Dear Readers.

Buckle up, friends.

I ripped this one from my very being. I've been toiling over it for months, honing it, eagerly waiting to be able to finally share it with you. This chapter contains much of the initial spark that made me start this story in the first place. There was no breaking it up, so 35 pages later here we are. I have never been more eager to hear your thoughts. (So damn eager! Unashamedly eager.) If you have a moment, please consider sharing them - even the smallest note always makes my day.

Enormous beta love to my dear ketos. Additional thanks to Constance and oftachancer for their support.

And a WARNING: new tags! Please read and heed them: dubious consent, smut, power dynamics, explicit sexual content, non con elements

Enjoy.

suliswrites

. . . .

"The truly wild can't be captured, only invited to submit…"

- attributed to Lord Byron

. . . .

There was no point in going back to sleep; as if any of them could. The sun's golden dawning had already begun to filter through the barren trees.

Hours passed in silence as they went out their morning chores around camp. Ron and Lucius avoided each other like Dragon Pox, which was a respite Hermione and Harry were greatly relieved to have.

The sheer volume that needed to be discussed amongst them felt overwhelming. So much had happened so quickly. There were plans to be made, both in pursuit of the horcruxes and in their new commitment of rescuing the Malfoys. Lucius made it clear that no vow would be taken until they had an exact plan in place. "Only a fool would gamble his very life in an undefined agreement," he'd said.

Hermione agreed, though she worried at how much time Draco might really have, and whether they would be able to fulfill their end of the bargain. First, Lucius would need to provide them with some useful information regarding the horcruxes.

Until they all could come together with clearer heads to discuss next steps, she busied herself with making another pot of tea. All four of them could use the added caffeine today.

Hermione rummaged through her extendable bag, reaching in all the way to her shoulder in the search for two vials of draughts that would soothe Ron's bruising neck and her pounding headache.

Ron and Harry were seated several feet away, skimming through a copy of Skeeter's biography of Dumbledore that Ron had brought back with him, searching for anything that might help. A photo of Rita winked from the back cover with a twinkle in her eye; Hermione wished the witch were still trapped in her jar.

Lucius eyed her from across the firepit. He'd been balancing the sword of Gryffindor on it's blade, spinning it idly in the dirt. What a picture: the precious heirloom of her house, casually being spun by the paragon of Slytherin.

Godric is rolling in his grave.

He continued to turn it while holding her gaze. Those dexterous, alabaster fingers working the hilt with languid boredom. It was the first time Lucius had made eye contact with her all morning, since the strange moment between them when she'd grabbed his wrist. What was that?

Lucius rose from his place after a moment to approach her, watching as she drew out the vials she sought. Hermione cursed the mixture of relief and excitement that swelled within her at his finally acknowledging her presence again.

"Do you have any firewhisky hidden in that bag of yours?" His voice silk, his expression inscrutable.

Hermione stared back at him. "It's 8 o'clock in the morning."

Lucius held her stare. "Good morning, Granger. Do you have any firewhisky hidden in that bag of yours?"

Harry and Ron looked up incredulously, but said nothing.

Lucius arched a pale brow, waiting.

Cheeky bastard.

Hermione sighed, shoving the bag into Lucius' arms, returning to the task before her. "Reach to the left. Second store cabinet, third shelf up."

Harry gestured her over with a jerk of his head.

She poured the soothing potion into Ron's cup, picking it and Harry's up before walking over to them. They were staring past her. Hermione glanced back over her shoulder.

Lucius was throwing back a large gulp of firewhiskey straight from the bottle.

"You really think we should indulge him in that?" Harry murmured.

Hermione handed them the steaming cups of tea, "Would you prefer him as he is, or inebriated with his guard down?" she whispered, leveling Harry with a pointed look.

Harry shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of weary, acquiescent humor before taking a large gulp of tea. "Yeah, alright."

Ron just shook his head, guzzling down his tea in one long chug.

The three of them turned to look at Lucius again.

A significant portion of the bottle was already gone, though he looked no worse for wear. He remained preposterously poised in his gentlemanly bearing, even while drinking in the early hours of morning. Closing the bottle in one fluid motion, Lucius restored it to its proper place within Hermione's bag.

She paced back to the fire, ignoring the small smile that graced Lucius' lips as she did. He held out the bag to her, nodding in a gesture of thanks as she took it back.

Returning to her own cup of tea, Hermione added a few more drops of the headache potion for good measure.

. . . .

Eventually the stalemate distance of the morning began to ease. Lucius inquired about their study of Dumbledore's Biography. Harry began to share what they knew - what little Dumbledore had shared with them, and most of it shrouded in the old man's infuriating riddles. For his part, Lucius told of how and when he'd received the ill fated diary from the Dark Lord.

They traded information with distant, clinical respect, at least in the outward way they spoke to each other. Hermione supplemented the discussion as she could, reminding Harry of a detail or asking Lucius a question, though she found herself struggling to think clearly, her mind continuing to wonder over moments from the previous night, trying to analyze Lucius' behavior. Ron remained silent.

Hermione could practically taste the wounded pride with which Lucius told them that Voldemort was using his ancestral home as his new headquarters. Had been, for some time. What might have seemed an honor for any Death Eater was clearly a punishment. Lucius hinted at what The Malfoys' existence had been like since the Dark Lord's residency, a selection of statements that Hermione knew could not possibly be the full picture of horror. She suspected that Voldemort was the cause of Lucius' missing serpent-headed wand.

If Harry's first dream of Draco's torture, of Narcissa kissing Voldemort's robes in supplication, was anything to go by - The Malfoys as individuals, and as a family, hung by the thread of a madman's fickle mercy. Or a madman's fickle sadism, she thought.

No one had spoken directly of Draco's threatened fate, only when veiled beneath the passing mention of rescue, or of their limited time to plan before making a move. It was becoming increasingly clear that the only way to attempt rescue would be by infiltrating Malfoy Manor.

Lucius had implied to her the Dark Lord's penchant for sewing fear amongst his followers. If they were going to venture such a risk, the question needed to be asked. Hermione steadied herself. "Do you think he'd really do that? The Dark Lord, to Draco. Or could it be an empty threat to frighten the others? To keep everyone in line?"

Lucius met her eye with an unreserved candor, bleak and certain. "It would be far from the first time he's mutilated someone on my dining room table. Enemy prisoner and loyal servant alike."

A long silence followed; Ron grimaced into his empty tea cup. Had they known any of the people who'd met that fate? How many witches and wizards? How many nameless muggles, gone missing, never to be heard of again?

Lucius allowed them their silence before continuing. "The Dark Lord is expedient. Unnecessary death is wasteful. A mutilated servant can still serve."

Behind the cold rampart of his detached expression, Hermione felt she could see the unfinished thought within him: the very real possibility of that being his own fate as well.

Some unnamed thing, small and fragile, buckled in her chest.

"Firewood," she murmured suddenly, standing. "We're running low for tonight. I'll be back."

Ron bolted up. "I'll come too."

Hermione suppressed a sigh before turning and starting into the wood.

. . . .

