TRIGGER WARNING: GASLIGHTING. MAJOR GASLIGHTING. Emotional abuse (borderline? I'm not sure. I think it's emotional abuse). As I've stated before, many women would find this unforgivable, but I refuse to break them up. This story is HEA, Dramione endgame.

I see your comments, see you guys begging for this and for that, but you're just going to have to wait. I can't rush this, or it will ruin the art and make everything less genuine. Everything will be handled by the end.

Hang in there, and you will be rewarded.


Apricity – Chapter Thirty-Seven

They eventually went their separate ways after promising to meet at the train platform in the morning.

Pansy and Blaise's voices echoed in the corridor, their happy chatter following Draco and Hermione as they walked to their shared common room. At the portrait, Dumbledore's concerned expression caught Draco off guard. The late Headmaster was looking down at Hermione.

Had the portrait heard what Draco had done?

"Apricus," Draco mumbled.

The portrait didn't open. The concerned expression on the Headmaster's face leveled to meet Draco's, where it darkened and turned stormy. Gone was the docile expression that he always wore. Gone was the same serenity that had been in his eyes when he looked at Draco on the night of his death.

He looked angry.

"I'm not gonna hurt her," Draco said, whispering the words as he stared at the ground.

The portrait remained shut.

Hermione stepped out from behind Draco, and he saw her looking up into the Headmaster's oil-painted eyes. "Please, Headmaster Dumbledore. Let him inside."

The Headmaster looked back at her, his brows pulling together with his worry. It was clear that he had, in fact, heard their argument. Draco wasn't sure he wouldn't be hearing another one.

Hermione took another step forward, still hugging her books. Then, she turned her head and glanced up at Draco. He felt his heart skip a beat. She spoke softly.

"I feel safe with him."

As he looked into her eyes, he realized with devastating clarity that she shouldn't.

The portrait finally swung open, and they were able to enter.

The common room felt oddly empty without the Christmas tree and all the decorations. It was like it had been before December, but with any possible life within it sucked out. There was an awkward air about them as they made their way to the dining area and the kitchenette. Hermione set her books on the table while Draco dropped his bag onto the floor beside his usual chair. They looked at one another.

"I'll make dinner," he murmured, turning to go to the refrigerator.

It was full to the brim, the House Elves having restocked it with everything they possibly could. It was almost too hard to select something. Growing up in the Manor, he'd never had to learn to cook and even with magic, he had a hard time with some things. One thing he was good at was chicken, so he pulled out some thighs and got to work.

When supper was in the oven, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the sink. His hood was still up and he had yet to take his boots off. The air had changed, shifting into something different and alive. The time for silence had ended.

Hermione cleared her throat.

"How was your day?" she asked.

Horrific. "Fine. Yours?"

"It was all right." Her fingernails drummed on the table as she rested her chin in her hand. Some of her long braids fell forward over the front of her body. "Are you excited to go to London?"

"I guess," he said, feeling somewhat irritated. How could she want to chat like this, like nothing had happened between them this morning? Like he hadn't absolutely, unequivocally crossed the line? "Are you?"

"Yes," she said, but her voice was strained. "An entire day together after lunch. It sounds . . . Nice."

"Yeah." Absentmindedly, to deal with the anxiety, he placed one hand on the top of his hood, feeling it as he sighed. "It'll be nice."

"I think so."

Another tense silence. There were at least forty minutes to go on the chicken.

Hermione spoke again. "Have you heard anything about your internship?"

"My internship?" He shot her a scathing look. "What are you talking about? There's nothing to hear—I'm in. I start right after graduation."

By the way she flinched back, he could tell he'd been rude. He hadn't meant to treat her like she was unintelligent for asking, but he couldn't understand how she could just sit there and try to make things normal when there was no going back.

"How do you plan to use the internship for your future career?" she asked. "How does becoming an Unspeakable work with opening a company? I was confused about it."

What the fuck? Why does she want to talk about this?

"It's not like that. The Unspeakable career is for me. A typical Unspeakable career track lasts twenty-five years, and then you can retire. The company would deal with the Muggle stock market, investments. Things like that." He really was annoyed now. He didn't feel like talking about this, nor like explaining it. "I wouldn't run it—I'd let others run it. The company would be for my family name and fortune."

"That's clever," she said, chin still in hand.

Draco could feel her eyes on him, but he didn't move. His hands curved around the front edge of the counter at his hips as he remained leaning against it. The sole of his right foot was flat against the cupboard door behind him, his toes against the floor. Though his stance was nonchalant, his energy was pulled taut as a wire.

"I know," he grumbled. "Did you think I didn't know what I was doing?"

"No," she protested. "That's not it at all. I was just curious."

They existed in more silence. Hermione glanced out at the dining area, towards the window in the common room. She sighed.

"The moon's full tonight. It looks pretty."

"Hm," he responded.

"Draco?"

"Hm?" He was staring at the oven door.

"Before we talk about whatever it was you wanted to discuss, I have to come clean about something . . ."

Alarmed, Draco's gaze snapped up and narrowed on her. "What did you do?"

"I—wait." She opened her mouth, then glowered at him. "What do you mean, 'what did I do?'"

"You just said you needed to come clean."

"Why are you being so . . . So cruel?" She stood up from her chair, one hand on the tabletop and the other on her hip. "I was trying to be honest with you!"

"Just tell me what it is already," he snapped, turning away again.

She said nothing, choosing instead to stomp off to the hallway. Disappearing into it, she didn't come out. In fact, she was gone for so long that he presumed she had decided not to speak to him like he'd wanted, and had decided to stay in her room until dinner. But when she returned ten minutes later with her hands at her sides and a wary facial expression, he saw that he was wrong.

Hermione came to stand beside him. She'd changed into the jumper of his she'd stolen and a pair of leggings, and her feet were bare. Her braids were pulled over the front of one shoulder.

"Hold out your hand," she bit out.

He did, giving her a onceover for good measure.

Into it, she placed the missing bag of weed. As soon as it was in his palm, he took a second look at her. Her eyes were unfocused, the veins stained red. She was high.

"You stole my weed."

She gave him a curt nod. "Yes. I stole your weed while you were asleep Monday night. Our doors were open, so."

He felt confused. Confused, irritated, and angry. Why would she want the weed when she'd only ever smoke-shared with him via their mouths? It was annoying that she didn't look remorseful, and he was livid. What in the fuck had given her the impression that he'd be okay with her stealing his weed after the day they'd had Monday?

"Anything else you need to come clean about?" he snarled, taking the bag and shoving it into the back pocket of his ripped denims. "Perhaps the fact that you're fucking blazed right now? Perhaps the fact that you just went into your room to smoke more of it before you returned it to me?"

She simply stared at him. "I deserved it after what you put me through."

"It's mine."

"I thought I was."

Just like that, anger slammed through him, eradicating any traces of guilt he'd been feeling since that morning. If she wanted to go toe-to-toe, then he would.

"Except that Theo said you can't wait to be rid of me, remember?" he snapped, looming over her in the kitchenette. "By that logic, everything we've ever done together is a waste of time because if you had the fucking choice, you wouldn't even be here!"

She opened her mouth, but no sounds came forth. It was apparent to Draco that she was confused. Then, she tousled her braids and turned away from him, walking back to her seat at the table. She sat down heavy on the wood, resting one forearm on the tabletop as she stared across the common room.

Finally, she spoke.

"You're right. I wouldn't have chosen this for myself. I would not have chosen you. You were someone who hurt me time and time again before the war ever started. Any hope of redemption that I had for you was eradicated that afternoon at the Manor, when you just . . ." She shrugged and lowered her gaze to the linoleum beneath Draco's feet. "When you just stood there and watched. Before that day, I had already taken what you made me feel and put it away somewhere else. The fact that you were too cowardly to do anything other than just watch your aunt torture me took the already weak image I had of you in my mind, and broke it. If it were up to me? No, I would not be here. I would not be bonded to you. I wouldn't choose you."

Her gaze finally met his, slicing across the dim lighting and reaching directly through the pain her words were causing. There were tears in her eyes, tears that were difficult to look at because he didn't want to take the time to decipher how genuine they were.

"But that was before the night I found out what Ron cheated on me. It was before I drank the tea. It was before you came into my life and fought so hard for me, even though I haven't wanted to fight for myself since August. Draco, I've told you before and I'm telling you again now that you are the only person I trust. You are the only person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don't want you to go anywhere."

Draco squeezed his eyes shut as he looked to the left, towards the wall. Tremors wracked his body as he fought back the urge to break down again. Her words were everything he'd wanted to hear for so long, but how could they mean anything when he didn't trust her?

He clenched his teeth, trying not to let the words sink in too deep. He couldn't tell if anything she said was true any longer. He didn't know if she was manipulating him to believe something by tearing him down and building him back up again. What if this was all just part of the same tired ruse she'd been seemingly playing since the beginning? How was he supposed to know who she really was?

