Chapter Text
Chapter Forty-Four
The silence from Hermione’s friends is aching. Painful.
No one is saying anything. Aside from Tillian, Faye, and Neville, everyone’s eyes are bulging out of their heads in confusion and shock. They’re watching.
Air tickles through Hermione’s hair as Draco flashes toward her, leaving Seamus to crumple in a heap on the floor. He sinks down to one knee before her, his long, slender hands cupping her cheeks and tilting her face upward. His grey eyes, normally so cold, are warm and deep. They beckon her in, urging her to be calm. To realize that she’s safe.
It doesn’t work, and she’s hyperventilating so hard that she’s seeing spots dancing over Draco’s bloodstained face.
“D-Draco, I can’t b-breathe. I—I c-can’t—I—”
“It’s all right.” He uses the soothing voice he uses during their Legilimency memory sessions, one of his hands staying against her cheek while the other smooths over the top of her cloudlike curls. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
“No, I c-can’t—she—she’s s-still here. She—”
“No, sweet girl,” he murmurs, the repetitive motions of his hand stroking her hair sending shivers down her spine. His expression, his touch, his voice, all gentle. “She’s not here. She’s never going to set foot on this estate again. I promise.”
“But I—I—”
“Just breathe for me, Granger. Try your hardest and breathe in.”
That’s it. The sentence that has never failed to calm her. Slowly, she can feel her convulsions lessening as she succeeds at gaining small bits of control. Remembers that Bellatrix isn’t here, it’s not 1998, and she’s not lying beneath a madwoman’s wand. This room is just that: a room.
Until Ron ruins everything.
“Why are you touching her like that?! Why is he—no, Harry! Let go of me! Why the Hell is he touching her and calling her…that?”
Harry’s trying to hold him back, and Seamus has passed out. “Ron, knock it off. Knock it off! Neville, please come help with Seamus, will you? Ron!”
“Get your slimy hands off of her, Malfoy! Quit talking to her like that! You disgusting, lying, manipulating git!”
The warmth in Draco’s eyes falters, but flares back to life. He ignores the chaos. He doesn't break eye contact with Hermione, doesn't stop touching her. His thumb caresses her left cheekbone, swiping through the tear track.
“There’s a good girl,” he says. “Just keep breathing. You can do it. In and out.”
“Are you two together?!” Ron shouts, his face flushing crimson. “What the fuck?! Let go of me, Harry, or I'll—”
Faye saves the day.
“Shut up, Ron! Just shut up! They’re just friends. Don’t be absurd.” Her eyes lock with Hermione’s before she glares up at Ron in frustration. “He’s comforting her better than you ever could!”
“Faye…” Tillian says, standing behind her knelt form and placing his hand on her shoulder.
“No, Tillian!” she cries. “No! I’m tired of acting like everything is okay! I’m sorry, I know you’re all Hermione’s friends, but you have no idea what it was like for us before we got here! You don't know what it was like for us in the pit. Day in and day out, waiting to bloody well die! They were just hiding out, comfortable in a house and then a manor, safe as can be. And now he's screaming and shouting like Hermione belongs to him, or something, when the only man I see comforting her is Malfoy!”
“What?” Harry yells. “A pit?! What do you mean, a pit?!”
Faye blanches. “I mean, in the forest. We fell into a pit in the forest, and Malfoy found us. He saved us. He saved Hermione. Of course she would find friendship and comfort with him. Of course he would have terms of stupid endearment, especially when she's sobbing and panicking right in bloody front of you, and all you're doing is throwing a fit!”
“And who the bloody Hell are you to tell me how I need to comfort my girlfriend?!" Ron snarls.
Faye explodes.
“She’s not your fucking girlfriend!”
Tillian drops down beside her, pulling her into his arms, whispering comforting words of his own. Hermione’s never seen Faye this upset. This undone. Harboring these feelings must have been overwhelming for her, until her own volcano of pain erupted.
Ron starts to yell, which makes Harry yell, too. Neville tries to calm everyone down, and Ginny’s tearing at her hair.
The consternation does nothing to help Hermione’s anxiety. In fact, it only makes her sobbing begin anew, her words growing more stilted and frantic. She’s melting down, the magma of shame and terror burning through her skin and into her heart.
This was a mistake. Coming into this room was a mistake.
“Stop! What are you doing? Stop!” Draco grabs onto her wrists, yanking them away from where she’s unconsciously been punching violently at her chest. It hurts. “Granger, stop!”
