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A Season for Setting Fires
Torture smells like spring.
Like daffodils and tulips and snowdrops. Like the bouquets brought inside from the manor gardens to lend their life to cold stone walls that house criminals. Easter mixed with madness makes sense in this twisted landscape; Draco’s only chance at survival is to endure it. He knows this. But that doesn’t quell the twitching in his calves, the flexing in his fingers.
Granger lifts her hand off the floor and Draco nearly loses his lunch, stomach churning as he watches her extend her arm, reaching through the translucent cord, reaching towards him. He tries to blink it away, blink blink blink, but both she and the cord are stubborn, persistent things.
[In which a soulmate bond appears while Hermione is tortured at Malfoy Manor. Canon divergent from that moment onward.]
Like daffodils and tulips and snowdrops. Like the bouquets brought inside from the manor gardens to lend their life to cold stone walls that house criminals. Easter mixed with madness makes sense in this twisted landscape; Draco’s only chance at survival is to endure it. He knows this. But that doesn’t quell the twitching in his calves, the flexing in his fingers.
Granger lifts her hand off the floor and Draco nearly loses his lunch, stomach churning as he watches her extend her arm, reaching through the translucent cord, reaching towards him. He tries to blink it away, blink blink blink, but both she and the cord are stubborn, persistent things.
[In which a soulmate bond appears while Hermione is tortured at Malfoy Manor. Canon divergent from that moment onward.]
372 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2021
42 people are currently reading
1150 people want to read
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February 22, 2024This had such an interesting concept and the beginning was really good. The rest of it wasn’t as great. People died and got maimed and there wasn’t a point to it. It was all unnecessary and didn’t add to the story. It’s really hard to re-write a beloved story (canon divergent). Instead of focusing on the war, I would have liked the focus to stay on Draco and Hermione. The war and Voldemort just took away from the main plot.
I really wanted to explore the bond more. Why didn’t we see fight scenes or more instances where they power shared or used the bond for more than tingles and lust? We didn’t even get to see how they were perfect for each other. How they were an equal match. So much unrealized potential.
I love mightbewriting but this one wasn’t it for me.
I really wanted to explore the bond more. Why didn’t we see fight scenes or more instances where they power shared or used the bond for more than tingles and lust? We didn’t even get to see how they were perfect for each other. How they were an equal match. So much unrealized potential.
I love mightbewriting but this one wasn’t it for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2022
“You can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like a decent person.”
“I’m not a decent person.”
“You’re behaving like one.”
“Only because we’re behind a closed door. Only because it’s you.
“Do what?”
“Act like a decent person.”
“I’m not a decent person.”
“You’re behaving like one.”
“Only because we’re behind a closed door. Only because it’s you.
December 29, 2022
This was an incredibly well written fanfic, and I'm definitely still going to try mightbewriting's Wait and Hope series eventually, but I kind of get the feeling that halfway through this novel the author fell out of love with the whole concept of soulmate magic, which is what this story is based on.
I thought the beginning of A Season for Setting Fires was fascinating. It was a great premise to have two people who have always disliked each other suddenly be magically inclined to protect and love each other at all costs. The conflict of having no choice in their own feelings but also longing for the autonomy they lost was something I wish the author hadn't given up on.
At first, Draco couldn't leave Hermoine no matter what, because the magic wouldn't let him. Their connection felt almost claustrophobic at times. They were even thinking each other's thoughts at one point. The magic was also causing them severe distress until they chose to bond with one another.
Then the whole concept was retconned near the end and apparently, they could go their separate ways if they really wanted to. Hermoine says they're young, and she's choosing him at the moment, but she might try to find a way to get rid of the soulmate magic later on. It was a very healthy plan I suppose, but interesting reading? Not so much.
I also felt like this romance had the potential to be very intense and more passionate than it was. The beginning of the story felt like the author was building toward something she never delivered on. It was like a slow burn love story with no emotional pay off.
I don't know. If you hate the idea of "fated mates" or Omegaverse, you'll probably really enjoy this fanfic because it completely deconstructs that trope, but I personally missed the messy complexity of the first half of the novel.
TW: death, dismemberment, non-graphic torture
I thought the beginning of A Season for Setting Fires was fascinating. It was a great premise to have two people who have always disliked each other suddenly be magically inclined to protect and love each other at all costs. The conflict of having no choice in their own feelings but also longing for the autonomy they lost was something I wish the author hadn't given up on.
At first, Draco couldn't leave Hermoine no matter what, because the magic wouldn't let him. Their connection felt almost claustrophobic at times. They were even thinking each other's thoughts at one point. The magic was also causing them severe distress until they chose to bond with one another.
Then the whole concept was retconned near the end and apparently, they could go their separate ways if they really wanted to. Hermoine says they're young, and she's choosing him at the moment, but she might try to find a way to get rid of the soulmate magic later on. It was a very healthy plan I suppose, but interesting reading? Not so much.
I also felt like this romance had the potential to be very intense and more passionate than it was. The beginning of the story felt like the author was building toward something she never delivered on. It was like a slow burn love story with no emotional pay off.
I don't know. If you hate the idea of "fated mates" or Omegaverse, you'll probably really enjoy this fanfic because it completely deconstructs that trope, but I personally missed the messy complexity of the first half of the novel.
TW: death, dismemberment, non-graphic torture
August 28, 2023
2.5 stars, where the first 30% was 4 stars, and then it went slowly down hill from there.
The beginning of this fic was very strong. I liked how mightbewriting handled Draco and Hermione's relationship along with the goings on of the war. It made sense that they were attracted to one another once the bond between them showed up, but they did not develop any crazy, instant "I love you" feelings toward one another. Their relationship developed very naturally throughout the fic.
What I didn't like were the plot holes, purple prose, characters acting out of character, brutal deaths of certain major characters, and the rushed ending. Tbh it was all down hill for me after Draco literally strangled Dobby. I didn't like how Neville's death was handled either, it was very brutal.
My other big issue with this fic was how Draco instantly overcame his prejudice of muggleborns. Same with his parents, it would have been nice to see a bit more character development and internal conflict over that. It's one of the main reasons why the Malfoys fought in both Wizarding Wars. Also with how blood-purity focused the Malfoys are, I highly doubt their hubris would have allowed them to magically attach themselves to a muggleborn, regardless of how powerful they were. And even if their family bonding magic did choose a muggleborn I doubt they would have easily accepted them, as they did in this fic.
The beginning of this fic was very strong. I liked how mightbewriting handled Draco and Hermione's relationship along with the goings on of the war. It made sense that they were attracted to one another once the bond between them showed up, but they did not develop any crazy, instant "I love you" feelings toward one another. Their relationship developed very naturally throughout the fic.
