Soundtrack- "Face of the Father" by Tony Anderson

Epilogue

"Draco," Granger placed her hand on his cheek, pushing her fingers into his hair a little.

Draco grinned and closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of her palm against his skin.

"Kiss me," she said softly and Draco leaned forward, shifting on the bed and pressed his lips to hers. They were so soft and he could feel them spreading against his as she smiled wider. He wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her closer as he took her mouth. Vanilla and cinnamon swam into his senses and Draco spread his hands out across her back, tracing down her spine with long fingers.

"Mmm," she pulled her lips into her mouth, tasting them and opened her bright cinnamon eyes. "I love this. I love you."

"I love you too, Hermione. God, I love you." It was burning in him. Hell didn't hold a candle to this inferno and he could have spent an eternity with her, in her, and it would still not be enough.

"Then kiss me." Her sweet lips pulled in another smile. "Kiss me, Draco. Touch me. Fu-"

A wave hit his face, flooding his mouth with salt water, choking him. Granger's sweet smell vanished, as did the warmth of her hand, her soft lips. All of her.

Draco spluttered and spat out the water, coughing to clear his lungs of the harsh salt water. He pushed himself up, blinking heavily against the bright light around him. Despite the water dripping down his face, his lips were dry and chapped. All of his skin felt hot and tight, burning under the relentless sun above him.

He groaned as he sat up and saw the wine bottle sitting on the wet sand beside him. He had taken it with him before coming out here yesterday evening, after his Mother had screamed at him to get out, to leave. He had been more than happy to get out of the villa and away from his father's blood curdling screams.

The warm weather was supposed to be helping his father, but Draco had not noticed much of an improvement. Lucius could hardly get out of bed on his own. Hell, he barely spoke besides his babbling. He shivered and screamed, eyes wide and wild as he thrashed about lost in his delirium.

"Draco! Help me hold him down!" His mother had called to him, trying to push down one of his father's arms.

This wasn't the first fit he had witnessed, but they all disturbed him just the same. Draco stared, appalled, at the ruined man twisting in the sheets. Dark runes, sigils, and numbers stained the grey skin underneath. His ribs were sticking out sharply and his muscles had diminished to strings almost as thin as the lank blond hair that was left on the pillow every time Lucius lifted his head from it.

This was not his father. It couldn't be.

"Please!" his mother had begged and Draco moved quickly, holding his father's arm down at the wrist and shoulder as she tried to utter calming words between her tears. The fit passed after a moment and his father whimpered and moaned, sinking back into the bed, mumbling incoherently.

Narcissa bent over him, brushing her hands over his hollowed cheeks.

"My love, oh my love," she said tearfully. "You're safe. They can't get you here. Not here. Not with me beside you."

Draco felt the fight leave his father and let go of his arm. He watched his mother smooth his father's hair, whispering softly to him until his mumbling stopped. Lucius looked up at her with pale grey eyes, blinking them as he recognized her.

Then his thin arms reached up, latching around her and pulled her down to him. Narcissa held him back and buried her face in his neck, muffling the sound of her cries against his shaking body.

Draco turned away. He couldn't look at them. Didn't want to look at them. It hurt. In more ways than one. To see his parents, people he had once thought untouchable, reduced to this. Running, hiding, crying.

But at least they were together.

Not like him and Granger. He had left her there, in the mud, bruised and broken. Hurt. He had hurt her and he wasn't there to hold her and tell her it was alright.

After all his promises, after everything he had told her, he had hurt her again. He had tried so hard to-

Draco gritted his teeth. No. He couldn't keep replaying what happened on the tower. It drove him mad, thinking, knowing, that he had been so close, so fucking close…

And it hadn't been enough. He hadn't been enough. He had failed. Just like his fucking waste of a father.

Draco glared at the man he once revered.

"See? You're safe." His mother pulled the blanket up over him, covering a few of the tattoos on his chest. "I'm going to take care of you, protect you."

