This fic is a gift for PartyLines, a wonderful writer, beta, and friend to many in the Dramione community. I hope this little fic cheers you up just a little bit. Know that we're all thinking of you! Lots of love your way, pretty lady.

All errors are my own, as I am a procrastinator and this piece has not been betaed. All recognizable characters are the property of J.K. Rowling, and I am not profiting off of this piece of derivative fiction.

Hermione could remember the day she'd met him at the release station of Azkaban. She'd worn a stuffy blouse and pencil skirt, heels a size too small, and a falsely bright smile as she waited for the guard to escort him down the cold hallway. The building wasn't as dour without the dementors, but the walls still seemed to bleed the sorrow of the past.

Her smile had disappeared completely when the clank of chains down the hall was followed by a man she barely recognized.

He wasn't skin and bones anymore, but he still bore the haunted look deep in his eyes when he thought she wasn't watching. He jumped at the smallest sounds, and he was quick to reach for the wand she'd given him despite the Ministry warning her not to. She'd called in her favour with Kingsley early to make it happen; he had graciously ignored the tears in her eyes as she'd pleaded Malfoy's case.

She tried to avoid watching him too closely; she knew it made him feel like an invalid. When he woke up thrashing every night, it was hard to ignore the tell-tale signs that he wasn't coping, but she didn't push the topic, knowing he would come to her when he was ready. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and let him sob into her chest, lending him silent strength until he wept himself into a deep sleep that was anything but restful.

Two months after his release, long after the sun had set, Draco had woken again, shaking and sweating as tears streaked down his cheeks. It was always the same – he woke up gasping his mother's name, reaching for the wand he'd kept sheathed on his thigh and panicking when it wasn't there. Hermione had talked him down again, assured him that his mother was safe in the Manor. He'd settled into her chest, breath gusting over her breast as she stroked his hair. He'd finally calmed and, assuming he had fallen asleep, she stared into the night, her mind searching for an answer that would help him.

"Hermione?" His hand skated over her arm, startling her out of her mental sparring match with herself.

"Hmm?"

The bed shifted as he peeled his cheek from her chest. He snapped his finger, and the candle on the side table flared to life with a diminutive flame, bathing him in a soft orange glow and throwing the angles of his cheekbones into sharp relief.

When he was silent for a few moments, she reached a hand up and smoothed it over the harsh planes of his face. His gaze met hers, and the depth of the sorrow within made her heart skip a beat. His hand covered hers, and he leaned into her touch.

"I don't know what to do…" Draco's voice was so quiet that she had to strain to hear him. "I'm… I'm not who I used to be. I can feel it – all that anger, that rage that kept me going – but it's like there's a wall between me and my emotions. All I can feel is this–" his hand left hers and fisted against his chest, his eyes staring at a spot between them on the pristine cotton sheets. "–this knot in my chest. It's like someone has reached into my lungs and tied them up, and I can barely squeeze in a breath."

Her breath caught in her throat when a tear ran down his cheek. She thumbed it away, tilting is chin up to meet his gaze. "It's okay, Draco. You're allowed to feel whatever you feel. Azkaban – it can't have been easy. You were there for months before we got you out; you were imprisoned for a crime that you were essentially forced into by your father. It's okay to hurt."

He looked away from her. "I don't know what it's like not to hurt anymore. And you're here, and I know that I should be happy to have the opportunity to breathe fresh air and see another day outside of that Merlin-forsaken prison, but I just can't get past it. I can hear their screams, see their faces. All those people I hurt because I just wanted to be like my father…" Gnawing on his lower lip, he once again stared off into the distance.

"I'm not sure what's real anymore," he exhaled on a shaky breath, barely audible. "I keep waiting for the night that I wake up to find you gone. And it shatters me."

Her grip tightened on his hand. "Draco, look at me." When he didn't, she pulled her hand from his grasp and tilted his chin upward once more. "Do you remember what I told you before I left for the Horcrux hunt with Harry and Ron?"

The small smile that played around his lips negated his cynical eye-roll. "That we'd find each other no matter what."

An eyebrow arched high onto her forehead. "And?"

He mumbled under his breath, and with a laugh, she finished it for him. "And that I'd kick your arse if you didn't come back to me because it isn't often that fate gives you exactly what you need all wrapped up in a blond prat."

Draco flopped onto his back with a heavy sniff. "Fate is a very weighty word to throw around before breakfast." With a tug of her hand, he pulled her down until she was draped across his chest and staring into his eyes.

He looked miserable, the skin around his eyes red and puffy from the tears he'd shed during his dream. But, for the first time since Hermione had hastily kissed him goodbye in the Room of Requirement, she saw hope blooming in the depths of his eyes. She leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips, his hand snaking through her hair to deepen the kiss. When she pulled away, he quirked a small smile.

"I'll choose you over and over again, Malfoy. And just when you think you've grown tired of me, I'll choose you again. For the rest of my days." She wound her fingers through his, peppering kisses on his cheek. "Even if you snore like an angry hippogriff and have more product than I'm ever likely to use in my entire life." She brushed an errant strand of hair away from his forehead.

With a deep breath, he pulled her into the crook of his arm and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Who knew that Mother was being literal when she told me that love would hit me when I least expected it."

She huffed a laugh. It wasn't perfect, and she didn't expect him to heal overnight, but it was a start. He was opening up to her, and she knew that, with time and patience, he'd come back to her.

And no matter how long it took, she would wait for him.