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XIII. Melancholia
There are melancholic days when the past catches up to him, the weight of his mistakes heavy, suffocating on his chest and his shrouding his mind in dark shadows. He is irritable at work, short with his coworkers, distant and distracted, jumpy at most noises, and prone to staying hidden in his office. It’s a safe space in the Ministry.
He drinks at night, enough to knock him out and to keep the nightmares, the terrified screams, at bay. The screams. Her eyes, pleading for him to do something in a near-impossible situation. He stares into the fire, his whiskey glass filling up once he’s emptied it, and until he's emptied the bottle the magic is pulling from.
Despite his hostile attitude, he craves her touch, her reassurances. He is docile when he’s with her at work, as he follows her around the Ministry, like a well-mannered and serious young boy, when they move around departments. He gently crowds her space at home, wanting, needing to be useful. Hovering when he hasn’t hidden himself away in his home office or isn’t running himself to exhaustion, to the point where he has to Apparate home, stumbling against their outdoor furniture as he arrives and walks in on newborn colt-like legs, collapsing on their emerald green suede sofa.
And when he hasn’t drunk or exhausted himself to oblivious sleep, he fucks her. He drapes himself over her back as he slides into her from behind. He kisses apologies across her shoulder blades, down her spine, his eyes closed, brows furrowed trying to block out terrible memories and the weight of feeling unworthy. He promises to do better, to be better. That he can’t believe she is here, that she is his, that he will only be hers, always. He holds on to her as though she is his lifeline. She is his lifeline. He clutches her hip as he rolls languidly against her, biting at her shoulder blade to hold on when he picks up his pace. He would crawl under her skin if it were possible. To feel what it’s like to be wholly good as she is.
Hermione doesn’t know what to do during these episodes the first few times she is thrust into his mental anguish. But she lets him trail behind her in the office, his index finger entwined with her pinky. She lets him stay in her space when he comes out of his home office. She lets him fuck her, and between their panting and all the sounds their coupling makes, she hears his gasped apologies, his sadness, his feelings of being unworthy of her, not enough, inadequate. She sometimes feels the one, two, drops of tears along her spine, hears his ragged, choked breaths against her ear. She doesn’t expect to orgasm during these days, but he never fails to make her come first, his fingers tracing heavy circles between her legs as her arms grow tired of holding her and some of his body weight off the bed, as the rest of her body yearns for the orgasm he coaxes from her.
He comes soon after her, and they collapse on the bed, into a dreamless slumber. And nights when that isn’t enough for him to dive off into sleep, he takes his time slipping out of her, his forehead resting between her shoulders as he steadies his breathing, and she turns to let him rest his head on her chest, gently running her fingers through his now wavy hair as he clings to her, until he at long last succumbs to sleep, lulled by the momentum of her inhales and exhales, and her assurances that he is good, that he is worthy, that she loves him and she is his and will only be his, always.