The drive to Hermione's flat was silent and tense—very tense. The only words they exchanged were directions.
Draco opened the door of her apartment building and held it open for her. She mumbled her thanks and led him up the stairs. Once they reached the landing, she turned down the hall and they proceeded to make their uncomfortable walk to her door. She pulled out her keys, and after a brief struggle to unlock the door because of her frazzled nerves, they left the empty hallway behind them.
Draco closed the door behind him and turned to her, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He watched her suspiciously as she removed her jacket and hung it up. With a sigh, she pulled out her wand and closed her eyes as she held it to her head. "Revelare Verum Sui."
The familiar tingling sensation poured over her body. Knowing Malfoy's eyes were upon her, she felt the change much more clearly than she ever had before. Once the sensation had passed, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
Malfoy's eyes were wide. The tension had disappeared from his shoulders and his face was bare of any emotion other than shock.
She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "Say something," she whispered.
"It's you," he breathed.
She nodded. "It's me."
He seemed to shake himself from the trance he was in. "I mean…you look… I mean, you said…you told me, but I… You're just…" He shook his head. "You're…" He trailed off and swallowed thickly.
"First, I would like to say I'm sorry," she began. "I felt guilty the entire time for lying to you, but I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. I'm…" she shrugged, feeling the hot sting of tears prick at the base of her eyes. "I'm sorry," she finished lamely.
Malfoy wouldn't look her in the eyes. He was staring at something… She followed his gaze to her left forearm, where the last three letters of her scar were peeking past the hem of her gray sleeve—looking almost just as red and horrible as it had the day after Bellatrix had given it to her. She hastily pulled her sleeve down to cover it, feeling very exposed. She cleared her throat.
He opened his mouth to say something but instead just let out a defeated breath. "Potter and the Weasleys have been searching for you since you disappeared," he told her very mechanically.
She almost toppled from the weight of the fresh guilt that set in.
"The Daily Prophet said you'd written Potter a letter saying you were going on holiday, but after a few weeks went by and no one had heard anything from you, Potter announced that he suspected the letter might have been forged and they started a nation-wide search for a little over a year," he continued stoically. "They didn't find you, obviously, and there was no trace of your magic—which led them to assume you'd been killed."
"I never registered my wand with the French Wizarding Embassy," she thought aloud.
He nodded. "That's very illegal, by the way," he added.
"So they couldn't trace my magic outside of Britain." Her thoughts came tumbling out of her mouth. "And I…I don't use enough magic here to be picked up by trace monitors," she realized aloud. Oh god, what had she done?
He paused before continuing. "They started saying you must have been murdered by a former death eater or one of their family members with a vendetta against you. There were hundreds of theories—the paper was always littered with them—but Potter never gave up. He did a lot of work with foreign wizarding embassies to try and find you, but nothing ever turned up. There was an article a few months ago stating he was rumored to have traveled to Australia on some supposed lead, but he does it on his own time and money. The ministry gave up a while after the first year. They closed your case and released a statement saying you were presumed dead."
Hermione's ears were pounding. She could hear the blood rushing in them; she could feel her heart hammering against her ribcage.
Harry thought she was dead. Ron thought she was dead. So did Ginny and the Weasley family—oh god, Molly. Molly thought she was dead, too. Hermione was like family—after losing Fred, she couldn't possibly imagine…
"I think I'm going to be sick," she muttered dizzily, reaching for the wall behind her. Malfoy stepped forward, taking a careful hold of her arms.
"Let's sit down," he said, guiding her to the couch across the room.
She let him lead her to the seat and she fell into it blindly. She couldn't believe how far things had gone.
"I never wanted them to worry," she sniffed. "I didn't think things would…" She shook her head as her eyes pooled over and a tear ran down her cheek. "I didn't want…I didn't want to hurt them. I just wanted to get away."
If Draco said or did anything after that, she took no notice. She was too preoccupied with imagining the nightmare she had unintentionally created for the people she cared most about. She had no idea how long she sat there like that, but eventually she realized something warm was being placed in her hand. She blinked, looking up to see Malfoy wrapping her hands around a steaming mug of tea.
