A/N: I am so tired and this has been very lightly edited so please forgive any errors. Life has been complete garbage but I've finally gotten this written. It is super long and kind of dark, so ... prepare for that.

TW: torture
TW: candid discussions of sex
TW: scene of a mild sexual nature

"I am still waiting for the right time."

Draco had been seeing Penelope for nearly nine months, six discounting his time in Paris, and had learned her tells. When she was frustrated by him she would double-tap her quill nib on the parchment and glance at the ceiling like she wanted it to come crashing down. When he kept repeating himself she would say, "Hmm ... I see, so why do you think that is?"

That response received the double-tap. Draco tried to smooth it over with,

"There are a lot of things we can do without me taking my clothes off. Hermione," he paused to laugh, "she looked at me and said, 'Obviously, if we cannot use your body then we both have to use mine.'"

Penelope groaned, "Your impression of her is so accurate that it's scary."

"I thought she was speaking of kinky Polyjuice shit, but it was just simple things. We have been," he awkwardly cleared his throat, "creative."

"How?"

"How?!" Draco asked, aghast. "You want me to tell you how we've been ... How we've ..."

"How you've been having sex," Penelope clarified. "Yes."

Draco felt himself blush clear down his neck. It was one thing to speak about it with his friends, hell, he'd had sex with most of them, but Penelope? He shifted awkwardly in the chair.

"I get her off however she wants me to, or I watch while she gets herself off. She finishes me off however she likes. It's been a bit over a month, five times or so. I only see her once a week. Is that ... I mean, is that what you wanted to know?"

"Not really," Penelope admitted, "I want to know whether you end up doing the bulk of the work."

"Of course I do. It is my job to make sure she is satisfied, because if she isn't then I am an irresponsible boyfriend. This is all I can give her right now."

"Is it?"

Draco said nothing.

"To me, it appears you keep doing all the work and Hermione keeps waiting. You are an actor, you keep doing what you believe everyone else wants you to do. You have made it clear you are not ready for what you believe Hermione wants; the sex and the intimacy that comes with allowing her to see your body as it is now. What I want to know is, are you ready for what you want?"

"I dunno."

"You don't know whether you are ready?"

"I don't know what I want."

"Think about it, then."

Draco gave it time, turned the question over in his head. What did he want? He wondered constantly about how Hermione would feel on top of him. Beneath him. What it would be like to wake up at her side, legs tangled together beneath the sheets. He did not know what was stopping him from acting on those desires.

"Blaise told me I am a performer and you said it again just now, which makes me think back to what you told me all those months ago."

"Which is?"'

"That I live my life for other people. I am still doing that with Hermione because I am afraid that if we get too close she will see something about me she does not like. I can go down on her or watch her in her intimate moments, but I cannot let her reciprocate. I think it is because there are things about me she does not know, and as long as I keep that shit buried those thoughts will linger. Until she knows everything and chooses to be with me anyway, I do not believe I will be able to let her touch me the way she lets me touch her."

Penelope asked, "Do you at least feel you are making improvement?"

Draco nodded.

"Are you saying that because it's what you believe I need to hear?"

"Yes."

"Right, okay, according to your food diary, you still cannot get above one full meal per day."

"When I feel like rubbish I flip through it, see all the things I have eaten, and tell myself I am completely worthless with no hope of getting better. My guess is that was not the intended purpose."

"Definitely not." Penelope grabbed the small rubbish bin from behind the table and held it out toward Draco. "Toss it in."

"Sorry?"

"Toss it in. It isn't working for you, so I have a new approach."

Draco looked down at the thick stack of parchment in his hands. It was forty-two days of his life right there; forty-two meals, forty-two snacks, nineteen days with Hermione, and his transition from friend to date to boyfriend. All of it was written down right there.

Penelope said, "You're hesitating."

"It's important."

"But I thought it wasn't helping."

"It isn't, but — "

"Then it's rubbish," she quipped, "so put it in the bin."

