**I don't own anything in the Harry Potter universe; if I did, things would have ended very differently and I wouldn't have a mountain of student loans.**

oOoOoOo

Tell me your secrets

Give me a friend

Let all the good times flood in

Do I love you?

Do I hate you?

I can't make up my mind

So let's freefall

And see where we land

- Ed Sheeran, Where We Land

oOoOoOo

They slept together twice more before Malfoy had the presence of mind to ask about protection, at which she rolled her eyes and informed him she was on a three-month potion that she had taken not long before being captured. It was the same reason she hadn't menstruated since being here – though she didn't mention that part. She also brought up the small fact that she would likely be dead within a week or two, so pregnancy was hardly a concern.

It was after one such interlude when they were lying entangled in one another's arms that she confessed how poorly she was beginning to feel. The aching in her forearm had bled into her whole limb and she was in a near constant state of feeling too hot or too cold.

"I'm not sure we should…" she trailed off, gesturing vaguely at their bodies. While she was satisfied, more than satisfied if she was honest, she was also beyond knackered and she feared pushing herself would only speed things along.

"It's okay," he said after a moment, dropping a kiss on her temple and pulling her in closer. While they hadn't discussed it in as many words, Hermione had spent a great deal of time pondering the change in their relationship.

He was still moody and antagonistic, she would be daft to expect that to change, but he had also softened toward her. Whether it was because he was developing genuine feelings of affection, or because she was literally dying, she couldn't be sure. Either way, it was nice.

"Can I ask you for something?" she inquired, twisting in his arms so she could look at his face.

"You can ask, but I won't promise I'll do it."

She rolled her eyes before continuing. "I was wondering… I quite like my name you see, my first name that is. Considering you're probably the last person I'll ever speak to…"

She chewed her lip, anxiously studying his face to gauge his reaction.

"I wasn't aware it bothered you," he said, looking down at her, eyebrows pulled together slightly.

"It doesn't really... but despite years of being teased for it, I'm fond of my given name. It reminds me of my mum, she named me after a character in her favorite play."

"Alright, I can do that… Hermione."

She didn't expect the way her stomach would flutter as he said it. It seemed foreign coming from his lips, but it warmed something in her.

"Thank you… Draco."

oOoOoOo

Days passed. While their extracurricular physical activities had ceased as quickly as they began, their conversations didn't. The weight of what was happening sank upon both of them and, in an attempt to lessen the burden, they said all the things they hadn't before. All the things they needed to tell somebody before there was no one left to tell.

Hermione couldn't help but wonder if, despite how terrible she was feeling, the pain she was in, she might be getting the better end of the deal. When she died, Draco would be alone. Totally alone. She could only hope the elf would take her body so he didn't have to bear the process of witnessing her decompose.

While occlumency had been an abject failure, the meditation and organization of her mind that came from her attempt to learn helped some. She was more easily able to compartmentalise what was happening to her and stay further in control of her mental faculties than she likely would have been capable of otherwise.

She told Draco about all the things she had been planning to do when the war was over, the ways in which she wanted to reform the magical world, make it a better place for werewolves and centaurs and muggleborns. She had dreams of integrating classes into the Hogwarts curriculum to better transition such students into wizarding culture, so they didn't have to go through the shock that she had.

He confessed that his prejudices, largely a result of indoctrination from a father he now loathed, were no longer something he paid credence to. Like he said in their argument the week prior – her blood was as red as his. More importantly, he apologised to her.

He apologised for the effect his words had had on her over the years, both intended and unintended. And she accepted it – seeing no reason to withhold forgiveness after all that had transpired between them.

While Hermione spoke of all the things she had wanted to do, Draco told her about all the things that he had done. Stories of growing up at Malfoy Manor, playing in the gardens with Theodore Nott and flying his first broom over the rolling countryside. He told her about what it was like in Slytherin house, learning quickly how to manoeuver the political battleground and form alliances in place of friendships.

He told her about sixth year. The weight of knowing his mother was held captive while he was tasked with repairing the vanishing cabinet in the room of requirement. He told her about how he had gone weeks that year without sleep and how his hair had started to fall out. He loathed Voldemort, going so far as to say that he wanted the war to come to an end more than anybody.

All the anger she had felt for Tom Riddle over the years, all the hurt and pain he had caused, was amplified as she listened, realizing that Draco had lost his childhood just as much as Harry had.

He faltered only when she asked about his father.

"Did he… hurt you?" she inquired as she laid with her head in his lap, shivering slightly despite his jacket draped over her.

"No, not in the way you're thinking," he responded, lips pressed into a tight line. "He manipulated more than anything. I watched him for years, twisting people to get what he wanted, leveraging and blackmailing. For a long time I thought I wanted to be like him, powerful, revered, but as I got older I saw that it wasn't respect that he inspired, it was fear."

She nodded slowly, piecing that together with what little first-hand experience she had had with the man.

"Your mum?" she asked, knowing he would understand the question.

"Yeah," he said after a beat, voice thick and tired sounding. "I didn't realise until a couple years ago, after the Dark Lord returned, but he… mistreated her. After his failure in the Department of Mysteries, it got worse. He took out his anger on her. He probably would have done the same to me if she didn't work so hard to keep herself between us."

As much as Malfoy scoffed at her loyalty to Harry, she could tell he would do anything for his mother. He already had, really.

"Did he tell you about that? The Department of Mysteries?"

They hadn't quite gotten that far in their discussion of her schoolday experiences, and it wasn't something she had been anxious to bring up.

"No," he huffed with a twisted smile, "it wasn't exactly a topic he enjoyed talking about."