“I want it gone!” Hermione shrieks, her fingers grasping at the front of his torn black shirt. “I want this room gone! I want it gone!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Draco says softly, as though chiding her. “I’ll destroy it. It’ll be gone. Shh. Just keep breathing.”
“I want it gone, Draco, please.”
“I will take care of it. Don’t worry. Anything you want.”
Hermione takes several deep, choking gasps. “Get rid of it. Get rid of it!”
“We’re going to get rid of it. Right, Ginevra?”
Ginny, who had been creeping closer, drops to her knees on the other side of Hermione. It effectively cages her in on three sides: Faye and Tillian, Ginny, and Draco.
“The whole room, Hermione,” she says, her voice tremulous and eyes watering. “I’ll make sure he gets it all.”
Hermione hiccups and sniffles, imploring Ginny with just her gaze. “All of it?”
“Yes, all of it.”
“There,” Draco says and for the first time since Christmas, she sees the corners of his lips turn upward. A smile, in his own way. “See? She’ll make sure every last stone is obliterated. Okay?”
Another sniffle, and Hermione wipes at her face with the back of her hand. Her breaths alternate between slowing and hitching. “Okay.”
“There’s a good girl.” There’s no mistaking the relief that flickers through his raincloud eyes. “Now, come here. Come to me.”
His arms slide around her as he pulls her in. Hermione allows herself to collapse against his chest, her back braced by his leg as he stays kneeled on the other. Draco envelops her, one hand on the side of her head, the scent of blood and smoke almost a comfort on their own. She closes her eyes and slowly, ever-so-slowly, she begins to breathe again.
“Why would he destroy an entire room in the manor for her?!” Ron says, furious. “That’s barmy! And you expect us to think—”
Ginny whips her wand out.
“Silencio!” Her brown eyes blaze with fury as she challenges her older brother, sounding for all the world like a miniature Molly Weasley. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you, Ronald Weasley. This isn’t about you. And Harry Potter, quit flapping your lips before I silence you, too!”
“Where were you?” Hermione says to Draco, her voice hoarse.
“You know where I was, love,” he says quietly. “In Greece.”
“You Apparated all the way from Greece?” Neville says, sounding curious as he approaches. “That’s fascinating.”
“But where were you?” Hermione says, tears continuing their steady drip. She’s reaching the catatonic stage, where her words will fight to escape her. “You’re always gone.”
Ginny flicks her wand again, before he can reply. The smell of blood and smoke disappears as she vanishes it from Draco’s body.
“Sorry.” Ginny looks sheepish. “I just…the blood…we don't know whose it is. I don't want to trigger Hermione more, you know?”
“Thank you,” Draco says, his tone formal yet familiar. Hermione supposes it’s because he and Ginny have had conversations, as she’d told her before. Perhaps even a bit of a friendship. “Granger, I’m taking you upstairs, all right?”
“Okay.”
“Ginevra.” Draco arches his eyebrow in her direction. “I trust you can handle this?”
Ginny’s back straightens. “Of course. I’ll call Pinky for help.”
“And we can help, too,” Faye says.
Draco gives her a curt nod, and then he sneers in Seamus, Ron, and Harry’s direction. “Call Dipsy and Moe to deal with Finnegan.”
“Got it,” Ginny says. “You’d better get her out of here.”
Draco doesn’t need to be told twice.
There’s a pulling sensation in Hermione's belly, and the drawing room twists away for what she hopes is the last time.
Draco helps her into his bed. The wards on his room are the only ones that he seems certain Ron and the others won’t be able to break into.
“Just sleep for a little while,” he says, holding the duvet back for her. “When you wake up, call for Pinky and she’ll bring you some tea.”
Hermione frowns, remaining seated upright. “Don’t leave.”
Draco lets out a heavy sigh, combing his fingers backward through his hair. It’s clean now that Ginny’s spell took care of it, but when Hermione looks at it, all she can see is blood.
“I can’t stay, Granger. The fact that I’ve been gone this long is already suspicious.”
Hermione can’t help it. She’s exhausted emotionally and mentally, and she just wants him to be honest with her for fucking once.
She bursts into a fresh wave of tears.
“No, no, no,” Draco says, sitting down beside her on the bed. “Shh. Don’t cry, okay?”
“Why do you keep leaving?” she wails. “I don’t understand.”
