AN: Trigger warning - brief allusion to thoughts of suicide in this chapter.
Also, thank you to all that are still with me. Hopefully I don't let you down.
Lost Souls of Nott Castle
Chapter 40 - Into the Darkness
When Hermione finally awoke it was well after midnight. The sky outside was pitch black. The bed beside her was cold and empty.
She tried to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but it was pointless. After trying for several long minutes she gave up. Instead, she got up and stretched her muscles. Then she went in search of food.
In the dining room she found a plate of food sitting in front of her chair with a stasis charm to keep it fresh. She smiled to herself, then sat down and dug in.
Halfway through her meal, she heard footsteps on the stairs. She looked up from her plate just as Theo entered the room.
"I thought you were supposed to stay in bed for twenty four hours," he said as he ran his hand through his hair.
"I was starving," she answered with a smile.
He sat down across from her.
"And no use of magic?" He asked pointedly.
"I lifted a stasis charm," she rolled her eyes. "Are you my Father now?"
"Someone has to keep you in line, Granger." He laughed. The banter between them had always come easily.
"So Draco told you what happened," she said seriously. "That the curse has been lifted, Pansy basically confessed and Harry has been cleared?"
"Yes. He also told us that you nearly died in the process."
She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. Her eyebrows crinkled.
"He may be exaggerating slightly," she told him.
"He said you stopped breathing."
The room was silent for a long few moments. The only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock that seemed to have increased in volume tenfold.
"I might have," she finally said quietly. "I remember the noise in my head being so loud, and then...nothing. Until I heard Draco's voice. When I heard him, I knew I was going to be okay."
She pushed her food around on her plate, then she pushed the plate away altogether. Her appetite was effectively gone.
"It's likely there could be other attempts against you. Against him. Against both of you."
"Probably," she shrugged her shoulders.
"That's it?" He asked. "You are really willing to risk your life? To risk Draco's life?"
She appraised him for a moment. She wasn't sure if he was worried about her or worried about his friend. Maybe both.
"Theo, people have been trying to kill me for years," she told him. "Because of my parents. Because of my friendships. Because of who I am. I'm not going to let those people tell me who I can love."
Theo ran his hand over his face and sighed.
"You're as crazy as he is," he mumbled.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling.
"Sorry, Theo. He's my person. That isn't going to change anytime soon." She shrugged her shoulders as though there was nothing she could do about it. When really, there wasn't. Even if she could, she wouldn't change anything.
"Honestly, I expected nothing less. Still, I felt like I had to ask. Just in case neither of you had really thought this through. Anyway, you'll find your person drunk off his arse on the roof." He gave her a final look like he would say something else, then he shook his head and left the dining room.
She couldn't bring herself to eat anymore, so she set off to find her knight in shining armor.
She found him on the roof, just as Theo had promised. He was asleep in his lounge chair with a fire in the ring, an empty bottle of firewhiskey next to him, and a half full glass in his hand.
Gently, she removed the glass from his hand and set it on the table. He stirred, looked up at her for a few seconds, then rolled to his side. He moved over just enough, then patted the spot next to him.
She smiled and laughed at him. But then she laid down next to him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him, holding her tightly.
"I thought you were gone," he said against her ear. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and she could nearly hear the heartbreak in his voice. "You stopped screaming. You stopped moving. You stopped breathing."
Her hand found his and squeezed.
"I couldn't feel you anymore," she said quietly. "But I knew you were still there. Then I heard your voice, and I knew I was okay."
She turned her head to look at him, to kiss him. He returned her kiss, but pulled away far sooner than she would have liked.
"No extra curricular activities," he said with a smirk. "Sleep, Princess."
Draco woke as the sun was starting to climb over the horizon. He found Hermione splayed over his chest. He didn't want to disturb her, but he was going to have to move. He needed to empty his bladder, and his mouth tasted like rotten firewhiskey. Also, his head was beating like a drum.
He laid still as long as he could, then he tried to roll over so she would be on her side and off of his chest. He was not nearly as smooth as he intended to be, though.
She groaned out loud.
"What are you doing?" She asked sleepily.
"Trying not to wake you," he said with a laugh. "I guess I failed."
Her eyes blinked open.
"Yes, you did." She agreed.
"Come on, Princess. Let's go to bed." He sat up slowly and helped her up as well.
They made their way down to his room. The first thing he did was take pain relief potion for his headache. Then he used the bathroom and took a shower. When he finished, he found Hermione asleep again in his bed.
