Disclaimer: I do not own anything; everything belongs to Mrs. Rowling.

Original French title: Ces matins-là

Author & translator: Amy

Rating: T for war and angst, no lemon

N/A: This story began with a challenge, from my dearest friend Giselle Levy. I was supposed to write a very good Dramione (according to her standards) in less than 10 pages.

I succeeded (according to her and other French readers). So now I've decided to translate it in order to share it with English speakers! So I hope you'll enjoy it as much as French people had, and that my own translation won't be too bad.

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ABOUT A TIE

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She's been watching him for weeks now, and the boy she was discovering day after day shared nothing with the vile snotty-nosed brat she had met during her first year, seven years ago.

Time had run away, bringing with him so many fights… War had literally destroyed him, and so was she. Friends, parents, brothers, and civilians had died just in front of them. They had killed, hurt, even tortured, and nothing remained the same anymore.

She was watching him live, or rather fight against his daily life, and she has been feeling such a weird surge of affection toward this young man she did not really know after all. He was pretending while clenching his jaw, trying not to show anything, but the brightness in his grey eyes had vanished in thin air long ago. His pride was gone, his oversized ego had flown off, and his Pureblood prejudice had crashed at his feet. This man was left for dead on the dusty cold floor of the school's square, betraying father, mother and blood to save his own puny skin. This boy had lost everything after Voldemort's fall. No more family, home, fortune, nor friends. He was now alone, lonely and destroyed, irremediably deprived of everything that had made his life.

His yesteryear life.

Another time, when Hermione was smiling with Harry and Ron around her, a time when they could insult the Slytherins and keep laughing about it, a time when their main concerns were about exams, grades or their next outing in Hogsmeade. Another life when nobody was missing on the school benches, and when the wonderful castle called Hogwarts was still whole and crowded with carefree students.

The war hadn't only destroyed minds. Battles raging between its walls had really wounded the marvelous British school: the whole west wing had been ruined, blown off and burned by deadly spells. The Gryffindor tower was down, and the only remains of the Ravenclaw dormitory were ashes, and some pieces of blue fabric from what had once been banners and flags. During the reconstruction, the whole organization had to be revised, and so Hufflepuffs were now hosting their friends from Ravensclaw, while the snakes were forced to share their room with the lions.

However, despite all thoughts, it wasn't that bad and nobody was really bothered. Houses' little rivalries had faded away: everyone was too busy licking his wounds to care any longer about those kinds of childishness. Digs and barbs between Slytherins and Gryffindors were just some kind of old habit they still used to give themselves illusions that everything was back to normal. Anyway, classes had been decimated and rooms were abandoned.

In the house of Gryffindor, only Seamus Finnigan, Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger and Parvati Patil – plus her twin at Ravensclaw – had returned in seventh year. No other student was willing to come back to finish the year after the end of the war. Some were burying their beloved ones, such as the Weasleys; while others were burying their smiles and hopes, digging through their own darkness, trying to figure things out away from the battle scars. Harry was one of those.

Slytherin was the most wounded house. Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy were the last three of their year, either because they'd betrayed their parents' fundamental believes, or because no link could have been established between them and Death Eaters. This was such a disaster.

Within the youngest, a lot hadn't come back, waiting for the following year, when things would be stable and normal again before returning to school. The Great Hall was almost empty, to the point that dinner was now served at only one table, instead of the usual four. Classes had started over again, within after-war silence and mourning, the youths sticking together as one united and desperate team. They were looking for each other, watching for laughs to come, seeking for human heat, as if they needed to prove themselves they were still alive. They had come back to school to graduate of course, but mostly because they didn't want to stay home, turning over in their minds the same old memories about war and blood; because they didn't want to suffer one more year of classes in this wounded school. Most of them were hooking on this year at Hogwarts because of pain, despair, and because they had nothing else to do. Ghosts made of flesh and bones were haunting the hallways.

X X X

Hermione raised her eyes from the Transfiguration essay she had been writing for hours. Her own personal ghost had just returned.

