A/N - Almost nothing to say this week except thank you so much for the amazing response to the last chapter. I'm home now, still in post-holiday depression and feeling sad about a bunch of other stuff, but that isn't important. I'll channel the angst into Dramione, haha.

Cold grey daylight was barely filtering through the window when Hermione awoke. It was early, much earlier than she normally woke up at weekends, and it took her a second to work out why. Disoriented, she tried to glance around, noticing only the starchy white sheets on top of her when she was hit with a tidal wave of dull pain. Biting down on her hand to stifle a cry, everything came back to her in an instant.

Her head was pounding and every inch of her body was throbbing, as though the skin had been set alight. It felt raw. The ghostly imprint of the Cruciatus curse was clearly designed to outlast the actual duration of the spell.

Despite the persistent pounding in her head, she clumsily strung together a sequence of events: the trip, the boy, the attack, the moment she awoke, the kiss.

The kiss. Oh no.

She whipped her head to the right, ignoring the protest from her body, and saw through the dim morning light that there was a sleeping figure on a camp bed next to her, and she didn't need to see the platinum blond hair to know it was Malfoy.

Somehow, she managed to scrape together a hazy, fragmented memory of waking up and seeing him, but he had been blurry and swimming in a pool of silver, something she must have imagined because of the pain. Then he'd given her a potion, and then she'd felt suddenly tired, but totally uninhibited, and so she had kissed him. Not again, she groaned to herself. Why did this keep happening?

Groggy and sluggish and still trying not to moan out loud because of the burning all over, she slumped back against her pillows. Why did she let herself do these stupid, stupid things? Because there's something in you that really wants them, remarked a devilish little voice in her head.

Did she want them? It was better not to answer that, even though, as usual, she thought she did know that answer. It was logic. But she couldn't, didn't, want him, because it was all too absurd… but deep down, some part of her must. Or else why would such events only occur when there was no rational thought in her head to stop her?

It was more than a small part, perhaps, but definitely not the majority of her. It was wrong, so horrifically wrong, to want him, yet she did. She'd kissed him once because he'd demanded it of her; once because he'd been near to her; and now once because he'd saved her, because he said he'd been unable to leave her… because at that moment she thought he wanted it too. Thinking about those first two times had kept her up at night on more than several occasions.

He must want something with her too. Why else would he respond to her silly, unplanned, un-thought-out advances? Why else would he have stayed by her? But then again, it was Malfoy; his head was difficult to work out at the best of times.

A shooting pain suddenly flared up her leg, and she yelled out before she could stop herself, though she tried to quiet it quickly. She checked to see if Malfoy had stirred- he had not. Good. She didn't think she'd be able to face him any time soon. Though she knew she would have to, like she always had to.

Her shout had attracted some attention, however; Madam Pomfrey scuttled out of her office now, and hurried towards her.

"You're awake," she observed, without any kind of emotion. "Did you wake up in the night?"

"Yes," Hermione croaked, her throat as dry as it had been last night.

"Did he give you the potion?" asked the matron, nodding at Malfoy.

"Yes."

"Good. At least he was mildly useful. How are you feeling? Any muscle spasms, nausea, headaches, joint pain?"

"I just got a shooting pain in my leg. My skin feels like it's on fire. And I do have a headache," she said, reeling off her list of ailments.

Madam Pomfrey pulled a small bottle of red potion out of her robes. "Open up," she said, as she ladled some onto a spoon and poured it into Hermione's mouth.

She drank it; it tasted of nothing, but its effect was instantaneous. All of her pain seemed to float up and out of her body, as though it had been sucked out of her entirely, leaving her with the strange feeling of total weightlessness. Apart from that, now pain-free, she felt nothing but tiredness, and she must have been exhausted because without saying anything else she collapsed back into the bedding and fell to sleep.

Darkness, more intense than any she's ever seen before. Darker than pure black, darker than empty space, darker even than the world in absence of light. It seems to pull her in, enticing her, but she knows she shouldn't go near it. She can't help herself- it's pulling her in with a force like gravity, but a million times stronger.

