Harry's reaction is not what Hermione thinks it would be.
"He was there." Harry says simply from where he sits on the bed.
Hermione looks away from the window.
She's faced the window through the entire story. To not look at his face. To not see the horror there, the sickness she knows, just knows, will be along the side of his mouth, his jaw, in the green of his eyes.
To keep her palm anchored on the cold of the glass.
As she turns and looks, she meets brilliant green eyes with her own. Green eyes that swim in tears, in pain, but not in horror.
Not in disgust. Not in hatred or accusation.
Something tears at her gut. Rips the soft underbelly in shreds of flesh and she puts the freezing palm up to her mouth to stop the gasp of her own pain. To stem its existence.
Not understanding. Expecting a different face. A different look then the one on his face.
Harry says it again.
"He was there."
She lets her hand drop from her mouth, clenching it at her side, fingernails in her palm.
To focus on another pain.
She doesn't know what Harry is speaking of, and in a flash of incoherent thought she wonders if he means Ron. And if he means Ron, he was where?
But that is not what he means and he clarifies.
"When you fainted, Snape was the one who caught you; he said to get Malfoy. Minerva and I left to go get him from Hogwarts, but the funny thing was, Malfoy was already there, even before we got out of the ward he was walking to the room." A dark head tilted slightly, looking on Hermione in thought.
"He knew there was something wrong."
Hermione watches Harry's eyes as he says this. Watches the green swim with ill-concealed tears. Watches his mouth speak the words.
She doesn't understand why he is telling her this. His voice serious, the smile he gives her more of a grimace than anything at all, tears in his eyes.
She wonders.
Though still, at the back of her mind is the distinct but faint memory of lips and words she doesn't know are reality. Maybe that is what Harry is speaking of. But why does it matter? Why is this Harry's reaction after everything she just said?
After the story.
She expected a different reaction. Any other reaction.
Hermione studies Harry's face, looking for something but not exactly sure what she is looking for.
"The bond," she finally says after a moment. "I'm sure he felt something through the bond."
Harry nods. A hand coming up quickly, across his cheek, a bit of moisture having fallen.
Another sob. Clawing at her throat. Not understanding. Confused.
"Maybe it was. But you didn't see his eyes Hermione."
Still not sure where this is going. Still not sure what this has to do with what she told Harry. Wondering where the anger is, wondering where the accusations are.
Harry continuing. "His eyes were crazed with worry, with pain; he barely saw Minerva and I before he brushed pass us. He was so focused on getting to you that he barely saw we were there."
The information does not surprise her. Not in the least, knowing, remembering, even as she started the process with Lily's magic, wondering, if Draco would be affected by it.
But she still doesn't understand the connection and some of that must have shown in her face because Harry smiles then, a smile tinged with sadness and something else. Something age old and indefinable.
He puts a hand out, as if entreating her to listen, to understand. "Don't you see, Mione? If he could feel that, all the way from where he was, then of course you acted in the way you did on the battle field. You had no choice."
Shaking his head slowly, he allowed his hand to drop. "Minerva said Malfoy was at Hogwarts. She said that a couple of students found him on the floor in the middle of a passageway almost unconscious. Poppy backed up the story. He was almost unconscious, Hermione, just because of what you were doing. So if he could feel that, and react in that way, and know what kind of danger you were in, then it only makes sense that you would be effected in a similar manner. Of course you saved his life. Your reaction was probably more instinctive then anything else."
Hermione starts to cry. Silent tears, not wracking sobs, nor overwhelming grief, but the slow trickle of moisture down her cheeks.
"But Ron."
She struggles to say, the name acidic on her tongue.
"Died protecting you." Harry says shortly, but softly, almost gently.
A fist. At her mouth, holding in the tears then, in the grief. Control, so much control, for the last ten years, so much control.
Harry watches her from the bed, watches her with those emerald eyes, with compassion and something close to pity.
"I wish you would have told me sooner." He finally says. Again, quietly. Gently.
Hermione shakes her head. Almost violently.
"Harry, don't you understand? It was my fault that Ron died. My fault. I could have saved him. I could have cast that shield charm and he would have not died."
Harry nods; this time there is a touch of impatience in his expression.
"Yes, and I could have saved Cedric."
Hermione opens her mouth to protest but Harry continues.
"And I could have saved Ginny from Tom's diary, and I could have saved Fred, and I could have saved Ron. Do you want me to keep going, because there is also Dumbledore, there is Cho, there are so many people that died because I did not kill Voldemort sooner, because I did not defeat him sooner then I did." A bitter laugh. "Really, Hermione, do you want to compare notes because I think - at least in this - I have you beat."
Hermione looks on Harry with something like shock, something like sadness, something very close to shame.
She slowly sinks to the floor, her back against the wall, pulling her legs to her chest, arms around them.
Harry continues.
"You saved Draco, Hermione, and though it might appear as if you chose him over Ron, did you really have a choice?" A pause. A moment. And then, again the gentle tone, the tone of someone who has seen much, done much, and lives with it every day. "In the end, Hermione, you still saved a life."