They wound through the trees, gathering as they went, levitating the pieces in piles that hovered behind them. Magic would produce their fire but it only ate energy from the caster of the spell without something to burn.

There are multitudes of truth in that principle, she thought. If she didn't find some way to burn off the feelings Lucius conjured within her with every look, Hermione suspected she might just wither away to nothing under the absolute hunger and confusion of it.

They continued to walk and gather. The silence roared. Hermione felt as if she drew the weight of it into her lungs with every breath.

After several long minutes, Ron stopped walking. Hermione turned to face him, waiting for what she knew was coming.

"I'm sorry, Mione. I'm so sorry."

"I know," she said, a dull echo of the familiar cycle they always played out.

"I thought about you every moment –"

"Ron –"

"No, please just let me say this." Hermione crossed her arms. Ron took a deep breath, forcing himself to look her straight in the eye. "I was selfish. And childish. Leaving you both like that."

Understatement of the year.

Hermione gave a stiff nod, jaw set.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione. I know that's not enough –"

No it's not.

"–I know it isn't. But I'm here now." He approached her cautiously, reaching out to place gentle hands on her arms. Hermione didn't move from him, but she fixed her eyes to the ground.

Ron chewed his lip for a moment. "I want to be here for you. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm here now. I'm here."

Hermione's eyes flashed to his, burning with anger and edged in tears.

"For how long this time?" she asked.

Ron swallowed hard, and Hermione saw her pain reflected in him - a gaping wound of shame in the familiar green-blue warmth of his eyes, so different from the glacial blue-silver that had haunted her dreams the previous night.

"I'll never leave you again. I promise."

She held his eye, wanting so much to believe him. Knowing that was something none of them could promise.

"There were days I wanted to give up too, you know," she said. "You don't have a claim on hopelessness, Ronald Weasley. We all feel it."

Ron nodded, shifting under the weight of her gaze, reaching for something more. "I can't even imagine what it must've been like. For you two. Especially with that git."

Hermione wanted to laugh. Inexplicably, Lucius' arrival was when her hope had come back.

Roots growing at my call, Fire licking at my palms. Him.

She let out an exasperated breath. "What were you thinking – saying such a thing?"

Ron rubbed a hand at his throat. "Wasn't, was I?" He shifted his feet. "Guess even Lucius sodding Malfoy has a weak spot, don't he?"

"No one is immune from pain, Ron. It's foolish and dangerous to think so."

"Apparently," he joked, giving her a lopsided smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. When she didn't return it, he shook his head, gaze shifting to the ground. "I'm a slow learner, Hermione. We can't all be like you."

"It's not about being like me. It's about thinking how your actions will affect others."

Ron nodded, solemn, eyes downcast.

"And in future, as far as Malfoy goes," Hermione released a tired exhale, "just try not to provoke him."

Lucius' velvet tone sounded in her mind: "Does it require provocation?..."

She tried to shake it off. Ron nodded once again. It seemed the only remaining response he felt safe giving.

Memories of Lucius, of her magic, were running rampant in her head - and with no means of expression to escape, they were only getting worse.

Merlin, how she needed to talk to someone.

Ron was waiting for her to say something else, armed with that dejected puppy stare he wore so well.

Hermione uncrossed her arms, letting them fall at her sides. Their time felt so finite, who knew how long any of them would have…

"Ron. I want to share something with you."

The words were out of her mouth before she'd questioned them. Her stomach fluttered between nerves and excitement.

His face had brightened. "Yeah?"

Hermione wanted to smile. They might have been in the Great Hall sharing a pumpkin juice. This was how it used to feel, before everything went horribly wrong.

"Do you promise not to tell Harry? Not yet anyway. He has enough to think about."

Ron's expression flickered briefly to concern, but he stepped closer to her, nodding with a soft smile. "Alright."

She suppressed a smile. Hermione could feel the rush building in her. Just thinking about it seemed to make her very cells feel more alive. Ron was listening, that wonderful warmth in his eyes.

"The other day, when we were interrogating him, I got so angry. I can't describe it. He made me so angry and – he was tied to a tree – and…" Hermione held his eye, "...I made the tree grow. I made it come to life."

Ron's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Made it come to life? How do you mean? What spell?"

"No spell. No wand. It was just me. I just felt it and the magic came straight from me, out of my hand." She was smiling openly now, eager for his reaction.

Ron had stilled, caution knitting his brow. "What do you mean?"

"Then last night, after I got the sword, I – well, look: " Hermione held out her open palm.

Ron stared down at it, waiting. "Wha–"

"Shh."

Hermione focused, following Lucius' instruction; remembering the potency of her 'practice' the previous evening, she reached again for the memory of ecstasy rather than rage.

At her first remembrance of that divine pleasure, the flame burst into life.

Ron jumped.

She beamed a smile up at him with pride, but finding his eyes, was met with fear.

He stepped back from her, a shadow falling over his face. "Hermione - Stop. Now, turn it off."

But it was so beautiful. She asked it to extinguish, commanded it to, but still the flames danced, frantic and joyous above her skin. And she loved it.

Ron grew panicked, trying to catch her gaze, to tear it away from the flame. "Hermione - Stop it!"

His voice shuddered her from the enamoring light. Hermione looked at him, realizing that it wasn't responding to her, realizing how terrified he looked. She bent quickly to the ground, smothering the flame into the frosted soil.

A shocked silence fell between them. Ron stared down at her, eyes wide, breath fast. "You couldn't even stop it – It doesn't answer to you."

That's the first thing you have to say? Hermione stood. "I'm just learning! I thought you'd be –"

"What? Happy for you? Impressed?" he asked, incredulous. He looked at her like she'd shown him something shameful, something dark and vain, like a horcrux. Not this beautiful, magical gift.

"Just- I thought you'd just- understand," she huffed out. "You know how much magic means to me. This means even more."

"You don't know what you're doing."

She glared at him. "What exactly does that mean?"

"It's brilliant, alright? But dangerous, Hermione. Look," he came closer to her, "don't take this the wrong way, but you just can't understand having not grown up here. Elemental magic, primal magic, is feared. It's always its own master. I know it feels like it's coming from you – it's not."

Staring back at Ron under the weight of this declaration, she could only hear more echoes of Lucius' voice in her head: "Worship." "Venerate." "It must be flattered into submission."

Her eyes had fallen to Ron's chest in a blank stare as she processed the implications of those words.

"It's like tappin' into a well, yeah?" Ron continued. "But you don't know the source of it, do you? You can't see that far down. All the stories Mum told us about it as kids end up horrible – every one. There's always some price to pay. Don't use it, alright? Don't ever use it again."

Ron took her hand, squeezing it in a familiar reassuring gesture, but he dropped it the moment he felt the lingering warmth. A hurried distancing he tried to hide, but she saw the fear.

She thought then about Lucius stroking her palm, back and forth, savoring the warmth from the magic.

"I won't tell Harry. But please, Mione. No more, yeah?" She looked up at him.

How could I ever forsake such a thing?

"Ron –"

"Trust me." The imploring look in his eyes. "Just trust me. Please."

