Apricity – Chapter Thirty-One

Draco felt like he was losing his mind.

He didn't know how to fix the damage that he'd done. There was no excuse for the way he'd betrayed Hermione's secret to the last person who deserved to know it. If she never forgave him, he wouldn't be surprised.

When he woke on Friday to an empty bed, he felt the sorrow sinking bone-deep all over again. He'd hoped that he would wake to find her curled up beside him, unable to sleep without him there. But he'd known better.

Instead of an emerald sky, he'd walked her dreams, watching the painful flashes of the previous day play repeatedly in her mind like a film reel.

It didn't feel like he'd lost her, but it felt like things had changed.

He heard voices coming from the common room. It was Potter and Ginny. Their letters had said that they'd be coming, so he was by no means surprised. However, he felt nervous. No matter what the situation, he knew they'd choose her side.

Was he even welcome in his own common room anymore?

Draco dressed in his uniform, knowing that he couldn't afford to skive off anymore classes. When he walked out into the kitchenette, his palms sweat-slick and jaw gritted against his nerves, he cast one singular glance into the common room.

Hermione sat in the armchair, her legs curled up into the seat and a mug in her hand. She wore Draco's jumper and a pair of leggings. Potter sat on the couch, on the side closest to her with a mug of his own. Ginny flitted about the tree, taking the rest of it down while listening to the two Gryffindors talking.

She was wearing his jumper.

Relief sunk into him, reminding him that what he'd done wasn't entirely unforgivable. If she hated him, she wouldn't be wearing his clothing. But the way she very carefully kept her gaze trained on her friends showed him that she couldn't even look at him right now.

He deserved the pain that caused.

Since he'd missed breakfast, he decided to pull out some eggs and ham and set them to cooking on the stove. With a wave of his wand, he let magic do it for him, leaning his hips back against the opposite counter to watch it cook with his arms crossed over his chest.

That, and he was eavesdropping.

". . . can you be certain?" came the tail-end of Potter's sentence.

"Because I checked, Harry," Hermione replied, her tone a bit conspiratorial. "And I know this is a lot of information, but I haven't had my cycle in months."

"Hermione—"

"Shut up, Harry," said Ginny. "Are you serious, Hermione? When did you lose it?"

There was a second of silence and then Hermione replied, "I think I lost it while we were on the hunt. I wasn't tracking it, but I do remember losing it sometime after Dobby."

Draco resisted the urge to punch the wall. There could only be one reason why she would be stressed out enough to lose her cycle, or to be influenced to engage in disordered behaviors enough to lose that much weight.

There was a scar etched into her arm to prove that.

He waved his wand and flipped the ham and eggs over. The crackling filled his ears, and the scent of bacon was aromatic.

Potter sighed. "Well, I'm not exactly an expert on . . . That, but couldn't pregnancy still be possible?"

"Yes," Hermione said, "and that's why I checked. I never was pregnant, and I've never been."

"Okay, then that's good."

"So, what's going to happen?" Hermione asked. "I don't want anyone at this school to know. It happened outside of school, and I'd like to keep it that way. It's bad enough that—that you all know. It wasn't exactly something I consented to."

"Of course, Hermione," Potter said, his tone going gentler. "I'm not planning on telling McGonagall or anyone else here. Arthur and I are going to work with the Auror Department to launch a search for the Muggle who did it, and then—"

"I really don't want to," she said, sounding like she was experiencing more than a little discomfort. "I don't want to have to face him in a Muggle court, and if the Ministry goes after him, someone will leak the information. I really don't want to see it in the Prophet."

"But Hermione," Ginny protested, "you can't possibly mean to let him get away with it, can you?"

"Couldn't you just let us find him and deal with him in a magical way?" Harry complained. He snapped his fingers. "We could sic your pet snake on him."

"Harry!"

Hearing Hermione's uncontrollable giggling was almost enough to absolve Potter of his insolence.

The food was done. Draco plated it up and ate at the counter.

