Desire

"Love, I'm just going away on business... there's nothing to worry about!" Why does he call me that, why does he call me "love" when I know he can't mean it? I know where he's going... business indeed... that would be Holly tonight I suppose... or is it Dana? I lose track of them after a while. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. We were supposed to be in love forever, a golden couple. He was supposed to want ME, not every pretty witch who smiled at him. I know they all said it wouldn't work... stupid mudblood thinking she could really change Draco Malfoy. I did though. He isn't who he used to be. He did change sides. He did help defeat the bad guys. He did get the girl and HE seems to be living happily ever after. We are happy in his eyes, and sometimes in mine too. He still loves me. He always comes back to me, and I'll always be here for him to come back to. I'm his wife. I'm the one who'll bear his children. I'm the one he talks to. It just... it's not enough for me. Why can't he see what he's doing to me? Why doesn't he want me anymore? This is ridiculous, I'm Hermione Malfoy, one of the Trio, the smartest witch of my generation, discoverer of new curses and charms. Which is all very well except... why do I still fall apart at the thought that I'm not... desired?

Is this it? That's what I think every morning. Is this all that I will have for the rest of my life? I knew he was evil, I knew everything he stood for was cruel, unnatural and wrong; I knew he was destroying our world for all his talk of saving it. I took my stand against that. I helped our son to escape his fate and chose his own path. I watched as Right triumphed and my husband died in agony at the hands of the master he had failed. I haunt our house now. Yes, haunt is the right word. I'm not really here, I can't be without him. However evil he was to the world. He was still my husband and part of my life and we were... we were good together. We really were. He wanted me so much and together we could make the world disappear. Desire, longing, aching, passion... I haven't felt any of these since he died. I lost myself when my Lucius died, my Lucius who was passionate, ravenous and amazingly... my Lucius...

An ice queen. That's what I used to call her in my head when she appeared at Quidditch matches or school events. It's a tad melodramatic, I know, but that's what she reminded me of. No emotions ever seemed to cross her face beyond disgust. I couldn't understand how she ever produced a son like Draco, who for all his posturing is so alive underneath. To be honest, she's still like that, but now I think there must be more. This is a woman who watched her husband rise to become second in command to the most evil wizard the world had seen and then (calmly?) aided her son in switching to the opposition. A woman who stood by her husband right up until his last moments and would have died with him if the Order hadn't arrived at that moment. A woman who wanders the halls of the Mansion with a marble face... a woman who seems to be searching for... for what? I really don't understand her, but I fear her. Is this what I will become if I continue to love a Malfoy man, acknowledging his faults but unable to leave? Every time I hide what I feel from Draco and pretend, I wonder if it brings me closer to her. I find myself watching her. I can't seem to drag my eyes away from her ghostly figure, flitting across rooms in her unending search.

Irresistible. That's how he described her to me once. He said that even if it weren't for all the doubts he had over the way the war was going and where his part in it should be, he would have changed sides just to be with her. I didn't know her then. She was just a girl at school, a name Lucius mentioned in his rants against Draco's failing marks. When she arrived here with him I started to understand the fascination. She was so alive, so interested in everything and therefore so impossible to ignore. They would stay up late discussing world news, talking over her latest discoveries or how his company was going. They reminded me of what I never had with Lucius, the easy companionship and the partnership of equals that had never been part of my marriage. I didn't miss Lucius any less but I started to see what I had missed out on. However, I stopped feeling jealous very quickly. Now I see her face crumple at each new discovery of his infidelity. I watch as the confident, alive witch turns into a frightened child. Whatever was wrong with our marriage, Lucius never made me doubt myself... my own attractiveness. Draco does it to her though, and in her mind the loss of attractiveness leads to a loss of worth, and she doubts herself. I want to take her in my arms and tell her how beautiful she really is. I want to show her everything I saw in her that was irresistible and I want to... I want...her. I want her. However I word it, it comes to the same point; I'm fascinated by her and I want to be as close to her as possible. I want to find out all of her secrets and I want to know her. She's standing in the doorway of my room now looking as if the world has come to an end. He left this evening (for a "conference" which at the moment means a rather elegant apartment in the West End with Pansy Longbottom). The way she's looking at me... I can't resist her... I can't hold back anymore... I'm drowning in her eyes in a world of pain and I have to heal her ...I want...

