control & suppress

"Fine, but eat quick." Hermione sits across from him with a huff. Though the (very loud) impatient side of her wants to yank him out of his seat and get into it, she's worked alongside Malfoy enough lately to know that'll only cause him to be more difficult. And besides, now that she's sat at the table, her stomach growls loudly with the reminder of food.

Well, if he's going to make her wait for answers...

And so she'd watched him. Focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin pressed against her, counting the beats of his heart below her palm. Very real signs that he was alive. That he was okay. That he wasn't the still, unblinking corpse of her nightmare.

"Don't." She takes a deliberate step back from him this time, had held out in front of him as if she could stop the weight of the confession through sheer force of will. "Don't say it. Don't." It's true, she's an idiot when it comes to this, but she's not blind, and Hermione thinks she's known it for a while now. She just hasn't wanted to acknowledge it. He's obscured by fresh tears as she shakes her head, lips pressed together tight in an attempt to stop herself from crying.

After that nightmare she'd watched him for forty minutes. Watched every breath and counted every heartbeat. And then she'd reached over to the bedside table for her wand, the vine wood sliding into her hand with a familiar ease. She'd taken her parents memories with that wand. Had made them forget all about her and sent them away, where the horrors of her world couldn't follow them. She could it to him too. She knew the spell. It would be easy. A quick word and a twist of her wrist and he wouldn't remember why he chose to stay. He'd wake up to an empty bed and wonder why he would stay on the side of the Order for so long at risk to his own life, and then he would leave. And he would be safe.

She'd held that wand at his sleeping temple for fifteen minutes before she talked herself out of it. Now she wishes she hadn't. Because if it's true, if it's her he's stayed for, she'll not survive it if anything happens to him.

and yet, the distance hermione creates for them feels just as damning.

Her hair has seen better days. An evening spent buried deep in the forbidden section of the library until the wee hours of the morning (courtesy of Harry's borrowed invisibility cloak) made sure of that. It's dry and frizzy from the heavy material of the cloak, flattened on one side from the forty minute nap she took with her cheek pressed against the desk, and one ringlet by her face is coated in a dried layer of ink courtesy of stained fingers. And as always, that hair is a physical manifestation of her mental state.

A loud thump rings throughout the Great Hall as she drops the hefty book she'd been carrying on the breakfast table in front of him, earning them a few curious (and sleep-weary) looks.

"The books don't say anything about this, this " she gestures erractically to her freckled cheek where the constellation Draco sits tauntingly, as if calling her an idiot for never having the pattern recognition to notice it before. " whatever you said it is."

Soulmates. He'd said soulmates.

And maybe once upon a time she would have laughed there was no such thing, but she just spent a year of her life tracking down the pieces of another person's soul so Hermione's not so quick to cry hogwash anymore. "I read everything Hogwarts has to offer on sou on the subject," she may not be dismissing it so readily, but that doesn't mean she wants to say the word aloud. "And there's nothing relevant. Nothing that explains how I how I feel."

The way her skin warms when he's near. Or how butterflies erupt in her belly. Or how he calms the cacophany of guilt and chaos in her mind while engaging her in all the ways she longs for. Six months ago she couldn't leave the room quick enough when Malfoy entered it, now she stares longingly at the door waiting.

draco reluctantly settles his fork ( along with a piece of egg and sausage wedged between it — only granger would time her appearance this poorly to deprive him of the most important meal of the day ) down onto his plate and reaches for a napkin to dap at his lips. ever the mannered aristocrat his mother had taught him to be. his gaze flickers to the book that had been shoved in his line of sight, and he nearly chortles at the title. his saving grace ( willpower ) is quickly defeated as granger rattles on and on, vague to anyone eavesdropping but completely transparent within context. granger was bothered, thirsting for information only he had ( thanks to his mother who had graciously provided him answers to every question he had when he'd first seen granger's freckles ).

draco can't help the amused quirk in his lips and the glittering of his eyes. did he feel a little powerful knowing more than gryffindor's resident know-it-all? absolutely. he even basks in that fact for a full minute.

They've been fighting. What's new.

It's become a bit of a routine for them by now. When it all becomes too much, when she's sick and tired of feeling nothing except for grief and fear and she just... snaps. It's him she goes to first. For fucking or for fighting. Anything to feel something more than this bottomless pit of dread.

They lost Seamus today. To a curse nobody knew the name of. A curse so horrific that Podmore had put him out of his misery with a clean Avada. Quick. And far less painful than what he had been enduring in the moments beforehand. That knowledge is a cold comfort when she'd witnessed her childhood friend writhing desperately on the ground pleading for his mother.

