This time they were sitting at the kitchen table, the winter moon coming in through the window, tea things between them.

The air around them was silent and dark; everyone else was asleep, quiet with the calm of a winter's perfect night.

"Why?" She asked, her voice small.

Draco watching her, watching the way the fire light leapt across her features, highlighting the curls around her face. She wore a faded jumper and a pair of sleeping pants.

"Because they were your parents." He replied, looking away from her and down at his hands.

Hermione looked up at him then, noticing the moon played with his hair, turning it from white to silver. A platinum colour.

She searched his face, searched his tone for anything to give away what he felt, what he was feeling, anything at all, but his tone was bland and his face gave away nothing.

So different, she thought, sipping her tea then, so different from the boy she knew in school, from the boy who showed up in the Burrow garden several months ago. He'd learned to control his emotions, control his expressions, control so very much and she was glad, glad because it meant he would survive.

Though when the Mark called him and he put on his robes she couldn't help but worry, worry to the point of not being able to eat or sleep.

Though she wouldn't think about the implications of that.

But right then she wanted to know what he was thinking, staring down into his teacup; knowing but not understanding why it was so important for her to know his reaction.

"When?"

She asked, trying to keep her voice level, trying to keep the tears from coming through but not succeeding. The grief was still too raw, too much, razor blades in her throat, in her stomach.

Draco looked up at the witch across from him. He heard the tears in her tone even before he could make out the glimmer of them in the dim lights of the fire and the moon before she dropped them to gaze at the table.

"The night before I came here," he answered, watching her pale at his words, watching her fingers tighten about her teacup.

"And you were there?" She asked, voice little more than a whisper.

Looking up at him then, her eyes swirling with sadness, meeting his.

In hers he saw sadness, grief, pain.

In his, understanding. Empathy.

Her breath caught at the uncharacteristic emotion there.

"Yes." He answered.

Both of them looking away, back at their tea sitting in front of them.

Until Hermione looked.

"Tell me." She requested quietly, so quietly he almost didn't hear the two words.

"What?"

He looked up and met her eyes once more.

In them pleading this time. And resolve.

"Tell me what happened."

Draco shook his head, pushing himself away from the table, away from her, to go back to bed, to get away from that request, halfway up from his chair.

She caught his hands in her own, caught and held with a grip that was almost painful.

"Tell me." She repeated.

He half stood, his hands in hers, looking down on her, studying her, noticing the shadows under her eyes, the strain along the side of her mouth.

The curls around her face. Framing it.

"Why?"

A strangled question and the control broke just a little more about him.

And her answer quiet, gentle almost. "Because I need to know."

Draco slowly shook his head. The irony of it, of her tone, of her request, the question.

"You really don't."

Stubbornness, something else, causing the witch to raise her chin. "I really do."

And then sighing in defeat because he can't say no, sighing and seating himself back in the chair.

Though she didn't let go of his hands.

And he didn't try to take them away.

"Tell me."

Quietly.

And he did, twisting his hands so that their fingers interlocked.

Staring at them as he began.

"Severus didn't know." He started. Pausing. Continuing.

"I don't think Severus knew that they were the target that night because when we Apparated behind their house I caught his gaze and there was horror in his look and it surprised me because he never shows emotion and for a moment he did. I think I understood at that point that Severus was still working with the Order, just that moment. It was just him and I, thankfully, because I think others would have came to the same conclusion, but Severus was my keeper so it was only the two of us for a moment and I only saw it, but he knew I saw it and I feared for my life. I was surprised when he didn't do anything, instead moving towards the house when everyone else Apparated around us."

"Who?" Her question interrupting him.

He looked away from their hands and up to her eyes.

"Me, Severus, my aunt, my father, Goyle." A smirk of pain crossed his features briefly. "A large entourage for two Muggles."

Hermione winced at his words but did not let go of his hands; instead she squeezed them gently and Draco looked away from her eyes.

Not sure what he saw.

But knowing he didn't deserve it.

But Hermione felt compassion, felt it through her entire body because she saw the horror written across Draco's features. She saw the pain alongside the smirk and somehow that made it better, if only by a small amount.

Knowing he suffered. That he had pain.

Equal if not more than her own.

He continued. Voice strained, tightening the grip on her hands though he didn't know he did it.

"They were sleeping. We came in through the kitchen, and…" he paused, shaking his head slightly.

"You don't need to hear this Hermione." He almost whispered. A breath, between them.

Hermione, who felt as if something was squeezing her chest, some kind of pressure pressing down, pressing down, slowly nodded her head.

"I do."

And because her strength and courage was something that awed him, even then, starting then perhaps, he continued.

"They were upstairs sleeping. Goyle stayed downstairs to watch in case something happened, if the Order showed up, the rest of us went upstairs. Your dad was the first to figure out what it was, what was happening, who we were."

A gasp. A low guttural moan, from across from him.

