Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in updating! Real life and all that... anyway, thank you so, so, so much to all those who left me lovely reviews: Christineoftheopera, siewchee12345, jperks, Frogster, Sam Wallflower, Chester99, I was BOTWP, the Guest reviewer, Iseult, Calimocho, sparklemilk, Helianthus7, and annalyciareads! I love hearing everyone's thoughts, although I'm sorry about Theo, since I know a lot of people liked him.
Just a reminder, it will likely be a week before the next update, as I will be enjoying myself in Florida, visiting Harry Potter World and getting horribly sunburned on a beach in the Gulf. I appreciate everyone's patience, in advance.
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"Tell me you didn't do this to yourself!" Hermione hissed as she pulled back the bloodied, makeshift bandages around Draco's left forearm. With the removal of even this meanest of barriers, the wounds began oozing freshly. Darker smears of older blood cluttered his forearm like they'd been daubed there with a sponge, surrounding the actively bleeding sites. She dove into a bag of medical necessities, rummaging for the appropriate supplies.
"Are you encouraging me to lie to you?"
She pursed her lips, reminding Draco an awful lot of a displeased Professor McGonagall when she did. "Explain," she entreated imperiously.
Draco glanced down at the gruesome wounds. The bleeding had lessened greatly, but a searing pain was beginning to override his adrenaline rush.
Do you remember when I scraped that foul Mark off my arm?
Hermione shot him a look, then turned pointedly away, pulling the things she needed from her bag. As if she could forget! Miffed, she answered, I remember.
You tended me.
"None too tenderly," she recalled. "I thought you were a prat then, too."
He tried not to look at his forearm, though it certainly was eye-grabbing. "Well obviously, this was all a part of a plan to earn a fantastic shag with you later."
"Draco, you… you are not allowed to make a joke right now!" she hissed. "I want to know what happened."
"It wasn't completely a joke," he muttered, wincing as she sprinkled on some essence of dittany. He became serious at the livid expression on her face, explaining, "Trial by Misericorde: it's a… rather outdated method for settling pureblood disputes. Theo confessed he'd killed my mother, Astoria, and your parents… or rather, that he'd Imperiused the Lestranges to do it…"
"Why would he do such a thing?" Hermione gasped, her brow knitting in frustration as the dittany refused to close the wounds the way it ought. "I thought Nott was your friend?"
"I thought so, too."
He must have looked more forlorn than he'd meant to, because Hermione's expression softened and she began handling him somewhat more gently. "I'm sorry. It's hard to be betrayed by anyone… especially those we're close to."
Draco fell silent, watching Hermione work on his arm and allowing himself to be fussed over. The sun had fully set by now, a woodsy silence settling on the East Tower at Woodhaven.
Sobered now that the adrenaline rush had dissipated, he was sincere but quiet when he said, I think you brought light into that scar, when you cared for it after I removed that Mark.
Her fingers froze for a moment, but that was the only indication she gave that she'd heard him. Presently, she continued as if he hadn't said a word.
I began to feel like there was a chance for me, maybe. This just goes to show, I can try to redeem myself all I want, but there are sins in my past that are always going to come back to haunt me. Now I have another permanent reminder…
You had better not try scraping this off, too, she threatened darkly. Her brows furrowed. She was growing more and more frustrated that the bloody fissures on his arm weren't closing up, though the bleeding had been staunched by the dittany.
She reached for her wand on the bedside table and he pressed his other hand on top of hers to halt whatever spell she'd intended to cast. "Spells won't work."
"Why not?" she demanded. Her wand, clenched in her fist, emitted the tiniest of red sparks, indicating her frustration.
"It's a part of the Trial's enchantments," he elucidated. "The participants are obliged to allow their cuts to become scars. Magical healing methods are useless on these."
Hermione's wand fell neatly from her hand and into her lap as her eyes widened in abhorrence. "That… is completely…totally… barbaric!"
"I know," he agreed.
Dragging her teeth across her lower lip, Hermione sucked in a breath as she placed her fingers along the jagged edge of the deepest of Draco's cuts where his hand had slipped during the Trial. Gritting her teeth at the resulting line, wandering longer and wider than the others, she spit out, "You are so… incredibly stupid."
It would have been all too easy to rise to her bait and begin an argument, but Draco was too relieved to be experiencing any of her emotions firsthand to care. The fact that he was here – with her – was a miracle…
...Which was why, instead of retorting, he snatched her chin into his right hand and kissed her senseless. He basked in the feel of her lips, soft and moist, and could almost taste her fire. She was furious with him, he knew... for taking his life into his hands the way he had, for shutting her out, for not allowing her to protect him.
