Rebirth

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/26040022.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy
Additional Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-War, Blood Magic,
Elemental Magic, Curses, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, POV Draco
Malfoy, Pining Draco Malfoy, Fae Magic, Elvish, Rituals, Rebirth,
Digital Art, Digital Painting, Angst and Smut, Feral Behavior, Sexual
Content, NSFW Art
Language: English
Series: Part 13 of SenLithien Dramione Collaboration, Part 3 of The Creature
Kink Collection
Collections: July - September Mad Frankenstein Fest 2020, stuff i've read, The
Draimone Collection, Completed, DHr Monsterfucking Collection,
Dramione Fics I've Read, Dramione Fics I Go Feral For, Immaculate
Dramione Vibes, Read and loved, The Golden Girl Makes the Rules,
Momento
Stats: Published: 2020-08-24 Words: 7,379 Chapters: 1/1
 Rebirth
by elithien, senlinyu

Summary

Granger will do almost anything to survive the curse slowly killing her, even if it means
reawakening magic that has been dormant for a thousand years.

Draco will do whatever it takes to save her.

“Draco...” she says again, fingertips fondly brushing across his cheekbone. He opens
his eyes and finds her staring at him. “Before I do this, I want you to know—“

His heart lurches.

“Don’t,” he says before she can say another word. “Don’t say it.”

He catches her wrist and pulls her hand away from his face, careful not to smudge any
of the words scripted across her skin. “I don’t want you to tell me.”

Notes

Art and fic collab for the Dept of FanFiction’s MadFrankenstein Fest.

Prompt: Alternative Magic Researcher / Practitioner.

Alpha and beta work by Jamethiel.

See the end of the work for more notes

Translation into Português brasileiro available: Rebirth by kerch

Translation into Українська available: Відродження | Rebirth by Igra_razuma
Translation into Português brasileiro available: Rebirth | Tradução by moonletterss
“I think we’re ready,” Draco says, straightening and glancing around the dimly lit room.

It looks like something out of a Wizarding museum. It’s filled with magical artefacts so
antiquated they’re kept only for their age rather than their use. Any expert would say the
magic they once carried is dormant now. Obsolete.

Not any longer.

Not in this room.

There are runes carved into the floor, careful arcs mapped to follow the intersection of the ley
lines underground, all leading up to a series of stepped concentric circles in the centre of the
room. Elemental magic is seeping up from them.

The air is still and so thick with magic that Draco can feel it coating his tongue and inside his
lungs. He had this room cut into the stones beneath Malfoy Manor, even lower than the
winding dungeon passages, trying to get as physically close to the ley lines as possible. There
are no wands or any other types of Wizarding magic here. If Draco tried to cast even a simple
spell in a room with this much raw elemental magic, he very well could blow up the entire
manor.

There’s a soft ringing hum emanating from an enormous silver cauldron that sits in the
middle of the circles. The sound is so faint it's almost unnoticeable, but it feels increasingly
insistent, the low whine simultaneously unnerving and alluring.

If Draco listens to it, he finds himself unconsciously walking towards the cauldron even as
the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a cold sweat begins beading between his
shoulder blades.

Everything about the magic in the room feels other. He’s not supposed to be there even as he
obstinately stays, invoking magic that has been slumbering for so long most wizards have
forgotten it ever existed.

Get out. Get out, mortal. Our magic isn’t for your kind.

He finds himself stepping towards the cauldron before catching himself. A cold shiver creeps
down his spine.

He shakes his head and turns away. “Granger, are you—?”

His voice halts as he turns to find Granger a crumpled heap in the far corner on the bench.
She’s slumped down against the wall, her eyes closed. A sealed phial held limply in one
hand, a dim blue light, barely brighter than distant starlight, shines weakly from it.

His heart clenches as he moves towards her, eyes darting between her and the phial in her
lap.
“Granger?” He kneels down, his fingers running down her throat, trying to find a pulse.
“Granger?”

He finds the flutter of life under her jaw, as faint as the light inside the phial, but still there,
still holding on. He sighs and pulls her forwards. “We’re so close. We’re almost there. Just
hold on a little longer.”

She doesn’t stir, instead slumping against his chest, still unconscious. He wraps his arms
around her for a moment, resting his chin on the top of her head before clearing his throat.
“Granger, wake up. I need your help.”

Without removing his fingers from the reassuring tempo of her pulse, he taps lightly against
her cheeks with his other hand, trying to wake her, stroking along her temple. Her curls catch
and wrap themselves around his fingertips.

“Mmm,” she finally says, stirring.

Draco instantly sits back on his heels, pulling away and leaning her back against the wall as
her eyebrows furrow and she wakes.