"I was there," she explained. "That's how I got the scar on my chest. Dolohov hit me with something nonverbal after I silenced him."

"You managed to get a silencing charm on Dolohov?"

She nodded. "He still almost killed me though."

"He's one of the best duelists within the Death Eater's ranks, frankly I'm shocked he didn't."

"I can hold my own," she quipped with a wry smile.

Despite being prone on the ground and unmoving, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. If she had to guess, the rate was probably upwards of 100 beats per minute. She knew she was starting to decline; she could feel it. She would fight to catch her breath after walking the length of the cell and Draco had had to help her to her feet more than once.

That night was when the dreams started. She was laid out on the blanket with Draco curled around her, sleeping soundly, feverish and fading in and out of consciousness, when Harry suddenly appeared behind his shoulder.

"Hey 'Mione," he said with a smile, glasses slightly askew.

"Harry," she breathed, "what are you doing here?"

"You're my best friend, I can't pop in for a visit?" he asked.

"I don't understand how you're here... am I dead?"

His brow furrowed and he looked around as if the answer would be written on one of the walls. "I don't think so… are you?"

"I don't know…" she said, blinking rapidly, wondering why it was so hot in here. "Where's Ron?"

"Do you care?" he asked, tilting his head toward Draco's sleeping form.

"Wait, Harry, the horcruxes – did you find them?"

"No, we died, Hermione."

"You… what?" she reeled, trying to make sense of what he was saying, but her thoughts were coming slowly and garbled, as if they were under water.

"We died trying to escape the Manor," he explained, looking at her as if she had gone barmy.

"No… no you didn't, that didn't happen. You got out. Draco said you got out."

"Draco now, is it?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't… I don't… You were supposed to go to the Order. You were supposed to get help finding the rest of them."

"Dumbledore said nobody else could know about them."

"Sod Dumbledore!" she half-shouted at him, "You should have gone to Remus, Arthur, Kingsley… they could have helped!"

"Yeah, well, we didn't. We decided to track down the orphanage where Riddle lived to see if there was anything there. We must have tripped a ward because twenty Death Eaters apparated in."

"I told you not to, that he wouldn't have kept one there."

"With you gone we didn't have any other leads," he shrugged. "They killed Ron on the spot and then stunned me and took me to Voldemort."

She shook her head in disbelief, her thoughts fractured and disjointed.

"Harry, no, you can't be…no no no…" she started to cry, panting for breath while tears burned tracks down her feverish cheeks.

The image of him dissolved and her shoulders shook... it took her a moment to realize she wasn't the one shaking them.

"Hermione," a voice said. "Hermione, wake up. Open your eyes."

She obeyed with a gasp to see Draco leaning over her.

"Harry... Harry was here… he said he was dead…" she managed to wheeze out, though it felt like a tight band was constricting her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said firmly, brushing the hair away from her sweaty forehead. "Breathe and think about it, there's no way Potter can be here. It's just you and me. Nobody else is here."

"If he dies… if he dies and he didn't tell anyone…" her eyes drifted shut through the haze as she tried to explain. Tried to make him understand why Harry and Ron dying was so catastrophic.

"Get some sleep, I'll wake you up when the elf comes with food."

Despite her best efforts, she acquiesced.

oOoOoOo

It was the next morning and Hermione, still rattled from her dream the night before, was eating in pensive silence while Draco made another mark on the wall. There were twenty in total now; they had been there nearly three weeks.

Hermione sifted through what little she knew about sepsis and its progression into septic shock and figured she had maybe another two or three days of coherence before she wouldn't be lucid enough to think straight. She was silently thankful for all of the medical books her parents had left lying around growing up.

She was almost constantly feverish now, though she often felt cold, and she was starting to have difficulty breathing. Her heart would start racing at random intervals, indicating arrhythmias, and overall her body was simply weak.

Draco had taken to wiping down her face and neck whenever the basin and flannel appeared, and he brought food to her in the corner so she didn't have to move across the room. The only time she got to her feet now was when he helped her to the other corner with the curtain draped around the pail, which she needed less and less frequently.

Though she couldn't see it herself, he told her that the patches of discolored skin on her arm had worked their way across her shoulders and back.

Hermione knew that she had a choice to make, and, for one of the first times in her life, she was entirely unsure of what to do. Her friends had always looked to her for advice on how to proceed when things got difficult, but now, when the decision was left to her, she was stuck.

"Draco?" she inquired quietly. He sat about a foot away, eating his own bowl of thick, bland porridge. "I need to ask another favour of you."

"No," he said vehemently, practically throwing his bowl on the ground in front of him, "I won't do it."

"Won't do what?" she asked, utterly bewildered by his sudden change in demeanor. They had just been comparing defense against the dark arts professors not ten minutes ago.

"I'm not going to smother you, or drown you, or slit your throat, or whatever it is you're thinking."

"That's not what I – you think I want you to mercy kill me?"

He remained silent, but narrowed his eyes in suspicion, as if searching her face for an answer.

"That's not – look, shut up and let me explain. There are some things I need to know first. You said the other day that you wanted the war over, that you wanted You-Know-Who dead. Is that true?"

"Yes," he said slowly, "but I also know he fancies himself immortal."

"What if I told you he wasn't?"

oOoOoOo

A/N: I am apparently not capable of writing chapters that are a consistent length, so next week and the following week will both have two posted instead of one. Also, if didn't combine a couple, we were on track to have the epilogues uploaded on Christmas Day and I'm thinking a few people might have plans (although this year, who knows).

Next chapter we also begin to jump perspectives a bit, so buckle up for that.

Nine and ten will be up on 10/23.

Much gratitude to my betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade.