The Dark

As always, thank to JKR for the universe and characters, and kisses to GinnyW for beta-work!

Again, I've been blessed with a gorgeous bit of art...a banner that is sheer perfection. Thank you, crazywriterchic!

48. THE DARK

She awoke to sensory bliss.

His chest was hard and warm against her cheek, with the softest brush of silky hair to provide texture.

His heart beat strong and steady in her ear, its gentle thump a comfort and anchor in the darkness.

He smelled of eucalyptus and spearmint and sweat and sex, and she was as enveloped by his scent as she was his arms.

With a tentative touch of her tongue to his skin, she tasted both salty and sweet, and a whisper of tart lemon.

Here in the darkness without witnesses, she found it so hard, so desperately hard not to say the words that threatened to spill from her...

That she loved him, oh, god, how much she loved him.

That the taste of what their life could be...should be...was almost poison, it was so sweet.

That returning to what they must return to...and she understood that they must, she truly did...bit into her heart like a jagged-edged dagger.

And in the darkness, the can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face darkness...

She tilted her head back and felt his eyes drilling into hers, as surely as if they'd been standing under the noonday sun. She caught her breath at the intensity. She wasn't sure whether it was true Occlumency, but she drew forth her warmest, most welcoming emotions as she sank closer to him, eyes wide.

His arms tightened around her.

"Don't get any ideas," she murmured, her throat raspy from sleep. "You wore me out yesterday." She curled against him with a long, soul-deep sigh.

"I wore you out?" His sharp bark of laughter shook her from the inside out and settled into her furthest extremities as delightful warmth. She felt him rub his face against her and felt his unshaven cheek snag in her hair most deliciously.

And then, because it was not only enough, it was everything, she nestled back against him to await the dawn.

XX

He'd been gone to the morning's double Potions class less than a minute when she whisked into his laboratory and began the task of recreating her own workspace. It took a bit of silly wand waving, but within a half hour, she was settled in with a makeshift file drawer hovering beside her, six pots of ink (blue, black, red, green, purple and sienna) in front of her, and a collection of quills sharpened and close at hand.

Her whiteboard and markers were still packed neatly under her bed in the trunk; she needed to focus on something other than vows for at least the morning.

The day stretched ahead of her. Being a nonstudent adult was beginning to feel very comfortable to her, indeed.

An hour later, she rolled her aching shoulders and closed her Sentient Hogwarts? file, having spent more time than she'd intended going over the list of anomalies that were Hogwarts-related.

She couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that the very castle they lived in seemed involved in what was going on in her life. Yet the list of suspicious occurrences was too short to justify her suspicions. Yes, the Room of Requirement's gift of a Winchester Cathedral marriage was beyond strange. As easy as it would be to accept that it was done because she (somewhere in her ten-year-old fantasies) wanted it, the fact that the cathedral-recorded marriage protected her from attempts at annulment...and worse...implied a bigger picture than simply responding to Miss Hermione Jean Granger's needs.

And the Muggle vows. Coincidence? (If so, fortunate or un?) Or part of a bigger plan?

There were also the wards.

When the professor had returned from Voldemort injured, the wards had held against all attempts to contact them. Even the headmaster had been unable to breach them.

Hermione, sitting there terrified, had a much more compelling understanding of how many times the Floo had flared green with nothing happening beyond that, of how many times the door to the corridor had shimmered. She certainly wasn't responsible for that. Professor Snape had been surprised that they held, but so much had happened so quickly after that, she'd never actually discussed it with him. Were his wards so strong they would even keep the headmaster out?

Surely there was no other reason for them to have held.

She pushed that aside and started on her next folder, the one marked Hogwarts: A History, which had nothing to do with Hogwarts or History or the book so named, but was instead her research on horcruxes.

She snorted softly. Nobody would bother a folder marked Hogwarts: A History. Still, she had to release two hex traps before opening it. She wouldn't leave something like this around for someone to snoop in without repercussions.

The top sheet listed the horcruxes. Beneath it were the parchments that detailed their (her, of course) research, searches and destruction.