Her brown eyes met his as they opened and Draco’s heart stalls for a moment when her
expression lights up as she sees him.

“Draco, do you need help?”

He gives a short nod, standing, forcing his voice to stay even and to the point. “Old language,
your forte not mine I’m afraid.”

She looks past him. “Oh, you’ve done everything else. Sorry. I was going to help. Did
everything go alright?”

Draco’s palms are blistered but he conceals them behind his back and shakes his head. ”Of
course.” He gives a thin smirk. “I am capable of doing things on my own from time to time.
Unfortunately, I’m not fluent in elvish unlike certain boffins I happen to know.”

The smile vanishes and her lower lip catches between her teeth. “We’re to that step then.”

Draco nods. “Everything else is ready.”

He steps over to one of the bowls nestled between runes and draws away the linen cloth
covering it. She stares at it, her expression growing visibly tense.

Draco clears his throat and glances away. “You‘ll need to—“ he swallows and feels his face
grow warmer as he gestures up and down, “—strip. I can leave, if you prefer, so you have
privacy.”

“Probably best if you stay, I’ll need help with some parts.”

He nods stiffly. “Of course.”

He turns but can see her stand from the periphery of his vision. He tells himself he’s not
going to look, but he can’t stop himself from hearing the shifting sound of fabric or noticing
from the corner of his eye that her dark robes are sliding to the floor, leaving pale skin bared.

Don’t look.

He sets his jaw and turns his head further so that he can’t see any longer, staring at the silver
cauldron sitting in the centre of the room, covered in a flowing script. The runes channelling
the magic towards it look thin and elegant, but they’re carved so deeply into the stone that the
lettering reached the ley lines, evoking so much magic that Draco melted more than dozen
goblin-wrought knives into puddles of silver and burned through several pairs of dragon-hide
gloves in the process.

His fingers are still twinging and burning.

It has to work. He’s certain it will work. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it doesn’t. He has
no plans beyond this night.

Well, that hardly matters if he has a plan, if it doesn’t work he’ll go to prison for murdering
Hermione Granger.

Everything he’s helping her do presently would be categorized as dark and illegal magic if
anyone had any idea it was even possible.

“Draco.” Her voice interrupts his train of thought.

Without thinking, he turns immediately towards her and freezes, his heart lurching into his
throat as his eyes go wide.

She’s standing there naked, and covered in an elvish script that’s written in blood.

His blood, as it happens. It’s been put through about a dozen different transmutations to distil
elements of it, but technically, it’s still his blood.

All that inbreeding was finally good for something. His parents and ancestors are likely
rolling in their graves.

It took a month to accumulate the quantity needed, even using blood replenishing potion.
Transmuted and enchanted, set out under the light of a full moon and while soaked in the
skein of a white stag, transmuted again, distilled; anything to strengthen the traces of Old
Blood in his veins. Now it’s coating Granger’s skin.

He stands staring at her, eyes immediately going everywhere he didn’t mean to let them.

The apex of her thighs covered in dark brown curls. The curve of her hips up to her waist.
Her breasts and a thin scar that slashes diagonally down between them —

She stands there making no effort to cover herself.

Draco’s brain finally manages to catch up and he looks sharply away, but it’s too late. Far too
late. He already knows he’s going to revisit the memory again and again until the day he dies.

“Do you — need something?” His voice is strained and rasping, and he’s suddenly not cold
even though the room is frigid. He’s much, much too warm.

“I need help with my arm and my back.”

Right. Of course. He swallows several times before turning, his eyes downcast as he tries not
to look again because he doesn’t need more details about Granger to think covetously about.

He starts on her arm, dipping his fingers into the bowl of blood and writing out the spells in a
script so ancient most wizards have forgotten it ever existed.

As he writes, Granger whispers the incantations under her breath. The words on her lips are
heavy with power. It would be spellbinding if the fading light in the phial didn’t seem to
grow dimmer with every syllable she utters. Draco’s future seems to fade away along with it.

As she says them, the blood begins glowing, becoming eerily luminous until it’s brighter than
the white flames on the sconces.

He draws the script carefully down her arm with his fingertips to her hand.

When he looks up, she’s staring at him, studying him, and the words on her lips fade away.

She’s beautiful. He stares up at her, wondering if the hungry sense of longing in his chest is
as visible as in his face as it feels.

His heart clenches and he holds her wrist tighter for a moment, wanting to tell her that he
loves her, that he’ll sell his soul to save her.

He doesn’t say anything. He suspects that within the hour it won’t matter how he feels.
Succeed or fail, his time with Hermione Granger has run out.