"How can you say that?" he breathed, and then he whirled to face her, one hand on the counter and the other thrown into the air. "How can you say that, when your life might not even last as long as next Winter? How can you sit there and tell me with your whole chest that you want to spend the rest of it with me, when the rest of it might only be six months? Two weeks? Three days? I mean, fuck, Granger."

"Stop it!" she cried, her brows knitting together with her beseeching expression. "Whether the rest of my life is—is two days or—or one hour, or even if it's ten years—it still means the same thing. I still mean what I say." She got up from the chair and took a step toward him. "I'm saying that even if I died tomorrow, I'd want to spend my last day with you."

"Don't say that," he hissed, glaring down at her. "Don't you fucking say that. You're not gonna die tomorrow."

She took another step closer. "I'm trying to tell you the way I feel, and all you care about is your fears. You can't live your entire life in fear of something horrible happening, and then expect me to do better than you! If you're scared, then I have every right to be scared, too."

"And what are you scared of, huh?!" he shouted, towering over her. "What the bloody Hell are you scared of? You're not the one who has to go to bed every night, terrified. I put my head on that pillow every night terrified that you won't be here when I wake up. And there'll be nothing—no amount of—of begging or pleading or protecting or—or—or anything that I can do to keep that from happening. And then I find out that you're a fucking liar on top of it all? You can say whatever you want, but I don't believe you."

Her face crumpled and one of the tears that had been brewing in her eyes escaped the cauldron of her lower lashlines. "I'm telling you the truth. I want to be with you. I want to be here!"

He came toward her, and she shrank back against the table.

"You don't want me, Granger. You don't want eternity. You don't want to be anywhere else other than on your fucking knees with your fingers down your throat!"

"No." Her head shook from left to right, her denial as palpable as the tension in the air. "You're wrong."

"Yes, you do," he shot back, his voice rank with his distaste for her right then. "Yes, you fucking do."

"No—"

"Don't deny it. You—"

"No! No, I—"

"That's the one thing you want. That's the only thing you want."

"No, it's not! No!" Her voice rose to a high octave, her tears coming faster. "No!"

"You told me yourself that you didn't want to get better." He pointed at her again, seething in his own insistence. "You want to be sick. You like being sick. You like the attention it gets you, and you like the way it feels to hurt people so they match the way you feel inside."

She slammed her hands over her temples, plopped down in the chair, placed her elbows on the table, and ducked her head down.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" she shrieked, and it was so shrill a noise that it silenced him. Her reddened eyes were nearly manic, wide and ardent as she glared up at him in her desperation. "I don't want to be sick! I want to be happy!"

Before Draco could say anything, she pressed on, one hand remaining on her temple and the other waving about in her hysteria.

"I want to be happy and Draco, you're the only one who makes me happy. If I died tomorrow or if I died ten years from now, it wouldn't change anything for me." She patted the center of her chest with shaking fingers, frantic as she continued. "I'd still be my happiest if I was with you. I can't do it on my own—I know I can't—and when I'm with you, I feel like it's easier to try. I can see a future for myself. Being with you gives me a reason to get better!"

If she died tomorrow.

Draco had been living every single fucking day of the last five weeks in sheer terror of that exact thing happening. He'd done everything he possibly could within his power to try and fix it. To take the pieces that she kept ripping off of herself and put them back together. To take the pieces she rejected and hold onto them, caring for them until she was ready to join them again. He'd fallen so hard and so fast for her that he'd end his own life just to give her his last breaths.

And so what if it was just the bond? So what if the bond was the reason why he'd fallen so quickly? So fucking what?

Knowing that he felt that way for her when she'd just manipulated him into whatever the Hell it was that she had? It frightened him to the point of not being able to see what a life without her would be like. He needed to know what she'd manipulated. He needed to know the truth, before he could look at her without feeling so lost.

Because even if it was the bond, there was no undoing it. His mother was dead. Narcissa was fucking dead and she was never coming back. No one would be able to undo their connection to the stars. If he was going to spend the rest of his eternity with Hermione, then she needed to tell him the truth.

He couldn't bear the idea of knowing that he'd shouldered all that pain and all that trauma for her, enduring the brokenness of it, only for her to be using him the entire time. The dreams they shared, the laughter and the kisses, the deep conversations and the breakthroughs. The milestones. The trust she'd given him.

If it was all false, then he'd rather walk the Earth for all of eternity as half a man, than a whole one with a liar at his side.

"Then right now, this is your chance. This is your one fucking chance." He slammed his hand flat on the counter. "Tell me right the fuck now. Which parts were real, and which parts were fake?"

She looked on in disbelief. "How do you expect me to answer that? It's not as though I—"

He raised his voice, cutting her off. "Which parts were real, and which parts were fake, Granger?!"

"Stop yelling at me, please." She dropped her head into her hands, dissolving into sobs that automatically brought her to the edge of hyperventilation and lightheadedness. "Please, please stop."

"Tell me now, or that's it. Do you hear? That's it."

"It was all real!" she cried, jumping to her feet. "What are you even talking about? Everything I have ever said to you has been the truth!"

"No, that's not what—"

"No, you can stop right there, Draco Malfoy!" It was her turn to point at him. "What Theo told you was true. I did tell him those things. But I never once told him I lied to you about anything. What I did say to him, I said out of anger and the fact that you'd betrayed something I trusted you with. I meant it when I said it but regretted it once I calmed down and had time to think about things."

Draco crossed his arms over his chest, his heart racing so loud that he was surprised she couldn't hear it. "You admitted to manipulating me. You were the one who said—"

Her glare was vicious and as sharp as the edge of a dagger. "Yes, I said hurtful things about you to Theo. Yes, it was wrong. The fact that I told you anything in this state of mind and you jumped to conclusions is a problem, too. We're both to blame, but the difference is that you went too far."

Shock stilled his breath.

What?

"When I told you how I purged, how often I did it, and how easy it was, that was manipulation. When I sat on the couch with you before Christmas and let you make those rules, that was manipulation. When we were in the dream world and I told you the way I felt about my body the way I did, that was manipulation. It's manipulation because it is inherently manipulative for me to tell you those things."

"H-How?" he choked out, his voice strangled. "How is . . . I don't . . ."

"Because when I told you those things, even though they were true, it was me trying to make me seem less sick than I really was. I was trying to soften the blow so you wouldn't make me stop. The clearer the image of me someday getting better became, the more frightened I got. The more frightened I got, the more liberties I took to try and make it seem less bad. I never manipulated you with the intention of doing so, but I knew when I told you those things that they would make you think it wasn't that bad that I purged. I never lied to you. I did manipulate you in the way I just described, but I have never lied to you."

"So, you . . ." His brow furrowed as he searched her eyes. Panic was starting to creep in on the edges of his countenance. "I'm confused."

"When someone has an eating disorder, Draco," she said, sweeping her fingers through her braids to tousle them back out of her face, "they should not be telling you the details of how they binge, how they starve, and how they purge. It's inherently manipulative because it tricks you into believing it's not as bad as it really is. I manipulated you into believing I was okay. I didn't manipulate you into believing I liked you. That is real."

Draco stared at her. He could hear something rushing past his ears—like the sound of a raging river in the middle of the woods.

"Draco," she said, "you are the only person I would ever let take me to the ends of the fucking Earth and bury me alive, and that terrifies me. Do you understand me? I'm terrified of you. I would never lie to you."

Draco felt his stomach start to churn. He lost his breath, sagging back against the counter again. He rubbed his jaw with his hand, sliding his fingers together down the line of either side. Everything she said made sense. He could see in her eyes that she was telling the truth.

And that was the problem.

The puzzle pieces that he'd so neatly fit together in her room the night before started to come apart in his mind. They rearranged themselves into an image that told him exactly what her words meant. They meant that he'd overreacted. That he'd chosen to wear himself so thin that one small miscommunication had caused him to do more than degrade her. To hurt her.

They meant that he was a monster.

Hermione's brows came together and she gave him a onceover. Horror dawned in her eyes like the sun rising in the morning, burning eternally in the vastness of space.

"Is that where all this has come from? You thought that I had lied to you about the things I've shared with you?" The horror intensified into an emotion that he couldn't place. One that shattered him into thousands of broken shards. "Everything we've been through together—the dreams, Christmas, Paris . . . ? You thought I lied, and your first reaction was to get so angry that you abused me?"

He could feel the heat draining from his face, blood rushing down to the pit of his stomach. "That's not . . . I was just so—so tired. I didn't—"

"Draco." She sounded revolted. "I'm your witch. We're bonded. I'm your soulmate. How could you treat me like that?"

He didn't have the wherewithal to stop and process the fact that during the course of this conversation, not only had she admitted to having an eating disorder, but she'd also claimed herself as his witch.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?!" he shouted. "Everything I've done to be there for you, to try and help you see how much I fucking care about you, only to find out that you'd manipulated me in some unknown way, and that you'd lied to me about something? I assumed you'd lied about everything!"

"You're supposed to talk to me, Draco!" she shouted back, clapping her hands together to punctuate her words and syllables. "You're supposed to communicate!"

