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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7649 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The common room in the Romanian Department of Dragon Care was empty. Most of the Aurors had
returned to England, and the remains of Hermione’s team–Susan Bones, Morag MacDougal, Tonks, Justin
Finch-Fletchley–slept deeply in the rooms off the Common Room. They would return to England in the
morning.

For her part, and as some form of self-flagellation, Hermione was writing letters to the families of
the Aurors killed in the battle. Seamus Finnegan had died without regaining consciousness.

That stung neither more nor less than the deaths of the other Aurors, though she had known Seamus
for a long time and liked him. He was a Gryffindor of her year; another member of the D.A, and a member
of the Order. Almost all of Dumbledore’s Army had joined the Order. He had been friends with Harry and
Ron. He had dated Ginny Weasley, briefly, during seventh year. Much to Ron’s obvious discomfort.

He was Seamus Finnegan, and she mourned him inarticulately.

By guttering candlelight, her quill scratched on. She found that tears were falling on the parchment,
smudging her neat handwriting, and thought that was odd. Mechanically, she reached for another piece of
parchment, starting over.

Dear Mr. And Mrs. MacDougal,

I write to offer my condolences on the loss of your daughter, Constance MacDougal. She was killed
during a pitched battle, doing her utmost to protect witches and wizards everywhere. She fought bravely and
her loss is a great blow to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I hardly have words to express...

Constance MacDougal was Morag’s cousin, and Hermione didn’t like to think of the look on
Morag’s face when he had seen her, wheat-coloured hair tangled with brush and bracken, one long scratch
marring an eternally pale cheek.

Six letters, and Hermione almost wished for Professor Umbridge’s quill, so she could write the letters
in her own blood. Maybe it was melodramatic, but every word carved her despair a little more deeply.

But at least she was alive. Not that she particularly cared at this point, but her death would have
meant Draco died, too. She had not yet gone deeply enough into her hurt to wonder why he hadn’t come; why
he hadn’t been there to help her. She had known when they parted that he had other work; known that he
could not always be watching through her eyes.

Hermione had known she was coming to Romania on her own, depending on her own intelligence
and ability to succeed, to find the Eye before the Death Eaters did. And it hadn’t been enough.

The little barn owls hooted almost reassuringly in their cages as she released them, one by one, back
to families waiting tensely in England, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. She wondered how
Seamus Finnegan’s Mam would take it.

A sound escaped her on that thought, and Hermione stuffed her fist in her mouth, hating the broken
tone of it. What right had she to hurt?

~o~oOo~o~

He was waiting for her in her flat, and Draco had no idea what he would say to her, even as he stared
at her across a room that suddenly seemed enormous. She was perhaps ten feet away, and the distance was
impossible.

It took a moment before Hermione saw him, dropping her keys in a bowl by the door, hanging her
robes up in the closet. Her face was drawn and pale, eyes red. Even with wild hair and wilder eyes, she was
still beautiful enough to make his breath catch. A bandage was wrapped around one slim bicep, though it
would come off in a few hours. Draco felt the wound there knitting as if his own arm were gashed.

Worse was the pain that punched through him with every beat of her heart–because he took all of
her pain, not just the physical kind. If this were a physical wound, she’d be bleeding to death.

With an uncertainty, a hesitance, he had never felt before, Draco licked his lips and stepped forward.

It took a moment for her to see him.

“Draco,” she said tonelessly. Stared up with eyes that were dead and shuttered. Wordlessly, she went
into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. Her free arm went around herself as if to ward off a chill.
Or maybe to keep from falling apart; there was something fragile in her demeanor, as if she were holding
together by only the barest of threads.

Draco knew that look. He knew what it was to be too late; knew what it was to fall and fail and watch
someone die because of it. And cruel as it was, it would be her lover that would break her. Because only
when she broke could she heal.

“Hermione,” he said, taking the empty glass from her hands and setting it on the counter, as she
didn’t seem to know what to do with it. “You failed.”

The words came like a death-blow to her, and he braced himself against her agony. Her lips were
trembling, her fists bunching at her sides.