He thinks she knows it too.

Her eyes have always been expressive. She says everything through them long before the
words reach her lips. As he looks up at her, they’re wistful. Her throat dips, and she starts to
say something but before she can speak, her eyes lose focus and she sways.

He steadies her by the arm to keep her from falling. She’s already tired again. He guides her
back to the stone bench near the wall, picking up her robe off the floor and handing it to her
to wrap around herself in while he finishes her back.

He starts the writing on her shoulders first, trying to remain clinical, trying to only see the
words and not the canvas. She’s reciting the incantations again, the melody of the language
makes the flames of the sconces flicker and lengthen, their light turning silver and the air
moves in the room as though there’s wind four stories below ground.
Draco barely notices as his fingers stroke across her skin and he tries not to let his eyes slip
down the length of her back, or let his gaze linger on her hips; or think of how it would feel
to hold them.

She isn’t his to touch.

The year earlier, when Draco received a Ministry request for access to the Malfoy library,
he’d been in no position to refuse. He’d agreed, expecting the Aurors to arrive, take what
they wanted, and never return it.

Instead, it was Granger with a sole Auror at her side. After submitting himself to what he was
told was a “customary” pat-down and sweep of the premise, Draco led them to the library and
excused himself.

It wasn’t as though the Ministry would share details of a case with him anyway.

She stayed the entire evening there and then returned the next day.

Every evening she’d arrive, Auror in tow, and stay until Draco was kept up waiting for them
to leave. Eventually, the Auror stopped coming. Granger didn’t. She’d miss a few days now
and then, but most of the time she visited the library with a religious degree of faithfulness.

Draco couldn’t imagine what kind of case had the Ministry willing to pay for months of
fruitless research. He couldn’t help but peruse the sections she was researching in, trying to
get an idea of what she was looking for.

It was curiosity that lured him in and caused him to finally approach her. He knew the library
well, if she shared some general details of the case, he might be able to offer some ideas. She
stared at him for a moment and then told him.

She was researching a life-force stripping curse. It had been invented by Antonin Dolohov,
and used to kill Remus and Tonks Lupin during the Battle of Hogwarts. Years before that, it
had been miscast, causing internal damage, and rather than having an immediately lethal
effect, the curse was siphoning away the life force gradually. The victim was fading steadily,
losing weeks’ worth of life in a day. It was irreversible.

St Mungo’s had given up on a cure. The Malfoy Library was the last hope.

Draco offered to help research. After all, he reasoned to himself, it wouldn’t be forever. If he
helped Granger, it might change things for him. He wouldn’t just be Draco Malfoy the former
Death Eater. Rooms might stop falling silent when he entered them. People might stop
glaring. His life might stop revolving around unannounced Ministry raids and public “stop
and frisks” whenever he showed his face in Diagon Alley.

The victim, whomever they were, probably didn’t have much time left anyway. A few
months hanging around Granger wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t as though Draco had anything better
to do with himself.
The worst that could happen was that the person died, Granger stopped visiting, and
everything went back to the way it was before.

Besides, Granger wasn’t particularly awful to have to be around. She didn’t treat Draco like
he was still a Death Eater with an ulterior motive for every word he said. Or walk all over
him simply because she could. She was smart. Prettier than he’d remembered.

He’d known she was clever, but he hadn’t appreciated how blisteringly intelligent she was.
She was currently an Unspeakable at the Ministry. His life reshaped itself to accommodate
her much more easily than he would have expected. Potter and Weasley would show up from
time to time, which was always unpleasant, but an endurable price for Granger’s company.

He couldn’t help but think perhaps she’d want to use the manor library to research other
projects in the future. Draco would never be cleared for any type of work in the Ministry, but
it was possible they could still work together. Then, maybe… eventually, someday – she
might even...

Idiot.

It took finding her passed out in the Ancient Runes aisle for him to realise that she was the
person Dolohov had cursed years earlier.

He should have known. He should have seen it. Should have put it all together.

Deep down, he wonders if he had known, and simply refused to let himself believe it.

Everyone he loves dies.

“There,” he says, when the bowl of blood is empty and her skin is covered.

There’s a growing pit of dread in his chest where his heart should be, icy and clawing up the
inside of his ribs. He feels the way he did in sixth year: he has no choice. He has to. The
alternative is worse.

Her eyes are closed and her head’s resting against the wall. He carefully pulls her robes
around her so that she’s covered as she lifts her head and stands, her expression resolved.
She’s going to do this. There’s been no dissuading her even when he’s told her all the ways it
could go wrong. She knows, she doesn’t care.