What I didn't like were the plot holes, purple prose, characters acting out of character, brutal deaths of certain major characters, and the rushed ending. Tbh it was all down hill for me after Draco literally strangled Dobby. I didn't like how Neville's death was handled either, it was very brutal.
My other big issue with this fic was how Draco instantly overcame his prejudice of muggleborns. Same with his parents, it would have been nice to see a bit more character development and internal conflict over that. It's one of the main reasons why the Malfoys fought in both Wizarding Wars. Also with how blood-purity focused the Malfoys are, I highly doubt their hubris would have allowed them to magically attach themselves to a muggleborn, regardless of how powerful they were. And even if their family bonding magic did choose a muggleborn I doubt they would have easily accepted them, as they did in this fic.
September 19, 2023
This unfortunate had so much potential but then I don’t know what happened.
July 28, 2023
After Wait and Hope by the same author, this fanfiction seems quite bland. I wanted something short to end July and at the same time something dark, in the same style as Secrets and Masks. I didn't get that. It's dark, yes, familiar characters die, but it didn't keep me on the edge of my seat.
I feel like the ending was rushed. We also don't have time to get attached to the characters. In fact I feel like the plot was just an excuse to write a fanfiction where Draco and Hermione are soulmates. Because the plot is resolved pretty quickly. The secondary characters, Ron, George, Justin, the Patil sisters... didn't leave much of an impression. Fortunately, there was Neville.
I really wanted to like this story, soulmates trope is life, but I find that it was poorly executed here.
I agree with another reviewer : the bond between Draco and Hermione isn't explored enough. There are only a few arguments and the slow-burn isn't really a slow-burn. We don't understand why the two are perfect for each other. Draco seems to accept it very easily, which I'm not used to with this kind of trope. I also found that the bond isn't properly exploited ; what else does it enable? Can they use it differently? Is it just an entity that has to be satisfied? So many questions and no answers.
229 pages, 95 640 words.
I feel like the ending was rushed. We also don't have time to get attached to the characters. In fact I feel like the plot was just an excuse to write a fanfiction where Draco and Hermione are soulmates. Because the plot is resolved pretty quickly. The secondary characters, Ron, George, Justin, the Patil sisters... didn't leave much of an impression. Fortunately, there was Neville.
I really wanted to like this story, soulmates trope is life, but I find that it was poorly executed here.
I agree with another reviewer : the bond between Draco and Hermione isn't explored enough. There are only a few arguments and the slow-burn isn't really a slow-burn. We don't understand why the two are perfect for each other. Draco seems to accept it very easily, which I'm not used to with this kind of trope. I also found that the bond isn't properly exploited ; what else does it enable? Can they use it differently? Is it just an entity that has to be satisfied? So many questions and no answers.
229 pages, 95 640 words.
April 24, 2023
referring to Harry potter as a minor character is actually hysterical to me
Writing was really good, enemies to friends to lovers was done really well, ending was just a little abrupt for me. Draco is slay. No notes on him at all. Hot (like, emotionally hot in the best way) and funny and sad and really, really good at helping me procrastinate for exams!!!
Writing was really good, enemies to friends to lovers was done really well, ending was just a little abrupt for me. Draco is slay. No notes on him at all. Hot (like, emotionally hot in the best way) and funny and sad and really, really good at helping me procrastinate for exams!!!
July 2, 2022
Torture smells like spring and Hermione Granger's torture brings more out than just a scent. Right there where Hermione get's tortured right infront his eyes, a gold string appears that connects them together and seals his fate along with hers.
I hate to say this but I was a bit disappointed with this fic. I did subscribe to it on AO3 and was waiting for it finish to finally start reading it but I think that hyped it up in my mind more than it should.
I really like the aspect of Draco and Hermione being connected through an ancient magic ritual. I also liked that the characters were written pretty close to their canon counterparts but the story ultimately left me wanting more.
Right after the Drawing Room scene, Draco escapes with the Golden Trio and get's locked up in a room in Shell Cotage and is left there for weeks.
The Weasleys and everyone leaves when the battle takes place and leave Draco locked in, without any care about what he's going to eat and how he will get out. They all basically leave him there to die.
We don't get to see the final battle or how Harry ends up dying. We just see find out that Voldemort won, from Draco being finally freed of the wards that locked him in and from Hermione returning to the Coattage after fleeing the battle.
Unfortunately for most of the story the common occurrence is that we lose out on all the action that takes place. There is alot of camping, PTSD and secrets but little to none of them actually batteling the bad side.
he main focus of the story is the connection between Draco and Hermione but because Draco decides to be a git, he doesn't tell her any information about it other than that it is an old Malfoy tradition.
Because of the secrets they keep from eachother, there isn't really any exploration of their bond, making it a story about camping and trying to find out who else managed to survive the battle.
Lastly the ending was just as anticlimatic as the rest of the fic.
The downfall of Voldemort was very random and instantaneous. It was way too easy and shouldn't happen the way it did, there was way more thought in Neville's death than Voldemort's.
September 25, 2022
Word Count: 95,640
Chapters: 31
Rating: 4.25⭐
Another soulmate Dramione fic. The war and outcome was brutal. The angst was too much at times. It took so long for them to get their HEA. I needed an epilogue of their future years 💖
Chapters: 31
Rating: 4.25⭐
Another soulmate Dramione fic. The war and outcome was brutal. The angst was too much at times. It took so long for them to get their HEA. I needed an epilogue of their future years 💖
March 30, 2023
Solid 3 stars. Hermione was kinda annoying in this tbh. Interesting premise though!
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November 10, 2024I’m such a sucker for a magical soulmate trope
October 18, 2022
Dramione AU + soul mate
Could anything be better than that combination?
The book opened at the crucial scene when bellatrix was torturing Hermione in the Manor. As Draco and his family stood at the side in fear watching the entire scene unfolded with dread, and the soul mate cord snapped into place. Draco had to leave with the golden trio as they dispparated to escape together and was branded as a blood traitor.
Throughout the entire time they were in hiding, Hermione and Draco hated one another and the tension was so palpable despite the attraction and the cord that shone between them. There was so much angst and anger as they faced the hopelessness, loss and deaths of the member of the Order and friends together. Everything that they went through cemented their emotional bonds and made them more mature and realised they were no longer the people they were in Hogwarts.
Its slow burn, action packed and so well written. I like the last few chapters of healing and recovery post war where they took time to get to know one another while going through their own healing and grieving process. My only dissatisfaction was the bloody ending. It could have continued a bit more, perhaps an epilogue instead of just halting right where the cords collided and combined at an amorous moment!
Could anything be better than that combination?
The book opened at the crucial scene when bellatrix was torturing Hermione in the Manor. As Draco and his family stood at the side in fear watching the entire scene unfolded with dread, and the soul mate cord snapped into place. Draco had to leave with the golden trio as they dispparated to escape together and was branded as a blood traitor.
