Her neck was slick with sweat, and the skin of her back rubbed raw from the porous walls of the cave. She was wedged into the back wall, exhausted, dehydrated, and shaking. The only light came in slimy slivers, refracted off of the dark water that welled around her kees. It smelled of brine and seaweed. Her left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, broken, the only reason she hadn't crawled out of the cave days ago.
Hermione's memory was clouded from too many hours spent in this muggy limbo, trapped between three walls and tumultuous sea, but she could gather enough snippets of conversation and action - they were smashed together, like a sick action movie directed by a psychopathic trickster-god - to discern her decent into the brine.
Fade to her being chased, the camera shaking and cutting. Jump to her falling on her knees, cutting her palms on a sharp, rocky ground, and cursing under her breath. Close up on the spots of blood gleaming, like rubies, on her pale skin, her face with terror written on her every feature. Cut to a swarm of black cloaks surrounding her, swimming in the wind. The camera would pan across their skeletal masks, the low chuckles of twisted victory playing in the background. A whirl of special effects, her last-ditch apparition, the sound of her smashing into hard rock, and the crack of breaking bone, and then a slow fade into her current situation. All of these images were undercut with an electric curent of terror that, even days after the fact, sent shivers running through her.
She laughed. It was a sick sound, animal and jagged around the edges. She could feel it burning her dry throat, and the sudden movement caused her cracked lips to spout leaks of blood. She laughed until the harsh sounds devolved into coughs that echoed around the cave. The coughs started innocently enough, just dry reminders of the salty air she had been inhaling, but quickly evolved into harbingers of future pain. A sharp, irony taste bit her tongue, and she spat blood into the cool water. The ghostly light was enough to display the scarlet liquid fanning out slowly, unfurling it's precious tentacles into the water, staining what had once been innocent.
Hermione licked her lips; they were thick with blood. The taste of it on her tongue stung. She was quickly loosing her grasp on what reality had become - a small cave, inhabited by her broken body, and an inescapable fear that snuck in every time she let her mind wander, uninvited and bloated with 'what ifs.' She thought of Ron and Harry, back in whatever shelter they had made - it would have been ramshackle devoid of the careful protection charms she always reminded them to place - their countenances taunt and distorted by worry. These images were flickering at the edges, like film about to curl up in flame.
No doubt they would be worried by now. By her count, it had been no more than five days since she had left, been chased, from the camp. She wondered if they'd told anyone back at Grimmauld Place. Ginny would be heartbroken - she'd already lost so much. Her minds eye could see Mrs. Weasley pressing a dish towel to her lips to keep back tears, an attempt to stay strong for Ginny, the one child she could still hold on to, but her eyes would betray even the best efforts to keep a level temper. Just the thought brought tears to Hermione's own eyes and strained her dry larynx. Still, the film reel of her memory continued to flicker in an out, dancing a jig on the inside of her eyelids. Her head swan to keep up as she body crumpled, bone by bone, until all she could see was darkness.
It was hard to breathe behind his mask, Draco noticed as he raced after a hooded figure that sprinted ahead of him. He'd only been given the vaguest orders - a harsh get her! ripped from the lungs of his superior - before he ran after the girl. His legs, which for so long had been confined in Malfoy Manner, reawakened at his sudden movement; the unused muscles and tendons ached with pleasure. He'd been itching to get out of the house all summer, to do ease his mind from the atrocious crime he'd nearly missed committing. The sight of Dumbledore's prone body falling from the tower, his face a mask of tranquil acceptance, still haunted his dreams, despite the goblets of dreamless sleep potion he guzzled. It would never be enough to erase what he had done, both from his body and mind. The Dark Mark still curled, sinister and gilded by cold sweat, on his pale forearm, and his family - if he could call them that - was as devoted to the Dark Lord as ever. Their casual acceptance of Voldemort's hateful rhetoric, his plans to the destruction of their very race, and the world that had fostered it's existence made him sick, but he would never tell. He could never tell. In this world, a traitor was as good as dead.
In a cold gust of wind that smelled heady with salt, his target's hood flew off, loosing a familiar tangle of golden-brown curls.
Granger.
