'And I, of course, have nothing better to do than answer it.'
'Why do you love me?'
He goggled at her. 'What?'
'Why do you love me? I want to know.'
For a moment, he was lost for words, a rare circumstance for Draco.
'I don't know, Hermione,' he said finally. 'That's like asking me why I'm left-handed. Some things don't have a reason.'
She bit her lip. 'You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked.'
She looked at him sideways. The silver moonlight fell on his upturned face, his hair, turned his eyes to silver, the shadows under them to black. He was frowning as he said, 'Why did you ask me that?'
She shook her head. 'I don't know.'
'I do,' he said. He turned towards her, resting his right arm against the rock, and put his hand under her chin as he had done before, tilting her head up, forcing her to look at him. 'You wanted to hear me say that I love you.'
'I just wanted to know why-'
'Well, I do love you,' he said. 'Now, go back to bed.'
She didn't move.
'No so easy, is it?' he said, with bitter triumph. 'I told you it wouldn't be easy.'
It was a little like being in a dream, Hermione thought. Over and over she imagined herself pulling away, walking away from him and from the clearing filled with silver moonlight, walking back to the tent — and then reality would snap back in, and she would still be standing here, leaning against the rock with her hands behind her back, because if they weren't behind her back —
'I have to go,' she said.
'So go,' he said.
She heard her own voice, as if from a very great distance away, heard herself say, 'How can you just let me go?'
He looked at her. And thought: this isn't real, but it seemed a distant and unimportant sort of thought, not as immediate as the feel of her skin, not as real as the sound of her voice. He had a great deal of self-control, more than most sixteen-year-old boys, more than most people twice his age. But everyone has a breaking point.
Everyone.
'I can't,' he said, and kissed her.
He caught her by the shoulders and turned her towards him, bringing his mouth down on hers — gently at first, but when she didn't pull away the trembling tension in his body altered swiftly and he pulled her towards him. A profound and solemn quietness came over her as if she had walked into a church, or some great and open space full of light. There was nothing wrong with this. There could be nothing wrong with something that felt so perfectly right, that felt like coming up into air after a long time drowning.
They stumbled backwards, locked together; Hermione felt behind herself for the rock to lean against but missed, and they crumpled together, half-falling, landing on the ground with enough force to knock the air out of Hermione's lungs.
But she didn't care. She felt the weight of him all along her body, pressing her into the ground. Felt herself being crushed, and it hurt, and the rocks digging into her back hurt, and his grip on her shoulders was so tight that it hurt, but she hardly felt the pain. She only felt the galvanic shocks that tore through her nerves as he touched her, fueled by the magic of the potion and the relief of no longer fighting what couldn't be fought. It was almost the same dizzying high that she had felt under the Imperius Curse, only that had been a cold sort of joy and this… burned. The pain and the intensity built like a storm in her head; she heard a roaring in her ears, the rush of the blood in her body, felt herself burned, crushed, annihilated, and she wanted it, wanted to disappear entirely into this sensation and forget everything else in the world except for Draco.
She heard his voice in her ear, or maybe it was in her head. Breathy, a little panicked, but shaking with a wild sort of joy. 'Am I hurting you? Hermione, am I — ?'
'Yes,' she whispered. 'Don't stop.'
Neither Draco nor Hermione heard the rustle of leaves parting as Ginny turned on her heel and fled the clearing as fast as she could.
She had been worried about Hermione…the other girl had been gone so long, surely it couldn't take so long to write a letter. Perhaps she'd gotten lost. All the tents did look rather similar, especially in the dark. So Ginny had gotten up, and reached for her cloak, and gone looking.
She paused now to catch her breath, leaning against a tree trunk, half-blinded by tears. God damn Hermione, who did she always get everything, did she have to take everything Ginny had ever wanted?
It wasn't fair. It wasn't…
She raised her head slowly, blinking tears from her eyes, and realized where she was. She was standing in front of Harry's tent.
Somewhere inside that tent he was sleeping. She had watched him sleep before, back at the Burrow; he slept like a child, innocent, curled around his pillow, cheeks flushed to roses. It would be so easy to go in there and wake him up and tell him, and together they could storm the clearing in righteous indignation. They would make Draco and Hermione sorry. They would humiliate them.
It would be so easy…
Draco had been kissed before, but not like this; he had kissed her before, but not like this. Before, her feelings had never matched his, it had always been him kissing her. Even during their last kiss, under the tree by