And then suddenly: white hot pain, like a thousand boiling needles piercing her skin all over. It's in her eyeballs, her mouth, her hands, her feet. It's inescapable. She wants to tear out her own flesh to stop the pain, or cut her own throat and die, if only she could concentrate on something but the agony.

Then the darkness tries to engulf her, and she knows she can't let it happen. She's on her feet, pushing through the pain. Running. Screaming. Falling. Flashes of red and green fly by, nearly blinding her, but she won't let it stop her. She has to stay ahead of the blackness.

She trips and falls, but she stumbles back to her feet as tears of pure torture drip down her face. She can feel something closing in behind her, its hot, foul breath brushing the back of her neck and pricking her skin up all over. For no reason, the pain abruptly intensifies and it cripples her. More screaming.

She sails through the air, landing on her back. A sickening crunch, a flash of white, red hot pinpricks on her skin. The thing that was chasing her has caught up, but as she turns to look at it before it devours her, she sees only an absolute wall of darkness...

Nothing, and then she's elsewhere. The wreckage of a house appears in front of her, smoking slightly, nothing but a mound of debris and rubble and still-burning embers. Ash floats through the air and clings heavily, like a deadly fog. This place smells of death and sings of horrors she hasn't witnessed.

Amongst the monochrome shadow of ruin, her eyes notice a deathly pale hand peeking out from beneath the exploded red brick and grey dust. She runs, picking away the wreckage, to reveal a man- her father, his glasses cracked and askew over his lifeless eyes and the left side of his face horrifically burned and singed. He is dead. Something howls animalistically with sheer grief. She realises it is her.

The shriek of pain still echoes through the thick and smoggy air when she sees another glimpse of flesh- this time a naked foot. She scrabbles over, removes the debris to reveal a rubble tomb, and therein lies her mother. The mother she thought she had protected. Who she thought she had kept safe.

More cries, more body parts, more corpses unveiled amidst the remains of this house. Harry: dead. Ron: dead. Hagrid: dead. Her lungs are going to give out because she's screaming so loud, and then the ground gives way and she falls into nothing.

With a gasp, Hermione jerked awake. Her breath came from her in short panicked gasps and she felt a trickle of cold sweat inch down her back. Her hair felt plastered to her forehead and she lifted the back of her hand to her head and held it there as she tried to breathe properly. She realised she was trembling; the dream had been so vivid it had terrified her. A scratchy sensation in the back of her throat led her to believe she'd been screaming out loud.

Sitting up, she looked to her right to see Malfoy sat up on the camp bed, gripping onto the bedside cabinet with one hand and clenching the other; his eyes were closed and screwed up and all the muscles in his arm were tensed, like he was trying to contain some unbearable emotion.

Still panting, she tried to shake off the memory of her nightmare. It hadn't really happened. Everyone was safe. She was safe. It seemed Malfoy hadn't noticed she'd woken up because he hadn't moved.

"It's alright," she mumbled shakily. "I'm awake now. I just had a bad dream."

"You were screaming," Malfoy choked, keeping his eyes closed. "Must have been a pretty bad nightmare."

"It was."

Why did he look so tense? Because of her? Had listening to her been that agonising?

"Are you ok?" she asked tentatively.

He gave a little bark of mirthless laughter and opened his eyes.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? You're the one in the hospital bed."

"Yes, but… you look awful."

He did. Now that she wasn't preoccupied looking at his posture, which had eased up a little, she could see the black smudges under his eyes, his messy hair as thought he'd been tossing and turning in bed, and his paler than usual colour.

"Thanks," he smiled sarcastically. "It's just… I tried to wake you, but you wouldn't. You were thrashing around and yelling but I couldn't do anything."

He must have felt so powerless. But why had it damaged him so?

"If I was so loud, why didn't Madam Pomfrey come out?"

"She didn't hear."

In the silence that followed, Hermione realised why- she could hear the distant sound of a wizarding wireless and a warbling voice singing along that seemed to belong to the matron. Awkward tension was seeping into the atmosphere between Malfoy and her.

"I thought you'd have left by now," she remarked.