“Draco,” she says, turning and looking at him. She reaches out and touches his face, and he
can’t keep himself from closing his eyes and leaning into it, wanting to savour it.

A lifetime sentence living alone in a dark and empty, ice-cold Manor, and now the little bit of
light and warmth that entered his life is fading, as distant and unreachable as a constellation.

“Draco...” she says again, fingertips fondly brushing across his cheekbone. He opens his eyes
and finds her staring at him. “Before I do this, I want you to know—“

His heart lurches.

“Don’t,” he says before she can say another word. “Don’t say it.”

He catches her wrist and pulls her hand away from his face, careful not to smudge any of the
words scripted across her skin. “I don’t want you to tell me.”

She stiffens as she stares at him. “Draco, why do you think I’m doing this?“

“Don’t!” The word comes out sharper and harsher than he intends as he cuts her off. He grips
her wrist and inhales unsteadily. His heart’s pounding and he feels like he might be sick. “I
don’t want you to tell me. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know.”

Hurt floods across her face and she goes pale.

“Granger,” he tries again, trying not to sound as though he’s on the verge of a breakdown;
that he isn’t about to lose the only thing he even cares about, “you probably won’t want the
same things afterwards.”

“I might not be different,” she says. Her brown eyes are wide with burning conviction in
them. “What’s the point? Why are you helping me do this if you think I’m going to be that
different?”

She’ll be alive, he thinks but doesn’t say.

He lets go of her wrist and stands, his throat tight. “Then you can tell me afterwards.”

He can tell that she doesn’t like his answer. She’d argue but she’s too tired to. It’s the most
damning sign that she’s just barely holding on at this point.

She shouldn’t be dying.

She’s the most alive person Draco has ever known. Having to endure the injustice of
watching her steadily burn out, while Draco’s own empty, pointless life continues relentlessly
on has curdled into a cold rage in the pit of his stomach.

He needs her to live. Even if it means he loses her. He needs her to exist in this world for it to
remain worth living. He needs that much at least to endure the lonely, colourless future
stretched before him.

She exhales and turns away from him, walking with faltering steps across the room towards
the cauldron. As she passes through each circle, the magic in the room flares and hums
louder. The cauldron is so large the opening is above her hips, designed for someone–
something taller.

The ritual they’re performing is a deception. Everything in the room has been slightly
manipulated to enable it to work at all.

It was her idea. There are certain lines that even Draco wouldn’t have considered crossing.

She can’t get her spent life-force back. Unicorn blood was out of the question. They
considered a Philosopher's Stone, but the Elixir of Life only draws out life, she’d remain as
fragile and drained as she currently is, just indefinitely.

Along the way, Granger found and became obsessed with the Manor’s handful of books on
the Sidhe. Specifically, an ancient ritual termed Rebirth. A means of recovery for an immortal
who had been irrevocably mutilated in some way. The Sidhe would immerse themselves in
pure elemental magic drawn up from the earth and emerge renewed.

Using Draco’s blood and enchantments, as well as such a large collection of ancient artefacts
that even Draco’s vault has felt the strain of the purchases, the hope is that Hermione will
pass as Sidhe enough that the magic will Rebirth her.

If she’s immortal, it won’t matter if the curse can’t be broken, she’ll live as long as she wants
to.

If the ritual fails, Draco’s not certain what the magic will do to her.

The risk of Azkaban pales beside his fear that she’ll crawl out of the cauldron some mangled
transmutation that he’ll be forced to mercy kill. He tries not to think about it, but the thought
has haunted his dreams for weeks.

He carefully lifts a strip of tanned Sidhe skin from another bowl of blood. It was used to bind
a history book. The crude lettering branded across the surface is swollen and distorted.

One of the last of the Old Blood after the wizards hunted them to extinction.

Draco steps carefully, following Granger into the rings of magic. He can feel it vibrating
under his feet. Blood drips off the skin and sizzles as it lands on the runes. He stops beside
Hermione.

She’s staring down into the cauldron. The transfigured mercury filling it to the brim is almost
pale enough to be mistaken for water, but there’s an unnatural silver sheen and the reflection
on the surface is not quite right, as though it’s an imitation of a reflection. Draco carefully
dips the skin into the mercury and it vanishes into the depths. After a moment the surface
moves, shifting as if there’s something invisible writhing beneath it.

Draco’s skin crawls as he watches it, but Granger is staring down at it impassively.

“Ready?”

He looks up from the cauldron. She’s looking at him and he wants to stop time and make this
final moment with her last just a little longer. He doesn’t know how different she’ll be
afterwards, how much of her will vanish. How much there is to miss that he won’t even
realise until he finds it gone. Will there be enough of Hermione Granger left afterwards to say
she survived at all?