She shot him a joyless smile as she accepted the mug gratefully and took a sip. She shook her head. "I don't understand. Why would they just assume I was dead? That's so…extreme. Does that not sound extreme to you?" she asked him.
Draco took a deep breath, acknowledging her point with a grimace. "Well… Do you remember Theodore Nott?"
She frowned. "He went to school with us, didn't he? He was in Slytherin? Why?"
He nodded. "Theo's father was sentenced to life in Azkaban for his crimes as a death eater, and… well, Theo went off the deep end. He blamed the community for his father's imprisonment. He was the only one of us—err, kids of Death Eaters, I mean," he added uncomfortably, "who showed no remorse and made no effort to change our way of thinking. He started using his basement to torture and slaughter Muggles and Muggleborns."
Hermione recoiled in revulsion. "That's…that's…"
Draco nodded somberly. "I…was actually the one who discovered it. That's why my magic was taken away."
Hermione blinked. "Wait, what?"
Draco looked immensely uncomfortable and shifted his position next to her on the couch. "I spent a fair amount of time with Theo after I was take off of house arrest. Him and Blaise were the only people who wanted anything to do with me. Theo and I were…friends," he admitted with a scowl. "One day we were at his house and I heard this…this scream. He tried to play it off like it was a prank or something, but it didn't sit right with me. Eventually I got past him and went to the basement. I saw it myself. It was…disgusting." He stared into space, his eyes taking on that haunted, cloudy look again. "He threatened to kill my mother if I reported him. I sent my mother away to Spain and then I went to report it, but he'd already been found out. He tried to name me an accomplice and I was arrested."
Hermione stared at him dumbly, her mouth hanging open in horror.
"Theo admitted to killing a considerable number of missing persons, and when they asked him if he had anything to do with your disappearance, he laughed and said he'd never tell. He was demented."
Hermione's hands were shaking. She set her mug on the coffee table in front of them, not trusting herself to hold it any longer.
"They tried to charge me with his crimes, but they didn't stick. They had no proof, and I had an alibi. And a very good defender," he added. "Harry spoke briefly on my behalf—said there was no way I could ever do any of that, but they took my wand and my magic for good measure."
"Draco," she whispered. "Draco, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. I don't… I don't even know what to say."
He shrugged, not looking up from his fixated gaze on the carpet by his feet. "You should probably write Potter," he said.
Her shoulders sank. "I'm afraid to," she admitted. "Especially now."
At this, Draco's eyes snapped up to hers. "We all thought you were dead," he stated angrily. "Dead, Granger. I thought you were dead. I thought Nott had killed you. I spent a lot of nights wondering if he'd done it around the same time I had been in his house, visiting him—if…if maybe you'd been dying while I was there, in that very same house. Do you know how—" he cut off, rising to his feet. He put his hands in his trouser pockets, and his jaw muscle tensed. "I blamed myself, you know," he said, facing the wall and not looking at her. "I thought maybe I had stood nearby and allowed you to be tortured for the second time in my life. It kept me up at night. I never made peace with it. After the Manor, I…" He trailed off before turning around to look at her, disapproval all over his face. "And you were here the entire time—hiding."
She shrank at his words.
"The very least you can do, Granger, is write the people you love. At least write the one person who has never given up searching for you." He rubbed his hand across his jaw. "I may not like Potter much, but even I can see that especially after everything he's lost in his life, he certainly doesn't deserve this as well."
And with that, he turned towards the door.
Hermione rose to her feet. "Where are you going?" she asked, panic rising through the torrent of emotions swirling around inside her, threatening to smother her.
"I need some time to think," he announced without looking back. He slammed the door behind him.
Hermione sat back down on the couch, hugged a throw pillow to her chest, and cried. She was disgusted with herself, with how selfish her decisions had turned out to be, with what a terrible friend she had been. She glanced over at her desk, where an unfinished letter to Harry from her first month here sat in the top drawer, and she cried harder. She curled up into a ball and sobbed for well over an hour, until there was nothing left within her—until she was so completely drained that she lost consciousness altogether.
She stayed on the couch all night, deep in sleep, her body too worn out to move.
When the gray light of morning woke her early the next day, in her state of distress, she didn't notice that someone had been back to cover her with a blanket.