"How could I leave?" he asked her, as though she was stupid for thinking he might have.

She didn't totally understand him. Leaving her was simple. He'd just have to get up and go- he hadn't been forced to stay with her, surely? He made it sound as though it was physically impossible. Was it because she'd kissed him that he hadn't left? Oh, Merlin, too many questions she didn't have the answers to. The whole morning so far had just been confusing in general.

"I'm glad you stayed," she blurted out before she thought about what she'd said.

"Are you?"

"Yes."

She didn't think she'd have been able to face waking up alone in the hospital in the middle of the night. A familiar face, any familiar face, would have been welcome. Even his. She shifted uncomfortably in the bed.

"I thought that maybe… maybe after what happened last night…"

He left the sentence hanging. Was he trying to see if she remembered? She paused for a minute to consider her reply.

"I don't know why I did it," she confirmed for him. "I mean, I do. It was the potions. I'm sorry."

The potions. What a perfect excuse to hide behind. Malfoy nodded grimly.

"Of course."

The same tension. It was like he knew she was hiding something, and he wished she wasn't. As though he was hiding something too. They were both as bad as each other.

"Did you stay all day yesterday?" she asked.

"Yes. I came up here as soon as I could. I would have been here straight away but McGonagall cornered me wanting to know what happened. I mean… after I saw it, saw you… I had to know when you'd wake up. If you'd wake up."

She absorbed this solemnly.

"Thank you, again. For saving me." Because of course, she'd already thanked him twice: once with her words and once with her kiss.

"It was just a lucky chance I was there. It wasn't anything special," Malfoy said, attempting his usual snide tone, but it was obviously forced.

"It was to me. I'd be dead or worse if it wasn't for you."

She essentially owed him her life. She'd be indebted to him eternally- how would she ever be able to get out of that kind of predicament?

"Did you eat at all yesterday?" she asked politely.

"No. But it doesn't matter. I'm not hungry," Malfoy replied, just as his stomach growled and gave him away.

"Go and get something to eat," Hermione said firmly. He looked doubtful. "I'm hardly going to go anywhere while you're gone. Go and eat."

He nodded obligingly and stood up. Slipping his bloody robes on over his undershirt and boxers, he turned and silently sloped across the room. She watched him leave, staring at his back as he walked. His walk had changed, she noticed for the first time. He didn't swagger, or cockily strut anymore. His gait was slow, listless, as though he had no idea where he was going so had no purpose to his movements. It was strange. She had come to expect certain things from him, and now, one by one, they were disappearing. Perhaps he, like she, was losing touch with himself.

Just when she thought she could breathe again and begin to think her way through things properly as his figure disappeared out of the ward doors, Ginny strode in.

"You're awake!" she cried when she saw Hermione staring at her.

Her face split into a wide grin and her eyes lit up, and she broke into a run. Seconds later, Hermione was trapped in her hold, her face buried in Ginny's hair.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione," Ginny said, her voice muffled by their embrace. "I left you and I shouldn't have…. I left you and you got hurt… it's my fault."

"Ginny," said Hermione, roughly grabbing her friend by the shoulders and despite her current weakness managing to pull her away, "this is not your fault. You didn't know what was going to happen to me, ok? And even if you had come with me, I probably still would have been attacked, except you'd be in a hospital bed next to me. Or in a morgue. Alright? I don't blame you. It's not your fault."

"But-"

"No, Ginny. Leave it."

She nodded then sat somewhat awkwardly on the camp bed Malfoy had just vacated.

"I can't believe you're spending your Valentine's Day cooped up in here," Ginny said.

It was Valentine's Day? She'd forgotten in all the commotion.

"How are you feeling?"

Apparently that was the question on everybody's lips today. How was she? How did they think she was? She was lying in a hospital bed having been tortured to within an inch of her life and she'd just woken from a horrific nightmare. She was fucking awful.

"I'm pretty good," she lied, swallowing anger and trying to keep things light. "A few aches and pains, but apart from that I'm ok."

"I'm so glad. When I heard yesterday… I- I didn't know what to think. Then you were still unconscious when I got here and, well. You can imagine what I thought then."