Her essence was beautiful, shining, surrounded by golden light and he never wanted to look away. She had erected shields around herself – strongholds she maintained to keep herself from becoming hurt by things out of her control – and he brushed them away like they were hanging panels of silk.
Why did you shut me out? The question was quiet, but Draco heard the other, unspoken questions she was asking along with it.
To protect you… and to spare myself the embarrassment. I didn't want you bearing witness to something like… that.
He could tell she didn't agree with his answer, but Draco would rather have gone running naked through a field of sharpened swords and Dementors, than let her know how close he'd been to losing her forever.
You should have let me help you, she admonished. Instead of resorting to this.
You can't always be protecting me, Hermione. Sometimes I am going to have to protect myself… and this is a demon I've had much, much longer than sixth year. Then, aloud he added, "It's going to take me awhile to bury this particular ghost, but I'm getting there."
Hermione sniffed dryly. "Draco Malfoy, you have manned up."
Draco squinted slightly, wondering out of habit if there was an insult in that statement. He couldn't detect one, so he decided to consider it a compliment, until proven otherwise.
She was chewing her bottom lip to shreds, picking dried herbs and vials of healing ingredients out of her bag and pressing them together into a poultice. Her hands were dirtied with the task, so she was unable to use her fingers to push back a swath of her bushy hair when it tumbled into her face. She had to resort to shrugging her shoulder backward ridiculously to try banishing it.
Draco observed her struggles and a tiny smile curved the corners of his mouth upward. He reached out and tucked her hair back for her. Her eyes flickered upward to his for a moment. She began packing the poultice onto his forearm, but said nothing.
"I love you," he blurted out.
Hermione's eyes softened as she gently began wrapping his entire forearm and the stinging poultice in tight, sterile bandages. It was heavy, awkward, burned like fire, and hurt like hell.
"You said it out loud," she observed with a small smile, wrapping up the binding around his arm.
"If you want me to, I will tell the entire world."
"Not necessary." Leaning over the bed and pressing her lips to his, she resisted his effort to deepen the kiss, instead trying to impress upon him the earnestness of how much she cared for him. Crawling into the bed beside him, her hands moved around his neck, arms settling onto his shoulders. Just promise never to shut me out in that manner again.
Any easy promise to give. Barricading you against me was the most acute form of torture I've endured all day.
Pulling away from him amid his protests, she raised an eyebrow at his bandaged arm. "You are such a liar."
He smirked at her, pulling her back again. It was a long while before he was sated with enough of her touch to simply cradle her into his body, occasionally pressing a lazy kiss onto her neck or pushing her insistent hair out of his face.
It was some time later when Hermione's eyes fluttered up to his and she admitted, "I just don't understand why Nott would do such a thing to you."
Too tired and still too betrayed to explain it in full, Draco squeezed his eyes shut. Theo's treachery was a very prominent island of hurt floating in an abyss of discomfort.
"Draco…?"
"If you're going to mention Theo again, don't," he advised. "I'm not ready to deal with that, yet."
"Okay," she conceded. After a pause, she continued, "Draco?"
"Hmm?"
"I don't… that is…" she attempted.
He cocked an eyebrow at her struggles.
"…I am never going to do that to you, or anything like it. I really do care about you, and in a much different way than Nott…"
"Salazar's tits, Hermione…. I know that!"
A giggle escaped her lips at his choice in curse words. Sidling closer into him and sighing lightly in relief, she vowed, We'll get through this together… I promise.
Draco didn't answer, but he sincerely hoped she was right.
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Draco meandered along the path that wended its way through the forests surrounding Woodhaven at a measured pace, the dogs following suit. Festus kept by his side at all times, while Aries and Deacon kept Hermione company as she barged away from the path, bag in hand. Taking a walk had become a daily habit of theirs, one Draco looked forward to.
He watched her bend over for a moment in the underbrush a little ways away. After a moment of rustling, her voice called out, "Draco, can we stop here for a moment?"
A smile tugged at his mouth and he obliged it where no one could see, gently picking his way through the underbrush toward her. There was no doubt she'd found some useful potion ingredient growing there, like she usually did. His stores had rarely been so well-stocked before, thanks to her.
A month's dubious calm had passed since the Trial by Misericorde. True to the Trial's enchantments, Draco was obliged to allow his wounds to heal without the assistance of magic. This was a slow, tedious process that left him feeling just as painful as the day he'd sliced, a week after the fact. Hermione's poultices were indispensible in the healing process, though the constant applying of herbs and essences tried his patience.