He nods slowly because he doesn’t know what else he can do.

She lets the robe slide off her. As it touches the ground, it bursts into flames and vanishes into
the ether. She extends a hand, taking his, her other hand gripping his shoulder to steady
herself as he helps over the side of the cauldron. As her foot sinks beneath the crystalline
surface, she gives a hash gasp but doesn’t pause until she’s standing in it. She’s still holding
onto his hand, and her fingers are twisted in the fabric of his shirt as she stares at him. He can
feel her trembling.

“Draco...” Her voice is shaking, and the way she says it tells him everything, everything he
wants to know and doesn’t want to know.

He grips her hand tighter, probably too tight but he can’t let her go. “Hermione–”

She smiles. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

She lets go and sinks beneath the surface before he can stop her.

As the top of her head disappears, the mercury turns an unnatural luminous red. The room
goes still, the magic thrumming stops and the surface begins to swirl like a vortex, dragging
all the magic in the room down into the centre of it. The sconces lining the wall burn out until
there’s almost no light left but the glowing red inside the cauldron.

The only other remaining point of light is the blue phial, sitting across the room where
Granger left it. The feeble glow in it is barely visible even in the darkness.

Draco stands frozen, waiting for something to happen. Anything.

The silence and stillness feel unending. There was no mention in the translations about how
long Rebirthing took.

She’s supposed to emerge.

He keeps staring down at the surface of the cauldron, waiting. Minutes pass.

There’s a quick glint. He looks up in time to see the phial flicker as the light inside it dies.

He stares, feeling as though his heart has been ripped out from under his ribs, claws dragging
through his lungs and tearing him open.

No.

No.

It was supposed to work.

She’s not supposed to die. This was supposed to save her.

Before he can move, the phial suddenly flickers again, the blue light suddenly radiating from
it. It turns a searing white that rapidly grows brighter and brighter until it explodes in a
blinding flash.

Draco stumbles back, wincing and trying to see through the flashing white obscuring most of
his vision. The runes on the floor are beginning to glow again.
He looks back at the cauldron as it begins to hum.

She should emerge.

The blood-red mercury doesn’t move. It’s as still as glass.

Why isn’t she coming out?

He steps closer, holding his hand out towards the surface. Still nothing.

She can’t stay under. She’s still able to drown.

As he stares, slender fingertips break through the surface, grasping. Before he can grab hold
of them, they vanish again.

Fuck it. He’d sworn he’d let the ritual run its course, but he can’t, not any longer.

He plunges his hand in, trying to find her. It’s freezing. Clawing. The mercury wraps itself
around his arm as if it’s trying to take hold and drag him under. He plants his feet and keeps
reaching until he finds her. She’s pinned to the bottom of the cauldron. It’s like she’s being
sucked down a whirlpool.

He finds the base of her head and gets a hand under her back until he feels her spine. He jerks
and feels her rise up, finally dragging her up through the surface.

She limp in his arms, eyes closed, dripping with glowing mercury.
He pulls her against his chest and carries her across the room away from all the runes before
laying her out. She’s not breathing. His hands are shaking as he tries to find a pulse.

“Granger – Hermione, don’t you dare die on me now.” He pushes down on her chest, trying
to pump the mercury out of her lungs. She’s still, lying unresponsive.

He tilts her head back, cradling her face in his hands as he props her mouth open, closing his
lips over hers as he breathes down her throat until her chest expands. He sits up and pushes
repeatedly down on her chest again and again until she chokes and begins coughing and
gasping and spitting out blood-red mercury.

He sits back, staring at her, finally able to take her transformation in the dim red light of the
room.

She’s still Granger but—not.

There are echoes of Hermione Granger in her, but it’s as if she’s been recast in a new mould.
She’s slimmer. Elongated. Her cheekbones and jaw are sharper and more angular. Her nose is
thinner. Her ears are drawn up and pointed, long enough that they poke through her hair. He’s
certain she’s taller now than she was before.

Her narrow shoulders heave a few more times as she stops coughing and catches her breath.
She looks up at Draco and he freezes.

Her eyes have changed colour. They’re lighter, a pale amber shade that glows.

She’s made of magic now. More so than any wizard who’s ever lived. She doesn’t wield
magic. She is Magic. A physical embodiment of it.

As she looks at him, her pupils dilate, swallowing the golden ring of light surrounding them.
There’s an uncanniness to her gaze. Not human. Not animal. Other. Eternal and newborn all
at once. And hungry.

Draco’s unleashed something that has been slumbering for a thousand years.

