Hermione uses the bond. Without thought to the consequences, or the maybe, without thought to what it means that suddenly, just then, suddenly, she can feel his magic and pull on it as if it were her own.
Not really comprehending.
But using it, never the less.
Moving through the Potter's house, down the stairs, not passing anyone, though she would not have noticed if she had, opening the front door, taking three steps off the porch to the front lawn, closing her eyes.
And pulling.
And opening, filling herself, drawing on her magic, on the shadows about her, on the blood magic rolling underneath it, and that line, that bond, like a fine nylon rope swirling out in the distant, shadowed and crimson, grey, black, taking hold of it with both hands.
And pulling.
As she Disapparates.
Only to Apparate and stumble a bit on a suddenly rocky path, the smell of the sea and the whirl of wind immediately about her.
She brings her hand up to catch the curls about her face, her other hand holding her wand steadily by her side as she looks around her.
Realising with suddenness that she is once more at the small house overlooking the ocean, the small house she had left almost a week ago now.
She studies it, a small cottage with white-washed walls and dark wood trim standing desolately staring out at the grey sea. A small house, cosy, almost defiant against the breakers crashing against the cliffs below, the wind whipping in sea spray.
A small home. Settled comfortably even in the harshness of the winter clouds overhead and the coldness sweeping around it.
A tendril of smoke from a stone fireplace reaching up to the sky.
Hermione feels him, feels his magic, no longer a faint touch but more. Like a cocoon around her own, warm, stroking, comfortable, like the home, and she knows as soon as she walks towards the door that leads to the kitchen, that Draco has also felt her.
She is not surprised when he opens the door, stopping suddenly, looking on him, raking his face with her gaze, noticing the dishevelled hair, the drawn skin over cheekbones and the eyes, those eyes that have always told her more about his mood, about his thoughts, then anything else.
They are dark, a storm cloud building.
She takes a step forward, and then another, until she reaches the one step and looks up at him.
"Don't."
One word.
Almost whispered, torn from her mouth by the wind that picks it up and hurtles it away from her.
One word.
That he hears as he looks down on her, looks into dark brown eyes that plead with him, that are open.
An instant of thought, where he thinks of denying everything, when he thinks of speaking to her harshly, cutting, to make her leave, to make her go, so he can take care of this, for her, for him, for everything.
But he doesn't. He doesn't speak those words because she has her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, and her hair, those curls are whipping around her face even as one hand tries to contain them. And the picture is perfect, aching, everything she is.
Magic. Wild. Controlled. Ironies. And so very vulnerable.
He steps back away from the door.
An invitation though he still says nothing.
But it is an invitation and Hermione takes it as such, walking towards him, closing the distance, then past him, feeling him, smelling him, for just the briefest moments before she is in the kitchen.
Draco softly closes the door behind them and goes to the kitchen table, gracefully settling himself in a chair there.
Books litter the surface, quills, parchments, and tea things.
"Do you want some tea?" He asks. He pours himself another cup.
Hermione nods. She glances over the books on the table, picking up titles as she pulls her cloak off and drapes it over the back of a chair.
"Please," she says.
It echoes from a time, just weeks before.
Though neither of them notice it.
She sits across from him, taking the tea with a quiet thank you, still looking on the books and parchments before her. Everything indicating that she is right in her conclusions.
Hermione looks up and meets Draco's gaze.
"Why?" She asks softly, quietly, warming her hands about the porcelain cup.
Draco understands the question and does not pretend otherwise; instead he replaces his cup on the table and rubs just slightly the point between his eyes, closing them for a moment before opening them and meeting Hermione's look.
"Because it is something I should have done a long time ago."
He answers.
Though it isn't the answer Hermione is looking for.
She tilts her head, curls falling about her face as she studies him.
"You knew how to do it, all this time?"
Her words, not accusing, just curious.
Draco shakes his head. "No. But I could have found out how." He shrugs, nonchalant, easy, aristocratic, so very like the Slytherin prince, and the movement tugs at Hermione.
Tugs hard.
And she has to put her tea down so as not to slosh it over the side.
He continues. "I knew there was something more going on because of the bloodstones, when I held it in my hand, when I hold it in my hand, the bond, compulsion, whatever it might be, was intensified, almost like…"
Pausing, not knowing if he should continue.
"Almost like you can touch me." Hermione finishes quietly.