Draco barely glanced at her while he swung his bag onto the black couch, heading toward the bathroom. She sighed. He had been acting like this for weeks, not even saying a word, greeting her or waving a hand. He came, slept, washed himself, then left again, shared his lessons and meals, but he wasn't speaking at all.

As they were Head Boy and Girl at Hogwarts this year, they had to share the only suite that has been saved from Hogwarts' disaster. Refurbished, what was once a huge suite was now divided into two smaller rooms, one for each of them. In order to avoid any misguided intrusion when the young woman was showering, their bathroom was protected by what seemed to be a thousand spells, and the bath had been removed to increase the size of their living room. The chairs were soft such as the black sofa, the fireplace was keeping the place warm, the furniture were made of dark wood and a thigh crimson-red carpet leaned on the floor. This living room was warm and smart, and far much hospitable than the grey, frozen atmosphere of the Slytherin's common room Hermione hated. Anyway, she preferred this quiet place where she could focus more easily on her work while escaping the strained chats her classmates were having inside their dormitories. Draco was not a roommate too hard to bear, considering who he used to be only a few months ago.

Coming out from the bathroom, he settled down in front of her and started working on his own homework. He looked pale and tired, his gaze dull and his gestures feverish.

He thought she wasn't noticing. But her friends had always rewarded Hermione for her amazing deductive skills. Of course she knew he was suffering. She had just no idea of what his life could have been like under the reign of the Black Lord, even though she had already glimpsed at the dark mark drawn on his forearm, and the huge scars network surrounding it. Sometimes, he scratched it thoughtfully.

For the last few weeks, Draco has been trying not to drown onto his own darkness, to keep himself as close from reality as he could. In her heart, she felt that nothing mattered to him anymore, his mother was waiting for her trial, locked up in Azkaban, his father had no chance to escape a lifetime sentence in the black fortress, and as if things were not dark enough to him, all his fortune and inheritance had been taken away by the Ministry. He owned nothing left, and if he was staying in Hogwarts, it was only because the idea of burying himself alive onto the house of some much unknown cousins with questionable political choices disgusted him even more.

So, he was gritting his teeth. His pride was his armor, letting nothing of his pain and bitterness filter out. To the Mudblood his father hated so much, he was not giving a single word. Yet, he was sniggering and whispering as much as he used to with Parkinson and Zabini during Potions, carrying on showing off and mocking people while he was in public. That wasn't sounding right. You were no longer allowed to use the old insults, everything concerning blood and ascendance. It was taboo, recalling back too much of the war memories or the past events still fresh in their minds. They were trying to forget. And all those little tricks had turned dull and old-fashioned with nobody willing nor having the strength to respond. Day by day, Draco was fighting to succeed in class, smiling to Pansy's obvious flirt, laughing at Zabini's lame jokes, staying polite with their teachers while keeping his appearance perfect as always, uniform clean and hair straightened back.

Draco was doing his best to keep up appearances.

Because as soon as he was back into the privacy of their little apartment, Hermione was seeing everything. His burnouts when he was savagely slamming doors, his anxiety attacks she heard through the walls at night, and his lethargic crisis when he was staying still, without moving or speaking, just blinking at the ceiling while brooding over the same old thoughts.

She was watching him giving up on combing his hair when he refused to get out. Most of the time, the Draco who shared her room was a total stranger, hair down on his grey eyes and dressed like a tramp, with oversized jumpers and sweatpants down on his hips. He was anything but aristocratic during those little crises of his. His arrogance and self-confidence mask was falling down, and Malfoy started being a normal guy, who was collapsing every time he stumbled, spending his day watching his own behavior and falling apart as soon as night came like an exhausted kid.

He wasn't looking at her, he wasn't speaking to her, but still, she was observing him.

Day after day, week after week.

She was drawing in her mind this man she did not recognized, and she was learning to know him unwittingly. Her heart was beating hard in her chest when those sad grey eyes met her owns, in the course of a meal, a gesture, a sigh. Those deep grey eyes once made of ice and now made of ashes, screaming in the void of a silent head with no one to hear them.

