Chapter 3: Claiming in the Shadows
The damp chill of the dungeons had seeped into his bones, but it was a different heat that drove Draco through the secret passage behind the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. The castle was asleep, or pretending to be. His footsteps were silent on the stones, his breath a pale cloud in the cold air. Every sense felt heightened, sharpened by the memory of her knuckles white around that fork, by the ghost of her touch on the back of his neck.
The Whomping Willow was a stoic sentinel in the moonlit grounds. A well-aimed spell stilled its branches, and he slipped into the tunnel, the smell of earth and rodent and something uniquely, tragically teenage flooding back. He hadn’t been here since before. Since the war.
The Shrieking Shack was unchanged. A tomb of adolescent pain. But now, it was their tomb. Their secret. Dust motes danced in the sliver of moonlight cutting through the broken window. He lit a single candle with a flick of his wrist; the flame caught, guttered, then held, painting the rotting room in shaky gold. He shrugged off his school robes, then his shirt, the cold air raising gooseflesh on his arms and chest. He leaned against the rusted bedframe, its whimpers long silent, and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
The door groaned, a sound of profound weariness, and then she was there, silhouetted against the lesser dark of the tunnel. Her hair was a frizzy halo in the muted light. She hesitated on the threshold, her breath coming in short, visible puffs.
The click of the door shutting behind her was the loudest sound in the world.
In two strides he had her. His hands were on her waist, spinning her, pressing her back against the splintered wall. The impact knocked a soft gasp from her lips. He crowded her, his bare chest meeting the wool of her school jumper, his body a line of heat against hers.
“You made me wait, Granger,” he growled, his voice low and rough against the shell of her ear. His nose trailed down her jaw, his teeth grazing the frantic pulse in her throat. He could smell her—vanilla soap, ink, the faint, clean sweat from her dash across the grounds. And underneath it, her. Just her.
His hands slid down her hips, grabbing handfuls of her skirt and rucking it up in impatient, desperate folds. The wool was rough under his fingers. His palm found the smooth skin of her thigh, warm and taut. He squeezed, possessive, urgent.
“Do you have any idea,” he murmured, biting a kiss just below her ear, “what you do to me? Sitting there, so fucking righteous, debating ethics while your foot was playing games up my leg?” He ground his hips forward, letting her feel the hard, insistent length of him straining against his trousers. A low groan escaped him. “You’re a fucking torment.”
Her hands came up, not to push him away, but to claw at his shoulders, her nails biting through the thin fabric of his undershirt. “You started it,” she breathed, her head tilting back to give him better access to her throat. “With your… your ‘pass the salt.’”
He barked a short, humorless laugh against her skin. “You liked it.”
“I didn’t—”
He silenced her with a kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was a conquest. His tongue demanded entry, and she gave it, her mouth hot and welcoming. She tasted of the mint she’d used to scrub away the feast and something sweet, indefinably her. He drank her in, one hand fisting in her hair, the other still clutching her raised skirt.
When he broke away, they were both panting. Her eyes were wide, pupils swallowing the brown. “Ron’s pumpkin juice was bubbling,” she whispered, a hysterical edge to her voice. “Did you see? He was so angry.”
“Fuck Weasley,” Draco snarled, his own anger—at the situation, at himself, at the whole fucked-up world—finding a convenient focus. He kissed her again, deeper, wetter, his hands getting rougher. He needed to erase the memory of that table, of all the watching eyes. He needed to mark this moment as theirs alone.
His fingers found the waistband of her knickers, simple cotton, and he yanked them down. They caught at her knees, a pale flag of surrender in the dim light. He didn’t bother removing them fully. He shoved his own trousers and briefs down just enough to free his cock, which sprang out, thick and already leaking.
He was not gentle. He hooked one of her legs around his hip, hoisting her higher against the wall. The cold, rough plaster scraped her back. He positioned himself, the broad head of his cock nudging against her heat. She was wet, gloriously wet, her readiness a slap in the face to any pretense of resistance.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice guttural.
Her eyes, clouded with lust, found his. In the flickering candlelight, he saw it all: the guilt, the fear, the wild, thrilling defiance. And the want. The raw, honest want.
He pushed into her with one brutal, smooth stroke.