“Six people are dead.” Draco continued ruthlessly, forcing his face into blankness, not daring to do
what he wanted to do: grab her and whisper that it wasn’t her fault, that there had been nothing more she
could have done. She wasn’t ready to hear that yet; was incapable of believing it now. “The Dark Lord has
the Eye. I’m sure the Death Eaters will celebrate first, and congratulate themselves, but the Dark Lord will
be coming for us. Because of you.”

Hermione’s face was dead white. Although he was only telling her what she had been telling herself
every moment of every hour since the battle, she couldn’t stand to hear it out loud. Not from him.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected that she slap him; his head rocked back as he took the blow silently.

“You came here to tell me that?” Her voice cracked and soared over the words, and she hit him
again. Mostly because she couldn’t hit herself.

“You failed,” he said again, wincing at the pain and hating himself for what he was doing to her.

“I know!” Hermione shrieked, pummelling him. “They’re dead because of me! Because I wasn’t
clever enough, because we were too slow, because we underestimated them!”

Draco caught her hands before she could hit him again, dragging her down the hallway to her
bedroom, flinching as she kicked him in the shin, still yelling at the top of her lungs. At him, for failing to
warn her, to come to her, to help her; at the Ministry, for sending a piddly dozen wizards to search for the
Eye; at herself, for being so arrogant, so certain of her own cleverness, so positive that she would win
because she was in the Order, because she Hermione Granger of Gryffindor, and the good guys weren’t
supposed to lose.

“And you came here to tell me that?” She finished, tears streaming down her face. “You came here
to tell me that I failed? Is that your information for me this time?” She slapped him again, and he tasted
blood. “Is that what I should take to Dumbledore and Moody?” And there, small fists–on his chest, in his
ribs, backed with all her hurt and anger, which packed a considerable wallop.

Whatever else she was trying to say, he couldn’t make it out, and with a groan she fell into his arms,
sobbing brokenly. His hand found her chin and forced it up, his lips catching hers, teeth and tongue, a
bruising kiss that was a dull echo of pain. Hermione tried to turn her face away, pushing against his chest,
and he forced her back to him grimly, for once taking no pleasure in the taste of her mouth. She had come
from a fight where others had died, and she had lived. This, too, she needed to remember.

With a small sound of rage, she tore out of his grip and stared at him, panting, almost hating him as
he stood there, his handsome face so impassive.

Grabbing his wrist, she yanked him onto the bed, put him underneath her, as supernally beautiful
there as he had been standing. Bending, she kissed him; struck him again. Angrier now, because she could
see in his eyes something she needed, something he wasn’t giving her.

“Hermione...”

“Shut up. I fucking hate you.” Her hands belied her words, stripping off his shirt, as if the key lay
somewhere on his broad bare chest. Whatever his next words were going to be–even Draco didn’t
know–were swallowed in a gasp as she gripped him almost roughly through his trousers.

“You failed,” he repeated, and hoped she didn’t hurt him too badly.

The look that she gave him was one of the purest rage, and he helped her with her shirt, popping a
few buttons as it came off. She hit him again, and that was starting to make him angry, even though he did
his damnedest to fight it.

It had never been so hot. Hermione knelt up above him, stripping off her jeans, giving him a knee
to the ribs in passing, just to watch him glare at her. Yanked off his trousers, almost frantic now, needing
something–anything–that would force all of this out of her mind, make her feel something.

And Draco just lay there, face twisted, watching her move, knowing in some deep, still-thinking part
of himself that Hermione had to take this from him; that he couldn’t give it. He couldn’t force her to live
again.

She shoved him into her, gasping, still striking, fingernails raking a bloodied set of parallel lines on
his chest. No idea what she was doing; no knowledge of what she was searching for so desperately, as she
rocked on him, one hand balancing her on the headboard.

“You failed, Hermione. You fucked up,” Draco spat, grasping the smooth globes of her buttocks and
pushing her harder, grinding her onto him, thrusting up into her. Hermione groaned aloud, her other hand on
his sweat-slick chest, nails digging in painfully. Perspiration streamed off both their bodies, pooling at the
burning base of their connection, until she was almost dizzy with the heat. Moving on him, Draco within her,
incoherent cries falling, a sea of tears, the broken pieces of herself that she had swallowed again and again.

