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Tit for Tat	By : PulchritudinousPain Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 17003 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own The Harry Potter series, nor the characters from it. All characters belong to JK Rowling. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
Chapter 12 Catch and Release

Malfoy woke the Monday morning following the funeral to find Granger still slumbering next to him. She’d stayed all weekend without him even having to demand it. He ran his hand over her leg and over her backside. He thrilled at the touch of her. He rubbed up against her and she let out a pretty little moan before rolling her face into the pillow. He wouldn’t be ignored. He pulled her underwear gently down to her knees and spanked her, hard.
“Granger, wake up.”
The air rushed into her throat as she woke, “Oh god, Malfoy, you nearly gave me a heart attack waking me like that!”
“I thought you’d prefer it.”
“To what?”
“To this...” he pressed himself in between her legs.
“Oh.”
She didn’t argue and he pressed her torso forward, angling her hips so that he could insert himself. He thrust hard and fast and she moaned, god how she moaned. Urged on, he fucked her hard and deep until he felt her pulsating around him.
“Good girl,” he murmered, driving himself home.
He scooped her into his arms as she sighed happily.
“I forgive you,” she whispered, “for the abrupt awakening.”
They lay there for a while just breathing together. He wondered if he could breath without her now.
She finally said the words that he had been dreading to hear, “Draco, I need to go to work.”
He had pored over the contract a dozen times the previous night looking for a loophole and had his argument ready. He sat upright in the bed but took his stance solidly. “No.”
“I’m serious. I’ve used up all my leave now, they’re expecting me back.”
“You’re staying, Granger. I’m not releasing you.”
She rolled over and stared at him. He expected the blast of her rage and had prepared himself for it but he would not be moved.
“You’re not releasing me? Is this about the contract?”
“Of course it is.”
“Draco! I stayed this weekend because I wanted to, but now I have to go. You can’t just say that you’re not releasing me.”
“I still need you.” His heart ached with yearning and grief and he desperately wanted her to just give in to him, but he knew what a headstrong witch she could be. He would do anything to make her stay.
“I need to be at work.”
“You’re not getting this, Granger. I don’t think you’re clear on how the contract works. Let me spell it out for you - you come to my call ten times and the contract ends, you come to my call nine times and you stay until I say so. I don’t release you, Granger, because I still need you, I still want you. I can’t let you leave.”
“Draco, this isn’t you. You’re grieving. Let me go to work and I’ll come back around tonight, okay?” she said, reasonably.
“No, Granger. You’re mine and I won’t risk losing you, not now,” he snarled. “I have it iron clad, unbreakable. You come when I call, you do whatever I want and you stay until I’m done with you.”
“You would imprison me?” she gasped. Her eyes filled with water and he wavered, but steeled his resolve.
“Now you understand.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“That’s why I have to keep you here.”
“That makes no sense, Draco. You have to let me go, you have to set me free. Love can’t live without air, Draco. You have to let me breathe!”
“No, what I have to do is keep you here.”
“You planned this all along,” she cried. “You beast!”
He softened. “No. No. You’re wrong. I’ve lost too much, Hermione, you’re all I have left now. You’re staying.”
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded.
“What other choice do I have?”
“Trust me,” she said. “Set me free and trust that I love you enough to come back. You’ll never be certain if I ever did unless you do.”
“So you want me to risk taking you at your word over an unbreakable contract.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a poor deal, Granger. I’m not buying.”
“I’m not a fucking commodity, Malfoy,” she spat furiously, hitting him in the chest.
He broke inside, acting frantically, desperately to hold her. He wrestled her onto the bed, pinning her wrists. He grabbed his wand and conjured ropes, tying her to the bed frame. “Yes, you are. You’re my property, Granger, and I’m going to keep you nice and safe right here where I need you.”
She howled at him to release her and he staggered off the bed, horrified, shocked at himself at what he had been reduced to, what he had done to her.
He left the room as she yelled and struggled, falling back against the wall outside the door before slumping to the ground, his head in his hands trying to prise from his mind a way out this trap of his own making he had condemned them both to.

He entered the room again when she had quieted. She looked terrible, her eyes red, mess running from her nose. He summoned a cloth and wiped her face then buried himself in her chest. He listened to her heart beating and was soothed.
“I know I can’t keep you here,” he admitted. “But listen. I’m letting you go but I won’t release you from the contract.”
“Draco, that doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. I can’t force you to be with me because I can’t stand to look at you when you’re hurting. You made me love you, Granger, and now I suffer because of it.”
“You don’t have to suffer...end the contract and I can show you.”
“I don’t think you could love me.”
“Then you’re stupid and you’re wrong.”
“Maybe, but I know how to deal in absolutes. If I never call you back, Granger, you’re always beholden to me. You can never be with another man. I may not be able to hold you here but I have my memories and the knowledge that no man will ever have the same and that’s enough.”
“No, don’t do it, Draco. You must call me back again. You simply must. It’s the only way for us to move forward. Forget about all this and trust me. You said it yourself, I always have a plan, usually against your liking but you benefit anyway. This is one of those times, you’re simply not seeing it. I don’t blame you for any of this, Draco. You’ve just...lost it for a bit. Come back to me and hear what I’m saying to you.”
He removed the bonds. “I release you, Hermione Granger.”
She sighed, tearful and pleading, her lip quivering. “You’re a fool, Draco Malfoy. You’ll diminish what we could have had on the guarantee of so little. To love is to risk yourself. Take a chance on me, Malfoy.”
He hung his head in silence until she left and didn’t watch her go. He crawled to the warm space she had occupied on the bed and lay there, unmoving, hollow in his grief.

