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Hooded Man	By : LadyofClunn Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 5723 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter or Robin Hood. I do not earn money by writing this story.

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The next morning she found him in the kitchen, his back to her just as she had had her back to him, feigning sleep last night. Half-dreading, half-hoping for his return to the tent, she had laid still, breathing deeply and evenly, knowing that she didn’t fool him for one minute.

“Good morning.” Her voice was so small that she wasn’t sure whether he had heard her or not.

Wordlessly, he placed a steaming cup of tea in front of her, which her hands accepted gratefully.

“Potter has sent word.” He looked at his tea tin on the narrow kitchen shelf. “He has accepted my terms and will deliver the ransom tomorrow.” Letting out a breath that was half-sigh, he turned to leave. “All is well, Granger. You are going home.”

Watching him disappear between the tent flaps, she had the feeling that nothing, absolutely nothing was well at all.

***

She had waited until the embers in the wood burning stove had huddled down for the night, lulled into a soft glow by Draco’s deep, even breathing.

Hermione had had a lot of time during the day, while Draco did everything to ignore her. Tomorrow she would go back. To her Healer-in-training job divided between St. Mungo’s and the Ministry’s Potions Department. She liked the work she was doing. Liked the steady stream of knowledge and learning that flowed around her. She could see now that she had gone into hiding. Had opted for a career in the laboratory instead of with patients and had turned down all the offers of an active role within the Ministry.

She had settled.

Avoided.

Ron.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. He deserved better. She deserved better.

She didn’t want to leave this little world of circus tents. The forest had accepted her. Even Theo had stopped slipping his wand into his hand whenever she was near.

And Draco.

Gods. Draco.

She had stared into the darkness until light spots swam in her vision.

Without making a sound, she slipped out from under her duvet and slid her feet along the rugs, trying to avoid bumping into the unforgiving dresser.

She slowly lifted the duvet from his chest.

A hard hand closed around her wrist and made her shriek in fright. The embers were startled awake, and orange light blazed into life in the room behind her.

Draco stared at her and slipped his wand back under the pillow.

“Granger! What do you think you’re doing?”

She blushed and said nothing.

The hold on her hand loosened.

“You are leaving in the morning,” he said, his eyes soft.

“I know.”

“We’ll never see each other again.”

“I know.”

He kept his hand on hers when she slid it under his sleep tunic.

“We will regret this.”

“I know,” she whispered into his mouth.

She drank his kiss in and breathed his breath. His hands went into her hair; his fingers twining around her loose curls.

Her borrowed tunic slid up around her hips easily when she moved her leg over his hips to straddle him.

Sitting up, Hermione moved his hands to her breasts and gently rocked her hips. He caressed her through the thin cotton of her shirt and ran his hands back up to the wild mass of her curls.

A small twig with a tiny, freshly green leaf was caught in a strand near her temple. He moved to disentangle it, but as soon as he had touched the minuscule branch, her eyes widened and she sat up straighter, grinding her hips into his groin.

The orange light of the embers flared high, bathing the tent in warmth.

Winding its way through her hair, binding it in an intricate design, the twig expanded and grew. Small leaves grew as the wood lengthened and expanded, branching off more and more. First the lightest of spring green, the leaves unfolded and matured into the lush, rich colour of summer forest.

Half-afraid to disturb the magic working around and on her, Hermione held still as she felt her hair rearrange into a crown of leaves and curls around her head with long strands falling down her back.

Draco plucked at the drawstring at the neckline of her tunic. It slid off her shoulders and down her arms, pooling around her hips.

“No chaste priestess,” he rasped.

She rose up on her knees, reaching for the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. He helped her pushing them down by lifting his hips; his erection springing free.

Draco reached for her bunched-up tunic and the fabric melted away to fall to the floor next to the bed.

Guiding her hands to her centre, he gently caressed the inside of her thighs.

“Show me.” He let his fingers trail along the part of her he wanted to see and made her shudder. His hands skimmed downward and rested on her knees.

Frozen with indecision, his request took her breath away. Feeling oddly shy and vulnerable, she slowly reached between her thighs and spread herself for him.

Breathing deeply he drew a finger through the folds of her sex, making her buck and follow his hand. He steadied her with a hand on her hip and repeated his action.

She tried to follow the delicious pressure of his fingertips, twisting her hips, but he always grazed along her flesh without making contact with her sweetest spot.

“Don’t tease me,” she begged.

He stilled his hand and encircled his cock, positioning the shiny head. With slight pressure on her hip, he encouraged her to lower herself.

She sank down onto him.

For a moment she sat slumped and breathed heavily.

Draco’s hands massaged and stroked her flanks. She threw her head back and pushed herself up on her knees.

Her legs trembled under the effort. Hermione leaned back against Draco’s knees and supported her weight with her hands on the duvet. With every slide inside her, he now brushed along the spongy spot of pleasure.