Draco combed anxious, tremulous fingers backward through his hair. He couldn't handle this. He could not handle this.

He paced out into the common room, taking a deep, gasping breath.

She followed him.

"Don't walk away from this. You started this. You were the one who wanted to talk. You—"

He spun to face her, both hands having found their way into his hair. "I can't deal with this right now."

"You treated me like Ron," she whispered, holding a hand over her mouth. "You treated me worse than Ron."

His hackles rose, his chest swelling with the still-growing panic. "That's not fair."

"No, it is fair! It is! Because at least Ron's excuse is that he's just turned into an awful person. But you . . ." She looked him up and down. "You're a good person. You're a genuinely good person who chose to surrender to the bond and take care of me. But the mere thought that I might not be as perfect as you decided I was supposed to be caused you to hurt me in a way that you knew would dig deep. You knew what you were doing."

This was it.

The limit had been reached.

Draco had gone hurling over the cliff, into a ravine of sheer panic. He couldn't breathe.

He wasn't a good person. He was worse than Ron. He was a failure. Admitting that he'd been wrong in this situation would mean having to accept that he was all of those things. He was worse than those things.

A monster.

"I wouldn't have had to do that if you would have just told me what you meant!" he yelled, walking around the couch and pacing back and forth in front of it. "If you would have just explained right then and there, none of this would have happened!"

"This is too much!" Hermione put one hand on her hip and the other over her eyes. "I have a headache. Can you please stop yelling?!"

"No. No, you—you said that you did lie. On the hill, you specifically said that you lied. That's why I jumped to conclusions. I took your word for it, and I assumed that everything about us was a lie."

"I was talking about the way I felt about the bond!"

"You led me on. You let me believe you wanted to consummate it." He paced to the left, running his hands through his messy hair so many times that he was afraid he was going to start tearing it out at the roots. "You let me believe that you wanted to be with me, but you never did. How am I supposed to know that any of this is true? How am I supposed to know if you really do wanna be with me?"

"I do." She sounded exhausted, and her face was buried in her hands. When she lifted it, she looked exhausted, too. "I don't know how else to say it. I've told you everything."

"Then why did you say to Theo that you couldn't wait to be rid of me? Why would you choose those specific words?"

Draco wasn't thinking clearly. His mind had gone completely red. He held nothing inside of him but anger.

He'd lost it.

"I told you," she whined. "I told you it was overwhelming for me when I first found out about the bond. Therefore, when I first found out, I did not want to be bonded to you. But I fell—"

"Shut up," he snarled. "Stop lying!"

"Okay, fine!" she cried, voice strained. She stood behind the couch, seeming too agitated to move. "I'll admit, there's dark sides to my problems. Really dark sides. My room, to start. How afraid I am of losing control. How close to death it brings me every time I do it. But I am not a liar. I have never even wanted to lie to you. If I did, do you really think I would have let you make those rules for me in the first place? If I didn't mean everything I was saying to you right now—if I didn't care about you—do you think I'd be wasting my time in this stupid circular argument with you?!"

No. No. No.

She was lying.

She had to be lying.

Because if she wasn't, then he was an abuser. He was a reprehensible, disgusting, piece of rubbish who didn't deserve to have anything. Nothing. He wouldn't deserve her roots, her leaves, her blooms—nothing. He wouldn't deserve—

He wanted to die.

Draco turned to look at her across the back of the couch, his dark expression meeting the exhaustion in hers. Both had their arms crossed over their chests.

Hermione spoke.

"We need to stop this. My heart is tired."

He flinched, tearing his gaze away to glower at the frost-blurred window.

"Then maybe you should get some fucking rest."

The silence echoed like a scream.

When Draco came home for Christmas of his Sixth Year, the Dark Lord made him take the Mark. His parents had been present in the Drawing Room when it happened. The Dark Lord forced them to watch as he tested Draco's fealty by burning that filth into his flesh, seeming impressed by the fact that Draco gritted his teeth against the agony instead of crying out. Lucius was stood idly by, watching the Dark Lord's face the way he always did when he feared he might change his mind.

Narcissa had stood to Draco's left, holding her son's gaze as the darkness seeped down to wrap around his bone. Within them, he saw a calmness that soothed him, providing a balm to the pain the Mark caused. And when the Dark Lord let him leave the Drawing Room, he shared one final look with his mother that showed him that no matter what happened when he went back to school, she was always going to be his peace.

Draco wished that he could remember her eyes that way, not when they were glassy and empty, staring up at him in death.

"I can't fucking take this," he hissed, his fingers tangled in his hair and his vision blurred with tears of pure, unbearable rage. "I can't fucking look at you for another second. Ever since you fucking—you fucking—"

The guilt of what he'd done to Hermione that week was too much. The yelling, the arguments, the cruelty, the hatred. The guilt, splattered against the backdrop of her disorder and adorned with memories of the moments they'd shared that had caused him to fall for her. All of it, rolled up into one.

None of this would have happened if it weren't for her. If she would have just let him fix everything, then it never would have gotten to this point. They could have been happy. Things wouldn't have to be so volatile and hateful and maybe then he wouldn't be so overwhelmed.

Except that it's my fault. It's my fault that I didn't just back the fuck off. If I wouldn't have surrendered to the bond, then I would have been able to keep her out.

But now she's inside of me and she's turned me into a monster.

His mind splintered, cracks spidering outward from the center of his despair, and then it broke.

He couldn't do this anymore.

"—you fucking bitch. I can't even look at you without smelling vomit. Because you won't stop until you kill yourself and I'm just fucking gonna let you." He breathed a laugh, as a tear rolled down his cheek. "I'm just gonna let you because if I don't, then you're gonna kill me."

Hermione's jaw hung open, her cheeks streaked with tears that fell, fell, fell. But Draco didn't care. He couldn't. He'd completely broken down.

"I can't bear to look at you. I can't fucking bear to look at you, you selfish little girl. I give up." He threw his hands up, still crying silently with his anger. His eyebrows shot up as he walked backward toward the portrait. Then, he pointed an accusatory finger at her. "If you die? That's on you. Because I give the fuck up."

His heart was broken, pleading with him to take his words back. To stop himself and try to fix what he could fix. To fix this. To fix them.

But he'd gone too far.

Hermione was crying again, but this time, it was different. It was weak, like she was too breathless to get the necessary air into her lungs to get a full sob out. There was a dark fear in her eyes as she watched him turn to the portrait. A fear that he knew well.

"Draco," she said, his name hitching on a whimper. "Please don't give up on me. I'll do anything, just . . . Don't leave right now. Please don't leave me."

He spun, his teeth bared as he clenched them together.

"It's Malfoy."

He left through the portrait before she fell apart.


Draco stormed down the corridor, weaving in and out of lantern light and shadows.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. None of his emotions made any sense to him. They felt like a tornado, countless streams of negativity swirling into a destructive funnel that was tearing through the plains of his heart. It was more than overwhelming. It was not something he could survive.

Blowing up on Hermione like that was wrong. Whether he wanted to give up on her recovery or not, it was wrong of him to tell her he was going to let her kill herself. He knew it wasn't her fault. He knew how this had all begun—she'd told him as much. He knew that her disorder wasn't something she could heal in five weeks or four days. What wasn't fair was that he'd hurt her just to make the fact that he was a horrible person easier to stomach.

He knew that she was trying, yet he'd been shoving that aside for days just to make it easier for him to stomach the fact that he was failing at fixing her.

Why had he said those horrific words to her? What had come over him? How had they gone from being so close that he'd chase her across the sand in his dreams, to now screaming at each other for days? To him being angry with her for twenty-four hours a day? To him lashing out in an unforgivable way?

Because it was unforgivable. He didn't deserve forgiveness for what he'd done at breakfast. He certainly didn't deserve it for what he'd just said to her in the common room. No amount of apologies were going to erase that.

He was the selfish one. He was. He'd been doing whatever he wanted to try and fix her—also something that he wanted—and he hadn't been patient enough. He hadn't been understanding enough to get her to a point where she'd even want to think about getting better.

Why couldn't he have seen past his own fears so he could look into hers?

When he came to the grand staircase across from the open doors of the Great Hall, Draco sunk down to sit on the center of bottommost step. He rested his elbows on his knees, hunched over, and twined his fingers behind his head.

He was going to cry.

"Good evening, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco looked up. McGonagall swept into view, coming from the Great Hall. She stood in front of him, looking down the length of her nose at him, through her half-moon glasses. "You are aware you're on the stairs, correct?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, misery keeping him mellow and quiet.

McGonagall studied him for a moment. "Is something the matter?"

Draco said nothing. He'd never felt inclined to say anything more than what was necessary to an authority figure, and McGonagall was no exception.

Besides, how could McGonagall want to even be near him when the reason why her dearest friends were dead was because of him?

"You remind me so much of your father sometimes," McGonagall said, leaning against the banister in a nonchalant way. It looked so alien, seeing her standing that way, that it startled him. Sometimes he forgot professors were human. "He used to be just as stoic as you."

