**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.**
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I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.
- Helen Keller
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After having done all he knew how for Hermione, Draco was reluctant to leave her side. He was concerned that she hadn't yet regained consciousness, but her pulse was stronger and, considering her organs had quite literally been shutting down, he assumed it was probably normal. If any of this could be called normal.
Theo, after binding the house elf they had encountered earlier and dosing him with a sleeping draught, disappeared toward the kitchen in search of food while Blaise and Draco settled into two wingback chairs on either side of the fireplace. The still silenced portrait merely scowled at them.
"Seriously mate," Blaise began, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, "the last time I saw you, you wouldn't have spit on Hermione Granger if she were on fire, now you're running around like a lunatic trying to save her life."
Draco understood how it must have looked, but he was too exhausted to care what they might think of him.
"I don't really want to talk about it," he said tiredly, wiping his hand across his face as he leaned back into the soft cushions of the chair. He realized with a start how nice it was to sit on something other than the ground. "What about you? Have you been in Italy this whole time?"
Blaise hadn't returned to Hogwarts after the winter holiday and Draco hadn't heard from him prior to his own internment.
"Yeah," he said, "you know my family doesn't like to get involved in anything that could mean risking their own necks. When things started getting really bad, my mum packed up and moved us to the villa outside Milan."
Draco had visited the place with Blaise several summers ago. It was much smaller than their estate in the UK, but equally lavish. Blaise's mother had something of a habit of marrying wealthy men shortly before their tragic deaths.
"You couldn't write, you git?"
"To the house where the Dark Lord was holed up? Or to the school that his henchmen are running?"
"Fair enough," he conceded after a pause, inclining his head. "How did Theo end up with you?"
Just then the man in question drifted back into the room, levitating a tray of tea and sandwiches in front of him.
"I hate this fucking house," he said bitterly, placing the tray on the low coffee table before settling on the ground in front of it. "You know there's a severed finger in my ice chest right now? No explanation, no sign of the bloke who lost it, just a severed finger. Who does that?"
Blaise put down the sandwich he had picked up without taking a bite. Draco, desperate for something that wasn't dry bread and didn't need to be eaten with a spoon, dug in with gusto, suppressing a groan of pleasure as he chewed.
"I was just filling Drake in on our torrid love affair in Italy," Blaise said with a cheeky smirk and a wink. He stirred a cup of tea, having apparently decided that was safer than the sandwiches. Theo snorted.
"If that's what you consider a love affair, I feel bad for the women you bed. Well… worse for them than I already did."
"Anyway," Blaise said pointedly, "I've been in Italy since Christmas. This one stuck it out until the spring holiday."
Theo swallowed his bite of sandwich and took a draught of tea before turning to Draco.
"My dad tried to have me marked when I got home," he explained, trying not to let his eyes linger on his friend's forearm. "He kept talking about it like it was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, said as soon as the Dark Lord returned to the country there would be some sort of initiation. I packed a bag and split the minute he turned his back, apparated up the coast to Dover and then took a broom across the Channel. Once I was there I owled Blaise and he came and got me from Calais with a portkey."
"That explains the elf's attitude," Draco muttered.
"You wouldn't believe what it's like on the continent," Blaise said, shaking his head. "No sign of the war at all, save for a few other refugees jumping the border."
Draco had known that, or presumed as much in any event, but it was still difficult to hear. While the wizards and witches of Britain were being imprisoned, seeing their families tortured and murdered, the rest of the world continued on as usual.
He looked at Hermione's sleeping form on the couch and wondered how different her life would be, their lives would be, had they simply been born a couple hundred miles to the East. Even blood prejudices, while existent in other countries, were not nearly as rampant in Continental Europe.
Draco shook himself from the thought to see Blaise and Theo silently arguing about something, hissing at one another with pursed lips and wide eyes. Finally Theo seemed to come to the conclusion that he ultimately didn't care what Blaise thought because he turned to Draco.
"So, the girl…"
"I tried to tell him you didn't want to talk about it," Blaise said in an exasperated tone, sinking back into his chair.
"It's fine," Draco huffed, acknowledging that this was a losing battle as he set his empty teacup back on the tray. "What do you want to know?"
"I guess what I want to know is how you two ended up in there together in the first place," Theo responded, pulling himself up onto the corner of the unoccupied couch. For all Blaise was trying not to pry, he leaned forward slightly in his chair, awaiting a response.
Draco debated whether he should tell them the truth or give the vague half-answer that he had offered Hermione. He still felt guilty about it, but when she had asked, he wasn't much in the business of being honest with her. By the time they had started speaking to one another candidly, he knew it would have done little more than made her feel culpable for his presence in the cell.