"Malfoy", she asked suddenly, "Should I order our meals to be served in our room tonight? I will never finish this Transfiguration essay on time if we get down. It is incredibly hard."

The quill stopped scratching the parchment. He slowly nodded without even lifting it up slightly. None of them felt brave enough to face the Great Hall at dinner.

X X X

"Malfoy, I forgot my Potions notes, can I borrow yours?" The slip of a sheet. "Thank you".

"Malfoy! Your tie!" A holding hand. With a slight smile, she gave him his green tie. Not even a thank you. She got used to it.

"Malfoy, I found your bloody socks under the couch!" A sigh. Socks flew across the room toward their owner.

"Malfoy, for god's sake, clean this bathroom!"
He muttered a spell and the ceramic tiles were now glowing. "Moron", she mumbled before slamming the door.

"Malfoy, give me my Charms notes back! »

"Malfoy, I'm getting sick of your socks! And you forgot your tie again! »

X X X

Once again, they were dinning silently. Alone, facing each other in the privacy of their small living room. She didn't really know why she was staying with him when he refused to go down in the Great Hall at dinner. Something deep inside her chest was reluctant to leave him on his own, even though she didn't really know what she was afraid of. He didn't need her, after all.

However, when she was catching the casual move of his hand through his hair that destroyed his impeccable hairstyle without him caring; when she was hearing him sighing with anger on a particularly difficult work; when she was seeing the still red and white scars on his hands and arms; when her eyes were meeting the burning quicksilver of his, she was feeling herself being overwhelmed by an unexpected wave of compassion towards him and thus she was staying. Because she knew he was terribly lonely, and she tried to convince herself that if life would thrown her into such a situation, she would have appreciated someone's presence on her side, even if this would have been synonym of silence and coldness.

And Draco wasn't speaking at all, eating in a deep silence without lifting his eyes up from his plate, but when he seemed to be in a good mood, he vaguely waved at her before slamming his room's door shut.

And Hermione was respecting his reserve, cleaning the table to help the House-elves, wishing him goodnight before spending her own listening to his moans and cries in his sleep.

She could have launched a Silencing Spell on the walls of her room, she could have forgotten his screams and slept peacefully, but she couldn't reconcile herself doing it. She felt, in a certain way, guilty for not being able to do anything, and so she would have felt even guiltier if she would have cut herself from his anxiety attacks on purpose just too sleep quietly.

Consequently, her sleep was troubled for months.

Thinking about him. About how much he might feel lonely, lost in the middle of his empty life, in the shadows of his nights. She was really trying to find the right words to comfort him, but she knew how useless this would be. Then, she was writing letters to Ron and Harry until late in the night, telling them everything was okay, that Malfoy was still the same arrogant moron he used to be, and that she was missing them both a lot.

X X X

"Damn it, Malfoy, stop leaving your bag lying anywhere around! I'm gonna get hurt one day because of you!"

"Malfoy, your tie is over here…"

"Malfoy, didn't you borrow my Arithmancy notes?"

"Malfoy, SOCKS!"

X X X

And suddenly, one day, she wasn't hearing him anymore in her sleep. There was nothing at night to disturb her dreams. She found it hard to admit, but she was worried.

Had he decided to finally drink a Sleeping Potion? Or had his nightmares stopped? Had he now affixed a Silencing Spell on his room? Nothing had changed within his behavior. He was still forgetting his tie every morning, leaving bags and socks lying around everywhere in a mess, brushing carefully his hair before leaving and still wasn't speaking.

They worked side by side, had class according to the same schedule, and ate together at dinner quite often. A kind of a lull routine was settling between them, punctuated by Hermione's exasperated comments and Draco's weary gestures. She got used to his restless nights, to his groans through the darkness. In a certain way, they proved he was still alive, still filled with emotions, even as unpleasant as fear. Now, she was really feeling like she was living with a ghost.