He was to be saddled with eight neat scars and one long, lopsided one… all on top of a more expansive section of mottled flesh. It was really quite ugly, but Draco found he still preferred it to the tattoo that had indicated his allegiance to the Dark Lord.
The stark fact that the thick scar tissue resulting from him violently removing his own Dark Mark, had likely saved his life in the Trial, was not lost on Draco.
It was a warm day in early June. Draco's twenty-second birthday had passed only three days ago. Hermione had asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate and somehow had ended up on her back or bent over furniture in almost every room of his house.
"There's a ton of comfrey here," she informed him at his approach.
Hermione had kneeled down and begun harvesting the leafy herbs. Knowing she would be several minutes, Draco made himself comfortable on the grass nearby, joined by the dogs. If he listened hard, he could hear the sea in the distance. It felt oddly familiar somehow, but he couldn't place his finger on it.
After a moment of companionable silence between them, she spoke, "I talked to Harry today."
Rolling his eyes, Draco asked, "And what did Potter want?"
"Well, actually it's not something Harry wants necessarily, but… well, you know his godson, Teddy Lupin, is raised by his grandmother, right?"
He was silent, watching her. Legend and Caliber had gotten comfortable near him, while the greyhounds were pacing.
"Well," she went on, taking his silence as invitation enough to continue, "his grandmother is your aunt, technically…"
"I know my own family tree," he snapped. He'd plucked a blade of grass and begun methodically shredding it just to have something to do with his hands.
"Well, Andromeda would like to meet you," she finished bluntly. "If you're willing, that is."
Draco stared. "Why in the hell would she want that?"
"I guess she thought maybe you'd have some things in common. Harry sees her all the time, I'm sure your name has come up on multiple occasions."
"'Some things in common'," he repeated slowly.
He didn't know much about the aunt he'd never met or even been encouraged to speak of; all he knew was that his mother's family had disowned her for marrying a Muggle-born wizard. Glancing quickly at Hermione, he realized he and his aunt probably did have a few things in common…
"There's no pressure of course," Hermione continued tersely, misinterpreting his silence for displeasure. "I'm not even sure she expects you to agree to it."
"I'll think about it."
She nodded, deciding that was better than outright disapproval. "She's a good friend."
The topic of friendship was still a tender subject for Draco. Theo had been brought to St. Mungo's following his arrest, where his self-inflicted slices had been tended to and he was psychologically evaluated. In accordance with his agreement via the Trial, he made a full confession and even surrendered some of his more damning memories to the Aurors.
Deimos Lestrange had also been found guilty of his vile acts against nature and was brought to Azkaban once he was healthy enough to be transported. Perseus, meanwhile, was released initially on house arrest and eventually given his free life back. It was rumored he hadn't left his home since returning to it.
While Draco was glad Hermione was receiving some retribution for the murder of her parents, he felt like someone had stuck a knife in his gut and twisted. Theo had been someone he could trust without question – or so he'd thought – making his betrayal all the more painful.
Growing up, Draco had two best friends: Theodore Nott and Vincent Crabbe. Once at Hogwarts, Crabbe had introduced him to Gregory Goyle, while Theo had quickly become a recluse, preferring to spend much of his time in the library on his own. Following Crabbe's death, Draco and Goyle had fallen out of touch, to the relief of both. Draco had grown closer to Theo again, and to some extent, Marcus Flint. He and Flint had discontinued correspondence after Draco had stopped attending Pureblood Society meetings, and now Theo had completely broken faith with him.
With his family gone, that meant Draco's main tie now, was to Hermione. Realizing this, he privately reflected, Fate is a cruel bitch.
"I know you've been putting off meeting my friends," Hermione interrupted his deep train of thought.
"With good reason."
She nodded, "I know, I agree. Even Harry agrees it was a good idea to lay low for a little while, considering the case is still going on and you needed time to recover."
It was the closest they had come to mentioning Theo that didn't involve Draco stalking away in anger. Hermione observed him carefully from the corner of her eye as she packed away the bushel of comfrey into her bag.
The forest was beginning to darken and the dogs were becoming impatient. Frogs were croaking in the gathering dusk and a light breeze rustled the treetops.
"I just don't want to mess it up," Draco said suddenly.
"Mess what up?" she blinked in confusion.
"Meeting your friends as... your boyfriend."
She frowned. "Surely you aren't having second thoughts?"
"Of course not," he scoffed testily. "It's just that they all know everything you went through with your parents was because of me. If it hadn't escaped your notice, they weren't my biggest fans to begin with. I'm sure this hasn't helped."