TR's Diary

Hufflepuff Cup

Ravenclaw Dagger

Gryffindor Hammer

Slytherin (?)

Nagini (?)

They couldn't be certain about Nagini, but everything pointed in that direction. The Slytherin artefact remained a mystery. And Halloween was fast approaching.

She opened her battered copy of Hogwarts: A History to the chapters on the Founders, retrieved Magical Encyclopaedia, Vol. II Historic Magical Artefacts and opened the Salazar Slytherin biography to the Hogwarts years.

Again.

She spent the rest of the morning adding fresh ink stains to her fingertips as she compiled new lists of similarities and differences in the tale the books revealed.

If only she had the elusive Vigor translation of Salazar Slytherin's diary.

She checked her notes and decided.

It was time to visit the library.

XX

Madam Pince gave Hermione a most disdainful stare. "Yet again, I must direct you to your...to Professor Snape."

"He checked the Vidor out, too?" Hermione asked, astonished.

"No, dear," the librarian said with a sniff. "Professor Snape owns the only Vidor translation I've ever seen. If you need it for your project, you'll have to ask him."

Hermione restrained herself from rolling her eyes, but only just. "Thank you," she said politely.

"I must say, you're looking very well today," Madam Pince added, and Hermione wondered what that was about as she gave a quick nod and stepped away from the desk.

She glanced back at her favourite table and felt a twinge of wistful longing. It had been so long since she'd spread out there to study, knowing that her friends always knew where to find her if they needed her.

The twinge became sharp pain when she saw Harry and Ron there, with Ginny pointing a stabbing finger at their Transfiguration texts, clearly forcing them to study. Hermione pulled back quickly before they could see her. Good for Ginny. If anyone could hold them in line, it would be Ginny.

And she wasn't jealous. Not at all.

She was relieved.

She stood there with her eyes closed and took a few deep breaths... and realized that she truly was relieved. That sharp pain had faded as quickly as it had come.

She was turning to leave when Ginny appeared in front of her. "Hermione!" she whispered softly. "Just who I need to see!"

Hermione allowed Ginny to tug her out into the cold corridor. "I need to talk to you," the ginger-haired dynamo said. "Privately."

Hermione cast a glance over her shoulder through the open door and back at the table by the window. Harry and Ron were bent over their books, oblivious to anything else. "All right, where?" she asked.

Minutes later they were in Ginny's empty dorm room. Ginny pulled Hermione onto the bed beside her and gave her a look that was almost threatening in its intensity. "Teach me about sex."

"What?" Hermione gasped.

"Harry won't touch me! And what if...what if..." Ginny's eyes filled with tears. "What if he dies and we never get to? You've got to help me, to teach me what to do so that he can't say no!"

"Ginny, you're only..."

"Don't talk to me about age. You're not that much older than me, and you're already married and doing it any time you want!"

"Ginny, is this about sex, or is this about Harry?" Hermione asked quietly.

"It's about everything. It's about Harry and how much I love him and how much I want to give him and how much I want to know what it feels like to experience love in his arms and...I'm so afraid something will happen and we'll never..." She burst into tears.

Hermione stroked her shoulder, her gleaming red hair....

Had he admired it? How could he not? It put Narcissa's and Bellatrix's to shame. She forced herself to shake that awful thought away and was ashamed when she realized she'd let her own petty concerns distract her from Ginny's true distress.

She felt helpless. Who was she to tell Ginny anything, and most specifically, who was she to tell Ginny no?

But how could she help her? It's not as if she was about to give her lessons!

And if Ginny and Harry actually...

And if they got caught...

Hermione realized she was holding her breath.

Ron would be furious.

Molly Weasley would kill her.

What would Professor Snape think?

And should she care what any of them thought?

"Ginny," she said softly, "I have a book...."

Ginny sat up abruptly, her face red and splotchy, and she blurted, "Of course you do!" and burst into laughter. She began scrubbing her tears from her face with a serviceable white handkerchief and then blew her nose.