"No, I don't know what I want to do," Hermione said, sighing. "I've been trying so hard to forget it happened, but now that this has happened—now that you all know—I'm going to have to start over."

"You're not going to have to start over," Ginny said, her voice moving towards Draco. He made eye contact with her as she placed the box of half-broken, half-intact Christmas ornaments on the table. Then, she returned to the common room. "It's always better to be surrounded by friends and family when you're struggling. You can't do anything alone.

Draco bristled. She wasn't—

"I'm not alone," Hermione said. "But I do feel lonely. And I just don't know if this is something I can face yet."

"Hermione, I don't know how to tell you this," Harry said, "but this isn't exactly up for debate. Arthur has already gone to Kingsley. We're—"

"Kingsley knows?" she practically screeched. A groan. "Oh, Harry, no! I didn't want anyone to know! It was just supposed to be in the past and then it was just supposed to be Draco and I, and now—"

"What does he think about all this?"

Draco nearly choked on his food. His heart raced. Were they going to call him in there to talk? He wasn't sure Hermione wanted to be in a room with him. Not to mention, what if the Weaselbee hadn't heeded his warning and had told Potter how he'd really fallen down the stairs?

But Hermione changed the subject.

"I don't want to press charges in any court of law," Hermione said, her voice firm. "Magical or Muggle. I have no doubt that you can find him, but—"

"We could make it quiet," Harry insisted. "No one would know. We can keep it between Kingsley, Arthur, one Senior Auror, and I."

"No, Harry!" She sounded panicked. "I don't want anyone else to know what he looks like!"

Silence.

Draco set his fork down as realization dawned on him.

She was humiliated.

The thought of anyone knowing what the man who hurt her looked like made her want to be sick. This wasn't going to help her—it was only going to hurt her. As badly as the man deserved to be punished for what he'd done, she needed to be ready first.

How could she not see that she hadn't forgotten it? Why couldn't she see that it was poisoning her form the inside out? As much as he was loathe to admit it, the She-Weasel and Potter were right. She needed to face it in the way that would get her the most justice.

He wouldn't mind being sicced on the man, either.

"It's not about knowing what he looks like," Ginny said. "Honestly, Hermione. He's just . . . Out there, walking around. Free as a bird. He deserves to be punished. Do you want him to get away with it?"

"No, of course not." She sounded forlorn. Broken. "I just . . . I never wanted anyone to know this."

"Then why did you tell Ron?" Harry asked.

Draco's head pulled back on his shoulders in shock. So the Weaselbee had kept his mouth shut. That was good. Hermione had to have figured it out because Draco was the only person who knew.

But it didn't make anything better for her—it only made things a little less stressful for him.

That wasn't fair.

"I just don't want to talk about this anymore," Hermione said, surprising Draco with her desire to keep his involvement a secret. "I have to go to class, and I'm not even dressed yet."

"Should you really be—"

"It happened in the Summer, and I've been going to classes just fine." The chair creaked, indicating that she'd stood. "Maybe we can meet for lunch."

"Hermione," Harry said, and he gave an incredulous laugh. "I don't think you understand what's going on here. You don't have a choice in this. We're going to look for the man who did this to you, and then we're dealing with him. You can either help us, or you can accept that you have no control over it."

"Harry," Ginny scolded. "There's no reason to—"

"No, Ginny. She needs to know." There was a pause. "I've never been one to follow the rules, Hermione. Not where my loved ones are concerned. And I'm certainly not going to follow yours. I don't care what it takes—I'll use Legilimency if I have to get that memory."

Draco thought he might hex him. He was already moving towards the common room.

Ginny gasped, but Hermione spoke and she sounded livid.

"Harry, I love you, but that's unacceptable. You do not have my permission to use Legilimency on me. I said I wasn't ready, and that means I'm not bloody ready. I understand that this is painful for you, but it's more painful for me. It's painful for me to walk through this life feeling like my body doesn't even belong to me."

