[A/N: screaming internally because it's almost over! This is the second to last chapter. The last one will probably be uploaded tomorrow as I'm working on it right now since it's all clashing around in my brain. I decided not to do an epilogue, not really? It's kind of a mix of final chapter/epilogue-ness. I don't know, you'll see when I post. Anyways, again, thank you so so much for all the reviews. They have all brought a smile to my face and I'm so glad that this story has sucked you in. I'm hoping the coming end will be a good one. AH! Enjoy!]
She couldn't hear past the bells in her head. They resonated through her thoughts as they struck over and over. They struck to remind her that time was running out. She couldn't hear past the blaring residue the gunshot left in her ears, couldn't hear the words torn from Draco's mouth or Tom's or Harry's as she grasped at straws, at fingers, and broke them. Even as time slipped past her, it slipped at the speed of molasses in that moment as she watched the gun fall from pained fingers, watched as the floor below her rapidly approached her. She was falling back, trapped by a man's cement arm against her chest, a man who was also tumbling backwards despite himself. She couldn't hear the loud thump her body made against the ground as the two forces met agonizingly, lightening striking her spine and racing through her body to paralyze her in shock.
She couldn't hear, but she saw everything play out above her like a silent movie: the blonde force that had tackled Tom to the ground was rising, slender arms lifting only to fall back down with fists. She felt the vibrations of impact and then everything was speeding back up, as if Draco had punched the clocks into consciousness again. She was moving, shoving the shackle of an arm off of her, disgusted by its presence, and scrambled up to grab the gun that had skid across the room, was poking out from beneath her bed. There were those fingers, cold fingers trying desperately to grab it again, to shoot again, but hers beat Tom's. She swung at the heated weapon and it vanished from Tom's grasp. He would have to defend himself against Draco's assaults now.
"Hermione," she finally heard, distant and muddled but there all the same. She couldn't tell whose voice it was. Hermione whipped around to see that Draco was too focused, too busy wrestling with an equally crazed man to be calling out to her but when she scanned the rest of the room there wasn't anyone else. She could have sworn she'd seen Harry somewhere.
She noticed something stir in her peripheral, a frenzied little bush of black hair peeking just above the top of her bed, gangly legs sprawled and feet just grazing the door of her bathroom as they always did whenever he splattered himself there with her sitting on the bed behind him, her hands running through his hair and complaining about how long it had been since his last bath.
And like a punch to her eardrums, all the sounds came rushing back, from the rampant smashing of fists and Tom's maniacal laughing to the barely audible breathing of her brother.
She was next to him in an instant, their eyes catching each other's before she could look to see why he wasn't up and about, why he was struggling to keep his eyes open and his body upright. He gave her a flimsy attempt at a smile, the remnants of baby fat in his cheeks rising to push up the edge of his skewed glasses. Instinctively, she adjusted them, forced herself to look over him because it was obvious that his glasses weren't the only things in need of fixing.
Hermione was a staring at her carpet, at the alarming amount of red there, was following it back to the blood-stained hand that was holding back the floodgates the gunshot had released in Harry's abdomen when it rang out. She was staring at it, her hands flailing to help him hold it back, as if the two of them could fight it off like they'd done with so many other things in life. She remembered, a flurry of images ran through her mind's eye, all the cuts and bruises and scrapes and stupid broken bones Harry would come home with when their parents' were still at work and, even though Hermione was the younger one, she would bandage him and make him right again or at least as right as she could before mom and dad came home in a fit. But whenever he was hurt, it was from something outside and it was never so bad Hermione didn't know how to fix it. This house was their home, it was the place he came to to be safe and to be put together again but here he was, in the room he ran to whenever he had a run-in with a sharp object, bleeding out from something she'd brought home to him.
She felt a finger graze over her shoulder, felt the screaming pain there that she'd been ignoring since she'd tried so hard to keep Tom from shooting anyone and failed.
"Look who dodged a bullet," Harry mumbled, that smile insufferably holding on despite the pain he was so clearly in. If she wasn't so busy trying to help him, she would've slapped him. But her hands were too shaky to do either, anyways.
"Not you, apparently," she heaved, trying so hard not to let her panic filter through. Everything came through her ears in layers, her own voice playing back to her. She could easily hear her fear within the words, the anger at Harry for getting shot, for her not being on the receiving end of that bullet instead. But Harry was just calmly sitting there, smiling just for her benefit, wasting his energy trying to keep it in place so that she wouldn't completely crumble. He was still trying to protect her when he couldn't even protect himself.
"Doesn't fare well for my future as a cop, does it?" He breathed, but she was shaking her head, willing him to shut up.
"Stop it, you're going to be fine. The police will be here, you'll be fine," she reassured him, herself.
"I'm already here." She looked over him, exasperated, about to say something that would finally shut him up, when a scuffle of feet coming towards her door alerted her to yet another dilemma. There were no sirens yet, no relief to be found. Instead, her eyes caught the shape of that boy from before, Tom's lackey barging into the scene with attention first focused on the scuffle between Tom and Draco. By the time it flickered over to Hermione, she was back up on her feet. Harry was grumbling something behind her, and Draco's face turned in time to see Blaise charge towards her, in time for him to call out to her. The momentary distraction gave Tom the upper hand he needed and, with a swift fist to the face, Draco was tumbling.
"Always making the wrong choices," Tom hissed into Draco's ear as he barreled into him, punches pounding his intestines into one unrecognizable clump. Riddle had him pinned to the wall, forcing him to see right over the man's shoulder, at the scene unfolding around him. There was Harry, somewhere between the land of the living and dead, and Hermione, whose neck was seized by the fucker he thought he'd knocked unconscious downstairs when he'd first arrived. She was going to follow in her brother's footsteps soon if he didn't get Tom off him, but he just couldn't find his footing anymore.