Draco threw the stack in before he could give it much more thought. Immediately, a sense of relief washed over him. As though there was something heavy on his chest and it had finally been lifted off. He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned back in the chair.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" asked Penelope. "To know you don't have to look back on it. None of the lingering, flipping through pages because you need reasons to hate yourself even more. Food is something you can forget."

"More room for me to remember the things I tried to forget."

"Not so fast." Penelope wrote something on her parchment then placed her quill back in the inkpot. She looked up and said, "We are going to put you on a schedule."

Draco nodded.

"Romi's on a schedule. Is that a normal thing?"

"Everyone is different. Some people write it down, others have a schedule, and there are people who work it out entirely on their own. Some work with a nutritionist to establish a diet as part of behavioural therapy. We have to find what works for you, and it is clear the journaling does not. So we are going to introduce a new habit where you eat once every four hours."

Draco felt all the blood drain from his face.

"Four hours?!"

Penelope nodded.

"Four hours. You have to eat something. I don't care whether it is six raspberries or a bloody Christmas dinner, you just have to eat something. "

"I could eat nothing but fruit all day?"

"If that is what you're feeling, then yes."

Draco admitted, "That does not sound like it will work."

"Right now your body hoards energy because you only eat once a day. This will allow your body to trust you again."

"You have said that before, like my body is separate from me."

Penelope asked, "That's the way you have been treating it, isn't it? You changed the way you look because you hated it. Now your body is changing and you still hate it. Your body is an extension of yourself, but until you start treating it that way it can only react to what you choose to do to it."

Draco frowned.

"Wait." He thought about it for a moment. His eyebrows knitted together when he asked, "My body is an extension of me."

"Yes."

"So, if I hated my body ..." Draco rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and said, "If I hate my body then it means I hate myself."

"Yes," Penelope confirmed, "you hate part of yourself and we are working to figure out why."

"I have given you reasons!"

"But you haven't, have you? You told me you are afraid of becoming another version of your father. You carry guilt from the decisions you made or were forced to make during the war. You feel that you are unlovable. But why? What is inside of you that makes you feel this way?"

Draco admitted, "I don't know."

"Think on it," Penelope replied, "and tell me next week."

.oOo.

For Scarlett, it was never too cold to go to the park. If her broom would fly, she would ride it dressed in four layers if she had to. Draco considered casting a spell on the front door to ensure she wouldn't try to sneak out on her own. Their entire Monday was spent in the house. They made lunch together. They sang loudly to carols on the radio, napped, then woke up a half hour before Tracey was expected back.

Sebastien yawned and asked, "When's Hermione coming back?"

Draco ruffled his hair and said, "She has to work."

"Can we see her soon?"

"I will ask her to visit."

"Did she forget about us?"

"She will never forget about you, I promise."

Sebastien frowned as they walked downstairs and said, "I miss her."

"Me too, Seb. She is my girlfriend but I hardly see her. Hermione has a lot of responsibilities now and I dunno how I fit into all that."

Scarlett added, "When I don't know something, dad says I should ask."

Draco laughed.

"I do not think this is the sort of thing you ask about."

"Why not?"

Draco grumbled to himself when he couldn't find a good answer. After a few unproductive minutes of asking Scarlett and Sebastien what they wanted to do, Draco fell back on the one thing he always did when he was bored: drawing. The three of them took up the entire kitchen table, which was piled high with parchment and ink pots. Sebastien hardly kept the ink on the page, leaving Draco to cast a swift Evanesco so often his own quill barely made it to the parchment. Scarlett, on the other hand, was hard at work on a project she refused to let Draco see.

She presented it to him as he left and it rendered him speechless. He stood there, staring at it on the porch for a solid two minutes as his breath crystallized in front of him. It was a drawing she labeled "My Family." Theo and Tracey were on the left, holding hands. Scarlett had drawn herself and Sebastien in the middle, about half the height of the other figures, high-fiving each other. Scarlett was holding a broomstick and Seb was holding a book. Draco and Hermione were on the right. It wasn't the inclusion of Hermione that stunned him, but rather that everyone else had round, circular, coloured-in bodies while Scarlett had drawn Draco as nothing but straight lines.

