They were sitting together in the kitchen at the Ramshackle, a tiny house behind a butcher's shop in Diagon Alley. It was tall and thin, squeezed between two larger buildings without which it surely would have fallen over. Hermione had bought it with the recompense for Ron's death. As she was moving in, Rita Skeeter had written something unkind about profiting off of her husband's death and had quoted Molly, who she had caught in a moment of unfiltered grief, saying something equally cold. Even though Molly had been horrified and sworn she felt nothing of the kind, would never have said such a thing, that Skeeter's green little quill had twisted her words; it had hurt Hermione more than she would have expected.

The fire in the cast iron stove crackled merrily. The stove itself looked like the rest of the house, neglected and stained with rust. When hot, it gave off an odd smell that blended unfavourable with the odour of the still moist spots, spreading darkly on the ceiling.

"Why did you invite me here?"

Unlike the rest of the survivors, Draco seemed not to have aged. His eyes were still grey and hard, his face gaunt and creased in perpetual contempt and revulsion. It was as if his features had been frozen into the defiant mask he had worn at the trial. His hair, though, flowed down past his shoulders as his father's had.

"I am lonely."

He stared into his empty cup. They watched the flames dance on the dirty walls. The whistle blew, and Hermione filled a teapot shaped like a tall, narrow house that may be able to withstand a light wind.

"I can feel it - I could feel it every time you had a fucking argument. Did you know?"

It's clear from the startled look on Hermione's face that she hadn't. "I don't know what you mean -" and then, carefully, probing. "I felt something?"

When he didn't say anything, she drew breath, "After all that happened, to me - to you also, " she looked at him sheepishly and amended, "to everyone! The war, the fallout, happened to everyone."

She said, "I thought of you, I remembered that you were kind -" she sounded small, miserable, and he bit down on the pain in his chest. He pushed away the sudden memory of how that horrific wedding of hers had left him breathless with panic and how, as her marriage wore on, the tugging had increased in frequency and intensity until it was a constant ache. He had imagined her leaning into Potter, confiding what an absolute useless pile of shit her husband was and had envied him bitterly.

She hadn't answered his owls, not once, and now she was telling him that she was lonely.

"Since touching that carving, there is a blue thread from my chest to yours," his lip curled, "I suppose it's from my heart to yours." The emphasis on the 'heart' was poisonous. "I can see it, and Luna, but you can't."

He leaned back in his chair so he could watch her, "Luna said I bargained everything away."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going to pour me some tea?" He slid his cup toward her. "Milk -" he frowned so hard she poured it with a splash and slid it back across the table. She didn't hear him ask for lemon, and even if she had, all lemons mysteriously spoiled as soon as she brought them home.

Draco looked around critically, "this - house - is atrocious. It smells like death." He studied his handkerchief, "I suppose it's too late to cover my mouth; fatal illness started making a nest in my lungs when I stepped through the door."

Then he said, "Luna said I bargained away happiness."

"And you - believe her?" Hermione sat there with her cup halfway to her mouth, staring at him, "There is an invisible string connecting us since the revenge charm thing in sixth year, and you gave up happiness in some kind of deal?"

"That night - the charm - I watched you cry over that - that malformation - you talked to Luna, and I followed you to the oak -"

She laughed, a sharp sound, full of incredulity. "You offered to help facilitate my revenge."

"Luna said it wasn't like that; I volunteered to be your comfort - I just - just wanted you to look at me the way you did them."

After her laugh and him not being just a teenage boy, after all, the kitchen was quiet. They busied themselves with the pattern on the table cloth - impossible to make out due to stains and wear - awkwardly, they both reached for the teapot. Draco withdrew his hand and said, "I wanted you to look at me like there was nothing I could do that you couldn't forgive."

"Oh Merlin, Malfoy."

"I wouldn't have no matter what you did. I couldn't. I wouldn't have been able to! You were - being kind that one time, it doesn't - I didn't even know you. I didn't know what was happening with you." Hermione's large earnest eyes were full of tears and pity. His sneer brought her back to herself.

"What do you mean you bargained away happiness, Malfoy?"

"I researched it, the elves -" "I thought they were fairies," Hermione mused. "Well, Luna was wrong about that, they are elves - " "Elves are not benign, some are malicious, deceitful even, they shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts, they could do real harm -"

He stared at her until she stopped talking.

"There is a story about a woman who was so absolutely infatuated she was willing to gamble her life that this one thing might make the object of her - feelings - fall heads over heels with her," Hermione mumbled something unintelligible about seafoam. "So she gets the one thing, and it doesn't, and she dies."

Hermione nodded and made some placating noises because clearly, he had lost his mind. She reached for the teapot and found it empty. She got up to make more tea and then stopped and turned and looked at him, her eyes larger than he'd ever seen them and her mouth in an unbecoming o.

"You are dafter than I remember, Granger. Old age doesn't become you."

"What was the bargain?"

"Being your free tumble in the dark, your security blanket, your shoulder to cry on, your punching bag - whatever you needed - for a time and place to convince you - " he was choking on his contempt, "for a chance to convince you I was worth forgiving. That I was like them."

He rushed to stop her from saying anything, "regardless, even if I had succeeded, I would have been tied to you just the same," he yanked at something and watched her rub her fingers on her chest just above her heart, "the charm, the elves gave me a chance to be a friend to call on in need, and if it didn't work out, a friend who was never needed." She dropped the kettle on the stove, and it went out with a huff.

While she was cooing gently and petting what must have been a blistering hot stovepipe, Draco said, "I'm your dog, Granger. I can't be with anyone else; I can't even think of it, it's as if - I should want to, but I don't."

She looked pleased with herself when the fire blazed once again. "That's a bit much, you know, you could just say you love -"

"Aren't you listening? I - I wanted to be your friend; I gave up loving anyone to be your friend." He made it as caustic as he could to hide that finally sitting there, in her deathtrap of a house, made it all worth it. He curiously reached for a gaudy-looking tin, immediately dropped it, and discreetly wiped something sticky off his fingers on the table cloth.

"That wasn't exactly friendship, Malfoy."

"There were certain expectations. You were pretty. There were lurid carvings all over the place!"

He rubbed his chest. "Every time that useless, incompetent bag of dirt made some excuse for being late, I could feel it tugging as if you were trying to disembowel me."

She was outraged, "you could hear us -"

"No, I guessed. Plenty of gossip in the Daily Prophet and the timing fit." He shrugged. The kettle whistled, and she turned, but her blush was visible.

"So, here I am, Granger. Willing and able to soothe whatever ails you."