Draco almost laughed, giving her a strange look. "Stoic? I'm not stoic. And frankly, I'm nothing like my father."

McGonagall's eyebrows rose. "Yes, that sounds like something Lucius would say. Tell me, what problem is it you're trying to solve on your own right now? What is it you don't want anyone involved in? What is it you think you can fix?"

Draco stared at her. His heart dropped through seven thousand kilometers of the Earth, a stone cleaving through water. How could she possibly know what he was battling with right now? He'd never told anyone other than Rose about Hermione's disorder and even then, he'd been vague.

Did the Headmistress know?

"What makes you think I'm the middle of a problem right now, professor?" he asked, his voice tight. "Just because my father lived in the shadow of a permanent crisis doesn't mean that I do."

McGonagall's lips curved up into a prim smile, the sort that hid secrets, and she pushed away from the banister. The hem of her robes swept the floor as she turned and lowered herself to sit beside him. A bit breathless, being the age that she was, it was a moment before she spoke again.

"I don't think your father received that missive, unfortunately." She adjusted her skirts so they didn't bunch around her ankles, then clasped her hands in her lap. She pursed her lips, shaking her head and saying nothing.

All right, fine, he thought, gritting his teeth. I'll bite.

"And which missive did he receive?"

McGonagall's lips twitched upward. "I'm afraid it was the one that told him he was well within his rights to wear the crown for Hogwarts' Most Dramatic."

The day Draco laughed at a professor's joke would be his last.

Shoving his mirth deep within him, he leaned all the way back, his elbows resting on a higher step to prop himself up.

"My father brought that crown home after graduation," he drawled. "He is perhaps the most dramatic person I know."

McGonagall laughed heartily. "There is where we have something in common, my dear. In his Fifth Year, he launched a full-scale petition to try to award members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight a specific room and date for their mid-year exams. He sent a parchment around to every student member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and gathered signatures. When he was done, he delivered it with a speech to Headmaster Dumbledore in the hopes that he'd award them a separate room and date to take their exams."

"Why would he do that?" Draco asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

"Oh, it turned out he wasn't understanding the material and he simply wanted more time to study." She sighed. "Albus knew what was going on, as he always had a way with that sort of thing."

"Did he allow him the extra day?"

"Oh, absolutely not," she replied, chuckling. "In fact, he gave him one week of detention for disrupting students the month before exams."

That didn't sound like Dumbledore. After watching Potter get away with everything under the sun and earning House points for it for six years, Draco saw Dumbledore as more of the soft type. Especially after the way the elder wizard had tried to reason with Draco the night of his death not because he wanted to plead for his life, but because he wanted to spare Draco the shadows on his soul.

Guilt clenched his heart.

Would the portrait even let him back into the common room?

McGonagall's voice broke through his despairing thoughts, pulling his gaze up from the stone floor where it had fallen.

"And then he personally tutored your father in all subjects every day until the day of the exam."

Draco didn't know how to explain the feeling that shot through him at her words. It was like an epiphany, an answer to the storm of emotions that had pushed him to his limit until he broke and spilled out all over Hermione. Something that brought a sense of reasoning to his disposition.

Dumbledore had done all that for him, yet Lucius had still chosen the path of darkness upon the Dark Lord's rise. Knowing his father, fear had likely trumped any lingering fondness he may have held for the Headmaster. When the Dark Lord tasked Draco with the demise of Dumbledore, Lucius had been adamant that Draco focus on doing whatever he could to stay alive, even if that meant committing murder.

Lucius had always lived in fear, and everything he'd done—including setting aside his Muggle-born prejudice to bond his son to a Muggle-born witch—had been out of fear.

Draco and his father were indeed very alike.

"Did my father pass his exams?" Draco asked, sitting up and leaning over with his fingers intertwined and elbows on his thighs. His brow furrowed as his thoughts raced, whirling into an image that made more sense than the one he had painted in his mind of Lucius Malfoy.

"Some," McGonagall said in a thoughtful voice. "But your father was never the sort to pass at all. You see, it wasn't until his Sixth Year that he really started to take his studies seriously."

"How come?"

"Why, I believe Sixth Year was the year he may have started courting your mother. Before that—" She fluttered a hand nonchalantly in the air. "—he was just as troublesome as you were at those ages. There were multiples times where I almost called you by your father's name. Sometimes, you just act so much like him that it's difficult to discern who I'm speaking to. But I can see that you've done some changing this year yourself, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco frowned, looking down at the frail, old witch.

There were three things that he had always been certain of regarding his father. One of them was that he had a temper. He'd struck him for offenses that made no sense, like letting his hair grow out or bringing home poor marks. Another was that his father was a massive hypocrite with no regard for anyone's emotions other than ones that served him.

But he also knew that his father was ruthless.

He was ruthless and he would do whatever it took to protect what belonged to him. Money, the Manor, his legacy, his family. He would do absolutely anything to ensure that his family survived. Every choice he'd ever made had been with the intention of protecting Narcissa and Draco from the fate of death by the hand of those he chose as his enemies.

Narcissa made him neither a better nor worse person. She just brought out parts of him that he'd already been capable of showing. For Draco, Hermione took the parts of him that were like his father and drew them out into the light. The things he'd wanted to hide inside of a cage of denial in his body, and the things about himself that he didn't want to claim at all. She took those things and made him feel something more than just numbness. Something more than a need to chase feeling underneath the needles that had etched the tattoos of his memories into his skin.

Draco could be his father's son if he wanted to.

He didn't have to be perfect. There was no need to be the person who fixed Hermione. But he didn't need to be the person who gave up on her, either.

He just needed to be the person who stayed.

"Mr. Malfoy."

Draco looked over at the Headmistress, seeing her scrutinizing him with a curious expression.

"Your father has always acted out of fear. Just like when he was fifteen and he was too afraid to admit he was misunderstanding the material in his classes, he made the same choices during the war. Every choice that brought him salvation from the pain that fear causes, he made. That is why he's in Azkaban. Because of the choices he made."

Draco had never felt the need to speak to a professor about anything before. Not McGonagall, not Snape, and not Dumbledore. He'd never trusted authority figures because of the choices his father had made, and he might not ever trust them. But right here, right now, he felt like he could pretend to imagine what it was like to be anyone other than himself.

"Do you think people can change, professor?" he asked, his voice soft. "Or do you think we stay the same forever?"

McGonagall looked taken aback, like the question was unexpected and much deeper than she'd planned on thinking that evening. She gazed down at her hands clasped in her lap, twiddling her thumbs during the pause in the conversation. Then, she looked directly at him.

"This world is full of many, many different kinds of people, Mr. Malfoy, and all of those people have one thing in common. The desire for happiness. We all dream of it in some way—our perfect life, our perfect world, our utopia. Some of us make the wrong choices to bring ourselves happiness, and those wrong choices cause other people to get hurt. Some of us make the right choices. But at our cores, we all have the ability to make choices that have an affect on the world around us."

She stopped, frowning so deep that it drew horizontal lines across her forehead. She cleared her throat.

"Albus was my dearest friend. He was my absolute dearest friend, but he was riddled with imperfections. Arguably, he made many wrong choices on his path to the defeat of the Dark Lord, but one thing always remained the same about him. That was that he would do anything to preserve a world where everyone had the freedom to make choices.

"One thing he always told me was that he regretted underestimating Tom Riddle's desire for a happiness he could bear. The choices that Riddle would go on to make were the wrong ones. He was the boy who made all the wrong choices, but that was just it. He made choices. As long as we have the ability to make a choice, we can always made the decision to make the right ones."

She sighed into the enraptured silence that Draco's held breath had created.

"So . . . Yes. I do think people can change. I think there's always room to make the right choices, even when it feels like it's too late. Just like Riddle grew into being someone who made all the wrong ones, we all have the ability to do the same."

Draco let his breath out, saying, "Do you think I can change?"

McGonagall stared at him for a long, long time.

"I think you already have. And I think you know that, Mr. Malfoy." She pressed her lips together and then lifted one hand. After a moment's hesitation, she placed it upon his forearm. She squeezed, just like his mother used to do, and it made his throat ache and his eyes sting as though they were burning. "And I think asking if you can change means that you've just taken the first step towards it."

She smiled at him, then, and Draco couldn't help but let himself smile back. They got to their feet, dusting themselves off as they did. She was much shorter than him, and her gray hair comforted him in its familiarity. There was a twinkle in her eye that hadn't been there before, and Draco felt a tad more relaxed now around her.

In that moment, as the time hung suspended between them, Draco considered telling her everything about Hermione, the bond, and his mother. He thought of opening his mouth and making the choice to let it all come tumbling out.

But the second he imagined himself doing it?

His chest expanded with a panic that made his hands want to clench into fists. The fear that things would backfire, or that Hermione would hate him for the rest of her life for betraying him stopped him. He knew there was a chance he couldn't save her.

What if he could?