Draco's heart lurched in his chest painfully.

"Why bother?" Draco scoffed and she turned sharply towards him. "Fucking useless. You hear me, old man? You're nothing but a-"

"Draco!" He was surprised to see such frost covering his mother's normally gentle eyes. "I will not let you speak to your father this way-"

"That's not my father!" Draco shouted, pointing at Lucius and meeting his bloodshot eyes for a second before quickly looking away. Then he mumbled, "That's not my father."

He had done all of this to save his father and this… this shell of a man was what he got in return.

"Maybe if you would have worked a little faster then he wouldn't be in this condition." His mother's voice was soft, but clear and Draco felt the words cutting into him. She was right. He could have had his father out weeks ago. But he stayed. For her.

Lucius raised his hand up, as if he was reaching for his son, but fell short. Draco did not move.

"Maybe I should have waited another week and the dementors would have taken care of him for you."

Narcissa's blue eyes flashed in warning.

"Get out!" she hissed harshly, standing up and rounding on him. "Leave! Go drink until you pass out. That's all you do anyways. Is that what took you so long? Getting pissed with your little friends while your father was being eaten alive?"

Deep anger flared up in Draco's chest. But the truth was worse than her accusation. He hadn't stayed at school to drink with his friends, he had stayed to keep fucking a Mudblood. He had stayed to try and make her fall in love with him. No, even worse than that- he had stayed because he loved her.

And then he had betrayed everyone and everything for her. For nothing.

Draco looked into the deep blue eyes of his mother and then to the floor. He was doing the same thing to her he had done to anyone who had ever shown him an ounce of kindness- hurt them and push them away. She was sitting here, trying to nurse her husband back to health and he was only making this harder on her.

"Grow up, Draco," Narcissa snapped and turned away from him. "This family needs a Malfoy in charge and unfortunately," she glanced back at him. "You're all we have right now."

He had taken two of the wine bottles and headed out of the villa and onto the beach as the sun hit the horizon. It burned a deep orange as it sunk into the dark waves and Draco swallowed down mouthful after mouthful of the elven wine until he fell back against the still warm sand and watched the stars above swirl and sway.

He brought the bottle back up and sucked down the last drops. He tossed it and heard it land with a thud in the soft sand. In the distance he could hear his father screaming again. It was always worse at night. They had come here because the heat and the sun was supposed to be good for him, but the dark night brought all his nightmares back.

And Draco's too.

"Granger… where are you?" he asked the foamed topped waves. He wanted nothing more than to get the fuck off this stupid little island and find her, take her, keep her. What had she done after he had… left her? Draco swallowed hard at the memory of her toffee curls, soaked in dirty water and her wide doe eyes looking up at him, so innocent. So… pure.

"Draco… Don't do this."

He grabbed the next bottle and summoned the cork from it, gulping down as much as he could before he pulled it away, gasping.

A wind whipped up from the ocean, pushing his white blonde hair up off his forehead before it returned back to toss the churning water. Another wave rushed up the beach, but this one fell short of him, only catching the empty wine bottle and lifting it before pulling down the shore.

He hated everything. Everyfuckingthing. Hated this fucking wine because it made him feel sick instead of drunk. Hated this island that he couldn't fucking get off of. Hated this ocean keeping him from getting back to the one person who didn't make him want to claw his eyes out at the sight of them. Granger. He wanted her so fucking bad. Just to be here. With him.

He felt as empty as the dark sky above him without even the light of the moon to glisten off of the black waters.

How many days had he been here? It took two or three days to get news to the island, but there hadn't been much anyways and of course nothing mentioning her. The only thing that had really disturbed him was the Daily Prophet's article titled "Albus Dumbledore Remembered". Heavy guilt churned deep in him and Draco hadn't even been able to finish the paper before ripping it up and throwing the scraps into the endless waves, beating against the shore.