He was a stick.

Draco stared at the drawing because compared to the others, he looked ill. Draco never looked in the mirror and saw this. Was this how she saw him? Was this how he looked to everyone else? He folded the drawing and placed it in his coat pocket.

You feel that you are unlovable. What is inside of you that makes you feel this way?

Draco was too broken to be loved, and there was only one person who could prove him wrong.

.oOo.

Draco couldn't say why he went straight to Hermione's house, other than he trusted her to listen. He knocked on her door and when she opened it she seemed surprised, but happy to see him. She was wearing trackies and the Gryffindor hoodie she seemed so fond of.

"May I come in?"

"Yes!" Hermione smiled. "Of course, just put your shoes there and your coat can go in the closet." She led him into the living area and sat on one end of the sofa while Draco took his place at the other. "Before you say anything, I need to ask you something."

Draco frowned but mumbled, "Okay."

"When you're with me, are you happy?"

"Yes," Draco said, "and I had almost forgotten what it felt like."

"I love that I can do that for you," Hermione replied. She smiled and kicked her feet up into Draco's lap. "But we don't have a lot of time together. An hour on Thursday, an hour on Saturday, and Sunday nights? That isn't a relationship."

Draco's heart fell all the way down to land on the floor between his feet. He had to look away and find a nondescript spot on the wall to stare at as he prayed he wasn't about to become the Gabby. Praying Hermione wouldn't end things because he was too afraid to let her in. With a shaky voice, he asked,

"What are you saying?"

"The Ministry won't give me Saturday, but they have given me Mondays off." She smiled and nudged Draco's thigh with one foot. "Which means we don't have to say goodbye on Sunday. Two days of you and me."

"Truly?"

"If you'd like to," Hermione amended. "If you aren't ready for that then you don't have to sleep over."

"No!" Draco insisted, "I want that. Penelope pushed me to be more honest and Scarlett made me realize I do not see myself the way everyone else sees me. The way you see me. This past week has shown me that I am still hiding from you and I don't want to do that anymore. If we are going to be together the way we want to be, then you need to understand some things about me."

Hermione nodded for him to continue.

Draco took a deep breath and asked, "What do you know about Occlumency?"

"The basics." Hermione shrugged and looked up at the ceiling, running through all the information she retained. As if reciting it verbatim from a textbook, she said, "It's the magical defence of the mind against an external invasive force. An obscure, ancient branch of magic that closes one's mind against Legilimency."

"Right, and I am fairly adept at it."

"I've heard you are one of the best Occlumens in the world."

Draco chuckled.

"I always wondered how they determined that honor. Is there a competition I never knew I entered?"

"After what happened at your trial, I think the consensus was that you must be powerful to cause such an intense ... reaction."

"I learned it out of necessity. Once the Dark Lord came to live in the manor, there was no hiding from him. My mother was concerned He would use me against my father, rightly so, but not in the way she expected. He had certain views about my ... proclivities." Draco laced his fingers together and stared at the floor. "He could never know what I was doing during sixth year, how badly I was failing. He couldn't know that Snape was helping me. There was so much in my head that the Dark Lord could never be allowed to see, so Aunt Bella taught me."

He felt Hermione stiffen at the mention of his aunt. It sent a whirlwind of emotion through his chest. Shame, regret, chagrin that Hermione was about to see how much he empathised with her pain. Hell, the guilt was crushing him so much he could barely breathe.

"I have a natural talent for hiding bits of myself away. From the time I was sixteen I've had my shields up. No one has ever broken through them, but I let them down at the request of the Wizengamot and we all saw how poorly that ended. He was not as strong as you are, though."

Hermione frowned.

"Are you saying you want me to see inside your head?"

Draco nodded. Hermione pulled a bobble from the pocket of her trackies and tied her hair back. She shook her head.

"Why?"

