manacled by senlinyu

Chapter 42 : Flashback 17

August 2002

Hermione sat on a rock on the beach while she waited for Kingsley to call her back to administer the Draught of Living Death. As she sat, she kept replaying the previous night over and over, looking for anything she might have missed.

She had concluded upon further review of the night that Draco was attracted to her at some level. Afterall, he had called her lovely, compared her to a rose in a graveyard, and claimed he was blindsided. She snorted faintly and wondered if he would ever have admitted such a thing if he hadn't been on his third bottle of firewhisky.

He lacked intimacy in his life. Whether or not she met his general standards for physical appeal, he was emotionally vulnerable to her.

She had also determined that it was probably for the best that they hadn't had sex.

His current interest was like a kindling flame; too much fuel and she'd smother it. Now that it seemed undeniable that she had his attention, she'd have to move cautiously. The key would lie in carefully cultivating it into something uncontrollable for him; something he couldn't stop himself from wanting more than anything else.

It would take time.

Draco was patient. He was willing to lie and manipulate and murder and climb as far as necessary to get what he wanted. The revenge—atonement, or whatever his alliance with the Order was based on—was something he was willing to wait to get; he'd suffer and sacrifice for as long as it took.

To try to direct his ambition and insidiously obsessive nature toward herself was a terrifying risk. As Severus has said, she was as likely to destroy the Order as save it.

She could feel herself panicking at the thought. Her chest tightened, and it felt as though the ocean wind was stealing her breath. She dropped her head between her knees and forced herself to inhale slowly.

She could do it. She could do it because she had to do it. Because there was no other way to win the war.

The very notion of being able to control him had felt delusional and theoretical up until then.

The idea that she could buy the war with her—emotional intimacy had seemed fundamentally absurd until she felt herself dipped into the deep undercurrent of Malfoy's unrestrained attention.

He was so controlled, even when drunk. Even when he had kissed her. He hadn't rushed or been over-eager. His passion hadn't been explosive. It was a smoldering fire; the kind that grew secretly, like a ground fire deep in the earth, spreading and waiting before rising up, destroying the world above. She suspected he burned for things more deeply than even he was aware of.

She laid out her campaign carefully in her mind.

He would be more careful the next time he saw her. He would probably try to force her away and recreate the distance. Perhaps that would play to Hermione's advantage.

After all, there was no greater temptation than the forbidden fruit. The more he was thinking about her; about being careful around her, about how he shouldn't have her, the more she'd consume him. The more he'd want her.

The fact that she wanted him back...

Hermione swallowed and nibbled nervously on her thumbnail.

She would use that too. If the tension was real on both sides, it would make it harder for him to resist. She didn't know how to fake it anyway. She was too inexperienced. The sense of longing she felt would be included in her repertoire.

She smiled bitterly to herself.

She'd prostitute her soul to win the war. Using her feelings as currency should be even easier.