Throughout the entire time they were in hiding, Hermione and Draco hated one another and the tension was so palpable despite the attraction and the cord that shone between them. There was so much angst and anger as they faced the hopelessness, loss and deaths of the member of the Order and friends together. Everything that they went through cemented their emotional bonds and made them more mature and realised they were no longer the people they were in Hogwarts.
Its slow burn, action packed and so well written. I like the last few chapters of healing and recovery post war where they took time to get to know one another while going through their own healing and grieving process. My only dissatisfaction was the bloody ending. It could have continued a bit more, perhaps an epilogue instead of just halting right where the cords collided and combined at an amorous moment!
March 7, 2024
2.5⭐
Well written but unnecessarily gory and dark. Wouldn't recommend or read again. It's really too bad because the concept of the bond is so incredibly interesting but it wasn't really used or explored much - it was more of a plot device. 🤷♀️
Well written but unnecessarily gory and dark. Wouldn't recommend or read again. It's really too bad because the concept of the bond is so incredibly interesting but it wasn't really used or explored much - it was more of a plot device. 🤷♀️
June 14, 2025
Every chapter had me shook, didn’t know if they were going to make through a lot of what they were experiencing, but so well written and enjoyed every minute of reading.
September 30, 2025
Oh yes yes!! Was a bit skeptical at first, but yes!! This was good and the characters kept real throughout the whole thing!!! Felt very real and sad and devastating and annoying! Just! So good! 🙂↕️👏🏻
February 10, 2023
Really intriguing premise with the soulmates trope +dash of magic and folklore. Although I am a fan of ambiguous endings, I rather wish there was some hint of direction. Some inkling as to what the author, perhaps, thinks may be the right path to choose and what her characters decide they want in their future.
Also, although I do love the creativity and idea behind enemies realizing they’re soulmates, and the hilarity, humiliation, and vulnerability that ensues, I find it somewhat frustrating that such a “bond” must be ~consummated.~ As if one intimate deed is what changes a relationship; changes a person’s identity. Dunno. Just wish the author had found a more original way to have her characters show “I have a choice, my choice is you.” That being said, I still enjoyed the story.
Also, although I do love the creativity and idea behind enemies realizing they’re soulmates, and the hilarity, humiliation, and vulnerability that ensues, I find it somewhat frustrating that such a “bond” must be ~consummated.~ As if one intimate deed is what changes a relationship; changes a person’s identity. Dunno. Just wish the author had found a more original way to have her characters show “I have a choice, my choice is you.” That being said, I still enjoyed the story.
March 27, 2024
5 stars
This brought me out of a reading slump. This is why I love reading. Absolutely impeccable. Draco and Hermione are connected as soulmates and Draco realizes it while she's being tortured by Bellatrix- SAY LESS. This was dark, but also not as dark as I was preparing myself mentally for. I loved this so much. The characterization was wonderful and the slow burn was so, so SLOWWWWW. This was so good. It's been 2 weeks since I've felt something while reading and this made me feel things again.
This brought me out of a reading slump. This is why I love reading. Absolutely impeccable. Draco and Hermione are connected as soulmates and Draco realizes it while she's being tortured by Bellatrix- SAY LESS. This was dark, but also not as dark as I was preparing myself mentally for. I loved this so much. The characterization was wonderful and the slow burn was so, so SLOWWWWW. This was so good. It's been 2 weeks since I've felt something while reading and this made me feel things again.
November 28, 2022
If you told me I would find something better than The Fallout in our year of the lord 2022 I would have laughed in your face but here we are
September 25, 2022
3,5 ⭐️
This could have been so much better. I could not stop reading but esentially nothing much happened. I would like to see the bond in use, them using their power together in fightscenes etc. So much was for nothing and so many scenes we did not get to see (especially at the end). But the writing itself was great, just don't expect much action.
Edit: same author as W&H
This could have been so much better. I could not stop reading but esentially nothing much happened. I would like to see the bond in use, them using their power together in fightscenes etc. So much was for nothing and so many scenes we did not get to see (especially at the end). But the writing itself was great, just don't expect much action.
Edit: same author as W&H
September 5, 2024
“In many ways, hope feels like heartbreak, too.”
This was a great fic. Loved the premise, and felt the pacing was great for the length of this fic. I also liked the POV switch to the side characters at the end, felt like it added a lot of detail and depth to the story. I love a mate bond, so this was a great spin on my fav plot which is anything to do with Draco and hermione lmfao
This was a great fic. Loved the premise, and felt the pacing was great for the length of this fic. I also liked the POV switch to the side characters at the end, felt like it added a lot of detail and depth to the story. I love a mate bond, so this was a great spin on my fav plot which is anything to do with Draco and hermione lmfao
April 20, 2023
This was fine, not great. The concept was cool, I love soul mates, but I didn’t feel like there was a lot of plot. This was a different version of Hermione that showed grief and healing which is ok, but I like badass Hermione who can do and achieve anything.
July 29, 2023
The ending with several new POVs was a bit unsettling for me, otherwise the story was really enjoyable. Would have liked it to be even longer.
May 25, 2024
i thought that this was going to be a light 8th year retelling, instead, i received dark au, a huge body count, and a stunning slow burn 🤧❤️🩹❤️🩹
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November 4, 20242 Stars.
November 5, 2024
She’s pleading and Draco can barely stand it. He feels sick, stomach in his throat, a bile brine pickling his insides. Worse, gold glints in his vision. A metallic, translucent cord, tattered and frayed, stretches in a meandering line from his chest to hers.
Her free arm, the one Aunt Bella isn’t making a sick art project out of, travels in a flat arc against the floor. Her fingers trail along the carpets, quite unfortunately soaked in her blood.
Draco inhales a sharp breath through his nose when her hand stops at the gilded cord between them. Her hand flips, palm up, fingers curling to graze the fibers that aren’t really there, not to anyone but them. His gaze slips to her face and immediately snaps away again; she’s watching her hand, watching this thing between them, all with a blank, dead stare.
He pulls in more air.
Torture smells like spring.
A vicious, desperate part of Draco wishes Bella would do it, slice Granger open, let her bleed out, and release Draco from his circumstances. But even as that transient thought flits through his brain, the image nearly bowls him over, on the brink of retching from imagined, disproportionate grief.
“Where do your loyalties lie, Draco?”
Not quite the same question as, *Why did you defect?* Draco finds his answer is not quite the same, as well. Exhaustion forces embarrassing honesty from him.
“Wherever they must.” He almost looks to the cord running from his chest, over the side of the bed, beneath Lupin's chair, between Weasley’s feet, and out into the corridor. But he resists.