Draco rising a perfect brow at that, a slight rising of one side of his lips and Hermione blushes, blushes and looks down at her tea sitting on the kitchen table, remembering the two times that she brought the stone out, two times in the last ten years she brought it out from the box in her wardrobe and touched it, cradling it in her hands.
Just so she could feel him. A moment, just a moment, not enough, but enough at the same time.
"Yes." He says. "It's like I can touch you."
Silence between them, the only sound the creak of an old home under the onslaught of a sea wind.
Until he continues, grasping his tea once more and sipping it before placing it on the table.
"So, I knew there was something there, something that was not in the text, not in what you had calculated, a variable. I knew it was there, though I decided to ignore the knowledge."
Hermione looks down at her hands on the table, grasped in front of her, cold, chilled, even though the room itself is warm. Looking back, scanning her memory, knowing, knowing, as the brilliant witch she is, that she had also understood the information, understood that something had happened that had not supposed to have happened. Something which had produced two bloodstones, a blood magic, and a binding, and had not resulted in her death.
She had known something had happened, but had chosen to ignore it, chosen to let it be, chosen to not look into it.
And she has to wonder why. She has to wonder why she did not think to look further into it, to look further for an explanation, a reason, to look further and find out if there was some way to break the binding, to break the compulsion, to break the flaring of heat in her chest and the dreams that have followed her for ten years.
She wonders.
And knows the truth. Though she won't say it out loud.
Though Draco does. Just then.
"But I didn't want to." He says, a sneer at himself, she knows, looking up from her hands and catching it.
Draco refuses to look at her, looking down at his own tea, looking down as he confesses.
"I didn't want to lose the bond, didn't want to lose whatever connection I had with you, refused to because I couldn't let it go."
The words are spoken quietly, almost blandly, but it is as if they were shouted, as if they were larger then life and they tear, they break, against Hermione. Words, slaughtering.
Because of the truth in them. Because of the absolute truth in them.
She can feel it in his magic that swirls about her, intertwining with hers, supporting what he says, reaffirming the meaning.
Leaving no doubt.
She glances over his features, over the jaw line, the lips, the nose, the eyes looking down, the sweep of eyelashes and the fall of white hair over his forehead.
The ball in her stomach intensifying, growing heavier, heavier as it presses.
And then he looks up and she catches his eyes, catches and holds and they are heated, defiant, molten grey and the look takes her breath away, takes it and for moment she is lost, for a moment she swims there, drowning, and the feeling is brilliantly lovely.
Until he looks away.
And she remembers to breath.
And to speak.
One word.
"Don't."
A wry smile, razor sharp, jagged, slicing across Draco's features.
"And why ever not," he says and his voice is darker, thicker.
Hermione does not flinch but not because she does not notice the sudden darkening of the room, the sudden shadows growing about the man sitting across from her.
Because she does. Realise. But is not afraid of it. Not then, not right then.
Though she looks down at the table. Away from him.
Draco waits, and he is now watching her and she realises that she needs to answer, needs an answer, but she doesn't know the answer, because really, why not? Why not be free of this, of whatever this is, whatever it is between them. Free to move on, to forget him.
And as if those words were said out loud Draco barks a laugh, short, brutal, a fist in the stomach.
"No answer?" A pause, a moment, heavy. Then.
"Of course not." Sneered.
He stares at her, stares hard at her and she dares not raise her eyes because she can feel the anger moving across him in waves of cold, of chilled fury. Feels it, and relishes in it even as her blood starts, even as her breath grows shorter and warmth pools in the centre of her.
And the irony, once more, is not lost on her.
Desire.
Even now.
In reaction to him, just always, a reaction to him.
She doesn't know, and not knowing is something Hermione has never been able to deal with very well.
Closing her fingers into a fist on the kitchen table, against the tide of warmth, against the cold of Draco's anger.
How to explain? How does she explain why it is wrong, why he can't break it, why she doesn't want him to break it, because she should, because it would make everything so much simpler, it would smooth things out.
Clarity.
But she has spent so long in the shadows, in the murky waters surrounding her mind, in this connection, that she doesn't even know if there is clarity any more and if there is, she doesn't know if she would want it.
She doesn't know.
And she says that. Not looking up.
"I don't know."
Another harsh bark of laughter; she can almost hear the long fingered hand run through the fine strands of white hair. Almost hear it.