Draco looked at her and said, "Because I can't talk about it! I haven't told Penelope about these things because I don't know how. I do not have words for that sort of pain. For years I have kept myself from falling in love because if they see too much of me, they will run away screaming, wondering how the hell I'm alive. If there is one person on this planet strong enough to see what I have been through and not judge me for it, one person strong enough to love me anyway, it's you. I will drop the shields for you if you are willing to look. If not, then we need to end this before it goes any further."

"This is an ultimatum, then?"

Draco nodded.

Hermione licked her lips and nodded, "I will do it, but I have a question for you."

"Go on."

"You truly believe you could fall in love with me?"

Draco took a moment to process the question, then he laughed. A doubled-over, uncontrollable, wheezing laugh pulled from the deepest part of his chest. He wiped his eyes and tried to get himself under control, because Hermione was staring at him like he had gone mad.

"Don't you know?" asked Draco. "You are the first person I have ever been with who made me feel it was okay to say no. To say that I was not ready. I spent months thinking you had feelings for another man, only to realize I had been jealous of myself! You cared about me enough to become friends with my friends and care for my godchildren when I could not. I want to become part of your life the way you are in mine, but you have to know what you are getting into. I won't allow you to lead me on only to crush me later because you did not realize how fucked-up I truly am. The problem, Hermione has never been whether I could fall in love with you, but whether you could fall in love with me."

"I wouldn't be here if I thought otherwise."

"So I will drop my shields and you can look at whatever you like."

"You aren't planning to direct me?" asked Hermione. "Is there something I should know to look for?"

"You will find them," Draco replied. "Trust me on that. The Legilimens didn't make it very far so brace yourself for a rocky start, alright?"

"Draco?" Hermione asked, her face morphing into a concerned frown. She pulled her feet off his lap and knelt on the cushion at his side. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and only then did Draco realize he was shaking. "Why are you so afraid to let me in?"

He sniffled, "Because you will see, and then you will leave. Even in the best case scenario you will experience a lot of pain, and I don't want to hurt you."

Hermione placed one hand on Draco's cheek and turned his face so they were at eye level.

"Nothing will hurt as much as you walking out of my life again." She kissed him and pulled away before Draco could even shut his eyes. "I didn't have any claim to you back then, but I hoped we were ready to start something. I feel awful because I couldn't see that you were still suffering. You are hiding from me and I don't want you to do it anymore, either. If you believe there is something I need to see, show me."

Dropping the shields he built around his mind was like falling into a cool stream after spending a week in the desert. Draco closed his eyes and let them fall away. He sagged backward into the sofa and curled up on the cushion, resting his head against the back. It was an odd sort of freedom, not worrying about who could see inside his mind. Years of practicing otherwise, Draco never realized how draining it could be. He tilted his head toward Hermione and, with some effort, opened his eyes.

"Don't suppose you have done this before?"

Hermione hesitated before cracking a smile.

"You'll be my first."

"Safe travels, then," he teased. Draco swallowed thickly and sighed. "I don't really know what to say. There wasn't any foreplay at the Wizengamot, he just sort of jumped in."

Hermione took his hand in hers and replied, "You should know by now, I like when we start slow." Without warning, she said, "Legilimens. "

Wrong.

Foreign.

Intruder.

Draco was hit with a wave of dizziness as everything around him lost its colour. He closed his eyes and stopped resisting the push of Hermione's influence against his mind. While the Wizengamot Legilimens had been brash and dove straight into Draco's soul, Hermione was tentative. Her influence was gentle as it prodded against the edge of his consciousness.

Relax.

He didn't hear the word, exactly, but he could tell Hermione wanted him to calm down. Her influence slowly wrapped around him, as though she was giving Draco a long hug. He gradually warmed to her presence inside his mind; Hermione's influence grew until it covered him entirely. It took a moment for Draco to realize she was replacing his shields with her own. If he retained any sense of control, Draco would have been rather moved by the gesture.

