For several long minutes Hermione clung to the young man. It was a lot like coming home at first, though it was a home one had seen burned to the ground, a blackened match in one's own hand. Then creeping threads of other emotions wove into her until they trapped her in them, so that she clung to him to hold herself in reality rather than out of affection or joy.

"Merlin, Hermione, I thought I'd never see you again." His corded arms tightened around her until her chest felt constricted, her mouth smothered, and she pushed at him.

" You were worried?" Her hands fisted his jacket, thudding against his chest with all the might Hermione could gather in her cramped space. "Ronald, I thought- they- you were dead!"

Ron's broad hands rubbed her sides. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. So, so sorry. We couldn't let you know, had to keep as much information from them as we could. When Neville came he was so adamant that it caused the same fights all over again."

Hermione tugged from his chest, his fingers interweaving to hold her in his arms. "Fights to tell me you were alive?"

"Well, those too." His sky blue eyes were too bright, like the sun was creeping into them and threatening to overwhelm her vision. "But we mostly fought about rescuing you."

The dread building in the back of her mind sank into the darkness to settle in her stomach. "I'm sure you were happy to have an ally though." He half-smiled at her. "You- you kept fighting for me." It wasn't a question necessarily, but his eyes gave away the answer.

"I never gave up on you, that I'd see you again. And Snape kept us informed, of course."

Snape had told them about her situation. Oh, God. She was going to be sick. "You knew what was happening to me?"

"I mean," he hedged, "between him and Neville, and Malfoy later, we got the basics. But we didn't get details or anything, y'know? I don't think I'd… well. We knew he wouldn't kill you or starve you. I didn't want to, did all I could..."

Hermione's palm flattened on him, shoving away to stare incredulously up into the familiar freckled visage. "Oh. My God. You knew." His fingers finally parted to let her slip through, hands rising in supplication as he opened his mouth to explain. "You knew. You knew what he was doing to me and you left me there. No! No, Ronald Weasley. I don't want to hear your excuses for why you didn't fight, why you went along and accepted that I would be martyred. For half a year. I would never - Harry would never leave you there. He never would have left me there. Christ Almighty. I know why I was left. Why it was tactical. But you left me. You. Not them. You. "

She turned toward the wall, hands covering her face before she exploded in a wreckage of pain and anger and grief.

"Hermione."

A hesitant touch slid onto her shoulder and she shrugged it off. "Get away from me."

His presence lingered there, mouth opening and closing as he struggled to come up with the words that would bring her back to him.

"Give her some space, Weasley. Come on, I'll see to your leg." Draco pulled the broader boy away and Hermione darted to the toilet, heaving acid into the porcelain bowl. It ate at her throat, deafening the screams she wanted to hurl through the mirror and herself.

It was late when Hermione finished in the infirmary and headed to the kitchens. She expected to find Draco in the dining room, stuffing down food of his own after the tiring day.

Instead raised voices and stuttering chair legs greeted her ears. Members of the resistance were gathered around the long table. Snape, Lucius Malfoy and his son, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Professor McGonagall, Ron and Mr. Weasley and Bill, Neville-

Who looked up at the creak of the door, eyes widening in wonder before he swept from the table to crush her in a bear hug.

"Hermione, thank fucking Merlin. I'm sorry. I tried, I really did, I swear." The large teddy bear of a boy was crying into her shoulder and she rubbed circles on his back.

"I know, Neville. It's not your fault."

He rocked her gently side to side and Hermione almost laughed at the reassurance he took in holding her. "You're- I know you're not okay, Hermione, but I hope you will be someday."

There was a soft cough behind him and Neville parted from her reluctantly.

"Perhaps, Mr. Longbottom, you could allow us to proceed with the meeting?" The Scottish brogue drew her eyes to the woman she'd known and respected for years. "Miss Granger, I am so relieved to see you." She nodded in return, voice too heavy to speak.

Kingsley favored her with a wan smile, Snape and the Malfoys with a look alone, and Mr Weasley pulled her into a fatherly hug of his own.