Trust you?

It was too much, to try to find more of it within her.

Ron's brow lifted, entreating her promise, her trust.

She just wanted the moment to end.

Hermione nodded faintly.

. . . .

That night, Hermione volunteered to take watch.

She couldn't stop thinking about their conversation that afternoon in the woods. About her magic. About the look in Lucius' eyes when he beheld it. The look in Ron's.

If a few hours spent in the quiet, moonlit night didn't give her the reset she needed, she honestly didn't know what else to try.

After a long day of trading a vast blueprint of information between them, Hermione had made them all another soothing pot of herbal tea, suspecting that unwinding their minds from the strain of what lay before them would prove difficult; as if the thick tension in the camp weren't enough.

Harry and Ron had fallen asleep quickly. After all these years, she knew the change in the cadence of each of their breaths. More than one late night in the common room, forcing them to study, had taught her those subtle shifts in sound - far before they'd ever been on the run together. Ron puffed out downy snores. Harry had pulled his pillow over his head.

Lucius lay turned towards the wall, and though only his back was visible, his breathing too had become slow and eased.

It wasn't enough to fool her. Hermione knew he remained awake; with the same certainty as she knew her own waking consciousness. She'd known he would stay awake the moment she'd volunteered to take watch.

Still, Hermione rose from her chair in the doorway of the tent, and went outside, drawing the canvas door closed behind her.

She'd all but promised Ron, not to engage her magic again. All but said the words. But she hadn't. Not really. There'd been no definitive pledge to abstain. And now more than ever, she wanted to understand it. Both through practice, and through discussion with him.

Hermione took in the pale moon, a beacon through the trees, high above her.

She cast a warming charm on the warded boundary of the camp before pushing her wand back up her sleeve.

It felt like the trees were calling to her. She approached a large pine, looking down at her palms.

How varied are you? How extensive is your elemental sway?

Hermione bent to the soil, enjoying the cool press of the earth against her knees through her jeans. She pressed her palms slowly into the dark terrain, wiggling her fingers deeper, letting it bunch up between them.

Closing her eyes, she imagined the roots of the great tree before her. The elegant chaos of its communication, reaching deep below, entwining with the roots of the other trees around it. Link after link, the nourishing, symbiotic network, alive.

Her heart began to race. She could hear it. Singing in chorus. Buzzing up through the pads of her fingers. She smiled to herself.

Here goes nothing…

Hermione bowed before it. Venerate. She reached for the memory of both her desire and her rage - that twinned blaze swimming in her core - and pulled.

Soft, soil-laced water began to seep up from the earth. She could have cried out in joy.

Again: pull.

The water rose further, pooling in a murky puddle around her fingers, her wrists.

The thrill of it tasted like howling, honey in her mouth.

Hermione didn't even want to blink, didn't wish to miss a single moment of the miracle she was witnessing; creating. She delighted in the wet earth against her skin. After a moment she lifted her hands from their place, pressing them against a new dry patch of soil.

More.

This time she sent out a whisper calling to that singing chorus of life, the roots nested and dormant beneath the winter earth.

Pull.

A whisp of pale green appeared between her hands, faint as a raindrop.

Another deep breath in, another reach of conjuring in reverence.

The whisp grew, a tiny sprout beginning to surface. Tears were glistening in her eyes. So beautiful.

Another breath, another growth in awed glorification.

The sprout burst at the tip, a glimpse of white petal, budding for her.

Hermione sucked in a breath. Her cheeks ached from smiling so widely.

She felt claimed by this magic flowing through her – claimed with the same satisfaction she had felt at his teeth marking the crook of her neck.

The canvas door rustled behind her.

Hermione turned to see Lucius, bathed in the golden glow of the hanging lantern, watching her.

She stood, wiping her hands on her jeans. "What are you doing awake?"

"Drop the pretense, my dear. It's not becoming to hide your intelligence. You knew quite well I would follow you."

They held each other's eye for a long moment before he spoke again. "You left your friends."

"They're just inside," she answered.

"And you left them asleep, alone in a room with me."

Hermione said nothing in reply. He was right. She hadn't even thought twice of it.

Lucius took in the puddle of water near her feet, the bud bursting forth, the dark soil still marking her hands.

"From fire to water in a day. I see you've been practicing."

Hermione nodded, an image of Ron's imploring face suddenly filling her with guilt.

"Ron told me it's dangerous." She said it without thinking. Why had she? Why would she ever voice such a thing to Lucius?

He stared at her in silence for a moment, finally quirking an eyebrow before giving her a reply.

"It is." He watched her reaction. "What power worth having is not?"

Hermione pondered this, yearning for an exception she could cling to. "Love?" she mused.

"You begin to disappoint me. That's unquestionably the most dangerous of all."

A long silence stretched between them. For him to say such a thing.

Hermione realized it was comfortable, the silence they held. This was the most intellectually nourishing connection she'd felt since – well, since their last conversation alone together. But before that? Gods, how good it feels to talk to someone in this way.

"He said it didn't come from me. That I don't know the source."

Lucius held her eye for several seconds. A slight smile warmed his gaze as it fell to the water and bud at her feet.

He cocked his head, looking up to her once more with thoughtful interest. "Any power requires a conductor; as in muggle electricity. Who is to say if the conductor in itself is not part of the power? Can the power exist in its expression without it?"

Hermione was transfixed by his framing of this idea, by his intelligence, this philosophical discourse she craved. Lucius took a step toward her, continuing.

"For a current to flow, there must be a vessel. There is a numinous force brought into being between a storm cloud and the earth, by the air in between. If the current cannot speak without the vessel, who is to say the vessel is not part of its power? A source means very little without a means to manifest itself."

Hermione took this in; she looked at her hands. "He feared me."

Lucius watched her for a long moment. "As he should. I'm rather surprised you showed him."

"He was-" Hermione stopped herself. "He's my best friend."

Lucius gave her a look of reproach at this term, pausing a moment before replying.

"He's beneath you. You know this."

He just called a pureblood beneath a mudblood.

He kept refusing to play by the rules that brought order and understanding to her world.

Hermione scoffed, angry with him now, snapping out of the strange intimacy they'd fallen into. "That's your favorite answer to anything isn't it? You think everything is beneath you."

"Not everything."

Hermione stared at him. An uncomfortable tightness gripped her lungs.

She couldn't shake the sudden feeling she'd somehow let him down – let herself down. Why had she shown Ron? Had it been foolish of her?

"I told him because – well I suppose, because I'm trying to forgive him."

You don't owe Lucius an explanation for Merlin's sake. What are you doing?

"And demonstrating your power for him does that how?" Lucius countered.

"I don't know, it's offering trust, it's –"

Why am I trying to defend this to him?

Hermione let out a frustrated exhale. "Forgiveness is complicated."

Lucius merely nodded, seemingly thinking to himself, his attention drawn inward for a moment.

Watching him in silence, Hermione wondered if he might be applying that statement to himself. In regards to Draco. To Narcissa.

Just when she thought she couldn't bear the new, heavier silence any longer, he spoke, looking at her with casual curiosity.