She cried out, a sharp, truncated sound swallowed by his shoulder as she buried her face against him. He was big, and he filled her completely, a stretch that bordered on pain. He held still for a second, embedded to the hilt, feeling her inner muscles flutter and clench around him in shocked adaptation. His own vision blurred at the edges. She was so tight, so fucking perfect.
“Draco,” she gasped, her breath hot against his neck.
He began to move. There was no finesse, no artful rhythm. It was pure, frantic need. He fucked her against the wall, each thrust a punctuation mark to his tangled thoughts. Mine. Thrust. Not his. Thrust. Never his. The shack groaned in sympathy, the old wood creaking with their movement.
Her fingers dug into his back, sure to leave crescent moons. Her other leg came up to wrap around him, heel digging into the back of his thigh, pulling him deeper. She met every jarring impact, her hips tilting to take him in at a better angle. The wet, slick sound of their joining was obscenely loud in the empty room.
“Is this what you wanted?” he gritted out, his forehead damp against hers. “When you were playing footsie under McGonagall’s table? You wanted me to fuck you in this ruin?”
“Yes,” she hissed, her voice breaking on the word. “God, yes.”
He changed the angle slightly, and her eyes flew wide. A sharp, keening moan tore from her throat. He’d found the spot. He hammered into it, relentless, his own pleasure coiling tight and low in his gut. He watched her face unravel. The clever, composed witch was gone. In her place was a creature of pure sensation, her mouth open, her brows drawn together in agonized pleasure.
“Come on,” he urged, his pace becoming erratic, desperate. “Come for me. Let me feel you.”
Her orgasm took her violently. Her body seized, clamping around him like a vice, her cry muffled against his skin. The rhythmic pulsations milked him, dragged him over the edge with her. With a final, deep thrust, he buried himself inside her and came, a hot, wordless shout lost in her hair. His release flooded her, wave after wave of blinding, mindless pleasure.
They slumped against the wall, a tangled mess of limbs and rough fabric, held up only by the pressure between them and the wall at her back. Their breathing was the only sound, ragged and synchronous. The cold began to seep back in, the sweat cooling on their skin.
Slowly, carefully, he withdrew. The loss of connection was physical ache. He lowered her until her feet found the dusty floorboards, her ruined knickers still tangled around her ankles. She shivered.
Wordlessly, he righted his own clothes, then knelt before her. With a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the fury of moments before, he helped her step out of her knickers. He pulled her skirt down, smoothing the crumpled wool. His hands lingered on her hips.
She looked down at him, her expression soft, blurred at the edges. She reached out and touched his cheek, her thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Your face,” she murmured. “At dinner. When Ron spoke. You looked like you wanted to Avada him right there.”
He caught her hand, turning his face to press a kiss into her palm. “The thought crossed my mind.” He stood, his knees protesting. “But then I remembered his pumpkin juice was bubbling, and it was just too pathetic to be worth it.”
A small, real smile touched her lips. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen all night.
He fetched his discarded shirt and wrapped it around her shoulders. It swam on her, carrying his scent. She pulled it close.
They didn’t speak for a long time. They moved to the old, ruined mattress, sitting side by side, shoulders touching, watching the single candle flame dance. The afterglow was a fragile thing, threatened by the world waiting outside.
“They’ll find out,” she said finally, her voice small.
“I know.”
“It will ruin everything. With the Ministry, with my friends…”
“I know that, too.” He sounded resigned. He’d played this scenario in his head a thousand times.
She turned to him, her eyes searching his face in the dim light. “Then why?”
He didn’t have a good answer. Not one that made sense. Because I’m selfish. Because I’m broken and you’re the only thing that feels real. Because when you look at me, you don’t just see a Death Eater. Because I can’t breathe when I’m not with you.
Instead, he said, “Why did you come tonight?”
She looked away, at the dancing shadow on the wall. “Because when you said ‘pass the salt,’ my whole body went up in flames.” She sighed, a heavy, exhausted sound. “Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t want what I want.”
He leaned over and kissed her, slowly this time. A kiss of shared exhaustion, of understanding. It tasted of salt and surrender.
The candle guttered, the wax finally spent. The flame died with a hiss, plunging them into a darkness so complete it felt solid. In the absolute black, he found her hand and laced his fingers with hers. They sat there, two shadows holding on in the ruins, waiting for the courage to go back into the light.