"Hermione, you—"

Draco entered the common room, running a hand through his hair. His gaze cut across the tension to lock with Potter's. Potter scowled.

"Don't tell me you agree with her. You? Come on."

"She said no, Potter," Draco replied, shaking his head as though his hands were tied. "That means no. If you want to find the Muggle before she's ready, you'll have to do it without her memories."

"Wow." Potter scoffed. "Colour me shocked. And here I thought you'd be the one to encourage me to break the rules."

"You thought wrong."

Ginny's glance traveled between the two, and then she put her hands on her hips. "I think we should go. This isn't something that we can change, Harry. Hermione, this is what you want?"

"Yes," Draco heard her say from the mouth of the hallway. "This is what I want. If you can't let it go, then you're going to have to find him without my help."

Potter's head tipped back and he tangled his fingers in his mop of black hair. "Fine. It doesn't make an iota of sense to me, but fine. I'll respect it until you're ready, but I'm not closing the investigation, and I'm one thousand percent certain Kingsley will disagree with this."

"You'll respect me in general," Hermione said. "Now, you can go, and I'll meet the two of you for lunch."

Draco, who was already ready to go to class, chose that moment to simply walk out of the common room without looking at her. He didn't want to be alone with Hermione, not until he knew it was safe to be. She had been so hurt and so angry the previous night that he thought it was best to just go.

Godric, fuck, he hoped they could make amends for this.

Even though it made sense why she didn't want anyone to know the man's face, it didn't make sense why she'd be so against getting justice. Did she think she didn't deserve it?

Did she think she deserved what had happened to her?

Draco stopped at the end of the corridor and leaned back against the wall, tipping his head back in thought. This was the most exhausting thing. Coping with her ordeal and her disorder while simultaneously trying to cope with his mother's death and the fear of losing Hermione the same way?

Sometimes, he felt too soft. Sometimes, he wished he could get a little of the old version of himself and inject it into his veins. The person he was before the war—during it, even—would never have just accepted Hermione's wishes where this was concerned. He may have pretended to, but he'd inevitably find a way around it. Just like when he'd worked his arse off to get those Death Eaters into the castle, even though his mother hadn't wanted him to.

Like what he'd done with the Weaselbee.

"Malfoy!"

Draco, who had closed his eyes against his growing headache, cracked them open. Potter and Ginny were walking down the hall towards him. Hermione wasn't with them, so she was likely getting ready for class.

"Malfoy, I don't know what the two of you have between you, but you can't possibly think she's seeing reason." Potter came to a stop in front of him. Ginny was to the side, facing them both. "We need to find that Muggle. What if he's hurting other women? Even you can't think that's right."

"It's not right," Draco agreed, adjusting his bag strap on his shoulder. "But she's afraid. Hermione lives a life of fear."

"She's a Gryffindor," Potter said. "That's not possible."

"Houses don't determine who you are—they determine your path and the choices you make while you walk it. What happened to her . . . She can't find her path. She doesn't want to."

I think she just wants to die.

But I'm not gonna let her.

Draco was going to take care of it.

Potter exchanged glances with Ginny.

"How do you know her well enough to know that?" Ginny asked. "We've known her for what feels like our entire lives—Hermione Granger's not afraid of anything."

"People change."

"Not her."

Draco turned to look down his nose at her. "Do you know what it's like to offer to get on your knees for your rapist because you'd rather that than to let him have your body?"

Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came forth. She closed her mouth, her brow furrowing tight and low, and said nothing. The sadness in her eyes mirrored Potter's fury.

"She's more afraid than she's ever been in her entire life," Draco said. "If she says she's not ready to face this, then she's not ready."

Then, before they could speak, he took a step closer.

"Potter, this won't make a lot of sense to you, but it's looking like Hermione and I are going to be in each other's lives for a long time. A long time. She's it for me. I'd do absolutely fucking anything for her, and I'd do it without hesitation. Does that make sense to you?"