Hermione quickly scoured the outermost parts of his mind, the easiest places to see, searching for a starting point. He felt safe and protected, which brought out all sorts of shame in all the wrong ways. Did he need someone to take care of him like this? Was he truly so pathetic? Those thoughts were quickly brushed aside as Hermione grabbed hold of a strong memory and dove in. Draco's eyes rolled upward and everything went blank until he was unceremoniously tossed back into his own body.

.oOo.

He looks down at the pile of long, white-blond hairs in his open palm.

His stomach tightens up and then seems to fall out of his body altogether. He counts the strands individually, just to be sure. He finds sixteen in the pile. His hand shakes as he realizes this is not a problem he can fix on his own. He tosses the hairs into the sink basin and braces himself against the vanity.

Tears pool in the corners of Draco's eyes, but he refuses to let them spill over. He has to control something, anything, grasping at the air as any hope of handling this himself fades to nothing. His body shakes so he tightens his hold on the sink. If he can control this, he can fix it. After all, there is one truth to this mess:

He had done this to himself.

He looks up at his face in the mirror and sees nothing. He is not himself, not Draco, not a Malfoy, just another faceless man worth nothing to no one. He taps the toe of one shoe against the bathroom tile then kicks one of the cabinets so hard the door flies open.

"Fucking hell!"

Draco is pulled out of his body as though hung on a string, dangling in dark nothingness until Hermione finds her next memory.

.oOo.

He opens his eyes, curled into the fetal position on the bathroom floor.

His left side is leaning against the cabinets below the sink, his head cradled awkwardly between drawers. Draco sobs openly because he knows no one can hear him. Tears are streaming down his face as he wonders how he will live with Astoria moving into the manor, watching his every move. She will know. She will see. She will hate him.

He was going to lose the one woman who looked at him and thought, "Maybe." He wants to give her everything, to be the husband she deserves, and to make a family together. But it is wrong and he knows it. Astoria does not see him as Draco Malfoy, she sees him as Boyfriend. Partner. Husband.

Mine.

And he wants to be hers because it would be so easy for someone to lead him through life. Maybe if she loved him, truly loved him, he would be able to stop this. He hates himself, but if Astoria loves him that must be good enough. It has to be good enough, because if that isn't then nothing will ever be good enough. Sobs are wracking through his chest, so heavy he can't breathe. The only sounds coming out of his mouth are undignified squeaks as he clutches helplessly at the cabinets, unable to stay upright on his own. Unable to stay upright beneath the crushing weight of Astoria bloody Greengrass.

He wipes his nose off onto his sleeve, croaking out, "Why?"

Draco does not know to whom he addressed the question. Himself, perhaps. Why had he let it get to this point? Astoria. Why can't she love him for the man he is? His father. Why did you let the Dark Lord do those things to me? God. Why the hell did you make me like this? Am I a sick joke for you, a release for when humanity gets too somber? Let's look down on Draco Malfoy, the man unseen.

He needs to keep Astoria in his life but he cannot eat. He needs a new solution, a new option. Draco looks over at the toilet and an idea begins to form.

No one will notice. Nobody sees me anyway.

Draco is yanked out of his body once again, left to hang in a bleary haze of black as Hermione searches for her next stop on the trail.

.oOo.

He opens his eyes to see Blaise on top of him.

Merlin's fucking arse, it is the most gorgeous sight Draco has ever seen. He watches Blaise ride him, crawling closer and closer to release. Draco won't last much longer, he senses the familiar feeling building in his core. Blaise tosses his head back in ecstasy so Draco wraps one hand tight around Blaise's dick and pulls. Blaise lets out a long moan; he always likes it rough.

Draco looks down at the place where they are joined together, his dick slipping in and out of Blaise and it is the hottest thing he has ever seen. He nearly comes right then but holds out. He grits his teeth and tugs on Blaise's dick again, hard and quick, in time with his upward thrusts. Blaise places his hand over Draco's and pulls even faster until he lets out a soft, breathy moan and Draco watches as Blaise's come lands on his chest. He grabs Blaise's hips with both hands, pulls Blaise down on his dick once, twice, and comes so hard his vision whites out.