"The wrong life." Her words, out of her mouth before she can stay them.
She is not looking at Harry. She is looking at where her hands clasp around her legs.
She can feel the sudden tightening of the air around her, the sudden flash of Harry's magic.
When he finally answers his words are harsh. "Do you really think that? Is life really that trivial to you that you would feel one is better than another?"
His words like a slap across her face, Hermione instantly feels her cheeks flood with blood, with colour.
Shame.
She does not look up.
Harry continues. Harsh. His tone grated, his magic almost violent though held in check.
"Because from I understand, it would have meant more than one life had you chosen differently. Who's to say that if Malfoy had died you would not also have died? And if you had died, then who would have saved Lily last night? If Draco had died, who have saved you today?"
Hermione finally looks up from her hands and meets the gaze of her long time friend.
She winces when she sees disappointment there.
"A life, Hermione. You saved a life, an in doing so, you probably saved more than just one." His gaze softens just then. If only slightly. "Don't get me wrong, Mione. I wish almost every day that Ron was still here with us, but I would never wish someone else dead just to have him back."
A moment where the two life-long friends meet eyes across a room, magic swirling about them, history swirling about them, knowledge of who they are and who they were.
Knowledge of themselves.
Hermione smiles. It is a wry smile, a twist of her lips and she shakes her head with it.
"When did you become so wise?" She says the words quietly. Barely a whisper. Amusement, yes, sadness, even more so.
And under that, shame.
At her words.
At her actions.
For the last ten years.
Lost time.
"When I had to." Comes the reply, and she knows it's the truth.
They sit there for several moments. Harry looking on the witch he has loved for such a very long time, his heart aching for her - for the pain he sees in her face, for the shame he knows colours her cheeks, for the way her shoulders droop underneath her robes as if a great weight was pressing down on them.
He understands that feeling, those feelings. He has been intimate with them on one too many occasions.
Hermione finally looks up at him, meeting his gaze and she smiles slightly again. More of a true smile then before, though the emotions are still there for all to see.
He feels his heart contract at the smile. At the pain he knows she's been in.
And something nags at his thought.
Something that he finally puts into words.
"Do you love him?"
Another flush, a different kind this time, moving over her cheekbones, across her nose.
"Who?"
Harry smirks. A true smirk, teasing, along the side of his mouth.
"Snape." He says, dryly. "Come on, Hermione. Don't be daft."
Hermione looks away. Back down to her knees.
"I don't know," she says after a moment. A moment where she desperately wants to think of the right answer but is not able to. So very many things circling about her mind. Now, then, so very many things.
She leans her chin on her knees, staring at the bedpost, not looking at Harry, but not really in the room either.
Thinking.
Speaking.
"I did," she says. "I think. I don't really know. It was so fast, all that time, and looking back sometimes I just think it was the nature of the time. He changed so fast; over six months he changed so much and I think I got caught up in the whirlwind of it."
A pause. Harry waits and when Hermione does not start again he shakes his head.
"It might seem like the change was fast, but it makes sense. I mean, to have your very foundation rocked, everything you ever believed in spread out before you in all its gruesome loathsome detail, for anyone with half intelligence and a heart would be horrified, and we both know Malfoy is more than just half intelligent…"
He trails off and Hermione smiles slightly.
"And he does have a heart" she says quietly, to herself more to Harry.
Though Harry agrees with her, his own memories with the Slytherin come to play before him. He can still see the pale-haired boy crying in the bathroom during sixth year, can still see the way he looked when he came back from some of the Death Eater raids, even though Malfoy never said anything, and tried very hard to not show his thoughts to anyone but Snape.
But Harry doesn't say this to the witch in front of him. Instead he stays silent. Waiting for her.
When she doesn't though he prompts her once more.
"You did love him?"
She looks up, looks up to see why Harry is asking her, expecting to see disapproval, or maybe even disgust, but instead she just sees gentleness, and above that, understanding.
So she answers truthfully. Because how can she not.
"Yes," she whispers. "I did. Somewhere in there I fell in love with Draco Malfoy." A grimace then. "Quite tacky if I do say so, being Ron's girlfriend and falling in love with our long term nemesis. Quite tacky."
Harry shrugs. "You can't always decide who you're going to fall in love with."
Hermione flashes him a cheeky grin. "Well, isn't that a good excuse for cheating about."
Harry shrugs, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "Yeah. Well."
Hermione's grin grows into a smile then. Because she can. Because suddenly things are once more on an even keel.
If only for a moment.
Harry catches her eye once more.
"What about now?" He asks, tilting her once more to the defensive.
She bites her lip. Without thinking on it. Without realising it is a tell sign when Harry has known her for so long.
It is enough. Even though her words speak different truths.
"I don't think so." She says it slowly, trying to think it out and, like before, unable to do so.
She continues.
"I think now it's more of the compulsion, the binding, then any true feeling towards one another." She shakes her head, thinking on the last month. "We're not good for each other Harry, we -" She pauses, trying to think on how to explain things. "We mess with each other's minds and feelings."
Harry, instantly on alert.
"Has he hurt you?"