Dim, pale and excessively quiet.

X X X

On that very morning, he hadn't closed the bathroom's door.

On that very morning, she hadn't paid attention, late as she was, and she had forgotten to knock at this door.

On that very morning, the fragile harmony they'd managed to build collapsed.

She pushed the door in a rush and stopped right on the threshold: he was bare-chested, fasting his pants on. She could only see his back.

And so happened what shouldn't have. She saw what she wasn't supposed to see, something he had never shown to anyone and probably never would have.

His back was all bruised, from his neck to his back curve. Scars were twisting every single torn muscle, covering his entire skin with an awful network of painful lines. Some contusions, which had turned greenish, were still hanging to his shoulders. An old swollen wound was splitting his back onto two, spreading from his shoulder to his left hip, following the curve of his waist, huge and stripped with white and red all along. Others were smaller, colored from milky white to the specific deep purple of recent injuries, ripping the skin, slashing the thorn body that used to be perfect of the so-called Prince of Slytherin.

Scars were outlined against his back, his arms and probably against his chest too, on an awful and abject puzzle, full of pain, tears and blood, forever carved in his flesh.

She used to think that Draco Malfoy had suffered. Yet, at this very moment, this very morning, she realized, gazing in shock and horror at her partner, how deeply she had been mistaken this whole time.

He hadn't just suffered. He had been meticulously destroyed, dislocated, broken by the Dark Lord, piece by piece; tortured until he nearly died in order to serve the tantrums of pure evil. Moreover, his father might have assisted to this, collateral victim from the madness of the Lord, too coward and too scared to even blink an eye.

It must hurt so much… He must be screaming every time his clothes would graze his bare skin; every movement must be such a constant torture, costing him so much energy to hide the pain and delete it from his face.

She suddenly felt the terrible desire to touch him, to touch this wounded back, to brush gently the skin with her fingertips. To draw the scars again with her finger, and cover this huge gash with her cold and shaking palm, as if it could calm the fire burning under his skin.

Before she could even move, he turned to face her, and she distinctly saw his face twisting with rage and anger while he jumped onto her and grabbed her wrist. She was willing to scream, telling him not to be mad at her, but the dangerous glare in his frozen gaze strangled the words within her throat. His mouth was crooked with hate and disgust – against who? against what? – while he was crushing her arm with so much strength she felt tears filling her eyes.

She expected him to speak, roar or even yell.

She only got a panting breath filled with anger, and a door slammed right in her face after he'd thrown her out with violence.

That Malfoy, this face made of rage and pain, it was definitely the Malfoy forged by the war.

He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, his tie and hairstyle as perfect as ever. He walked faster that usual, and crossed her path without a glimpse, taking his bag before leaving. She tried to catch his arm to hold him back for a second, but he freed himself as if she was just an annoying insect on his way. And then again, the door slammed.

And Hermione burst into tears from horror and pain, she cried for this dry-eyed boy with the War drawn on his skin. She cried for this man who was avoiding his own reflection in the mirror and was shaking from anger if someone was willing to remove his T-shirt. This man who must be afraid of anyone's look because he knew how awful was his wounded, untouchable body.

This Draco who was avoiding Pansy's insistent flirt because he didn't want her to touch him, to even see him.

She was crying for him and the hours of torture he must have endured. She cried for a long time, thinking about the white network of scars on this sculptural body, which used to be perfect.

Once upon a time, in a world without war.

In spite of everything, Hermione couldn't feel distaste for this ravaged flesh. She had not been really looking at Malfoy before. He was blond-haired, with grey eyes, and probably handsome as much as perfectly shaped under his shirt. She never noticed it before. It was still Malfoy, the arrogant bastard who has been making their lives in Hogwarts a living hell since their very first day.

That day, under the dim and cold light of the bathroom, she discovered Draco. The man beneath the aristocrat. A perfect shaped body, head held high, the sensual curve of his back. The scars, his neck bending under the weight of painful memories, pain raging behind his anger, his sorrow for being so weak and hideous in front of her, this nasty Mudblood who was friend with Harry bloody-Potter.