He didn't look up, couldn't look up, continuing because she had requested it.

Monotone voice.

"He knew, and he said that you weren't there. My father…" A pause, a feeling of something tearing his gut. "My father laughed then and said, he said, that we weren't there for his Mudblood daughter but for them, to give his Mudblood daughter a lesson."

Hermione felt something dark reach up and grasp her throat at his words, knowing, always knowing that her parents died because of her, but to have it out there, in the air.

It was too much.

Feeling the tears running down her face, part of her wanting to scream at him, at the boy across from her, another part wanting to hide in his shoulder, to have him wrap his arms around her.

Silence as he refused to look up at her, as he continued to stare at their hands, feeling her grief, feeling it even though he does not see the tears rolling down her face.

Knowing.

He continued.

"My aunt had the idea to get information out of them, for your location."

A gasp.

"They didn't know." Hermione said.

Draco nodding, still not looking up at her.

"I know. But my aunt, she was crazy, insane."

Silence.

Hermione, voice strangely detached. "So she tortured them."

Draco bowing his head. "I'm sorry, Hermione, I'm so sorry."

Then.

"Tell me."

Draco looking up. "What?"

Seeing the resolve in her eyes, the fury.

"Tell me what they did, what they used."

Shaking his head, afraid at the madness he saw straining about Hermione's gaze.

"I don't…"

Cutting him off. "Tell me."

So he did. Slowly. Methodically, watching as her face lost all colour, as her lips turned white and her eyes glowed, sunken in her face, until she got up suddenly, got up and ran to the sink, wretching in sickness.

He followed before he knew what he was doing. Followed and went to her, gathering curls in his hands, pulling them away from her face as she vomited again and again, liquid putrid, the sound harsh in the otherwise silent room, silent night.

He knew she should hex him, at least push him away, knew that he should be killed, tortured, for watching as others did that to her parents.

But she did not move away, finally, when nothing more came up, standing, trembling against the sink, leaning against it, shaking.

But not moving away.

Because she felt his hand curled against her neck, cool against the heated skin there, sickness swirling around her stomach still, at the images, at the thoughts, sickness still, but his presence steady, his hand cool.

Holding her hair gently away from her face.

Until he let it drop and filled a glass of water.

Holding it our towards her.

His hand shaking just slightly. Ever so slightly.

She took it, still trembling, falling slowly to the floor and leaning up against the wall.

Draco falling next to her. Not touching.

"What happened to you?" She finally asked.

Draco startled next to her, looking over. "What do you mean?"

"If that was the night before you came to the Burrow, what happened to you? You were mad, incoherent, and there was so much blood."

A moment.

Draco struggled with what to say.

"I tried -" He started, paused, lost, not knowing where to go from there, not wanting her to get the wrong impression. Desperately needing her not to get the wrong impression.

Words quiet. Barely spoken. "I tried to stop them."

Hermione forgot the pain then, for a moment. Forgot the pain as she looked over at him in surprise.

"What?"

Draco shook his head. "Don't think I did it for you, or them. I think I went mad, watching Bella do that, knowing there was no need, seeing so much of it, being in the cell, I think I went mad, well, I was mad by then, but that was the catalyst. So, I stepped in front of one of the curses."

So very much grief.

Echoing between them, around them.

Sadness. Grief. Pain.

"How?"

Draco shaking his head. "How what?"

"Your torture?"

Though she doesn't want to know, not really, the sickness still in her belly, swirling.

He shook his head again. "No. That doesn't matter. You saw how I was when Severus deposited me to the Burrow. That was weeks of madness followed by a night of punishment."

A pause.

Then tiredness moved in, tiredness and sadness, and it left her weak. Without thought Hermione leaned over and placed her head on Draco's shoulder.

Feeling him tense for a moment before relaxing under her.

"You tried to stop them."

She finally murmured.

"Not for the reasons you believe."

"But you did."

Another pause.

"Because I was going mad, Hermione. Not because they were your parents or because I was thinking about you. Because I was insane at that point."

Another pause.

"But you did." She repeated. Continuing. "Even if it had nothing to do with their identity, you still did it because you did not want it to continue." Another pause. "Because you aren't a killer, Draco."

The last sentence spoken in a whisper.

Barely registering.

An echo. From another time, another place.

Causing a pain so exact, so slicing, in Draco's chest.

And then.

"I have killed people though." A voice spoken in a broken response, so much grief in those words, so very much grief.

Hermione did not raise her head from his shoulder. Instead she reached for the hands on his lap and pulled them towards her, lacing her fingers once more with his.

"But you are not a killer."

She responded. Repeated.

Her hands, her fingers, lacing with his.

Delicate Muggle fingers intertwined with the long aristocrat Pure-bred ones.

Sitting on the kitchen floor in the Burrow.

Moonlight.

Silence. Between them.

But so very much more.

Resting his head on top of hers.

White hair a contrast to the brown curls.