She stares though she’s seeing him for the first time. She cocks her head to the side. There
doesn’t seem to be any recognition in her eyes.

His voice catches in his throat and he has to swallow in order to speak. “Granger, do you—
still—remember me?”

He doesn’t even know why he asks because it’s clear she doesn’t. Those aren’t Granger’s
eyes looking back at him.

She leans towards him and he resists the instinctive urge to jerk back. She may still be
smaller than him, with dainty features that are narrower than even his, but she radiates raw
power. It’s searing, like reaching out and touching the heart of a flame.

She opens her mouth and a string of garbled elvish comes out, as though even her tongue is
uncoordinated. He can still feel the magic of the language in his bones. He was never fluent
in elvish and he can’t follow what exactly she’s saying as she reaches him, catching hold of
his shirt and dragging their bodies together.

“Granger...” He tries to meet her eyes again and see if there’s anything familiar in them. Is
she reaching for him, or is she reaching for anyone? He isn’t sure he can take it, to think she’s
still there, and then realise he’s clinging to an echo.

Her arms are wrapping around his shoulders and she’s still muttering things in elvish that he
can feel vibrating in his nerves. The words are coming faster and faster and he can’t follow
most of it. Something about stars. Wyverns. Evil. Patterns. It’s almost gibberish. She seems to
be trying to find a particular word that’s eluding her.

Draco’s trying to follow what she’s saying, but she’s naked in his arms, pulling at his shirt,
her lips brushing against the base of his throat. She buries her nose against his skin and
breathes in deeply, smelling him.

He tries not to move. He’s currently being manhandled by an extremely powerful magical
being. Possibly the most powerful kind that has ever existed, and she probably doesn’t even
know her own strength.

She’s disoriented. She’s not Granger. Not in any of the ways that matter to him.

He balls his hands in fists as he tries to just let her satisfy her curiosity. It’s not Granger. It’s
not Granger.

He keeps repeating it to himself until she drags her tongue up the side of his neck and then
tries to kiss him.

No. He can’t do this. He really fucking can’t. It will haunt him for the rest of his life if he
does this.

He takes her by the shoulders and pushes her gently away.

“No,” he says, forcing a thin smile so she knows he isn’t angry. He’d rather not be killed by
her if he can help it. “I’m afraid I’m in love with someone else.”

He studies her, trying to see Granger.

Her freckles are still there. The light smattering of them across the bridge of her nose and her
cheeks. He hadn’t expected to be upset about her freckles of all things, but somehow it’s
painful to still see them.

She sits back, blinking at him. Her gaze is unnerving, as if she’s seeing him in layers that are
invisible to his eyes. She starts to say something about wyverns again and stops, shaking her
head sharply as though catching herself in a mistake. Her eyes flutter closed and her
eyebrows furrow, her lips moving rapidly as if she’s trying the shape of hundreds of words.

She stops and her eyes snap open, burning. “Draco.”

He can feel his name in the synapses of his brain as if the way she uttered it has branded him
on the inside.

He stares at her, unable to breathe.

“Granger, do you – remember me?” He croaks the question.

Her eyes glitter, and he can see her . That spark. That know-it-all-ness. It is still there behind
the glow.

She nods as she pushes his hands off her shoulders where he’s holding her back and moves in
towards him again. She says something under her breath, in elvish, but Draco can follow it
enough to tell she’s saying that she was right.

She was right and he was wrong. She’s still her.

She still wants him.

He laughs under his breath, feeling as though he might sob from relief as he wraps his arms
around her.

Granger does not want to sit hugging him. She tangles her fingers in his hair, tilts his head
back. and kisses him. Her lips are hot and hungry. She drags their bodies together and seems
to have forgotten that she’s superhumanly strong because her grip is bruising and she rips his
shirt halfway down his chest as she straddles him.

Draco kisses her back, sliding his hands up the length of her back, holds her close.

This is the way he wanted to kiss her, because she’s going to live, not because she was going
to die.

She nips at his lips and nuzzles their faces together. Her fingernails run across his scalp
sending a shiver through him. His blood is pounding. He moans against her lips. It seems to
encourage her. She’s entwining herself around him, her arms and legs locking around his
neck and waist possessively as she continues to kiss him, again and again. Burning, soul-
searing kisses. Magic is radiating through her skin. Her tongue flicks against his lips and
pushes into his mouth as though she’s trying to consume him.

She might still be smaller than him, but she drags him forcefully into her arms as if she owns
him. He feels his shirt rip the rest of the way off his torso as she pins him down on the floor.
She runs her hands across his shoulders and breathes in against his skin again before biting
him.