He stood there and just watched her sleep for several long minutes. He had thought through the questions in his mind long and hard. Blaise's question - was it really worth it to be with her - had revisited him time and again. Every time it had, he had taken another drink and tried to think of a reason the answer would be no.
He couldn't think of a single reason why it might not be worth the risk to be with her.
In a very short amount of time, she had become his everything.
The sun was making its way into the sky, but he lay down next to her anyway. She had a good eight hours left until she was supposed to be up and moving around anyway. After the last few days, he could easily spend the day in bed with her with no complaints.
She dozed off and on throughout the day. Theo's elf brought them breakfast and lunch in bed. When she wasn't sleeping, they talked about nothing in particular. By mid afternoon, she was feeling much more alert.
They still opted to take it easy for the evening by having dinner on the balcony and watching the sunset together.
As the last rays of light disappeared, she leaned her head against his shoulder and relished in the way he held her flush against him.
She hated to break the silence between them, but felt like she needed to.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked quietly into the night.
He didn't answer for a long time.
"No." He finally said.
She huffed out a small laugh. Men were all the same. They never wanted to talk through anything.
"Tell me something, though," he said after another long pause.
"What's that?" She sat up and turned to face him.
"What happened after the Weasley's kicked you out?"
Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting him to ask, but it certainly wasn't that.
She turned away from him. Then she stood and walked over to the balcony railing. The nights had gotten cooler as Autumn approached, so the windows around the balcony were in place to protect them from the chill. She could still see the lake, though, glistening in the moonlight. She focused on the gentle ripples that she could see and let her mind drift back to that awful week.
"At first I was just shocked that they had actually made me leave," she started with a sigh. "I wandered around, waiting, so sure that they were going to send a patronus anytime telling me to come back. It started to get dark out. I realized I didn't have any money. Tom wouldn't even let me stay at the Leakey without payment up front. I ended up in a park. The rain picked up and I took shelter under a bridge."
A cold shiver ran down her spine. She folded her arms over herself.
"I didn't even notice there had been a man following me," she said quietly.
"He had a knife. Well, a dagger really. It reminded me of..." She paused to take a shaky breath. She didn't need to finish her sentence anyway. She could tell by his sharp intake of breath that he knew exactly what it reminded her of. "I froze. I don't know how long. Long enough for him to get ahold of me and push me against the side of the bridge. He…he touched me…groped me. That's when I came to my senses."
She turned back around to face him and took another shaky breath.
"I fought like hell until he released his grip on me, then I ran. He caught me, pushed me to the ground." She shivered and took a shaky breath. "I managed to get my wand and get away. I ran as fast as I could. As soon as I was far enough away, I apperated out of there."
She wiped a stray tear off her face.
"Where did you go?" He asked. He was leaning forward in his seat, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped tightly together between them.
"I went home," she said quietly. "Or to what was left of my home."
Unbidden tears began streaming down her face as she remembered setting her eyes on what was her childhood home for the first time. In the dark of night, she had seen the charred remains looming in front of her like something out of a nightmare.
The fire had consumed nearly the whole structure. All that remained were partial walls and a stairway leading to nowhere.
"I slept in the garden shed that night," she told him. She moved back over to the loveseat and sat next to him, wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath.
He didn't move. He still sat leaning on his elbows with his hands clenched tightly together.
"The next morning I returned to the Burrow. The wards had been changed. They wouldn't let me in. I reached out to a few classmates. Neville. Parvati. Hannah. Seamus. It was hopeless."
She sat back and pulled her knees up to her chest, holding them tightly as she stared out at the lake.
"Apparently I'm mean and make people feel stupid by talking down to them."
Draco huffed out a laugh at that. At his laugh, she found herself smirking just a little bit.
"Anyway, after that I gave up trying to find someone to help me." She sighed and let her head fall back. "I slept in a barn on the edge of Hogsmeade that second night. After that, I moved around, somewhere different every night. I was depressed and hungry and so very alone. I was so close to just giving up."
"Why didn't you?" He asked. "What kept you going?"
She rested her head against her knees facing him.
"Honestly?" She said with a small laugh. "It was you."
He turned to face her then, surprised by her answer.
"Me? How is that?"
"I got the notice from the Ministry about being at your probation meeting. I knew I had to be there. It gave me something. A reason to get up in the morning." She sat up straight, breathing deeply. "That morning I may or may not have snuck into an empty muggle hotel room. I took a hot shower for the first time in days. I washed the only clothes I had to my name. And I finished off the room service that my neighbors had left out for the rubbish."
It wasn't her finest moment. She had felt like she was stealing when she had done it. Still, she had left it as an option for the future. It was a means to an end, nothing more.