He was suspended once more in time, waiting for the moment that never seemed to arrive in which he'd be with Hermione and they'd be safe and his choices wouldn't come back to break them apart. He was stuck in that space of the present, waiting for his future to come along so he could see if everything he'd done in his past would catch up to him and let him go or drag him down. He was waiting, waiting and hoping that help would come soon because he already knew what a waste of breath he was. He had helped no one by coming here, breaking into Hermione's life once more when she had everything planned, even when Tom had come in to screw things up. He'd gotten her brother shot and all he could do was watch as she fought for a life he'd taken over completely, hoping the police he'd once hated so much would come and save her from him.
"You really thought you were going to get out so easy? Planning on riding off into the sunset is a foolish notion… even for you, Draco. I thought I'd taught you better." His vision blurred as another hit and another and another finally cracked a rib. His hands were going haywire, grabbing onto Tom, onto the thing he hated most besides himself. In the background, through the haze of rage and hysteria, he could finally hear sirens. Maybe hope was imagining it for him, procuring the help he needed in the moments before everything slipped out of his control. But he refused to have Tom slip from his hold. Refused to let go of the person who was trying so adamantly to take everything from him. His bloodied nails dug into Tom Riddle's shoulders, dug deeper the more he cursed Draco's attempts at freedom, at his existence.
Tom grabbed at him too and they wrestled for control of where their bodies were going. A kneecap slammed into Draco's stomach and he caved over with a dry heave. Tom was yanking his hair back, tearing it from his scalp in an attempt to puppet Draco one last time.
"I want you to watch the life drain out of her," the snake hissed from behind him, his voice taking up the air Draco needed to breathe, that he needed Hermione to breathe. She was still struggling against the cage around her neck, the one he'd ushered right into her life. She was fighting it tooth and nail, like she'd fought him in the beginning and probably still did. He imagined Blaise's hands as his own, felt the tearing of Hermione's nails against his skin, her fists pounding at him and all the while her heart and mind cursing his name.
He let that energy, that burning hatred fuel him. He sealed his eyes and prepared his head for the biggest concussion to ever seize his brain as he slammed it backwards into Tom's skull. The man staggered and Draco turned, steadying his dizzied feet and head as he grabbed onto suit, flesh, anything he could get his hands on, and the two of them crashed against the window. Glass scattered away from the fighting forces, and Draco fought hard not to snatch one of the larger pieces and stab it through Tom's black heart. He punched him instead, charging his hits with the viciousness Tom had probably always wanted to see in Draco, just not towards him. He saw red through his blurred vision, red as he shoved Tom through the broken window, as he heard Tom cry out, as he realized he'd shoved Tom into a shard of glass that struck out from the remnants of the windowpane.
As if shot, his body flew backwards and away from the source of his inflamed hatred.
And as he retreated, Hermione sieged forward. She tried to focus her struggle against her attacker, forcing herself to think past the lack of oxygen, the lack of control she wanted back so desperately, the lacking in her ability to help.
"You're adorable when you're choking," the boy crooned and the red that crept into her vision took over. She kicked him in the groin and he bucked, his head close enough for her to smash with her hands, her knuckles slamming painfully and savagely against his temples, against his skull over and over until her attempts at breathing finally succeeded. His fingers collapsed from her throat and she gasped hungrily, raggedly while she fled from him, her body propelling her towards something she didn't know she wanted until she was there with it in her hands. It burned hot against her palms, against her finger as it sunk into the curve of the trigger. She turned, directed by the pooling blood on the floor, the gasoline of red hatred in her body, and aimed the gun at the boy's head as he feebly tried to get off the ground.
There were sirens in the static background, past the cackling of fire in her head, in her ears, consuming her body. She heard someone call her name cautiously.
"Hermione," it warned. It wasn't Harry's voice. Her eyes flickered to her brother's and they were closed. Her finger twitched on the trigger. She almost swung the gun towards whoever was calling her name.
"Hermione," it beckoned again, pleading. Her eyes turned, leaving the barrel pointed at the frozen boy, cowering under the gun. She caught Draco's entrancing gaze. He was trying to pull her away from the gun, towards him, but she wasn't so sure it would work like that. Her whole body wanted to point that stupid gun at him, too. She didn't trust herself to do as he asked, to "give the gun to me". If she moved her arms, she would pull the trigger. She would pull it and the body on the receiving end would suffer far worse than she already was.
The sirens were blaring loud and the reds and blues of multiple police cars, an ambulance, help, painted her walls and Draco's face. He looked panicked, pained, afraid for her. Her, not him.
She lowered the gun.
He advanced towards her. She flinched away and the sound of a police car's speaker blared loud against any sudden movements.
"Put your hands up where we can see them and step away from the girl."
He stared at her, wishing he could feel her hair under his chin one last time, feel her breath rush over and into his skin where it would stay long after he was hauled off. He could see her goodbyes in her eyes as he raised his arms, backed away from her and towards the window where the police could see him in clear view. He stepped on the unmoving foot of Tom Riddle and feared this was the last time he'd be able to see Hermione, so he memorized her, stared at her as one would stare at the sun before the final and infinite night.
She watched as two paths were carved out for her: the one an ambulance makes when a loved one is on the brink of dying and the one a police car makes when a loved one is on the brink of incarceration. They went the same way down the street, weaving through mid-day traffic until they would hit downtown where the hospital and precinct were. It would be then that the people she cared about most would split into divulging trajectories. Though really, if she thought hard enough about it, they would end up in the same place eventually. It was just up to her which one she wanted to watch fall.