“I told you—”
“No! Before today! You left on Christmas, and I’ve barely seen you the last two days!”
“Granger.” He scowls and his head tips back, thudding against the headboard.
“I told you that you had me. That I was yours.” She reaches up and grabs his chin, forcing him to look her in the eyes. She can see he’s trying to build his Occlumency walls even thicker. “I promised you that wouldn’t change.”
“I know.” His teeth are gritted.
“Then what do I need to do to prove it to you?!”
“...I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to tell them about us? Is that it?"
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then what is the problem, Draco?!”
Draco is up and out of the bed in a flash, looming over her and glaring down at her.
“I’m not a fool, Hermione,” he hisses, and she sees his fangs. “There is no amount of good deeds that will make me worthy in their eyes. I could defeat the Dark Lord with my own bare hands, and still they’d never accept me. I’ll never be anything more than my past to them and now that I’ve fucking exposed what I am, Lupin and Shacklebolt will lose trust in me. McGonagall will make sure that when this is all over, I’m kept away.”
“They would never do that! You being a vampire doesn’t change who you are on the inside, Draco. It has no bearing on the impact of the choices you make. You’ve made good choices, and—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does!”
“Don’t you get it? You don’t need me anymore, Granger. When you thought they were dead, this life was all you had. Now you have hope. A future.” Hermione can see his walls cracking, his chest beginning to heave. His gaze devours her. “I was a replacement. A poor fill-in for the life you really want.”
“Draco!” she scolds, rising to her knees on the bed. She grasps the sides of his face. “You’re not a replacement. Don’t say that.”
“Tell me you would have chosen this life!” He’s shouting now, and he wrenches her hands away. “Tell me that in a world where the war was never lost, you would have willingly chosen to live here at the manor as my fucking blood source while I took you to parties and pretended you were my prisoner. Go on and say it.”
Hermione can lie when she needs to.
But not to him.
So she says nothing. Because no one would choose this life. Nobody would choose to have horrific nightmares strategically placed into pockets that tucked-away good memories left behind. No one would choose to have a vampire feed off of them, to lose their faculties and require them to offer prior consent for the “just-in-case.” In a world where the Dark Lord never won, Hermione would never have chosen Draco.
The second the words enter her thoughts, she regrets them. The cracks in his Occlumency walls—the cracks she longs to see rip open—start to close. To fill in again. To close himself off to her.
“Exactly,” he snaps. “That is exactly what I thought. What I already knew. Spare me the indignity of having to hear it.”
“Why can’t you see who you are, Draco?” she asks sadly. “You said the war was lost. That means you were never on the wrong side. That you see yourself as more than what you think you’re doomed to be. Don’t you see?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing of the way I feel about myself, or anything else in my worthless fucking life!”
“Stop this, Draco! You stop it right now!” Hermione clambers out of the bed and stands up in front of him. “Just because I have my friends back, doesn’t mean they’ll take the place of you! You said you’d give me anything I wanted? Well, why can’t I have them and you? Why can’t I have both?!”
“Because you’re still all I have, Hermione!” He drags her hands away from his face and steps back. He’s rebuilding his walls, and it’s only moments before he’s gone. She might not get him to fumble again. “While you have your friends, I have you. It’s only you. And I know how this is going to end.”
Hermione’s blood has gone cold. She stares at him with wide eyes and if her brown skin could go pale, she knows it would. What he’s insinuating is as horrifying as it is impossible. She'll never allow it.
She will never allow him to walk away from her without a fight.
“How is it fair for you to ask me to wait to lose you?” Though a normal person’s voice would have shook, Draco’s Occlumency enables his to remain steady. To hide the depth and truth of his pain. “How is that fair, when you have so much and I have so little?”
The hurt ripples through Hermione.
Of course.
She should have known her feelings weren’t returned.
“So what was Christmas night then?” she breathes out, wrapping her arms around herself. “Did that mean nothing to you? Or were you just trying to get one last usage out of me before—”
“Stop! Fuck!” Draco turns away from her, one hand on his hip and the other covering his mouth. “That’s not—no. No, that’s not at all what I meant.”
“Then what is the point of all this, Draco?! What is the point of taking risks for me if you’re just going to dangle what I want in front of me and take it away?!”
“Are you happy?”
Hermione blinks, taken aback at the question. “You already asked me this.”