Hermione tried to smile, but did not quite make it.
"No more than I have hurt him I think." She says slowly again, quietly, the words the truth though her mind has, until then, denied them.
She shakes her head. "There is always this play of power to see who can outlast the other, who is stronger." She bites her lip again, chewing it, eyes distant, thinking. "Who is more intelligent. We are always so very aware of the stakes, the implications of words and actions, both of us moving away before anything can happen."
A grimace, remembering his words in the hallway, his accusations of seeing Ron in her mind, of holding that between them, knowing it is the truth, but also seeing an empty bed, waking up to an empty room.
And the feel of the ocean frigid about her naked body.
"Too much, Harry. There is always too much between us."
A moment where Harry examines, studies, Hermione's face.
She refocuses her gaze on Harry, smiling slightly. "We hurt each other," she says quietly. "And because of that we are always running away."
The memory of words. The flutter of lips.
A dream. Not reality. A dream.
She thinks, bringing a finger up to her lips unconsciously and touching them in memory of the dream.
Sadness, moving through her, around her, stroking up her person. "He is always running away." She repeats.
Harry watches her, the earlier memory coming unbidden to his mind and he knows he owes another explanation, another wave of words.
His own shame.
"Hermione." He finally says, calls, waiting until she looks up at him to continue. When he sees her brown eyes through the curls around her face he starts again.
"Malfoy was there today, at your bedside. From all accounts, and from Snape said before he left, he healed you. I'm not sure what he did, or for that matter what you did for Lily, but whatever it was it worked. On both of you."
Hermione notices the slight tensing of Harry's jaw, the ever slight glowing of his eyes.
It instantly causes her alarm.
"Harry? Is everything ok?" A thought, stabbing through her mind. She hasn't actually seen her Goddaughter and she wonders if something horrible had taken place without her knowing it.
"Lily? Is she ok?" She asks in a rush of words, even as she slowly starts to gather herself in case she is needed. Almost unconsciously pulling her magic around her.
Just in case.
Harry shakes his head.
"No. No, she's fine. You can see her actually. But first. Today, when I saw Malfoy we exchanged some words."
Hermione tilts her head because the information is not odd, not even unusual. Harry and Draco are allies, peers even, but not friends.
Harry looks down at his hands, hands that are lying on his legs, fingers tensing slightly, and then relaxing.
Hermione watches him.
Watches him in concern.
She stands up then and goes over to where Harry sits, placing herself alongside him on the bed.
Taking his hands, because she can, because she suddenly feels a drop of something harsh, brutal, and very, very heavy in her stomach.
"What, Harry?"
Harry looks down at their joined hands and then looks up to meet her eyes.
Swallowing.
And then telling her. "I told him that he is hurting you, that he has always hurt you."
The words, moving between them, circling in Hermione's head.
Harry continuing.
"I implied that he will always hurt you."
And the feeling of lips, the breath of words alongside her cheek.
"I will free you, my love."
Suddenly making sense, suddenly making too much sense.
Real. The words were real.
The connotations were real.
The endearment was real.
And suddenly, just suddenly, nothing makes sense, but everything makes sense, and the clarity is chaos, and nothing is right, but everything is right, and the place on her chest flares to life, and the throb at her spine presses, and presses, and something breaks and is healed.
And things are brilliant.
But distorted. Broken. Light spiking on broken pieces of glass.
"Hermione?" Harry, whispering, asking, entreating.
And Hermione looking at Harry, not realising that tears once more fall down her cheeks, not realising that everything for one agonizing moment is so very brilliant.
Standing up, dropping Harry's hands.
"I have to go." She walks to where her cloak lay across the chair, where George had placed it before, pulling it around her shoulders.
"Hermione?" The same voice, questions, unsure.
She turns and looks on Harry, turns and gives him a smile, but the smile is tinged in fear.
"I have to go. Harry he is…" She pauses, unsure really, not really wholly positive. But mostly. Mostly.
Continuing.
"He is going to attempt to break the bond." She says finally.
Harry is looking on her in confusion, because of the tears running down her cheeks, because of the smile she gives him, because she is not making sense.
"What do you mean?" He asks.
Hermione shakes her head, wildly almost.
My love.
Echoing in her head. Over and over.
Echoing.
"I have to go, Harry. I have to find Draco."
She says as explanation. As an excuse. Something.
She takes three steps over to where Harry is standing and kisses him, a quick slide of lips over a rough cheek.
"I have to make things right."
She says. Quietly. An explanation. One she knows Harry will understand.
And then smiling brilliantly, for a moment looking like the girl he once knew, the brilliant but scary witch from before, from the days of his school, from the friendship they had known.
His Hermione.
Draco's.
Suddenly it's all right.
Harry smiles down at her in response, in acknowledgement, in acceptance.
What was the past is past, and he lets that brilliant but scary witch go, the one he has been holding onto for so long, lets her go and watches the older version, the one who is still his friend but so much more, walk out the door in a swirl of black cloak.
A determined look on her face.
Determined but underlined with fear and just a tinge, just a small tinge, of panic.