TRIGGER WARNING: Violence. Trauma related talk, recovery talk, ED talk, horror imagery. Just overall triggering but I have no idea what to trigger it. No numbers or weight mentions, though.

NEW COVER PHOTO DRAWN BY MY ARTIST, MEIALOUE~

Apricity – Chapter Forty-Two

Theo's voice brought all thoughts of walking away to a complete halt in Draco's mind.

Draco wiped the stray tear from his cheek, and then he and Blaise turned around. Theo stood there, glaring daggers at them both in turn. Behind him, everyone else was looking at them with various expressions of confusion and surprise on their faces.

Why did they look so surprised? Why would it shock them that he would leave? He was Draco Malfoy, the son of the man who ran. Lucius had always been the one to run, to hide, to be complacent. To make every move with fear at its base and the goal of placation at its heart. Yet here they all were, appearing stunned that Draco would actually consider running.

No one expected him to leave.

That shocked him, rocking him to his core. Had their opinion of him changed that much? Had he changed that much? They wouldn't look so surprised if they knew how selfish he was.

"Draco," Theo said, his tone one of annoyance and disgust. "Are you actually leaving? Right when Hermione needs you the most?"

Blaise shook his head. "I think it's a little more complicated than that, mate."

"No, he was the one who said I didn't care about her!" Theo cried. "He's trying to make me into the bad guy to help deal with his guilt about making the wrong choices, too. If we all have a part and we're all still here, then why does he get to leave?!"

Memories of the past two months passed across Draco's mind like rain clouds, all the signs he'd missed and all the ones he'd ignored. The mistakes he'd made and the pain he'd watched her inflict on herself. The fights and the tears and the dreams and the nightmares. The times he'd kissed her and it hurt. The times he'd kissed her and it didn't.

Paris. Paris. Paris.

"Maybe all he needs is a break," the Weaselbee said in a low tone, avoiding Draco's gaze.

"He shouldn't get a break. None of us do."

"All right," came Arthur's soothing. "Why don't we all just simmer down. I can go get some tea and bring it back to give us all a little pick-me-up. How does that sound?"

"I don't want tea," Theo snapped. "I want everyone to see how fucking mental he is. He has you all believing I'm some Dementor when he's not even staying to see if she makes it."

"Oh, come off it!" Pansy yelled. "He's not even left yet. He's just standing there, isn't he? Quit being so overdramatic just because you don't wanna admit what you did was wrong!"

"No, what you're all doing is forgetting that he's the one you should be questioning! No one finds it strange that he despised her for years and now, suddenly they're bonded together in holy fucking matrimony? No one finds it bizarre that he lit a lantern overnight and now he's fucking in love with her?! He can convince you all he's her husband, I'm the one who put her fucking fingers down her throat, and we're all to blame, but that's all okay because he's an angel and he gets to leave."

"Now that's not even true," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "That's an exaggeration. You're grasping at wand cores, Nott."

Everyone was beginning to raise their voices, each person seeming to stand on a different side of the argument. But there was one general consensus.

Theo didn't know how to read the lines in his part of the play.

"Just let him take a break if he wants to!" Ginny was shouting. "I mean, this is mental. This is actually mental. Did you or did you not get caught helping her make herself sick?"

"That's not what happened! I wasn't helping her be sick. I was just there. I held her hair back and it's not good, but it's not like I was the one who—"

"But that is mental!" Ginny yelled over him, clapping her hands. Her eyes were wide, like she was so angry she was barely seeing straight. She was much shorter than Theo but it did nothing to stop her from pushing her face into his in her ire. "You can't think it's normal to hold girls' hair back when they're throwing up! What's actually wrong with you?!"

"It's not like that! You're making it sound way worse than it really was!"

"And now you're yelling at my girlfriend." Harry calmly shoved Theo back and then crossed his arms over his chest again. "Calm down."

"So he gets to say whatever he wants and then just leave." Theo's face pinched into an expression of frustration. "It's not fair."

Fair.

Theo wanted it to be fair.

Draco snapped.

"You want it to be fair?" he hissed, storming toward him with death in his eyes and murder in the point of his finger. "Then start hating yourself. Start hating yourself until you can't stand it, and then control your food so you can control that hate. And when you lose control of both, then stuff yourself so full of that hate until you can't stand it and get rid of it. Get rid of it over and over and over—" He jabbed his finger against Theo's chest repeatedly, each jab punctuating his words. "—and over, until you're empty again. Because then, when you're empty, the hate has room to fill up again."

