Chapter Twenty-Five: An Eye for an Eye

Hermione had woken up in Draco's bed every morning since their arrival at Grimmauld Place, but this time was very different. This time she was naked and sore in places she hadn't been sore for a long time. Draco was sleeping beside her, also naked, his arm curved around her waist protectively. Her stomach, which almost never saw the sun, was nearly as pale as his hand. She turned to face him and studied his face as he slept, processing her memories of the night before as they came flooding back in. None of them registered negatively; in fact, she regarded them all with affection. His pale blond eyelashes fluttered slightly as he woke, perhaps somehow able to sense her stare.

She waited with baited breath for him to consider her with regret or disgust, but instead he smiled, small but genuine. "Good morning," he mumbled. His voice was heavy with sleep.

"Good morning," she whispered back.

He looked down at their naked bodies, where a sheet hid the parts of her body he had explored the night before. His expression was one of awe, as if she were a piece of abstract art too beautiful to understand, "Do you… Do you regret it?" he asked.

"Do you?"

"No."

"Then neither do I."

He sighed and sat up a little in bed. "But we should talk about it?" he asked knowingly.

"You know me well," she said, also pulling herself up into a sitting position. She needed conversations, boundaries, and labels. Her mind simply didn't work any other way.

"Then let's talk about it," Draco agreed uncharacteristically quickly. Hermione forgot how much more compliant men were when sex was involved. "Just let me take a piss first," he said. He stood without bothering to put his underwear back on and Hermione averted her eyes.

"Oh, don't get prudish on me now," he said. "If your mouth didn't have a problem with it, your eyes certainly shouldn't."

"Malfoy!" She threw a pillow at him. "Ginny could hear you!"

He chuckled his way to the loo and returned with a pair of boxers on. "Better?"

"Much." Hermione pulled on a tank top and bunched the sheets up around her lower half. Draco shifted back into bed sat next to her stiffly. She leaned into him and he eased up a bit, letting his arm wrap around her and his finger trace patterns on her shoulder. "What should we talk about?"

She drew her lower lip between her teeth and bit down nervously. "I suppose my first question would be 'why?'"

"Why what?"

She shrugged. "Just… Why?"

"Granger, I don't just jump into bed with anyone," he said reassuringly.

"You don't?" she asked. "So then… how many?"

"Four," he answered without hesitation. "Well, now five."

She nodded, deeming this number very acceptable. In reality, she hadn't given much thought to how many women Draco had slept with, and was just glad his number wasn't far into the double-digits. Then again, there probably weren't many women eager to jump into bed with a former Death Eater. "You're number three," she told him.

"They do say the third time's a charm," he said with a grin and she swatted his arm gently. "Is this relationship abusive already?" he whined.

She stiffed at his words. "So this is a relationship?" she asked timidly.

Draco pulled back. "Oh. I'm not… I'm not sure."

"Well it can hardly be a proper one if we're stuck here," she said. "But I should tell you that I have a rule about this sort of thing. I won't sleep with someone unless I'm the only one they're sleeping with."

"Well I can assure you I'm not, being that the only other option here is a married pregnant woman," he said jokingly, but then sobered. "But even if I could, I wouldn't want to."

She looked at him shyly, wondering what this meant. "So last night…?"

"Was fantastic," he finished. He leaned in close, his lips a half inch away from hers. "I was a big fan of what you did with that mouth of yours, too. Good for something besides reciting mundane facts."

She smacked his arm again, her cheeks burning. Perhaps it was because they'd waited for so long, but the sex had been great. He wasn't as controlling as she'd expected. He seemed almost frightened of her in an endearing sort of way. Every move he made was with careful deliberation and reverence.

"So you… Want to continue sleeping together?" she asked.

He looked at her as if this was the most ridiculous question to ever be asked. "I do have a cock."

"Don't be crude!"

He smiled, but then looked down at her seriously. "But also," he said softly. "I also want more than that."

She swallowed. "Like what?"

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, his cheeks flushing. "Wouldn't have thought I'd ever be saying this, but you make me happy in the simplest way. As strange as it might sound to you, I don't want just sex. Whatever this is I feel for you is more than that, and I… I want more, even if that's selfish, even if that might not be what you want. And if it isn't, then that's okay, and I respect that, and I understand. I understand why you wouldn't want this to be more than something you can hide behind doors."

"Malfoy," she said, laughter on her tongue. "You're rambling." She reached up and stroked his cheek. "I want more, too."

He looked vaguely surprised. "You do?"

"I'm not the friends-with-benefits type anyway."

"Right," he said, somewhat in a daze. "Right."

She leaned her head against his chest and he moved his fingers down to her arm, still tracing patterns absentmindedly. "So what is this, then?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she answered honestly. "Why don't we just go along with it and see where it takes us?"

He nodded. "I like that idea." There was a pause, then, "I want to take you on a real date, though."

She smirked. "Here? What, in Harry and Ginny's kitchen?"

"Please, I will not have our first date be tainted by such tacky décor," he said. "But soon, I promise you. A real date, with flowers and champagne and polite conversation and shit. I might even pull out your chair for you."

"Sounds fantastic," she said with a giggle. His fingers continued their trail down her arm until his thumb hit the raised, ropey flesh of her scar. He froze, and she looked down at where he was touching her. The 'd' of 'Mudblood'. She looked up and saw remorse etched into the very lines of his face.

"Granger..."

"It's okay," she said.

"No." He shifted slightly so he could look her straight in the eye. "I have a lot of pride. You know that."

"I do."

"But I need you to know, right now while I'm naked in bed with you and already down the black hole of sincerity, that I'm sorry for not… For not stepping in that day." She tried to pull away from his grip, to tell him she understood, but he held on firmly. "There are so many mistakes I've made that I regret, but this is one of the ones I regret most. When I saw you having that nightmare back at the cottage, I couldn't help but think…" His breath caught. "I couldn't help but think I could have prevented it."

"I've forgiven you," she said honestly. She knew he regretted it, she knew it the night it happened when she saw, between bouts of excruciating pain, two tears falling down his cheeks while his aunt tortured her.

"I wish I could have been braver," he whispered as she kissed his jaw gently. He paused, then elaborated: "I wish I had had someone like you to teach me how to be braver."

"I think something's up between Malfoy and Hermione." Harry leaned back in an office chair next to Ron's desk and prepared himself for his best friend's reaction.

Instead of an explosive burst of anger, Ron simply frowned. "What makes you say something like that?"

"I live with the two of them now, and they're… Well, they're chummy."

Ron unwrapped one of the many sweets he kept stashed in his desk. "I knew that. Look, mate, it's as odd for me as it is for you to see them being friends, but stranger things have happened."

Harry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. How was he supposed to tell Ron that he'd seen Hermione sneakily kiss Malfoy on the cheek while they were making their morning tea? How he'd come home to find a pair of women's panties that were definitely not his wife's on the stairwell, and how it took a stunning spell from Ginny to stop him murdering his ferrety boarder? How was he supposed to explain that his best mate's ex-girlfriend was dating Malfoy?

"Look, Ron," he said. "I think it's more than just friendship between them."

Ron stopped mid-chew. "I'll kill him," he said bluntly.

"Malfoy?"

"Well, I'm not exactly going to hex Hermione," he said, his voice growing angrier. "Have you seen them together? Do you know this for sure?"

"No," Harry lied. "But there's little things, you know? He makes her dinner every night, sometimes they sit real close on the couch, and she gives him these looks…"

Ron narrowed his eyes as he contemplated Harry's words, but seemed to decide they meant nothing. "I don't know, Harry. Maybe you're reading into it too much. I really don't think Hermione would fall for Malfoy, no matter how good of friends they were. She's way too bloody smart for that."

Harry swallowed and decided it might be better for Ron to ease into the situation. He'd leave it alone for now.

The door to Ron's office swung open and Regina, the head of Auror recruitment, stepped in. She was stern as ever with her hair cut as sharp as a blade and her pointy black pumps that could easily pierce a man's chest. She pursed her lips. "One of the trainees in charge of feeding our prisoners has reported back a request by the Brown woman."

"What's she want now?" asked Ron, who was now in a foul mood.

"She's requested to speak with Draco Malfoy."

Harry frowned. "I thought she was adamant about speaking to us and Hermione."

"She was up until this morning. I discussed the matter with the other department heads and we think this could be an opportunity."

"Wouldn't that be rewarding her request? We've got a delicate power balance to maintain here."

Regina shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable treating someone as young as Harry as an equal. "The other heads and I agree that we've gone too long without any real breaks in this case. Perhaps by heeding this one request we can gather a new lead to follow."

Harry knew she didn't need his approval to carry on with the decision, but given his personal relationship with Lavender, the other department heads probably pushed her to check with him. Ron gave a nod of approval to Regina. "I think we should do it. It'd make Malfoy useful. He's been leeching off Harry this whole time anyway."

Harry shrugged. "I suppose couldn't hurt. I'll bring him in first thing tomorrow morning."

Draco agreed to speak with Lavender firstly to confront the woman who killed his mother, but secondly because he was dying to get out of Grimmauld Place. Cabin fever was beginning to settle in and he was getting antsy. Even Hermione was beginning to get irritated with his constant pacing and wishful looks out the window. She begged Harry to let her come along with them to the Ministry and he finally caved; obviously years of friendship with Hermione still hadn't made him immune to her sneaky way of getting what she wanted.