Her choice, as police had charged in and arrested Draco and the medics had charged in and patched up Harry, had been made for her against her will. At least, for that moment. She'd rushed after them both as they were hauled out of her room, only to be stopped by a uniformed body and herded towards the couch in her living room, pressed down until she was sitting there, and told to take deep, soothing breaths. She watched as two other bodies were taken from her house, asserted that "no one is dying on my watch" as one of the officers said so confidently to her. She stayed silent, hiding inside her the dark truth that she wished those last two people dead. She wanted to see the people who raped her home of its safety in body bags that she would then light on fire and watch burn. She let the image of that alternative ending sear into her brain, a secret desire she'd never voice.
She was interrogated and she hurried to feed them all the information they could ever possibly need in order to get out of that house and away from the scene of the crime. But even then, even after they'd told her that yes they "were done for now", they wouldn't let her go. They wrapped her in a shock blanket and assured her that another ambulance was on its way to take care of her even though she couldn't, or maybe just refused to, feel pain. When she shot down help from medics, they said she had to wait for her parents before she could go see her brother, not even bothering to suggest she could go see Draco. She was forced to sit there like an imbecile until finally her parents' car hightailed it into the driveway, their faces both panicked and relieved to see her but not Harry. Again, the choice was made for her but she was relieved this time as her parents ushered her into the car and they sped off to the hospital.
She hated the smell of hospitals, the fear of death that hid just underneath the sterile bleach and medicine.
"We're here for my son, where is he?" Hermione heard her mother ask or, rather, attack the receptionist. After finally soliciting a name from her mother, the woman typed away for information, each press of a key making her father's hold on Hermione and her mother firmer.
The lady looked helpless, probably afraid to say the wrong thing to the woman in front of her. "He's in surgery, right now."
"Well, for what, spit it out!"
"Bullet shot to the abdomen, possibly his kidney," the receptionist blurted out and then her mother was off, to where Hermione nor God knew. Her father trailed after his wife, leaving Hermione to stare at the doe-eyed receptionist with a job that basically ordered her to deliver bad news.
After a moment of silence in which Hermione gathered her thoughts about her, she opened her mouth for the first time in what felt like a decade. "Is there a Remus Lupin here?"
"Oh! Yes, Officer Lupin is in the hall to your left, fifth door. Just go right in," the woman waved a hand, not wanting to rile up someone who was probably genetically disposed to frantic outbursts just like her mother. A thanks and a light nod later, Hermione was speedily walking through the blindingly white waiting room, hallway, and finally doorway until she reached Remus. There was a dim beat beneath the cacophony of the hospital's voices and telephone rings and overhead intercom calls, the beat of Remus's heart monitor. It calmed her nerves, but what calmed her more was the tranquility with which he rested there. With eyes closed against the sterile walls and the wires coming out of him, she could imagine this was Harry post-surgery, on his way to recovery with skin pink and alive with blood coursing underneath it and not out of him.
She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
Remus's eyes opened and, for a moment, he was confused by the young girl in his doorway. But, when recognition came, he smiled and waved her over with the hand that wasn't prodded with needles.
"It's nice to see a fresh face so early in the day," he commented when she moved closer. "Sit, sit, I've been wanting to talk to you."
Hermione sat down, teetering on the edge of the seat out of fear of falling back into the cushions and never wanting to get back up. "I've been wanting or, rather, needing to do the same."
Her tone caught his attention, the smile falling from his lips. "What has happened? Is Draco in trouble?" She blinked, confused and intrigued by the name that came to his mind. "Is Harry okay?"
"Yes, and no," she sighed. "Tom, Riddle I was told, broke into my house today and shot Harry. Harry is in the operating room and Riddle is somewhere in here, hopefully cuffed to his death bed."
She could taste the bitterness and hatred on her tongue, bit down on it until she tasted blood. She tried to breathe deep, soothing breaths like the medic had told her to. Remus's eyes never left her face, saw the transfer of emotions, the distortion of them in her eyes until she shut them, breathed in, and opened them with tranquility reigning over her features. But no matter what Hermione did, there was always the aftertaste of tragedy about her.
"And Draco?"
Their eyes leveled with one another. "He's the reason Tom is in a hospital and not a cage."
"Arrested then."
She looked down at her hands and how they wrangled her fingers, how her fingers were drained of all blood. "Yes, arrested for assault… among all the other charges he's been running from."
Remus sighed, and she heard the crinkle of hospital sheets and pillow covers as he sank deeper into his bed. Looking at him, she saw the lines of worry and weariness spreading out like cracks from his eyes. If Harry made it out okay, was this his future? Was it hers?
"You asked about Draco first, why? How did you know he was involved?"
He eyed her warily. "Harry and I were following leads on a gang he was involved with, so-"
She shook her head vehemently, cutting him off. "No, I know that. But you were worried about him, why? Isn't he the reason why you're here in this hospital bed?"
Remus chuckled, taking Hermione by surprise and, in a way, agitating her. He sat up, rubbing the stubs of hair sprouting around his jawline from days of abandonment. "Actually, yes."
"Hermione, no, not like that," he rushed out when her face started to heat from the truth. She had been searching for a reason, a reason to stay put right here and wait for her brother and stay by his side without a single thought spared for Draco Malfoy and Remus had finally given it to her. But now he was threatening to take it away. She rose up from her seat but his hand reached out for her and even though his hold on her was the weakest she'd felt in days, she lingered.