"Do you imagine me to be a forgiving man, Ms. Granger?"

"The very opposite. You've displayed a thoroughly vindictive nature."

"Quite right. Do you value forgiveness?"

Does he seek it? she wondered.

"It depends," Hermione answered.

"On what, may I ask?"

"On intent. On..." she thought carefully, "...remorse. Recompense."

"I see. And are you in the habit of paying yours?"

Hermione looked back to him with a quick dart of her eyes. Something in the air had shifted.

"What are we talking about?" she asked slowly.

Lucius pouted in mock concern, tutting at her. "Did you think we were having a heart to heart?"

A chill dripped down her spine.

"Get to your point," Hermione demanded, her muscles tensing as she restored her protective walls once more. How foolish she was to have ever let them down.

Lucius drew in an unhurried breath. "I believe you owe me a debt… restitution."

Hermione stilled. "For saving my life?"

"Now that you mention it, you appear to owe me two. The first debt a repayment for life saved, the second a repayment for something you stole."

"Stole?"

"I collect on the debts owed to me," he said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hermione asked.

"You enjoy forcing your will on others, don't you?"

"Wh-"

"Your parents, for example."

She felt as if her heart had stopped. "— What?"

"When I'd heard what you'd done, I confess I was rather impressed."

Adrenaline sent blood thundering in her ears; barely able to say it. "My parents?"

"They live. You hid them well. Tell me: Did you give them a choice?"

"What do you–"

"Don't play games with me, girl. You know what I'm asking. Did you give them a choice?"

Hermione was frozen in place. Their empty gazes flooded her vision, the memory of their vacant eyes.

"No. You took the decision away from them," Lucius answered, stepping closer. "Did you ever think, perhaps, that they would have preferred to die remembering you, rather than live having forgotten you?"

Hermione couldn't breathe.

Lucius watched her swallow this. He murmured thoughtfully, "You're quite fond aren't you?"

She could barely speak. "–Of – of my parents?"

"Of that spell." He spat the final word, sharp as a blade bending threat into flesh.

"I myself know the after taste rather well. That magic clings like dead skin. The memories peel from you for a few days before they sluff off. Imperceivable, if you aren't intimately familiar with being subjected to it. But if you are, the slightest echo – of a particularly significant touch for example –" Lucius wrung a hand around his wrist, "– can wake a mind to faint shadows of the recently… amputated."

Oh Gods, no –

Lucius began to approach her slowly.

"What happened in the woods last night, Granger?" he asked, as though she were a child who had misbehaved.

Hermione's stomach clenched tight, trying to maintain some outward appearance of calm, even as she felt like fleeing.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

His head tilted to the side. "What did I say? Feigned ignorance does not become you." Another step forward. "Did you perhaps hesitate while casting it? How touching."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He was just several feet from her now, holding his place. "Heavens. You're an even more horrendous liar than I thought. If we're to survive this war, that must be remedied."

She forced herself to glare at him with some semblance of confident disdain, her palm curving up to grasp the wand hidden in her sleeve. "I told you: I have no idea what you're alluding to. If you're making some sort of accusation then make it."

Lucius calmly looked to her wand hand before smiling at her.

"All day I've run the sequence over in my mind, searching for your incision. I remember your fire, watching you compel it into the ice, and then -" his brow lifted, "... walking."

He fixed her with an inquisitive look. "No matter how I turn the pieces, whichever concatenation I stitch – there remains only one thing I can imagine you so desperately wanting me to forget…" He advanced leisurely towards her.

Hermione drew her wand, backing up, panic firing through every nerve. "Stay away from me."

"Ah, but you see Hermione," Lucius followed, closing the distance between them, "I would have savored that memory. And I want it back."

Venom soaked his every word now. Hermione was trembling, still merely holding her wand in threat between them. She knew she should cast, must cast, but as he drew near, she found herself mute, only trying to keep breathing as some part of her welcomed the return of his proximity, welcomed this reckoning. She could no longer deny what she'd done.

Eyes on hers, Lucius slowly covered her wand hand in his own grip.

Hermione was screaming at herself inside, pinned under his stare.

"I can't give it back," she managed to force out, hating how her voice quivered.

Lucius leaned forward, threat finally flaring in his eyes.

"Then make me a new one, witch."

Her wand was wrenched from her hand before Hermione could react. He threw it to the ground; so easily. How could you have let him?

She lurched back, only to collide in a stumble with what must have been the trunk of a tree. He followed.

Fear lashed it's whip once more and her words returned.

"Get the hell away from me," she demanded.

Hermione jumped in her skin as Lucius' hands slammed into the tree-trunk on either side of her, caging her. His movements carried violence, but his expression remained calm.

"You will begin, by telling me how it started." His tone was didactic, coaxing.

Maybe he'll be satisfied if I just own up to the truth, tell him everything. Maybe he'll leave it at that -

She'd already hesitated too long in answering. His chin tilted in warning. "Do not make me ask again..."

"I–I kissed you."

"Did you? How brave you are." A pause. Lucius held her gaze. "Show me."

Hermione stared up at him.

Lucius waited, his impatience a certain warning.

She looked at his lips and remembered, just as he said she would; the taste, the feel of him.

You're only doing this to get out of this situation, giving him what he wants so he'll let you go...

Trembling, her movements stilted with fear, Hermione let herself lean forward to place a hesitant kiss on his lips.

She meant it to be quick, meant her mouth to stay closed, but Lucius' lips were so soft against hers, so sure in their slow, teasing, movements. His tongue sought entrance and she sunk into his touch, giving it to him.

Hot, aching, nectar. Forbidden.

It was better than her memory, impossibly, even better. Hermione lost track of the seconds ticking by, of the way she let him deepen it, let him sink his teeth into swell of her lip, until a throbbing heat began to pulse between her legs. Panic rang through her at how long she'd let it go on.

She jolted apart from him, pressing back into the bark of the tree once more, still caged within his arms.

"Then?" Lucius whispered; voice low.

"You– you didn't respond. You were deciding whether to trust me."

"Clearly I chose incorrectly. And how far did we tread, brave one?" He trailed the back of a finger down her arm, gaze sweeping over her. His teasing caress stoked the flames further; she exhaled a shaky breath. You need to stop this - you want to stop this. Don't you?

Hermione looked him boldly in the eye, summoning all the assertive confidence she could.

"It was a mistake. A mistake I regret. Now get the hell away from me."

"I'm afraid I don't believe you. An unconvincing performance. Try harder."

You conceited prick –

"You were fool enough to believe me last night." she snarled.

This excited him. He leaned in closer. "Are you proud of deceiving me?"

She couldn't hold it in. Didn't want to. "Yes," she spat defiantly.

Lucius seized her jaw fiercely – painfully. Then a smile lit his eyes. "Good."

"Get your hands off me," she demanded through gritted teeth.

"Improvement. Still somewhat forced in delivery. Lying with your body and lying with your words are two very different things. You must master both," he instructed. "Practicum:"

Lucius captured her wrists and swiftly pinned them overhead against the tree. He monitored her expression before asking, "Does this frighten you?"