She got up early to get ready for the day. Draco woke up to see her making that dopey open-mouthed expression in the mirror as she tried, unsuccessfully, to line her eyes symmetrically. "Makeup, Granger? Really?"

"I haven't seen people in weeks," she said with a deep blush.

Had it really been weeks? She could have told him they'd been there for three days or three months and he would've believed it. He really was rubbish at keeping track of time. "What time is it?"

"Half past eight. You should get up. We leave soon."

She wore dark maroon robes and he chose plain dark blue ones. She eyed him up and down before giving him a small nod of approval. Harry escorted them both through the Floo and the moment they hit the floor of the Ministry Draco took in a deep breath of the air. It was new, not fresh but different, faintly lemon-scented from the past night's mopping. There were people all around them, people dressed in different colors, people with varying voices, talking about things that were trivial and unimportant, but he longed to listen to their mundane conversation. They'd only been trapped for a few weeks, but it only took a few weeks to forget what reality felt like.

"Where's she being held?" asked Hermione.

"She was at Azkaban, but we brought her back here to keep a better eye on things." After the war Azkaban was divided into two sections: one with dementors for serious offenders and one without for those who committed smaller crimes. Still, just stepping onto the prison grounds was enough to feel soul-crushing despair and Draco was glad they didn't have to visit.

He felt his hands beginning to shake as they took the elevator up to the Auror offices. Hidden from Harry by another employee packed into the small elevator, Hermione grasped his hand and squeezed gently. He squeezed back.

"You'll be fine," she whispered.

"Of course I will," he said with false haughtiness. She rolled her eyes.

The Auror offices were strangely quiet. Each and every one of the other Aurors was waiting for Draco to arrive. Hermione dropped his hand and followed silently behind him as Harry led them through the desks and to the interrogation rooms. Draco's throat was dry and he tried swallowing several times before asking Harry in a raspy voice if she was already inside.

"She is," Harry answered. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out Draco's wand. "We won't be in there with you, so you can have this back. For now."

Draco reached out, grasped his wand with greedy fingers, and immediately felt his blood warm and his skin tingle with magic. He'd been deprived for too long.

"We told her five minutes. After that we're coming in. Remember—no using magic unless absolutely necessary. You cannot harm her," Harry said. "Got it?"

Draco nodded. "Got it."

Hermione touched his arm gently and smiled. "We'll be just out here." He nodded again and with a deep breath, grasped the cold metal doorknob.

What he found inside was not what he expected. He'd had extensive time to imagine Brown, and in his mind he pictured a fierce woman with angry eyes and an evil sneer. Instead he saw a defeated mess of a human. Her head was drooped down, her hair matted and greasy.

"Brown?" he asked. Her head jerked up. He did a double take: her previously smooth white skin was marred with so many scars he hardly recognized her as human, much less as a former schoolmate of his. Greyback had got her bad and he had to wonder how she even survived. Thick scar tissue made one of her eyes droop lower than the other. Her eyebrows were bare in certain places, her ear was missing a piece, and there was a snag in her upper lip where a chunk had probably been torn out. His heart hurt for a moment, feeling intense sympathy for this woman who had everything robbed from her, but then he remembered his mother and all empathy left his body.

"You came," she said.

He tightened his grasp on his wand and stood at the door, not wanting to sit anywhere near her. "I did."

She looked him up and down, her gaze full of distaste and hatred. "Good. I wanted to tell you to your face how good it felt to finally take your fucking mother's life."

It took him one and a half seconds to barrel at her, grasp her shirt collar with one fist, and jab the tip of his wand into her neck with the other. "Fuck you," he spat. She hardly flinched. Remembering Harry's warning not to curse her, he pushed her away and let her fall hard onto her metal seat. He wiped his hand on his pants.

"What, is touching me too dirty?" she laughed. "Doesn't seem to bother you when you're around Hermione, though, does it?"

He thought about Hermione waiting for him just outside the door. He needed them to think he hated her, otherwise she would remain a target. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You think we're stupid? You've spent every day of the past two months with her."

"For work," he spat. "You must be delusional if you think I enjoy her company."

Lavender shrugged. "What we saw in the papers suggested otherwise."

"I can assure you that while I no longer harbor prejudice against Granger, I certainly have no personal inclinations towards her," he said, trying his best to say her name with as much disgust as possible. "Makes no sense to me why you'd hurt her anyway. Isn't she supposed to be your Gryffindor princess?"

"An eye for an eye," she answered.

"Makes the whole world blind."

She leaned in. "Some people deserve to be blinded."

"And you'd make Granger your collateral damage? After you already… After you took my own mother?" He gripped his wand again. Would they be angry if he just cast a simple Crucio? A short one, just enough to make her scream?