Blaise collapses on Draco as he pulls out, and they lie there for a full minute, sweat-soaked and sticky. Draco feels the rise and fall of Blaise's chest against his own, tracing up and down Blaise's spine with the pads of his fingers. Blaise smiles and rolls off, then rolls back onto his side to press his lips against one of the bruises forming on Draco's neck.

"That was excellent."

Draco grins back at him, always a slut for compliments.

"I love you," Blaise says into Draco's shoulder. "You know that, right?"

Draco tries not to stiffen up. He knows. They are best friends; the trust is built into their relationship. It makes it so much harder to know he can't say it back.

"Yeah, Blaise, I know."

He Summons a cloth to clean up as Blaise's eyes flutter shut. He tends to fall asleep right after. The better the sex, the longer he sleeps. Draco was exhausted, too, so he padded over to the bathroom and grabbed a pair of loose pyjama bottoms. He tossed the cloth onto the sink and trudged back to the bed, stifling a yawn. He pulls the duvet out from underneath Blaise's legs and up to his shoulders, but not without taking a long look at Blaise's bum. They would have to change the sheets tomorrow.

Draco nestled into the bed, curled up as Blaise instinctively pressed himself against Draco's back. Even asleep, they are inseparable. It is what love is meant to be, isn't it? So why isn't this love? Draco places one hand overtop Blaise's and shuts his eyes.

Blaise doesn't see him. He never sees the struggle, the internal battle happening constantly inside Draco's head. There is always a certain distance between them, somehow even greater in the moments like this when they are closest together. Blaise could have his dick up Draco's arse and Draco would feel even further away than he did when they were exchanging letters in separate countries. This love is performative, going through the motions of what it should be only to find fool's gold at the end of the rainbow.

It is Draco's fault. Blaise could love him if they wanted it to last, but this is not an endgame, it is a reentry into the world of dating. It is easier to put his heart on the line with someone like Blaise, who cradles it like a delicate thing. Draco would do anything to feel like he could do the same, but he doesn't have it in him. He keeps trying to disappear, and there is not enough of him left to love someone. Not even Blaise.

Draco silently cries himself to sleep.

.oOo.

He opens his eyes to see the fifty members of the Wizengamot peering down at him.

Draco is bound to a large metal chair he'd taken to calling the Throne of Shame during the weeks he'd been forced to endure this trial. His wrists are "restrained" by thick cuffs with a wide enough gap for him to pull his hand through. His magic is dormant inside his veins, there but only just out of reach. He resigned himself to Azkaban before the trial began; it is only a formality. It is nearly over now and he is praying for a cell with a window. He wants to keep track of the days and see the stars. Ten years from now, halfway through his sentence, perhaps he will have the courage to throw himself out the window and stop paying for crimes he did not commit.

The Chief Sorcerer leans forward, pushes his glasses up, and asks, "Does the defence intend to call any witnesses besides the young Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes, your honor," Draco's lawyer replies. "The defence calls upon Mr. Harry Potter, Order of Merlin First Class."

Draco can hardly believe it when the courtroom door opens to reveal Potter standing on the other side. He slowly walks into the room and everyone's jaws drop at the same moment. For the first time in years, Draco allows himself to hope for something more than prison.

.oOo.

The Dark Lord paces about the room.

Draco never understood how an army could be led by this man. Is he even a man? He looks like the lovechild of a snake and a Dementor, with lidless eyes that are little more than red slits. The Dark Lord did not look frightening, but he felt terrifying. Dementors felt like death, but they could be controlled. They always answer to someone but the Dark Lord answers to no one, and that unbridled terror is living in Draco's house. Draco eats breakfast at the same table as the most powerful Dark wizard the world has seen since Grindelwald.

Draco looks outside to see even the sun has chosen to hide itself away from Him today. He picks at the eggs with his fork, but is not hungry. He listens to the argument his father has with the Dark Lord, though it is always one-sided. More like a lecture than a discussion.