He flinches but he barely has time to react before she’s licking the spot soothingly and her
hands running teasingly down his torso in a way that has him barely able to breathe. He
groans, his head dropping onto the stone floor.

She nips at his shoulder as her fingernails drag down his torso, pleasure flares through him
and his hips buck up hard against hers. He pulls her back into his arms and kisses her,
crushing her against his chest and relishing that fact that she is burning with life in his arms.
He runs his hands over her shoulders and back as he drags his tongue up her throat and then
finds her lips again. She cradles his faces in her hands as she arches against his chest and
returns his kiss.

He feels drunk on her. On the fact she’s alive. He wanted her, and now he has her. He doesn’t
have to hold back. She wants him too.

It feels like he’s being claimed by her. There’s a feral, possessive, almost animalistic element
to the way her hands and mouth and body are melding against his and she tears his clothes off
with ruthless abandon.

He’s not going to stop her. He runs his hands over her, gripping her hips and trying to kiss
across every inch of her body. He bites her back and she makes a pleased sound before biting
him even harder.

He runs his hands through her hair, and his fingers brush against a pointed ear. Her whole
body shudders as she gives a soft moan. Draco pulls her closer and nuzzles against one, her
fingers spasm, gripping him hard enough that her nails bite into his skin as she goes very still.
Draco breathes softly against her ear and watches the pointed tip twitch as she trembles
against him.

She has a body that even she is unfamiliar with. He flicks his tongue against it and she makes
a long low keen as she arches the length of her body against his, rolling her hips. She pants
against his ear, grinding herself against him.

“Draco….” she says his name slowly. Drawing out the vowels in a way that sends heat
flooding through his body. He needs her like he needs oxygen.

He rolls her onto her back so he can look at her, running his eyes hungrily down her body,
taking in all those details he tried not to steal earlier. Her eyes are almost completely black
beside that golden light ringing them. Her skin is hot, electric with magic as he runs his hands
up and brushes his fingertips against her nipples. She arches and makes an impatient sound as
her nipples harden under his fingers as he strokes them gently. Her pelvis is grinding against
his thigh and she finally hisses and pulls his body down on top of hers, kissing him fiercely.

She’s unbelievably strong, she could snap his neck with one hand. He’s playing with fire and
he doesn’t care. The switch from fighting to keep her alive to feeling like she may fuck him
to death is enough to make his mind spin. There are worse ways to go.

He’s painfully hard as he runs his fingers between her legs and finds that she’s scaldingly
warm and wet. Mouthwatering perfection. She cants her hips, and then forcefully drags him
into place until his hips are aligned with hers. He would have thought being immortal would
make her patient, but she is greedy and practically feral.

As he drives into her slick heat, it’s like sinking into an inferno of magic. She’s tight and
burning around him. The sconces along the walls suddenly flare and light again, the air is
pulsing. He groans as she clenches, her hips rolling to urge him to move, and when he does
she gasps and her teeth snap audibly on empty air.
The magic is so heavy and overpowering that Draco is almost certain that if it were any
stronger, he’d just dissolve. Pleasure is burning through him with every thrust, punctuated
and accentuated by pain as Granger keeps biting him and clawing her nails down his back as
she tangles her legs with his.

Nothing has ever been as intense as this. Every sensation is blistering with intensity and
magic, and the thrill of relief and wonder. She’s urging him faster, but everything is so
overwhelming he feels like he’s barely keeping up as it is.

He’s flipped so abruptly his head smacks the stone floor and stars flash in his eyes. She is
terrifyingly strong, he doesn’t think she realizes how strong she is as she forcefully pins him
down and rolls her hips down against his.

“Mine!” she snarls the words into the air, as she curls her body close to his and kisses him
almost savagely. He feels her climax around him, gasping against his lips, shuddering and
holding him against her chest as a pulse of magic flares out like a shockwave from her.

Draco’s hips jerk a moment later and he comes so hard that his vision goes white, pleasure
runs through him with piercingly exquisite ecstasy. He drives into her hard, holding her close
as he spills inside her.

Then he lays there, limp, feeling as though he’s been trampled to death as he gasps raggedly
for breath. He is pretty sure that humans are not supposed to have sex with fey; not that it’s
going to stop him, but all the same. He feels as though he’s just tried to face down the power
of the sea. He feels insignificant. Mortal.

He feels vividly aware of how mortal he is.

Hermione’s head is resting against his chest, dropping little kisses over his heart, but after a
minute she begins to move as if she thinks he’s ready to go again. Draco manages to catch
her by the shoulders.

“Slow down, you have to be gentle with me, Granger,” he says, touching her face. “I’m only
human.”