Hermione didn't have to pretend. He was so strong, overpowered her so easily. "Yes," she breathed.

"How novel: the truth." Lucius bent, a hot breath spoken in her ear, "And does it excite you?"

That voice. It was slaughter; her defenses threatened to buckle. Hermione railed against it.

"No –" she growled.

In one fluid motion, Lucius had slipped his hand into her knickers, fingers sweeping through the slick, wet heat of her arousal. Hermione sucked in a sharp gasp.

"Liar." He drew out in whisper.

Circe damn her, she wanted to move against them.

"You're vile."

"Is that what makes you so wet for me?" He removed his fingers, raising them, glistening, between them. "When I'm vile?"

Holding her eye, Lucius took them full into his mouth and sucked them clean.

Oh Gods –

"Let me go." Hermione cooed the words, the right words, but they came out as though she were begging for something else entirely.

At this, Lucius looked incredibly amused. "I'm not holding you any longer, Granger."

Hermione felt it then: he was no longer gripping her wrists – hadn't been for several moments – though she had continued to hold her arms above her submissively. She dropped them immediately, flushing in shame.

"Haven't you realized? The most exquisite part of all this is," he skimmed his thumb over the curve of her breast, "I don't need to hold you here. Your pleas are a farce to ease your conscience."

He stepped away from her, the loss of his presence an acute pain. Hermione hesitated, unmoving, giving no reply.

Lucius moved out of her way, gesturing the clear escape back to the tent. "By all means."

He waited, watching her.

Hermione did not move, couldn't bring herself to. Her arousal throbbed like an angry wound.

"Run," he said. "Call for help. Take up your weapon against me."

I –

Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

He stepped back to her, patronizing in his tone of surprise, "No?"

Hermione slapped him, hard. He sucked in an excited breath.

She raised her hand to slap him again; Lucius caught her wrist mid-swing.

"I hate you," she bit out, burning the words between them.

Lucius closed their distance until his lips were mere inches from hers. Something akin to pity shaded his eyes. "Irrelevant."

He claimed her in a bruising kiss; possessive, all encompassing.

Hermione tasted herself on his lips, his tongue scorching into her mouth, warring with hers. The heat of his body pressed against her, flaring up every yearning.

Their collision pushed and pulled like the struggle between hunter and beast, wrestling for the chance to continue living. But the deciding final stroke of survival was not the stabbing of a blade or the sinking of teeth: it was submission.

And Oh, how Hermione gave to it – reveling in his harsh embrace, whimpering as he broke apart from her to trace a finger across her collarbone, feather light.

"The truth, now, my little liar…"

My?

Lucius swept a mass of errant curls behind her ear – the same tender, soothing caress one would give a rabbit before snapping its neck.

"Yes, alright?" She almost sobbed it, equal parts despair and need.

"You've a better vocabulary than that," he chided. "Out with it. Name your desire."

He never wants anything less than the best of me.

She forced herself to do as he commanded, though the words stuck in her throat.

"Yes. I wanted you then. I want you now."

Lucius' responding smile actually reached his eyes. The moment of declaration hung between them, and he savored every second.

"Yes." she repeated, gaze falling to his lips. "But quickly -"

Some fever calmed in her at giving in, at knowing this would finally happen. Hermione turned, leading him back into the wood, back into the forgiving shadow.

He grabbed her wrist, whipping her back around to face him.

Lucius' stare had become vicious. "And where, do you possibly think you're going?"

The meaning of his words sunk in.

"You can't mean –" she began. The gleaming thrill in his eyes confirmed it.

"Not here?" she asked, astounded. "Not here –"

His tone turned pure malice, pure vengeance. "Oh here, Granger. Now."

"But Harry – Ron – Are you insane?"

"You see, I find myself wondering if, amidst your other talents, you possess the singular self-discipline to master your responses? Can you keep the sounds from leaving that pretty mouth? Or perhaps you would like them to hear?"

Even his vindictive nature can't stretch that far into danger – "You can't honestly want that – They could wake at any – "

"Precisely. And when they do: you'll obliviate them." Lucius watched it land. "Your favorite."

Terror like she'd never known choked in her throat; Hermione tried to rear back from him, but he took her by the wrists, grip painfully tight.

"What? No – I could never do that – No –"

He pulled her roughly into him, a dark, bitter malice seething in his reply, "You didn't mind casting it on me – what's two more?"

Hermione stared back at him in horror.

Serene cruelty danced in the grey-blue of his eyes. His voice was honeyed poison. "Aren't you dying to see their reactions? To have their every view of you changed in an instant?"

She wrenched back, struggling frantically. Lucius held his restraining grip, expression calm, pulling both wrists behind her.

He jerked her around to face the tent, her back pressed into his chest, one hand holding her wrists behind her, his other coming up to seize her jaw. He forced her to look at the canvased entryway as he whispered the next words in her ear:

"How they'll come running out that door. How they'll look at you, when they see you: spreading your legs for me, pleading for it, as I take your sweet cunt." He released her jaw, trailing a teasing caress down her throat, marking an aching trail down as he slowly unzipped her jacket. "How the weasel will shrivel in disgust, in despair. Don't you want to see?"

Why aren't I calling for help? Circe, am I actually turned on… What the hell is wrong with me? No –

"No – No. Not here –"

"What do we say, Granger?" He teased her breasts, tweaking a nipple through the fabric. She gasped.

Is that what he wants? More begging?

"– Please. Please – not here –"

He paused, as if to wait for the mercy to flood over him. "Hmm. For some reason, I'm not in a very accommodating mood this evening. My trust having been so ruthlessly broken."

She tried to angle her head back at him, a disgraceful desperation pitching up her voice, "Please Malfoy. Back into the woods – anything – just please, let us –"

Her words left her as he slipped his hand back into her knickers, finding the silken evidence of her arousal and slicking his fingers through it to stroke an excruciatingly slow rhythm against her clit.

Her hips arched involuntarily back into him at the divine torture, and she felt the hard length of his erection press against her.

Again, his harsh whisper in her ear:

"After the weasel's performance last night, I believe it will break him, don't you? Do you not seek recompense from him? Why, it will be two restitutions paid in one act. I can't imagine a more agonizing torture for Ronald Weasley; A more satisfying revenge, for abandoning you. To hear you moaning my name as you come for me?"

Lucius plunged two fingers deep inside her, a stifled moan ripped from her throat before she could stop it. Her hips bucked forward, her body instinctively seeking more, though panic still screamed inside of her.

The tent's canvas door was all she could stare at as he began to fuck her with his fingers.

Why didn't I run? Why isn't my power coming to save me? Another thought taunted back: Because you don't want to be saved. You adore this.

He curled and pumped a brutal pulsing rhythm inside her, taking her earlobe between his teeth, and Gods, Hermione was near coming already – his sadistic, possessive handling of her. The devotion of his despotism.

Lucius' cruelty was at its full magnificence now; it sang through him like a gloried fever, and Hermione felt herself swooning at the revelation of his animalistic savagery – brimming with thirst for even this part of him, even as it terrified her. She was revolted by her reaction to it.