"And I thought you were the most brilliant witch of our time, the brilliant Hermione Granger, smartest witch in Hogwarts history, brilliant, dedicated, hero, but yet she is too fucking stupid to give me a simple answer."
Her anger. Just then. Crystal anger. In retaliation. And the suddenness, the strangeness of it, makes Hermione look up at him, eyes flashing. Because how dare he?
"There is no simple answer," she says through gritted teeth, because there isn't, and why can't he see that?
Draco looks on her, catches her anger, and sneers, his own anger rising, curling about him, stroking up his spine.
Leaning forward in his chair, against the table. "No? Seems to me this is what you've wanted, isn't it? For the last ten years, since we performed the spell, since your precious Weasley died, isn't this what you wanted? To get away from me? The Slytherin? The enemy?"
Hermione feels a flush of colour across her face, at his words, at the truth, but not the truth, because it isn't really the truth, but it should be.
"You are not the enemy," she says. Because that is what she catches and holds on to. Those words.
Draco stares at her, stares and catches her eyes and those eyes, grey like steel and she knows that means she should be afraid, she knows that means that she should back off, but her anger is there, and it hasn't been there for so long, and it's strong and it's heating her from the inside.
So she does not flinch.
She does not look away.
She meets his eyes, daring him, daring him to say something, to say anything. To discredit her words with some of his own.
And when he doesn't the anger grows, flickering, flaming, and she leans this time, leans towards him. "What? No answer for that?"
And Draco standing, standing then, and grabbing the teapot, grabbing the porcelain and hurling it against the wall, shattering it, hot tea splashing everywhere, towards her, towards him, and the crash is defining, creating havoc.
He turns on her, he turns and leans down on his hands, hovering, glaring down on her.
"I am the enemy, I have always been the enemy. Isn't that the stupid fucking point? Isn't that why every time I get next to you, every time I see you, every time I get in your fucking head I see that face? Because I am the enemy? Because you are too good for me, because you, the fucking Gryffindor fucking princess is too bloody good for me, and she has sullied herself, sullied herself, because she's fucked me. Isn't that the reason, because I am Draco Malfoy?"
And then leaning forward, leaning forward so his face is mere paces from hers.
Hissing. "Didn't you say it yourself, didn't you utter the words 'because I am Hermione Granger and you are Draco Malfoy'. Didn't you fucking say that?"
Hermione is furious, shaking in her anger, and Draco sees it, sees it in the way she raises her chin, in the way her eyes are burning and suddenly she is standing too, standing across from him, her own hands supporting her as she looks at him.
"You stupid git," she seethes. "You stupid, fucking git, you don't understand bloody anything do you?"
Draco throws his hands up then, turning, laughing, and it's harsh, and it bleeds, and it echoes in the room. "Of course not. Apparently. Apparently I don't know a fucking thing because we are having this conversation."
Hermione is furious, so furious now because why can't he see? Why can't he bloody see?
She picks up her own teacup and hurls it at the wall.
The crash is spectacular, and it slices the room and Draco turns to her and she laughs too, because it is so incredibly ridicules, the whole thing is so incredibly ridicules.
Laughs. Insane. Maniacal.
And then sobers.
Glaring at him. "Don't you see, this, this is what we do to each other. It's not because you are the enemy or I was once sorted into Gryffindor and you were sorted into Slytherin - those things don't matter. It's because of this, Draco, always this. We don't understand each other, I don't understand you. We never speak what's there, what is right, true. We are so incredibly messed up, look at what we do to each other, look at the last month. I haven't been able to sleep, I barely eat, I have spent the last ten years being like that, but this last month has been the worse. We are not good. Don't you see that? Why can't you see that?"
Hermione heaves in breath, her mind furious, her anger around her cold and hot, swirling about her as she stares at the wizard standing across from the table at her. Stares, glares, her magic hurling its way towards him, around him, the connection between them throbbing, crimson, blood, throbbing towards black.
And Draco just stands there, stands there and shakes his head and the look he gives her makes her want to slit his throat, makes her want to pick up the butter knife and stab him because it is condescending. So very, very condescending.
He speaks.
"Is that what you tell yourself then, Hermione? Is that what you say to yourself at night when you can't sleep and you walk the halls? Do you tell yourself all of that? Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel more like a good person?"
