ic inbox/voicemail

[brainiest]

 
"Hello, Hermione Granger here. I must be busy, so please leave a message. Thank you very much!" 

 

ic contact for hermione granger at eachdraidh.
(text, voice, video, action;
locket, compass, bone charm, letter, owl)

Comments

[brainiest]

[ Haven isn't just Dorian's safehouse; it's her own as well. Only the people she considers family above all else know how to get there and it's the base for so many secret things, kept from the world with magic layered over magic, more and more of herself pouring into it to protect it as much as she could. She would have to redo it, she thinks, to keep out the Unseelie, but that was a matter for another time - the ones that would visit the house aren't ones she needs to worry about any time soon.

Popping in, she stumbles a little and reaching to grab at a wall, her eyes turning down to look at the floor. Cats appear out of nowhere and brush against her legs in greeting, Godric leaping up from his place to lick at her fingertips, but she brushes them away quickly enough. She still feels tired, a little dirty, and she puts her bag down before she moves through - habit has her apparating into the basement, climbing the stairs and taking off her scarf to drop it on the sofa - or she would, if it wasn't taken.

Walking around, she shifts, kneeling in front of the sofa and reaching to touch Dorian's cheek with a soft, gentle hand, careful. She knows he's not fast asleep, not yet, but she imagines that waking up with being touched would startle him. ]

Dorian?

[depicted]

[A hand catches hers just as she touches him.]

Don't tell me: the cats are about to maul me so that their beloved Hermione can claim the sofa she so rightfully deserves as her resting place.

[And his eyes open.]

Hello, Hermione.

[brainiest]

[ She doesn't jump, just shifts a little to focus her gaze, fingers threading through Dorian's. ]

Hardly. Crookshanks might like me best, but the other two are definitely in Camp Gray. I'd accuse you of feeding them under the table if we actually had dinner together here.

[ She moves to sit down properly, drawing their joined hands down so she can put her elbow on the sofa and make herself comfortable, her smile soft and reserved for him. ]

Hi, Dorian. [ And then she hesitates. ] How are you feeling?

[depicted]

I can't lie, so I don't intend to answer that.

[A joking half-smile, proof that not all of him has been lost to what threatens him. He sits up enough to give her proper space, shifts enough to lean his shoulder against hers.]

And you, Hermione Granger? Ready to join me in some friendly consoling sex?

[brainiest]

[ She frowns even as he smiles, moving up to settle beside him, to find his hand all over again and hold it gently. Dorian doesn't want to answer her and that's fine, she can understand - she doesn't like it, considering she's sure he must be feeling the effects of the war just as she is, but she respects his word all the same.

... Still, sometimes nothing changes. ]

Did you really think that was going to happen?

[ She raises an eyebrow even as she settles to cuddle at his side better, thumb brushing his knuckles. ]

[depicted]

A boy can dream, can't he?

[At the very least, she has to let him set a kiss on her jaw. He has decided it must be so, and so it will be.

(But he closes his eyes a moment later, and the sigh that follows is long and deep.)]

[brainiest]

Of course he can, but please.

[ It's said fondly, even if her cheeks heat up a little. Will she ever get used to the strangeness of Dorian's flirting - which isn't all that strange, it's just strange to her, she supposes.

Her hand squeezes his and she shifts closer, lifting her hand to touch his cheek. ]

Dorian...

[depicted]

[With a low laugh, he raises his hand to cover the one she has set on his cheek.] Yes, Hermione?

i hate you

[brainiest]

[ Her gaze searches his, looking over his face, her head tilting for a moment before she closes her eyes and moves in, leaning her forehead against his. ]

I don't want to ask how many times, do I?

[ How many times he died. ]

[depicted]

[He lingers in it, that nearness, that intimacy. Something that does not truly belong to him, that he has no part in.

For her, he tries to smile.]

Not enough to keep me dead.

[brainiest]

[ Her hand, moving from his cheek to his neck, curls around him, thumb stroking against his jaw before she breathes out. Her other hand shifts, reaching up to touch his chest, over where his heart is. ]

I'm glad to hear that. I know you come back, but doesn't it hurt?

[depicted]

[Still and quiet, his voice stops in his throat. Ah, why is that? It isn't worth lingering over.

And yet he smiles, and speaks quietly. A bow barely brushed against its violin's strings.]

Yes.

[brainiest]

Dorian...

[ Her hand grips at his shirt, holding on to him. Hermione understands the Drabwurld now, she understands the pain, the danger, the pressure, all of it. She understands death better than she ever had, understands intimacy, loss.

It doesn't make it easier. ]

I could say a thousand things right now but I'm afraid I might just give you a lecture.

[depicted]

[She grips him, and a chill runs through him. Dorian turns aside and draws backs, so all she sees is a profile, eyes hidden in boyish curls and mouth open in an expression that refuses to be despair. Quickly, he shakes his head.]

It's not—I. [Ah, but he can't lie, can he?]

