Author's note: I'm back. :) I'll be posting shorter chapters than I have been historically to get back on track, but I'm happy to say that I am finally well enough to pick back up and finish this story. Here's a little Draco POV interlude for you to get us back into the thick of it. Enjoy!

Draco knew a lot of things that Hermione wasn't privy to.

The names of Unspeakables, for example, which were tied up in the recesses of his memory bank, barred from his tongue by oath. Each Unspeakable who had supported the raid, their ranks, and specializations.

He knew why Narcissus only bloomed at night, and how the daffodil bloom had inspired a thousand poets to meditate on yellow, and that the central bugle-like petal was called its 'corona' no matter the varietal, and that his mother, like Wordsworth, wandered lonely as a cloud in any crowd-and that she hated being named for a plant which hid away ten months of the year in a bulb.

He knew his mother nearly named him Asphodel, and by gods that would've been too heavy a burden to yoke him with, as removed as he was from Elysian deeds (but he was 'long and slender, pale-petaled and pointed').

He knew that Obliviation was reversible, and that any Legilimens worth their salt could help someone who had been separated from their memory by just such a charm. He had a sneaking suspicion that Hermione's newfound affinity for Legilimency was tied in part to her affinity for Obliviation. What she could take away, she could also give.

He knew a few phrases of pedestrian Welsh, thanks to his father's secret and enduring obsession with listening to Celestina Warbeck, locked away in his personal library when he thought the Manor slept. Dw i ddim yn dallt… I don't understand… Helpwch fi. Help me. Rwy'n dy garu di. I love you.

He knew all the lyrics to a muggle song he heard in a bar in New York City on assignment, and sometimes it would come to him in the middle of the night or mid-day, mid-bite-the meaning of my life is She-

There was much of his knowledge Hermione could be privy, if she used her natural inclination towards Legilimency and dug. On the surface of his mind, she would find lesser-known or confidential spell work, case information (even though he hadn't taken a real case since he orphaned himself), coffee orders, and a running stream of observations about their current situation which only amounted to names and figures. She'd really have to cut deep to find things which might leave him vulnerable. The why behind his anger, for example. It was feeding her. If only it were the spite onto which she had latched. In spite he could accomplish all, in anger only transient things.

The trouble was that she wasn't digging-his pain was filtering across their bond against his will. All he got in return was a formidable sense of foreboding, and gentle waves of calm. Pacifying calm. I'm-fine-stop-looking-at-me-like-that calm.

Worse than that, he dreamed her dreams, now.

She had some sort of dreaded fixation with being strangled; he had come to understand it after seeing her memory of her father's break with reality, and now she dreamed about it nightly. Even though he hadn't gotten much rest with a wiggling Freddie on his chest, every moment he had so much as drifted off, he heard her feminine gasp as fingers reached for her neck. Sometimes the attacker had his eyes. Sometimes the hands were alone in their conquest. She didn't stir. Her breaths were even, she drooled a little on his arm. He wondered if she knew that she was a mouth breather.

When the light was low, he had watched her devour the last precious hours of sleep.

Did she know how much he ached for her?

Billions of people on some swirling rock, and she was the one who made song lyrics make sense-the meaning of my life is She-and made time stretch out and fold up like an accordion, and made him pluck lines of Wordsworth out of nowhere. She was so desperate with questions, but somehow thought he was the answer to multiple. She said his name like she gave it to him.

Get right with your demons, Draco, he thought. If it's all you do for her.

And Hermione didn't know what it felt like to have the tendrils of her mind reach into the depths of pain of a woman she didn't even know, and... heal her. He had held the pain of Sofia Sidorov between his ears without even trying to reach it. It had dampened there, and dissipated as she relinquished the pain to him, but it wasn't just the blue flame he had come to know as his innermost self that had done it. In the blue glow, he had seen the face of the woman who had birthed him. She took the pain away. It was the first time he had seen or felt her since sending her body out onto the glassy lake; she had only come to Hermione since. He'd be lying if he didn't admit that he had been somewhat… jealous that Hermione had seen her in the prophecy, instead of the ancient tree on the grounds of Malfoy Manor, but there was a reason for that, and it now sat on Hermione's ring finger whether she liked it or not.

Gods, he hoped she liked it. The feet of the chair clattered against the stone as the weight of the realization smashed through his chest-the thought of being without her, of his anger consuming her or Carrow succeeding in his quest, the mere idea of a day without her was enough to take him.

Draco closed his eyes. She was waiting there, the little moth.

Where have you gone?

Skeeter is stable, he replied.

Madam Pomfrey's skirts swished around his boots and her white gloved hand offered a calming draught. It was not a request. He had spent an unguarded minute shaking after observing the comatose editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet, once Pomfrey had managed to coax her back to her human form. Trying to… heal her, or something, like he had with Sofia and the rest. Rita's mind was inhospitable. Swirling darkness-not smooth and vast like the universe he shared with Hermione.