Hermione nodded and looked away. She felt so drained and emotionally destroyed by the day and it was barely eleven in the morning.

"Did Malfoy stay all night?" said Ginny, with typical bluntness. Her face creased up in what was probably disapproval.

"He did," said Hermione carefully, picking a spot in mid-air just to Ginny's right and watching the dust particles dance and float around.

Ginny nodded and sniffed.

"He was pretty adamant that he wasn't going to leave you when Pomfrey tried to kick him out yesterday, you know… What's going on with you two?" she asked disdainfully. "Why did he stay? Are you two friends or something? Or are you being civil, or do you still hate each other? What?"

That was a loaded question, thought Hermione. What were they? She had absolutely no idea. They were dorm-mates. They were partners. They were natural born enemies. They were two people who had kissed multiple times. These were the facts. But the actual summation of their odd relationship was something even Hermione could not easily define.

"Civil, I suppose. Yes. We're civil."

But it went so far beyond that. It was so much more than civil for them to kiss, more than civil for him to sleep by her side while she was unconscious. More than civil to harbour niggling feelings about him. She was lying to herself, and to Ginny. But for now, she'd settle for it.

There was a silence then, a disapproving, overbearing silence that Hermione couldn't stand because Ginny was never silent. So she invited conversation.

"Have I missed anything while I've been gone?"

"Oh, you missed quite the scandal this morning," said Ginny conspiratorially.

Hermione was glad she'd suddenly gone back to being her usual, if slightly annoying, gossipy self.

"It actually kind of broke the ice after everyone was so depressed because of what happened to you. The whole castle is pretty tense. But you'll never guess what Dean Thomas has been doing. Or should I say who he's been doing. Apparently, over the summer he went from me to Daphne Greengrass. From Slytherin." Ginny shuddered. "They got caught having it off at the top of the Astronomy Tower last night by Lavender Brown, so of course everyone knew by morning. But there was a huge row over it in the common room just after I woke up, so now no-one's speaking to either of them. Except Seamus, of course. He's sticking with Dean."

Ginny had quite a triumphant and smug smile on her face.

"Me, to Daphne Greengrass. Ugh."

Even after facing a similar situation herself when she'd been with Theo, she didn't understand it. Why would the whole school turn their backs on two students because of who they'd chosen to be with? What was it to them? Even she had had people who would still talk to her- Neville and Luna for example. Why was it worse for Dean?

Ginny continued to ramble on about what Hermione had missed while she'd been in hospital, generally pointless little things she didn't care about: about how everything was so tense now; how everyone had been so shocked; and even after the gossip about Daphne and Dean had spread things were still edgy. As usual, Hermione didn't listen. Instead, she allowed the conversation to wash over her as always, basking in the delicious monotony of it. Ginny, irritating as she could be and fickle as she was, was a constant in her life and always stayed the same person. Right now, that was all she needed.

She needed Ginny because she needed something normal to cling onto now everything was changing. While she was changing. It seemed inevitable now that she would morph into someone else entirely, someone unrecognisable in the future as the once-predictable good girl Hermione Granger. It was as unavoidable as weight, dragging her down into a situation she desperately didn't want to be in.

The biggest change had manifested itself in the form of her actions last night with the boy who had left the room but was never far from her mind nowadays. Why was it that whenever she felt uninhibited, she reached out to him, touching him or kissing him?

She did know why. She just tried to ignore that she did.

Ginny stayed for a short while longer, eating sandwiches Madam Pomfrey brought them with Hermione as a quick lunch, before leaving with some mundane excuse that Hermione did not take in. At last, for the first time since she had woken up, she was alone.

In her solitude, she became starkly aware of her pains as they gradually returned while the potion wore off. All her limbs felt stiff, and she lifted up the sheets and her hospital pyjamas to see bruises spreading out across the surface of her entire body, blooming like black and yellow flowers all over her pale legs and torso.

She glanced over her arms; the bruises covered them too. Her eyes lingered at her wrists for a moment and they looked oddly bare. Then she realised; they'd taken Theo's bracelet off her. She still hadn't taken it off for whatever reason, but actually, she was glad it was gone now. Theo was her past.