"Hermione, he's the reason why I'm here and not six feet under." Her feet itched to leave, but his words cemented her to the ground. "Please, sit."
She retreated back to the chair, clearing her throat of things she wanted to scream but couldn't. "He didn't attack you? It was Riddle, then?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"But he was there." He could tell she was fishing for reasons to hate Draco. She wanted more proof to show her heart, to show her heart that she didn't need to worry for him, to care for him, when he'd done such terrible things. "He didn't stop Riddle from doing this."
Remus tried a smile for wear but Hermione wasn't very receptive of it. "He's a late bloomer. Look, Hermione, I can tell that you're angry at him and I don't know what has happened between the two of you or what's going to happen but I do know that he isn't Riddle. He isn't a bad person, he's just made bad decisions and he's young enough to realize his mistakes and correct them."
Hermione sighed, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them and searching for an exit. She eyed the doorway. "Why are you telling me this?"
"For the same reason you wanted to hear this: to save him." She looked back at him, saw the look that she'd seen in Ginny's eyes, creeping in the back of Harry's. Hermione frowned, disturbed by how transparent she must've been but still she tried to shield herself.
"Why would I want to save him?" She muttered indignantly, as if it hadn't been her goal for years now.
He smiled again, a smile that threatened to rub off on her. "It's easy to see the signs once you've lived through them."
She was opening her mouth to argue again, refute facts they both knew to be true, when a knock came at the door. They looked to the sound and there was Tonks, exhaustion clear on her face from days beside a hospital bed. But all signs of insomnia vanished when she saw Remus, wrinkles that told of her age vanishing into thin air and making her appear almost as young as Hermione. She looked to the younger woman and smiled kindly.
"Harry's stable, still in surgery, but the blood loss has stopped. He's going to be operated on for at least another few hours," she reported.
"What for?" It was a relief that he was okay but the amount of time between now and seeing him made her doubt everything Tonks said.
Nymphadora shifted into the room, leaning against the window that peered out into the hallway. "The bullet ruptured his kidney so they have to remove it," she confessed. Hermione nodded, trying to take it in stride. At least it wasn't a ruptured liver, stomach, heart. He only had one of those, right?
"Hermione, you okay, love?" Tonks asked and Hermione blinked her vision clear, smiled at Remus and Tonks before easing her way towards the exit.
"Yeah, I'll be okay. I'll be back when he's out of surgery."
Hesitantly, they let her leave. Hermione made her way back down the hall, through the waiting room where her mother and father were huddled together in a corner, her mother's head resting on her father for support Hermione wasn't capable of giving just yet. She escaped through the front doors and was finally free to breathe. She sucked in the polluted air of downtown, relishing how it clogged her lungs. Quickly, and without fully acknowledging where her feet were taking her, she walked away from the emergency sign that blared bright and red behind her.
He would take the blaring sirens and lights of a cop car over the silence of a jail cell any day. It was an eerie change from the usual cacophony that consisted of his destructive soundtrack. It didn't allow for constant noises, screams, curses, gunshots, to take attention away from the more discreet, quiet chaos happening inside him. Here, with nothing but the peeling grey paint on the cell walls, Draco had enough time and quiet to really get to know himself. It was something he hadn't been looking forward to doing but it was exactly what the universe or, at the very least, the police wanted him to do.
Draco was left to his own devices for a long enough time, with no clocks as guidance, to really start playing the blame game with himself. No one had told him whether or not Riddle left in a body bag or an ambulance, or whether the same had happened for Harry. He hadn't even had the privilege of riding in the same car as Blaise, probably because the cops had guessed what Draco would've inevitably done. Which was, of course, get himself into more trouble and make it that much less likely for him to ever see the sun again. He was already in enough trouble as it was for his stunt with Riddle, among all the other shitty things he'd managed to do in his short lifespan. And he couldn't even feel proud of sticking it to Riddle, literally. Instead of relief for having possibly rid the world of Riddle, he felt an overbearing guilt for not doing it sooner, not doing it better, and, even, for doing it at all. If he did kill Tom, it didn't matter that he'd been trying to protect Hermione. In the end, it was his own selfish rage that pushed them through that window. It was his anger, the threat of someone taking Hermione away from him that had driven the shard of glass through Riddle. And it had taken him too long to do it, anyways. The damage was done. Draco had managed to tear apart a family just as Lucius had done to his own. Except, with Draco, there was a body count.
It didn't matter that Draco was just one piece of a much larger equation, an added on incentive for Harry to investigate the criminal activity involving the Malfoy and Riddle names. He knew that the course of events probably wouldn't have changed that much if he wasn't involved but he couldn't help the creeping notion that poisoned every thought it touched, that's venom sunk into his stomach and made him physically ill, that was on infinite loop in his brain:
If he'd just gone to the house on his left, rather than his right when the cops came knocking that night. If he hadn't seen the open window, if he hadn't barged in, if he hadn't broken into her life, if, if, if he had just left her alone as he had done so for so long before, she would have slept peacefully through the night. She would have woken up in her bed, in yesterday's clothing, and closed her window. And she would have continued on as if Draco Malfoy was nothing more than a childhood memory.