Hermione waited for her to collect herself, wondering how big a mistake she was making. "Can you safeguard it? I don't want it becoming a Gryffindor artefact," she muttered, picturing the ignominious entry under her name in some future edition of Hogwarts: A History. "Hermione Snape, responsible for the fall of the wizarding world to Lord Voldemort when her scandalous Muggle sex manual resulted in the previously valiant House of Gryffindor absenting themselves from the Final Battle to shag."

Ginny snorted softly. "As if I couldn't hide something. With my brothers and my mother..."

"Point well made," Hermione relented. "All right. I'll get it to you."

"Is it..." Ginny began, and then broke off. "Is sex..."

"What?" Hermione.

"I'm sorry," Ginny said, and she looked horribly ashamed. "I don't want to..."

"Spit it out, Ginevra," Hermione sighed.

"It's just that as Harry gets more powerful, his body...oh, Hermione, he's turned into a man overnight. His shoulders, his arms...he's so strong and beautiful and I love him so and..." She stared at Hermione, her eyes hollow with pained sympathy. "I'm sitting here planning something wonderful with the bloke I've loved since I was nine years old, and you're stuck with Snape."

Hermione blinked. She wanted to snatch her friend's hair out by the roots. She wanted to laugh at her for being so ignorant. She wanted to defend her professor, her husband, her love and force Ginny to understand...but what business was it of Ginny's?

Professor Snape wasn't a fresh-minted man, still dewy behind the ears. He wasn't her boyfriend, to giggle about with the other girls and compare notes about his prowess.

But he didn't deserve scorn, and she, his wife, didn't deserve pity.

"I'm sorry," Ginny said, oblivious. "I shouldn't have mentioned it. I mean, I should be so lucky to still have Harry beside me when he's as old as Snape, and if he is, I won't care if he's strong and muscled or not...." She looked rather doubtful, though.

"Ginny!" Hermione finally managed to say, her head spinning. Professor Snape was muscled. He had strong shoulders and thighs and arms, and yes, he was lean, but to think that he wasn't strong! Hermione hadn't spent a lot of time dwelling on such things; she'd never really given a lot of thought to male bodies prior to their marriage, and now she only had the one for reference, but whatever image Ginny had of him was clearly inadequate. "I'm not going to discuss my private life with you, and if one word of this comes back to me, I'll hex you! But I can assure you that Professor Snape has a..." She broke off, embarrassed and, for once in her life, at a loss for words. Finally, her cheeks burning, she forced herself to say, "He has a very nice body."

"He does?" Ginny was clearly gobsmacked.

"He does," Hermione snapped. "Now, let's not discuss it any..."

But the expression on Ginny's face stopped her.

Ginny's eyes grew large and, after a moment, knowing and even amazed. "You're right, Hermione... he would have to, wouldn't he?"

"Have to? Why would he have to?"

"The magic." Ginny shook her head slowly and shot Hermione a guilty look. "Okay, it's enough to make me ill trying to imagine a nude Snape..."

"Then don't! Fucking hell, Ginny!" Hermione gasped in horror. "I don't want you imagining my husband nude!"

"That's not the point. The point is...it's Harry's magic that is making him stronger. All the Quidditch players are muscled, of course, but with Harry it's more. Controlling magic is physical. The more powerful the wizard, the stronger his body is. And Professor Snape is a very powerful..." Ginny broke off.

Hermione lowered her eyes and smoothed her robes primly.

"Wow."

Hermione shot her an evil look. "You're extrapolating all sorts of things. Whatever you imagine you know about my personal life, just be sure it doesn't become Gryffindor Tower gossip, or I'll tell your mother you're shagging Harry."

"You wouldn't!"

Hermione arched one eyebrow.

"Okay, okay. I wasn't going to gossip about it, anyway." Ginny suddenly examined Hermione more closely. She raised Hermione's hand and pushed her robe back, exposing Hermione's arm.

Her forearm was still feminine, yet the muscle definition was remarkable. Hermione stared at her own arm. When had that happened?

Ginny lowered it thoughtfully. "Maybe it's the wandless magic."