There was someone under the shell. A human being who had suffered like everyone else around, maybe even more. And somewhere deep inside her chest, a new feeling started to grow, blooming in her veins, hurting the fence of her rationality. So, confident but careful, the snake coiled up in her guts and waited for his time to come.

X X X

"Malfoy, I— "

"Malfoy, listen –"
A brief sigh.

" Malfoy, your tie…"

His fingers avoided the contact of her hand, and her heart tightened in response.

"Malfoy, I just wanted to tell you –"
The door slammed.

"Malfoy, take away your socks, please… "
Her voice sounded exhausted, sad. Broken.
One of his eyebrows lifted while he picked up his stuff. Maybe she was not that fine, after all.

"Malfoy, look, I'm sorry." He stopped his fork halfway to his mouth. "About the other day… I didn't mean to… I'm sorry."
He picked up his plate and left.
"Bloody hell," she swore. He heard her swearing. He smiled, just a bit, while cutting up his meat.

X X X

He decided to observe her, a bit, while he was thinking she couldn't see. She looked sad. She had never stopped ordering their food directly in their quarters when he wasn't in the mood of going down at dinner. He didn't understand how she could guess every single time, but he was enjoying these quiet dinners.

She kept on doing her homework on the lounge's table, surrounded by hundred of books. They used to exchange their notes before. Now, he just was just locking himself in his room, leaving her alone. He rejected her pity, her compassion, and her help. He rejected the pain in her eyes. He didn't need her condescending glares that made him feel so miserable.

He had paid for his faults and his family's. His father's faults, mostly. But others' too, sometimes. He'd paid for each mistake, each faux pas, maybe even more harshly than every member of the Order they had ever captured and served to the Dark Lord. The Master had chosen him as his outlet. Draco had done whatever people expected from him, had done the best he could, but how could he have planned other people's mistakes? He had taken it for weeks, hiding himself from the rest of the world as long as he could.

Who? Who could understand? Who, in the world, was bearing that much pain in his own flesh, with the war carved onto his skin? Not even the great Potter could say so. Potter lived. Potter survived through everything. Potter, the hero.

Everyone else was dead.

He, he was the one wearing the Dark Lord's blows on his body, the marks of the Last Battle, the signs that his body had been beaten by one camp, then another. Physical sequels that still made him scream in silence in the deep dark night, so the girl next door would not awake. The burn was strong and omnipresent. He lived with blood-red ghosts inside his skull, high-pitched screams, diffracting lights.

Malfoy, the traitor.

Sometimes, Draco thought about responding to Pansy's flirt. She was cute, after all, and funny, and she was born a Pureblood witch. This would probably have pleased his father. Though, Draco was no longer giving a fuck to his jailbird father. Then he also imagined Pansy's face when she would probably brush his neck and feel the scars. She would sneak her hands under his shirt, teasing for fun, and she'd feel the blisters on his chest. Pansy would grab his hips to pull him closer and so, she would graze THE scar on his back, sticking her fingers in without care while he would cry silently again. And she wouldn't understand, and she would watch him in horror and distaste.

He was no longer a Prince, he was garbage. Discarded by the war.

He often thought he would have rather died.

And sometimes, he thought about Granger's look that day. There was no distaste in her eyes. Horror, and surprise, yeah, for sure. And also, sadness in her voice, so much sadness since this very day… Draco closed his eyes and imagined he would no longer be alone. And then he pulled his back, and the terrible pain reminded him of where he belonged, reminded him of how miserable his life was as a coward and son of a coward. He had betrayed his own blood. He had betrayed his standings. He watched Granger's hand, a bit shaky above the table, and he remembered every blow, every spell, and every injury his body had received. So he just took his plate and left for his bedroom, just to stop feeling Hermione's eyes like burning iron on him.

X X X

The roar tore the silence apart like thunder.