If Hermione moved at all, she felt the lasting impression of the curse, the imprint of it staining her as a finger-mark on a photograph. She hurt, she was tired, and she was confused.

Draco barely remembered having eaten, had his shower and getting changed, but he must have done it because he wasn't covered in Granger's blood anymore and he was wearing clean clothes. It appeared he had left his mind at the hospital wing with Granger because she had been the only thing he could think of while he'd been away from her, and now he was hastily walking back to see her again. This thing he had for her was getting dangerously obsessive.

As he rounded the final corner before the entrance to the ward, he felt intense relief flood him at almost being at Granger's side, but it was quickly replaced by bitter resentment when he spotted a familiar figure ahead of him with one hand on the wooden doors.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Draco demanded.

Theo's hand dropped from the door and he turned back to look at him. "Where do you think I'm going? To see Hermione. I have to go and see her, Draco, and don't you dare say a word about it."

He tried to storm inside but Draco ran up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "I'll say more than a word, Theo. You aren't going anywhere near her."

Draco pulled Theo roughly away from the door and stood in front of it like a barrier. He was not going to let Theo anywhere near Granger when it was probably his dad's fault that Granger was in there in the first place… no, scratch that, it was Theo's fault because he'd told his dad. Draco felt anger begin to fill him up.

"For Merlin's sake Draco, how are you not over this yet?" said Theo with an exasperated sigh. "I'll do what I like; you don't get a say in my love life."

Draco rolled his eyes. She was so much more involved in Draco's love life than Theo's anyway, so he could piss off. "This isn't about you and Granger anymore, you idiot. Besides, you broke up with her, so it's not like she'll even want to see you. She was pretty cut up about it."

"It doesn't matter, I want to see her," said Theo sadly. "I didn't want to break up with her. I still like her, I like her a lot. It was all because of my dad-"

"Oh yeah," Draco cut across sharply. "Speaking of him, that's another reason why I'm not letting you into that room."

Theo pushed himself into Draco, knocking him backwards slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Your fucking father is probably the reason why she's in there in the first place!"

There was a stunned silence and Theo's face fell.

"What? He wasn't in the village, was he?"

"No, but the Death Eaters Imperiused some stupid shop boy to attack her, probably under your father's instruction because you fed him all the fucking information! No-one was supposed to know she was here, for her own safety. And then you told your dad – your Death Eater dad - that one of the Golden Trio was at Hogwarts. What possessed you to think that that was in any way a good idea?" Draco said, his voice becoming a shout.

"I… I didn't think about that… he just wanted to know why I'd snuck out on him on Christmas Eve so I told him about her-"

"You could have lied!" Draco snapped. "And now she's in there because she's been tortured half to death and it's all your fault for telling your dad!"

"Fuck," muttered Theo, his face becoming pale. He rubbed his temples. "He said she'd get what was coming to her but I thought it was just an idle threat. I swear I didn't think he'd really do anything. I have to go in now… I have to tell her how sorry I am-"

"I don't think so," spat Draco, holding him back from the doors once more. "You should go back to the dungeons, Theo, and stay there. And you should probably stay away from her from now on. She won't need reminding that you're responsible for her getting hurt twice now."

Theo physically winced as Draco's dig about the way he'd dumped Granger hit home. Draco watched with thinly veiled triumph as Theo shrank back from the doors a little, and so he pushed one open, intending to return to Granger like he'd planned.

"Wait- where are you going?" Theo asked.

"Inside."

"Well how come you can go in and I can't?" he moaned. "You've hurt her too – you pinned her to a wall by her neck, for crying out loud! What gives you the right to go in there and see her?"

Draco was sick of explaining this now. He had the right to see Granger because he spent damn near most of his time with her; because he'd found her and raised the alarm and saved her; because as selfish as it was, he had to see her, or else he didn't know what he'd do. Theo couldn't know that though. No-one could; he must keep it a secret.

