A/N: This chapter has been very lightly edited, so please forgive any errors. Chapter takes place in early September, ending on September 18th, 2007.

TW: attempted food restriction/denial.

Draco stared down at the table.

Pansy had given him tea and three macarons. She wore a long-sleeved shirt patterned with constellations, and dark purple lipstick. Pansy had a date with Katie that evening, and it was nice to see her with someone she did not need to slut up for. Quill, ink, and parchment sat on the tabletop, but Draco hadn't reached for it. Not yet. The past couple weeks had been more pain than they were worth, and he fell into more negative patterns than better ones.

"You're thinking more than you should be," Pansy observed as she sipped her tea. She smacked her lips together and placed the cup back on the saucer, leaving a trace of lipstick along the rim. "Might as well call it your Granger face."

With a heavy sigh, Draco admitted, "I cannot figure out what to get Hermione for her birthday."

"What does she want?"

"Books?" he guessed. "I dunno, really. Given that I have no idea what we are to each other, it is that much more difficult. Are we friends? Best friends? Almost-together? My heart is screaming for me to go after her, to tell her I want to be with her. To be a couple. Us, together. Then I fall too far into my head. I remember how fucked-up my life is, how mental I am, then convince myself to stay back and wait."

"Does she know what she's doing to you?" asked Pansy.

"She isn't doing anything to me."

"You know what?" Pansy tossed her hands in the air and rolled her eyes. "You're right. I should not have said anything."

"Why would you think that?"

She glared at Draco and raised an eyebrow, skepticism clear across her face.

"Dunno. Last time I told you how a woman was treating you, you demanded I leave your house and cut off all contact for ten months. Perhaps you think that has something to do with it?"

"Point made," Draco conceded, "but I would like to hear your take on the situation."

"No you wouldn't."

"So you practice Legilimency, now?"

"I've known you since before either of us could walk. It's not like I need to see inside your mind to know what's happening in there. Besides, we all know what happened last time you allowed someone to take a peek."

That ended rather poorly for Draco and the Wizengamot-appointed Legilimens.

"Your problem is not that you don't know what you are. The problem is that you have fallen arse over tits for Granger and she's still sampling other men's goods."

"Only because — "

"Only because you tried to set boundaries. She strung you along and didn't believe you were strong enough to know she liked you. As if you are some fragile boy without agency. As though you hadn't survived life with the most powerful Dark wizard the world has seen since Merlin only knows when. There are only two options. Either she truly believed you weren't strong enough to know about her feelings, or ..."

Draco frowned.

"Or?"

"Or she was ashamed of them."

Draco thought about that for awhile. He rearranged the macarons on top of the saucer. Vanilla, chocolate, pistachio. Chocolate, pistachio, vanilla. Pistachio, vanilla, chocolate.

"Hermione truly believed I was not ready to know." Draco pushed the tea off to the side. "At the time, I accepted it. I was willfully blind to all of it; both my feelings for her and her feelings toward me. While we acknowledge it now, almost nothing has changed."

"How do you mean?"

"The way she touches me."

Pany scrunched her face in disgust and groaned, "Gross."

"Not like that!" Draco insisted. "We have never been like that. At Blaise's wedding reception I accidentally touched her arse while we were dancing and she didn't push my hand away, but that is as close as we've gotten. She leans into me, closer than a friend would. When we say goodbye she wraps her arms around my waist and presses her forehead into my chest. And I just ... I hold her." He bit down on his lip and admitted, "I hold her like I never want her to let go."

"Who lets go?" asked Pansy.

"I do, because if I allow her to linger I'll end up snogging her. I know I would, and I am just as weak as she believes me to be."

"Well if you are the one who lets go, then this whole mess is your fault, isn't it?"

"I don't understand why it would be."

"I had a whole rant built up in my head about this. I planned to lay out all the things you described. The lingering touches in front of your friends. The dates that aren't dates. I wanted you to see that Granger is stringing you along like the world's most reliable backup plan. But now I see I've got it half-wrong."

Draco chuckled darkly and asked, "Only by half?"

"Yes, because you aren't the backup plan. They are. The other men are her backups. She cannot commit to you because all she sees is you pulling away from her. Ending your embraces and, yes, the fact that you left without telling her goodbye. Have you asked her to stop seeing them?"

"No, I did not feel that would be fair."

"God, this is what you do!" Pansy shouted. "You let people push you around and make you into what they need you to be. All because you are too fucking terrified to be the man you are."

Draco didn't respond except to lace his fingers together below the table.

"You can't even look at me, won't contradict me, just sit there and take it."

"Because you're not wrong."

"Maybe I am!"

"No, you are not," he insisted. "How could anyone love me like this?"

"Are you still hung up on being unable to eat? Hermione Granger knows that and she still spends a freakish amount of time with you."

"But — "

"No!" Pansy shouted. "I am done with this. I watched you lose yourself in Astoria and I will be damned if I let this disease take you from me, too. This illness is not part of you; it is something that you are going through, like Spattergroit. Nobody knows the man you are underneath because Anorexia is all you've ever shown us."

Draco cringed. Hearing the word aloud sent a current of shame straight through him.

"My guess," Pansy continued, "is that Granger sees past it. She clings to you because those moments are all you give her. You don't trust yourself enough to go for more."

Draco mumbled, "Awareness."

"What?"

"That is what my therapist discussed with me on Thursday," he revealed. "Awareness. I need to be more 'cognizant of my emotions' and all that skrewtshit. 'Draco, when you think about skipping a meal, what emotions are you experiencing?' I dunno, Penelope, take your pick of the bloody lot! Shame for being like this at all. Anger at my parents, at the Dark Lord, at myself. Happy, even, that I may be able to control my life for a moment. Now she has me writing this food diary; recording everything I eat and how I feel as I eat it."

"But you haven't eaten anything."

Draco grabbed the chocolate macaron and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Ah-re 'oo 'appy nahw?" he asked between bites.

"No, I am not happy now."

He swallowed and washed it down with some tea. It was all so ridiculous; the tea he barely touched, Pansy defending Hermione, writing down his food intake just to look at it later and feel horrible about every last bite of it. A nasty cycle of doing what his therapist asked of him then shaming himself for it.

Pansy walked around the table to hug him, and Draco cried into her shoulder as she held him close. He was so goddamn starved for touch, afraid to ask anyone for contact because they looked at him like he might break if they touched him wrong. Pansy had no such concern.

"It's okay to want her," she said. "I dunno if anyone's told you that yet, but I think you need to hear it. Fantastic that you want her, actually, because you get to fulfill your dream of pissing off Ron Weasley in the one way he'd never expect."

Draco laughed.

"You're stronger than I will ever be. You may be in a dark place right now, but you are working toward better days. Don't isolate yourself and push Granger away. She wants you, you want her, so shag already."

More laughter.

"You're not weak, you know."

Draco swallowed thickly and replied, "I know." For the first time in years, it didn't feel like a lie.

.oOo.

"It is not the same."

Bill Weasley ,pst;u worked in silence. He magicked a piece of tape over Brutus Malfoy's mouth, which made the hallway infinitely more tolerable. However, without the obscene shouting an uncomfortable silence took root between them. Bill alternated between muttering counter-curses and flipping through his notes. Draco stood by until the silence was unbearable.

"Romilda and me, it is not the same. Completely different conditions."

Bill shrugged.

"Okay."

Draco asked, "Do you plan to tell anyone?"

Bill laughed and said, "Malfoy, the only reason I have ever really cared about you was the month you spent with Gabrielle. And when Fleur spent days comforting her when the two of you broke up. Whatever the hell you are going through is none of my business."

"How is Gabrielle?"

"Perfect, as usual. She is great with Victoire and Dominique when she visits, but she lives in Carcassonne now. I think she is still searching for a place that feels like home. To be more honest than I probably should be, I thought the two of you worked quite well together."

Draco smiled softly, remembering his time with Gabby.

"If I had been a better person, it would have worked. She deserved more, though, because I was dedicated to so many other people. Not really to her."

"Well I never thought you'd hop from my sister-in-law to my ex-sister-in-law."

"Funny how that works, isn't it?" quipped Draco. "Though Hermione is not exactly what Gabrielle was to me. I am having trouble defining what we are to each other."