Theo's eyes were wide, his jaw slackened. "That's not—"

"Shut up. Shut your damn mouth." Tears of anger glittered in Draco's eyes, blurring his vision. He hated Theo in that moment. He hated him and it felt like he'd always hated him. "Don't tell me it's not fair. I'll tell you what's not fair. What's not fair is knowing that every single time I thought I was helping her—every single time I made progress with her . . . You fucked it up."

"You know what?" Theo's arms shot up. He slammed his palms against the fronts of Draco's shoulders, shoving him backward so that he stumbled into Blaise. "You should leave. Just go! Just fucking go! Take a look around, Draco. None of these people know the real you. None of them know what an absolute fucking nightmare it was to be friends with someone as cruel as you. You're just like your father and the more you try to pretend you're not, the more you look just like him."

Draco did want to leave.

He wouldn't have to make rules. He wouldn't have to make sure she ate. He wouldn't have to live in fear.

But if Draco left, then the emptiness would exist inside the cavern of his chest.

He was empty without her.

In one fluid movement, Draco lurched forward, clenched his hand into a fist, and arched his arm back. He whipped it forward, slamming it directly into the center of Theo's face. Theo's nose crunched beneath Draco's knuckles, the cartilage as weak as their fucking friendship.

In the midst of the frozen shock from the assembled friends and family members, Theo went down as though he'd simply passed away.

Draco crouched over him, grabbing the front of his shirt even as everyone started toward them. His fist reared back a second time.

In Theo's face, gone was the anger and temper that had urged him to say the horrid things he'd said. Gone was the indignation and the vendetta and the denial. Instead, there was only guilt. There were tears streaming down his face as he let out an almost anguished sob.

"Go ahead," he said. "I deserve it."

And he did. He did deserve it.

But the longer he looked at the pitiful boy beneath him, the more Draco realized that he was doing it again.

Another wrong choice.

As much as he wanted to destroy Theo, he knew he couldn't do it without destroying the part of himself that connected him to his past. And if he couldn't stay connected to his past—if he severed that connection with a fist to the face—then he'd forget how he came to be the man he was now.

The Draco who loved Hermione was born of the Draco who once hated her. He needed that Draco to be able to stay who he was now.

He needed to remember where he came from so he never went back.

"You do deserve it," he said, and then he lowered his fist. "But I don't. I don't deserve to live my life knowing that I hurt the people that I love more often than I don't. You fucked up, Theo, and instead of doing everything you can to reject the blame, you should spend more time figuring out how you're going to make it right."

He stood up, watching as Theo scooted backward, wiping the blood beneath his nose with the back of his hand. He couldn't seem to hold his gaze. Draco scrutinized his face one more time.

Finally, there was shame there.

"I'm not leaving her," Draco announced. "And if you care about her, neither are any of you. But if you stay, know that I am putting my foot down. I'll decide what options we take. I'll be the one to make the medical decisions for my witch. And I don't care if you cringe, complain, or hate that. She is mine to care for and if any of you do anything to disrupt that, I'll have you removed. However, if you stay, be prepared to work."

He paused and met each and every person's eyes in turn.

Draco saw a thoroughly-chastised Theo who now understood his place. A Ginny that appeared calm and confident in her decision to accept Draco. A Harry with his eyebrows raised over an expression of approval. A grinning Pansy who was still compassionate enough to kneel beside Theo and help him with his bloody nose. A smirking, proud Blaise who knew exactly who his best friend was. A teary-eyed Molly with the sort of love shining in her eyes that a mother would hold for someone important to her child—adopted or otherwise. And finally, an Arthur with the satisfied smile of a person who'd made the right choice playing about his lips.

Draco saw her friends and her family and he felt like he belonged.

"She isn't easy," he said to them, "but she's worth it."

For the first time all evening, there was silence in the corridor of St. Mungo's.

"Someone wanted a magical ID check on a patient?"

Draco looked up. He was sitting on one of the chairs with his elbows on his thighs and his fingers laced between them, his hood up on his head again. Hermione had been moved to the Intensive Care section, to a permanent room that she would be housed in until she woke up.