“What does that mean?”
Irritation swells. “Exactly what you think it means. I never have a choice. I’m here now; isn’t that enough? Are you going to let me rot because you don’t like my answers?”
She’s not sure. She can do very little but force her way through something like normalcy while she *heals.* They keep talking about healing like it’s a path she’s on. Like it’s something with a start and therefore a finish, too.
Like they expect her healing to end and for her to be healed.
She doesn’t think it’s working.
Hermione sits in her room on the second to last day of April, staring at the sea. Harry has suffered much worse, she knows. For much longer, too. Perhaps not in exactly the same way, but he knows the *cruciatus,* knew it years ago. Has known it relatively recently. He’s lived with the knowledge that someone—probably the most terrible someone there is—has wanted him dead for his entire life, and has made multiple attempts on it.
She watches the rope shiver, dissipate, and reform in the same way it does when she steps through it. She leans her forehead against the wood. Her chest yearns in a way that hurts, that burns, that terrifies.
“Are you there?” she whispers. She regrets it the moment she asks. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Malfoy says nothing, but she knows he is. She can nearly see him, can imagine him so clearly in her mind’s eye. Just on the other side of the door. The rope sways, shifting against the ground.
“What is this?” she asks because she can’t help herself.
We’re leaving tomorrow.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him, but part of her feels compelled to. And she hates that, hates feeling like she doesn’t have complete control over her own actions, ruled by impulse, not reason. “You’re not a part of *we,* by the way,” she adds, with a matter-of-factness she knows sounds swottish and snobby, even at a whisper.
More silence.
For some reason, she needs him to know she’s leaving with Harry and Ron. That they’re going to do something stupid. Something completely reckless.
She hates that she wants to give him an explanation.
But then: “Where?
Draco approaches his window with caution, surprised to see dawn breaking over the ocean’s blue horizon. The fact that he can see anything at all confirms that the wards holding him in his room have definitely fallen.
Shock sucks the breath from his lungs.
In several deep strides, he reaches the door and throws it open. A few more steps and he’s launched himself down the stairs and into the living room.
But then he blinks and the golden cord flares to life in front of him. Suddenly, his chest feels like it’s on fire, the kind of heat that licks at his ribs and toasts his chilled core: like finding a campfire after a long night in the cold.
He sprints down the dune and stops at the cottage door.
Granger sits on the living room floor, back against a sofa leg, screaming into a pillow.
He spits the answer at her. “I was holding onto *you.”*
She pauses in her casting, sucks in a breath, and then continues again without so much as looking at him. That, of all reactions, makes it worse.
“You can’t—” she starts, breaking off, restarts. “That’s not how magic works.”
His laugh is cruel, furious. It’s been barely a month, and almost none of that time actually spent in her presence, but he’s already so fucking sick of this he could scream. This stupid circumstance has taken everything from him.
“That’s how Malfoy *soulmate* magic works, so get fucking used to it.”
He does not watch the process, and he does not watch the aftermath.
He doesn’t hear it, either. She casts a Muffliato every time. But he *knows.* Because the timer spell and the sudden shift in white noise piqued his curiosity and set off all kinds of warning bells the first time it happened. So he crept to the tent flap and he watched as Granger allowed herself a set amount of time to cry.
Granger doesn’t have to answer because the Patronus sits right in front of her in a model of obedience. Then, Ron Weasley’s voice comes out.
An ugly, terrible, entirely unwanted jealousy heats the golden cord into something molten. Draco had grown quite adept at ignoring it, but he can’t ignore this white-hot sensation. Granger’s eyes snap up to him, gazing through the translucent dog. He wonders if she felt it, too. He’d be mortified if she did. He wants to scream that it’s not *his* jealousy; he doesn’t want anything to do with it. It’s this *thing’s* fault.
It’s the last thing Hermione hears before everything goes black. She feels arms around her middle, hands gripping her waist, and she experiences a shocking sense of safety, of contentment. A strange absence of fear despite her rapidly dwindling consciousness.
Then she hits the ground.
Her head hangs at an odd angle, golden cord coiled around her, too much like a noose.
He needs to rennervate Granger. She should be conscious when they travel again. He’s not sure how close he got them to their camp, but they could definitely be closer. He pushes himself back into a sitting position and twists, hovering over her.
He stares.
He knows he’s staring.
He knows it’s weird.
He can't help it.
Has he ever had the chance to really look at her before? Certainly not from this close up. He feels the draw again, becomes aware of the golden filaments dancing between his chest and hers.
Why did it have to be her? The only person on this planet who would instantly make a traitor out of him?
Her eyes land on his cock, straining against the leg of his boxers. She makes a tiny, squeaking sort of sound and it shoots straight to the inappropriate places Draco is trying not to think about.
But it’s the kind of squeak he thinks she might make with a cock deep inside her, right at the deepest part of a thrust, hips slammed together, force pushing air and sound out of her lungs.
*Fuck* . He can’t decide if he hates or loves the fact that he’s just had that thought. More so, that he doesn’t know how much of it belongs to the magic and how much of it belongs to him.
When he steps through the tent flap he finds Granger in a panic, hair huge, stuffing their belongings into her beaded bag. She mutters to herself, flushed and frantic. His first thought should have been something like *what’s wrong,* or *what happened?*
Instead, he wonders if that’s how she flushed when she came the night before.
His next words come out slow. “If there’s really no hope…”
She can see it in how his face contorts. He has a pink welt forming on his cheek. He’s grieving for the entire world. His life, his parents, everything she imagines is dear to him. He really thinks they’ve lost. And she sees it, how she’s become his consolation prize in all that.
That’s not good enough.
“There’s still hope,” she insists.
It requires more strength than she wants it to, but her hand finds his chest. She applies pressure, pushes.
He doesn’t actually move, he’s too strong for her to actually push him away. If anything, his grip around her waist tightens in the split-second before he looks down. She watches realization, the consequences of his actions, dawn on him in real time.
He grits his teeth, practically snarls, and pulls himself away.
A *crack* cuts him off. Through the trees, Draco spots red hair.
“Hermione?”
She gasps at the sound of Ronald Weasley's voice and it ignites an entirely unwanted jealousy in Draco’s chest, ribcage on fire
George scoffs this time. “Malfoys are only on their own side. He’s never going to pick any of us over himself, Hermione. You’re starkers if you don’t see that.”
But he has. He’s picked her several times. He hasn’t been especially happy about it. But he has. And she can’t seem to verbalize any of it.
You survived.”
“It’s not so noble.”
He runs his own hand through the rope. Infinitesimally, the pressure around her heart lessens.
In the two weeks he’s spent with her, he’s learned that structure keeps her sane, keeps her going. Even if that means structuring something as impossible as grief.