She stares at him and then looks down and he can see it dawning on her. The
otherworldliness of her expression fades and she becomes more Granger-like. She reaches
out and touches him tentatively, appearing to only just see that she’s covered him with bites
and bruises. Guilt flashes across her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t – ”

He manages to laugh even though his lungs are still burning for air. He wraps an arm around
her waist. “I didn’t mind, I just need more than a minute to recover. I’m fine. I’ve endured
worse than bruising.”

She runs her fingertips across some of the marks and he feels magic tingle across his skin. He
looks through hooded eyes and finds that she’s healing that scratches and bruises on his arm.
He lies there and lets her. When she’s done, she curls up her head resting on his chest. He
rouses himself enough to kiss the top of her head.

She instantly lifts her head to look at him.

“You're mine,” she says, her eyes burning gold, one arm sliding possessively around his neck
to pull him closer because she can’t seem to get close enough to him. He can feel how eternal
she is.

He smiles wistfully up at her. “As long as you want me.”

Her mouth curves up her head dips lower, their lips almost touching. He can feel the heat of
her breath against his skin.

“Always,” she says in elvish as she kisses him.

Draco can feel the weight of that word, the pure magic in her utterance of it as if it sinks into
the centre of his soul. A flood of magic rushes through his veins as their lips meet.

He should feel euphoric. He saved her. She wants him. Forever.

But for him, the feeling is tinged in a sense of grief. He can’t give her forever, no matter how
much he wants to.

Lying under her, he feels viscerally aware that he is human. He can sense the transience of his
being as he reaches out and runs his fingers against the unfading light of immortality. He can
feel it down to his bones that he's unable to fulfil the vow she’s attempting to invoke with her
lips.

An hour ago his life felt too long, and now it feels agonizingly finite.

He’s going to age. He’s going to die. And she won’t.

He stares at the ceiling, as she presses her body closer against his. She keeps sniffing at his
skin and then rubbing her face against it as if she’s scent-marking him. Her fingers wrap
around his arm, holding him close and after a minute she rests her head against his shoulder
and gives a satisfied sigh.

He swallows. “We should — we should find a few safe places for you to live,” he finally
says. “There’s no rush, of course, but you should know where you want to eventually go.”

She looks up at him sharply. “Go?”

He nods without looking away from the dark ceiling overhead. “In a few decades, I imagine
you’ll be bored here. We should make arrangements.”

“I’m not going, not unless you are.” She nuzzles against him again.

Draco gives a thin smile without looking at her, his chest feeling hollow. “Maybe not soon,
but eventually you will.” He swallows a lump in his throat. “I’ll want you to.”
She sits up with a jerk. “What do you mean?” Her voice vibrates the air.

Draco forces himself to look at her. Her eyes are flashing and she looks enraged, and her ears
have twitched back, flattening against her head.

“I’m mortal, Granger,” he says simply, “and you aren’t, not anymore.”

He inhales slowly before meeting her eyes. “I’m going to age. I’m going to get older and
eventually die. It’ll be for the best—“ his stomach clenches, a sense of jealousy already
clawing inside his chest at the mere thought, “—it’ll be easier for you if I’m not the only
human you're with. If there are other people and places you already go, you’ll be able to
move on more easily.”

He picks up her hand, staring down at her elongated fingers before running his thumb across
the back of her knuckles. “I know what it’s like to watch the only person you care about as
they fade away in front of you. I don't want that for you. I didn't do all this to save you so you
could watch me die instead.”

“Draco,” her voice tremulous, “I’m not going to let you die.”

He forces a smile. “Granger, we exhausted all the remaining traces of fey magic to Rebirth
you, and it barely worked. You nearly drowned. There was only ever enough to save you.”
He sits up and runs a fingertip along a sharpened cheekbone, staring at her. “It’s alright, I
knew it would be this way.”

“Draco,” she says again, forcefully. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to get used to the way
she says his name now. Even speaking English, she retains a degree of the elemental quality
that the elvish tongue possesses, the magical invocation that is intrinsic to it. It’s like having
his soul summoned.

His eyes close as he shudders.

Her fingers ghost down his profile and he can feel her face near his. “Draco, I’m not going to
let you die.”

He opens his eyes and finds her glowing eyes staring into his. Her gaze is uncanny but he can
see that light in them that he fell in love with, and that burning sense of conviction.

“I’m not leaving you behind. I’m fey now,” she says. “My blood is more magical than yours
was. I can create any artefacts we need for another ritual.”

She shifts closer, pressing her forehead against his. “ I’m going to transform you.”

Draco sits frozen, staring at her as he feels his dark, empty, colourless future explode into a
supernova of light.
End Notes

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