“And I’m asking you again.” He storms toward her, and her shoulders draw up defensively as he nears. “Are you fucking happy, Hermione?”
“Yes.”
“That is the point.”
She opens her mouth to reply when all-of-a-sudden, he growls and jerks back, grabbing his arm.
“I told you I needed to go,” he says, bitterness tinging his voice like an echo. “Who knows who has it out for me? Any one of them could have sent word to the Dark Lord that I disappeared, and now he’s calling me.”
Like a wild animal that’s been stuck through with an arrow, Hermione lashes out.
“Sorry that I had a panic attack, then. Next time, I’ll tell myself to stop and that’ll solve it all. No need for you to care.”
His gaze lingers upon her, neither of them speaking in the harsh silence. There’s not an ounce of emotion—not anger, not affection, not sadness, not confusion. Nothing. She might as well have told him the sky was blue. Once again, she’s jealous of him. Envious of his ability to retreat and hide from everything that hurts so much.
To feel the comfort there is to find in emptiness.
CRACK.
Yet again, he’s gone.
Not even two seconds later, a knock sounds at Draco’s bedroom door, ruining her plans to cry herself into that nap. Wiping her eyes quickly, she walks over to it, wondering how the person knew she was in here.
“Who is it?” she calls through the wood.
“Ginny.”
Hermione opens the door to see Ginny standing there, looking disheveled and covered in soot. There’s determination in her expression, showing Hermione exactly what she’s going to say before she says it. When she says her next words, Hermione knows it’s time.
“I want to know everything.”
It takes a solid two hours.
A solid two hours of Hermione talking at Ginny, telling her everything that has happened to her since the final battle. Ginny listens with wide, horrified eyes, shocked into complete silence. Hermione starts at the beginning—from her journey with their deceased friends, her time in the pit with Tillian and Faye, the night Draco brought her home and gave her the ultimatum non-choice, the first feeding, Lucius and Carrow discovering her, agreeing in advance to be tortured in front of the Dark Lord, the visit to Charon Palace, and all the way up until the moment Hermione saw Harry on Christmas night. She pours her heart out, just like she did with Faye weeks ago, and the weight of her shame lifts as her tale comes to a close. Once it’s out, she can breathe better. Deeper.
“...and now, there’s only a day-and-a-half until the New Year’s Eve party at the Carrow estate. The party that I’ll have to find some way to explain to Harry and the others that I’m going to, without them finding out what it is. I have no idea what I’ll be asked to do at this party, or what Draco might be forced to do, so I'm going to consent to everything and anything beforehand, as long as he doesn’t use the necklace. Though, he forgot that little stipulation at the last party, and that’s because his ego is the size of Spain.”
“Fuck, that’s…” Ginny says, shaking her head in awe. “Bloody Hell.”
“You’re telling me,” Hermione mutters.
Ginny’s quiet while she processes the information Hermione’s just assailed her with, and Hermione remains patient while she does so. Something inside of her tells her that Ginny is not the enemy, and that she probably should have trusted her sooner.
“Are you two together?” Ginny asks, words blunt but curious.
“I don’t…know. We had a row.” Hermione takes a deep breath. “But I do have strong feelings for him.”
“Okay.” Ginny nods, much like Neville had nodded to himself as he absorbed what he’d seen. “What was the row about?”
“He uses Occlumency to function, likely to even get out of bed in the mornings, and he stuffs every feeling he has away behind those walls. Getting through to him in any capacity takes monumental effort, I promise you.”
“How’s he doing that without imploding?!”
“I know, right?” Hermione hangs her head between her hands. “The worst part is that I know he’s going to explode one day. It’s almost inevitable. And what happens when he does? Who’s he going to hurt? Himself? Me? One of you? He’s going to make himself into an Obscurial, I swear.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he do all these incredibly dangerous, risky things for you if he doesn’t want to be with you?”
“Because he’s a nutter!” Hermione says, half-laughing, half-hysterical. “What you need to understand—what everyone needs to understand—about Draco is that he really, truly hates himself. He has one of the lowest self-esteems I have ever encountered in a person. He started using Occlumency years ago and the longer he used it, the more dangerous it got to drop it. He refuses to let go of his self-hatred, and has convinced himself that the worst is going to happen. That you’re all going to poison me against him, and that McGonagall is going to make sure he stays away from me now that everyone knows what he is.”