Instead, he'd invaded her life and consumed her attention, ignoring how his decisions outside of their questionable relationship would affect her. If he could get through her window, how could he possibly think no one else would? He'd been ignorant and childish, thinking that there was some magical barrier between her and everything else in his life when there was no such thing as magic. There was only reality, and the reality was the large bloodstain she'd have to clean out of her bedroom carpet and a broken window she'd have to fix. And all the while, she'd have to find a way to fix her brother and fix herself. Because he'd seen the look on Hermione's face when she'd clung to that gun like a last resort. It had been the same look he'd carried for years like a virus that had finally infected her. It had been breaking down her immune system piece by piece until it was finally gone. She'd had nothing to protect her against the abrasive shock of seeing everything rupture. He'd seen her breaking point, a point that lay somewhere between her brother getting shot and her life getting robbed, and he'd seen her determination to break everything in return. And it had been his fault.
All he did was break things, break into cars, break windows, break promises, and break hearts. All the while, he wasn't even thinking about how this all would break his mother's heart.
There was the harsh clash of needle-thin heels against the concrete ground, the tell-tale signs that his mother was in the building. Draco straightened up from his self-loathing slouch and waited for the reckoning as it flooded towards him. He couldn't see it coming, but he could surely hear it.
"I want to see my son," Narcissa Malfoy's voice rang clear through the hall, though the muffled officer's reply didn't reach him. "I said, I want to see my son. I am his mother and I have that right no matter what your orders say, now let me through."
There was a shuffle of feet, definitely not his mother's, and then there was the crick of a door opening. He shot up from the poor excuse of a cell bed and peered through the bars to catch the first look of his mother. Escorted by a cop, Draco's mother swept up to the cell her son was locked behind. She had the face of a marble statue, beautiful and cold and perfectly designed to withstand public scrutiny. But he knew better than to take her emotions at face value.
"Unlock this cage," she pressed. The officer behind her puffed up, unsure how to tell this woman "no" without getting killed in his sleep.
"Miss, I can't do that."
She didn't even bother to look at him. Narcissa was too busy looking at a splotch of dried blood on Draco's t-shirt.
"Oh, please, do you think I'm going to escape with him? You can lock it behind me, or whatever you have to do to abide by your rules but I will not talk to my son from behind bars."
It didn't take the man long to unlock the cell door, let Narcissa through, and then dash off to his station at the desk. It was apparent he'd had his fill of Malfoys for probably a lifetime. And, now alone with his mother and trapped with her behind bars, he finally got to see the hysteria that was seething beneath the surface of her finely tuned expressions.
The first contact with his mother in days and it came in the form of a slap. The sting of it reached his eyes and there was the distinct feel of air against exposed flesh from where her nails made impact. It was less than he deserved, so it came as yet another shock when, almost instantly after the attack, arms enveloped him. She held him tightly, suffocating him, probably trying to press him back into her womb so she could safely extract him from this hell and start over again. Without hesitation, he hugged her back. It was weird, this physical contact between he and his mother. It was so seldom that it happened, especially after Lucius was sent off to prison, and when it did happen he usually resented it out of some warped fear of affection. But he welcomed it now, afraid that it would be a while since he felt such warmth again.
"How could you, Draco?"
He wasn't sure if it was rhetorical, or if he just wished it was.
"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair, more grey than black. He and his father were going to send her into an early grave.
She pulled away from him and shook her head after scanning him over, her hands going over his clothes and fidgeting with the wrinkles and tears and trying to find ways to hide the blood. Her jaw was clenched against so many accusations, he wondered whether another slap was coming his way.
"That's not an answer and it's not enough, not enough for me."
He sighed, sat down on the mattress so that his mother had more room to pace. They'd both realized long ago how soothing the repetitive and rhythmic sound of her heels were to her. It was also how he estimated her stress level. The more clicks per second, the more stressed she was. It was nearing four clicks and the longer she waited for an answer, the more clicks were added on.
"I was trying to protect everyone," he lamely explained. She slowed down, if only to shake her head at him.
"From what? Tom Riddle? You're a boy, Draco. That's not your job, you could've gotten killed. You almost got a boy killed today!"
"Harry's not dead?"
Narcissa shrugged. "Heavens, I don't know! Last I heard he was in an ambulance, so maybe he is now. Riddle isn't, thank God for that."
Draco eyed his mother, a foul taste in his mouth. "He should be."
She stopped pacing altogether, stared at her son in exasperation. "Not by your hands! He'll get what he deserves, as the law sees fit, and not by your judgment… seeing how off it's been lately."
"It was self-defense," he mustered in reply.
"With your criminal record, do you think they'd believe you?"
He swallowed, shook his head. "Probably not."
Narcissa sighed, ran a hand over the necklace Draco had helped his father buy for her once and probably with other people's stolen money. She sat down next to her son and ran that same hand over his hair, through it, trying to fix the mess he'd made.
"I thought you were doing better. I thought that girl was finally helping you to stop all this," she murmured, watching as Draco leaned into his mother's touch. He froze when he caught onto what she was saying.
"What girl? Hermione? I never told you about her," he accused, turning to his mother. She was caught between a smile and a scowl.
"It wouldn't be the first thing you didn't tell me, but a mother knows. I always know," Narcissa shot back. "I was just hoping you would confide in me at some point. I should have known you wouldn't, though. Malfoys never do confide in one another, do they?"
The guilt that had been accumulating in the pit of his stomach increased to bloating capacities. He didn't have room for both the guilt he felt towards Hermione and towards his mother. It was overbearing.
"I didn't want to burden you, not after-"
"After your father's arrest? After finding out about the foreclosure? Or after finding out that my son was in jail for assault, possibly attempted murder?"
He gaped at her, unsure where to start in his apologies when he had so many to make. "I was trying to get help, Riddle was promising legal help for the house and I didn't want to tell you anything until I was able to fix it." He was ranting on, spewing more things to rationalize keeping his mother in the dark, when a finger found its way on his lips in an attempt to silence him.