Potter narrowed his eyes. "There's a lot that makes sense to me, Malfoy, but I'm not sure this does. Are you wanting to help?"

"I'm going to help."

He'd spent his entire life making the wrong choices. Choices that ended up getting other people hurt. He knew now that he should have been making choices that didn't hurt the people he wanted to save.

She'd be angry, but when she remembered the Slytherin that he was—when she remembered that he was Draco fucking Malfoy?

She'd thank him.

"How are you going to help?" Potter asked, looking down as he took a step towards Draco.

Draco withdrew his wand from his sleeve and held it to his temple.

The Weaselbee was only the beginning.

"I want you to find him," Draco said, pulling the tip of his wand away from his head. As it drew back, he felt the memory slithering out of his mind. It floated silvery and wispy through the air, the end attached to the wand tip. "And when you do, I want you to take me to him. I don't want him to make it to Kingsley. Do you understand?"

Potter stared at him, and then the line of his jaw became set.

"You'll be the first one I contact."

He conjured a small glass bottle with a cork top. Taking the top off, he held it up so Draco could drop the memory inside.

"This is a violation, you know," Ginny said. "It's your memory, but it's hers."

"That man's existence is a violation," Draco said, fixing her with a glare that withered. Then, he looked at Potter again. "And I think Potter and I can agree on the same version of justice that he deserves. Can't we, Potter?"

Potter clenched his hand into a fist around the glass bottle containing the precious memory of Draco's perception of the dream.

"I'll find him without anyone's help," he growled. "Ginny and I—we'll take care of it. And then we'll come for you."

As Potter started past him, Draco glared into the distance, his hand shooting out to press his forefingers against the front of the shorter man's shoulders. Potter stopped and looked up at him in query.

"I'm trusting you to keep this between us. You, me, and your witch are the only ones who know about this. I mean it—if we don't look out for her, she won't look out for herself. I'm sure the last place you want to go is Azkaban, especially with that pretty Auror career ahead of you."

"Malfoy," Potter said, gently moving Draco's hand away from his shoulder. He was smirking. "You'll find it interesting to know I was almost sorted into Slytherin. Hermione's worth the possibility of losing out on my career, but trust me—none of us will be losing anything. We'll find him. Be ready."


Later that afternoon, Draco went to the Great Hall for lunch.

He almost didn't, knowing how royally he'd embarrassed himself the night before at mail time. But he was hungry and he was in a poor mood. He'd already spent the entire year being a social pariah for being a former Death Eater. He couldn't even perform a spell without wondering if an Auror was going to call him to McGonagall's office to ask him why.

What did it matter if he added another problem to his roster?

Everyone stared at him, leaning in to whisper to themselves as he walked over to the Slytherin table. He paid them no mind. His headache raged on, having not abated since that morning. Charms had been an irritation, especially given the fact that Pansy sat beside Hermione and not him, and the two of them had talked each other's ears off as though everything wasn't completely fucked at home.

Home.

He almost felt embarrassed to be thinking it. His life had been so wrapped up in hers that he couldn't think of the dorm in any other way. He couldn't imagine his life without her in it.

Still, he didn't regret beating the Weaselbee. He would never regret defending her honor.

But he did regret telling her secret. He regretted breaking her trust. He regretted taking the one thing they shared and using it to further his own agenda.

He felt disgusted with himself.

"You look like shite."

Draco glanced up, his forehead propped against his palm. His spoon was stirring through his beef stew in an absent manner as he stared at the whorls in the wooden table until they blurred. Now, he blinked to refocus his vision and saw that Theo and Blaise were sitting down across from him.

"Yeah, well," he said, "I feel like shite."

"Are you ill?" Blaise asked as he plated up some food.

"In the head, perhaps." Because I made a stupid, unnecessary mistake.

"I've been wondering that for years," Blaise joked.

Draco sneered at him and took a bite. It tasted like nothing.

"Where's Granger?" Blaise asked.