She thinks as far as meltdowns go, this is a quiet one: self-contained. The sort that Harry and Ron typically never even noticed while she stared at the same page in a book for ten minutes straight, struggling to breathe. She’s not unfamiliar with this kind of panic. It happens, has always happened, but more so since the war.
What she’s not used to is having someone actually *notice* it happening.
He leans even closer, anger on his face. “I’m mad I don’t have a *choice,* Granger. Not mad that it’s you.”
But then he steps back, mouth curved into a hateful scowl. “The *best,”* he says again. “The best connection. The best... *sex.* Just. The best. Physically”—he gives her a lewd sort of up and down appraisal—“and emotionally. Perfectly complementary. That’s that we supposedly are.”
*“Supposedly.”*
“Just use that office, Granger.” He takes another step away. “Set a timer. Get yourself under control.”
“And what will you do?”
“Avoid getting hexed by your friends, I imagine.”
She looks like she’s going to kill him.
It’s a relief.
- this is giving burning god and I can’t handle it
“I didn’t really leave,” he says, and it feels ridiculous how important that statement is to him.
“You have before.”
“I have not. I’ve come back every time.”
He stops thinking. Only *does.*
His hands end up buried in her hair. So soft. Granger’s head lands against his chest and it steals his ability to breathe.
“I thought you were gone. I thought you were gone. *I thought you were gone.”* She repeats herself against his shirt. He feels filthy. He must smell, but she keeps burrowing her face into his chest. He holds her so tight he wonders if he might do damage.
How can he not do damage, being who he is?
All he wants is for her to believe him: about his family’s magic, that he can’t leave. It’s not just about *can’t* , either. He thinks the distinction between *can’t* and *won’t* is an important one. It’s blurry, but as it settles, he leans towards *won’t.* Would he leave if he could? He doesn’t think so, not now. Not after watching her survive everything she already has. Not when she needs support and no one seems to notice her needing it. And not as long as she keeps touching him, those fingers grazing his skin. Before he knows it, she’s unbuttoned half his shirt.
It reeks of sweat around them, damp and sour in the cramped office. That’s the last mostly coherent thought he really has; he’s just desperate to prove she’s not alone, that he wouldn’t leave.
And she seems desperate too. For what, he doesn’t know. He isn’t sure he cares. Not when she’s unbuckling his trousers and letting him thumb open the button on her jeans. He doesn’t breathe as he drags down her zipper, as she tilts and lets him pull them over her arse, down her thighs, bunched messily around her shins.
The cord bursts from them.
No longer just gold, but silver too. With his face pressed to Granger’s hair, he watches as it expands around them, a circle in silver and gold. His body is still on fire, singular in seeking sensation.
Clarity rushes him in a blink, realizing what they’ve done.
*The bond.*
They’ve completed it. Or, at least, partially.
This is *normal?* Do you mean I could have—that it’s possible to feel this way just—all the time? Like there isn’t something missing?”
Draco’s stomach twists. His limbs have frozen. He can’t move.
Panic *hurts.*
His life has consequences now. Consequences connected to *her.*
He grabs his wand, stands, and takes a step past her.
He turns. “Are you coming?”
She hasn’t yet.
He wants her to. He wants to *do* that to her.
He *really* has to get it together.
Her eyes close; her breath rattles when she inhales. Her gaze locks with his when she opens her eyes again. She nods, a little motion, then it grows with certainty. “I—I am. Yeah. I’m coming.”
Mechanically, as if he’s made of cogs and gears inside his joints that need oiling, he lays himself down. He forces himself to disconnect, lest it become even more absurd that he’s waited up for her. That he wants desperately to watch her read, to watch her understand. That he wants to reach out and touch her.
“I didn’t *mean* to set the wards up wrong, there was a lot going on—”
“I know. It’s fine. I’m not talking about this again.” She cuts him off and it's brutal.
Draco loves it.
“I have a villa in France—well, my family does.”
Hermione blinks. It’s almost as if he’s spoken the sentence in a different language. “Is that an invitation?”
He doesn’t look at her and his mouth pinches tighter before he speaks again. “For you. And no one else. If we survive.”
So she spends her time in the sun, sitting on the only patch of green grass left for several streets. She’s lost the energy to do much of anything else. Every conversation is a chore; her heart is too heavy to lift anything else, conversation and coordination included.
So it’s your birthday. There’s a party just for you in the Slytherin Common Room. Now what?”
Nerve, daring he’s entirely unaccustomed to, catches on the prompt she’s left wide open for him. They’re still pretending; she’s still willing.
“You show up.”
“Me?”
“You. Well, my…” *Soulmate.* What else could he want for his birthday?
Of all the things he’s ever said to her, thought to say to her, or vowed never to say to her, the next word out of his mouth is the one he thinks she needs to hear the most.
“Please?”
*Pretend.*
It had been nice. She fell into it easily because there’s something so intoxicating—more so than the liquor, she thinks, though the liquor probably played its own part—about the way it feels to not be so *alone* anymore.
*What* have you been doing in here? We couldn’t find you—and then this!” He makes a big sweeping gesture at the windows and, presumably, the magic wreaking havoc on the world beyond it. “And this room was locked and silenced. Hermione, we thought he’d taken you. Or hurt you. Or—”
“You *really* don’t want to know what I was doing to her, Weasley.”
- 😀
You’ve gotten everything,” he says, closing the door behind them.
“I just need to be certain.” She leans against the sink. Her voice is frazzled, washed out. She won’t look him in the face.
“I’m certain.”
“Well *I* need to be.”
“There’s not a square inch of this place you haven’t checked at least three times. I’m starting to get light headed from all the stairs.”
When the world rematerializes around them, golden light blinds him.
Hope has taken on a lot of forms over the last year, worn many masks and manifested in many surprising and unusual ways.
Here, now, it’s a silver light in the darkness and the prospect of not being quite so alone.
Hermione’s desperate voice floats between them. “Burn it down and I’ll go wherever you want. We can hide. I’ll stop fighting. But do this one thing—the *only* thing we can do. It’ll hurt them. And we need that.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says. Her eyes snap back to his. “You won’t stop,” he clarifies, but he’s already raising his mother’s wand. “But I’ll do it anyway.”
For the sake of knowing, and knowing without doubt, he asks one followup question before he lets himself go. “What are you choosing, exactly?”
“You. This.”
She tilts her chin up.
He leans down.
And for the first time in his life, he kisses Hermione Granger.
One kiss and he completely understands his family’s ancient magic. He would do almost anything to keep this. But he would do more to keep her.
Ahahaha holy christ.
Her free arm, the one Aunt Bella isn’t making a sick art project out of, travels in a flat arc against the floor. Her fingers trail along the carpets, quite unfortunately soaked in her blood.
