Don't Look Back
- 27 -
Lucky / Ruined
This is not how she imagined it.
When the whites fade to greys and the greys collapse into black — when the world falls out from under her — she knows it's over. But this is not how she imagined death.
It looks right, in a way. Pure and bright, a thin layer of clean fog spanning the ground beneath her feet. The light from above is dappled and gentle, and there's no sense of pain. No sense of hot or cold. No discomfort.
But it doesn't feel right.
She doesn't feel peace.
Breathing in — can she still do that? — she takes a few steps forward, realizing quickly that she's not standing on solid ground. Water threshes around her ankles, disturbing the fog. The shallows of some serene, endless lake.
She bends, reaching out to sweep the fog away and see what's below.
But the hands aren't hers. And neither is the reflection looking up at her from the water.
It's Malfoy's.
Light explodes from behind just as the gasp leaves her throat, but when she whirls to face it, she's swallowed once more by darkness. Darkness that becomes her only companion for time she cannot measure.
Pain finds her before consciousness.
And the more she begins to feel each ache — the more every inch of her seems to throb with it — the less she believes she's actually dead.
She's so riddled with discomfort by the time she's able to peel her eyes open that when the light bleeds through her lashes, she's already expecting to see the Hospital Wing.
This is not it.
This is a room she's only glimpsed once or twice in all her years at Hogwarts — pure luck and good timing.
The Gryffindor Head Girl's dormitory.
She knows because the bed curtains draped across the four-poster she's laid out on are Gryffindor colors, and yet made of a far nicer velvet.
And because the bed itself is twice the size of the one she's used to sleeping in.
Her gaze sinks lower, tracing the outline of her legs covered by the sheets. Her left leg throbs and reflexively tenses with each breath she takes. Her right arm burns.
She makes some sort of weak, unintelligible noise in the back of her throat, squinting into the dappled morning light drifting in from the windows. Quick as a flash, Madam Pomfrey appears in her periphery, face slowly coming into focus.
Hermione's woken up in her care before — ages ago, in Second Year. But even then, nearly killed by a Basilisk, the matron's expression had been calm. Doubtless. And it was a comfort, residing in such confident hands.
There is very little Madam Pomfrey can't mend.
But on this day, the matron's face is tense, gaze calculating and somewhat uncertain. And that's not very comforting at all.
Neither are her words.
"Do you know who I am?"
Hermione drags her voice out of a sandpaper throat. "Madam Pomfrey."
"Do you know where you are?"
"Hogwarts."
"Any memory of what happened to you?"
There aren't words for that. None that she can come up with. So she just fixes her tired eyes on the matron and nods.
Madam Pomfrey takes a seat next to her near the foot of the bed, a bottle of Dittany and a cloth in hand. "Then I'll be frank with you." Movements curt, she pulls the sheet up from around Hermione's feet and starts to apply it where she can't see. Her thighs, she thinks, though the sensations are dull. "You are lucky to be alive — and even I am not quite sure how you managed it."
The words seem to pass right through her, and instead she's left thinking of the last thing she can remember.
Images of the forest flood her mind. The black, twisted outlines of the trees. The bright scarlet of her own blood. And the look in Malfoy's eyes.
Everything after that is darkness.
"Recovery will take time," says Madam Pomfrey. "You're coming out of hypothermia. Excessive blood loss. Several compound fractures and a concussion."
She doesn't even remember hitting her head. "How — how did I get back to the Castle?"
Madam Pomfrey's eyes flit up briefly before focusing back on their work. "You were carried."
Her chest swells with something painful. Something she can't attribute to her wounds.
"By Malfoy." It's not a question.
Madam Pomfrey nods, wetting the cloth with more Dittany. "Relentless boy. Pounded on my office door until his hands were bloody, then practically dropped you at my feet without a word."
"So you know what he is."
A disapproving huff. "Wasn't hard to riddle out. After all my years in medicine, I know wounds like yours only come from one thing—"
"It's not his fault."
Sharp eyes meet hers now, a shrewd brow raised. "Who said anything about fault?"
No one. But she could make an educated guess that it's hers.
Madam Pomfrey stoppers the Dittany and vanishes the cloth. "I checked you thoroughly for bite wounds. It's hard to say for certain, considering the state you were in, but I feel fairly confident you haven't been infected. I should think we'd know by now."