What if he just had to make the right choices? He had to try, even if he didn't know what the right ones were.

At least he knew now which ones were the wrong ones.

"My father really was quite dramatic, wasn't he?" he said, flashing her another quick, faint smile as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Going to those lengths just to win himself some extra time."

"Perhaps things would not have seemed quite so dramatic had he simply asked for help." McGonagall raised one eyebrow. "Wouldn't you say so, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco narrowed his eyes a fraction.

Did she know? Was that what this conversation was about? Did she know about Hermione?

"I guess so," he replied to her question.

"How is Miss Granger?" she asked, sending his heart rate skyrocketing to the heavens.

"She's fine."

"I was informed that just this week, she fainted in Professor Flitwick's class. You took her to the Infirmary." She took a step toward him. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

As she held his gaze with a steadiness that irked him, Draco flashed back to the time in November when this had all begun—when Hermione cast the spell and drank the tea, and the bond caused him to be pulled into the memory with her. He'd gone to the Infirmary and McGonagall hadn't allowed him into the room to see her.

She hadn't allowed him, but she'd allowed Theo.

Does she think I've done something to Hermione?

The authority figures in Draco's life had been a complete disaster, lying and hiding, hurting themselves and others. As much as he loved his mother, she had stood by while her son was pulled down into the darkness. His father had done worse, pulling his entire family into those deep shadows. All the adults in Draco's life seemed to have no issue sending their children to war. The Nott family was the only one who'd made the right choice, but in the end, had still sent their son to battle.

The adults were still scared children inside, just like the rest of them.

And now it felt like McGonagall was accusing him of hurting Hermione in a way that would send her to the Infirmary. Yes, he'd made a mistake that morning—a mistake that he regretted immensely—but something like that wasn't what had sent her to the Infirmary. McGonagall, however, was watching him as though he were still a Death Eater, patrolling the corridors of the castle. Like he was a Carrow, hurting students for the sake of it.

Why would he tell her anything?

"We're fine," he said, voice suddenly cold.

"I'm getting rather worried about her."

Hermione needed help. She did, but he wasn't gonna betray her secrets. Not again. Never again.

I can handle this.

As McGonagall's shrewd gaze bored into him, the silence between them a rift seven years wide, Draco realized that all this conversation had been was a way for McGonagall to find out if he'd hurt Hermione. Two times being sent to the Infirmary, with Draco the common denominator in both?

If he told the Headmistress about Hermione's disorder, it would fix everything for him, but it wouldn't fix her.

I can handle this.

"Then maybe you should check on her," he said.

She tilted her head to the side, and her eyebrows moved once again.

"Why, Mr. Malfoy . . . I am."

He didn't always like being right.

"Good night, professor," he said, and then he walked back the direction he'd first come. He could feel her gaze following him as he went.

Draco knew Hermione was sick. She was very sick. But she was trying and he was willing to put in the effort to see it through. He was willing to take this to the very edge of the Earth just so he could show her that he wasn't gonna bury her alive or dead.

He would much rather show her what it looked like when the roses bloomed in the Winter.

Next Winter.

As he picked up the pace, breaking out into an all-out sprint back to the portrait, his thoughts fell into place.

I can make the right choices. I can fix everything.

I can save her.


When Draco entered the common room, the first thing he saw was the moonlight.

The lights were off, and the silver of the full moon cut through the darkness on its way into the room from the window. With everything else being so dark, it was almost as though it were directing him down a path past the hallway and into the dining area. He walked forward, the wall of the kitchenette to his right, and stopped at the edge.

"I can't . . ."

He couldn't see her, but he could hear her weeping.

Dumbledore's portrait almost hadn't let him in. He'd merely sat there and stared at Draco until the shame pulled his head down. The portrait never spoke, but it didn't have to. His disappointment and mistrust was as plain to see as though it had been painted there when the portrait was first made.

But Draco was determined. He knew he needed to make things right with her. He was going to go in there and start communicating for once—really communicating. He wanted to open up to her in a way that wasn't serving himself. He was going to sit down with her, apologize for everything wrong he'd done, and ask her what she needed from him.

They had problems, yes, but they were problems that were going to take time to work through. His anger and her fear. Her manipulation and his selfishness.

So he'd told all of this to the portrait. Just said it, like he were speaking directly to the former Headmaster. He'd promised not to hurt her and to listen to her this time. To make the right choices.

And the portrait had swung open.

Now, Draco stood frozen in the common room with his hood on, hidden by the wall, listening to her cry. She hadn't left the kitchen and judging by the meekness in the way she wept, she'd been doing it for the entire time he'd been gone.

"Tell me if your heart is tired."

She had.

She had, and he'd ignored it.

"No, no, no . . . I can't . . ."

This was the destruction his dragon had wrought, and it was up to him to put out the flames.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the kitchenette.

Hermione was on the floor, collapsed with her knees to her chest. The refrigerator door was open, spilling yellow light out across the kitchenette. The freezer was open, too. Apart from it, the oven was also open. It was turned off, and the chicken he'd been cooking before he left was completely gone. Eaten.

She was surrounded by food.

It was on the floor, most of it having been emptied from within the fridge. Plastic containers with leftovers were open—empty. She'd eaten an entire bag of mini carrots, all of the celery and broccoli, and none of the fruit was left. The pantry door was open and anything inside had been opened and picked through. There were countless other things strewn about the ground, food she'd nibbled and set aside for later. Food she'd devoured until there was nothing left.

And she wept.

"I can't . . . Breathe," she was sobbing, like putting the food into her mouth was painful. Like she couldn't stop. Like she had no reason to. "I can't."

This was all his fault.

This is . . .

She had a spoon and an ice cream carton in her hands, her piteous wails sounding between each bite. Her braids were pulled up and wrapped into a bun on top of her head, a few of the ends hanging down to frame her face from the haste with which she had tugged it up.

"I can't, I can't, I can't."

No. No, this—

. . . Just like Paris.

His heart shattered into millions of pieces that went soaring into different, unfindable dimensions. Broken, he fell to his knees beside her. She jolted, looking up at him with a terrified expression on her utterly destroyed face. The tears continued to fall, and fall, and fall.

But Draco didn't hesitate.

He made a grab for the ice cream carton. She shrieked, dropping the spoon as she latched onto the container with both hands. They struggled, and she turned her back to him, forcing his arm around half of her body as he tried to wrench it out of her grasp. Her leg kicked out, hitting the open refrigerator door and sending it inward a bit.

"Stop!" he growled. "Hermione, stop!"

"No!" she screamed, practically sitting on him as she kept tight hold of the ice cream. "I need it!"

"No, you don't!"

He ripped the ice cream carton out of her hands and tossed it aside. It crashed against the cupboard beneath the sink and toppled to the ground, rolling to the side. Hermione cried out and pitched forward, starting to crawl. Draco wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her back. She kicked her feet against the ground, writhing in his arms until she finally turned to face him while half-sitting on the floor.

Her hands slapped at his chest, her tear-streaked face contorted with fury. He batted her right hand to the side and grabbed her left wrist. She bared her teeth. He snatched her other wrist out of the air before she could land another blow.

In the chaos of their battle, the empty containers clattered across the floor and the food she hadn't eaten spilled onto the bare linoleum.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, all right?" he said. "Calm down!"

"No. No, you don't—you need to—let me go!"

"Calm the fuck down!"

"Let me go! I need it! You don't understand!" Her breathing came in short, hysterical pants. "Let go of me!"

Draco shook her by the wrists, her head whipping back and forth as he tried to put the sense back into her body. All he needed was a few moments. Just a few short moments to walk her back from the ledge. His hair was in his eyes and the holes in the knees of his denims had torn wider, but he didn't care.

Hermione sucked in her breath and it caught there in her throat, held abated. Her eyes were wild, rolling about as she tried to decide between looking at him or looking over at the ice cream.

"You don't need it," he said.

The pace of her breaths increased. He could feel her hurtling down the tracks toward another meltdown.

"Please, okay?" she whimpered. Her expression turned desperate and her wrists twisted in his grasp. "Please. I need it."

"No." He held firm, his expression dark and cold as he growled through his teeth. "You don't."

Her eyes searched his and for a second, he thought she was breathing normally. But when he loosened his hold on her, sure that she was calmed down, she scrambled across the kitchen floor and grabbed the ice cream.

Draco knelt there, momentarily shocked as she reached into the slowly-melting dessert with the spoon and scooped out an over large bite. She shoved it into her mouth, her brows furrowed together as though she were in pure anguish.

Draco wasn't the only one who had shattered.

He snapped into action, getting to his feet and reaching down to haul her up by the elbows. When they were standing, covered in the remnants of the food on the floor, he loomed over her like a sentinel in the dark. He held her forearm and squeezed until she cried out in pain. Then, he grabbed the rim of the carton. With a snarl, he tore it away from her and dropped it.

She tried to dive for it, a pitiful sight in her mania. He'd never seen anything like this before and he knew he never wanted to again.