He still hadn't been allowed in.

Everyone had left to go home and get some rest, trusting Draco to handle Hermione's first night in the hospital. He'd been alone with his thoughts for the past thirty minutes.

He was terrified. Terrified that she wouldn't wake up. Terrified that he'd have to live with the knowledge that he hadn't told her he loved her one more time before she closed her eyes.

Terrified to lose her.

Now, a small, frail wizard stood in the corridor beside him, holding his wand in front of him. He had the same long, cloudy hair that Professor Dumbledore had possessed but his beard was only half as long.

"I do apologize for how long it took me to arrive. You wouldn't believe how many ID checks are performed daily here at St. Mungo's. It's gotten to the point where I don't think any of us really knows who he is."

Draco let out the polite sort of laugh one lets out when making small talk, and then he stood up.

"My—" He cleared his throat, still uncomfortable with the term. "Hermione Granger needs a magical ID check. She's in that room there."

"All right. Are you her family?"

"We're gonna find out."

The old wizard looked surprised, his eyebrows rising. "And what is your name, my boy?"

"Draco Malfoy."

His eyebrows rose higher. "Very well. I'll return shortly."

Draco waited in the hallway, his hands on his hips as the wizard disappeared into the hospital room. Sweat was starting to slick his palms.

Why was he so nervous? He knew they were bonded—Trelawney had confirmed it. He knew they'd consummated it. He could feel it in his core that he and Hermione were connected, and he'd always been able to feel it.

Why was he so scared?

The door reopened and out walked the wizard.

"Congratulations on your nuptials, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "I was certain a wedding in a family as illustrious as yours would have made the front page of the Daily Prophet. Given who your father is."

There was no malice in his tone, so Draco took no offense.

He was too lightheaded to.

"So she's . . . ?" His hands went to the back of his head as the words registered. "The spell said she was . . . ?"

"Mrs. Malfoy can take visitors up until visiting hours end in twenty minutes but after that, make sure you leave. Don't forget to check out with the receptionist." He gave him the same sort of knowing smile that Dumbledore would have given him. "I believe this corridor has already gotten their notice. I don't believe they'll come by again tonight."

"Thanks," Draco said. He couldn't wait a second longer.

He went into Hermione's room.

It was quiet. So quiet that Draco could hear his own thoughts louder than the volume of his breath.

The virtually colorless room was small with a bed, a table beside it, one window, a door he assumed led to a loo, and an armchair. In the bed, Hermione lay in slumber, a flourish of brown skin and curls amongst the hollow emptiness of the room. There was a Muggle IV bag hanging from a silver stand beside her bed. It was attached to a tub that threaded life into her veins. Her eyes were closed.

She looked peaceful.

Draco withdrew his wand and conjured up a simple chair. He picked it up and set it beside the bed, sitting on the edge of it so he could be closer to the mattress. Closer to her.

He didn't know what it was. Perhaps seeing her there, with her chest rising and falling. Seeing her alive. Seeing her and remembering what it felt like to beg her to breathe.

Maybe that was why he started crying.

Draco ran a hand over his mouth, not bothering to wipe his tears as they fell. He watched her, stared at her, took her in in this most vulnerable state. He'd seen her in all of her most vulnerable states, from Paris to now, and he loved her.

She was his wife. Hermione Granger was now Hermione Malfoy. Their ages didn't matter. Their pasts didn't matter. All that mattered was their future.

Hermione was his wife, and she was his.

Draco reached for her hand, his own trembling. His long fingers wrapped around her slender ones, gentle so as not to squeeze her. He felt like she might shatter upon the mattress if he was too rough.

For the first time, her skin felt warm.

In the next second, he saw their entire future laid out before him. Inside of it, she was happy. She was happy and warm and smiling. And when she smiled, it reached her eyes. Inside of it, she was recovered.

He wanted that.

Draco dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs, holding her hand to his lips. He kissed it several times, until it became too many, and then he allowed himself the freedom to be sad. To sit in his emotions and embrace them. To not let them overwhelm him by allowing them the space to exist.

To accept that she might never wake up.

He was sad. He was sad because even if she did wake up, she was still going to be in pain. She was still going to have a battle ahead of her that was going to be so tough and so strenuous that they both might quit. It was a battle he knew nothing about but that he was prepared to fight until the end.

