Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): Care of Magical Creatures (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about someone guarding their heart, mind, or body or someone else's, either figuratively or physically. (I tried to make it obvious but not sure)

Word Count: 890 (ish)

Whenever we touch it burns. It feels like my skin is on fire and I am simultaneously horrified and desperate for more. Even the slightest brush of our hands, his shoulder nudging mine by accident causes me to crave more. I want intimacy, want to feel his lips on mine, want to feel the desire, the heat between us.

His face haunts my dreams. It's the first thing that comes to my mind when I wake up and the last thing I think of before I go to sleep. The eyes that used to be so cold and cruel but now just look tired. They used to be swirling orbs of silver and storm but now they look empty. They reflect his apathy, he is too weary to even defend himself against the constant onslaught of taunts that follow him.

Every time our eyes meet I expect to see his trademark sneer but every time I'm surprised. He smiles now, it seems genuine and it makes him look younger, more innocent. I dream of what those lips would feel like, warm against my own. What it would feel like to run my hands through his hair, to feel his arms around me, strong, protecting me.

How can I allow myself to dream of him like this? He was my tormentor for years, am I really so shallow as to forget all of that?

I know that it's wrong. That the old Hermione would never have allowed such nonsense to consume her, but I'm not her anymore. I'm someone else, someone who has lost everything, and so has nothing else to lose.

So I let myself go. I let myself be seduced by him, not caring what happens, what people think of me when they find out. I meet him in the room of requirement every night and I let him do what he wants with me. Nothing else can make me happy now, not my books or my work. He is my comfort, as I am his. I need him. He is the only thing that keeps me going. The promise that he'll be there, every night, ready to take away my pain.

He understands. He knows what it is to feel like everything is hopeless, pointless. He lost everything too, and he shares what I feel. We are two lost souls, looking for a way to make sense of the world. He hardly sees me as takes me and claims me for his own, and all I see are his eyes. I allow my mind to drift, forgetting who he is, what he has done, and focus only on the sensations, the pleasure flooding through my body.

I let him have my body, but he cannot have my heart. My heart is broken and damaged and it is mine and mine alone. No-one else can have it, especially not him. I don't care what happens to my body but I will guard my heart against the world.

I will not let myself fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

She is everything. She is my hope, the last shred of any faith in humanity I ever had.

Even now when she is broken and washed up she has hope inside of her. Her friends and family are mostly gone and now she walks alone but she is still so brave. It was desperation and loneliness that made me chase her, and now that I have her I never want to let go. She deserves better than me, I know. She deserves someone who she can love, someone who is as good and kind and innocent as she is.

As soon as you see her you can feel her goodness. Her chocolate coloured eyes used to be full of warmth and comfort but now they look washed out. Her hair, so full of life, is often tangled, and although no one says anything I know that everyone is concerned for her.

When she comes to me I can see the defeat in the slump of her shoulders. She gives herself to me, but she is still holding back. In those precious few hours that we are together I have her whole being, but as soon as we are done she retreats into her shell. She barely acknowledges me during the day won't speak to me, flinches when I touch her.

She is protecting herself, still guarding herself against me, and it is this which gives me hope. No matter what she and everyone else thinks, she hasn't given up. On the inside she's still fighting, still trying to remember who she used to be. She is fighting against our physical bond, fighting to escape the tangled relationship we are trapped in.

If she wins the fight against herself she will leave me. I will let her leave because I know she deserves better. I won't fight for her, I'll fade into the shadows like I was never a part of her life. It will be hard, and it will be painful. I've lost everything else and to lose her would ruin me. I don't care.

I will do anything for Hermione Granger.