But the thought of how fucked up it was only seemed to turn her on more. She tried to shut out her rapture, only to feel it lash back hungrily. She was afraid to attempt speech, lest mewls of blatant need escape her mouth.

A coiling pleasure swelled within her. Somehow sensing how close she was, Lucius slowed his rhythm to an agonizing tease – drawing unhurriedly in and out, sliding up to trace around the aching bud of her clit between thrusts.

His tongue dipped into her ear and Hermione shivered in denied ecstasy.

"Please – I'm begging you. You know I won't be able to control – and if they wake –"

"Then you can simply erase your transgressions, isn't that right?" Lucius snarled viciously into her ear. "I want them to see you. As I see you."

With one final, sublime thrust he removed his fingers and spun her to face him, making her look him in the eye. Hermione was trembling, lost somewhere between terror and insidious desire.

What will make him follow me into the woods?

"They'd kill you," she urged, playing the only card she could summon.

A knowing look replaced the malice on Lucius' face; a trace of sympathy lighting in his eyes. He picked up her wand off the ground and slid it into place under her sleeve.

"They'd try," he answered. "But then…" he leaned in, voice brutal in tender condolence: "How will they ever be able to trust you again, when you don't let them?"

Breath hitched in her throat. Hermione could only stare back at him through the savage realization.

The truth, unbearable.

She, what, cared for him? No, no, that didn't make sense. And yet the truth – irremediable; she felt an affinity for him. And he was right: Hermione would not allow harm to come to him. She knew it now. And what the hell did that mean?

Lucius watched her take it in, brow furrowing as he continued with merciless mock concern, "Have they already begun to distrust you?"

Nausea, despair and panic ripped through her – "Stop it."

"You used my given name. Last night. You spoke it in front of them."

"I would have said anything to get you to let go," she countered, desperately.

"And could have used any spell, but you didn't. It was an intimacy. And don't fool yourself for one second that it went unnoticed. You're careless." The idea of that seemed to arouse him. He turned her head to expose her neck to him. "In your haste to violate my memory, you neglected to heal your own bruises…"

No – I must have –

Lucius traced the curve of her neck with his tongue. "How do you think Potter imagines this bitemark came to be, hmm?" He bit into it again.

She had her wand, could use it, make him do this on her terms, and yet she wasn't using it. She needed to meet this reckoning without magic. Hermione could only think of one way she might be able to avoid the display he threatened.

"Do you want me to beg?" She dropped her weight in his hold, falling to her knees. "I'm begging –" Lucius stepped back, watching her. Hermione brought her hands before her. "Please. Not here. Anything but that."

An idea struck her: if she could just find a bargain that would make him follow her into the woods –

"Anything –" Hermione started to go for his belt.

Lucius grabbed her wrists, stopping her with a new kind of anger storming in his eyes; as if her show of begging, of grasping for an easy out, were an atrocious disappointment.

"Oh, I'm afraid not. You are in no position to bargain with me. And tempting a sight as you may be on your knees, I do not wish for you to give me pleasure. I wish to see – and to hear – you lose yourself to yours. Completely." Lucius stared down at her. "Get up, mudblood."

Mudblood? Fuck no.

Rage burning through the panic, Hermione stood, surging forward to bring her face inches from his, storming at him: "You don't get to go back to that. You've seen my magic. My true magic. My power. You called me a witch."

A conjuring of wind stirred through the forest, the trees creaked around them, as though turning towards her anger; howling whispers through the bows.

They stilled at the charge in the air as her magic simmered, undeniable in it's primal potency.

Lucius' searched her face, a clarity burning off the spite in his gaze. And in his eyes she saw it: the devoted disciple of power he'd spoken of. The disciple; kneeling.

Respect shown in his eyes; Lucius nodded in recognition as he held her stare. Finally he spoke – steady, quiet. "I forget myself... A witch you are."

Hermione could barely process it, his shift, his inherent desire to prostrate to her as a vessel of magic, even amidst his vengeance. She remained where she was, looking up at him, trying to memorize this expression on his face.

Lucius' eyes narrowed, something in him softening. "You didn't take that memory from me," he murmured, a questioning in his eyes.

"…I couldn't." Hermione answered.

They held each other's gaze, a calm settling. She was no longer struggling.

"Because you were seen?" Lucius asked.

Her mouth went dry. She couldn't look away.

"Because I was seen." she answered.

Am.

Lucius slowly raised a hand to cup her face, running the pad of his thumb hard across her cheek bone, "Cunning witch…" he breathed, inhaling her scent like she was a smoke he drew into his lungs. Hermione pressed her cheek into the warmth. "Beautiful witch..." His thumb smeared across her bottom lip. "Powerful witch…"

Such longing.

Instinctively, she raised a hand to his face, the urge to touch, to unmask, overpowering.

He let her. Still as marble at first, beneath her tender caress. Then, infinitesimally, Lucius sunk into her touch. He gave to it, leaning into her palm, like ice seeking its own thawing.

This was her chance, she could sway him now... Hermione took his hand and stepped back, starting to pull him back towards the woods.

At her gesture, their intimate calm shattered. He seized her wrists once again. "Witch that has misbehaved – and must be taught a lesson."

Holding her eye, Lucius slowly sunk to his knees.

Hermione's entire body hummed at the sight. Lucius Malfoy in a stance of supplication, of worship.

Did he know how such a gesture would break her? Would be the final, irresistible temptation?

Of course he did.

Never breaking their gaze, he lifted his hands to the waist of her jeans.

"Is that why you misbehaved? So that I would punish you?"

"No – I –"

He watched her, whispering, "My little liar."

Gods – why do I love when he calls me that?

"Were you ashamed of your desire?" The button pulled loose.

Hermione couldn't move. "Yes."

He gave her a mocking pout. "Did you try to undo your indiscretion?" The zipper sliding down.

Transfixed. Watching. Unable to stop this. Not wanting to. "Yes."

She trembled as his hands trailed over her hips, down the sides of her legs, to her feet.

"And yet, once again," eyes on hers as he pressed his lips hot against her abdomen just above the revealed line of flimsy cotton, tongue flitting out to taste her skin. "Here," taking off one boot, "we," the other, "are."

Lucius dragged her down to the ground with him, pushing her back against the earth. A gasp caught in her throat as he once again slid his body over hers, his erection pressed hard between them, his intoxicating warmth and scent flooding all around her.

"Say it for me again," he demanded in a rasp.

Hermione knew what he wanted. She met his eye, trying to look disgusted, but panting with unconcealable anticipation. "Narcissist."

Lucius responded with a sharp, incredulous glare. "Hypocrite. You know the power of words..." She felt the teasing caress of his hand over her breast; his lips at her ear as he drew out each syllable of her name in a low whisper, "Hermione."

Sweet Circe.

He pulled back to look her in the eye once more. "Say it."

Those words. The way he spoke them, like an invocation.