Most of all, he was sad that he might lose the only person he had left.

Draco cried for so long that he fell asleep with his head on the bed beside her and her hand clutched tight.

He hoped he didn't wake up until she did.

Paris was dark.

The sky was empty of stars—completely black. It looked like someone had spilled ink across the universe, covering it in shadows and destroying the cosmos. There were no people and the lights burned eerie, no liveliness or warmth remaining in them. The Eiffel Tower looked like a beacon for the dead, shining light into the nothing to beckon them closer.

And Draco was on the ground in the alleyway.

Confused, he sat up, glancing around.

Where were all the people? Why was the sky so dark?

Why was his skin crawling?

This was Paris and it had always been their nightmare, but it was always alive. There were people. Voices. Life.

Now, it felt dead.

What was more dead than a nightmare?

Draco stood up, glancing down to see he was in the same hooded jumper and torn denims that he'd worn that day in the waking world. He glanced behind him, down the alleyway towards the section of the city that he remembered Hermione having come from the first time.

It faded into pitch darkness.

A shiver rippled up his spine. This was very, very different from the first two times. It felt sinister. Wrong.

He swallowed and turned to face the street. Walking out to the empty sidewalk, he saw the promenade. It was lit up like Christmas just as always, but there were no people milling about outside the shops. In every direction, everything faded into the pitch darkness that was also behind him. It was almost like the light existed around him. Almost like . . .

Was he the light in this dream?

Another shudder ran through him, urging him onward. He crossed the street, not bothering to look both ways knowing that if there were no people, then there would be no cars. He turned and headed for the hotel. It loomed high and blue before him, countless black windows stretching up to the dark, starless sky.

Only one window was lit up.

Draco entered the hotel.

The lobby looked strange. The lights were on as though there were people to run the hotel but the concierge desk was empty. He headed for the elevator, feeling another chill traveling up each vertebrae of his spine like a tracing hand. When he stepped inside and turned to face the lobby, the ink of the sky had followed him.

It was dark.

As the doors shut, Draco gulped.

He really was the light.

The elevator's music was off tempo, playing a discordant tune that sounded like a broken melody. Like the person playing it was missing half of the sheet music, or the notes were incorrect. Draco hated it. It made him feel like his ears were bleeding or like time was bouncing back in on itself.

It felt like he was at the event horizon.

Stepping off of the elevator felt like the shredded pieces of himself had sewn themselves back together. He gasped, clutching a hand to his chest. It felt tight, like the air up here was constricted and thin. Glancing behind him, he saw darkness in the elevator when the doors closed on the warped music still playing inside.

And then it was silent.

Draco looked down the hall to the right. The blue carpet and white walls with the generic ocean-themed paintings faded into darkness, just like everything else beyond the halo of light that surrounded him. He couldn't look at it too long—it felt like something was going to jump out at him.

He went to the left, headed for the room he knew to be hers. This time, he didn't knock. He placed his hand on the handle and turned it, pushing it open so that he could step inside. Closing it behind him, he looked in and saw that the room was empty. Outside the window, he saw the Tower, its light barely making traction against the starless sky. The light of the lamp was on and the curtains were open, just like they had been the first two times.

It felt like he was lost in space. Like this version of Paris existed, but only in a place far away from the Paris he knew. He was standing in it but all around him, there was nothing for lightyears and lightyears, just like the stars in space. From Earth, they looked like they existed together. In reality, they were far apart, dark matter keeping them lonely.

There was something so cosmically horrific about it that he believed time had dissolved.

He looked at the loo.

The door was cracked, dim light spilling out from the small opening. Draco crept closer. The bubble of silence burst.

Someone was crying.

Draco pushed the door open and stepped into the small room.

The light was dingy, the lightbulb dirty and hazed. It looked like the room was decaying, the paint on the walls peeling away as though it were hundreds of years old. The large mirror was shattered, lines splintering outward like spiderwebs. Beneath his boots, the tile floor was cracked and molding. The tub, once pristine and white, was yellowing with bacteria.

The toilet was full of vomit, browns and greens pooled in the dirty water and giving off a scent as rancid as rotting flesh.

Hermione was nude in the bathtub with her back to the door, sitting in bloody water that sloshed over the edge while the shower poured more on top of her head. She shivered, signifying that the water was ice-cold, and her arms were wrapped around her knees. The ends of her curls trailed through the water, floating atop it like tendrils of shadow.