Hermione releases a heavy breath, trying to adjust herself so she can sit up. She has more questions than she knows what to do with, one already poised on her tongue when Madam Pomfrey rushes to push her shoulders back down.
"No. You need rest. Several more days worth, if I have anything to say about it. Right now, you're to focus on nothing but healing."
She doesn't get the chance to ask what the matron means by several more days. A spoonful of Dreamless Sleep Potion is promptly ladled into her mouth, and she's far too weak to resist.
Once more into the darkness.
The warmer tint of the light suggests it's early evening the next time she wakes — and not to find Madam Pomfrey's stern presence at her side.
Neville is worrying over a stack of parchment in his lap, sifting through the pages. It takes him almost a full minute to notice her gaze, and he drops a few sheets when he does.
"Oh — Hermione, hi. Hi..." He scrambles to set the papers aside, scooting his chair closer and asking, "How are you? How are you feeling? Are you in a lot of pain?" in quick succession. But he doesn't give her time to answer before the words start tumbling out. "Listen, I — let me just...I'm so sorry. Before you say anything, just know that. I — I had no idea that paramours had a tendency to — well, you know. I just — I would never've given you the Wolfsbane if I'd—"
"Neville..." She reaches out with her good hand, resting it on top of his. "Stop."
"I—"
"None of this is your fault." That, at the very least, she's certain of. Clearing her dry throat, she struggles once more to sit up against the headboard. "It's — ah..." She sucks the air in through her teeth as the pain flares up in her leg, speaking through a tight jaw. "It's my fault, I know."
Neville immediately reaches for the bottle of Dittany on the nightstand beside her, but she waves him off.
"Can — can I help you? Should I get Madam—"
"Yes," she huffs out, finally dragging herself all the way upright even as Neville winces, hands twitching like he wants to assist. "I mean no. No, don't get Madam Pomfrey. But yes, you can help me."
"How?"
"Answer my questions? Help me piece all of this together, please — I have so much I can't account for."
Neville nods emphatically, scooting closer still, and she plans to start with the most simple. Truly, she does. The when and how of it all.
But some instinct tells her she won't process a single word until she knows —
"Where is Malfoy?" And she doesn't realize it's true until she says it out loud. "I can't feel him at all."
Neville, to his credit, seems to understand the delicacy of this subject. His tone is gentle. Aimed to soothe. "He's...alright, I think. He's here in the Castle. Professor Dumbledore offered to let him take some time away, but I guess he thought — well, with the both of you gone, it would seem strange."
Alright.
She mulls the word over, trying to peel away its layers and uncover what it really means.
"Was he hurt?"
"No, I don't think so. He—"
"Did he seem angry with me?"
Neville's voice wavers, a little helpless. "I honestly don't know, Hermione. I only saw him the one time. When Dumbledore pulled us all aside to discuss what would come next."
"Next..." she echoes, searching his eyes.
Neville only shrugs. "Get our story straight, I suppose. We all have to have the same one when people ask questions."
She blinks at him vacantly for a moment, then glances away. Finds herself actually studying the room for the first time.
"And what is the story?" Her eyes trace the diamond-pane windows. The fireplace in the corner and the ornate sofa beside it. All the lavish amenities meant for a Head of House, which she is decidedly not. This year's Head Girl is a Ravenclaw, so the room must've been vacant.
"Erm...well." Neville itches at the back of his head. "It's sort of my fault, really, but we...uh — well, we went with the Black Cat Flu. The rumors were already spreading, and when I brought it up to Dumbledore, he thought it was a better idea than inventing something new. Story is you were transferred to St. Mungo's for treatment. Which is why I sort of had to nick this from Harry." He twists and rustles through those papers again, only to turn back and hand her the Marauder's Map.
Her brows raise of their own accord.
"He thinks he misplaced it. I just...didn't think it would work out so well for us if he saw you where you shouldn't be. But once you're back on your feet, it can turn up under a sofa somewhere."
She traces one of its weathered corners absently with the tip of her finger.
Neville clears his throat. "Did you want to hang on to it?"
"Alright."
He smiles — one that's meant to be reassuring. But it doesn't reach his eyes, and she catches them shifting towards the sheets covering her legs more than once.
"I haven't looked yet," she says quietly. Resigned. "Is it horrible?"