"If you tell another soul about this, I will personally put one of these paintings up in your room with a Sticking Charm so powerful you'll have to burn the house down to get rid of it." Bill's eyes led Draco to believe that was not an empty threat. "Everyone knew Hermione and Ron were going to fall apart. We tried to talk them out of it so many times, but they are both so bloody stubborn. They never asked each other the right questions and their lives were on two different paths. And Hermione is ..."

"Hermione is what?"

"Violent. She doesn't mean to be, and after everything that happened to her it is hardly a surprise she built up defenses. Ron didn't deserve that and Hermione didn't deserve to relegate herself to the future Ron wanted." Bill chuckled. "The one thing they could agree on was telling the rest of us to fuck off."

Draco conceded, "It sounds like her."

"And go easy on Gabe, will you? He's still torn up about what he said."

"It was rather enlightening to hear his point of view. I wish he hadn't done it, but I can hardly be upset with him after everything he has done to help me. Gabriel and I were never close before this, though he seems rather fond of you."

"He's like a little brother. More of a sibling than Ron and Ginny sometimes because of the age difference. And he's always been a bit wary of his relationship with Romilda because of their age gap. I thought it was odd when they first got together, yet now they are one of the most functional couples I know."

Draco conceded, "The world is a strange place."

Bill lowered his wand hand for a moment and stared at the floor.

"The war never really leaves, you know." He paused, then added, "You know better than almost anyone."

"I keep trying to move on from it, but the more I try the more I believe I just have to live with these memories. Live with the fear and guilt that never quite goes away."

"None over me, I hope."

"Loads."

"You were a kid," Bill replied. "Hell, I was still a kid, really. I got lucky. I had people who loved me and didn't waste my second chance. Can you say the same?"

Draco frowned.

"I dunno."

"That's on you, then. If you give yourself another chance, your friends will follow." Bill paused before asking, "Why did you decide to take these portraits down?"

"I have seen enough bloodshed for one life; I do not need reminders on every wall. How can I move forward when this entire house is covered in the past? It is time for me to make my mark on the manor, not that my father is thrilled about it. At least by the time I die, I hope the Malfoy name stands for something more than violence."

Bill mumbled another spell that nearly shook the painting from the wall. One more spell and Great-Grandfather Brutus fell face-first onto the floor.

Draco smiled and said, "Only seventeen more to go."

.oOo.

Gabriel hugged Draco the moment he stepped into Weeoanwhisker's. It was the day before Hermione's birthday and almost everything had fallen into place.

"I am so, so sorry!" Gabriel said. "I know I was a git."

"Yes, you were."

Gabriel whisked Draco into one of the chairs and had the little cape around his neck before Draco could blink.

"Did you reconcile with Romilda?"

"Yes!"

The giddy smile on Gabriel's face broke Draco's heart. He wondered whether he would ever look at anyone like that, with pure, unbridled adoration. (His friends would have confirmed that was exactly how he looked at Hermione.) However, if all went to plan, Draco would be putting his heart on the line again very soon. It was terrifying, but there was a sort of freedom in that fear.

"I showed up at her door with flowers, an apology, and we talked through our issues. Grovelling was involved."

"Will you be at Hermione's party?"

"Yes! Romi wouldn't miss it." Gabriel caught Draco's eyes in the mirror and asked, "Are you serious about growing your hair out again?"

He confirmed, "I am."

"Just a trim on the bottom, then?" Gabriel began arranging his tools. "Bloody hell, it's at your shoulders! You Malfoys have the best hair, and I will stand by that statement. Now, what are we doing to your beard?"

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Shave it off."

A/N: I know this was short and not exactly the strongest chapter, but I'm struggling with this story right now. Life has really been getting me down and I hope that changes. My experiences in this fandom have not been positive and I definitely wish I'd chosen another pairing or fandom for the setting of this story. But we're here, we're in it, and I'm gonna finish. I made the mistake of going back through the comments on my other Dramione stories and it brought back so much ... AYMM was written while I was in a very dark place. Inked was written in an even darker place. It's mostly my fault for going back and rereading, but ... I hope to get back to the usual caliber of writing next chapter. I don't want to let y'all down if you've made it this far through the 80K of angst and whump. I'll try to have that up soon.