"That's something else nobody can know about," Hermione said urgently.

Ginny nodded. "I know. Harry and Ron know. It goes no farther."

Hermione nodded, relieved.

Ginny gave her one last probing look. "I didn't think Charlie could possibly know anything. He's just a man, after all, but... he's right, isn't he? You're really happy."

Hermione met her gaze straight on without wavering. "You know, for a smart witch, you can be really slow sometimes. Ron figured that out ages ago."

Ginny leaned closer and grinned. "Now, about that book..."

XX

He had one hour. One fucking hour before he had to start a long night of glaring over the Great Hall and patrolling the halls, flushing out young lovers when he'd much prefer to be...

He cut that thought off. After the previous day... Merlin.

Still. One hour of blessed solitude. One hour of her.

He entered their quarters expecting to find her draped across the bed studying or perhaps even asleep. Instead, she sat before the fire reading.

"What is this?" he demanded.

She looked up at him coyly, her eyes peeking from beneath her lashes. "My chair," she responded with her usual clear tones.

He stared at the ridiculous piece of chintz-covered furniture that once was her chair, but now was something different, at the bare toes peeking from under her robes where she'd curled her legs under her. "Your chair was smaller. It, in fact, was a chair."

"This is a wider chair."

"Are you planning on gaining weight?"

"I thought this would be big enough to share." She slid over, making room.

"Not unless someone is willing to tolerate a very tight squeeze," he growled.

"That was rather the point."

She patted the seat beside her, and he found himself easing into it, and yes, it was a damned tight fit, and yes, now that he was firmly ensconced in it with her, with the insufferably charming Miss Granger, he realized that being a tight fit was rather the point, indeed.

She placed the ridiculously rose-spangled teacup in his hands, and he sipped without even trying to disguise his reaction. Merlin's fucking ghost, but he'd never imagined ending a day with such a glorious pursuit as sipping tea in close proximity to the minx that was his wife.

She leaned against him, and he adjusted his arm to give her closer access...and finally let it rest around her in a half-embrace.

Awkward fucking chair.

Ugly fucking teacups.

Horrid, horrid hair...

Which he found himself stroking gently, as he sipped.

She attempted to tunnel into his side.

"You're like having a cat," he announced. "Constantly rubbing and shedding."

"Ridiculous," she murmured. "I'm like a dog. Cats are aloof and troublesome. Dogs are affectionate and faithful."

A sudden image of an Animagus that he'd prefer not to remember flashed through his memory. "You are not a dog."

"Well, I'm certainly not a cat."

He snorted. "You have a cat."

"Because nobody else wanted him. Somebody had to take him. And besides, I wasn't allowed to bring my dog to Hogwarts." The last was said softly.

"You have a dog?"

"Had. She died during my fourth year. They didn't tell me until I went home and... she was gone." So wistful, that voice. So yearning.

"Don't tell me you want a dog."

"Someday. Don't worry. It will love you beyond reason, and you'll be unable to resist," she sighed happily. "My mother claims to dislike dogs, but whenever she's at The Grange, she always has one or two at her feet, and the only thing that stops her from taking them to town is that they'd be miserable without the fields to run in."

Shit. He'd forgotten. "Your mother sent you a message with your olives."

"Oh, dear. What now?"

"She said," he began and suddenly wished he'd just forgotten the whole thing, "that my efforts to give you an appropriate birthday gave her hope." He didn't restrain his upper lip from curling or his voice from sneering. As if he cared whether the harridan approved of him or not. "And said for you to use your 'Grandmother Granger' as an inspiration. Would that be the grandmother who is a witch with the heavenly tea or the one who discarded husbands like soiled handkerchiefs? My guess would be the latter." Nor could he blame her for hoping the girl would move on to greener pastures, he thought with a lurch in his chest.

She sat up and looked at him, perplexed. "Grandmother Granger was not a witch, but what does Mummy mean?" She glowered suspiciously, and he had to fight the urge to tease the corner of her mouth with his thumb until she smiled again. "It can't be nice. She still hasn't forgiven me for..." She flashed him a defiant look as if he were the one causing trouble. "For getting married."

