Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

-Cold-	By : madamemalfoy Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 5203 -:- 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.

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by Madame Malfoy’s Mirror

Malfoy…

But she didn’t stop to wonder why, or how he’d come to be at her door. Or how he’d found the cottage. Her only thought now was the bastard bite of the cold. It rushed

through the hollow of the opened door, each molecule a dagger, forcing its point into the pores of her skin. She gasped for breath as the air grew thin, her lungs elastic with pain.

She let go of Malfoy, barely registering the fact that she left him to fall hard upon the cobbled floor.

No time for niceties—

Not when her vision began to double, to dim, as the remainder of breathable oxygen seemed to evaporate into nothingness.

She fell to all fours, gasping, dragging herself to the threshold through sheer force of will, each breath a spike of white fire—

Staggering, she pulled herself over the bulk of his torso, nearly losing her balance as her hands found the icy, slick pool of his blood, as hard as glass. But finally, she reached the door, and blindly groped for its solid edge.

Just a little mo—

SLAM!

And slowly, mercifully, the air began to thicken again. Warmed a trifle. When she had breath enough to sound it, she cast a seal on the doorway, watching as her magic sparked and sputtered round the edges of the door, white and luminous, two strands rushing in opposite directions until they met in the middle, above the door. Then, for long moment,

the thick, pearlescent rope shone bright, only to fade.

She sighed in relief. The seal had taken, and just in time.

She glanced over at Malfoy.

Idiot, she snarled inwardly, suddenly furious with herself. You nearly killed yourself…and for what?

Maybe she would just leave him there to die.

No!

Before the thought could dissolve completely, she rushed over to his side, the thought of his death—any death—more than she could bear.

“Malfoy!” she snapped, slapping at his cheek, pulling away with a hiss as the chill of his skin burned like fire against her gloved hand. Through her glove, as if bare flesh met bare flesh. She was ashamed at her anger, the lingering dregs of hatred still lodged somewhere in her throat, behind her eyes.

Here, on her floor, a man laid dying—and the war—the war was over.

“Malfoy!” She tried again, pushing aside her disgust. Her disappointment.

Here. And now. At her door.

But he was supposed to be dead already! Dead a long time ago. Dead as

dust, dead as bones, Death Eater dead, as dead as dead could be.

She shook her head to clear the run of hysterical thoughts, at last pulling the gloves form her hands as she searched beneath his stony chin for a pulse. She tightened her teeth and forced herself to touch him, to bear the sting that would come.

She grimaced from the sharp chill of his flesh, but held on long enough to ascertain that, yes, the bastard was breathing.

(Cold…so damned cold…)

Yes Hermione, she argued internally, brilliant deduction. Now think!

It was a desperate bid to fight off panic, this mental chastisement. She was no healer, and she knew it. He was most likely dying of hypothermia before her eyes, and there wasn’t anything she could do…

“Think!” She snarled fiercely, scanning his unconscious form, willing ideas to come. There was blood. Blood everywhere. But thankfully, the chill had stopped its

flow better than any bandage. At least there was that. But still she tugged at the sodden, tattered rags of his clothes, looking for injuries, astonished when they fell apart like old paper in her hands.

Yes, she thought suddenly,that’s right. Get him out of these. He’ll need warm clothes…

And so she tugged and tore, pulling the hardened garments from his limbs, until his torso was bared. She could tell by the blue-white gloss of his lips that his core body temperature was falling, and falling fast, despite the “warmth” of the cottage. She groped for her wand on the floor, jabbing it at the grate—Ignis!—and pale flames sprang from the ashes.

Warmth. He needed warmth, and quickly, before hypothermia set in. The fire wouldn’t be enough…

Now what? she thought. Clothes. I need to cover him up. Get him closer to the fire.

That was easily done.

She flicked her wand, “MobilaCorpus,” watching as his body rose from the flagstones and floated gently across the floor, over to the couch. She rushed over to his side, dragging every quilt and blanket that she had over the slender, smooth curve of his shoulder.

Good.

That done, she sat back on her heels, uncertain what to do next...

Check his wounds?

At first they looked horrible, stained as they were with his blood. But now, by the light of the fire, she could see—they weren’t that bad. Superficial at most. The danger now, despite the cold, was infection. What had she always done for infection? The chant…it was sort of like, face…or…

“Defaeco!”she cried, relieved, watching as the impurities in his blood seemed to boil

over, steam jetting from the edges of his wounds. The small heat produced by the spell seemed to melt some of the ice that coated his skin, but it wasn’t enough to raise his

body temperature—and once done, it shouldn’t be done again.