This time, he wrapped his arms around her from the side, over her upper arms to trap her. She struggled, using the full weight of her body, and they stumbled back together. He knocked into the refrigerator door, closing it all the way and plunging them into darkness. He felt a throbbing pain shoot down his leg when the side of his thigh hit the counter.

"Stop!" he shouted.

"You need to let me go, Draco! Let me fucking go!"

He held her tighter, his eyes adjusting to the dark with the help of the faded moonlight shining into the dining area from the common room window.

"Stop."

"Just let go of me! Let go of me!" She fought so hard that it strained his muscles to hold on tighter. Her braids whipped through the air as she tried once again to twist out of his hold.

He crushed her against his chest, his heart barely able to pump blood through his body from the weight of his sadness and pity. When she turned toward him, trying to get her hands underneath his arms to push against him with the bottoms of her forearms, their eyes met. In that split second, he tried his best to thread every last bit of desperation he had for her into his gaze. She faltered.

"Stop," he whispered.

"Why are you even here?!" Her voice was getting weaker, starting to crack. Her hands curled, the outsides of her fists shoving against him. "You told me you'd rather I just died. Why did you come back?!"

He couldn't speak. Didn't need to. Because as the urge he had to break down and dissolve into tears of his own grew, the tidal waves of her wrath had begun to subside. He could feel the sea leaving her body like the moon had pulled it back to the depths.

"Why can't I just be the girl everyone likes?" she whined, the steam of her outburst slowly filtering out through her words. "Why do I have to be the girl with the personality that no one understands? Why do men always want to hurt me? Why can't I just be the girl that everyone wants to take care of? Why can't I—Why can't I—"

Keeping one arm around her back, his throat aching with unbidden emotion, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look up at him. She tried to sag downward, to remove herself from his grasp as though he were shining too bright to witness. Her facial expression was pained. Desolate.

"I like you," he said, willing her to accept his heart and hold it inside of her. "I understand you. I don't want to hurt you. I want to take care of you. And I'm sorry."

Her chin trembled and her eyes squeezed until they were almost shut. Her tears leaked out past her lashes. He could feel her knees losing strength, felt her weight dragging down against the force of his hold. Felt her pain dragging her down into the depths of soil that kept rejecting her and making it harder for her to take root.

He wished he could till the soil and force it to accept her, so she could grow and bloom into a girl whose smile reached her eyes.

So he sank down with her.

The moment they hit the floor, his back slamming against the cupboard and the side of her upper body leaning into his, she began to wail. It was different from before, this weeping. It was the kind that he knew felt like a monster had taken its shadowy claws, reached down into the pit of her stomach, and yanked the emotion outward through her mouth.

She sobbed the same way she had in that hotel room in Paris.

Right arm still around her shoulder, Draco wrapped his left arm around the front of her, curving it until his hand cupped the side and top of her head. He tucked her underneath his chin and held her close. Lifting his right knee and letting his left leg stretch out along the floor, he became boneless so she would have something soft and welcome to break down against. He held her because she needed to be held. She deserved to be held.

No matter how badly he'd hurt her.

Sitting curled up amongst the food, this moment was a somber, near-grotesque representation of the state of their relationship. Two broken people held captive by food. Food, which should've been harmless and given life. Food, which had destroyed her and through her, him.

"Just let me die," she sobbed, her entire body trembling with a violence that ached in his own. Her weeping didn't sound human. It was almost too much for him to comprehend, yet not enough to push him away. "Just let me die, Draco, please."

"No," he whispered, his voice breaking. The barrier between decorum and emotion had fallen. His vision was blurring. He sniffled. "No, okay? Never."

"Why not? It's what you said you wanted. It's what you said. You said—you said—you . . ."

And then they were both crying.

Draco fell apart, his own sobs hovering just beneath hers, lifting them up as though he wanted to carry them. He pressed her head even closer, burying his face in her braids as he wept. There had never been another time where he felt like he treasured her more and now, here with her curled up against him like this, he felt like he'd kill anyone who laid another hand on her. If she threw herself off of a cliff and he couldn't save her, he'd throw himself off right after.

All this time, he'd been worried about being a failure to himself when he should have been worrying about failing her.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured again and again. "Please forgive me. I'm so fucking sorry."

I'm weak.

"I am trying." She continued to weep in his arms. "I am. I'm just so scared."

I'm so weak for her.

"It's all right to be scared," he murmured, fingers sinking into the spaces between her braids. "I am, too. More than you know. But I'm here. I'm here, and I'm not gonna leave you."

I'm so fucking weak.

"I don't remember who I was before it." She took a deep breath that shuddered like branches in the trees of a forest at night. "I don't remember the girl I was before it happened, and I want her back." She started to sob again. "I just want her back."

"Gods fucking dammit," was all he could manage to push out as he curled himself around her and crushed her so tight to his body that he feared she'd stop breathing. "It's all right. It's okay. I'm not leaving."

Her hands finally came up, her fingers curving over his bicep and holding it firm against her chest. She turned her face and he felt the wetness of her cheeks against the side of his throat. It felt like they were made of acid. Then, her breath brushed his neck.

"I don't want to be sick anymore," she said. "I just want to be happy."

Another pang in his ruined heart, reminding him that even when the agony grew too much to bear, he was still weak to her.

"You will," he said, voice thick with emotion and his brow furrowed. "I promise you that I will make you happy. I'll take you away from all of it, do you hear me?"

She lifted her head, gazing up at him. It was still dark in the kitchen and the backdrop of the moonlight seemed to illuminate everything but her face. Her gorgeous face, which he cupped between tender hands and held as though it were made of spun glass. A face that he would gladly wake up to again and again if only it meant that she were alive.

"I will take you far away from here and take care of you. For the rest of my fucking life. I just need you to keep trying. Okay?" He sniffled again, his hands traveling down her upper arms and finding purchase on her waist. "Okay?"

Hermione reached one hand up, where she swept her fingers across one of his tear tracks. Her hand trailed down the side of his neck and wrapped around the nape, leaving the cool air in the kitchenette to kiss his skin in its wake. She lowered her gaze and nodded.

"I will."

He didn't allow his heart to sing. Not this time.

Not until he saw her try.

He leaned his head down, pressing his forehead to hers. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine a world without her in it and found that the image was too vivid. Painted across the expanse of his mind like the blood of a dying artist on their last canvas. It wasn't supposed to look this clean.

Why could he see it so well?

"Don't stop trying," he whispered. Begged. Pleaded. "Don't ever stop trying."

Her other hand slid up his chest, her fingers tickling the right side of his neck. He felt her lips grazing his, barely present as she whispered back, "I won't stop."

Draco tilted his chin up, causing their lips to meet in a chaste, gentle kiss.

"Yeah?" he breathed out.

"Yes." Another soft kiss. "I will."

He let out a harsh breath and kissed her jawline, to the left of the corner of her mouth. His mind was already starting to twist with smoke. "Yeah?"

"Yes," she said as his lips moved up her jaw, toward her ear.

He felt her trembling intensify, punctuated with random jolts and hitches in her breathing pattern as he got closer to the tender flesh beneath the lobe. He laid a kiss there, opening his mouth so he could suck and pull a heavier breath from within her.

When his kisses moved ever-so-slowly down towards her shoulder, his left hand rose. He hooked one finger in the collar on the jumper she'd stolen and exposed her bare skin. He tasted down the length of her collarbone. Her head lolled to the side, against the front of his right shoulder. He felt her breath on his neck again. His lips once again found her outward facing ear and he breathed into it.

"Yeah?"

"Yes," she moaned, her chest arching upward. Her fingers curled tight in his hair while her other hand wrapped around the back of his neck to keep his face buried in her throat. "Yes. More."

He kissed her neck until she was a puddle on the floor, sighing and tremulous. He knew she could feel the remnants of his tears, and he tasted the salt of them on her skin as his tongue darted out.

Her breath shaking, she grabbed his hand and pulled it lower. At the same time, she adjusted so that she was sitting with her back against his upraised knee and her feet flat on the floor. He kissed her on the lips as he took control, cupping her womanhood through her leggings without hesitancy. She moaned when his tongue brushed against hers, and his fingers began to move. She gripped his thigh—the one that was flat on the floor—and her head fell back.

"Please," she gasped, sounding dazed and faint. Her hips undulated to the massaging motions of his hand. Her thighs fell further apart. "I want you to—please."

Draco couldn't think about anything other than her. Her, this moment, and everything he felt for her. He wanted to make her happy. He wanted to make her feel good so she wouldn't cry anymore because he didn't like it when she cried because of him.

He liked it when she cried for him.

Ignoring the sound of dismay she made when he pulled his hand away, he took her by the shoulders and pushed. He got to his knees. Hermione laid down amongst the food and empty containers that were still strewn about the floor, her braids fanning out a little from the speed with which she had moved. Draco swung his knee over to the other side of her. Placing one hand on the linoleum beside her head, he reached over and pushed the oven door shut. The moonlight illuminated the messy state of the kitchen floor.

