AFTER THE WAR
3 MONTHS
She is praying because all that's left in the world is her faith. Does she believe? No. But it can't hurt. It is a familiar routine that brings no harm. Amidst the endless battles and stealth missions and all the loss, this is the only peace she can get. When she isn't scrubbing Death Eater blood from off her hands, she's here and she's kneeling and she's begging, please, please, let it all end.
4 MONTHS
She notices a platinum shock of hair when she leaves now, the only other person in the church besides her. Briefly, she wonders why he even bothers, wonders why he isn't drinking himself to death with all that expensive liquor he owns. She sniffs then, and decides it's not worth her time.
6 MONTHS
This is stupid, she seethes, being in each other's presence for three hours a day and not even seeing each other's faces. She pauses at his pew as she's going off. He doesn't look up, just keeps his head bowed and hands linked together. She wants to smack his head but decides that is too undignified and reminiscent of their school days, and so she spins on her heel and walks off.
7 MONTHS
Today, she hears him collapse as he stumbles in. His usually pristine shirt is blood splattered and her first thought is that he's gotten Sectumsempra-ed and she doesn't know the counter curse; there is a strangled noise in her throat as she leaps up and rushes at him, fingers fumbling at his body to find the wound. His eyelids flutter and even in such a haze, he manages a smirk, just a ghost of the famous Malfoy one, but still a smirk nonetheless. ''It's not my blood, Granger. Stop fondling me.''
9 MONTHS
This time, his eyes meet hers as she stands to leave. She wants to ask why he's here and her question must be written all over her face, or he must have been expecting it from the first, because he replies with why are you? and she cannot answer.
Her mouth is dry when she says, ''I'm a muggle. I was brought up like this. You're a pure-blood, Malfoy, what could you know of Muggle religions?''
His face is smug. ''You say that, Granger, as if you have any more right to this than I do. You're a witch, for fuck's sake. Isn't magic considered the work of the devil? Are you not tainting the very ground you walk on if you believe in this doctrine?''
''The nerve-''
''I assume then, that you can't believe, you don't believe. Neither do I, so why are we both here, Granger? Why?''
She leaves.