But just this small act restored her confidence, as well as her knowledge of field medicine. Hadn’t she patched up Harry and Ron often enough? A smile almost made it to her lips, but it fell away before it ever materialized.

Oh…Ron…

Her breath hitched in her chest and the tears that had threatened all evening finally broke—she blinked them away as they fell, sluicing her cheeks in glistening, silver trails.

They froze on contact with the air, and in moments she felt like she wore a mask. Yet somehow, that seemed to calm her, to seal off her emotions and memories as effectively as any obliviate charm. Her hand steady now, she sealed the edges of his wounds—Emendo!—pulling off the last of his clothes, his torn trousers.

Though she tried not to notice, to look upon his nudity, it wasn’t possible. Not when the pale, glistening length of his body seemed almost luminescent against the dark fabric

of her sofa. He was like moonlight made man, or winter made human.

A nasty frown twisted her pretty features.

She hated winter.

“Seven bloody years of it!” she shouted, unable to hold it in any longer, the pain, sadness and grief of this night, of this existence.

Seven. Years.

How she hated it.

Seven years of pallid dusk, falling snow and billows of white as far as the eye could see. A landscape of death, of emptiness, of doom.

“And it’s all your fault!’ she railed, “yours and those like you!” she spat, tucking in the edge of her quilts with a savage jab, “So you can rot for all I care!”

But something was wrong.

He was starting to shiver, his body racked by great tremors, as if struck with a sudden seizure. Alarmed, she reached over and started to rub his chest and arms vigorously, trying to jump start his circulation, forgetting, for a moment, her anger at him and his

kind.

Why was he shaking?

Has she done something wrong? She peered at his face and with her thumb and gently pulled back his eyelid. The pale silver of his eyes caught the light of the fire and gleamed like mercury, his pupils dilated and glassy, almost sightless.

“Malfoy?” she queried, the tone of her voice gentle, all trace of her former anger gone, “Malfoy, can you hear me?”

He seemed to still at the sound of her voice, as if he were listening, attempting to respond. But she could have been imagining it, for the next moment his body jerked beneath her as the tremors resumed. She was perplexed, and felt the beginnings of panic return as she examined his face and the length of his body. She was sure she had the magic right. She’d witnessed dozens of field surgeries and assisted in as many, so it couldn’t be the magic…

The magic!

She’d forgotten about the Time Stop, as it was so called, when in fact it was a failed spell more akin to time delay—a horrible, extended delay, not so much a time stop as a time dilation, or a time stretch. The heating effect of the magic she’d used, it wouldn’t take immediately. His body, not magical itself but a conduit of the magic, was unaffected by the failed spell, independent of it. His core temperature would continue to drop, unless she did something drastic.

Now she was on firmer ground. This called for good old fashioned muggle medicine.

Despite the gravity of the situation she found herself smiling, imagining, for a moment, what Malfoy would say if he knew that she would save his life without magic, but with muggle first aid. Because she knew that the quickest way to raise another person’s body

temperature was skin-on-skin contact.

Without hesitation, she pealed away her thick coat and layered sweaters, all the layers until her chest and shoulders were bared. She stood quickly and shucked off her slacks,

already staring to shiver violently in the cold air. Moving fast now, she pulled back the covers and quilts surrounding him and dove beneath them, sliding her body next to his. She hissed as her skin made contact with his—it was like lying down in a bed of embers—she felt every point on her body when her skin met his, felt it like a brand.

She cried out in pain, instinctively wanting to pull away, and her fortitude nearly faltered when the tight, square plain of his chest met the tender rise of her breasts. But she closed her eyes and pulled him closer, careful as she wrapped her arms around him not to reopen the barely sealed edges of his wounds. She cried out in pain at the extended contact, the sheer white fire of the cold, and banked tears began to fall again, this time due to genuine physical pain.

She pulled the covers over them both, over her head and his, until they were covered by the lot, sealed in a kind of quilted burrow. More than once she almost let go, thinking

that she couldn’t stand a moment more of this torment. But she thought of Ron, of Harry, of Ginny. Of everyone she loved. She would do this for them, because she was

determined that no one else would die because of their folly.

Because she’d been lying when she’d said this cursed winter was all his fault—his and his kind—because in truth, it was theirs.

Hers and Harry’s and Ron’s.

Her fault.

She held on through the pain and it gradually began to ease. Held on even as his body shook and trembled against hers in delirium, held on in a sort of violent self punishment—as if the pain would draw out the sickness of her guilt and complicity—her part in this horrible curse. And possibly—though she wouldn’t let herself allow it—Ron’s death.

She held on even as sleep overcame her.
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