The Shelter

"Well, Miss Granger, aren't you going to interrogate me?"

Her heart leapt at the sound even as adrenaline coursed through her. She was careless, stupid, to find herself in this position. Eleven touches had stripped her of her defenses when it came to this man. He was a murderer, a Death Eater, and still she had run to his defense, had trusted him to the point where he could break her, now, and no one would be the wiser.

"Speechless? Out of questions? Hades must have frozen over."

She stared at him, eyes too large in a thin face. The year had not been kind to her. She looked pale and drawn.

"Perhaps I am dead and have somehow found my way into heaven. Here you are, and blessedly silent, too," he teased, a smirk providing the balm for the barb. Her eyes grew wet. A sniffle threatened. Was the chit about to cry? Merlin preserve him!

"You…. you're," she mumbled hoarsely.

"It's all right," he insisted, pulling her into an embrace, seeking to comfort her after all she'd seen this night and all others since they'd parted.

He expected wracking sobs, lasting hours. He did not expect her to moan instead and seek out his lips with unerring aim. Shocked, he could do naught but submit to her impassioned assault, until he found himself kissing her back, rolling her beneath him on the floor. Finally, he tasted all he'd been denying wanting since that night she'd touched him with his shirt off and he'd seen only desire and warmth in her eyes. They were covered in blood and dirt, but he couldn't care because she was catching his lip between her teeth and holding him in the cradle of her body as if he belonged there forever after. Passion ruled for a few mad moments, their heated clinch giving rise to the need for more flesh, more contact. She was making sounds of coming undone, head tilting to give him access to the skin of her throat, legs wrapped tight about his waist and abandoning herself to the need to grind against the ridge in his pants. His head spun as he sank against her welcoming softness, wishing for all the world that he could live in the moment where she writhed beneath him and he gave her all he could while their clothes remained in place. As lost as he was, he wouldn't be able to stop what he was doing to rectify the garment situation.

"Oh! GOD!" she cried and trembled beneath him when she'd reached the flashpoint. Knowing what he'd done to her, there was nothing he could do to not reach his own conclusion like a callow schoolboy in his trousers. The afterglow subsided while they panted, and he began to immediately feel contrite. Although, given the circumstances, he had to admit it was a far better outcome than taking her fully for the first time on a bloody, muddy carpet. He'd never expected to take her at all.

He rolled off of her to perform a cleaning spell on his trousers and looked about him fully for the first time. "Where in the name of…?"

She continued panting, staring up at the ceiling, shell-shocked but unaccountably happy for the first time in ages. She started to giggle. "My parents' house," she managed. "I didn't sell it."

"I thought it burned to the ground," he mused, still looking about him with a strange sense of wonderment. Concrete walls, canned goods, spartan furnishings and a single, harsh lamp throwing everything into sharp relief in the otherwise murky dark met his gaze.

"It did. This is the bomb shelter my grandfather built during World War Two. It's in the backyard. Dad replaced the generator with a solar panel after I was born."

"Why didn't you lot stay HERE instead of in that tent?"

She looked at him oddly, then. "I ruled out using it because it's in a Muggle neighborhood. Somebody was bound to notice us coming and going from a burned-down house. How did you know we were living in a tent?"

"Who do you think brought Potter the sword? I followed Weasley until he led me to you."

"So you DID come to me in the tent! I thought I was imagining things."

He debated lying to her, but after what they had shared, he couldn't see the point in it. He settled for nodding slowly.

Remembrance dawned on her. "Oh, God! Harry! I have to get back! The battle--"

He sighed as she jetted up from the floor, preparing to leap headlong back into the madness of war. She whirled and looked at him again. "If I leave, will you still be here when I come back?"

He debated his options. If he went home, they would find him. Whichever side won, he was better off dead and gone, which had been his plan from the very first when he'd become sure that the Dark Lord was going to kill him. He had already used magic in the shelter, though it might take some time before everything settled at the Ministry enough for them to come chasing down that tiny spell. All thoughts of his own survival aside, he couldn't, in good conscience, let her go into danger by herself. For all he knew, the Dark Lord could have already won, and she'd be defenseless if that were the case. There was nothing he could do or say to make her remain in safety while her friends would be lost without her. Mind made up, he stood as well. "I'm going with you."