Hermione shakes, shakes and feels like screaming but she keeps her voice low, even. "What are you talking about?"
It's Draco's turn to laugh, and it's amused, amused with the tight control of someone who has seen much darkness and lives in it, plays in it, thrives in it.
Hermione responds to it without knowing, flinching slightly, but standing her ground.
Which makes Draco laugh harder, because it is so brilliantly bloody perfect.
Her complete ignorance. Even after everything, her complete naïveté.
And because he wants to destroy, because he wants to make her feel what it is like to see something in a clarity that blinds the eye and kills slowly he stops laughing and speaks.
"Don't you see, my little Gryffindor? That's the whole point. We haven't always been like this, we haven't always been on opposite ends of the spectrum, or did you forget? Did you forget what it was like? Those afternoons, those nights, working together, talking, in the library, in the kitchen, under the bloody moon? Did you forget that night when we made love, yes, not fucking, you heard me right, but made love? Did you forget that?"
And because Hermione hasn't forgotten, because she hasn't, though it has been so long since she acknowledged the fact, her anger recedes, just a small amount.
Until Draco speaks again.
"But it was your bloody pride, your bloody guilt, your stupid fucking noble heart that put us here, that made us what we are. I wasn't the one that walked away that day, I wasn't the one that made everything dirty and dark and shadowed. I didn't do it. You did it with your words and your look."
Hermione stares at him, and stares, and looks, and pleads, in her mind, to stop this anger from erupting but her anger has always been a weak spot, a fault, and she can't stop it.
Her words. "What would you have had me done, Draco. I saved you, do you bloody understand? I saw Ron, I could have saved him, my boyfriend, Draco, my boyfriend and probably one day my husband, my best friend, the man I loved, I saw him and I could have saved him but you know what I did instead? Do you know what I did? I bloody well saved you! I saved you, who were supposed to be nothing to me, nothing. Do you understand? You were supposed to be bloody, fucking, nothing to me, and I saved you, you, you. Do you bloody understand that? I was not supposed to save you, but I did, I did, and Ron died because I did, and you were supposed to be nothing. Nothing."
And then coldness.
Frigid. Coldness.
Hard.
Between them. And Draco straightening, straightening, straightening and placing the cloak of the Malfoy aristocrat about his shoulders.
And his words. His words so cold, so very cold, distant, dark. "If you expect me to lament because you saved my life instead of your future husband's you're going to be waiting for a very long time."
The words. Cold. Quiet.
But instead of dousing the flame of anger that has Hermione shaking, it urges it, upwards, forwards and she narrows her eyes.
"Of course." She says. Hisses. "I would never expect you to be thankful for it."
One eyebrow rising, a slight twist to the mouth. "Why should I be thankful? Tell me Hermione, why should I be thankful? I should have died that day, you should have saved your Weasel, because if you had I wouldn't have had to spend the rest of my life loving a witch I can never fucking have."
The words.
Ice bits. In the air.
And Hermione stares. Stares, as the wry twist to Draco's lip turns on itself, into a sneer.
"What?" He says. "Did you think I didn't, that I don't? You were all that kept me sane in those months, the beautiful Granger with the big heart, the brilliant mind. You turned everything on its head, everything I believed in by simply existing. Even before, even in school, watching you, not understanding, challenging me, a Mudblood, always challenging me, and then later, at the Burrow, caring for me when no one else did, being my friend, how could I not fall in love with you?" Another sneer, a hand clenching.
Hermione opening her mouth, but not knowing what to say, knowing, but not knowing.
Terrified.
Draco continuing. "So I say I don't owe you thanks. I wish I would have died; I have wished it every day since that man's funeral, every fucking day, but in my twisted world, this twisted world I have created around myself, I still couldn't let you go, having to hold onto something, even if it was wrong, deceitful, having to hold onto it."
Hermione can no longer stand up straight, her power of conception, of realisation, slowly slipping through her body to the wood floor underneath her. Sitting herself in the chair.
Slipping. Between her fingers.
Draco's voice, still cold, razor sharp, but smooth, liquid, black silk across her face, her cheeks, across her neck, the pulse there.
"But I am letting it go, Hermione. I have made the choice to let it go."
And Hermione sinking further into the shadows. Further into the shadows.
Calling on something, memory, something.
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
She says. Whispers. The only thing she can think, moving about her mind, swirling about her mind, again, and again.