Theo and Draco spoke at the same time.

"She's with Potter."

"She went to lunch with Potter."

Draco didn't know what came over him. He felt a violent, possessive rage washing over him, rendering him almost a puddle of fury right there on the bench. He would have bent his spoon if he were as strong as a werewolf. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that still pumped through his veins from throwing Ron Weasley down the stairs. It may have been the fact that he'd plotted murder with Harry Potter that morning.

He was done.

"I've fucking had it with you, Theo," he snarled. "What the fuck do you want with my witch? You know she's mine, right? Did she tell you that? Somewhere between your cryptic statements and you following her around like a puppy dog, did she tell you about the fact that we're practically fucking together?"

Blaise dropped his jaw, as did several of the nearby Slytherins. Theo looked momentarily shocked, but he seemed to pull it together fast enough to glare at Draco.

"Not from what she told me," he snarled right back, his normally gentle face contorting into an expression of ire. "According to her, she wants nothing to do with you any longer. According to her, you're a selfish wizard who only cares about what he wants. According to her, the two of you are through."

His heart sank, sank, sank until it drowned.

She said that?

No. It has to be the—it has to be because she's ill.

She . . .

Theo smirked and Draco knew there was no going back from this.

For any of them.

"According to her, she can't wait for the chance to never see you again. She said the worst mistake she's ever made was thinking you were better than exactly who we all know you are."

A bad son.

A failure.

A betrayer.

A monster.

He didn't know what to say. He was so taken aback by Theo's words that he felt like he'd forgotten how to breathe. It hurt. It hurt badly. He knew he'd fucked up, but had he really fucked up that badly? He'd been fighting so hard to keep her alive, to make sure she was okay . . .

She doesn't want me anymore?

Had she ever really wanted him at all?

Draco couldn't handle this. He felt like his heart was ripping itself to shreds inside of his chest. It was such a visceral pain that it almost felt like the day of his father's trial. Like if he looked down, he'd see his mother's unseeing eyes, glazed over as they stared up at him.

He actually wanted to cry.

"Exactly," Theo added, slamming his sandwich down. "She's trying to get better, and all you do is make everything about you. She said you disrespected her and broke her trust, and you can't ever seem to put yourself in her shoes for even one moment. Don't act surprised that she wants nothing to do with you anymore."

"Whoa, mate," Blaise said, holding a hand sideways against Theo's chest. He frowned at him. "I don't know what's going on between you two, but that's a little rude, don't you think?"

"I'm only telling him what he needs to hear," Theo spat.

"All right, but you don't know their relationship," Blaise said, actually sounding angry. Draco was grateful for it. "You don't know the conversations they've had or the things they've been through. You can't definitively say someone's not good enough. You're not a god. You don't get to decide."

There was silence, and then Blaise hammered the nail in the coffin.

"I think you should sit somewhere else, mate."

A few moments went by of Blaise and Theo bickering back and forth, but Draco felt like there was cotton in his ears.

He was delusional. He was delusional because Theo was right. Everything was about him. What he wanted. What he felt. His own fears. Even yesterday, his first thought when Hermione had opened up to him was to think "Just eat!" as if it were that simple.

From his point of view, he was doing everything he could to protect her.

From hers? He was wrapping her in chains and stuffing her into a gilded cage.

It felt like someone had crushed his chest beneath a boulder. He couldn't lift his gaze from the table. It was like it was Sixth Year all over again and he was letting himself be ruled by fear.

Maybe the problem wasn't that he wasn't doing enough. Maybe he was doing too much. Maybe he needed to let go of the control, too.

He wasn't soft and he never would be.

Fuck Hermione.

Fuck what happens to her.

Fuck me for believing I mattered to her.

Theo got up and stomped out of the entire Great Hall, lunch forgotten. As things settled down and Blaise continued to ramble his exasperation with Theo, Draco felt something nagging at the back of his mind.

How did Theo know there was something she needed to get better from?