The embers flared to a deep red.

Draco tried to reach for her but she was too far. With a groan he grasped her thighs and bucked into her.

The pressure deep inside her coiled tight.

She was so close.

Draco gripped her with bruising force and hefted himself up into a sitting position. She shrieked as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him in a firm embrace. Anchoring her with his hands on her shoulders, he pulled her down to him whenever he pushed up.

She could feel him part her flesh over and over, stretching her to her limits. Hermione let her head fall onto his sweat-slicked shoulder, breathing in his earthy scent, and let the tidal wave take her.

They fell back in a heap of tangled limbs, hearts pounding wildly. Draco idly played with the braids in her hair.

The warm light of the stove pulsed softly around them.

Hermione could feel him swell inside her once more, so soon.

She smiled into the crook of his neck.

“Again?”

“Again.”

Later, in the cocoon of night, he told her.

“I didn’t want to want you.” He smoothed the hair out of her face, trying to caress away the distraught expression on her face. “I didn’t want to miss you, because it would hurt too much to merely be allowed a taste of the sweetest nectar and then be denied.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, a leg thrown over his. She did not dispute it.

At the first signs of dawn, she finally fell asleep, an intricate crown of slender oak branches in her hair, one of the leaves tenderly caressing his chest.

***

The clothes she had worn on the day of her kidnapping were laid out on the bed when she woke. With very slow movements she started dressing with care. Much more so than a walk through the forest would warrant. A bit mournfully, she placed her green tunic dress on his bed, missing it already.

Later, she awkwardly stood in the circle of cloaked men. Gregory Goyle surprised her by giving her a hug that literally took her breath away. Nobody but her heard the whispered ‘thank you’ before he turned, picked up his Wizard staff, and disappeared into the forest.

The others shook her hand, one by one. Theodore Nott demurred and visibly fought with himself; his fists clenching and unclenching, then holding out his hand and squeezing hers for maybe half a second before turning around and following Gregory Goyle into the dark forest.

This time, the walk through the trees felt short. Although they did not talk much, she longed to stay just a little bit longer under the protection of the trees. To feel just a little bit longer his hand around hers.

Several times she had to free her feet and arms from branches clinging to her as if holding her back.

Too soon, she found herself in the very same clearing where she had tried to harvest flowers for her experimental potion.

Draco did not let go of her hand as he waved his wand and uncovered a neat pile of carefully harvested dusk flowers. He wrapped a length of linen around the delicate plants and handed them to Hermione.

“There is a preservation charm on them, but only since yesterday. I hope that won’t affect their properties.”

“I don’t think so. Thank you, this means a lot to me.”

She wanted to say so much but her mind was full of having to say a goodbye that would be a farewell; she was scrambling for words that did not want to form.

Draco looked into her eyes and nodded. Sweeping his wand in a grand arch, he cast an untraceable summoning spell.

A small, dented cauldron rushed toward them, landing in front of Hermione’s feet with a muffled thump. She hesitated but then bent down to pick it up.

As soon as she touched the Portkey, a large leather pouch fell out of the air in front of Draco. He quickly picked it up.

“I have to go. It’s not safe here for me.”

She nodded.

“The others have already moved the camp; you won’t be able to lead them to us.”

She nodded again, unable to speak.

“Goodbye.”

The Portkey activated, and she could still feel Draco’s kiss as Ron seized her in a crushing embrace.

***

Theodore Nott, the Miller’s son, the verdict said. She had not even known that there were magical millers. Apparently, being entrusted with producing the base for every witch's and wizard’s bread was a highly regarded position of trust. Theo’s father had once been the main supplier for all magical bakeries in Britain. Now his son had been sentenced to a life in hiding, away from his family, because he had hunted a rabbit. The Wizengamot transcript stated that in his defence, he had stated that his children had been hungry. A tear fell onto the parchment and sent the footnotes scrambling. The law was clear. All Muggle creatures in the Forbidden Forest were property of the Ministry, there for the magical creatures to feed on and thus illegal to hunt.

Hermione rested her head in her hands. She remembered this law. It had been passed shortly after the war, as an acknowledgement of the role that the creatures of the forest had played in defeating the Dark. She herself had supported it, finding nothing wrong with giving protection to fellow magical beings and protecting other animals from additional hunting.

She had taken a father from his children.

No matter how many times she told herself that the Wizengamot had passed the law, it always came back to this.

She had rallied for it. Had pushed for it, like for so many other laws in the beginning of The Great Rebuild.

Now she wondered how many lives she might have destroyed with her well-meaning efforts.

The Prewett Ring dug into her forehead. Ron had been overjoyed to have her back and had even wanted to move the wedding to an earlier date.

After seeing the haunted eyes of Theo’s children and the witch desperately pleading for her help to release her husband from Azkaban, Hermione could not help but feel empty and pathetic listening to Molly and Fleur trying to talk to her about wedding colours –orange and black for a striking Chudley Cannons theme or burgundy and gold for all things Gryffindor? – and natural flower arrangements versus traditional ones made from owl feathers.