"Miss Granger?" Hermione looked back at her professor. "The people in this room are the only ones who will know about you for the time being."

She lowered herself into a chair between the woman and Mr. Weasley, gaze darting around the occupants. "But-"

"We all know as well," Arthur Weasley added. "All us Weasleys, that is."

Prof. McGonagall hemmed and straightened. "Yes, well. The few who recognized you today have been… left without an idea as to your whereabouts."

Hermione's skin prickled where the thinly veiled burrs behind their inquiring eyes touched on her. "He came looking for me, then." That explained Mr. Malfoy.

"Why didn't you kill him?" Ron didn't sound angry. No, his voice was laced with concern and disbelief and genuine curiosity.

Their eyes sharpened on her and she dropped hers to a table nearly the same color as they were, though it was polished bright. Her fingers traced the fine grain patterns. "I don't know if I can cast that curse at all. Not even on him. Bellatrix maybe." A sad laugh passed her lips. "I did what I had to, and I did what I could."

"You left him at home, knocked out and with his wand a few feet away. I wonder how quick his elf was to realize her master was incapacitated," Mr. Malfoy spat, disgust still burying his handsome features.

His wand. Hermione could have slapped herself. She didn't think of that. Why hadn't she thought of that? It was positively simple. Her bare toes curled against the rug beneath the table as she added that to the list of things to berate herself over. His wand, her coin, her own weakness...

"One might wonder, Miss Granger, if you've developed that muggle illness where captives fall in love with their captors."

Stockholm syndrome , she wanted to reply. It's an emotional bond, not love, and can be characterized by dependence and seeing lack of cruelty as kindness. Popular in the media, but never included in the DSM.

"Lucius."

He ignored his friend, stormy eyes darkening on her. "I deserve to know if I should expect you to violate the wards of my house and crawl back to him."

Her mouth opened in horror.

"Lucius."

"No, Severus. The girl didn't kill a man who abused her for half a year and I want to know why. I deserve to know why, lest I shelter a little cuckoo in my nest."

" Lucius ." His voice severed the ice of the other's gaze, tugging it toward himself. "Not everyone is capable of killing outside the heat of battle." Obsidian eyes lit upon Draco. "I should think you, of all people, would know the truth of that."

The elder Malfoy grimaced as though swallowing bitter potions, but kept his mouth closed.

"What's this about Hermione staying here?" It was Mr. Weasley, his warm eyes touching her gently before moving along. "She has the Burrow once it's fixed up again, or Grimmauld, where we can all keep her safe."

"Unfortunately." Snape enunciated each syllable so that it fell on their ears with the weight of a full sentence. "That will not be happening. Too many go in and out the headquarters, and the Burrow's defenses have proven vulnerable before. Instead Miss Granger will remain here, where there is nearly a millennium of ancestral protections in place, and where Lucius has sworn to protect her as one of his own."

Ron scoffed. "You can't be serious."

But the words niggled at Hermione's mind, reeling out the memory of their exchange in the library. She was supposed to be his ally, and he was clearly not trusted here. Some all she was proving herself to be. Hermione bit her lip, then decided. "He is, Ronald. Mr. Malfoy swore to me himself."

"Hermione, he's a self-serving git. He only agreed to bring you here so Malfoy Junior could stay safe and sound, and he wouldn't be active in the fight."

Nearly everyone raised a protestation and Hermione's eyes nearly bulged from her skull. "I can't believe-" She gulped a mouthful of air and swallowed the furious words. "I am staying here and that is final. Unlike all of you, I don't allow others to vote on what I do with my body." Her eyes spoke venom at them before she drew back and swallowed that too. "I am tired, so I am going to bed." Hermione turned to the lord of the house. "The Green Room, I assume."

He graced her with an elegant nod and Hermione responded the same. "Good evening," she addressed the gathering before spinning on her heel.

"Hermione," called that too familiar voice, but she grit her jaw and stepped through the doorway. Many times she'd run toward that voice in her dreams, screamed back across the horrors of battle, hoping he heard her and was running to her too. This was the first time she'd ever walked away.