He's a little too quick to shake his head, tripping over his words. "No — no, not really. Not — not at all. Madam Pomfrey kept saying it should've been worse." He lurches forward when she starts to tug on the sheets. "Oh — no, maybe you...maybe you shouldn't—"
His voice trails off with a defeated sigh as she drags them fully aside, and they collapse into a white heap on the floor next to the bed.
"Oh."
There's a small part of her that wants to squirm at the sight — but it's somewhat overshadowed. More than anything, she looks upon the damage and feels a sort of clinical detachment. Perhaps it's the concussion.
Her left leg is stained a purplish-black, the darkness mostly concentrated at her thigh and tapering off down towards her shin. She can see where the bone snapped. Did it snap or was it crushed? Either way, there's swelling to prove it, and Madam Pomfrey has it set in a magical brace. She flexes her toes experimentally, almost relieved by the wave of pain that rushes up to greet her.
"Try not to move it," says Neville gently.
"Just checking it still works."
The right leg is far better off, mostly scraped by brambles and spotted with bruises. But those claws tore through the backs of her thighs, if her mottled memory serves her right. She wonders what the scars will look like.
"I think Madam Pomfrey said the right ankle was only sprained."
Her eyes shift lazily to find the bandage. "Mm," is all she says. She wants to see her arm.
But Neville tenses up immediately when he notices her trying to move it, trapping what's left of the sheets against the mattress so she can't pull it free. "Ah. Uh — Hermione, just...wait a minute, alright? I need to—"
"Let me see it."
"You should just be—"
"Neville." It's the most strength she's been able to muster in her voice yet, and he goes very still, eyes nervous. "Let me see it."
His weight eases off, and slowly he lets her draw it out from beneath the sheets.
Not what she was expecting.
Neville's reaction had her thinking it might not even still be attached — that the sensations she'd been feeling were phantom pains. But her right arm is very much intact. It's just —
"What did Madam Pomfrey do?" she breathes, twisting it slowly to see all the way around.
These are not normal scars.
The deep gouges left by the monster's talons are not held together by stitches, nor by scabs. There's no tell-tale sheen of healing salve or magical adhesive. Instead the flesh, as it struggles to heal, is bonded together by something alien. A translucent, almost iridescent false skin fills the jagged wounds, traveling up and down her arm in a similar pattern to her own veins.
She's never seen healing magic like this.
"Madam Pomfrey didn't do it," says Neville in a quiet, cautious voice. "From what she told Dumbledore, it doesn't sound like she even knows what it is. When she cleaned the blood off of you, your arm was already..." He gestures limply in its direction and doesn't finish. "Everyone's guess is it's Malfoy's doing, but he won't say a word about it."
Her wide eyes meet his. "Malfoy did this?"
Neville shrugs apologetically. "No one really knows. I'm pretty sure...well, I think Professor Dumbledore was sort of hoping you might remember. Once you were feeling better."
She shakes her head, wordless, her gaze drawn back to the scars.
"Hermione..." Neville's voice is shy, now. As though he's not sure he's allowed to ask. "Did you really...run all night?"
Their eyes connect again sharply.
He swallows. "From Malfoy?"
A strange and immediate defensiveness makes her stiffen. "I ran from a werewolf," she says, lifting her chin. "A creature that didn't recognize me."
Neville doesn't seem like the type to see the worst in people. She really doesn't expect him to push back, and yet—
"Hermione, he..." A grimace warps his face. "Well, he sort of ripped you to pieces. I would think you'd—"
"Who sewed me back together?" she snaps. "You said it yourself."
Neville's mouth falls shut, cheeks growing pink as his gaze drops to his lap.
It takes her a long moment to soften, clenched fists gradually relaxing against the mattress. She remembers who she's talking to.
"Sorry...I'm sorry. I'm just—"
He shakes his head and forces a smile. "No, I understand. I do. It's alright. You've been through a lot." Then he twists, reaching for that stack of parchment. "I brought you notes from class. A few assignments you could work on if you wanted to while you're resting up. Professor McGonagall says you're excused from everything over the past week, but I figured you might still like to—"
"The past week?"
He winces a little. "Yeah, erm...sorry, I thought you knew. It took a long time for you to wake up." And he tucks his lips in like he doesn't want to say it. "I sort of worried you weren't going to."
So did she.
Puffing out a breath, she forces her own weak smile in turn. "Not so easy to get rid of me."