He watched the waves until they made him feel sick and then laid back on the soft sand, staring up into the inky vastness of the night sky. What was she doing right now? Was she laying safe and warm in her bed? Tucked in tight? No… she was sitting up, reading the last few pages of some book that she had been the first to knock the dust off of in fifty years. She would blink her cinnamon eyes, finding them drier than she expected and rub them a little before sinking down against her pillow and promising herself just one more chapter.

Draco breathed in deeply, trying to focus on the distant light of the stars, but the wine had taken hold of him and a deep pressure pushed on the inside of his skull. It pushed against the back of his eyes and he felt his chest tighten in response. He hated everything. Everything but her.

He should be with her right now, but everything had gone wrong that night. She had been his- completely his. Then it had all gone to shit. And stuck here, he couldn't help but dwell on it; going over every little detail, every single word, look, touch. If he didn't stop replaying it all he would end up screaming bloody murder just like his father in there.

He drank the rest of the wine, hoping to drown out the images inside his head. He missed her. Fucking hell, he missed her. Did she miss him? Did she hate him? Of course she did. He had been brutal. But he had done what he had to in order to keep her safe. If Bellatrix had recognized her… Draco closed his eyes tightly as the image of Granger staring up at him from the mud puddle changed to her lying still and silent on the ground.

He wouldn't let that happen. No matter what it took. No matter what he had to do. He had done what she- No. Draco swallowed hard. He hadn't done what she asked. He had failed in that task as well. Dumbledore was dead and there was nothing he could do about that now. Now there was only one way to keep her safe. He had been a fool, a stupid love drunk fool, to try any other way. And look where that got him- sitting on a shitty beach. Alone. Far, far away from her.

"I'll come for you," he whispered to the weak fires of the stars. "I will come for you, Hermione. I promise."

The dull roar of the waves lulled him to sleep, blocking out the faint sounds of his father falling into another fit.

But now the sound of the waves was deafening as the effects of the wine pounded around inside his skull. He pulled himself up the beach some, out of the threat of the next set of waves rushing up the shore towards him. He blinked hard against the too bright light surrounding him. The sand was hot under his hands and Draco pressed them harder into it, wanting to feel something, anything, but the empty coldness that threatened to engulf him.

He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be with her. No… that wasn't entirely right either. He wanted her to be with him. But she was an ocean away. More than an ocean; she was a war away. A war that she'd be fighting against him. A war that he'd fight for her. Would she want to come with him? Would he have to imperius her again? She'd never trust him now. Never. Not after what he'd done.

And not if she knew what he was willing to do to get her back.

Draco looked out over the waves and saw dark clouds in the distance.

Please still love me.

He got to his feet, groaning when his head pounded at each beat of his heart and his burned skin protested at the movement. The sand was dry and thick and he fought his way up the beach and back into the villa.

There was a glass pitcher of water and Draco greedily drank as much as he could. The fresh, crisp water washed the last of the salt from his mouth and he smacked his lips as he placed the back on the counter, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He could feel the stubble on his chin getting thicker.

His skin was tender from the heat of the morning sun. There was a simple enough charm to protect against sunburns, but passed out on the sand, he unknowingly had been at the full mercy of the scorching sun. He looked down at his arms, red with white hairs. Then turning it over, the dark mark. The skin around it was untouched, pale and grey with a faint purple underneath. The sun's heat had not reached it.

Lucius kept his well hidden, but Draco had seen it a few times growing up. His most vivid memory of it was when his father rolled up his sleeves to finish off a stag that Draco's hounds had brought down. His father dismounted gracefully from his white stallion and unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves, pulling them up before turning to his son and holding his hand out for the knife. Draco barely heard him as he stared at the skull and snake on his father's forearm.

It was identical to the one that had been branded on his own skin and it bore the same bruised shadow around it. It would never heal. It would never end.

"Draco!" Lucius had snapped and Draco jumped, pulling the blade from its sheath and handing it to his father. "Call back your hounds, they'll spoil the meat."

