Chapter 7: Date the Girl Who Wears Her Heart on Her Sleeve

They'd made it. The war was freshly over, the smell of destruction and death surrounding them. But they'd made it. The Dark Lord was vanquished and the Malfoys lived. Draco looked around the Great Hall, taking count as they continued to bring the bodies of his classmates and lay them amongst the living. Little Colin Creevey, his camera seared in half and still dangling around his neck. His cousin, Nymphadora, whom he'd never had the chance to meet. Professor Lupin, a man Draco had been set on outing as a werewolf in third year.

His eyes stung as the rows of bodies doubled. A sob tore through his chest and he felt his mother's hand on his arm. "Draco, come sit."

He ignored her request, scanning the somber crowds. His eyes landed on her, huddled around the body of one of the Weasley twins. The Weasley mother blubbered into her husband's shoulder. The other remaining siblings gathered around their parents. Potter was a pace away, speaking with another survivor. Granger stood a respectful step away, running her hand over Ron's back.

She was crying again. Her sobs and anguish still rang clear as a bell in his head. He saw her writhing on his carpet every time he closed his eyes. He'd wept over the stain of her supposed muddy blood that had been left behind. Granger deserved to never shed a tear again, to never again feel the pain his own family had inflicted.

Weasley evidently felt the same. He disengaged from his family and turned to Granger, wiping the tears from her cheeks as he bent to kiss her lips.

Draco had felt more pain and despair in the last year than most people do in a lifetime. He'd been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse more times than he could count. He'd spent countless nights, Theo tending to his wounds after another round of brutality. He'd watched her suffering and stood idly by, all the while feeling the very last bit of humanity that tethered him to this plane of existence snap.

He was quite certain nothing could ever hurt as badly as the feeling of his heart breaking and crumbling to ash. Jealousy didn't even begin to cover what he felt. It was jealousy, anger, guilt, shame. One person should never feel so much misery. It consumed him, pierced through his entire being until he felt so weak he couldn't stand.

Draco collapsed onto the bench beside his mother. She wrapped her arm over his shoulders and ran her other hand over Lucius'. He felt his parents' eyes on him and he refused to look at them. His face burned and his ears felt aflame. The last thing he needed was their attitude about her, to see him breaking over a muggleborn. His failures already weighed heavily on his family.

Draco hadn't been able to protect anyone. He felt foolish. His mother leaned over and whispered. "She's coming this way."

He looked up and sure enough Granger came to stand directly in front of them. She shot a sheepish look in his father's direction, giving him little more than a nod. In response, his father averted his eyes and he could see the shame staining his father's cheeks. His mother, always the peacemaker, gave Hermione a small, polite smile. "Is there something we can help you with, Miss Granger?"

Granger returned her smile. "We all wanted to thank you for what you did in the Forest, for Harry. We wouldn't have won if it weren't for you."

Draco could feel what wasn't being said. That just as surely as his mother had helped win, he and his father had brought the destruction to begin with. He couldn't bear to look at her. Instead he looked around her, catching Potter's eye. Potter ran a hand through his messy hair and shrugged, giving Draco the smallest nod. A truce. A truce he didn't deserve.

"How is Harry?" Mother asked, and Draco recognized the mothering tone of her voice. With no threat of being murdered, she was free to care once more.

Granger let out a long sigh and he saw her transfer weight from one foot to another. "Relieved, I suppose."

"Here come the Aurors," Father warned under his breath and Draco looked up to find scarlet-clad officers entering the Great Hall.

"Can I speak to you alone, Draco?" A sense of urgency had entered Granger's tone.

He narrowed his eyes at her even as he rose to follow her away from his parents. His heart thudded in its cage and he ran a soothing palm over it. "We're going to testify on your behalf. Harry and I. I think even Ron will attest to you refusing to give us away at Easter."

Draco looked over her head toward the Weasleys again. Ron was standing with his hands in his pockets, eyes narrowed but otherwise reserved. For once. Her voice pulled him to her once more. "We know this isn't what you wanted. I wanted to tell them about that night. By the boats."

His brow furrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest almost protectively. That night was forever burned in his memory, but it was one he didn't care to have the world privy to. "But you didn't?"

Granger smiled a little then, even as the Aurors approached. "I guess I wanted something that's just ours. It's kinda nice being the only person to know you have a heart."

Despite himself, Draco let out a dark chuckle. An auror approached, flashing their DMLE badges. "Draco Malfoy?"

He gulped. "Yes."

"You know why we're here. Wrists together," he instructed. From his wand came a length of shimmering chains, shackling Draco's wrists to his ankles.

Humiliation ran through him, burning through his veins and ringing in his ears. The Aurors continued to speak as he was led away from Granger, his parents in tow. He became acutely aware that around him, students began to clap. They applauded his arrest, ready to send him straight to the dementors. He thought he might have heard Potter yelling for them to quiet down.

Draco chanced one last glance at Granger as he approached the doors to the Great Hall. She lifted her hand in a sad wave and mouthed the words, "I'll be there."

"Where?" he wanted to ask. Just at his trial? To see him if and when he is set free? The likelihood of that day coming was slim. He swallowed hard and hung his head. He wished her declaration was an assurance of some kind of future together. A relationship was out of the question—she was with the youngest Weasley boy now and Draco was a known Death Eater. Hell, it would be nothing short of a miracle if she didn't come to her senses the moment he left and refused to assist him.

There was something in the pit of his stomach that tickled and squirmed. A feeling that had no place arising as he was Apparated to the fortress prison. Hope. The moment his feet hit the ground, the cold despair of the island saturated every inch of him. Still, the tiny, radiating ball of hope remained nestled deep in him.

Later that night, when Draco finally collapsed from exhaustion, it was a brilliant little witch that occupied his dreams. He felt a determination, even in his sluggish state, to prove himself to her. He only hoped he would get the chance.

He relished the freedom to think of her, to dream of her. No Dark Lord reading his thoughts, no father breathing down his neck. In the bitter and damp cold of Azkaban, he allowed thoughts of her to be the soothing balm he finally needed.

All he wanted was to date the girl. Just one chance.