Hermione fought between misgiving and temptation, but as she looked at him she realized: for him, this was being seen. This was them seeing each other, for all that they were – seeing each other for all that they wanted from one another, even when they shouldn't. It felt strange, the syllables waiting, charged, on her tongue. She realized that the sound now held meaning – it came linked with rushes of desire, excitement, rebellion and power. Thrilling anticipation sparked in her chest; the fire in his eyes.

"Lucius," she incanted.

His eyes gleamed, a divine pleasure smoldering. When he spoke it was rough and slow –

"Say it just like that…"

In an instant he drew back, pulling her jeans off of her, her knickers coming with them. Panic rushed through her at the feeling of cold earth against her exposed flesh; Hermione looked up to see him staring down at her, bared to him. Unmistakable admiration, covetous desire, graced his face as he drank in the sight, his chest rising and falling with quickened breaths. She wished he'd never stop looking at her like that.

He caressed the creamy white of her naked hips, leaning over her once more.

"Wait –" she grasped for the right words, " – First –" It was the only intelligible thought in her mind. All she could do was repeat it. "– First."

Lucius paused, looking deeply in her eyes, becoming still as the meaning of her words set in.

His eyes fluttered closed, brow lifting, tongue drifting out after a moment to wet his lips.

When his eyes reopened, he fixed her with a searing look, as though rapturously scolding her for teasing him with such divine treasure.

"None before me?" His voice tight and hoarse.

Hermione shook her head 'No,' emphatically, breathing still heavy in panicked anticipation.

He hissed a slow exhale through clenched teeth, buttoning it with a bite of his lower lip. A brief look of pain broke across his features and he reached down to adjust himself.

"Well, then," he said looking down at her thoughtfully, giving a brief glance towards the tent. "Our limited time shall have to bend, despite the added risk." A devilish smile turned at the corner of his lips. "Such things must be done properly."

Lucius slid down her.

She held her breath. Oh Gods, Oh Gods –

Hermione felt the coarse scrape of his faintly stubbled jaw against the inside of her thigh. He nuzzled against the delicate skin, inhaling her scent.

He branded a hot kiss on her inner thigh, "Such things…" another, closer, inhaling deep, "must not be rushed."

Lucius licked a full swipe hot up the seam of her.

Her eyes rolled back. "Fuck –" she gasped.

He rumbled a low chuckle at her response.

She gave a panicked glance to the tent, wanting so badly to continue. Lucius lapped at her again, pressing his tongue teasingly against her entrance. It took all her will not to cry out in need. He gripped her hips, drawing another lick up to tease circles around her throbbing clit. Her nipples stiffened, rubbing hard against the fabric of her bra. Hermione was panting, open-mouthed – transfixed.

Marking her with a mischievous look, he pulled her hips to him and thrust his tongue deep inside of her.

She nearly keened.

That wicked tongue; the same wicked tongue to whisper those crude words in her ear – now pulsed hot within her with decadent enthusiasm. Demanding. Electric.

He groaned obscenely at the taste of her, holding her hips in a painful grip to force them still, even as she bucked uncontrollably against him. His perfect, handsome visage now completely debauched: the disheveled platinum of his hair, fisted between her clenching fingers; the sight of her glistening arousal all over his face as he looked up and held her eye, tongue flicking at her clit with all the underworld grinning in his stare.

She barely managed to contain the brutal moan that cascaded through her, biting down painfully on her lip to stifle the noise.

Lucius smirked, lifting his head and taunting her with a sinfully mouthed "Shh."

Holding her gaze, he released her hip and slid two fingers inside her, tongue lapping lazily at her clit as he began to curl and pump them in and out.

"I can't –" she gasped, teetering on the edge. At any moment she knew he would push her over into a chasm of divine pleasure, and there was no way she would be able to contain the wild, raw-throated exaltation that threatened to burst.

Lucius bit the inside of her thigh, "You will. Or they will hear. Your choice."

He returned to his torment, devouring her muggle-born cunt in unforgiving worship.

It was incandescent pleasure, watching him – the epitome of pureblood aristocracy – ravage her, reveling in her taste.

Oh fuck. Ecstasy coiled its ascent like a whip of lightning in her belly.

Hermione tried to cover her mouth, but Lucius was faster, seizing her wrists and pulling them down to pin in place at her sides. "I don't think so."

With a feral smirk, he lowered his mouth back to her clit and sucked.

Heaven ripped through her; her head fell back.

She writhed against him as he drove her into shattering orgasm, her teeth sinking into her lip as she held the scream in her throat, wrists caught within his gasp, thighs trembling against wave after wave of sweet, honeyed fire.

A low thrumm was purring in the back of her throat, cooed over and over, a current flowing.

As the tempest of orgasm settled, she felt a gentle kiss on her abdomen. His hands ran up the inside of her thighs, just as in her dream. Hermione felt drunk on it, panting heavily as he drew himself up to her once more; murmured words before kissing her. "Brilliant witch...you even taste like magic."

She tasted herself in his kiss, the pleasure he'd coaxed from her. He swept a curl out of her eyes, whispering:

"Answer me with truths now."

Hermione nodded faintly, unable to think as she heard the clang of his belt, watched him lower his zipper and release himself.

Fear rushed back into her at seeing him for the first time. It seemed impossible that he could ever fit inside of her.

Watching her through eyes heavy-lidded with lust, Lucius took hold of himself, pumping up a few times with his hand before leaning down to slowly rub the weeping tip of his cock along her sodden opening, sliding back and forth against her slick heat.

She wanted to whine in blatant need.

"Do you like misbehaving, Hermione?"

She was trembling, could only nod between her incoherent, stifled whimpers. The urge to feel filled overwhelming.

He continued to slowly tease himself against her. Up and down, brushing against her still throbbing clit then back down to press just so against her opening, tormenting her with the possibility of entering. So close –

Hermione bit her lower lip near to bleeding in a desperate attempt to cage the mewling cries that threatened to leave her.

He brought his lips to her ear. "Do you want me to fuck you, witch?"

All articulate thought was gone. "–Yes –yes," the words leaving her in frenzied, strained whisper.

"Yes what?"

"–Yes," Oh gods, please "– please."

Euphoric triumph in the blue of his eyes. He drew back, positioning over her. "Look at me."

She stilled, doing as he commanded.

"You will remember who made you feel this, who you wanted."

Lucius sunk into her in one swift thrust.

The sharp pain of her hymen stretching; Hermione held in her gasp. A bright ache radiated through her, but soon quieted beneath the all consuming sensation of fullness. So tight – Too tight. She felt she could burst. Her eyes fluttered back at the ache of him filling her. Finally.

Lucius seemed to have been holding his breath. He released a shaky exhale, eyes closing for a moment with a slight parting of his lips.

Opening his eyes again, he met her gaze, gripping her splayed thighs open wide as he began to move. How quickly the pain began to turn to pleasure, or did she simply find pleasure in the pain?

He was excruciatingly in control; teasing her with a languid pace. Sinking into her sopping heat with slow, shallow pumps of his hips, then surging suddenly forward to entice her with the promise of domination. She wanted to beg.

Hermione dug her fingers into the soil at her sides, seeking something to hold onto in the onslaught of stimulation.