Draco snapped his fingers and his hounds retreated, circling around his mount whining with red, lolling tongues.

His father had set to work. In the middle of the woods, with no one around, Lucius had not been scared to bare his Lord's mark. It was the last thing the stag ever saw before he cut his throat.

But that was back when his father still took him on hunts. Before the Dark Lord returned and his father got too busy, too serious, to spend any of his spare time with his less than perfect son. His mother still made the house elves set the table for three every evening, even when it was painfully obvious Lucius would not be home. Even at fourteen, Draco had been able to see the strain this put on his mother and had done his best to be there for her.

He should go and apologize to her. Draco knew he had been uncommonly cruel to her yesterday and then left her alone with her ailing husband all night. Her expression would be cold and disdainful, but if he brought what was left of this water and maybe sat with his father so she could have a few moments to herself he knew that by this evening she would have put his indiscretion behind her.

Draco summed a goblet and grabbed the pitcher of water off of the counter and headed through the long open halls of the villa to his father's room.

"Just a little more," his mother's soft voice reached him as he stepped over the threshold. "There, all done."

His father was sitting up in bed and his mother dabbed at his face, cleaning the remnants of shaving cream from his chin. She held up a silver mirror for him to look in. "So handsome," she murmured and kissed his smooth, hollow cheek.

Lucius stared at himself until she took the mirror away and mumbled a small "Thank you."

Draco took another step in as Narcissa busied herself, cleaning up the bowl, towel, and razor she had been using and setting it far away from the bed. Lucius looked up at him, a bit more reason in his pale grey eyes than there had been before.

"Son."

"Father."

Draco poured the water into the goblet and handed it to him. Lucius took it with a shaking hand, slopping a little over the side. He tried to drink it, but ended up spilling more than he got in his mouth.

Useless.

Draco looked away.

"I didn't think we would be seeing you today," Narcissa commented dryly as she wiped her small hands off and pushed a lock of her silver blonde hair that had fallen from her loose bun.

"I'm feeling better."

"So is your father," her eyes were like ice. "No thanks to you."

Lucius coughed a little and Narcissa took the goblet from him so he could lay back again.

Draco stared at the floor, not wanting to look at either of his parents. "I can go if you want."

"No. I want to take him out for some fresh air today and I'll need your help."

A warm breeze blew through the open window, but Draco held back his smart remark. His mother seemed to be waiting on him to say something sarcastic and when he didn't her expression softened fractionally.

The last thing he wanted to do was go sit on the beach again under the blaring sun when his head was still throbbing and his skin was still burning, but what else was he going to do? This was his life, for however long they were on this island, and he had to live it. At least he wasn't living it at the Dark Lord's feet.

Yet.

Narcissa was folding a spare blanket and moved past Draco to set it on a chair.

"I know this is hard for you, but he needs you right now."

"Yes, Mother."

"He's getting better. You didn't see him when he first arrived. Being here is helping and in another week he will-"

Draco groaned, gritting his teeth together as Lucius cried out, writhing on the bed.

His mark, their marks, were burning. But not like the tender heat of his skin, this felt acidic. Poisonous. Corrosive.

Draco growled, clasping his hand to his arm and looked up into his mother's deep blue eyes, as wide as the coastline behind her. They began to fill with a thin line of water.

"Return." That high, hissing voice made Draco's skin crawl and for a moment even the heat of his sunburn left him.

Then the pain was gone, resonating as only a dull, deep ache. Draco gasped, sucking down a few heavy breaths and looked at his father. Lucius was whimpering, cradling his arm to his chest and staring straight back at Draco.

He heard his mother inhale sharply and then she rushed to her husband's side, pushing his hair out of his face and running her hands down his arms and chest. Over the runes and symbols, over the waxy skin, and finally over the mark. Lucius shuddered, then quieted.