"Then she's an intelligent woman."

She looked as if he'd slapped her.

"Holy fucking hell," he grated, "who would be happy that their seventeen-year-old daughter was forced into a marriage with a man twice her..."

"With the most powerful, intelligent, valiant, wizard I've ever met? A man who is tender and..."

"Dark."

"You are not!" She shot him a sideways look and corrected with a flicker of concern, ever the meticulous Miss Granger, "Well, only a little bit."

But her eyes were bright and shimmering, and her body suddenly posture-perfect and erect beside him, not nestled in for the winter, and he cursed the fates yet again for putting this life...this fierce yet fragile heart...in his hands for safekeeping.

"Fucking hell," he snarled and pulled her back to him. "This chair isn't big enough for you to get in a snit. If you wanted a chair fit for quarrelling, you should have transfigured it into a sofa."

"How short-sighted of me," she complained, her face buried in his chest as she curled her body around him and snaked her arms around his neck.

Her hair was wild and wilful and seemed perfectly capable of snaring him in a web of her making.

And just when he felt the peace seeping into his joints, easing through his veins, she sat up abruptly, and their faces were so close, all he would need to do to kiss her would be turn his head just so and lean forward mere inches...

"Oh, my god, Grandmother Granger! I know what Mummy meant!"

"Must you call your mother 'Mummy'? I already feel like I'm robbing the cradle." He glowered at her in an effort to shut off the flow of words and bring back the curl of woman wrapped around him like a soft quilt with bony elbows and knees.

Glowering didn't do the job.

But her face...her face was filled with wonder, and he forced himself to pay attention, to jerk his mind away from how she felt and what comfort settled over him when she was near. "What about your grandmother who was a witch?" he sighed.

"It was the war," she breathed, her eyes glowing. "It was the most romantic story I ever heard, and she told it to me again and again and again.... How she was at the cathedral polishing brass, and a dashing young captain of the Royal Hampshires swept her off her feet, and because he had influence with the cathedral...he was the baronet's son and already a war hero, after all...they were married two days later."

"Fucking hell."

"It was the war," she explained. "Everything was so urgent, so immediate." Her eyes grew distant, and her eyebrows met in a soft frown. "His regiment shipped out the day after their wedding and landed on the beaches of Normandy." She swallowed. "It was always such a romantic story, but now...now it's terrifying. Now I understand what war means.... It was more than just love at first sight, wasn't it? It was about fear and desperation--" She shook her head a little, as if to force away bad thoughts. "My grandparents were the happiest people I ever knew. His father never forgave him for marrying outside his circle, but, oh, they were so happy, and when all was said and done, he became the baronet and my grandmother was Lady Granger, and they're the ones we'll always remember, not his horrid father."

This time when her eyes claimed his, they were deep and dark with emotion. "She understands. She forgives me. That's what she's telling me." She covered her mouth with ink-stained fingers, and he saw she was struggling to hold back tears.

"And she seemed like such a sensible woman," he muttered. "Romantic fools, the lot of you." But his voice was soft, and her eyes filled with joy as she leaned closer until their lips met.

And he considered what a very sensible chair she'd crafted as she filled his arms and senses and time fell away.

XX

After dinner, Hermione reduced the sex manual until it was smaller than the palm of her hand and tucked it deep into her robe pocket, then slipped into the dungeon corridor to make her way up to Gryffindor Tower.

She'd barely made it around the first corner when she smelled him, the reek of him, and froze.

Draco Malfoy was blocking her way, his back against the wall, a cigarette dangling boldly from one hand.

"Granger. I've been waiting for you."

"It's Snape," she correctly crisply, "and I can't imagine why."

"What would you say if I told you that I actually fucking feel sorry for you and wanted to warn you of something?"

"I'd have to be incredibly stupid to trust any warning from you, Malfoy."

"Unless, of course, it rang true. Unless you recognized the truth, even coming from me."

"And why would you want to warn me or help me?"