She was covered in blood.

Draco took a cautious step closer and saw that the washcloth was floating near her, soaked crimson. He could hear that her sobs were not as wordless as he'd originally thought. They had purpose and meaning. They were a lamentation.

She was counting.

"One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five."

Draco stopped beside the tub, his heart beating a painful tattoo in his chest as he put the pieces together. She'd washed herself for so long that she'd scrubbed her flesh raw. That was why she was covered in blood. That was why the water ran red.

"One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five."

Draco's thoughts raced, tripping over themselves as they came together and formed the answers.

Their dream worlds were different.

Draco's was rolling hills, an emerald sky, silver stars, gardenias that glowed opalescent in the moonlight. The sea was his father. The flowers were his mother. The colors were the things that made him happy. The mountains and sprawling grass knolls represented a state of being where he could exist in paradise.

His dream world was a place where he felt loved.

Hermione's was a shameful, tiny, dirty place where all she could do was burn. She burned in torment night after night, forced to relive the moment that time had stopped for her. And now that she had died—now that her heart had stopped and she was barely clinging to life—the nightmare had turned to shadows. It was now a place where she could wash, and wash, and wash, and she would never feel clean. She had a bloody shower, a splintered mirror, decaying paint, and a toilet full of sick.

Her dream world was a cage.

And that was the answer.

The answer to the question of why Draco had never been able to go into her dreams without outside affect, yet she had been able to go into his. It was because their dreams were not of their minds. They were not figments of their imagination, existing in their heads to bring those imagined things to life.

Their dreams were of their hearts.

Draco's dream world was a reflection of his heart. Hermione's dream world was a reflection of her heart. The star bond drew a path between the two. Before now, he'd only seen her memories because she was alone. But he was here now. He had the key to her chains.

She'd finally let him in.

"One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four—"

"Hermione."

She went rigid. "Why are you here?"

Draco was calm as he stood there, next to the bath. "I'm here for you."

"Get out."

"No."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" She ducked her head down further, the blood swirling in the water. "I just wanna be alone."

"I know," he said, "but I'm not gonna let you. Not anymore."

"You're not here because you don't want me to be alone," she spat, her voice thick and muffled as her back hunched further. Her words grew slurred, frenetic. "You're not here because you care. You're only here because you want something out of me. You're all the same. You all want things out of me. Everything. Everything I have. You want to take it. To take it and take me and leave nothing behind."

"That's not true." He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself amongst the putrid air in the room. "I don't want anything that you don't want to give me. I just want you, no matter how much you decide to give."

"I thought that's what you wanted," she said before she let out an anguished sob. "I thought you wanted the real me. But I'm not good enough. Who I am—the real me—isn't good enough for you. I'm manipulative and evil. I'm so evil and everything about me is bad. Maybe if I wasn't so bloody evil, then bad things wouldn't happen to me. Maybe he wouldn't have—have—" She spat out the word. "Raped me. Maybe Ron would have liked me better."

Hermione was devolving, reverting back to the person she was before Draco took the destroyed pieces of her heart and helped her put them back together. He was watching her fall apart.

Draco knew now what he'd done wrong.

"And now I'm dead," she continued, weeping like a mournful ghost. "I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. And I'm not coming back."

"You're not dead," he said. "And you're not bad. But you have to learn to see that for yourself. It's not enough to see yourself through my eyes—you have to see yourself through your own."

"How am I supposed to do that when everything I see makes me want to vomit?!"

"You heal. You work on yourself, you take it slow, and you heal." Draco lifted his chin. "I can help you."

"No."

"Yes. You're not dead—you're just sleeping. If you wake up, I can help you learn how to help yourself get better—"

"No!"

"—so you can work on healing and recover. And then—"

"No. No, no, no!"

"—you can see your worth on your own without needing me to be your eyes."

"No, no, no, no—" She inhaled and started shrieking it. "—no, no, no, no, no!"

Draco looked away for a moment.

He'd thought everything else was difficult. The war, Sixth Year, watching his father go to prison and waste away to the Cruciatus, watching his mother die . . . But he was wrong.

This was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.

"I can't be your eyes, Hermione. You have to be able to see it for yourself. You can't do this anymore, and neither can I. For both of us—for our family—you have to take the first step. You have to cross that river and take the first step to getting better."

