A/N - Just a little Malfoy Manor Drabble, because the way Draco evolves through the sixth and seventh books really fascinates me.
Disclaimer: Everything is J K's, because she is fab.
This was the worst one yet. Her screams were so piercing that Draco felt as though his head would crack in two. He had to be still. Had to be still because if he moved one finger one millimetre then all control would be gone. He liked to think he would run across the cold floor and wrench the wand from that lunatic's hand but he knew he was wrong. If he moved one finger one millimetre then he would collapse on the floor, head in his hands, and cry.
With the others, he had been able to detach himself, see something else. Their faces became blurred in his memory. He wished he could do that now, wished he could blur her features but the harder he tried, the more he could see.
Everything about her face was achingly familiar: everything but the expression of pure pain etched across it. He closed his eyes, trying to rub her out of his mind, but then he heard it. Her name screamed through the echoing halls, repeated again and again and again.
"Hermione! Hermione! Hermione!"
Not for the first time in his life, he wished that Weasley would stop. He didn't even like these people, in fact, he actively disliked them, but the sound of Weasley and Granger screaming was more than Draco could bear. It wasn't just the pain. It wasn't just the desperation that shook him. It was the love. The love was the worst thing.
Draco thought he knew what love was; thought it was the flowers and the jewellery that his father had presented his mother with every Christmas and Birthday, thought it was the ridiculous gooey feeling described in the books Pansy liked to leave lying around the Slytherin Common Room. This wasn't either of those. This was honest and uncontrollable, as though Weasley wouldn't be able to stop screaming even if he tried, because to stop screaming would be to leave her alone.
It broke Draco's heart because it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. And the worst.
A/N - This is the first story of this kind I've attempted, so feedback is much appreciated :)