"Tell me, Malfoy, how many people have you killed?" Lavender asked, her voice dripping with loathing. Somewhere in her scratched neck a vein throbbed. "I remembered you at Hogwarts. I thought you were just another bully, I waved Hermione away whenever she came back to our dormitory crying over something horrible you told her. I never once thought you capable of what you turned into, and yet here you are. You bear the same mark as the people who killed my friends. You stood by the man who did this to me." She pointed at her disfigured face, her finger trembling. "So how many people, Malfoy?"

He didn't answer her and she pounded a fist on the table. "Tell me!" she demanded. "Tell me how many people you killed!"

"I don't know!" he roared, now standing, his body leaning over the table and snarling over her disfigured face. "I never performed the killing curse, if that's what you're asking!" He forced himself to shut up, telling himself that he owed this woman no explanation. "My sins were judged by the Ministry and I have been absolved. I've forgiven myself."

Lavender sneered and leaned backwards. "I'm so glad you've been able to forgive yourself, Malfoy. The rest of us? We haven't forgotten. We remember, and we aren't going to let you forget that your people ruined us. We don't get to move on. We're damaged goods."

"There are more of you?" Draco asked, trying not to let the guilt settle in. This woman was deranged, he reminded himself, and he was here to gather information.

She gave him a disparaging grin. "We're not done with you," she whispered. "This is just the calm before the storm."

"You miserable bitch," he hissed.

She cackled, again reminding him of his Aunt Bellatrix. "Tell our dear Hermione to watch her back. We've got eyes everywhere, Malfoy. And I really do mean everywhere."

Before her could press her to ask what this meant, the door swung open and Harry beckoned for him. "Come on."

Lavender's demeanor shifted completely upon seeing Harry. She tried to get up from the table but she was chained to her chair. "Harry!" she pleaded. "Speak to me, come talk, I can show you what we've done! Bring Ron, he would be so proud! Hermione will understand she shouldn't waste another second with this filth!"

Draco raised his wand again but Harry pulled him out of the room. A nagging voice reminded him that those were the very words he used to describe Hermione years ago, and he felt guilty when she grasped him with concern. "Are you okay?" she asked, rubbing his arm with her thumb.

"I'm… Fine," he said with a small shake of the head. He turned to Harry. "Do you need me to tell you what she said?"

"No need, we recorded the entire thing."

Draco flushed with anger. "You didn't warn me you'd be recording."

"Sorry," Harry said with little remorse in his tone. "We wanted an honest conversation."

Hermione pulled Draco into a chair before he could grow angrier. "That wasn't fair, Harry," she said.

"Many things aren't fair." He looked at the pair of them and sighed. "I'll get you a cup of water."

Once he left Hermione pulled Draco's head onto her shoulder. "What did she say?"

"Lots of things…" He murmured. He tried to tell himself that Lavender was insane, but he knew her anger was at least half warranted. She had been so purely revolted by him. "Hermione?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"I'm so sorry. For everything."

She rubbed his back absentmindedly. "I know you are."

He pulled back and looked gratefully down at her. "You never tell me to stop apologizing. You just accept it."

She turned her head to the side and looked at him seriously. "You have many things to be sorry for. And I don't mind forgiving you however many times it takes."

His heart hurt as he lowered his head back onto her shoulder. He would never run out of reasons he didn't deserve her.

Hermione went first through the Floo back to Grimmauld Place. Draco pulled Harry aside before he could follow her. "Wait," he requested.

"What is it?"

Draco shifted on his feet nervously. "I was wondering… I'd like to have my wand for one more day."

Harry frowned suspiciously. "What for?"

Draco momentarily considered giving up on his idea right then and there. He really didn't want to admit to Harry what his plan was, but then he remembered Hermione's words to him earlier that day, and he set his pride aside in a way he only did for her. "I want to do something for Hermione," he muttered.

Harry blinked in surprise and then shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. "Merlin, Ron is going to kill someone. You've got it bad, mate."

Mate? Since when were they anywhere near friendly terms? "I… Look, I'm already at a low point here, asking you if I can use my own bloody wand. Don't knock a man while he's down."

Harry considered the request. "Just for tomorrow, and Ginny has to be with you the whole time you're using it."

"Fine," he agreed, knowing there wasn't going to be a better offer. "Thank you," he added as an afterthought.

"I should give you an obligatory warning, though," Harry added. "I will kill you if you break her heart. Hermione has been broken in so many other ways, and there's only so many times someone can shatter before they can't be put back together again."

Draco nodded, even though he didn't need this warning. He knew better than anyone what it felt like to be on the brink of permanent destruction.

A/N: Woot thank you for 500+ reviews! Y'all are so fabulous, please keep it up!

Review question: What are your thoughts on Lavender? I find it fascinating to imagine what type of pain one must go through to go from being a "good" person to a "bad" one. Is she justified at all? Perhaps only in her feelings, but not her actions?