Manacled by Senlinyu

chapter 24

Warning: This chapter contains a brief episode of self-harm.

He tasted of firewhiskey.

It was a punishing kiss. The moment their lips touched, he crushed her body against his. His hand on her throat slid back and up to the nape, tangling his fingers in her hair as he deepened the kiss. His other hand reached up and cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand for a moment before it slipped down along her body.

He angled her head up as he kept kissing her. His tongue pushing into her mouth before withdrawing as he nipped her lips. Hard enough to hurt, but not to bleed. Then, when she was gasping for breath, he pulled his mouth away and started kissing along her throat.

Hermione was frozen in shock. Pliant and stunned in his possessive hands.

He was pulling at her clothes. She could feel the outer robe slipping onto the floor, and the top buttons of the dress open as the cold manor air hit her. He ripped buttons off as he exposed her and explored her bared skin.

He was grinding himself against her as he pulled the dress down over her shoulders, stripping her to the waist.

The cold air bit against her skin, and she felt her nipples harden in the cold as his hands darted up to palm her breasts and tease her. His mouth was at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and he was kissing and nipping his way along it when suddenly he reached a spot and she—moaned.

They both froze.

Malfoy wrenched himself away.

He stood there looking at her. She was slumped against the wall, half stripped, and—aroused.

His eyes were wide, as though he'd just become aware of himself. He stayed there looking shocked for several moments before the mask suddenly clicked back into place. His face grew hard and he smirked.

"Apparently you have accepted your place," he said with a leer.

Then he turned on his heel and vanished into the darkness.

Hermione stayed there in shock. She felt frozen, as a cold sense of devastation crept over her.

She was—she had been...receptive. To Malfoy.

Her pliancy hadn't been enforced by the manacles. It hadn't even occurred to her to push him away. It hadn't occurred to her to want to.

He'd kissed her and she'd—let him. She hadn't felt repulsed. It had thrilled something lonely and aching inside of her. Being touched. Someone with warm hands caressing her. It was a longing laced right through the very fiber of her.

Trapped in the manor, she was latching onto any scrap of kindness she could find.

But it wasn't kindness.

Malfoy wasn't kind; he simply wasn't cruel. He wasn't as awful as he could be. He possessed the meagerest shreds of decency.

Apparently, in her fracturing mind, a absence of cruelty was sufficient solace. For her starved heart, it was enough.

A strangled sob tore itself from her, and she gathered her robes around herself and fled back to her room.

Flinging the doors of her wardrobe open, she wrenched out a new set of robes and buttoned them up as rapidly as possible. Then she wrapped her arms around herself for an additional sensation of security. Of decency.

She was better than this.

She wasn't going to let her psychological survival instincts trick her into falling for a monster; into wanting the attention of the person responsible for starting the war; into being receptive to the man who had murdered her friends.