Happy Birthday, moreremusplease
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When she regained consciousness she saw him and her chest began to hitch up and down in terrified hiccups and she tried to push herself away from him on the bed.
She was still much too weak to move easily, of course.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Draco said. "You're safe," he said.
She swallowed hard.
"Safe," he said again. "I pulled you out of there. You're…we're in a bolt hole that was prepared a while ago." He huffed out a snort. "I admit I didn't think I'd have you in here with me but…" He shook his head.
"Why?" she asked, her voice still rough from all the screaming she'd done.
"Why are you here? Why am I here? Why did I pull you out?" Draco asked as he turned from her to sort through the inadequate potions he had spread out on a table next to the bed.
"Yes," she said still watching him with those wary eyes.
He sighed. "How much do you remember?"
"I was… Snatched. You were there. It was… your aunt. A room full of people in masks. I… I don't know."
Draco nodded. "You got caught. I'm not sure how. My batshit crazy aunt was told she could play with you until you broke as a reward for something or other and… it was bad." He rubbed at his forehead with one hand. "It was really bad. I wanted to just kill you to end it."
"Obviously you didn't," she said, her voice catching and he closed his eyes. Thank Merlin she didn't seem to remember in any detail. He hoped she never would.
"No," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "There was a break and people went out to get food." Something about the way they'd taken a snack break while torturing his classmate had been the thing that had decided him. The surreal horror of that had been too much. "It was just you and her and… I killed her and grabbed you and brought us here."
"Here?" Hermione Granger looked around the little cottage. "Where are we?"
"Bolt hole," he said again. "My mother prepared it for me before she died." He was proud he was able to say that without his voice faltering.
"I didn't know," the frail woman on the bed said. "I'm sorry."
"It was fast," he said. "I was grateful for that." He handed her a potion. "For the pain," he said.
"Why?" she asked again.
"I'd had enough," he said simply.
She looked down at the vial in her hand. "Thank you," she said.
He reached out and tucked one of her impossible curls behind an ear. "You might not feel that way after you realize what being stuck in a small cottage with me will be like."
"We're stuck?"
"Well," he shrugged. "I've got it stocked with enough tinned food to last for years. We've got water and a small garden. But leave the boundaries and you leave the protection of the fidelius charm."
"Safe," she said, her fingers still clutching the vial.
"Safe," he said again.
She began to laugh and he felt a stab of worry Bellatrix had managed to drive her insane. She must have seen the concern on his face because she said, around the hysterical laughter, "I'm not round the bend, it's just… we're safe but we're stuck together. I was saved by Draco Malfoy. You're stuck in a cottage with the Mudblood you despise because of a sudden, heroic impulse. We'll kill each other within a week."
She uncorked the pain potion and swallowed it in one shot. He'd laced it with a sleeping draught and she began to sag from the drugs almost immediately.
"I think I can manage not to kill you," he said as he took the vial from her and set it down. "It would be a bit of a waste to throw away my entire Death Eater career just to off you now. Besides, maybe you're a better cook than I am."
"Pragmatic," she said, her voice already slurring.
He took her hand and watched as she fell mostly into sleep, his thumb rubbing across back and forth across her palm.
"Malfoy," she said before she fell totally back into darkness. "I can't cook for shit."
He watched her sleep for a while before he dropped a kiss across her forehead. "We'll make do," he whispered.
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A/N – I've had a request for Draco as the caretaker as I do tend to make Hermione be the strong character. Well, here y'all go. :)
Just a reminder that requests for birthday drabbles HAVE TO be via PM or they get lost.