"Draco, I love you and you are my son, my only son. It is for these reasons that I am in charge of fixing things, not you. I'm your mother, I'm the one who protects. Not the other way around. So, you should have trusted me to figure out a way out of all this."
He searched her face for any sign that she had found out an escape from this hell. Of course, it was all calculated. She was either protecting him from a terrible truth or making him suffer for not telling her the truth.
"Did you?" He finally asked.
She looked off towards the hallway, sucking in a deep breath. When she turned back to him, he could see everything clearly. "Yes, I managed to work out a deal with the lawyers and the bank. They will let us keep half."
"Half of what? The house? What, are they going to saw off the other half and sell it?" Draco scoffed, though he already knew the real answer. He didn't like it, he didn't want it. Though, really, it wasn't like it was going to make anything better or worse if he was stuck in a cell for the rest of his life anyways.
"You know what it means, love. It means we get a fresh start. We're going to take the money from the foreclosure, the half of the profits that is ours, and get ourselves a comfortable home somewhere new, away from all this." She tried to soothe him, her hand stroking his head like she did when she tried to explain why his father was going away for so long, but his skull was throbbing too strongly for her touch to do anything but draw attention to the pain. He moved away from her.
"Doesn't matter if I'm stuck in here."
"With a good lawyer, we can get your time decreased, maybe even completely eradicated… I know why you don't want to leave, but it's best for the both of you." He flinched against the truth, not wanting to hear it from such a convincing source. "It doesn't have to mean goodbye forever, just for now."
There was the reassuring hand again, smoothing the pained expression from his face. He shut his eyes against her caring expression, not used to it being there so close to him after so long an estrangement. He wished he could just be happy that she wasn't leaving him here to rot. But suddenly here was so much better than out there, where the promise of more change awaited him.
He didn't realize she'd left until he heard his name called from the other side of the cell. "Draco Malfoy, get up," an officer called harshly, the banging of his baton against the metal bars grating on Draco's ears. He wasn't the most receptive inmate, dedicating his last nerves to blatantly ignoring the officer.
"Rot in jail, don't rot in jail, doesn't matter to me but you're gonna get your ass up right now or I'll put you in a cell with the big guy who's just been waitin' to talk to you," the cop casually threatened, finally earning a look from an annoyed Draco.
"What big guy?" The cop was already undoing the lock on his cell, the door creaking open in protest. All the while, the guy shrugged like it didn't matter who it was as long as the guy was big and in jail. It probably didn't matter, really. It seemed to be the physics of jail. The big guys' fists tended to fall onto the smaller guys' faces.
"Some guy they rolled in that's from your gang of misfit toys. There was a big bust further out in town. You're all going down and he seems to think it's because of you. Name sounded something like 'Gargoyle'?" With the door open, the cop waved a hand and ushered Draco forward. The boy got up, barely suppressing a laugh as he moved out of the cell, more than happy to oblige now. No way in hell was he going near Goyle again because if he did, he'd just be adding more years to his own sentence.
The man seemed to feel the aggressive air, or maybe it was just protocol, because the second Draco was out of his cell there were cuffs on his hands. He was starting to get really tired of restraints.
He was steered down the hallway, in the opposite direction of freedom, and passed a few cells filled to the brim with Tom's foiled pawns. They sat, stood, barred their teeth at Draco as he passed, the officer forcing Draco to walk just a little too close for comfort near waiting clawed hands. He heard his share of curses, saw a good amount of hatred there, but didn't see a single Theodore Nott in sight. It was enough to make the rest of the bullshit fade away for a little while, long enough for Draco to get to the interrogation room without really giving a shit what the assholes around him had to say, including the police officer that obviously wasn't his biggest fan.
He left Draco there, shutting the door on him, letting him wander about the darkened room with only the clank of his shoes and handcuffs as company until the door opened once more. In came the oldest looking sheriff Draco had the displeasure of meeting, though the man's gait would've never given his age away. He stood as tall as an older man could, only the merest crook to his back where his shoulders met his neck. He was quick about making his way to the barren table in the middle of the room, barely looking at Draco all the while. When, however, he pulled out his chair, he looked up with steady, experienced eyes and caught Draco staring.
"I was hoping we'd be able to talk, face-to-face, and preferably sitting comfortably. Well, as comfortably as these metal chairs can allow, that is," the sheriff's strong voice reached out to Draco, who was standing near the far end of the room. He eyed the old man, trying to find some kind of crack in the "nice cop" façade. He was having a hard time finding it. Didn't help that it was hard to hate on an old man whose presence seemed to fill up the entire room. So, begrudgingly, Draco made his way over to the table and sat down, making sure his cuffs made as abrasive a sound against the metal table as they could.
"How much time am I lookin' at?" He cut to the point before anymore small talk could pass between them.
The sheriff's eyebrows quirked upwards but his face otherwise remained in a state of neutral warmth. "Well, that depends, young man."
"On what? My attitude?" Draco shot.
"Partially, yes," the man replied with a discreet smile. "But mostly, it has a lot to do with your actions, your decisions. And, after looking at your record, you're going to have to start making better ones."
"Cut to the chase, grandpa," he huffed, leaning back in his seat.
"Albus, I'd rather you called me Albus."
Draco suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay, Albus, what do I have to do to get off on good behavior?"
Albus lowered his head, flipping through the file he'd carried in with him. It was thick with everything Draco had accumulated against himself. He didn't even want to know how much time it added up to. Apparently, neither did the sheriff. The older man shook his head and sighed heavily, closing the file with finality.
