Three days.
Three days of being in the presence of the other's and so close and nearly intimate, working on the potion and standing right next to each other, but never touching. And still, they uttered no words. The greetings forgotten, the former bickering was none-existent as they were comfortably hiding in their cocoon, wounded, but careless and scarily alone.
But they were painfully aware of the other's close presence.
However, three days of silence done its deal, the gap getting bigger and bigger and Draco hated it. He had the opportunity to pick up on little things, yes, like her controlled movements and the way she always used her right hand. She didn't even lift the other one, and after a few hours, he realized: her fingers weren't able curl and uncurl, they were literally motionless. So with no other options, he watched her struggle with her left hand and did not help her...
Yes, his arrogance didn't let it now, his stubbornness on uproar, because of their fight. It slashed him bone-deep and he hated the feeling how he said no to her every offer. If he had realized at that moment...!
Shaking his head, well aware that his intense stare burned her neck as he left her shuffling around the potion, stirring the liquid counter-clockwise the third time in this hour. Even now, she didn't move it, never reached with that hand; it just fell limp beside her body, her skin eerily pale there, compared to her face.
He wouldn't need to be a genius to figure out that the paralysation kicked in with full force. And that was not good.
So not good that it meant they only had weeks, perhaps some months at best.
Hammering his head for better ideas than sharing and finally stopping her from overworking herself, only to end up in pain and exhaust herself when it was clear she needed every ounce of her bottled up energy, he started speaking.
"It was after you got out of the Manor," he said, slowly and deliberately, watching her froze through mid-move, and even for a minute, he believe he saw her fingers twitch on her left hand.
He sighed; her body convulsed and the tenseness dissipated from her shoulders when hearing his voice. She continued with the stirring, but didn't say a thing. Her entire body radiated her arrogant message: keep talking, I'm waiting.
Draco bent down on the sofa, a ridiculously puffy pillow under his head as he looked up at the ceiling before continuing his story, "Bellatrix," he saw the muscles in her neck twitch from his periphery, "Bellatrix never told Voldemort what'd happened, but rather...," he stopped and now he was the one trembling as the pictures flashed in his eyes, her maniac laughing and his mother's painful glance as they both knew they needed to do this. Don't do this, Cissy – he heard the cackle from the madwoman, wand unflinchingly pointed at them, – don't do this and then you don't survive. Simple, isn't it? And she guffawed.
"She rather decided on punishing us. In our own family home," he grunted out, his teeth nearly grinding against each other, fists firmly in balls. "Mother needed to do it, or she would have told Voldemort. It would have signed the deal. He would have asked for my father's head. Execution, by his own master, death of the fallen. The most plebeian of all methods for a Death Eater.
"Mother knew that," of course she knew, Draco snorted under his breath, absently, she was through a first war and had been on my father's side since she was fucking fifteen! He watched Hermione taking a big breathe, still focused on the Vindico Parea, but soaking up his words like the starving the sweet nectar. "So she did as it was required."
"Required?" echoed Hermione, faintly, having a general idea what had happened. She couldn't imagine the inner war his mother needed to fight with herself; it was either her son or her husband, both under a madman's command and mercy. Their lives were at stake.
So she whispered, even though she knew the answer to her question, "What was required from your mother, Draco?"
She could literally hear the bitter smile on his lips as the reply rolled off his tongue, "She was given a special quill. Again, it was an heirloom, with iron tip and a griffin's feather on the top." She looked down, bewildered when seeing her hand squeezing the spoon with such vigor that her fingers went numb. "And also, Bellatrix," she still couldn't help herself: needed to gulp down the bile rising up in her throat whenever hearing that name, "gifted her an inkpot. Full of the Essence of Spurius."
She knew it was coming, but she dropped the spoon in the cauldron. The clashing, sharp sound was all that filled out the bathroom, the white mist above them not able to suppress the sound of her whimper. That was what Hermione didn't want to hear: an evidence of his betrayal, knowledge that he had survived what she still yet endured and had cured himself. Something, that was unimaginable for her, without the damn horse's blood!
"And then?" she asked, the words spilling out of her mouths before she had known it. "She thought you were equal to a mudblood?"
"Eventually?" she knew he had pulled up a brow and she cracked an ironic smile, "I was not more than a slave, fallen, half-way down the road to be a traitor to our cause and by the end, not enough to be worthy of the title of Death Eater. The show was for humiliation," he recalled the feeling of hateful glares marring his skin and literally felt their condemn covering him up, like a filthy new piece of cloth, unworthy and utterly graceless.
