Chapter Text
When the war escalated, he pulled away.
At first, she was confused and hurt when he stayed cloistered in the study at Grimmauld Place or behind warded doors at school. He no longer responded to her invitations or showed up unexpectedly at her quarters, discomfited by his own gesture. No working together in the lab. No half-accidental touches as they passed in empty hallways. No uncertain but shiver-inducing glances across the staff table at meals. When she did catch his eye, the guilt and paranoia in his gaze stopped her breath.
For his sake and hers, it had to stop.
She followed him into the dungeons after dinner that night. When he turned to speak, she stepped against him in the dim, torch-lit hallway, laying a finger on his lips. He flinched and scowled, glanced away. Cupping his gaunt face in one hand, she urged him to look into her eyes, and after a moment of resistance, felt him sink into the memories she wanted to share.
… watching him as he worked, body arched over a cauldron, intense, brilliant and compelling…
…biting her lip, flushing whenever he brushed her hand…
…dancing alone through the halls after their first chaste kiss…
He turned away suddenly, stiffening, self-deprecation written in the set of his mouth. Hermione seized his arms, turning with him to meet haunted black eyes, willing him to see, to feel the images that had woken her for too many nights: wordless sensation—the brush of his lank hair on her face, the heat of his mouth against her skin, the rhythm of his too-lean body sweating against hers, tangled in the black sheets she’d glimpsed on his bed.
Smiling, she watched as astonishment drove the coldness from his eyes. And still without speaking, she led him to his rooms.