"My Lord, if I may say, my son says even the Pureblood students of Hogwarts are beginning to resent the cause because of the Carrows—"

"Please," scoffs the Dark Lord, "I will not trust your son with anything any longer. He failed his one assignment, saved only by my most devoted follower."

Aunt Bella squeaks in disbelief from her spot at the Dark Lord's right. He pays her no mind.

"You do not decide who staffs which positions at Hogwarts anymore, Lucius, the Board of Governors has disbanded. Furthermore, I would not trust you with decision-making. You have not even taught your son how to make a decision about where he puts his cock! I doubt you have any wisdom to impart about things of value."

Draco lets his shoulder slump, but otherwise gives no indication he heard. He feels his father's quick, searing glance, as though it wasn't his goddamn biology that made Draco like this in the first place.

"My Lord, Draco is our best source about what goes on inside the castle."

"Severus is the best source for what happens inside the castle, Lucius," the Dark Lord sneers.

Draco barely stops himself from laughing. Snape knows nothing about the rebellion brewing beneath his twisted nose, and Draco was not planning to bring it to his attention. They all deserve what is coming.

.oOo.

Draco is curled into a ball in one corner of the drawing room.

"Are your shields up, nephew?"

He trembles. He knows what is coming and wishes he could run away from it, but he has no choice. The Dark Lord will punish him eventually. The Dark Lord will want answers Draco will refuse to give. He sobs outright.

"Please, Aunt Bella, please."

"Now, now, nephew, it's not that bad. Just a bit of pain. You're strong, aren't you? You can handle it."

"I can't." Draco shakes his head and repeats, "I can't!"

She waves her wand and even though he knows what is coming, braces himself against it, no one is ever truly prepared for the pain.

"CRUCIO!"

Pain begins just as Draco expects. He has been through this in practice, but Aunt Bella is not holding back. It is like someone has stabbed a dozen knives into various parts of his body and he cannot concentrate on any one pain point. Every nerve in his body is on fire. There is only pain and he is consumed by it.

He screams. The cries tear at his throat until it is raw. She attacks his shields, tries to use the pain as a distraction to break through. Draco forces her out with great effort, and the pain intensifies.

Seconds or minutes tick by, Draco cannot tell. He breaks out in a freezing sweat, an inescapable cold that makes him shiver all the way down to his toes. He runs out of tears, but his shields stay up. There is a voice somewhere begging for it to stop, but it is not his. Draco takes this pain because he refuses to die today. Dying on this floor in this manner serves no purpose and he is meant for more.

Eventually, it ends and the pain subsides. Draco is left a mess on the floor, but he hears the smile in Aunt Bella's voice.

"Your shields remain intact. The Dark Lord will get bored before you break. Never forget, you are stronger than He will give you credit for. No nephew of mine will break under interrogation! Not even from the most powerful wizard in history! You have made me proud."

Draco is still curled into the wall. He has not moved. He won't move for hours. They will practice each day he is home. Every day the pain gets worse, and every day Draco begs for her to stop. Pleads with his parents, but they support this practice because they know the Dark Lord is capable of far worse and Draco must be prepared.

"You are a soldier," Lucius Malfoy says to his rumpled mess of a son as he pulls him into the hall. "It is time you understand what that means."

"I didn't ask to be," Draco whimpered. "I never asked to be."

.oOo.

Draco was alone in his mind.

Hermione was gone.

He immediately went to work pulling his shields back into place. Draco felt violated in the worst way. They hadn't had penetrative sex yet, but she'd seen him bollocks-deep in Blaise. He never intended for her to see that. Never meant for her to see him contemplating suicide at the trial; Merlin only knew what sort of memories that would draw out for her.

"I didn't know."

Draco looked over to see Hermione staring at him in some combination of shock and horror.

"I didn't ..." She clapped one hand over her mouth to hold back a sob. She flung her arms around his neck and mumbled the same phrase into his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

Draco held her until they fell asleep on the sofa.

Perhaps he wasn't unlovable after all.

A/N: Hope y'all are happy and healthy.