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the memory, the hell within his skull. "I was shirtless, standing in the middle of our ballroom and then my batshite crazy aunt started randomly cackling. Mother came closer to me and put her hands on my shoulders, murmuring prayers I didn't even know where she knew from," his voice lost its force, dry and weighted as it was clear he was on the edge of breaking down.
Maybe that was the cause why Hermione didn't dare turning toward him – Draco was someone in her life now who she thought to be too strong to have these episodes, even though she knew he was just as broken as her – broken by the war and the things he lost with it.
"It was painful; I imagine you're familiar with the feeling." She just felt as he was looking at her left hand, and even unconsciously, she pulled her right palm over the scar. "I felt the quill break my skin and knew that it was dipped in poison. Maybe, I just imagined it, but felt it rush through my circulation. My mother was crying quietly behind my back so Bella couldn't see her as she started carving the letters in my back... and— and she needed to start— start it three times over! At the bitch's command!"
She took a shaky breathe, and realized, she could not let him continue. He would slump and break if he continued, and he shouldn't let it happen! Shouldn't let it trample him to the ground! He just shouldn't! "Wh— why liar though?" she asked with repressed air and she forced the telltale lump back in her windpipe with a gulp, "I don't understand."
To that, a short laugh cut through of the lock of his teeth, sharp and bitter, and utterly mirthless. Like the voice of a desperate fellow, ship-wrecked, knowing the waves would be his ultimate grave but still laughing, because yes, he had finally managed to fish a fucking pilchard.
"Because I didn't say a word, because I didn't say a fucking word about your sweet triad, Granger," he basically spat the words in mid air as he continued, "I didn't tell them it was Potter, because fuck, I knew it was you all along, but it would have meant end. End to the war... to every damn thing! Like, what you said not long ago," he trailed off, absent and still, feeling a rotten taste on his tongue, "yes, yes! It was game over, I believe!"
Hermione merely nodded, knowing full well he was watching her intently and throughout. It felt like he was able to see the contents of her skull.
"How did you... how did you stay sane? During the..."
"My father," he spared her from finishing the question, and to his answer, she visibly perched up and was just now struck, that yes, Lucius Malfoy might have been a criminal and a racist, but was a father in the long run, too. "He has quite a knack for Legilimency. He was both in my and my mother's head to help us keep our wits. Without him, both of us would have... given up, I think."
His breathing hardened at that and Hermione just wanted to walk back to him, to offer him her comfort, but was reminded how he hated to seem vulnerable and weak, and overall not like an average human. So she didn't let her own reins loose. Though she hadn't the force to gulp down her tears this time – they just kept gathering at the corner of her hazel eyes.
"I had too much of poison in my system," he continued, "My only opinion was Severus for survival, as luckily, he was in the end of his project, successfully brewing the cure. But it still needed the unicorn blood – and as we know now, that was my mother's doing."
"How much more did you...? How much time would you have had if not for... Snape?" she asked, her voice choking and now the big tears rolled down on her cheeks, openly. She could see her reflection in the mirrors, her eyes puffy, her lower lip trembling with the force she kept a pathetic whimper in, and her hair on flare with the emotions on uproar in her belly.
And then, the cruel answer just came.
"Granger, I was vomiting for two days. Straight."
It was sudden, expected but still sudden as the pitiful whimpers and sobs erupted from her lungs and she needed to put a hand against her mouth lest he heard. But she had a feeling he had known exactly what she tried to mask.
She felt firm hand circle her waist and a pull, heat surrounding her as she melted into Draco's embrace. Hermione let out a louder sob, now not even trying to hold back herself.
"I wouldn't have lasted for a week."
It broke here, entirely.
He shushed in her ear, cradling and rocking her softly, his deep, rumbling voice letting lose an avalanche inside of Hermione's guts. Her crying intensified, but she didn't dare face him, didn't dare show him how ugly she was when in the middle of hysterics. Not when both of them were weak, shattered, vulnerable and so utterly broken and in need of each other.
She firmly clutched the illusion that at least, he was perfectly fine. And the wetness falling on her hair was nothing but rain from the outside.
Yes, rain. Because this way, she could happily melt in his arms, knowing he would hold her head above water. Trusting his strength with everything she had, trusting that he wouldn't let go, and that he was perfectly fine, only giving her leverage. It was an illusion worthy to hold onto.
Worthy to be wrapped into it.
Dedicated to Trinkisme. You know the deal guys: R&R! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did because yes, Draco's confessed. Thoughts on that?