"It was over the spring holiday," Draco began, "which appears to have been an eventful break for everyone. I had just arrived home and I was holed up in the library with my mother when Bellatrix came in, screaming about how they had caught Potter."
"Really? How the hell could he have let himself be captured?" Blaise mused. "He's a ponce, but his ability to at least keep alive is sort of his trademark."
"Do you want the story or not?" Draco snipped. Blaise raised his hands in surrender and fell silent. "Anyway, we go into the drawing room to find Fenrir Greyback and a gaggle of snatchers hauling in Potter, Granger and Weasley. Bellatrix wanted me to identify them, but…"
He took a steadying breath before continuing. "Potter had been hit with some kind of stinging hex and his face was completely swollen. Bellatrix wanted to be absolutely certain that he was actually Potter before summoning the Dark Lord from out of the country. So, I lied. I said I wasn't sure it was him."
He paused for an instant, waiting for a reaction, but he ploughed forward a moment later when none came.
"Then Bellatrix noticed one of the snatchers was holding some sword and she absolutely lost her shite, grabbed it and started screaming about the 'gravity of the situation.' Potter and Weaselbee were hauled down to the dungeons and the snatchers were thrown out, but she kept Granger so she could interrogate her."
"Torture her to death, you mean…" Theo muttered, to which Draco nodded. Blaise looked a little miffed that he wasn't chastised for interrupting.
"I'd seen people tortured before," he said, "seen dozens of strangers murdered at the Manor and at Death Eater revels, but none that I… I didn't know them. I knew her. I certainly didn't like her, but we'd grown up together. She kept screaming that she didn't know anything, and Bellatrix kept hitting her again and again with the cruciatus. I don't know why she didn't use legilimency to find whatever she was looking for; I think she was even less in touch with reality than usual."
Draco swallowed hard, trying to avoid being sucked into the memory of standing there, watching Hermione writhe on the ground in pain. He glanced up to make sure she was still unconscious before continuing.
"I was beginning to crack when Bellatrix switched to a blade and started carving up her arm. My mother saw what was happening and disarmed me, but I managed to get the knife out of Bellatrix's hand first. Potter and Weasley came tearing in then, I've no idea how they escaped the dungeons, and everything went arse over teakettle after that. I dove and tried to get to my wand, but there were spells flying everywhere. I don't know what the fuck caused it, but a second later the chandelier fell."
"That big-arse monstrosity in the drawing room?" Blaise asked, eyes wide.
"Yeah," Draco answered with a small chuckle. "By the time the dust cleared Potter and Weasley were gone and Granger had just avoided being crushed by the thing. She must have passed out somewhere in there because she was unconscious at that point. My father apparently realised what I had done because he stunned me before I even got up off the ground. A few hours later I woke up in the cell with her."
"Bloody hell…" Theo said, staring a hole into the coffee table, lost in thought. "And I thought I had a rough holiday."
The trio sat in silence for a moment before Blaise shook his head and got up, claiming he had to use the loo. When he disappeared, Theo turned to Draco.
"What happened earlier," he started slowly, "with the potions and everything… that wasn't just you not hating Granger."
Draco could have bet he would be the one to pick up on it; Theo was always too observant for his own good. They had often joked about him being a seer.
"No, no, I suppose it wasn't," Draco replied tightly, avoiding eye contact and trying to keep his expression neutral. He could feel Theo studying his face. Whatever he was looking for he must have found because after a beat he nodded once and sat back in his chair.
"Hey, Drake," Blaise called, walking back into the room a moment later, "you said Granger has been with you this whole time, right?"
He had a newspaper clutched in his hands and was staring at it with a perplexed expression on his face.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well then, it seems someone has been playing with Polyjuice potion," he said, tossing it onto the table in front of them.
There, on the cover, stood Hermione next to the Minister of Magic. They were on a raised platform at what looked like a press conference, and she was staring blankly forward while cameras flashed across her face.
Floating above the photo was a headline, "Hermione Granger shows support for Muggle-Born Registration Commission."
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After much convincing, and no small amount of shaming him about how he smelled, Theo and Blaise were able to get Draco to put the newspaper down and go upstairs to shower and change, promising that they would stay with Hermione until he returned.
When he disappeared around the corner, the two boys turned and stared at the still unconscious witch laid on the sofa in front of them.
"So are they…?" Blaise trailed off, gesturing between her and the doorway through which Draco had just left.
"Yeah, I think so," Theo responded, still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. Blaise paused for a moment.
"Huh."
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A/N: *As we are officially passing the halfway point of this story, I just want to remark upon how grateful I am to each and every one of you for taking the time to read something that I have written. It has been a truly lovely and humbling experience. Please enjoy, and Blessed Samhain!*
Chapter 12 is up today as well, make sure you check it out.
Thank you to TanzaniteWrites for beta-reading this chapter.