It sounded like pure terror. Like a detuned violin. Haunting, excruciating.

Hermione dragged herself from sleep in a hurry. Her heart was beating hard inside her chest, as if it wanted to escape from her ribcage. She felt the awful tentacles of fear and raw horror sneaking through her own dreams, her own mind. Everything seemed blurred.

And abruptly, the yell, once again, vocal cords brutally twisted, throat thrown into agony and blood-tasting lips.

She suddenly felt sick.

This terrible moan again, crushing her stomach into the darkness. The voice sounded husky, broken, blown by the scream.

She ran to the room next door, her wand brandished. She blew every protection spells up and started to fight against the young man, who was struggling within his roars, his sheets, and his hissing breath.

Her tears vanished, swallowed by panic at this sight.

Malfoy was screaming, eyes wide open on an invisible enemy, stuck in his own brain. He was naked and his scars were shining under the moonbeam. She didn't know what to do. She was an only child; she'd never had any brother or sister to comfort…

Her first thought went to a Silencing Spell. She couldn't bare this yell any longer in her ears. Moving toward the bed, she discovered Malfoy tangled in wet sheets, sweating from fear. His mouth was crooked by his now silent screams. He was so tensed he was trembling.

Then, very slowly, she brushed his hair from his forearm, caught his hand and held it tight, wishing for him to wake up. She sat on the edge of the bed, and caressed his forehead.

"Malfoy, wake up… Please, wake up, this is a nightmare…"

She felt Malfoy's hand squeezing hers.

"Draco, I'm here," she whispered.

This was the first time she ever said his name. She didn't think it could have been so pleasant, so soft on her tongue, even considering the circumstances.

Malfoy stretched his free arm out, grasped her and held her tight. He was shaking, pressed against her thigh, she could feel it, and he tightened her so strongly it was almost hurting. She clumsily brushed the hair from his forehead again, repeating over and over the same meaningless words which were used to be told to frightened children at night. Everything's fine, I'm here now.

He relaxed. Slowly, she put his head on her lap and started playing with some blond hair. They were looking almost white in the moonbeam. Sheets were tangled around his legs, but he closed his eyes and fell asleep. She was fighting against it too, caressing his face. Why didn't she ever notice how thin his features were? His nose was straight, his chin looked proud, and his cheekbones aristocratic. His eyebrows were slightly curved and his mouth sulked. When he dropped the mask, the pain, Hermione discovered another Draco, soft, fragile and… yes, beautiful. She could feel herself falling asleep. She couldn't go back to her own room, he was still holding her hand. This was the reason why she just collapsed right there, sitting with Draco Malfoy's head on her lap.

X X X

She couldn't guess it, of course, but he did remember his night. His nightmares.

Her, and her cold hand on his forehead, her whispers in the dark, and her warmth against his skin.

When dawn woke him up, he didn't even feel surprised. Something had changed in the air, but the hell if he could tell what. She was still asleep, head against the wall, legs hanging in the void beside the bed, and her face was all twisted and funny with her slightly open mouth and the frown of her eyebrows. Slowly, in order to avoid awaking her, he tried to stand up and went out of the bed, heading toward the bathroom, pulling on a t-shirt to hide the awful marks on his body. While throwing water to his face, he suddenly realized what had changed within him. He wasn't feeling tired. For the first time in months, he had been sleeping well, with his head on Hermione's lap, holding her hand in his sleep.

Damn it, if his father would heard about that… His precious son sleeping with a Mudblood. And not with any of them. Hermione Granger, Potter's best friend. He tried to stifle his laughter.

He decided to get dress before awaking her by shaking her shoulder gently.

Malfoy's half-hearted smile was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes on that very morning, a few inches away from her face. She blinked, twice, but he was still there. Dozy, she put some order in her mind, and suddenly remembered the events of the night.

Oh my God.

She jumped on her feet, her cheeks blushing into a very deep shade of red.

"Malfoy, I'm sorry, truly sorry, this is not…"

But she was gone before she even finished her sentence. He followed her path with his eyes, smirking.

Actually, he thought, she was quite funny after all.

X X X

"Malfoy, tie!"
It had almost become a habit. He wasn't really to blame, after all. He just hated that choking stuff around his neck, it was all but normal he tried to forget it every single morning.

"Malfoy, you're not the only one using this bathroom!"
Again? Hey, was she thinking he was a House-elf or something? However, he obeyed graciously, with the same odd smirk on his lips he was showing since the day before.

"Malfoy, have you finished your essay for the Defense against the Dark Arts?"
He gave her a finely rolled parchment, not lifting his eyes from the one he was writing on for an hour.

"Malfoy, YOUR SOCKS, for Merlin's sake!"
He giggled. It was almost too easy to piss her off.
But for Hermione, this little sound was much more than a burst of laughter. It was his very first "real laugh" since they'd moved in together a few months ago.

"Malfoy, I'm going to order dinner here tonight."
How was she doing that? How was she doing to guess every single time?

X X X

Spring was on its way. March was almost over, taking his violent rains away. Every single student was feeling glum, watching the rain falling over, stuck inside the castle because of the weather. But that didn't matter to Hermione.

On that evening, Draco had come back in a terrible mood. His anger seemed to fill the room to such a level that she barely dared moving, or lifting her eyes toward him. He'd crashed nearby the warmth of the fireplace, burying himself deep in a chair as dark as his mood. She had no idea what could have caused such a surge of rage to him.

Petrified, she tried to ignore him and to focus back on her Runs essay, one of the only classes she didn't share with her roommate. As always when he was in that state of crisis, it would end as suddenly as it had begun.

But this time, something different was happening. A sigh, a heavier breath than usual… A hiccup maybe… No way… Stunned, she watched Malfoy bursts into water. His perfect face twisted as he crashed into bitter, salty tears. There were no sound passing the fence of his mouth, but his eyes were flooded. And he was staring at her, in such a desperate way she couldn't do anything but pacing toward him.

She had never noticed his eyes weren't entirely grey. They were fading into a strange shade of sapphire blue when he was crying. Like a stormy sky at night.

She kneeled before him. "Malfoy, what is happening?"

He gripped her, unable to pronounce a single word, eyes fixed on hers. When he touched her, something moved inside her chest, something buried deep. And then she did something unbelievable.

She hugged him and he let her do so, not pushing her away.

He rested his head onto her shoulder, grasping her sleeve in his hand, and he cried, cried, cried, for such a long time within her arms. He wasn't shaking, he wasn't sobbing. He was just crying, with warm, wet, silent tears dropping on her dress.

The great self-confidence of Draco Malfoy had flown away; ending the masquerade he was playing in front of everyone to stay proud and untouchable. His ego, which had never bent over anyone, shutting his pain down and setting him apart of the rest of the world, had vanished into thin air. His Pureblood's prejudices against Mudbloods had crashed onto the floor, because at this very right moment, he was nothing but a lonely child crying over the shoulder of a woman who was embracing him with all the tenderness of the world.

Draco Lucius Abraxas Malefoy, son of Lucius Abraxas Malus Malefoy and Narcissa Druella Elladora Black, was crashed. Now there was only Draco, the lonely teenager broken by Voldemort, by the war, by all the hurting wounds on his flesh, crying over the shoulder of the only person who had never required anything from him.

Pansy had especially been insisting on that day, and Draco was, like any other boy, filled up with needs, desires. So he had let her do it her own way. She had kissed him; he'd taken it as it came. For a second, thrilled by passion, he had almost forgotten the idea of Pansy sneaking under his shirt and wrinkling her nose in distaste.

Though, that was exactly what happened. She was willing to sneak her hands under his wizard-dress, lightly touching his back. She had only managed to scratch his still burning scar, and he could barely do anything but hearing himself yelling against the touch, all his self-control turned off by the warmth of the previous kiss. She hadn't understood, so she had insisted on seeing it, on knowing.

And she had run away in tears after a yell of horror.

Then, Draco had remembered everything that was defining him, every single mistake he'd made. The oh-so perfect son of Lucius Malfoy, who had followed his paternal figure until the very last second without even questioning him, until he faced Death, his death straight in the eyes, and knew he had completely been messing up with his life. The spoilt brat of Narcissa Black, who never had to fight to obtain whatever he wanted and who was finding himself with nothing left but ruins, no fortune, no properties. The respected and feared, but never loved, Prince of Slytherin. Draco Lucius Abraxas Malefoy, the blood-traitor, coward and son of a coward, jumble of burned and disgusting flesh, like a living picture of the war and the mistake to avoid.

Hermione's soft, smooth arms were soothing him slowly and gently, so gently… He was feeling good, in a really odd way. He remembered the night spent on her lap; the way she looked at him without rejecting him. He remembered all her little gestures towards him, every single day since the beginning of the year, the tie she had hold out to him, the books she had brought from the Library for him, all these diners she had ordered in the privacy of their room when she guessed he couldn't find the strength to face the others.

She had stayed with him, every single time, dealing with his silence without ever demanding him more than what he was actually able to give her, but to just wash this bloody bathroom and remove the socks he was actually leaving laying around just for the delight of pissing her off.

She was there, every day of every month, never grumbling, never complaining, and never pitying him.

They were supposed to be enemies since the very first day of school, and yet, she was letting him cry over her shoulder as if all those seven years of mutual hate were not counting anymore, as if nothing had ever happened. She was hugging him as if he had never tortured nor killed before, as if she had forgotten he was on the wrong side during the war, that he had been mistaken for nineteen years. And damn it, nineteen years felt so long…

She kept him against her chest for what seemed to be hours, trying not to move so she wouldn't hurt him. He found peace soon enough by falling asleep in the crook of her neck. She conjured a blanket and laid him back on the couch, turning back to finish her essay.

Somewhere in her chest, the snake was waking up, warming its scales around her beating heart.

X X X

"Malfoy, did you order our dinner?" Her voice sounded astonished.
He smiled to her in return. A real smile. Genuine, bright, pure. The first one in months. She felt her heart missing a beat.

"Malfoy, pinch me, I must be dreaming. Have you actually tidied the room?"

"Malfoy, what the hell are you doing?"
He was half-naked in their living room. She lowered her eyes. She knew she was not allowed to watch him.
But he came closer to her, gripped her hand and laid it on his scar. On his scars.
Her breath strangled in her throat, she could barely breathe. Her eyes lift toward his face. His looks seemed worried, afraid of how she was about to react to that. But she didn't cry, she didn't scream, she didn't run away. She brushed the purple network of wounds on his pale skin. Her gestures looked fascinated, careful. And slowly, deliberately, she did what she had always wanted to do since she saw him in the bathroom on that very morning : she kissed the biggest, the ugliest blistered scar on Draco Malfoy's destroyed back, the very one that would never heal.
And slowly, deliberately, he grabbed Hermione's other hand and pulled the girl against him, hugging her so tightly she couldn't breathe anymore. It did not take a long time until she realized he was crying again, his face buried into the mess of her hair.

"Malfoy, you have forgotten your tie again."
She gave him the green and silver piece of fabric, but, instead of taking it, he caught her wrist and drew her closer to him before joining their lips in a hurrying kiss.

X X X

She laboriously opened her eyes. She was not in her own room. Definitely not. She took a look around. This was Draco's.

Her friend. Her last night lover.

For now, she could only see him from behind while he was zipping his pants on. His crimson scar almost shone on his side. Oddly, she liked this blistered, ugly wound. Thanks to her, Malfoy Junior had become Draco to her. The fall of a white shirt over his shoulder removed it from her stare. He turned over, saw her awake and gave her a tender smile.

"Hermione, where is my tie?"

THE END

Well, I hope you've liked it ! Please let me know ! I have it corrected by a native English speaker, but if you still spot any mistake please let me know so I can correct them !