Draco inhales a sharp breath through his nose when her hand stops at the gilded cord between them. Her hand flips, palm up, fingers curling to graze the fibers that aren’t really there, not to anyone but them. His gaze slips to her face and immediately snaps away again; she’s watching her hand, watching this thing between them, all with a blank, dead stare.
He pulls in more air.
Torture smells like spring.
A vicious, desperate part of Draco wishes Bella would do it, slice Granger open, let her bleed out, and release Draco from his circumstances. But even as that transient thought flits through his brain, the image nearly bowls him over, on the brink of retching from imagined, disproportionate grief.
“Where do your loyalties lie, Draco?”
Not quite the same question as, *Why did you defect?* Draco finds his answer is not quite the same, as well. Exhaustion forces embarrassing honesty from him.
“Wherever they must.” He almost looks to the cord running from his chest, over the side of the bed, beneath Lupin's chair, between Weasley’s feet, and out into the corridor. But he resists.
“What does that mean?”
Irritation swells. “Exactly what you think it means. I never have a choice. I’m here now; isn’t that enough? Are you going to let me rot because you don’t like my answers?”
She’s not sure. She can do very little but force her way through something like normalcy while she *heals.* They keep talking about healing like it’s a path she’s on. Like it’s something with a start and therefore a finish, too.
Like they expect her healing to end and for her to be healed.
She doesn’t think it’s working.
Hermione sits in her room on the second to last day of April, staring at the sea. Harry has suffered much worse, she knows. For much longer, too. Perhaps not in exactly the same way, but he knows the *cruciatus,* knew it years ago. Has known it relatively recently. He’s lived with the knowledge that someone—probably the most terrible someone there is—has wanted him dead for his entire life, and has made multiple attempts on it.
She watches the rope shiver, dissipate, and reform in the same way it does when she steps through it. She leans her forehead against the wood. Her chest yearns in a way that hurts, that burns, that terrifies.
“Are you there?” she whispers. She regrets it the moment she asks. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Malfoy says nothing, but she knows he is. She can nearly see him, can imagine him so clearly in her mind’s eye. Just on the other side of the door. The rope sways, shifting against the ground.
“What is this?” she asks because she can’t help herself.
We’re leaving tomorrow.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him, but part of her feels compelled to. And she hates that, hates feeling like she doesn’t have complete control over her own actions, ruled by impulse, not reason. “You’re not a part of *we,* by the way,” she adds, with a matter-of-factness she knows sounds swottish and snobby, even at a whisper.
More silence.
For some reason, she needs him to know she’s leaving with Harry and Ron. That they’re going to do something stupid. Something completely reckless.
She hates that she wants to give him an explanation.
But then: “Where?
Draco approaches his window with caution, surprised to see dawn breaking over the ocean’s blue horizon. The fact that he can see anything at all confirms that the wards holding him in his room have definitely fallen.
Shock sucks the breath from his lungs.
In several deep strides, he reaches the door and throws it open. A few more steps and he’s launched himself down the stairs and into the living room.
But then he blinks and the golden cord flares to life in front of him. Suddenly, his chest feels like it’s on fire, the kind of heat that licks at his ribs and toasts his chilled core: like finding a campfire after a long night in the cold.
He sprints down the dune and stops at the cottage door.
Granger sits on the living room floor, back against a sofa leg, screaming into a pillow.
He spits the answer at her. “I was holding onto *you.”*
She pauses in her casting, sucks in a breath, and then continues again without so much as looking at him. That, of all reactions, makes it worse.
“You can’t—” she starts, breaking off, restarts. “That’s not how magic works.”
His laugh is cruel, furious. It’s been barely a month, and almost none of that time actually spent in her presence, but he’s already so fucking sick of this he could scream. This stupid circumstance has taken everything from him.
“That’s how Malfoy *soulmate* magic works, so get fucking used to it.”
He does not watch the process, and he does not watch the aftermath.
He doesn’t hear it, either. She casts a Muffliato every time. But he *knows.* Because the timer spell and the sudden shift in white noise piqued his curiosity and set off all kinds of warning bells the first time it happened. So he crept to the tent flap and he watched as Granger allowed herself a set amount of time to cry.
Granger doesn’t have to answer because the Patronus sits right in front of her in a model of obedience. Then, Ron Weasley’s voice comes out.
An ugly, terrible, entirely unwanted jealousy heats the golden cord into something molten. Draco had grown quite adept at ignoring it, but he can’t ignore this white-hot sensation. Granger’s eyes snap up to him, gazing through the translucent dog. He wonders if she felt it, too. He’d be mortified if she did. He wants to scream that it’s not *his* jealousy; he doesn’t want anything to do with it. It’s this *thing’s* fault.
It’s the last thing Hermione hears before everything goes black. She feels arms around her middle, hands gripping her waist, and she experiences a shocking sense of safety, of contentment. A strange absence of fear despite her rapidly dwindling consciousness.
Then she hits the ground.
Her head hangs at an odd angle, golden cord coiled around her, too much like a noose.
He needs to rennervate Granger. She should be conscious when they travel again. He’s not sure how close he got them to their camp, but they could definitely be closer. He pushes himself back into a sitting position and twists, hovering over her.
He stares.
He knows he’s staring.
He knows it’s weird.
He can't help it.
Has he ever had the chance to really look at her before? Certainly not from this close up. He feels the draw again, becomes aware of the golden filaments dancing between his chest and hers.
Why did it have to be her? The only person on this planet who would instantly make a traitor out of him?
Her eyes land on his cock, straining against the leg of his boxers. She makes a tiny, squeaking sort of sound and it shoots straight to the inappropriate places Draco is trying not to think about.
But it’s the kind of squeak he thinks she might make with a cock deep inside her, right at the deepest part of a thrust, hips slammed together, force pushing air and sound out of her lungs.
*Fuck* . He can’t decide if he hates or loves the fact that he’s just had that thought. More so, that he doesn’t know how much of it belongs to the magic and how much of it belongs to him.
When he steps through the tent flap he finds Granger in a panic, hair huge, stuffing their belongings into her beaded bag. She mutters to herself, flushed and frantic. His first thought should have been something like *what’s wrong,* or *what happened?*
Instead, he wonders if that’s how she flushed when she came the night before.
His next words come out slow. “If there’s really no hope…”
She can see it in how his face contorts. He has a pink welt forming on his cheek. He’s grieving for the entire world. His life, his parents, everything she imagines is dear to him. He really thinks they’ve lost. And she sees it, how she’s become his consolation prize in all that.
That’s not good enough.
“There’s still hope,” she insists.
It requires more strength than she wants it to, but her hand finds his chest. She applies pressure, pushes.
