Maybe they had been addicted to the erratic, explosive nature of war. They had both been cursed, bloodied, bruised, scarred, and ultimately broken. When the supposed war heroes had woken up in St. Mungo's two to six days later, their memories were obscure and hazy at best. Fred Weasley didn't wake up at all.

Hermione went home after that. She sat on her parents' back porch, on the wooden swing, for two full days before an owl disturbed her trance. Tears streamed down her face so constantly that she thought it strange when it finally stopped, and her parents, vacationing in the Maldives, had no idea that she was even there.

When the owl invited her to the Ministry to regroup with the other "survivors"—the word made her choke—she seriously considered not going. But then she realized how desperately she needed human contact, and whatever logical portion of her brain that wasn't still waterlogged forced her to Apparate to the familiar red telephone booth, albeit mechanically. She could feel her own face, carved like stone, so emotionless it almost broke her own heart.

The bodies that filled the atrium provoked flashes of white-hot pain in Hermione's mind. Each time, it grew a little bit duller. This was it. These were the people that were left of her closest friends and most respected acquaintances. She didn't deserve to be here at the expense of so many of them.

Harry came up to her first. He hugged her tightly, and the question she expected—wanted —never came. She wanted to love him better for it, for knowing her so well, but she couldn't.

It was only when she caught sight of Draco Malfoy that a wave of emotion crashed over her. She felt so deeply, immeasurably sad for him. It was a hard thought for her to process. She was barely aware of walking past Harry and approaching the distinguished-looking blonde, standing to the side with a drink in his hand. She didn't know what to say when she was standing face to face with him. She felt lost.

He looked back at her, his lip curling into some semblance of his old smirk. It didn't quite make it. "So this is it, huh?"

When she and Malfoy started dating two weeks later, the Daily Prophet couldn't keep its mouth shut. The mourning period had officially ended when two of the wizarding world's most eligible singles got together.

What the Prophet didn't understand, ironically, was that their relationship was more like a war than anything else. It was emotionally violent and it was explosive and it was dangerous. They built each other up until they had conquered the monotony and sorrow that surrounded them. They were addicted to the feelings they had felt before the world had washed itself out and people had started lugging themselves around like they were too heavy and not worth it.

One night, as they were lying on the grass outside their flat, staring up at the starry sky, Hermione said, "What is this, Malfoy?"

He didn't look at her. "You're my driftwood, Granger. You keep me afloat, and I try to do the same for you." His voice was unemotional.

Hermione turned her head away from him and bit her lip to try to get rid of the burning behind her face. That was it. They would keep each other afloat, and that was all they could hope for.