On her desk, a short twig of oak stood in a small vase; a light green, nearly white acorn nestled beneath the leaf. Absently, Hermione brushed a fingertip over the tiny forest fruit.

She had located the man guilty of preparation of and incitement to withholding of taxes. Officially, he was held on remand, but she could not find any evidence of a trial before the Wizengamot being prepared. In all likelihood, he would be forgotten.

Hermione was hesitant to so much as mention him to the case review wizards.

She had not understood what Theo had meant at the time, but her ever-inquisitive mind had stored the name of the curse and led her straight into one of the oldest sections of the Wizarding law library. Instead of potions tomes, she had buried herself in law texts.

Hermione caressed the outline of a lupine head in an illumination of one of the oldest versions of the law. The man with a wolf’s head startled and then turned greedily into the caress.

Back then, in the times before Azkaban, Caput gerat lupinum had been an effective way to mark and punish criminals, as it was cast in absence of the convicted. Cast out by wizards and Muggles alike and hunted and ridiculed by the werewolves, their lives were almost always short and their ends cruel.

Even though the wolf’s head was no longer a physical manifestation of the curse, Caput still technically rendered them to be legally killed on sight.

With an apologetic look, she closed the heavy tome on the lonely wolf's head illumination.

She needed to start being honest with herself.

On her way out of the Ministry she passed the door to the Department for Rebuilding, Restructuring and Re-education. A witch was standing in front of it, wringing her hands, trying to summon the courage to enter. Her robes were made of deep green velvet, adorned with silver tassels. It looked suspiciously akin to Slytherin bed curtains.

Hermione slid her hand into her robe pocket and curled her fingers around a folded and sealed bit of parchment.

She moved through the crowds in the busy Ministry hallways with a new sense of purpose.

Stepping through the Ministry Floo and into the Leaky Cauldron, she didn’t stop when Tom called out to her. Turning on the spot, she materialised in front of a red door, slightly faded, with a bright spot where once an ornate door knocker had guarded the entrance.

She used her knuckles to knock and slid her foot between door and frame when the shocked woman inside the house wanted to immediately close the door again.

“Palilia! Please, I came alone. May I talk to you?”

Five minutes later found her at the scrubbed kitchen table, a cup of thin steaming tea in front of her.

“We should not have mentioned names, I take it.”

“No. There are only so many Palilias married to Picusses.” Hermione smiled into her cup.

Between the two witches lay a small, folded parchment, Hermione’s seal bright red atop the makeshift envelope.

“Will you give it to him the next time you see him?”

Palilia eyed the letter with trepidation.

“Will it hurt him?”

“I am willing to take a wizard’s oath that it won’t.”

“All right. I will give it to him. Will you stay for dinner?”

Hermione could hear breeding and politeness war with the fear that there might be another mouth to feed tonight.

“No, I thank you for the kind offer, but I must take my leave; there is still somebody I need to see tonight.”

Rising from her seat, she braced herself for the journey to Nottingham.

***

“Hermione, are you sure about this?”

She looked into his concerned, bright-green eyes, and her chest was tight and so full of love and sorrow that she wanted to break down and cry.

He had not understood when she confided in him; had raged and protested but he had also listened and helped her move her most important personal things out of the Burrow. Ron had been devastated when she had placed the Prewett Ring in his palm. He had closed his fist around it and turned away wordlessly.

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends,” she quoted. Harry smiled a sad smile at her.

She desperately wanted to touch him one last time before she would cross over to the other side. She had never left him. Not when he had been trapped in the machinations of the Triwizard tournament, not when they were hungry and hopeless on the hunt for Horcruxes, and not when she felt him slipping away into Auror and Ministry politics. Now, for the first time, she would not be by his side. “You know how I can never just stand by and watch when I see injustice.” She smiled but could feel that it was a lopsided attempt. Harry laid his hand over her hand that rested on his cheek.

“This is not taking S.P.E.W. to the next level, is it?”

“No. No, I promise, it is not.”

“Do you love him?”

“I do. Yes. Yes, I really do.” Apparently she could not stop repeating herself.

Harry squeezed her hand and let it go. He hugged her fiercely. “Just try not to make me arrest you.”

She laughed a little into his chest. “Will try.”

“Goodbye, Hermione.”

She walked backward for a few steps, smiling through her tears at her best friend in his official Auror robes, before she turned to the hooded figure at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

“Last chance, Granger; turn and run now.”

She extended her hand toward him. “I think not.”

He took it and kissed the palm.

“Enter your kingdom then, my lovely cutthroat.

A/N: Caput gerat lupinum (Latin for "Let his be a wolf's head") - in Old English law an individual who was declared an outlaw and may be killed on sight as if the person was a wolf or wild animal.
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Hooded Man