Deadened. Murky. If Skeeter was still in there, she was mired in pain, and to feel it for himself was to touch that dark place in his own mind. Were she conscious, maybe she could clear the fog a little and let her guard down, but. There would be no Legilimency performed until Rita Skeeter woke up. She was inordinately lucky to still be living. Maybe that was enough.

Her white blond hair clung to her cheeks and forehead. Her breath came in a shallow rattle. She had four fingers on her right hand, and the shocking pink of her nail varnish screamed against the dried dirt in her nail beds. It was hard to imagine that this woman was worth all of this effort-not that she had ever been more to him than an annoyance-but her mind must be guarding some heady secrets.

The jar that she had occupied for gods only knew how long was his only clue about what had happened to her, but it was just fluted glass and metal, and nothing more.

He stepped out of the Hospital Wing with Madam Pomfrey's reassurance that they would be informed the second that Ms. Skeeter's status changed, but he made it no further than the outside hallway. He tossed back the draught and pressed his back to the wall.

The calming draught was smooth, almost… like a cup of cold earl grey, and the effects washed over him. His fingers tingled. Momentarily, his vision blurred. His own breaths deepened. Draco braced himself on his knees in relief to feel his faculties calm. The token of Hermione's choice swung beneath his chin. He placed the silver band between his lips, worrying the circlet and garnet with a wordless plea. Maybe… maybe their bond was a circle. No beginning. No end.

"There you are."

He jumped. The empty jar, Skeeter's former prison, fell from his hand and clattered on the stones. When Hermione reached for it, her hair cascaded over her face and obscured it from his view. He touched her shoulder. Hermione glanced up at him, one knee on the ground, and she smiled. Draco slid to the ground.

In a moment, she was in his arms-fingers gripping the nape of his neck, tucked between his knees so he could fold himself around her completely.

"Are you alright?" she whispered, nosing his cheek.

Draco just shook. He was silent long enough that it made her anxious to distract him.

"Harry sent word. Your barrister has agreed to the terms of the gala." Hermione rubbed little circles into his shoulders and down his back. "He did mention not being able to reach you over the last few days-" she huffed a laugh against his shirt- "but Harry assured him that you have been the model of compliance."

"Must be nice to be able to lie with such authority," Draco said finally. He sat back enough to look into her eyes. Her pupils flicked back and forth, tracing the worry lines between his brows.

"Do you think Shacklebolt's death has anything to do with Ron's Unbreakable Vow?"

Draco shook his head. "I think Weasley managed to avoid a sincere bond, and Shacklebolt's mistake was underestimating the power of Sofia Sidorov. No curse here." Hermione frowned.

"No." Her fingers traced a path along his jaw. "How is Skeeter?"

"She, um." He nodded towards the large mahogany door which separated them from Rita Skeeter's hospital bed. "She's unconscious, but Pomfrey ran the diagnostic spells and she seems at the very least stable, as I said. But her mind, Hermione..." He shuddered.

"Is it so bad?"

"Worse, I think. Whatever they did to her, I could not reach her."

"We'll keep trying," she assured him, but the thought of attempting to burn through the fog again made the hairs on his neck stand at attention. It was that, or the way Hermione was peering at him intently, with a heap of concern evident in the way she worried her bottom lip. He traced her cheekbone. Her skin was so soft, and the way the energy hummed between them made it moreso.

"Draco… gods, this is going to sound idiotic, but-" She stopped abruptly and sat back on her heels. "We… cast. Together, I mean. Didn't we? The shield, and bombarda, and now… I feel every hair on your body, every cell. Not just familiar because I know your body now." She blushed, but she kept his gaze. "And not just sharing sensations." Hermione kissed his finger as it met the bow of her lips. "But like your body is mine, and mine is yours. Your magic."

"My anger-"

"Your love."

Draco's head fell forward until his forehead touched hers. "It's not idiotic," he murmured. "I've never felt power like that before."

"That's what we are together, Draco Malfoy."

He hugged her close again-he couldn't put his finger on why, but the idea that they were one filled him with such profound sadness. And elation, and fear, and happiness that he wished he could bottle like the draught that had calmed him. But their time had always felt like it would inevitably end, and… "I'm going to miss you so much from Azkaban," he said, or thought, or felt in his throat like a choking fear that he couldn't stop from happening.

"Can you rally?" She took his cheeks in hand. "I have you."

He scoffed, but leaned into her touch. "Forgive me, I-"

"Whatever for?"

He fixed her with a hard scowl, but the fierceness of his determination was met only with softness in her eyes. "Nothing," he managed. Her moth alighted in his mind on the fear he couldn't voice, and she understood him. All he detected across their sea of understanding was her determination to soothe him. No reticence whatsoever.

"We're going to scry for them, for Ron and Pansy. The astronomy tower is prepared, and… I think we will find them. I know we will."

"Yes. We will." Draco pushed off the wall and stood, taking his witch with him. She squeezed him tight. It took him in a flash back to his room at the Manor, when he had held her in comfort for the first time in the darkness and felt like he was home. When everything was over, no matter the outcome… he knew home. Any other would pale by comparison.

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