Hermione's hands slammed over her ears, the bloody water splashing against Draco's denims. She shook her head, the denial manifesting as dark, painful shadows that spread outward from her body.

"You don't love me," she crooned, falling into fresh sobs. "No one does."

"That's not true, either." He was shaking. "I do."

"No, you don't. If you loved me, you wouldn't take it away from me. It's the only thing I have. Without it, I won't have anything that I can control."

"And with it, you'll die."

She was silent for a long moment, sniffling as she huddled there. Then, she whimpered.

"I can't."

"You can."

"I don't want to."

"And I love you."

"No." She squeezed her eyes shut—he could see it from her profile. "I don't want it."

Draco's voice trembled as he said, "I love you."

"Stop."

"I love you."

"Please stop!" she cried, rocking back and forth with her face buried in her knees.

She was curled up so tight, like she didn't want to take up space anymore. Like she wanted to disappear and cease existing.

Draco sank to his knees on the dirty tile. He lifted his hand, fingers still quivering, and he placed it on her back over her wet curls. She jolted but did not move away. The water was freezing cold, a cold so icy that it sunk deep into his bones.

"I chose you," he whispered. "And I'll continue to do so over and over again, no matter how hard it gets. You are so valuable to me and you have worth simply because you exist. I won't stop until you see that. But I can't carry you anymore, okay? I'm tired. I just want to hold your hand while we get through this together."

Draco paused to take a breath. He was vulnerable. This was his heart.

"You are it for me."

Hermione lifted her head, slowly turning it toward him. She looked into his eyes, her own glimmering like crystals with the amount of tears she held unshed within them.

And then she screamed.

Her eyes popped open. She opened her jaw wide—so wide that it was almost inhuman—and she screamed. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed.

It hurt.

The volume rose to a crescendo so high that he felt his ears begging him for reprieve. Draco collapsed backward onto the floor, his back hitting the cupboard beneath the sink as he covered his ears with his hands. Hermione looked like a monster, her hair hanging in wet strands over her face, blood streaking her tawny skin with crimson. The shadows she emitted grew thicker, pervading the light Draco gave off and trying to stifle it.

She screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and—

Then, he heard it.

Cracking sounds, like an ice floe breaking into pieces.

Draco looked up.

It was the walls. They were splintering, just like the glass of the mirror. The louder her monstrous screams, the faster they cracked. Her eyes squinted shut. Her screaming intensified, got even louder, and then—

The room shattered.

It completely shattered, glass shards of her nightmare scattering all over into nothing. Draco was the only source of light for miles and miles as they fell through the dark, starless sky. His stomach lifted clear into his chest to join his pounding heart, fear bringing a horror that he'd never felt before to the forefront of his mind.

Hermione wasn't screaming anymore.

She was reaching for him.

'Stop trying to hold it together and be perfect all the time. You certainly don't need to do it for me.'

And Draco knew this was it—she was reaching out. She wanted help. She was reaching for him because she was ready to get better.

He just had to take her hand.

"Wake up, Hermione!"

'You don't have to do or say or be anything other than yourself.'

Draco reached for her, his arm straining as they fell through space and time in circles. The tips of their fingers brushed. Her eyes were wide, full of terror and desperation as she scrambled, trying to grasp hold. He curled his fingers, trying to twine them together, to connect the two of them the same way the stars did.

"Hermione, please wake up!"

'I'm scared I'll hurt you.'

But he missed.

He missed, and her hand went to the right. His fingers slipped past.

They both gasped.

"Hermione," he said, voice frantic as their gazes locked one last time. "When we wake up, I have to tell you something. If you wake up right now, I promise you that I will tell you everything. But you have to wake up."

"I'm trying," she said, squeezing her eyes shut again and again. "I'm trying! I'm—"

'You. Are. Clean.'

She faded.

Hermione faded into nothing and was gone.

Draco was alone in the darkness. Falling for eternity as Hermione faded away from her own dream. Falling and falling and falling. Something clawed at the back of his mind, one sharp nail gouging at the same spot over and over and over.

'Do you hear me?'

Something felt broken. Something felt wrong.

'I still want you.'

Destroyed.

'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?'

Shattered.

'Don't stop trying. Don't ever stop trying.'