They held each other's gaze through every second, unable to hide a single reaction, a single shuddered breath. Both offering and receiving, giving and taking. Hermione needed Lucius to take her, in every definition of the word. To possess her. To remove her from this place and time. To make use and meaning of the treasure she gave.

And how Lucius took her.

Every thrust scorched ecstasy into her; the constant beating of him within her; this inevitable collision she could not stop. She arched beneath him, bucking up frantically, needing more – deeper, faster. Lucius smirked at that, only forcing her hip down firmly to tantalize her with another slow thrust of his cock.

Tormentor.

On his next thrust, Hermione clenched her walls needily around him, earning a hiss of pleasure from his lips. "Fuck, witch."

A wild hunger lit his eyes and Lucius forced one of her legs up over his shoulder, driving savagely forward, so much deeper than Hermione thought she could ever take him. The muscles in her leg burned at the stretch, but oh the depth of him inside her. Her eyes blew wide. "Lucius –"

Saying it was involuntary: it was the only word left in her mind, the only sound she could utter while quelling the moans she desperately longed to release.

Lucius let out a low growl upon hearing it, immediately setting a new, punishing rhythm that left Hermione breathless, her hands reaching to clutch at the flexing muscles of his arse as he drove into her, urging him ever deeper. Every thrust sounded into the night air, a slapping of skin meeting skin. So wet. All for you.

A fresh moan choked silently in her throat with every thrust. She reveled in it, the force of him pinning her to the earth.

"Take it, witch – tell me you want it." Lucius demanded in whisper.

"Yes – Gods, yes, Lucius. I want you – I want you –" she panted, a pleading.

He heard the distinction of her answer. 'I want you.'

Something shifted in his eyes. He pulled her leg down from his shoulder, spreading both out to her sides – opening her like a bud as he lowered his body flush against hers with another thrust to claim a kiss.

How utterly he possessed her then, continuing to pulse deep inside her as his tongue danced with hers. This kiss so different – searching, affectionate even.

He fisted a hand through her curls, slowing his pace with clearly hard-won self-control to meet her in rhythm. She clung to him, digging her nails into his back, wishing the fabric were gone, that she could feel his skin, draw blood.

Her desire soared hearing the soft grunts of Lucius' own pleasure, as he tried to restrain his own moans. Those sounds undid her, made her buck harder up into his thrusts, wanting from him every showing of his passion she could have.

It felt like worship, the writhing movement; the waves of rapture cresting over, as he pounded against that sacred spot deep inside of her, again and again and again.

I could live on magic and him alone.

All at once their union became so much more than mere bodies. They faded into one another. Their magics mingling, singing through each other. Their passionate joining like some twisted briar, replete in the riotous surety of life; life at its most primal expression: glorying in and extending itself. Rocking into bliss together against the damp soil.

Together we are ruin. What I would bring to ruin, for this.

A disbelieving furrow slighted across his brow, as if he himself were shocked by the perfection of their coupling, by the all-consuming rapture. How he gazed at her then, whispering in sudden anger, "What are you? To be able to do this to me?"

Before Hermione could speak, he'd pulled her hands off of him, taking her wrists and forcing them overhead. She swooned at his control, at his wicked expression that told her without doubt that he would undo her, shatter her.

Holding his weight in the arm pinning her wrists, Lucius reached his other hand between them to tease her throbbing clit, picking up the pace of his hips once more.

He was ruthless in pursuit of her pleasure, rubbing in firm, quick strokes as he fucked her, harder than ever.

Hermione needed to scream. She sunk her teeth sharp into her bottom lip, willing herself to stay silent even as the searing pleasure coiled in threat of release.

Her breath caught at the sight of him, this powerful dark wizard pistoning above her, possessive silver fire burning in his eyes. "Come for me, witch."

She crested – a molten burst of orgasm piercing through her as the desperate control she'd been clinging to shattered – an uncontrollable moan ripping from her throat.

But it never sounded, as Lucius' lips crashed down over hers, muffling her keening ecstasy in a deep kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth.

He kept kissing her as she rode the delirious bliss, kept pounding into her, his merciless rhythm sending yet another wave crashing.

She writhed beneath the onslaught, her core clenching greedily around his cock at the all-consuming, dizzying, oblivion. Lucius continued to kiss her through every second, even as his thrusts became stilted and he surged forward, groaning into her mouth as his own release took him.

Their foreheads pressed against each other, both panting through the come down, slick with sweat.

Spent and buzzing, pulsing full in the thrumming voltage of consummation. Pale blonde curtained around her face. She felt slaked, brimming, consumed.

They stayed like that for what felt like minutes. At some point he drew out of her, pulling her up to a sitting position beside him. Hermione's palm pressed over something on the ground.

They looked up from each other, awed: all around them a circle of small anemone flowers, rippling out across the ground, the same white as the one she'd called out of the frost, having bloomed out of the soil bed all around their bodies.

Hermione and Lucius stared down at them wonder.

After a long moment, she spoke from within her daze. "They'll be dead of frost by morning."

Lucius simply answered back, "Yes."

Hermione's eye caught on red, her blood smeared over both of their bodies.

This is the second time I've seen you painted in my blood.

She felt almost numb as she drew her wand and cast a spell to clean them both. He slowly handed her her jeans. They redonned their clothing, still never leaving the ground.

Hermione realized that she'd begun to softly cry.

Lucius stilled, watching her. After a long moment of silence he asked, "Have I hurt you?"

It wasn't exactly care in his voice; an assessment of the situation, perhaps. Hermione was so confused by his asking. His words hadn't been tender by any means, or even concerned, but they felt genuine.

"No." she replied. "Well yes, it hurts some – but no." Tears tracked down her cheeks; she couldn't find the words. "This – My... the things I want, this magic…You." She didn't know how to say it, especially to him. "I'm losing myself."

A long silence followed her declaration. Lucius looked down thoughtfully.

"Perhaps you are finding yourself," he answered in a quiet voice, a knowing shadow in his eyes. "It feels the same."

Hermione stared at him.

Lucius searched for the exact words before looking her in the eye to finish, "Both require the death of who you thought you were."

Truth. Kindness?

He shifted suddenly back to a distant coldness, standing before nodding to her wand. "I trust you know how to cast a contraceptive spell?"

Hermione almost laughed at the question – it was the last thing about what had just happened that was on her mind, she could not even process it. She nodded. He nodded in return.

Then unexpectedly, Lucius reached out and gently lifted her chin with his finger to look up at him.

Hermione wondered if he were about to say something, to kiss her. It seemed as though he might do both.

But he just looked at her, continuing to for a long time; thoughtful.

Lucius turned from her then, and she couldn't deny the feeling of disappointment that rose up in her.

Before reaching the tent, he stopped. "Hermione." He spoke without looking back at her.

She turned her head to him, looking at his back, waiting.

Lucius paused, then spoke softly. "You are more than you knew yourself to be. Not less."

He disappeared back into the tent.

After the canvas fell closed, Hermione stared at the space he'd just been, her fingers tangling in the delicate flowers that shone with moonlit frost.

. . . .