She stood back up and paced over to the railing.
"After that first meeting, we ran into Harry and Ron at the Ministry. Do you remember?" She wiped the moisture out of her eyes and fought a shudder that ran through her body. That night had been terrible. "When I left that day, I was so alone. I wandered the city for hours. I ended up back at my parent's place. I put wards up around the garden shed and settled in."
She kept her eyes on the moonlight. Her shoulders shook as silent tears streaked down her face.
"My thoughts went to some very dark places that night and the next day. I don't think I ever intended to leave that shed again. If I hadn't gotten that letter summoning me to Hogwarts, I don't think I ever would have."
Draco felt his breath burning in his lungs. When he had seen her at Hogwarts, he recognized that she needed help. But he never would have imagined the depths of her despair.
A vice gripped her heart as she remembered being in that shed. Sitting on a small cot that she had transfigured from a lawn chair. Eating vegetables out of a jar her mother had canned years earlier. Turning her father's razor knife over and over in her hands for hours.
A gasping breath tore through her lungs. She would have collapsed if it weren't for Draco wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest.
"It's okay," he told her. "I've got you."
"How could they do that to me?" She asked. "How could they just…toss me aside like that? After everything I did for them. After everything I gave up. How?"
She broke down completely, sobbing against his chest as she tried to comprehend the betrayal that nearly destroyed her.
Draco had detested Harry Potter as long as he had known him. He had never before hated the man as much as he did in that moment.
He held her until her tears stopped and her breathing returned to normal.
"You saved my life, Draco." She whispered against his chest. "Quite literally."
He held her a little tighter. Then he pulled back and cradled her face in his hands, tilting her chin up so he was looking in her eyes.
"Hermione, Love. What they did is completely on them. It's a reflection of the kind of people they are. It is not a reflection on you. At all."
Her eyes searched his, looking for any indication at all that he was only telling her what he thought she needed to hear. She wanted to argue with him. To tell him that it had to be something she had done.
Maybe they had never really wanted her around to begin with. Their whole friendship was a lie and she had been too stupid to see it.
Maybe…
"Stop." He told her. "Just stop, whatever it is you are thinking right now. Stop."
He leaned down and kissed her slowly. When he pulled back, he leaned his forehead against hers.
"I love you, Hermione Granger. Because you are brilliant and kind and funny and beautiful, inside and out. You are an amazing person. Anyone that would willingly give that up is nothing short of a moron. Don't give them any more of your energy. They don't deserve it."
She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him as tight as she could.
"I love you, Draco Malfoy."
"Well, of course you do, Princess. What's not to love?"
She laughed against his chest and he relaxed slightly.
"I don't know what I've done to deserve you," she muttered.
"That's my line." He kissed her forehead. "Come on, Love. Let's go to bed."
She let him lead her inside and slipped under the covers next to him.
Her mind was still reeling, though. Telling Draco about the horrible week she had spent alone had brought all of those awful memories to the forefront. Sorting through them all had taken a toll on her physically, mentally and emotionally.
Lying in the dark, deep in the night, with Draco by her side, she was finally able to admit to herself that she had never really dealt with the many traumatic experiences that she had lived through.
"Draco," she whispered into the darkness, even though she was sure that he was as wide awake as she was.
"Hermione," he whispered back, causing her to smile to herself.
"I think I should take Agent Kimmey's advice and talk to someone."
He kissed her on the top of her head and held her a little tighter.
"If you want to, then you should."
"Yeah," she breathed a sigh against his chest.
The war. Being tortured. Erasing herself from her parent's memories and sending them away. Being abandoned by her best friends. Being homeless and depressed. Being cursed by Pansy and threatened by Harry.
One after another after another.
"You are strong and brave." Draco told her, breaking through her thoughts. "There is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it."
She couldn't keep pretending like she was fine, like there was nothing broken inside of her.
"Or for accepting help when it's offered." She would be forever thankful for Draco, Theo and Blaise for taking her in when she needed it the most.
"Exactly." He rubbed small patterns along her back until her breathing evened out and she slipped off to sleep.
Even as she slept, anger simmered in his blood. He wondered if Potter had any idea, any clue at all, just how bad he had hurt his supposed best friend. Did the man even realize that he had sent her into a spiraling depression that could have easily taken her life?
He couldn't possibly know. How could he live with himself if he did? Perhaps it was time he found out. Harry Potter needed to know just how deeply his betrayal had cut her.
AN: Phew. That was a tough one. Thoughts?
Until Saturday.
-mezy