On her return to the safehouse, she'd been on bit of a rampage. And her target, as always, was Malfoy. It's his own fault, really. He's always there. Watching and waiting. As if he knows what's coming. As if he's welcoming it. Give it to me. I can take it. He'd whispered that to her once, against her naked breast as she moved atop him. At the time she'd thought he'd been urging on the roll of her hips, begging for a faster pace, but sometimes she wonders if he meant more. If he meant her rage, her sorrow, her fear. If he intended to tuck it away for her. He is always there. Practically begging to take it.

Her nose is ruddy and her cheeks wet with frustrated tears. She'd stormed out of the house after a particularly creative slew of insults and he'd followed her out into the woods. Somewhat embarrassingly because the wards are pulled in tight around the perimeter and there really is nowhere to so she ends up pacing along the faint shimmer of it. Ranting at him. Accusing him of all manner of things he hasn't done yet. Running off. Packing up and using all those inherited galleons to disappear. To leave them. To leave her.

He's a lifeline she's been clinging onto and he's going to tire of her sooner rather than later so maybe the less painful thing to do would be to put this thing between them out of it's misery too. Only she's never been clean and quick. She's always been impulsive, messy. Torn, bloody edges.

He steps closer and she flinches away, even though every fibre of her being is screaming at her to move closer to him, to tuck herself into the warmth she knows so well. Hermione's accepted by now that she's in love with him. Or maybe the idea of him. She's not sure. All she does know is that she can't stand this. How anybody stand this?

You have no idea, do you?

but this? this was different. he knew it as soon as she'd flinched away from him, and it felt like his entire world was shattering and decaying around him. funny how it was the idea of losing hermione granger that would tip him over the edge, and not the war or the continuous danger his mother was in.

draco tries not to close off and shut down, intent on keeping his promise he'd made on a night opposite to this — a night where hermione had looked at him like he was worth something more than what the universe had decided for him. it was in exact opposition of how she was glaring at him now.

Sneaky, fucking Slytherin.

Hermione glares at him across the table, eye contact unwavering as she lifts up the drink and downs it in two gulps. "I didn't realise I was dating a cheater." Okay, maybe a little harsh considering at worst you could have called that taking advantage of a technicality, but she never has been known for being level-headed when it comes to a competition and he knows that about her. In fact, the insult only has him grinning wider, best pleased with himself.

He's just as competitive as her. And unfortunately, the odds are wildly stacked in his favour seeing as she has rubbish hand-eye coordination and he is quite literally an athlete.

The back of her hand that holds the ball wipes across her mouth before she steps forward and lines it up, trying to ignore the mini-crowd they've amassed. Trying not to get psyched out. Especially as she hears Theo loudly observing to Dean Thomas that watching the two of them in a competition was like watching a couple engage in foreplay.

but draco wasn't that cruel. if only to grind his girlfriend's gears further ( because of course she'd know he's flubbing it on purpose ), draco tosses the ball further to the left, perfectly aiming for the rim of a cup. he misses for the first time, making quite the scene by throwing up his hands and loudly exclaiming an "ah, shit."

the beauty sighed as she continued to tend to him. she wished she knew what'd happened, what they'd forced him into — but she wouldn't ask, because she knew he wouldn't answer. don't touch it. her violet gaze flickered to his arm, where the mark now tarnished his skin. truthfully, she didn't want to touch it, not out of fear of what the mark meant — but out of fear that she could hurt him further.

" i won't. " she assured him, and with still trembling fingers, the witch moved to roll his sleeve down — covering up the mark out of both their sights. gods, the blonde was glad her parents were gone for the month. she was in no hurry to move draco from where he laid before he was ready. " but draco — " aurora couldn't hide her own apprehensions. the way her fingers trembled, her voice uncharacteristically meek.

his vision blurred in and out of focus, struggling to concentrate on aurora. whether the cause of that was due to the welling of tears in his eyes or the slight disassociation he was experiencing from his own body, draco wasn't sure and certainly did not care. he'd love to not be in his body right now. even more so when he hears aurora's voice — soft, hesitant, scared, disappointed.

draco could barely take it. he rips his gaze away from the blonde, his expression hardening.

   ⸻       ᥫ᭡.     ⊹₊♚₊⊹      »   sweet  princess  .  .  .  if  through  this  wicked  witch's  trick,  a  spindle  should  your  finger  prick;  a  ray  of  hope  there  still  may  be  in  this,  the  gift  I  give  to  thee.  not  in  death,  but  just  in  sleep,  the  fateful  prophecy  you'll  keep;  &  from  this  slumber  you  shall  wake,  when  true  love's  kiss  the  spell  shall  break. 

darling, we both know that the nights are mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day