"It's easy, really. Community service, lots of it, but most importantly I want to see that you're going somewhere other than a jail cell. Go back to school, graduate, or get a well-paying job that will help you and your mother live comfortably. I hope never to see your name in the system ever again after this. If I do, this file opens up and consumes the rest of your life. I don't want that for you, and I hope you don't either."
Draco stared at the senile man in front of him, thinking someone should take his badge away and quick. He blinked, swallowed, tried to wrap his brain around the biggest hall pass he'd ever been given.
"But why? Why would you do that for me?" He stammered, pulling his hands off the table as if to keep the handcuffs out of the madman's reach.
"Well," Albus breathed, strumming his fingers against the metal. "I suppose because I've seen many boys come through this room, through this system, who get swallowed and never come back from it. They waste away and you seem so adamant about doing the same. I've known many boys who have made the wrong choices, my cells are filled with them at this very moment, and I've known many who could right those wrongs. I'm hoping you're one of them. You have people who care about you, a mother who wants you to be happy, and you have the right heart."
Draco started to shake his head, the handcuffs growing tighter around his hands, felt like they were tightening around his throat. "You don't know me."
Albus nodded in agreement. "Maybe, but I know the choices you've made. I know how you saved one of my men and you tried to protect one of my boys and his sister. I know you're trying, and that's good enough for me. You just have to promise that when you go through those doors, you're seeing them as an opportunity to make things right."
"My mother, she wants to move somewhere else. How are you going to keep an eye on me, then?" He was fishing for reasons not to go free, and he wasn't even sure why. He should've jumped at the opportunity to get out, especially if his cellmates were going to be people who wanted to see his scalp ripped off. But something was holding him back, tying itself to his handcuffs and shackling him to the floor.
"Your mother is a very determined woman," Albus chimed with an age-old chuckle, "and we've come to the agreement that you very much need a change in scenery. It would help keep you on the right path and, with a clean slate and no one there who knows of your history, it would be easier to start over. As long as you stay off the system, you're free to go anywhere."
"America?" He was fishing.
Albus rejected the bait. "Not that far, no. A new neighborhood, yes, but a new country with a different legal network… Not in the near future."
Draco nodded, his jaw clenched against the clear-cut choice he had in front of him. "And if I choose to serve my time here? How much time am I looking at?"
The sheriff's face wavered, a flicker of confusion under the calm. "With the multiple counts of burglary, car theft, assault, and your tendency to evade the law? A lot of time, Draco, and without the option of parole." Albus took notice of the strain in Draco's eyes, his voice when he asked such strange questions. "Whatever it is, Draco, it isn't worth wasting away behind bars. You deserve a second chance."
Draco remained silent, caught up in a strange battle of wills. He avoided the old man's x-ray vision, afraid he'd see right through to the selfish and greedy center. It was at the core of every single decision he'd made thus far, and even he refused to look at it dead on.
"I'll give you time to make your decision, but please choose to live your life. Because once you're behind those bars, you're in the land of the dead and dying. It would be a waste to see you give up so soon."
As the old man got up and left, letting the other, less sympathetic cop take over to herd Draco out of the room and back to his cell, Draco couldn't help but think his mom had paid the sheriff a good amount of money to do his magic back there. He couldn't believe that luck had just happened to be on his side, even though in a way it wasn't. It was all some kind of warped, sick ultimatum he was being handed and he hated it. Any other loser would've jumped the old man's bones to get that kind of offer, but there was Draco dragging his feet mentally and physically.
And then he caught sight of it, like some cheesy light at the end of the tunnel that was the row of cells: the source of his dilemma. In the same pajama shorts and tank top he'd seen her in before, curled hair facing him head-on while her back was turned to him, was the key to his handcuffs. He could almost feel them slipping off his hands, giving him free reign of the world. Forgetting completely that he was arrested and she was an utter mess of curls and dried blood, forgetting that he should've stayed yards, miles, light-years away from this girl if only to spare himself but mostly to spare her, forgetting that he was literally separated from her by a row of bars, he bolted towards her.
"Hermione!" He called, desperately needing to see her face and hating that need all the while. And like that, she turned and the weight she carried in her eyes helped him remember everything he'd just forgotten. He pressed himself against the barred door, imagining all the while that he could just squeeze through and hold her if she'd let him. He could vaguely make out the police officer behind him whining something about getting away from the civilian, like Draco was supposed to give a shit. It seemed Hermione was ignoring the law enforcement just as blatantly because, after a pause, she moved closer.
"Didn't expect to see you here," he huffed, the nerves getting the better of him and latching onto the edge of his voice. He hadn't expected to see her ever, really, and now that he was, well all kinds of dangerously stupid ideas were leaking into his head.
Her replying smile was weighed down, making it lopsided.
Her silence unnerved him, made him chatty. "You're still in your pajamas," was probably the dumbest comment he could have made. It drew too much attention to why he was behind a bunch of metal poles. She knew as much, her body growing stiff as she looked down at her clothes. She probably hadn't even realized she hadn't changed since the attack, and now it was a deafening fact that spoke volumes.
"Yeah, I'm starting to realize that," she murmured, rubbing her arm. The movement drove his eyes to her shoulder blade and, without thinking, his hands were reaching for her. She jumped away and a baton was swinging out at the bars next to him.
"Hands to yourself," his overseeing officer grumbled. Draco resisted the urge to tell the guy to practice what he preached and go fuck himself. Instead, he focused his attention on the skittish girl in front of him, afraid that any distractions would have her sprinting off to the dream she came from. She was eying her shoulder, where Draco had been trying to reach.
"You should get that looked at," he suggested lamely. She shrugged dismissively, turning her eyes away from one problem to another: him.