The days that follow start to wash together.
Both Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall come to visit her, but Malfoy remains notably absent — as does any sense of him whatsoever.
She's never felt the bond so dormant.
Professor Dumbledore delivers something of a boilerplate speech. A lecture, really, warning her not to take his words out of context. It would seem she was not supposed to favor the bond over all else in this situation.
She nods along numbly and commits none of it to memory.
Professor McGonagall fusses over her. A miniaturized hurricane of concern and disapproval. Slightly horrified and slightly impressed, as always.
And Madam Pomfrey comes and goes like a shadow.
Three days into consciousness, Hermione wakes to find a small parcel on her nightstand. The accompanying letter contains such dreadful handwriting, it takes her well over half a minute to decode just a few sentences.
Rude girls stun people on staircases. Put this on your scars.
Adrian
It must be the closest she's come to a real smile since the full moon, and she unwraps the parcel to find a jar no larger than the palm of her hand. Some sort of special salve. It smells strange. Sharp and earthy. Herbal in a sense that doesn't strike her as strictly legal.
So she hides it from Madam Pomfrey and only applies it at night.
The scars don't appear to be fading — but after a day or so, the aches start to dissipate.
As a whole, it's one of the loneliest periods of her life.
Neville visits when he's able but can never stay for long. And it reminds her of those first few weeks she ever spent at Hogwarts, utterly friendless.
Her only dependable company is the Marauder's Map. She has to master a bit of wandless magic just to get its ink to appear, what with her wand missing. And for days and days, she watches students go about their schedules and envies their uncomplicated lives. Watches Ron practice on the Quidditch Pitch. Watches Harry follow Professor Slughorn around. Watches Adrian and Neville's elegant nameplates overlap in the Greenhouses more than once.
She never makes it more than a few minutes before inevitably searching for Malfoy. She's reached out to him in her mind too many times to count, only to be greeted with silence. Like he's built a wall across the bond, and all she can do is lean against it.
This is the closest she can get to him.
And before long, his routine becomes second nature. He sleeps through breakfast, goes to class, rushes through lunch, goes to class, skips dinner and repeats. He talks to no one. She never sees him linger in the Slytherin common room. Never sees him take a detour or disappear into the Room of Requirement. The only times he deviates are to go to the Potions classroom.
Which is perhaps why it's so jarring to suddenly notice his nameplate drifting towards the edge of the map, just as the sun begins to set on Friday. Only the border of the Forbidden Forest has been included by the Marauders, and within seconds of noticing him, she watches him vanish into the trees.
Why go back there?
She can't think of a reason she'd ever go back. Not if she could help it.
But Malfoy stays for at least an hour, and her eyes grow dry staring at that thin edge, pulse an anxious rhythm in her chest.
Don't you know it's dangerous to walk the woods alone?
Her breath catches in her throat. She's done her best not to think of the monster, but its words come back to her now. A chilling reminder, the memory so perfectly preserved even through the haze of pain that she remembers its exact inflection.
A child's fear is to be chased by monsters. Something she outgrew a long time ago.
But now she wonders at her own arrogance, spurning a fear like that. As though it wasn't real.
She can't think of anything more real.
Malfoy reappears suddenly at the map's edge, and she almost misses him thanks to darkness, the sun having dipped behind the mountains. His pace is brisk, nameplate gliding back towards the Castle twice as fast as it did when he left. And she's so distracted watching him — wondering what on Earth he could've possibly been doing — that she doesn't notice the steadily closing distance between his name and her own.
Not until she sees him climbing the staircase to the Seventh Floor.
Only Gryffindors use that staircase. It leads to the Fat Lady's corridor, and — by extension — to the hidden passage beneath the tapestry where the Head Dormitories reside.
The direction of Malfoy's ink-splotch footsteps suggests the latter, and her heart starts to pound watching him veer off to the left long before the Fat Lady's portrait.
So he knows where she is.
There'd be no other reason to check behind that unassuming tapestry of a governess with her boredom-ridden students. He knows where she is, and he's coming to see her. Finally. Finally.
The moment catches up with her — the limited amount of time she has before he reaches her door. And instead of worrying over something reasonable, like the conversation they'll surely need to have, she's thinking about how she looks.
It can't be good.