Their eyes met.

She looked back at him with sadness. "I'm a bad person."

"No," he said, shaking his head. Hand still propping himself up, he leaned down to kiss her neck again. Her back immediately rose up, and his elbow bent until their chests were flush together. "You're not."

She lifted her head as he started to move down her body, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of his overlarge jumper. He pushed it up, up, up, and she helped him take it off of her. She laid back again, clad in naught but her leggings and a camisole.

No brassiere.

"I am," she said, her voice small. "I'm bad to you and for you."

"Mm-mm," he said, disagreeing with his lips as he kissed down her right arm and brought her palm to his lips. His gaze bored down into her through the shadows. "You're very good."

"Everything—" She gasped when his lips found the peak of her breast through the camisole, his saliva soaking the fabric as he pulled it into his mouth. "Everything I do is so—so b-bad."

He hummed his disapproval as he slid the hem of her shirt up and revealed her abdomen. It was swollen and tight, distended from how much she'd eaten. The grunt of pain she made when both of his hands smoothed over it made him feel sad. He kissed it everywhere, from one side to the other, soft brushes of skin on skin.

"Wait—it's—" Her breath hitched in a whimper and her hands tried to slip between her skin and his mouth to keep him away from her stomach. "I don't like it."

"Stop," he murmured, gentle as he moved her hand aside and kissed her belly. "What don't you like?"

Her fingers hovered with indecision. He looked up at her once, kissing her there again.

"I don't like myself."

"Well . . ." His lips curved upward. "I like you."

"But I—"

"You are good," he murmured, looking up at her through his lashes as he slipped his fingers into the waistband of both her cotton knickers and leggings. He began to drag them downward. "You feel good and you taste good. Will you let me see how good you taste?"

"Yes," she said, her tone reverent as he sat up on his knees and pulled her garments off of her.

Draco lifted her ankle up near his shoulder with a light hand and nuzzled his nose along the inside of her calf. He kissed her skin and tasted it. He felt her toes flexing, pressing into his shoulder. She gasped again, the sounds urging his blood to the lower region of his body.

As he kissed his way down her leg, he heard her sniffling. A whimper escaped her lips right as he reached the inside of her knee and he paused. His hands caressed her leg, kneading the muscle.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," she said, and she started to cry again. "I just don't think I'm good enough for you."

"You are," he said, remaining patient as he resumed his path to her core. He breathed in her scent, his tongue running through her arousal and causing her hips to nearly come up off of the floor. He kissed her in the place that made her thighs shake, and then looked up at her. "I want you to tell me how good you are for me, okay?"

She opened her mouth to answer, inhaling sharply. She made several attempts to answer, all while his lips suckled at her clit, but all she could manage were whimpers that decorated her weeping.

"Tell me," he breathed, his hands caressing her hips to pull her down closer. "Say you're good to me."

His tongue plunged inside of her.

"I-I'm good—I'm good t-to you," she stammered. Her fingers slipped beneath the hood of his jumper and trembled in his hair.

He pulled back again, one hand flat on the floor and the other searching between her legs for her entrance. When he found it, two fingers surged forward to hit her in the spot he could find ten times over in the dark.

"Tell me you're good with me," he ordered, thrusting his fingers in and out of her body with firm, hard strokes.

Her eyes were closed, her mouth gaping open. Her legs spread wider, her feet using the sturdiness of the floor to push her hips to meet his fingers thrust for thrust. She shook.

"I'm good—Gods." Another whimper. "I'm g-good with you. We're—ah—good together."

"Yes, we are," he purred, his hair falling into his face as he looked down to watch the outline of his ministrations in the darkness. "Now, tell me you're good for me, and I'll make you come."

Draco lowered back to the floor, his forearm and elbow holding him up as he fucked her with the fingers on his other hand. He ran his tongue over her clit. She let out a sob, one hand slapping flat against the floor. She hit an empty container and sent it clattering across the floor, knocking aside some of the food. She inhaled again and again and again, and then groaned.

"Oh, my—" came the words, desperate and pitchy. "I'm good for you. I'm being so good for you. I'm gonna come. Gods, fuck, I'm gonna come."

"Fuck," he moaned against her core, softening the strokes of his tongue and increasing the pace of his fingers. He heard the lewd noises as she grew wetter and it made his stomach coil with that familiar tightness. She tasted so fucking good and the way she rode his tongue was like she was using it made him want to groan. She rode it like she knew exactly what she needed.

He wouldn't mind being used by her.

"Draco . . . I . . . G-Gentler—Yes. Right—there!" she cried, her fingernails curling into the floor by her hips.

He felt one of her feet pressing its toes into his thigh. The other hit flat on the ground. She gave one more gasp, and then she was sobbing. Her orgasm shattered her into pieces, and she trembled with a violence. He could feel the stars shooting through her body like comets as they wrecked her.

When he kissed his way back up her body and settled between her thighs, he was surprised to feel her kissing him with an intensity that he hadn't expected. He turned his head to the side, his hands flat on the floor by her head as their tongues battled and fought. She arched her back up into him, her hips rolling in a way that felt like she was trying to pull him as close as she possibly could. Her fingers gripped, pulled, clung. They tugged, refusing to let him go.

This didn't feel like a dream. This felt real.

They broke apart for a moment, their eyes meeting. The moonlight made her look pale. The tear tracks that glistened on her face were fresh.

"Why are you crying, love?" he whispered, his gaze bouncing back and forth between her eyes and her lips.

"Because," she said, her lip trembling. She held his face with both of her hands. "I want it to be you."

"Because I don't want any part of them to be a part of me anymore. I feel safe with you. I want it to be you."

Christmas night.

His brows twitched together, confusion bleeding through the haze of his intense, deep-rooted lust for her. After everything he'd done to her this week—after every mistake he'd made—she still felt safe with him? The way she was looking up at him, with a yearning that he knew mirrored his own . . .

If they did this. If they made this step, there'd be no reversing the bond. No more contemplation. No more discussion of what if. They would be bonded. The star bond would register them as soulmates, their destinies intertwined together for the rest of their lives. They'd be together until the cosmos imploded and the stars faded.

Until eternity.

It was more than a big step. It was the final step. It would solve none of their problems. It would neither heal her nor save her.

But he wanted it more than anything.

Was she sure?

She caressed his jaw, her fingers fluttering to tilt it to the side. His arms shook as she began to kiss his neck. Any sense of control he had maintained faltered. His eyelids fluttered and he moaned at the softness and the tingling shocks that shot through him. One hand still on the floor, he cupped the back of her head and pushed his throat into the grazing of her teeth.

"Please," she whispered, her lips mouthing at his earlobe. It caused his hips to involuntary jerk forward, pressing intimately against her. "Please, Draco. I need it to be you."

He shuddered when she bit his earlobe, moving to grab the braids at the back of her head. He dragged her head back, baring his teeth. Their hips rolled together, an absentminded expression of their fervor.

"Do you want me to fuck you right here on the floor?"

The look on her face turned desperate as a fresh set of tears made their way down her cheeks. "Yes. Yes, please."

He let out a sound of frustration at his infernal hesitancy. His hand wrapped around the top of her throat, pulling her up into a wild kiss that showed her that it was taking everything in him to hold himself back. She needed to be sure. He needed to be sure that she was sure. It wouldn't be a mistake—he would take care of her, he knew he would.

But what if she regretted it?

His mind was like the inside of a crystal in the sunlight, multi-faceted planes of diamond reflecting all the colors of the rainbow. And inside of each color was another year he could spend with Hermione. Another year where they were happy, healthy, and together. It was more than the bond. More than a glimpse of eternity.

It was everything he wanted.

His hips rolled against hers, the front of his denims rubbing against her wet core. She broke the kiss to cry out in pleasure. She writhed beneath him, wanton as she ground up against his hardness without shame or care.

"Do you really want this?" He growled into her mouth, squeezing her throat tighter. "Do you want me to fuckyou, Hermione?"

"Please," she moaned, and it sounded like it was being dragged up out of the depths of her lungs. "I'll do anything. Just please. I can't wait anymore."

The last chain wrapped around his neck broke apart, the metaphorical metal shattering like glass.

Draco slammed his lips against hers, swallowing her sobs and tasting the salt of her tears on her lips. She didn't stop weeping, not even for a second, even as she grabbed the hem of his jumper and started to yank it upward. They pulled apart to work together to get it off of him. Her hands went to his belt, tugging the tail out of the loops and buckle. He reached over the back of his head to pull his tee shirt off, and then her hand was inside of his trousers.

The colors in his mind swirled together.

"Ah, fuck! Fucking Hell."

Her fingers were wrapped around him, moving up and down. She pushed his trousers and then his pants down over the swell of his rear. Her back hit the floor and he felt her guiding his cock to slide along her center. The feeling was overwhelming, compounded by the knowledge that they weren't going to stop this time. That his heart beat for her, and they weren't gonna stop.

This was happening. They were doing this. Once they made this decision, she was his and he was hers.