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I have my own selfish reasons. But they happen to coincide with warning you, so we both profit."

She wasn't supposed to be alone with any male. She'd promised. The professor was on duty making his rounds; she was unlikely to be seen, but she had no desire to spend another moment in an empty dungeon corridor with Draco Malfoy.

She attempted to step around him.

He closed his hand around her forearm, and she fought hard to control the surge of anger...and magic...that swept through her. "Don't touch me."

"All right," he said, releasing her. "But hear me out."

"Make it fast."

"Feeling anything odd, lately? Anything hard to imagine in the cold light of day?" He drew deeply from his cigarette and then lowered it, staring at her through narrowed grey eyes. "The Dark Lord wants you, Granger. He wants to break Potter, and he wants to do it by controlling you, and he's using Severus to do it. Whatever it is you think you're feeling? Whatever it is that has you fucking glowing every time you look at him? It's not real. It's a spell. You're getting sucked in, Granger, and I thought you'd be too intelligent for that."

She rolled her eyes. "Let me pass," she ordered.

"Granger, you're an idiot. You think you're afraid of my family? You'd have been safe with us. It's Snape you should have been afraid of. He'd do anything for the Dark Lord. He sits at his feet like a pet and would do anything to please him, and that means serving you up to him on a sterling silver platter. He's securing his position by using you, and you're too fucking stupid to know it."

Flashes of images flew past her, images of the professor at the Dark Lord's feet, crouching before him, kneeling and prostrating himself, and then of the professor and her, his hands, his lips, his...

She broke away from those images, shook them off.

She drew herself up straight and stared Malfoy down.

"Out of my way," she said, her voice low and barely controlled. "And don't come to me with your lies again."

He stepped aside, his eyes wary, and she swept by him.

But just before she turned the last corner, he called after her, "Imagine how Dark a spell it has to be to do this to you, Granger. Just imagine."

She cast a cleansing spell as she walked, chasing away the stench, longing to chase it from her mind, as well.

It wasn't until she was safe in Gryffindor Tower and had silently given Ginny the book that she allowed reactions to quake through her.

Alarmed, Ginny sat her in a squashy chair and knelt before her. "What's wrong?" she demanded. "Did someone hurt you?"

By this point Ron and Harry had joined her, and they knelt on her other side. "Okay," Ron said, "do I get to kill Snape now?"

And laughter won out over fear and rage, and she felt relief course through her. "Not Snape, you berk."

"Ah," Ginny said knowingly. "Malfoy."

"Yes," she said, "Malfoy. But you don't get to kill him, either."

"Damn," Harry muttered.

Hermione sank back in the chair, relieved. Something distinct and comfortable clicked into place.

Hating Malfoy was so normal; it almost felt like old times.

Except that part of her was already stirring, already yearning for the dungeons and the quarters and the glorious bed that awaited her.

"Anybody want to walk me back down?" she asked.

Soon, they all four were walking and laughing together, and she didn't even mind that they were talking about Quidditch.

There would be no talk of Quidditch once her dark wizard joined her in their corner of the dungeons.

XX

He entered their quarters.

Steam clung to the air from one of her never-ending baths.

A closed book, bookmarked and ready for reading, languished on the faded chintz seat.

He looked beyond and...

Bloody hell.

There she was on the bed, wearing the white shirt and, it would seem, nothing else.

Bent over with her hair fanned in a bushy toss up.

Evidently examining her own quim.

His mouth went dry, and he had no words...no fucking words at all.

"I wish I'd looked before," she said, her voice muffled. She raised her face then, leaving her open legs and all that lush pink flesh between them exposed, and as much time as he'd spent there, he found himself feeling awkward and speechless at the sight.

"I don't know what it looked like when I was a virgin," she continued, "so I'm not sure what might have changed."

"Miss Granger..." he managed. Barely. "Your hymen, or the remnants thereof, aren't readily visible..."