Hermione sent an owl every day for two months with arguments for Malfoy not to call her back and release her so they could move on from the total disfunctionality of the contract into something better and more natural. He returned them every day with the same answer, “I can’t.” She eventually conceded. She could not force his hand with logic when he was a creature of whim and turbulent passions. She would simply have to bear out the storm as best she could.

Hermione walked through Diagon Alley with Ginny, looking through the window at the latest robes before heading to Flourish and Blott’s for some new reading material. In the six months she had been on her own she had read every book there was to be read in her home. She had thrown herself into her work, finishing the new laws for the protection of Elvish welfare and had received her promotion and pay rise. She now had a substantial amount of money to spend each week on books and she needed the distraction.
“What do you fancy today?” Ginny asked brightly. “More romance novels?”
Hermione giggled. “You know they aren’t that bad, especially when they’re your only escape but no, there’s no new ones out this week. I think I might get a new potions book and we can stop by the apothecary for ingredients.”
“Sure thing. Do you think you could lend me some of your romance novels, Hermione? It couldn’t hurt things with me and Harry to get some fresh ideas, could it?”
“If Harry doesn’t mind playing along, sure, and if he does mind playing along you can always have a game of solitaire, like I have to.”
“I can’t beleive he hasn’t called you. What a selfish asshole.”
“Don’t, Ginny. He’d just lost his parents. He was just trying to hold onto something.”
“By never seeing you? How is that anything?”
“He relives it. He told me that’s what he intended to do. He goes back into the memories in his pensieve and...”
“Whacks off. Bloody hell. It’s not fair what he’s doing to you. You could meet someone, have a family. He’s robbing you.”
“I don’t feel it yet. I’m still young, I wanted a career over kids anyway and I’m doing really well at the Ministry. He actually helped me get a foot up in there, so...”
“Don’t you dare thank him, Hermione. I told you I wouldn’t trust him until he released you from that contract and I won’t hear a good thing about him.”
Hermione begrudgingly kept silent and looked through the potions books, selecting a volume called Potions for Practical Enlightenment. “This one looks good. It helps you brew wisdom.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea for you right now,” Ginny snipped.
“Agreed,” Hermione conceded. “I know I should be mad at him, Ginny, but I just know that he’s hurting and I can’t stay angry. I still love him.”
“You’re too forgiving, Hermione.”
“I’ve have to be. I’m still friends with your brother, after all.”
“Yeah, alright, I’ll pay that. Ron was a total arse. I’m glad you guys went back to your usual level of bickering.”
“Me too.”
The two witches paid for their books and ambled down the alley to the apothecary. Hermione loved the apothecary nearly as much as the book store. She loved any place where things were ordered and made sense. She ran her hand over the glass jars, her eyes alternating between the recipe for Wit Sharpening Potion and the labels on the jars. She heard the bell of the door as it rang but thought nothing of it until she felt a presence behind her. She raised her head.
“It is you,” Malfoy said.
She examined him. Gone was the grey pallour and the turmoil behind his eyes she recalled from their last encounter. He held himself strong, not the Draco of old, but something new. He had regained his composure but seemed to carry it with more weight.
“Draco,” Hermione said, surprised. “It’s good to see you. You look well. I’m glad of it.”
“I’m better,” he admitted. “You look amazing, more beautiful than ever. Granger, can I talk to you alone? There are things we need to discuss.”
“Of course, let me just tell Ginny.” Hermione was pleased. The storm within him had quelled. Perhaps now they could try to set sail again.
He nodded curtly. She crossed the shop to where Ginny stood, arms folded, scowling at Malfoy.
“Just let me hear him out, Ginny. You go on. I’ll send you an owl later.” Ginny wrinkled her nose in abhorrence and left the shop with a look towards Malfoy that threatened a hexing.
Hermione followed Malfoy to the Three Broomsticks where he ordered them both butterbeers. He sat down and took her hand, stroking it softly with his index finger. Her heart both broke and yearned at his touch.
“Well, Malfoy? You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
“I’ve missed you, Granger. I’ve been a terrible imbecile and have treated you foully again. I don’t know how you put up with it and tried to convince me for so long. It took me a long time but I think I finally understand.You were right. By trying to capture what I could I lost you. It’s not enough to live in memories.”
“So what are you going to do?” She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, worried she would not hear the words she had been longing to hear, the words that held both her freedom and a promise of a future with him.
“What I have to. I’ve got to run the risk of letting you go if I’m ever to have a chance of truely having you. After all, Granger, I want you.”

The End
- 11
- 12
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Tit for Tat