Desire. Flames. Passion. Touching. Wanting. Needing. Stroking every part. Smooth, white, porcelain skin against sunkissed cheeks. Delicate lips trailing everywhere, kissing every inch. Caresses, gentle as a summer breeze or harder, more urgent. Crying out. Screaming. Panting. Whispering a name. Whispering a promise. Bodies moving together. Hands intertwined. Aching. Needing. Wanting. Fulfilment. Beauty. Desire.

To look at me you'd think I was fine, normal, just the same as always. I am of course, just the same, its not as if one night can really change a lifetime of being... me. Why would it anyway? Its not as if Pansy, or Holly, or Cho, or Hannah ever changed Draco, not as if they actually meant anything. Then again, nothing means anything to him. NO. I won't think that, he does love me, he does. As, apparently, does his mother. Damn! Why can't I let it go? Why won't she get out of my head? I thought it was bad when she was all ghostlike and mysterious but now... Now my head is full of images of her stretched out in front of me, her hands, her mouth, her breasts...All I can hear is her voice crying out my name, so full of longing. It really doesn't matter. It's just because he's not here and... it was purely physical... it was just one night... it was... just... perfect.

Be quiet, shut up, don't think about it, don't remember it... I can see her trying to force herself to forget what happened. She wishes it wasn't true because it doesn't fit with her little "happily married" fantasy. Good wives, real wives, don't sleep with their mother-in-law. But she did. I can feel her hands on my body even now, her lips touching mine. My son must be insane if he wants more; he must be insane to think there IS more. The worst crime he commits though is in drawing back. She was so unsure, as if she'd never been touched and... oh the noise she made when she was beyond all rational thought. I can't believe he misses out on it. I know she remembers every second. When I catch her eyes in unguarded moments I can see all the passion and desire of that night. I smile at her more now, I brush against her hand when I pass by. Draco is so happy to see me interacting with her, "getting on" with my daughter-in-law, that he insists we spend more time together alone and I watch as she weakens just a little with each moment. I want her to give in to what she feels, to forget what she knows... what she believes. If she would just give in to her emotions and let her preconceptions of herself be destroyed, I would rebuild her, piece by piece, until she came back to life as she was when I first met her. Until then I wait, encouraging her, hinting, suggesting, a rose in her path, a sigh as she passes, a lingering glance and desire in every move I make.

Irresistibly drawn to her, I'm spiralling out of control. Each time I meet her eyes I feel so dizzy that it's all I can do to keep my feet. I find myself inexplicably outside her room on nights he's away, with no memory of having walked there. Yesterday she held a tea party for some of the most elite witches in our area and I watched the cold, hard, frosty Narcissa Malfoy turn those women into trembling wrecks without so much as a word. I trembled too. I saw her caress her glass of ice tea, I watched as she licked the traces of a sugared cake from her pale lips and I burned inside. She's still who she was before, still emotionless, still infinitely cruel when she wishes but that doesn't change how I feel, how I react to her (did knowing that Draco can reduce most people to tears with a glance ever make me love HIM less?). And so here I am, standing once more outside her door but this time with my hand poised to knock. I can't fool myself anymore, I need her. I want her.

"Desired by countless wizards and witches..." "The incomparable Hermione Malfoy..." "Voted most bewitching witch of her generation..." Sometimes when I read about her in the papers I can't believe that it was barely a year ago that she came to my door in tears because of her husband. A year ago the papers only called her "smart," or "ingenious," and she was only very rarely mentioned as anything other than an inventor or Malfoy's wife. Now they all see her as I do, as Draco did, as she really is. She's in the garden now playing with one of the latest Weasley offspring and she looks so happy, so confident, so alive. When Draco goes on his conferences now (not that he ever does anymore), she smiles and then comes to me to plan a romantic evening, or a passionate one, or anything that involves the two of us being alone and being ourselves. She trusts herself enough that he can no longer diminish her self-esteem, only increase it. I'm so proud of her, so full of love for her. As Draco holds her protectively in his arms I feel a twinge of jealousy, a hint of sadness for my husband, but now it's so minor, so unimportant. For every piece of help I gave Hermione she returned a hundred times. Our home is full of laughter now and I can remember Lucius as a part of my past, knowing how full my future is. Full of family, friends, beauty, life, desire and most amazingly of all love.