When We Were Beasts

Before: Part Fourteen

Malfoy came down before Hermione.

They had been kissing, tangled in each others arms, when he pulled away as if he'd been slapped. His entire body became taut, and when Hermione leaned in to kiss him again, he pulled away sharply.

She frowned.

"Draco?" Hermione pouted. "What's wrong?"

He pulled away from her.

"Granger," His voice was different. It was almost shaky. Hermione didn't like it. She also didn't like it when he called her that. "Granger, I need to know if you grabbed the potion that reverses Amortentia when we left the Hogwarts classroom."

Why was he asking that? "I...I don't know."

"Think, Granger!"

"Draco, tell me what's going on-"

"Don't call me that." His voice was wrapped in barbed wire, cutting her heart into pieces.
Tears welled in her eyes.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Silence made the air almost humid.

Then, softly, he said, "Granger, you don't care about me, and I don't care about you. We were poisoned by Amortentia. This isn't you."

Something stirred in the back of her mind. It might've sounded like her own voice, telling her he was right. Hermione ignored it.

"But I do care about you," Hermione reached for him in the dark, and that voice in her mind grew louder when he pushed her hands away. "You're my Draco, and I'm yours. We belong together!"

"No, we don't. I am not yours." He didn't say she wasn't his. "We're trapped in the BackRooms, put here by Voldemort. You'll come to at any moment and realize I'm right."

Slowly, as if she was unthawing, her mind returned to her. The Amortentia slid out of her veins and left her with the consequences of her actions. The cold bite in the air returned as the heat in her core faded away.

It was all so clear. The feel of his lips across her hip bone, the drag of her nails against back. Hermione could clearly recall the sensation of having him inside her-

Malfoy carefully covered her shoulders with a robe. She swatted in the dark until she made contact with skin.
"Don't touch me," She hissed. "I'm... It's wearing off."

Malfoy didn't say anything as Hermione took in several deep breaths. She wrapped the robe tighter around her.

She didn't know what to feel.

Embarrassed? Shameful?

Hermione did know that she felt very, very foolish for letting her hunger own her like that. This wouldn't have happened if she'd investigated further, resisted harder-

"I think I'm going to be sick." Hermione pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to fight off the nausea.

The worst of it, the part that made her so sick, was how good it felt.

It was better than she'd ever imagined. The way he claimed her with a possession that rivaled a werewolf and yet whispered words sweeter than sticky caramels. When he caressed her it was gentle and confident. Filled with assurance that he knew what was best for her.
Just thinking of it made her toes tingle.
Or was that the cold air?

Either way, Hermione knew she now had no choice but to face the reclusive truth she'd been wrestling with ever since that day.
She could no longer fight the cold, the hunger, and the claustrophobia of having Malfoy so close after what they did. She wouldn't give the room another opportunity to make a fool out of them.

Hermione stood.

"You want my truth?" She hoped Voldemort himself could hear her. "Take it! I'm glad my parents are obliviated so they don't ever have to know what the Wizarding World did to their daughter!"