Draco's pulse was slamming through his veins, carrying with it hot adrenaline. His arm ached and his fingers went numb. The coldness spread across his chest. His lungs seized up and he could not take air into his lungs. The island he had been cursing these last days had been a reprieve, a sanctuary. But no longer. He was a Death Eater and his Lord was calling him.

After a moment Lucius sat himself up and did his best to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Narcissa kept her hands on him, steadying him. Draco couldn't breathe. His chest was tight and he couldn't get his lungs to work.

Lucius shakily pushed himself up, swaying on his feet. His voice was raspy when he spoke. "He called… you too?" It seemed even that simple phrase was hard for him to get out and he was breathing heavily from his efforts.

Narcissa was holding onto her husband's arm, trying to help him balance when she glanced back at her son.

Draco nodded, refusing to meet his mother's eyes which were staring at him, wide with fear. He forced himself instead to keep his gaze trained on the pale greys of his father, almost the same shade as his ashen skin.

"We must…" Lucius panted. "Obey."

Draco said nothing, but turned away, walking stiffly out of the room.

They were going back. But to what? He had no idea what lay waiting for him back home. Another gentle briny breeze blew into the long, open halls of the villa, but Draco's body was too numb to feel it. He was going back. Back to his life. Back to his Lord. Back to her.

Soundtrack

"On the Nature of Daylight" – Max Richter

"You Know Me Too Well" – Nothing But Thieves (Chapter 3)

"Oysara" – Tony Anderson (Chapter 5)

"Use Me Up" – Until the Ribbon Breaks (Chapter 9)

"It Will Come Back" – Hozier (Chapter 13)

"Convalescence" – Message to Bears (Chapter 16)

"Misquote" (Acoustic) – Super Whatevr (Chapter 17)

"Leave Like That" – SYML ft. Jean Champion (Chapter 19)

"Maniac" – Phoebe Green (Chapter 19) - Draco's theme

"Mixed Signals" – Ruth B (Chapter 20)

"Break My Baby" – Kaleo (Chapter 21)

"Cringe" – Matt Maeson (Chapter 21)

"No Time to Die" – Billie Eilish (Chapter 22)

"Tribulation" (Stripped) – Matt Maeson (Chapter 22)

"Devil Like Me" – Akine (Chapter 23) - Hermione's theme

"Persephone" – Tamino (Chapter 23)

"The Hearse" (Stripped) – Matt Maeson (Chapter 24)

"Dawn, the Front" – Talos (Chapter 24)

"Power" – Isak Danielson (Chapter 25)

"The Enemy" – Andrew Belle (Chapter 25)

"Face of the Father" – Tony Anderson (Epilogue)

A/N: I cannot express my sincere gratitude to every single person who has read this story. Your comments, reviews, follows, likes, everything- means more to me than I could ever possibly convey. Your kind words, your constant encouragement, and your love for this story is what kept me writing.

All of the people who commented saying how much they love this story and my writing style and just saying it is one of their favorite Dramione fics… y'all… I can't get past how sweet you all are to me. Believe me, your reviews mean so so much to me and I can't say thank you enough for taking the time to share your feedback with me. Over 400 reviews?! I am humbled by you all.

If you follow me on Twitter or Tumblr, you've probably seen that I am moving everything over to AO3 because it's only a matter of time before my fics get taken down on FFN. I will post This Bitter Earth here if I still can, but if you ever see these disappear, just look for Ikorous on AO3 and you'll be able to find me.

This Bitter Earth is going to be much darker. I am going to use canon a bit as a backdrop in it, but it won't follow Deathly Hallows as closely as Daylight did Half Blood Prince. Whereas Daylight focused more on Hermione, I think This Bitter Earth will focus more on Draco. If it goes according to plan. I'm thinking of getting a beta for it so if you're interested, message me on Twitter or Tumblr. I've never had a beta before so… we will see if that works or not.

Once again, thank you to everyone who read, followed, favorited, and reviewed. I love you, dear readers.

xx, Ikorous | Amory Blame.