“Well, who’s fault is that, then?” Ginny cries, angrily throwing her hands up into the air. “It’s his! It’s not your fault he decided to treat everyone around him like rubbish when we were in school. He’d have friends if he didn’t think it was funny when people cried. If he hadn’t been such a bully, things would be different for him, wouldn’t they? And if he’d get out of his own arse, he’d see that he does have friends. Or at least, people who care about him besides you. Faye adores him like an older brother. I’m actually sort-of fond of him, especially after seeing how he treated you in the drawing room. Harry respects him, and for Harry, respect is the way into his good graces. I can’t speak as to how everyone feels, but I’ve noticed Cho thawing toward him recently. Anthony Goldstein might be close behind—I caught him thanking Malfoy for agreeing to send a letter to his Muggle family overseas.”
“He doesn’t get that. He seems to think the only solution to the problem that is his existence is making amends by buying me whatever I want, and self-flagellation.”
Ginny rolls her eyes. “Why does that not surprise me? Doesn’t he realize that not everyone is going to like you? It’s okay to be liked by some, and disliked by others.”
“I just don’t know what to do, Ginny. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done at all.”
“There must be something. Some way of helping him to see that he has people who care.”
“When you find it, do be sure to let me know. Draco doesn’t seem to think he’s worth caring about.”
The two girls are quiet for a few moments before Ginny’s grimace darkens the atmosphere.
“What is it?” Hermione asks.
“Ron. I barely convinced him that you and Malfoy weren’t together, or involved. It’s the fact that it’s so absurd of a notion that I finally got him to change his stance. But when he finds out…”
“If.”
“Yes, if he finds out, there’ll be Hell to pay. Malfoy will—”
“Kill him, yes. He won’t stand a chance. Even if you all banded against him, he’s so bloody fast that you’d barely have the time to blink.” Hermione’s heart skips a beat. “Not that I would ever want you to hurt him or fight against him, but…if he attacked you…”
“We’d have to be able to defend ourselves.”
“Right.”
Ginny tilts her head to the side. “Don’t you feel a little betrayed?”
“Betrayed? For what reason?”
“Well, because it took him so long to tell you we were alive. Before I knew you two had a romantic thing going on, I figured it was just normal Draco Malfoy behavior. Being a bully, making things hurt. Why did he wait so long?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Because he’s selfish. Think about it…he’s convinced you’re going to want nothing to do with him eventually. He believes that we—Harry, I, and the others—will have a hand in it. He found us a month ago, Hermione. He didn’t have to bring us here physically, but he could have at least told you. Orchestrated a Floo call. Sent an owl. Something.”
Realization washes over Hermione’s psyche, colder than the winter snow. Harry, Ron, the others—they were alive and in his care, and he hadn’t said a word. Her mind reels, searching for an excuse, a reason, but the truth stares back at her, undeniable. He hadn’t told her because he wanted to keep her here, with him. Selfishness—pure, calculated selfishness—had kept him silent, prolonging their time together.
“He wanted more time with me.”
“Yes. I think he wanted more time with you, because he thinks that if someone says the right thing, you won’t want him anymore.”
Hermione is surprised. She’s not as angry as she thought she’d be. The visit to Charon couldn’t be avoided, but the others? They could have.
But she knows. She’s seen him beside himself, terrified that she’ll be taken away from him, spirited away by Carrow or the Dark Lord. That fear doesn’t balk where her friends are concerned. Draco is frightened of them, too.
“But,” Ginny says.
“But?”
“But I don’t think it’s bad selfishness. If he had no intention of telling you about us, we wouldn’t be here right now. He’s scared you’ll leave, but he brought us to you anyway, and I think when people are scared to lose someone, they do selfish things sometimes—I would know. In the end, he brought us here to you, even though he fears the result. What do you think that says?”
Hermione remembers what happened to make Ginny think this way. Harry had broken up with Ginny before they went on the hunt for Horcruxes and even though Ginny had wanted to stay together, he knew that it was best to free her from himself before he left and possibly died. He believed that it would have been selfish for him to stay, when in reality, it would have been selfish to make her think he didn’t have feelings for her in case he died. She’d be left loving a ghost that she believed didn’t care about her. In that respect, Draco and Harry are the same.
They both made selfless choices that have selfish consequences.
“I don’t know,” Hermione says, “but if I don’t get through to him…I’m afraid he’ll make it so I never see him again. And I honestly can’t think of anything worse.”