She's been avoiding mirrors for quite some time, and showering has been tedious. Rushed. Her face is probably little more than a wash of dark circles and sallow skin. Her hair is a vulture's nest.
But there's nothing she can do now, except perhaps hope that the darkness conceals the worst of it.
She sits up against the headboard, palms starting to sweat where they grip the edges of the map. Malfoy is three steps — two and then only one away.
Her gaze flies to the doorknob just ahead and she holds her breath.
...
Nothing.
His footprints shift slightly on the map, and his shadow moves beneath the door crease.
But then, inexplicably, she watches those same footprints turn away. Sees that shadow start growing smaller as he heads back down the hidden passage.
There's no helping herself.
A panicked little sound launches out of her throat, and she tears away the sheets and covers, scattering the map somewhere on the floor. The brace on her leg was removed two days ago, but walking has become no less complicated. Madam Pomfrey gave her strict instructions not to put any weight on it.
She learns why very quickly.
The ache is excruciating. Sharp — almost stabbing. She finds she can barely hold herself up.
But reaching that door is all she has room to think about, and somehow she makes it across the two or three meters between them, nearly collapsing against it before she's able to throw it open.
Malfoy's tall form is already all the way at the opposite end of the passage, and in the few steps she sees him take before turning back at the sound of the door, his limp is unmistakable. He's favoring his right leg. Wall or not, he can still feel her pain.
But it isn't until the moment their gazes meet that the familiar sense of him bleeds across the barrier — when hollow eyes lock on her and everything he's been holding back comes crashing through.
There were things she expected to feel. Things she's been waiting to feel for days. Guilt and anxiousness. Anger.
But she never expected to feel so much emptiness.
She stumbles over the threshold — the one she was strictly warned not to cross — one hand bracing her weight against the wall. "What are you doing? Wait—" Another uneven step, and she nearly trips over it, gaze dropping to the floor. To the wand she's almost just snapped in two.
He found it.
For half a moment, she's relieved to see the familiar shape of it again. Like having magic itself returned to her. But that relief curdles in her stomach as she realizes, slowly tilting her chin up to look at him again. Not saying anything. Only staring at her.
"This is why you came?"
A slow, lifeless blink and nothing more.
"You're just going to leave? You — you have no interest in seeing me?" Her wand gets kicked aside as she steps past it, staggering towards him, every ounce of pressure on her leg like gripping a razor blade. "I...I've been waiting for...for days—"
About halfway across the passage, her strength gives out, and she falls hard to the stone floor, knees bruising. Pain explodes behind her eyes, teeth grinding as she tries to push herself back up.
When she does, Malfoy is there. Less than a foot away, sinking slowly down onto his haunches until they're eye-level. Her pulse jumps, and the bond flares to life like an ember in pine needles.
She can suddenly feel the sweat beading on his brow. The unnatural heat in his blood and the dizzy fog obscuring his mind.
Brows furrowing, she pushes up onto her knees and reaches out for him. "You...you're sick, aren't you? What's wrong? Are you—"
He takes her by the wrist before she can touch his cheek, pulling that hand away. And her eyes fill with horror as, staring into his — weak and vacant — the first and only word she's heard from him since the full moon crosses the bridge between their minds.
Ruined.
Ruined, ruined, ruined, ruined, ruined...
It's nebulous. Endless. A broken, unhinged mantra.
"Malfoy..." she breathes, trying to reach for him again.
He moves too quickly, all at once taking hold and lifting her off the ground. One arm loops beneath her knees, the other behind her shoulders, holding her as she's never been held before.
And it's everything she craved and more. Everything, and yet nothing all the same.
Because his touch is as empty as his eyes, and wordlessly he begins to carry her back towards the room. Even as she tries to fight him. Even as she tells him no, no, no and desperately winds her arms around his neck. Even as she begs him not to let her go.
He lowers her down onto the bed as though her words fall on deaf ears. As though he can't see the plea in her eyes or feel the desperate scrape of her fingernails against his skin as he starts to pull away.
"Don't go."
Don't go.
"Don't..."
Please.
Neither her voice nor the bond can reach him. There's no softening. No response, save that single word she's slowly realizing she never wants to hear again.
Ruined, ruined, ruined.
"Malfoy, please..."
He only stops once, in the doorway. Turns halfway, not quite looking at her.
His voice is low and soft and desolate.
"Don't follow me, Hermione."