"That's not what I'm looking for," she sighed, closing her legs. "I mean, I know that changed. It's the rest. It's whatever...well, perhaps it's the clitoris, I mean, I'd assume it is, but I'm trying to determine what changed.... Besides the scar. It's rather pretty, isn't it? Just a thin silvery line...I don't know what you were so upset about. I expected something horrid..."

For the first time, she seemed hesitant, and he was grateful for whatever sense of modesty that might have stemmed her flow of words, if only so that he could breathe again.

But her pupils were large and black, and her lips parted and moist. He dropped to his knees beside the bed and pulled her to him. "What?" he murmured into her throat. "What are you looking for?"

"For what changed...for what you did to me, when you made me feel...."

She sounded choked, as if she held back tears, and he cupped her face and studied it in concern.

"I want it to be something you did, or something about our...our bonding, our real bonding, something about us. Not about the Ministry, and not..." She drew in a sharp breath. "Not something... Dark."

She couldn't duck her face; he held it still. Instead, she lowered her eyes and swallowed convulsively.

"Dark?" It cut him, that she even suspected such a thing. But why wouldn't she? What was he, if not Dark?

"I know it's not that," she rushed on. "I just wish...I just wish I could hex Draco Malfoy into oblivion. I wish I could..."

Cold fury seized him. "What did he do?"

"He said that you're using me, and I know you aren't. He said that I'm under a Dark spell, and I know I'm not. He said that if I was feeling anything new...anything unexplained...it was Dark magic you were using on me to bring me to the Dark Lord's side, and I know they're lies, I know it..."

"You're babbling, and you can't hex him, but what the hell were you doing alone with him to begin with?" he demanded, the blood roaring in his veins at the very thought.

"He was waiting for me in the corridor, and I can't stay locked up here all day and night and never leave! And I know he's lying, but then I was here alone for hours waiting for you, and I couldn't think of anything else, and I remembered the other brides and how they were upset about sex, and I'm not, in fact, I like it very much, but I want it to be about you and about us and not..."

She broke off, finally overwhelmed by everything assaulting her, and he wanted nothing but to hold her and absorb anything that distressed her so.

"My girl," he murmured into her temple, soothing her with his hands, his lips. "My darling girl."

She froze in his arms.

Before he could react, she was scrambling backward on the bed, scrambling away from him.

"Why did you say that?" she demanded. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" He was blindsided; he didn't know what to say, what to do, whether to reach for her or to draw his wand in self defense.

He wondered what time of month it was, but was too distracted to figure it out.

"You don't say things like that to me," she insisted.

He didn't. Of course he didn't. Where had they come from, those words?

"Call me insufferable."

"You're insufferable," he growled and meant it.

And then she was back, clinging to him, nibbling his ear, latching onto his throat...

"Fuck..." he breathed.

"We can't, not until we know that the potions worked," she responded, ever the literal-minded. "But we can do other things...."

She purred like that and then insisted she wasn't a cat?

"It's not Dark," he said, pressing a moist kiss against her cheek. "Trust me. This isn't Dark."

"I trust you," she whispered, pulling his hand between her legs, and he found her wet and open to him. He slid his fingers over the moist nub of her clitoris...had it changed? Interesting thought, that...and slipped one finger inside her, and as she dissolved into his arms with a moan, it seemed to decide of its own volition to linger and play....

Later in the dark, when they were both spent and languid and she was already asleep, he pushed a handful of hair out of his face and settled her more comfortably into the curve of his body.

His last thought before sleeping was the certainty that nothing...nothing...about his Miss Granger could ever be Dark.

And that he'd never felt so safe as he did now, when holding her in his arms.

A/N: I'm flattered and honoured to be nominated for a Quill to Parchment award as best new author. There are so many wonderful writers in that category that I will be happy if you even consider voting for me!

But please, please vote for my fabulous beta, GinnyW! I've been blessed with wonderful betas, both those who have been regular and those who have pitched in when I needed extra help. But GinnyW regularly puts up with my constant emails, my incessant dithering and my whining and moaning and angsting, and she deserves your vote just for always being there!

All nominees are listed here:

http://awards.quilltoparchment.com/nominee.html

Thank you!