"Medic sterilized it. I'll bandage it when I get home."
"Does it hurt?"
"My shoulder or everything else?"
They both looked taken aback and he saw her try to retreat from the comment, knowing it came out harsher than she'd wanted it to. It was like getting slapped, all over again, nails and all. And, again, he deserved it.
His hands retreated from the door where they'd lingered, fingers just poking over to the other side. It was obvious she was glad for the barrier between them.
"I'm sorry, this was a bad idea," she blurted out, and he felt her backing away before she actually did. He couldn't help himself. His hands flared out impulsively to keep her near, afraid the thin string that tied them together was fraying and about to snap with the slightest tension. He caught the tips of her fingers, clung on, and they both stared at the desperation his hands had written all over them. He was selfish, impulsively selfish for wanting her.
"Please," was all he could muster in his defense.
She was struggling, shutting her eyes to their unstable way of holding onto each other; how it was always clinging to the edges, never completely on solid ground, an infinite cliffhanger that had no resolution. She was starting to develop of fear of heights, constantly hanging there in wait of falling.
"Last night," she cleared her throat against the scratchy beginnings of a conversation she'd had in her head since that catastrophic morning. "Last night, when you were trying to tell me something, what was it? Was it this, about Riddle?"
He clutched harder onto her hand, enveloped her palm and stroked the smoothness of her wrist with his bandaged thumb. "It was a toss-up between truths."
She was slowly getting closer to him, the both of them almost forgetting where they were within the small space of peace they were trying to create for themselves.
"Between this crap and what else?"
His head fell against the cool metal, helped him see straight through all the bullshit in his head, all the lies he'd built up like the Great fricken Wall of China.
"That I love you."
He heard her exhale, as if it were her final breath, and felt the overwhelming warmth of her forehead press against his. He could feel the pulse of so many thoughts coursing through her mind there, wished that with touch he could hear everything that was going on and yet, at the same time, thanked God he couldn't. He dared to peer at her face, a frightening task when so close to a burning sun. Her eyes were sown shut, and he was glad for it. There was too much already there for him to see, all the shit he'd put her through reflected back at him in a blinding display that made his eyes water from staring too long. If he were to see her eyes, see everything she was trying so hard to hide from him, he'd burn from shame.
"I'm so sorry, Hermione," he breathed, as if that would give him the same kind of clean slate Albus had offered him before. But matters of law and heart were different, there were different kinds of guilt writhing inside him and only a few kinds that could be forgiven. He knew he couldn't get rid of this guilty verdict with a swipe of a pen or a deal made between men. He lied to the girl he loved. That kind of crime gets written on the heart.
"I know you are, I know. I'm sorry, too." He looked up at her again, her eyes open and fierce. There was a glint of wetness to them that clenched at his throat and his hands rose up to her face, so close he could finally try to smooth away the anxiety from her skin. Awkwardly, handcuffs clanging in upset along with the disgruntled cop behind him, he cupped her cheeks, ran his fingers over them.
"Hey," he called her eyes back to him, though she tried hard to avoid his gaze. "Hey, why are you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong, okay? This is me being stupid, alright?"
She tried to shake her head but his hands held her still. She was fighting something he couldn't see. "It's not what I've done, it's what I'm going to do."
"What're you talking about?" He felt her slipping from him, the string unraveling. He wondered, if he was quick about it, if tying it back together would work to keep her near.
Hermione, after so long trying to avoid looking at him, was determined to stare him straight in the eye. The wetness was gone, like a dry spell had swept over her. She grabbed at his hands, soothing them even as she tried to pry them off her face. "Draco, I can't do it. I can't become like your mom with your dad. I just..." She heaved a breath, gripping at her resolution. "I just can't be waiting for you on the other side of the glass, for the rest of my life."
She was slipping away from him. And he realized he should have let her, because it was all he could think about doing when alone in a cell faced with his future. But with her there, the smell of her and sight of her surrounding him, making him forget that the world wasn't revolving around them, he wanted to keep her there. And he realized why he refused to run to freedom when given the opportunity, oh how selfish his reasons where. He'd dreamed of her coming and visiting him behind that glass as Narcissa did Lucius, so loyally and lovingly. He'd forgotten the nightmares that had followed when Narcissa's resentment had grown stronger than her love for her husband, he'd forgotten how much he hated how his mother stuck by Lucius no matter what. He was turning into him, thinking that no matter what he'd have everything even when he jeopardized it all. He was about to willingly sign up for years in jail, knowingly putting Hermione in the cage next to him, just so he could see her come visiting hours. As if that shackled obligation would be any better than him taking the offer, moving away, and her slowly forgetting him.
He wanted to be near her so bad, he risked her resenting him and it was already starting.
She was letting go of his hands, hands that were still reaching for her.
"Hermione, I promise I'm going to fix this. I'm going to save myself, and I'm going to get out of here. Okay?" He rushed out before she could leave. She studied him, the resolve there on his face. She gave a sad smile, a nod.
"Hey," he called quietly, his fingers grazing her cheek, the clenched jaw beneath. It eased under his touch, turned to it for comfort. He memorized the torn expression on her face, solidified it into his resolve to get out of there. "I can't lose you, Hermione."
Her face melted into his hands and then she was there, surrounding him with her lips, kissing him goodbye and he didn't know if it was for now or for ever. It was forever and it was instant, a nebular explosion that seared his lips and blew him back to the night he'd first kissed her, having thought he'd have so many more opportunities to kiss her than he actually had.
"Then don't," she demanded when her lips slipped away from his. And then she was gone.