Against a wall. Or just on the floor of the hotel room where they landed.
His kisses tasted like ice and sin, and Hermione drank them in until she was gasping.
“You're mine. You're mine.” He'd repeat the words over and over like a mantra. “Say it. Say you're mine.”
“I'm yours, Draco,” she'd promise against his lips, or staring into his eyes.
He'd entwine his fingers with hers and press their foreheads together, and sometimes his whole body would shake. She'd wrap her arms around him and press kisses into his hair.
“I promise, Draco. I'm always going to be yours.”
There was a possessive terror in his eyes when he stared at her — in the way he touched her — as though he always expected it to be the last time he ever saw her.
On the days he didn't summon her, she'd walk through Grimmauld Place feeling as though she couldn't breathe until she felt her ring burn.
Then she was the one who would desperately demand to know if he was alright.
“Don't die, Draco.”
It was always the last thing she said to him.
The moment before he apparated away, as he stood in his Death Eater robes, she'd say it rather than goodbye. She'd catch his chin in her hand and stare up into his eyes. “Be careful. Don't die.”
He'd dip his head forward and kiss her palm as his cool, grey eyes locked onto hers. “You're mine. I'll always come for you.”
He always did.
Each day felt as though the odds were being pushed higher. Steeper. She wasn't sure how far the runes and his own determination could take him before it reached a point of utter improbability and everything came crashing down.
She could feel it.
He was walking a razor's edge.
When he slept, she stared at his face and willed him to survive the war.
They'd run away when it was over. Far away. So far no one would ever find them. She promised herself she'd find a way. She promised it to him: that there would be an after.
There were moments when they almost forgot the war around them. Eating breakfasts ordered by room service. Arguing whether food from a greasy spoon constituted as actual food. Taking advantage of the unreasonably large bathtubs that his hotel suites always had. Kissing him.
She could spend a decade kissing him; feeling the burning reverence in the way he touched her.
The moment their lips touched, he'd crush her body against his. His hands would slide along her throat and back to the nape of her neck, tangling his fingers in her hair as he deepened the kiss. He'd cradle her cheek in the palm of his hand and then slip it down along her body.
Then, when she was gasping for breath, he'd pull his mouth away and start kissing along her throat. Sucking on her pulse point while he pulled at her clothes. She'd barely notice her clothing sliding off and falling to the floor as he stripped her and explored her bared skin. As she unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hands along his body.
He'd twist the clasp of her bra, and then jerk it off before his hands would dart up to palm her breasts and tease her until she was whimpering. His mouth would glide along the juncture of her neck and shoulder as he kissed and nipped his way across her skin.
“Perfect.” “Beautiful.” “Mine.” “Mine.” He'd breathe the words against her body as he bared her to himself. As he pushed into her. When he gripped her against himself. As she came apart in his arms or under his mouth. When he entwined their fingers, and she felt his hold tighten as he came.
“I'm going to take care of you. I swear, Hermione, I'm always going to take care of you.” He'd mutter the words against her skin or into her hair in such a low voice she could barely hear them.
One night at the beginning of May, when she was wrapped in his arms and half asleep, she heard him repeating it; as though it were a promise he were making to himself again and again. As though he couldn't make himself stop saying it.
She lifted her head and held his face between her hands so that she could look into his eyes.
“Draco, I'm alright. Nothing is going to happen to me.”
He just stared at her with the same bitterly resigned expression he worn while training her. He was bracing himself, waiting for what he regarded as inevitable.
The war was twisted around them like a nest of thorns they couldn't escape from.
He subsided and rested his head against her chest, wrapping his arms around her while she tangled her fingers in his hair.
She could still feel him repeating the words.
She hesitated for several minutes before she spoke.
“Tell me about your mother, Draco. Tell me everything you could never tell anyone.”
He stiffened and was silent. She slid her fingers over his shoulders and traced along the scars from the runes. “Using Occlumency is just hiding it. You can tell me, I'll help you carry it. Tell me about your mother.”
He didn't speak or move for such a long time she wondered if he'd fallen asleep. Then he turned his head just enough that she could see his profile. His expression was carefully closed, but she could see him considering.
“I'd never seen anyone tortured before,” he said at last. “She was — the first person I ever saw tortured. He—,” Hermione felt his jaw roll as he hesitated, “—he experimented on her and let — a few other Death Eaters contribute ideas about what to do to her. To punish the Malfoys.”
As he spoke, his eyes gradually grew wider and his expression unmasked. He stared across the room, his eyes far away.
Hermione watched, and she could see him, just sixteen and home for the holidays.
Home. Walking unknowingly into a nightmare that he would never, never escape from.
“I thought—,” his voice was suddenly younger. Boyish. “For a while, I thought that if I killed Dumbledore soon enough that somehow she'd recover. That I could fix it — if I could succeed. But — she was a shadow of herself when I returned from school. I think — she had tried to hold on over the summer, when I was being trained. But when I was gone, she broke—”
He was quiet for a moment.
He started to speak again but then pressed his mouth shut. His lips twitched as though he kept choosing and then discarding what he was going to say next.
“It wasn't even a month. I wasn't even gone a month,” he finally said.
Hermione laced her fingers in his hair. He closed his eyes and drew his chin down.
“It was supposed to all be reversible, to motivate me, nothing to physically maim her. But he wrecked her mind. Using legilimency for torture is his favourite technique. She had seizures, mostly small ones, but occasionally they'd be severe. Especially later. She just — wasted away inside that cage. When she was startled, she'd close her eyes and start rocking and making these whimpering noises inside her mouth. She wouldn't stop for hours, and I couldn't — couldn't always stay with her — because I had to train.”
He wouldn't look at Hermione as he spoke. He kept staring across the room. His voice was low and it wavered.
“The day I killed Dumbledore, the Dark Lord demanded we have dinner with him. To celebrate — he said we were celebrating my success. She'd been released for only a few hours, and he wanted her play hostess. Her tremors were so severe she could barely hold the silverware. Her fork kept rattling against the plate, and then she'd drop it and panic when she tried to pick it up. Apparently the noise was distracting. So the Dark Lord took a steak knife and drove it through her left hand and into the table. Then he left her there, bleeding, until he retired. I was seated across from her, and she just looked at me the whole time, shaking her head to warn me not to do anything.”