I'm used to it.

[brainiest]

[ She has no idea what he has suffered, no more than what he's told her. She doesn't understand what is running through him, the things that weigh on his mind. But the fact remains that Hermione wants to take care of him, to smother him in all the love and care inside of her. The things they had seen together, the things they had felt, the tenderness exchanged and given... She wants to indulge in that, to see him turn away from the darkness and to see him smile.

Her own memories of the Citadel coil over her and she feels her own guilt settling around her. She had fought, she had hurt, she was sure that a few people had died because of her - not just because of her indirect magic but because of her magic itself, slamming them into the ground, hurting and bleeding from what she had done, and she breathes out as she grips at him all the more. ]

That doesn't make it better. I got used to people bullying me, calling me mudblood, but that didn't make it right, did it?

[ Death upon death upon death; the suffering must be burning inside of him. Surely. ]

[depicted]

[His eyes flicker up, and he latches onto it: something outside of him, something other than himself. Something he can raise the conversation to lightheartedness with.]

I'm surprised that you didn't get used to just tormenting your bullies right back instead.

[brainiest]

[ She shakes her head, her thumb stroking over his chest through his shirt - gentle intimacy, softness, companionship, the things she knows her best friend responds to. ]

I did punch one in the face once. I duelled the other, the worst of them all, after pretending to be her to break into a bank.

[depicted]

[He raises his eyebrows, even as her expressions of affection keep him in place. His hand settles on her leg as he moves back into place.]

You've lived a very strange life, Hermione Granger. And that's from a man who everyone thinks is just a character in a book.

[brainiest]

You have no idea the stories I could tell you. I trapped a woman in a jar, once, for spying on me and writing awful things in a newspaper. I broke into a bank, the Ministry, transformed into someone else to do it, I was tortured, I rode a dragon, I fought dark witches and wizards and all because it was the right thing to do, to help my best friend.

[ Her eyes glance back up at him and it's clear what her message is, in this moment. To help her best friend she would do anything, even die. Hermione Granger would have died for Harry. ]

[depicted]

[Vengeance. Torture. Violence. Extremes. Dorian listens, and now—now it doesn't surprise him. He is not surprised to see her bring her vengeance down on one who crossed her; he is not surprised to know she has endured terrible things. Hermione Granger has a will to her, strong and unshakable, and such willful people can do and suffer anything.

It is how he is, after all.]

And even so. [Soft, along the backs of his fingernails, he traces over he side of her face and tugs hair behind her ear.] You're pure.

[Pure of heart, pure of soul.]

[brainiest]

[ Pure. Wholesome and untainted by immorality. Is that true now? Hermione Granger who has a death to her name, blood on her hands, who had seen what her mistakes had done to this world - the horror and pain her choice had caused Caer Scima. Her scar is a mark of that, is an echo of it, and she closes her eyes and tilts her face into his touch, letting him move her hair, letting him touch her; there is so much she would let Dorian do, that she would do for him.

She isn't pure, but perhaps she can let him believe that she is, that she is untouched by this world, that she's undamaged from her own. She isn't, but he can believe it. ]

Am I? [ Hermione breathes out, her eyes closed, her hand gripping at him, and the chill down her spine makes her feel lost. ] Dorian? Would you kiss me?

[depicted]

[Perhaps Dorian has a different perspective on pure. For Dorian, purity is not a morality but a quality, an element of substance. Pure gold, pure water, pure hope—pure good, and pure evil. Each of them is purity. And all purity is rare.

His fingers slide over her jaw bone. With a gentle pull, he brings their lips together. Just as asked.]

[brainiest]

[ As soon as his lips touch hers Hermione leans into it; she shifts closer, lifting herself a little so she can press into it, so she can draw him close. It's something that stems from the battle, from her losses, from the way that she's sure she isn't as pure as she once was - a desperation that comes from needing something she can't name, needing to know that she's real, that she isn't losing herself.

It's not the chaste, innocent thing she had given him months before. Instead, Hermione tilts, drawing Dorian closer, deepening the kiss. He's real, she tells herself, I'm real, we're alive and we're together. No matter how far she goes, no matter how frayed the tethers of her heart and her emotions get, she will always have him. He will always draw her back. ]

[depicted]

[Dorian understands that. Dorian needs that. He can't lie with his words, but at least he can do this. He can tell the lie of their kisses, the reassurances that this won't go away.

He needs it as much as she does right now.]

[brainiest]

[ It's everything and not enough all at once. Hermione doesn't know what she needs, really, only that she needs to know Dorian is safe, needs to know she's safe, that they're together and alive even though she's seen the life ripped from him twice now. She grips at him, leaning into the kiss as he does, offering herself to him and trying not to let her emotions betray her as surely as she knows they are.

Gentle hands shift to cup his cheeks and Hermione fights her tears, giving in to her needs for the first time in a long time. Is she using him? No, he needs this too, she thinks, a reassurance, the knowledge that they're in this together. ]