"I didn't mean to hurt you." She whispers.
Remembering.
As does Draco, who stands there looking down on her, on her bent head, on the curls that fall across her face, hiding it.
"I don't remember hurting you." She says even quieter, to herself, more than to him.
The harsh bark of laughter this time causes the hole in her gut, the frayed nerves, to sparkle in pain. Brilliant, blinding pain.
"Let me remind you then." He says.
And she whimpers, to herself, not out loud, but deep, at the base of her spine, because she doesn't want to. Doesn't want to listen to it.
Hearing him sit himself across from her, seeing through the curls as he slouches in his chair, every muscle relaxed, every muscle but the jaw and the hardened iron eyes.
So cold. Very, very cold.
"This is how I remember it, and please, interrupt me if I get something wrong because I wouldn't want to be mixing my facts with unreality. I remember seeing you that morning, coming in from outside to the kitchen and how you looked like you hadn't slept. Of course, that wasn't entirely different, none of us had slept for a long time, but I remember thinking that you looked less broken, more of a whole person. I thought you looked beautiful and I was going to walk to you and tell you, I remember this distinctly; I was going to tell you that everything would work out because finally we would be able to move forward instead of being in the endless cycle that we'd been trapped in since the war began. Finally, we could move forward, but before I could go to you, tell you these things, you had run out of the kitchen. I don't even think you saw me."
A pause.
And Hermione remembers, remembers the decision she'd made that morning, sitting in the Burrow's garden, the decision to move away from Draco, to leave him, not understanding at the time the why but feeling as if it were the only way. Remembering when she walked into the kitchen how she had remembered the countless times they had spent there talking all night with tea, trying to keep the demons away and how it had tore at her, and had threatened her resolve.
She hadn't known he was there.
And she wonders now if he had said something, made his presence known, if it would have turned out different.
But she refocuses, away from the memories, Draco speaking once more.
"I didn't see you again until the funerals. They buried Fred first, I remember that because I remember thinking I had never seen the other twin, George, so sombre before. Then they buried others, lots of others, until finally they buried Weasley." A smirk, a grimace, something moving across Draco's face before being replaced by blankness once more. Coldness.
"I tried to go to you. I wanted to comfort you, but you had Potter and he was holding on to you for dear life, and so I left you with him, figuring that would be the best for now, that I would comfort you after the funeral, but I never looked away. The entire time the ceremony was taking place I never looked away, trying to support you, I guess, with my magic, though at the time I hadn't realised that's what I was doing."
And Hermione remembers, remembers the feelings of support, of love, of warmth, radiating through her, comforting her.
At the time she had thought it was Harry.
She hadn't even realised it could be the wizard standing across the grave from her, the wizard she knew was there but didn't look at it.
Continuing.
"But after the funeral, when everyone started to walk away, I went to you. I wanted nothing more to envelop you, hug you, take away your pain." Another bark of laughter, harsh, brittle.
It causes Hermione to wince, to almost double over in pain. Because she knows what's coming, can remember it, see it.
Dark.
Draco sobering. Once more without emotion on his face. Flat voice. "See, I went to you, and when I tried to put my arm around you, comfort you, that's what I thought, you said that word, the one you said earlier. 'Don't,' you said. One word, and then you turned to me, to face me, your face resolved, your chin up in the air, hair about your face, and you told me that whatever happened was now in the past, that whatever we had done was now no longer needed and that it would be best for both of us if we stepped away. You said, 'I think it's best if you left.' "
The words.
Heavy. In the air. Because of the truth in them. Because of the flat emotionless nature in which they are said.
Because Hermione can feel them, weighing down, weighing down, until she wonders why she doesn't fall to the ground, until she wonders why she is not slipping away, not slowly bleeding out in dark rivets of crimson.
Why there is no blood.
Because the pain is real. The pain is jagged. Slices, great jagged slices of pain.
"So you see, Hermione, you see, I wish to all the gods, to Merlin, to anyone that has ever existed, that you would have saved him that day, that you would have let me die because at least then, at least then I would have died with the memory of you before that, before you said those words, when all I knew was that for a brief moment in time I thought you loved me like I knew I loved you and I didn't know it was all one fucked up spectacular lie."
The words, echoing, echoing.
And in them. Brutal truth.
But so very, very wrong.