His pace dragged as his heart raced. Memories broke down the flood walls he had put up so long ago; they stung like skinned knees, and ached like un-kissed lips.
Granger.
The word plagued his mind, deceitfully meaningful. It was heavy with stolen glances, soaked with a dangerously powerful attraction, but charged with taboo.
Granger.
In an instant, he was back at the Yule Ball, watching that oaf, Krum, pawing at the fine fabric of her dress. His hands were much too rough for her, his countenance permanently grim and dull like a concrete block. Had Draco been in that oafs place, his hands would have encircled her waist gently, and relished the watery feeling of the silk sliding beneath his fingers, supported by the warmth of her waist. Draco would press kisses that were just chaste enough, but still thrilling, to the hallow beneath her ear, and whisper how stunning she looked. They would dance until their legs gave out, and happy, euphoric smiles lit up their faces.
Of course, that was both pure imagination, and long past. He'd traded his second, and third, and fourth chances for a black robe and a gun-metal mask. This was his life now, free of Granger's smile, and her hair, and her lips…
Another yell, this one louder and more angry, if that was possible, broke Draco's haze. He snapped to attention and kicked his legs forward, running away from his past once more. A circle of black figures appeared in front of him, surrounding Granger. He grimaced. Nothing good could come of this, he was sure of it, and Granger was powerless to help herself. Something deep within him yearned to help her in any way possible, even if that meant simply faking a distraction - there's something in the trees, Dolohov, might be Potter - it could buy her valuable time. Still, the cloying reminders of his near-miss last spring still haunted him. He would have to remain behind his mask, stony, appearing to feel nothing but sadistic pleasure.
Granger's head shot up. She was dirty, her hair even more of a rats nest than usual. The brown eyes that had captivated him with their intelligent spark for so many years were now reduced to orbs of terror that searched each identical mask for mercy. It wouldn't come. His heart hurt more with each beat; each second that he passed standing motionless felt like a life time, an cruel eternity of loneliness and guilt crushed into one dense moment.
She bit her lip, taking one final look at the circle of ominous figures that trapped her. He could see her eyes doing quick calculations; her chances of survival with magic, without magic, a quick sweep for any escape route. Draco breathed a silent sigh of relief into his metal mask - it returned to his nose smelling like a stale, cover-version of his breakfast. He didn't have time to linger on his unpleasant breath before Granger made a series of quick movements, no more than a few twitches of her arms, and then was swallowed into thin air with a faint 'pop.' An angry yell from Dolohov confirmed what he had seen. Hermione had apparated away, to somewhere she would remain safe and untouched by his unholy attraction.
It took him days to find her, and when he did, she was nearly dead.
Draco knew she couldn't have gone far, not in the state she was in, and he knew that there was a series of caves carved into the cliffside upon which she had been cornered. From there, it wasn't hard to put two and two together.
He had spent hours sneaking away from the manor - he had been sent back after disappointing Dolohov, and his father - and peaking into the cracks where the rock had been carried away by years spent suffering the temper of a careless sea. There was a good chance that Granger had been washed away, or that she had drowned, but his hope beat on, steady as a heartbeat.
On the fourth day of searching, he found her; nestled between moss and rock, her body twisted and soaking wet. She was unconscious, but still breathing. The relief was immediate, but tainted by the sight of dry, cracked blood coating her lips.
With clement arms and gentle eyes that betrayed his usually stony countenance, Draco lifted the girl from her place among the rocks. Her hair, wet and tangled with salt, dangled from her head, which lay tilted back against his arm. Her wounded body was curled into a v-form between his strong arms; the most vulnerable he had ever seen her. The look of pained tranquility on her face was an eery reminder of the tragedy he had witnessed and partial caused. It stung like a ghostly dagger being thrust into his stomach, and swirled around.
Still, he rose, and carried her from the cave, and greeted the dawn's new light with shining eyes.
This tragedy had given him a purpose outside of brooding; he would heal Hermione Granger, despite the challenges it would propose, and return her to the Order, unscathed, before either of party had any idea what had happened. It would be a small act of devotion, mostly safe, and it would keep his identity shrouded with mystery. No one needed to know he was doing this. And, more importantly, no one needed to know how he felt.