He doesn’t actually move, he’s too strong for her to actually push him away. If anything, his grip around her waist tightens in the split-second before he looks down. She watches realization, the consequences of his actions, dawn on him in real time.
He grits his teeth, practically snarls, and pulls himself away.
A *crack* cuts him off. Through the trees, Draco spots red hair.
“Hermione?”
She gasps at the sound of Ronald Weasley's voice and it ignites an entirely unwanted jealousy in Draco’s chest, ribcage on fire
George scoffs this time. “Malfoys are only on their own side. He’s never going to pick any of us over himself, Hermione. You’re starkers if you don’t see that.”
But he has. He’s picked her several times. He hasn’t been especially happy about it. But he has. And she can’t seem to verbalize any of it.
You survived.”
“It’s not so noble.”
He runs his own hand through the rope. Infinitesimally, the pressure around her heart lessens.
In the two weeks he’s spent with her, he’s learned that structure keeps her sane, keeps her going. Even if that means structuring something as impossible as grief.
She thinks as far as meltdowns go, this is a quiet one: self-contained. The sort that Harry and Ron typically never even noticed while she stared at the same page in a book for ten minutes straight, struggling to breathe. She’s not unfamiliar with this kind of panic. It happens, has always happened, but more so since the war.
What she’s not used to is having someone actually *notice* it happening.
He leans even closer, anger on his face. “I’m mad I don’t have a *choice,* Granger. Not mad that it’s you.”
But then he steps back, mouth curved into a hateful scowl. “The *best,”* he says again. “The best connection. The best... *sex.* Just. The best. Physically”—he gives her a lewd sort of up and down appraisal—“and emotionally. Perfectly complementary. That’s that we supposedly are.”
*“Supposedly.”*
“Just use that office, Granger.” He takes another step away. “Set a timer. Get yourself under control.”
“And what will you do?”
“Avoid getting hexed by your friends, I imagine.”
She looks like she’s going to kill him.
It’s a relief.
- this is giving burning god and I can’t handle it
“I didn’t really leave,” he says, and it feels ridiculous how important that statement is to him.
“You have before.”
“I have not. I’ve come back every time.”
He stops thinking. Only *does.*
His hands end up buried in her hair. So soft. Granger’s head lands against his chest and it steals his ability to breathe.
“I thought you were gone. I thought you were gone. *I thought you were gone.”* She repeats herself against his shirt. He feels filthy. He must smell, but she keeps burrowing her face into his chest. He holds her so tight he wonders if he might do damage.
How can he not do damage, being who he is?
All he wants is for her to believe him: about his family’s magic, that he can’t leave. It’s not just about *can’t* , either. He thinks the distinction between *can’t* and *won’t* is an important one. It’s blurry, but as it settles, he leans towards *won’t.* Would he leave if he could? He doesn’t think so, not now. Not after watching her survive everything she already has. Not when she needs support and no one seems to notice her needing it. And not as long as she keeps touching him, those fingers grazing his skin. Before he knows it, she’s unbuttoned half his shirt.
It reeks of sweat around them, damp and sour in the cramped office. That’s the last mostly coherent thought he really has; he’s just desperate to prove she’s not alone, that he wouldn’t leave.
And she seems desperate too. For what, he doesn’t know. He isn’t sure he cares. Not when she’s unbuckling his trousers and letting him thumb open the button on her jeans. He doesn’t breathe as he drags down her zipper, as she tilts and lets him pull them over her arse, down her thighs, bunched messily around her shins.
The cord bursts from them.
No longer just gold, but silver too. With his face pressed to Granger’s hair, he watches as it expands around them, a circle in silver and gold. His body is still on fire, singular in seeking sensation.
Clarity rushes him in a blink, realizing what they’ve done.
*The bond.*
They’ve completed it. Or, at least, partially.
This is *normal?* Do you mean I could have—that it’s possible to feel this way just—all the time? Like there isn’t something missing?”
Draco’s stomach twists. His limbs have frozen. He can’t move.
Panic *hurts.*
His life has consequences now. Consequences connected to *her.*
He grabs his wand, stands, and takes a step past her.
He turns. “Are you coming?”
She hasn’t yet.
He wants her to. He wants to *do* that to her.
He *really* has to get it together.
Her eyes close; her breath rattles when she inhales. Her gaze locks with his when she opens her eyes again. She nods, a little motion, then it grows with certainty. “I—I am. Yeah. I’m coming.”
Mechanically, as if he’s made of cogs and gears inside his joints that need oiling, he lays himself down. He forces himself to disconnect, lest it become even more absurd that he’s waited up for her. That he wants desperately to watch her read, to watch her understand. That he wants to reach out and touch her.
“I didn’t *mean* to set the wards up wrong, there was a lot going on—”
“I know. It’s fine. I’m not talking about this again.” She cuts him off and it's brutal.
Draco loves it.
“I have a villa in France—well, my family does.”
Hermione blinks. It’s almost as if he’s spoken the sentence in a different language. “Is that an invitation?”
He doesn’t look at her and his mouth pinches tighter before he speaks again. “For you. And no one else. If we survive.”
So she spends her time in the sun, sitting on the only patch of green grass left for several streets. She’s lost the energy to do much of anything else. Every conversation is a chore; her heart is too heavy to lift anything else, conversation and coordination included.
So it’s your birthday. There’s a party just for you in the Slytherin Common Room. Now what?”
Nerve, daring he’s entirely unaccustomed to, catches on the prompt she’s left wide open for him. They’re still pretending; she’s still willing.
“You show up.”
“Me?”
“You. Well, my…” *Soulmate.* What else could he want for his birthday?
Of all the things he’s ever said to her, thought to say to her, or vowed never to say to her, the next word out of his mouth is the one he thinks she needs to hear the most.
“Please?”
*Pretend.*
It had been nice. She fell into it easily because there’s something so intoxicating—more so than the liquor, she thinks, though the liquor probably played its own part—about the way it feels to not be so *alone* anymore.
*What* have you been doing in here? We couldn’t find you—and then this!” He makes a big sweeping gesture at the windows and, presumably, the magic wreaking havoc on the world beyond it. “And this room was locked and silenced. Hermione, we thought he’d taken you. Or hurt you. Or—”
“You *really* don’t want to know what I was doing to her, Weasley.”
- 😀
You’ve gotten everything,” he says, closing the door behind them.
“I just need to be certain.” She leans against the sink. Her voice is frazzled, washed out. She won’t look him in the face.
“I’m certain.”
“Well *I* need to be.”
“There’s not a square inch of this place you haven’t checked at least three times. I’m starting to get light headed from all the stairs.”
When the world rematerializes around them, golden light blinds him.
Hope has taken on a lot of forms over the last year, worn many masks and manifested in many surprising and unusual ways.
Here, now, it’s a silver light in the darkness and the prospect of not being quite so alone.
