***A.N. That's another one in the space of a week! Be proud, guys, be proud. One more chapter left. I hope you all like it. ***

Chapter 29

The ward was silent. He looked up the aisle, at the beds neatly made and steeped in golden light. He saw curtains closed at the very end of the hall, around a bed, and a horrible lurch threatened to upend the nothingness in Draco's stomach. He scanned across though and his fears dissipated; there, her hair in an enormous bushy cloud around her face laid Hermione. Her eyes were closed and her face tilted towards the sunlight. Her left hand rested over her middle, above the blankets. Her fingers twitched. She looked so peaceful… Draco walked towards her, minding not to wake whoever it was in the other bed. As he approached, her face became more focused and Draco started at the angry red strings of scars along her delicate hands and up her arm. He continued to move toward her, and his eyes noticed similar red strings around her neck and across her partially exposed collarbone. Draco was horrified that his dear Hermione was in such a state, that he had not been able to stop whatever THIS was that had happened to her….

He conjured a chair down from the far end of the ward, sat in it and took Hermione's hand gently in his. As his fingers slowly weaved their way in between, the way that they had been made to be, Draco heard the tiniest of sighs escape Hermione's lips and she stretched her body upwards. She twisted her head around to face Draco as she slowly opened her eyes, her beautiful, glorious, wonderful, splendiferous eyes…

"Draco," she said softly, and a sleepy smile stretched across her face. He couldn't take it; a small cry escaped his lips as he buried his face in her hair, lifting her up in his arms. Her scarred arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders and she rested her head in the crook of his neck. Draco let out an enormous watery sigh of relief, his shoulders shuddering as he struggled to let out his emotions in a "manly" way.

"You're safe," was all he could say. He clutched her closer, and Hermione pretended to not notice as she felt her hair dampening under his tears. She loved the feel of his arms around her, despite the pain from her wounds, and she melted to the shape of his body. She couldn't help it.

"You should never have left…" he said after a while, nuzzling his face in her hair.

"I know." She said. Hermione closed her eyes. She had so much to tell him, but she couldn't. There was so much that she knew she would never be able to tell him. It tore her apart. She knew that there was no hiding what had happened; if he didn't know now, he would find out soon and in a far more brutal way. From his friends, from a newspaper, from his own mother… She had to tell him. But she couldn't. But she had to. But she couldn't. Her stomach lurching, she looked into his eyes, his slightly puffy, blue-grey eyes. Hermione leant her forehead against his, She pleaded mentally with him to understand, to not hate her, to forgive her…

"Your father was there last night," she said, trying to steady her frantic heartbeat. She was convinced her would be able to feel it.

"He attacked us in the ministry. He was trying to get a…" she stopped herself- "….thing for Voldemort. It was all so panicked, there was so much running, and screaming… I only found out this morning that, well…" She had squeezed her eyes shut to avoid looking at him, but there was no avoiding it now. She realized that she couldn't feel his breath against her nose. He was holding his breath in anticipation.

"Your father was arrested last night."

Draco's body stopped functioning. His heart stopped, turned to stone and plummeted through the floor of the hospital wing right down below the dungeons. His brain decided to retire and become an Olympic swimmer. His stomach decided it wanted to be a Narwhal, and his lungs decided they were better suited to the lifestyle of bowling balls. And then, achingly slowly, as if the film had been rethreaded in the theatre projector, his assorted body parts pulled together to form a comeback tour and recommenced its functions. His brain was instantaneously beaten around the edges by a million strings of thoughts. Anger; at his father for hurting the girl he loved, at the ministry for catching him, at the Dark Lord for sending his father on a fool's errand. Sadness; as much as he hated his father, he didn't want him going to live in such a hell as Azkaban. Guilt; if he had been there to protect Hermione, to protect them all, even Potter, would it be different?

Hermione was staring into his eyes, and he could see the greatest sadness whirling within them, a sadness he had never been witness to before. Years later, he would see it again, in the eyes of the Weasley twin, as he stood by the grave of his own buried reflection. Draco would never be able to describe the way that look embodied the hopelessness and desolation felt by the soul behind it.

"I'm so sorry, Draco. I never wanted any of this to happen…" a single tear slid down the side of her face, and Draco finally realized what it all meant. His father was in Azkaban for attacking Hogwarts students and working for Voldemort and Hermione was now (whether she liked it or not) a member of the Order of the Phoenix. The Dark Lord would be angry at his father's failure, and he would want to punish Draco and his mother for it. There was a very high chance that he would have to take the place of his father as a death eater to protect his family. But with everything else aside, there was one thing that was obvious; Hermione and Draco had already had their sides chosen for them, long before the war had even truly started.

"Oh, Hermione," He said, and swept her into his arms again. She could feel his longing, his need to soak up every part of her, and she knew that he had reached the same conclusion as she had. There was no way they could ever be together. Not now, and never in the future. The gap forced between them was immovable. She closed her eyes and another tear fell. She felt him shift his head against the side of her neck, and Draco said in a whisper,

"It can't end like this…. I can't bear to ever be away from you."

"And I can't bear to be away from you. Oh, what on earth are we going to do, Draco?" He was sitting on the bed by then, and he pulled her onto his lap and held her curled against his chest like a child.

"We'll stay like this," he said, "and we'll never move, ever. I won't ever let you go." Hermione felt her stomach burst with warm happiness at his words.

"Okay, Draco. That sounds like an excellent plan."

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