Letting go of the headboard, Hermione drew her hair up off her shoulders, fisting her hands in it as
she moved, the slender silken steel of her muscles working ceaselessly toward whatever end.

Then they were exploding, so hot Hermione wondered that her blood wasn’t boiling in her veins,
raking Draco’s shoulders as he rolled over her, into her, finishing them both as Hermione’s head struck the
headboard, her inarticulate cries of hurt and love and confusion rising as the descant to their climax.

“I love you, Draco, Merlin, I love you!” she almost sobbed, even as he stretched taut over and within
her, holding her to him as if she were the summation of all things good and beautiful...the last good thing he
could call his own.

~o~oOo~o~

A storm of tears followed the interlude, until at last Hermione lay still and silent in his arms, not
sleeping, but exhausted. She would be all right, now.

And Draco was thinking.

Having been exposed to the Muggle’s God, he had had a decent amount of time, during sleepless
nights and endless days, to ponder what that could mean. Given the odd twists and turns of fate, he had
developed the theory that if there was a Deity, His/Her job consisted of placing frail mortals in absolutely
appalling circumstances and watching with vulgar interest to see how they handled it.

Draco knew what he had to do.

The knowledge of what it could mean left him quailing, his arms tightening around Hermione as their
bodies cooled. She murmured something and burrowed closer, her head on his chest, listening to the slow
unfailing rhythm of his heart.

God, Deity, Merlin, he loved her.

“’Mione?”

“Hmmm?”

“I love you.”

“Love you,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse. “You knew what I needed.”

“Yes.” He drew her up, pressing a soft kiss on her lips. “Remember Muggle Studies?”

“You took Muggle studies?”

“Know your enemy,” he said sarcastically, smiling nonetheless. “It was a shock treatment, my love.”

Startled, she turned, putting her chin on his chest and staring at him with wide brown eyes. “A shock
treatment?”

Draco nodded, unable to suppress a grin as he watched her turn it over in her mind. He still
remembered the day when Professor Fingol informed them that Muggles had once treated their mentally ill
with electrical shock therapy.

Hermione laughed at that, almost breathlessly, finding the laughter as cleansing as the tears. “Oh,
sweet Circe,” she gasped. “Draco, I’ll have to kill you if you ever do that to me again.”

“Try not to,” he said, kissing her. With her tangled hair and soft mouth, she was almost irresistible.

Hermione clung to him, pulling him closer when he would have broken it off, deepening the kiss into
something entirely different from the frenzy of an hour before. He loved her and she loved him. Surely
everything else would work out, somehow.

Draco’s hands went over her body, relishing the smoothness of her skin, working away the little
knots in her shoulders with gentle hands. Her slender frame was like dusky satin, gilded ivory, smooth and
clean and his. At least, for a little while longer.

Love was sweet and slow, his body finding hers warm and ready for him, holding him to her with
a trembling that was new and absolutely lovely. Now was the time for finesse and grace, to make an art of
it, to leave her so certain of him that she would hold him to her heart always. Hands and lips, mouth and
breath, every inch of his sensitized flesh was hers, and he gave it unstintingly, moving her to soft cries as he
rocked within her.

It was darkness and it was silent, an adagio before the light was extinguished completely. It was,
though Hermione didn’t know it, and wouldn’t until it was too late, goodbye. He was taking the memory of
her with him, the scent of her etched in his skin.

Her hands went through his pale hair, drawing his mouth to hers, and Hermione wrapped her legs
around his, relishing the smooth strength of him, the tallness of him, the solidity of the arms wrapped around
her. Her Draco. Their climax was light and song, and Hermione slept deeply beside him, sated, satiated,
clean, and utterly spent.

And Draco lay awake beside her, watchful through the long hours of darkness, moving occasionally
to take her in his arms, to breathe her in.

When Hermione woke in the morning, the mattress beside her was cold.

She knew where he had gone.

Author’s Notes

This always seemed like a risky chapter to me, so let me know if it’s too melodramatic. Haven’t done
disclaimers in a bit, so here they are: JK Rowling’s characters, not mine, et cetera, ad infinitum.
Thanks also to the Harry Potter Lexicon for the combat spells in the last chapter. And endless thanks
to my reviewers.
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Bad Faith