Gods, did she deserved to be loved. She deserved to be held, kissed, touched, fucked, and loved. She deserved everything she every wanted, no matter what.

No matter what.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he whispered into her ear, his arms straining from holding himself still. "You know that this is forever?"

"Yes," she said, and she smiled through her tears and the darkness of the kitchen. "I know what it means, and I want this with you. I want eternity."

He groaned again, the words alone almost enough to make him want to lose his senses. His hips rolled and her hand went slack around him. She sucked in her breath as the head of his cock slipped inside as if by accident. A shiver ran through his body and he bit his lip. He ran his fingers down to the bottom of her shirt and dragged it up, exposing her breasts. Beautiful.

"You," he said, on his knees before her like she was a goddess, "are mine." He gripped her knee and pushed, spreading her wider for him as he sunk deeper into her body. "You're mine to kiss." He went deeper. "To hold." Deeper. "To touch." And deeper still. "To fuck."

He slammed in the rest of the way, relishing in the sound of her cry when he sank to the hilt. Her cunt was the epitome of a dream, and it threatened to shatter his heart from the sheer bliss of it. Like velvet wrapped around him, scorching hot in the sort of way that made him never want to leave.

"Look at me now, sweet girl," he gasped when he pulled out and slid back in with an agonizingly-slow thrust. She did, and the intensity of her eyes on his wracked through him. "Fuck, you feel so fucking good."

"Please go harder," she whimpered, her hips trying to urge him faster. "I need it harder."

"Not yet," he whispered, continuing the slow ebbs and flows of his movements. He wanted to remember this. He wanted to commit this moment to memory. The moonlight washing over the far side of the floor. The shadows dancing across her face. Her swollen, parted lips. Her braids, fanned around her head like a crown. The heaving of her breasts, which fit perfectly in his hands like they were made for him. The feeling of her cunt, which felt like he was made for it.

"You are a beautiful person, Draco," she breathed, sounding emotional. "But I thought you left me."

"I'm here," he murmured, dipping his head down to kiss first her left nipple and then her right. His tongue laved against them, causing her to shiver. "I'm not going anywhere ever again."

She reached up with one hand, her fingers sliding into his hair at his hairline. Her gaze washed over him, another tear slipping down the side of her cheek and towards her ear. There was affection in her eyes, trust, and something he didn't dare question. He nuzzled his head into her touch, the blissful feeling causing his hips to jerk forward.

Fuck.

Hermione moaned, a short, surprised sound as he hit a spot inside of her that she liked. They stared at one another as he gave her one more long, slow thrust. He made sure to hit the spot again, his lips twitching up into a smirk when she shivered.

And then she began to cry again.

"I love you."

His hips stilled for a moment. He stared at her, all of the colors in his mind momentarily bleaching white.

What?

"Please," she sobbed. "Please believe me. I'm so sorry I made you think I wasn't that sick. I was scared. I'm so scared of you and the way you make me feel. It's overwhelming and when things get overwhelming, I run away. You fight for me. You fight for me every day, even when it's me you have to fight, and it makes me want to get better. It makes me feel like I can see something in myself worth saving. I don't deserve it, but I want it. I want it so badly. I want you. I love you, Draco. I love you and I'm sorry. I want to get better. I mean it. I want to—"

He didn't care about any of it—their problems, the things that could go wrong, or the hurdles they were currently facing. She loved him. She loved him, and he could tell it was real. Her tears were real. Her trust was real.

After everything they'd been through together, after Paris, after what he'd done this morning, she loved him.

He surged forward and cut her off with a violent kiss, and then he fucked her.

She threw her arms up on the floor by her head, her hands curling into fists as he slammed into her again and again, fucking her exactly like she deserved to be fucked. She took his cock like it belonged to her, the tightness of her channel devouring him. His fingers pressed bruises into her hip as he leaned over her, pinning her down so she could do nothing more than squirm, moan, and beg. Her eyes rolled.

"Say it again," he begged through his teeth, clenching them to hold back his desire to start crying at the sheer closeness he felt to her. "Please say it to me again."

"I love you," she said.

"You're so fucking beautiful to me, Hermione." He never relented his pace. "Perfect for me. Just perfect."

Her fingers came up to smooth across the tattoos that adorned his chest and abdomen. He felt the muscles flexing, pulling taut as he thrust so hard that he was starting to see stars. It felt so fucking good. She was so fucking good.

He sucked his fingers into his mouth and reached between their sweating bodies to play with her clit. Her body immediately went limp, contrasting with the desperate, tight strain of her moaning. He thrust firm and stroked slow, dragging her towards a second climax.

"Gonna come on my cock?" he growled when he felt her legs start their familiar quivering.

She gasped again and then made a pained expression, nodding frantically.

"Say it while you come," he whined. "Please, fucking say it while you fucking come."

Her back arched once more, her eyes rolling up into her head as he played the strings of her violin like he'd been doing it for years. She created a symphony in his heart with her words and climbing moans.

"I love you," she sang, and it would forever be his favorite song. "I love you, Draco."

She came, her walls clenching down on him like a vice and holding him tight. He heard her whimpering, felt her shuddering and convulsing, and his thrusting stuttered.

The song crested and he lost control.

The notes harmonized with the tune of his body. It wound tightly around him and inside of him, pulling him to a crescendo from which he couldn't catch his escaping breath. His chest spasmed and he gasped. He gripped her other knee and pushed them both towards her chest, until he was fucking down into her like he was searching for something to the tune of her euphoric wailing.

He found it, whatever it was, and the words fell out of him as he hung on the precipice.

"Fuck, I love you so fucking much," he breathed, his lips frantic against her jaw. "I love you. I'll do anything for you. Anything. Just—wrap your arms around me. Please, please do it. Do it."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. Draco pushed her thighs open, causing him to sink to the absolute deepest place he could go inside of her. Hermione groaned, throaty and delirious as she laid there. Her face burrowed into his neck to stifle her moans as he rammed into her again and again and again and—

He came with his tongue against her pulse and his hands gripping her rear. Pulling her closer, holding her against him as he emptied himself into her. The pleasure was immense. So immense that he whimpered into the junction of her neck and shoulder.

They laid there to catch their breath, his head pillowed on her bare chest and her fingers trailing up and down his back in circular patterns that were as lazy as they were calculated. The colors in the jewel of his mind had separated again, flickering across his mind with a warmth that felt connected to her own.

She loved him.

Hermione loved him, and Draco loved her.

And they were bonded.

He could feel it, just like the magical core connections in Divination. Though, this was much more intense. Like a thread of magic stretched between them. Indestructible and comforting, it was only visible to him when he looked for it. If he didn't look for it, then he knew it was there as long as he focused. He'd never be alone again.

His heart didn't feel quite so broken anymore.

After a few minutes, Hermione started to make sounds of discomfort, and he knew they needed to get up off of the floor. They extracted themselves from one another and got to their feet. Hermione glanced around at the floor.

"Should we clean this up?" she asked, and he heard a hint of shame coloring her tone.

"Tomorrow," he murmured, bending to kiss her as he zipped his denims and dropped his belt to the ground. "Let's go to bed."

"Okay," she said against his lips. "Together?"

He nodded, and it felt like another milestone. One they'd already reached but that they'd had to earn with one another all over again.

Twinging their fingers together, they left their discarded clothing and walked to the hallway. The full moon looked so bright that Draco nearly squinted. In the hall, Hermione went to use the loo with the door open, and Draco waited for her. She came out and he put an arm around her shoulders so he could escort her into his room.

"Your wand," she whispered, sounding exhausted as she settled beneath the coverlet. "I need it."

He grabbed it from the bedside table and handed it to her without a thought. She cast an after-sex contraceptive charm and then returned the wand to him, her eyes half-shut with exhaustion.

"How Hermione Granger of you," he said, smirking as he dropped the wand onto the floor. He decided to remove his trousers, not wanting to feel constricted while he slept. "Covering all your bases."

"Yeah, well." She yawned. "It may not be necessary, but it doesn't hurt to do it anyway."

He pulled the blanket back and slid in beside her, smiling faintly as she curled up against his torso. "Why wouldn't it be necessary? You're the one who said—"

"Draco, I haven't had my cycle in months," she said quietly, her hand flat on his chest. "I don't know if I could get pregnant."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Just like that, his heart was sinking again. He wrapped his arms around her, cuddling her close and pressing his lips against her forehead.

He loved her. They'd get through it.

"I don't mean to say that so nonchalantly, either," Hermione mumbled through another jaw-breaking yawn. "I'm just tired. I know it's serious, and I know I did it to myself. But I wanted to be honest."

"Yeah."

She was trying. That's what mattered. Even if it made him sad.

He drifted off with his witch in his arms, which was exactly where they both deserved to be.

I won't stop fighting for her. I won't stop, and this time, I'll do it right.

She's worth it.


Question: If I wrote actual books, would they be on your shelves?

Also: I made a video trailer for this story! It's in the the external link. Let me know what you think!