"It doesn't matter why. I just have to. McGonagall told me to check on her," he added when Theo narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Regardless, I'm going in and you have to stay away."

"You don't even like her."

It sounded a little like a question instead of a statement.

"Why does it matter to you whether she gets upset to see me or not? Why do you care?" pushed Theo.

Because seeing her in distress hurt him so much more than he could explain.

"Go back to the common room, Theo," Draco said warningly.

Theo held his dangerous gaze for a moment or two more then stalked off down the corridor. At the end, he looked back at Draco like he was considering something and he was filled with a sense of unease. At last he disappeared. Draco felt that something was not right with Theo and the way he had looked at him, but he'd consider that later. For now, he had to get back to Granger.

Hermione didn't even realise she'd dozed off again until she snapped awake, and Malfoy was back, sat on the camp bed that was now a chair, having probably been transfigured. From what she could tell, it was late afternoon; the dim winter light was fading fast and sun was setting outside, making the room around them glow orange. Apart from the time, it was almost a mirror of last night; he was staring at her again without seeing and she was surprised to find him there.

Malfoy looked cleaner now than when she'd last seen him, and his damp hair suggested he'd been back to the dorm and showered. He'd changed too, because now he was wearing light cotton pants and a blue shirt. And then he blinked and realised she was awake, and their eyes met.

"Why did you stay last night?" she asked from nowhere, as though they'd been midway through a conversation they'd been having for hours.

"I've already told you. I really don't-"

"Yes, you said. 'You don't know.' But you must know somewhere. There must be a reason," she interrupted.

He looked brooding and considerate for a second.

"I honestly don't really understand why. I just know that I felt like I couldn't possibly leave you," he said slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"I felt almost like there was something… something physically stopping me from being able to get up and go. Like leaving was as impossible and unfathomable as if there was simply no door for me to leave by."

From his tone, she knew he was being starkly honest, and for some reason it scared her. When had that begun? He was being more open and vulnerable than he'd ever been before. The implications of his last sentence were terrifying.

"I just couldn't go, not after what happened," he finished.

That confused her. After what happened- the kiss, or the torture? She wasn't sure.

But she didn't let it show. So she nodded.

They spent a few minutes not saying anything. Hermione stared fixedly at anywhere but at Malfoy, trying to ignore the large part of her that was coming close to feeling content with him by her side. Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey came out and saved her from her feelings, providing a momentary distraction from her thoughts.

"Come on you, time for some more pain potion," she said to Hermione, ladling out more red liquid.

She was glad. The bruises had begun to burn again. After she had swallowed, Madam Pomfrey turned to Malfoy and glared at him.

"You're still here. You can't stay tonight as well though, I'm afraid. It's a school night."

Malfoy sighed heavily. "I figured as much."

Pomfrey's eyes softened. "If I could let you stay, I would. But rules are rules, and you've already bent them once."

Hermione didn't know whether she was glad that she'd finally have some privacy or sad and strangely empty to know that he'd have to leave. But at least her pains were gone again. For now.

She didn't like this listlessness and hollowness. She didn't like that it felt like loss, a loss of Malfoy. She didn't want to feel it. She wanted to get back to her dorm, to normality: to be near Malfoy yet safely distant with walls between her bed and his.

"When can I leave?" she asked the matron.

Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips.

"Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see how you are. But I can't make any guarantees."

Relief, sweet relief. Just the one night alone. But it shouldn't have been this damn hard.

"Two minutes, then you need to go," she said, pointing at Malfoy. "She needs an early night."

After she left, one of their allotted two minutes passed by in stillness and hush. Neither of them moved nor spoke, except for when Hermione leant back into her pillows and pulled the sheets up around her. Then he slowly stood up and without so much as a goodbye he began walking across the room. So yesterday he couldn't leave her side and now he could without even a farewell?

About halfway to the doors, he stopped, his back still to her. She looked at him curiously.

"I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry I wasn't there sooner," he said, his voice so quiet it was like he had intended for her not to hear, though she had caught every word.

Then he revolved on the spot just enough to glance back at her.

"I'll bring your schoolwork for you tomorrow."

And then he was gone.