Hermione’s desperate voice floats between them. “Burn it down and I’ll go wherever you want. We can hide. I’ll stop fighting. But do this one thing—the *only* thing we can do. It’ll hurt them. And we need that.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says. Her eyes snap back to his. “You won’t stop,” he clarifies, but he’s already raising his mother’s wand. “But I’ll do it anyway.”
For the sake of knowing, and knowing without doubt, he asks one followup question before he lets himself go. “What are you choosing, exactly?”
“You. This.”
She tilts her chin up.
He leans down.
And for the first time in his life, he kisses Hermione Granger.
One kiss and he completely understands his family’s ancient magic. He would do almost anything to keep this. But he would do more to keep her.
Ahahaha holy christ.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2025
A true enemies to lovers. Not an irritated to lovers. And the slow burn. The. Slow. Burn. And NO EPILOGUE!
annotations:
-His conviction feels like leadership.
-"That's how Malfoy soulmate magic works, so get f*cking used to it."
-Brightest f*cking witch, my arse.
-Hermione Granger laughing is somehow both better and worst than Hermione Granger crying. Perhaps it's a result of how foreign such a sight is to him. Draco has never been privy to her joy before. He doesn't know her smile.
-The irony that she is actively wishing for her magic to be less effective just so that she can be right isn't lost on her. Malfoy clearly brings out all her worst qualities.
-"Couldn't wait?"
"Leave. If you wanted to. Which I think probably extends to not wanting me in danger. Would you really want me to go alone?"
It's a tricky double-blind-fake-out-reverse-psychology type of question.
-"So-could you? Leave, that is? Really and truly? Surely you must. We can't be expected to be together all the time."
"We're not probably bonded. It'll keep pulling until we are."
-Nor does she want to know, frankly, what properly bonding-heavily subtexted with him-means.
-"Don't touch me."
"Malfoy, I have to."
"You really don't."
-He's barely breathing as is, willing the warmth in his skin to stay in his leg and not ascend the scant space required for something more.
-"I still have no choice in where my loyalties lie-they just all belong to you now. Whether either of us likes it or not."
-"What time do you plan on having your cry tomorrow? I'd like to be out of here before you do."
-All he wants is for her to believe him: about his family's magic, that he can't leave. It's not just about can't, either. He thinks the distinction between can't and won't is an important one. It's blurry, but as it settles, he leans towards won't.
-He knows she knows. She watched, too, when it disappeared while they had sex. That-very not good sex he wants to fix. He has several things to prove: the magic, his pride.
-He's eighteen bloody years old and talking tot he person who is meant to be his everything.
He can talk about a f*cking orgasm.
-But I said I wouldn't leave you. I've said it since day one. I don't have much left to my name, you know. But I have my word and it's the best I've got. And even if you don't want it, I gave it to you. And so now I'm here, keeping it.
-In all this time, theirs has never been a romance.
But maybe, given a choice, it could be.
annotations:
-His conviction feels like leadership.
-"That's how Malfoy soulmate magic works, so get f*cking used to it."
-Brightest f*cking witch, my arse.
-Hermione Granger laughing is somehow both better and worst than Hermione Granger crying. Perhaps it's a result of how foreign such a sight is to him. Draco has never been privy to her joy before. He doesn't know her smile.
-The irony that she is actively wishing for her magic to be less effective just so that she can be right isn't lost on her. Malfoy clearly brings out all her worst qualities.
-"Couldn't wait?"
"Leave. If you wanted to. Which I think probably extends to not wanting me in danger. Would you really want me to go alone?"
It's a tricky double-blind-fake-out-reverse-psychology type of question.
-"So-could you? Leave, that is? Really and truly? Surely you must. We can't be expected to be together all the time."
"We're not probably bonded. It'll keep pulling until we are."
-Nor does she want to know, frankly, what properly bonding-heavily subtexted with him-means.
-"Don't touch me."
"Malfoy, I have to."
"You really don't."
-He's barely breathing as is, willing the warmth in his skin to stay in his leg and not ascend the scant space required for something more.
-"I still have no choice in where my loyalties lie-they just all belong to you now. Whether either of us likes it or not."
-"What time do you plan on having your cry tomorrow? I'd like to be out of here before you do."
-All he wants is for her to believe him: about his family's magic, that he can't leave. It's not just about can't, either. He thinks the distinction between can't and won't is an important one. It's blurry, but as it settles, he leans towards won't.
-He knows she knows. She watched, too, when it disappeared while they had sex. That-very not good sex he wants to fix. He has several things to prove: the magic, his pride.
-He's eighteen bloody years old and talking tot he person who is meant to be his everything.
He can talk about a f*cking orgasm.
-But I said I wouldn't leave you. I've said it since day one. I don't have much left to my name, you know. But I have my word and it's the best I've got. And even if you don't want it, I gave it to you. And so now I'm here, keeping it.
-In all this time, theirs has never been a romance.
But maybe, given a choice, it could be.
April 11, 2025
I really enjoyed the start of this fic, but I feel like the plot just completely changed like 50% in. It went from sort of dramione, to a lot of was and unnecessary deaths that did nothing for the story, back to sort of dramione again. I really liked the idea of the soul bond and stuff, but I just think it was executed poorly. I also really didn’t like how Draco just sort of got past all his views like it was nothing; I would have loved to see more character development. I also didn’t realize until writing this that this author also wrote Wait and Hope which I really enjoyed when I read it a few months ago, but I honestly am disappointed with how the one went
September 23, 2024
Love love love soul mate fics, I will never get tired of them. This one was so good, I liked the cord connecting them. I love a realistic war fic, people die, people get injured, some people never mentally recover. Hermione deserves whatever ending she wants, truly she's been through so much. I do wish it was drawn out a bit longer, this fic read very quickly and the ending was very fast. I don't want to stay rushed, but just fast.
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December 17, 2023A really fun soul-mate trope, a new one for me in my fanfic journey. This started out so strong but just didn’t quite get there. The ending felt pretty abrupt, the soulmate magic/bond wasn’t explored as much as I’d have liked and their relationship felt a little stunted and unsatisfying at the conclusion. Loved the writing, though, and will definitely read more from this author!
January 27, 2025
Soul bonds.
Mutual hate
True enemies to lovers
*spoiler**
***
Ugh that ending was amazing but I want more. I want an epilogue, I want to know what their lives looked like after the bond was complete.
I just want more of all of it. I think for that, it is 4.75/5 for me. I loved this so much though.
Mutual hate
True enemies to lovers
*spoiler**
***
Ugh that ending was amazing but I want more. I want an epilogue, I want to know what their lives looked like after the bond was complete.
I just want more of all of it. I think for that, it is 4.75/5 for me. I loved this so much though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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