressed to hers, his bright eyes watching her closely.
His hand emerged reluctantly from beneath her skirt. Draco sighed.
So close. He had been almost there. He sighed again, quietly.
Even through silk and lace, the venture had been worth it. And if he were lucky, one day perhaps he would—
Draco was aware he had been thinking about this ever since he stepped out of the bathroom.
If he was honest: ever since he'd sorted out the secret beneath her bathrobe, he had been persistently, relentlessly, uncontrollably trying to work out something else:
Her secret. Did it hold any unique secrets of its own? And were those secrets perhaps connected in any interesting way to this rainy afternoon?
But she was so sensitive. So shy. So tender.
She had whispered in a voice like a nestling bird that she was "frightened"—and he had gone soft immediately. He could never bear to be the cause of her fear.
He sighed again, though a smile still lingered on his face as he looked at her.
"Hermione," he said quietly, "don't be afraid of me. All right?"
In Hermione's eyes, that innocent smile was devastating.
The hand at the back of her neck was stroking her arm—slow, gentle, meticulous.
Those burning lips were whispering their vow to her.
"Hermione, don't be afraid of me. Never leave me. I'll do whatever you ask. I won't do anything you think is too much, unless you want me to. I will never hurt you."
"Don't you know how..." she asked softly, fingertips tugging at the hem of his shirt.
"Never..." he whispered, soothing her restless, uncertain heart with his gaze.
The candlelight wavered, throwing overlapping shadows across the walls.
Hermione looked into his loving, tender eyes and felt as though the Milky Way were pouring from them.
In those shimmering grey eyes, her soul rose and drifted like mist—spiralling slowly upward—and came to rest at last in the bronze floral chandelier glimmering overhead.
Yet she still wasn't entirely certain she could trust him—not in this.
And to be fair: he truly did restrain himself. He went no further. He did not press on to uncover that soft, dewy secret.
But the hand that had withdrawn from under her skirt had developed quite a persistent interest in tending to her increasingly flustered and oversensitive breasts—and if that hand would only behave, his promises would have been considerably more convincing.
Hermione thought she was beginning to understand the full meaning of his attentiveness from the way he seemed to pour himself into it—reluctant yet absorbed.
It wasn't merely touching. He was claiming her. He was like no ordinary cheetah hunting on instinct—he was something fiercer. A serpent born of fire and ash, unlike any other, winding itself around her, enveloping her completely.
His hand was a tongue of flame, anaesthetic-laced—swift and thorough, seeking out every part of her that could be kindled.
He was a singular mixture of protectiveness and possessiveness.
For instance: right now he seemed to have wrapped himself completely around her—like a fortress that could not harm her. And yet beneath that relentless embrace, she felt extraordinarily vulnerable. As if a single moment's carelessness on his part could undo her entirely.
A sense of alarm crept in as her reason stirred.
"I don't think you're sad at all," the perceptive girl said, reaching for his hand. "You seem quite pleased with yourself."
She tried to hold his gaze steadily—not wanting to look as lost or as besotted as she felt.
"I suppose I am." Draco smiled slightly, his face flushed. "You always find a way to cheer me up, don't you."
At that moment, the hand in question made a quiet sideways movement.
"No—we really can't keep going like this!" Hermione murmured.
She pressed down on the wandering hand, trying to prevent it from going further.
"Why not?" he asked, feigning injury. "It was going along perfectly well just a moment ago."
"The rain stopped an hour ago, and you haven't—" She exhaled, her face thoroughly pink, her voice growing smaller with each word. "I feel like I'm coming apart—my whole body feels like it's on fire—from all this rubbing..."
Faced with his increasingly smug smile, she had to blush and add: "It's nearly dinnertime."
"Is it already," Draco said, with the air of someone very reluctantly returning from somewhere much preferable.
He glanced at the wall clock and became marginally more alert.
"Dinner—you're meeting your parents, aren't you?" he said quietly.
"That's right," she said.
"Right. The fact that I brought their daughter to a hotel and occupied her entire afternoon is bad enough already." He studied her flushed cheeks, trying to locate some scrap of seriousness beneath his own ill intentions. "They really needn't be given anything else to worry about."
Hermione exhaled—a small, slightly wistful sound. "You're right."
Fortunately. Fortunately, she thought to herself—though she looked at his very red lips with a strange, lingering sense of something close to regret.
At the critical moment, she had managed to piece her scattered reason back together—assembling it from the floor, finding her way back to herself just in time.
Otherwise, her little secret would have been quite lost.
"Let me fasten your straps back on, then," Draco said softly, picking up the much-crumpled ribbons. "Can you sit up?"
"My legs are still a bit weak," Hermione admitted, barely above a whisper.
"Then we'll manage here," he said quietly, looking at her with those bright eyes.
"Manage?" The word startled her.
"We're short on time," Draco said, all innocence, gesturing first to the wall clock and then to the ribbons in his hand.
Then she understood what he meant and went very pink. "All right."
"Right. Turn over. Face down." He smoothed the ribbons between his fingers, his voice unconsciously taking on that particular tone of command.
"Fine—be quick about it," Hermione said, blushing, and lay down as instructed—though she always felt there was an implication lurking somewhere in everything he said.
"Under the circumstances, I can't promise to be quick. That seems rather like an insult," Draco said softly, studying the back of her head with its mass of thick hair—and smiled.
"An insult?" Startled, she blushed and glanced back at him. "An insult to whom?"
Merlin, she truly had no idea how devastating the look she'd just given him was.
That mix of gentleness, stubbornness, shyness, and refusal to back down—it stirred something in him, something he had to bury deep and fast.
"To the hook closure, of course," Draco said, his voice low and perfectly even, gripping the ribbon with great deliberateness.
He held her startled gaze as she looked back over her shoulder, took in her suddenly very still, very smooth back, and said, with complete sincerity: "Given how extraordinarily intricate a hook closure truly is—I think we owe it a little more time and patience, don't you?"