"My friends love me," Hermione assured him, "and I love you. It might be strange at first, but they're going to have to get used to you being in my life."
He was scowling now. "You heard the whispers at Abruzzese's."
She folded her arms and regarded him coolly, "I did."
"It's going to be that way for awhile, Hermione. Maybe forever."
He had discarded the blade of grass he'd been shredding and was now picking at the bandages still wrapped around his forearm. Eight of the cuts had healed, leaving behind thick, white scars all in an orderly row. The ninth, somewhere in the middle of them all, had been the deepest and the longest and had gotten a mild infection. It had to be tended carefully.
She placed her hand on his, and said sweetly, "If you don't stop messing with those bandages, I am going to have to hex you."
His hand fell away, less because of her threat than because he knew he shouldn't be bothering it if he wanted it to heal. "I just want to be sure you fully understand what you're getting yourself into with me."
I think I know you pretty well by now, she hinted, setting her bag full of comfrey aside and sliding over to sit beside him on the ground.
I'm serious, Hermione. I am never going to tell you how much I care about you every day, even though it's true. I'm going to bemoan your appearance or your horrible choice in clothing, even though you're beautiful. I'm occasionally going to insult your intelligence, even though we both know you're brilliant. I'm a bastard in all but birth.
"You've told me all that before…" she reminded him patiently, linking her arm through his. "I'm still here."
"But… why?"
She smiled, I don't need to hear promises from you. I can feel them.
Leaning in to kiss him, he didn't respond to her at first until she wound her hands through his hair and pressed up against him. She wrapped her soul around him comfortingly, injecting a sense of need as well as desire into that embrace. He feasted on her readily and she enjoyed a very real sense of completion, hoping he could feel it too.
When they finally pulled away, she realized they must have been kissing longer than she'd thought as it was almost fully dark and they'd somehow ended up tangled around one another in the grass.
She giggled, "We should get back."
The dogs seemed ready to go, all waiting patiently for them. Standing, Hermione stretched and looked around, gathering her bag.
Will you come live here?
She turned to stare at him. "What?"
I'm serious, you can bring that ugly cat of yours as early as tomorrow if you want.
"We haven't been together very long," she protested, still astounded. "This is fast."
I don't care. I'm selfish – I hate it when you leave, even just to go to work.
Amused, she smiled at him and reached out a hand to help him up. Pretending not to notice her gesture, he rose from his seated position on his own and brushed his clothes off. "I'll think about it."
"Don't think too hard. I'm not very patient."
"Trust me, I know," she teased, leading the way back to the nearby path toward the house.
He pinched her rump and she exclaimed in surprise, whirling around on him to observe his widening smirk.
"You… you arse, Draco."
"I'd like to remind you that I was raised to have impeccable manners," he drawled.
"Hmm... too bad I don't get to see those."
The house came into view, lit up from many of the windows and Hermione felt a very real sense of coming home. Privately, she reflected, Would it really be so bad to live here?
"I hope you're going to feel sorry for me that I'm still wounded and my girlfriend won't even move in with me."
She snorted, refusing to give in to his guilt trip, "Mostly I just feel sorry for your left arm."
He snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground. She squealed in surprise, dropping her bag. "That is going to cost you," he growled in her ear.
"You're not very scary."
Draco bit down on her collarbone, making her gasp. Trailing his mouth up her neck and onto the side of her jaw, she went limp with enjoyment. The dogs were collected by the front door, waiting for the humans to catch up.
Move in with me, he demanded, setting her back on the ground.
I said I would think about it…
In one fluid motion, he'd knocked her knees out from under her and swept her up.
"Put me down!"
He kissed her again instead. Not a chance.
She kicked out, but he was holding her tightly, smirking at her lame attempts to escape, made the more futile by the fact that she was trying not to upset her carefully placed bandages on his arm.
Please put me down? she tried.
He magicked the door open and the dogs poured in, in front of them. Kicking the door shut after them, Draco replied, Can't do that, I'm afraid. I'm rather ravenous, as it turns out.
She was about to retort, when she caught sight of his face, which was widened into a suggestive leer. "Wh-What?"
He tried to look innocent, which was something he always failed miserably at. Placing her on the divan in the entry hall, he lowered himself to his knees and began kissing up her inner thigh, fingers running sensuously along the sensitive skin leading upward. Hermione shivered, closing her eyes.
Living with him would certainly have its benefits, she reflected privately as he began his ministrations. Especially when it resulted in his head buried between her legs, leading her steadily to nirvana.
