Chapter Seven- Life Before

"What the fuck did I say? Honestly, Draco. You better repeat it back to me, word-for-word so I know you're listening because I'm starting to get the impression that everything I say means nothing to you!"

Draco sighed, closing his book and raising his eyebrows at his friend. "Why, Blaise, I'm feeling much better, thank you for asking."

Blaise stopped short of his bedside, though he very much looked like he would like to storm closer and strangle Draco, seething as he was. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Don't tempt me, Draco. Merlin knows I want you to suffer more, you dumb fuckhead."

"Have you been practising this speech in the mirror? If so, I'm disappointed that's the version you went with. I'm sure you could do much better."

Blaise opened his mouth to retaliate, fist clenched by his side, but he just fell into the chair by Draco's bed. He buried his face in his hands. Draco sighed and put the book on his bedside table, reaching out for his friend. "Blaise-"

"You don't get it, Draco," he said before Draco could go any further, locking eyes with him. It didn't look like Blaise had slept much either if the circles under his eyes were anything to go by. He looked tired and defeated. "You might not care what happens to you anymore, but I do. Okay? I do. And you could drive yourself to the edge, you could stand on that cliff and try to throw yourself off, and I will still use all my power to keep your feet flat on the ground. Do you hear me, Draco? I won't let you destroy yourself. So either you're going to start caring or you're going to destroy me too. It's your choice now."

Draco stared at him. He wanted to tell him that caring was what had gotten him into this position in the first place, that he had loved too much and lost everything as a result. He didn't think Blaise would want to hear it, however, so he kept his mouth shut and hazarded a guess at how many bricks were in the opposite wall.

"How are you feeling?" asked Blaise, with a sigh.

"Like I've been kicked in the ribs a couple times," said Draco, and he gave his friend a small smile.

Blaise laughed a little, scratching his head. He said, "You deserved it. You shouldn't go picking fights with the next foolhardy dumbass that comes your way. The world's full of them- you'd never get a rest."

"I didn't pick this one. I tried to ignore him."

Blaise lounged back in his chair. "Then try harder next time."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "What did I miss in lesson?"

"Changing the subject doesn't negate the matter at hand." Nevertheless, Blaise stretched out his legs and leaned back in the chair, counting off on his fingers the extensive list of homework. "McGonagall set an essay on the limitations of conjuration-"

"Thrilling."

"-and we learned some new Runes we have to memorise. Defence was more of the same but you got it first try, so nothing missed there. Oh, and Slughorn started the coursework. There are a few regulations but it's pretty much open to anything so I'll give you my notes when you get out." He paused. "If you get out."

Draco snorted. "If?"

"You never know, Hamelin might come back and finish the job when he finds out you're still breathing."

"Hopefully, he'll get a move on, then," said Draco. Blaise scowled. "Hang on, how did you know which foolhardy prick it was?"

His friend smirked a little at that, folding back his sleeves. "I have my sources, Draco." He sobered up. "You're fucking stupid with how you handled it."

Draco looked away. He wasn't easy to chastise. His parents had always been strict and he most certainly knew how to behave and all the rules of etiquette, but he rarely felt the stinging of reprimand and if he did, it never lasted long. His father had either neglected to speak to him, locking himself in his study for days on end, or beat him with the silver cane he always carried. Chiding was drowned out by the crack of the stick against his skin. His mother had a sharp tongue but she followed it up with tender touches, brushing his hair or stroking his face, that the aftermath of his mother's scolding never really hurt. There was something about Blaise's blasé tone, however, and the way his rebuke left no room for argument that smarted more than Draco cared to admit.

"I hadn't slept."

"Cut the bullshit, Draco. I know you. I know how you think. You're not a bad guy, far from it, but if that Ravenclaw prick wanted a villain, I know that you'd be more than willing to accommodate him. You've got to understand that a mark on your arm doesn't make you evil."

"That's easy for you to say," muttered Draco bitterly. "Your arm is clean."

Blaise fell silent at that. He'd been one of the lucky ones. His mother, although high in standing, had ostracised herself from the Death Eaters' ranks when, shortly after becoming a widow, she took her first Muggle lover, though Draco doubted she knew then that it would save both her own life and that of her son. She was also a smooth enough talker to wheedle her way out of it, a charmer of snakes with the uncanny knack of knowing what you were feeling with only a glance into your eyes: an infuriating ability she had passed onto her only heir.

Blaise stared at him, and he avoided looking at his friend because he knew what he'd give away if he did, and he wasn't sure he was ready to crack and pour every remaining morsel of hope into the abyss.

"He needed someone to blame," said Draco in a low voice. "They all did. It was all I could give them.

Blaise watched him, his dark eyes unsure and unsteady. "The war is over, Draco."

He screwed his eyes shut and when he swallowed, it strained his throat. "No, Blaise. It's not even close."

Blaise didn't reply. He hauled his bag onto his lap and made a pile of what Draco suspected was all the work he'd missed. Draco knew better than to complain. His stomach whirled and he was glad he hadn't eaten that morning because he was sure it would come back up.

"You took your time in coming to see me," he said instead. He flicked through the Transfiguration work but he didn't see a word of it.

Blaise retrieved an orange from his bag and, without breaking eye contact, began peeling it. His lips twisted into a wry smile. "Thought I'd finally given up on you?"

"Thought you'd finally come to your senses," muttered Draco.

Blaise laughed. He hummed. "Yeah. You keep saying that." He popped an orange piece into his mouth. "If it's any consolation, I did come sooner."

Draco's eyes shot to him. "You did?"

"Yesterday. I came to see if you were still alive." Draco waited and he realised he was holding his breath. Blaise glanced at him. "You were. You also weren't alone."

It was almost as though his heart had dropped through a chasm in his chest. One moment, it had been pounding so hard he thought it might break through his skin and run away, and the next it had plummeted to his stomach, into a darkness so deep he couldn't hear it ticking. Draco let out the breath he had been holding to see if his heart would start up again. It didn't.

"Why was Hermione Granger here, Draco?"

"She brought me here."

"Let me rephrase then. Why did she stay?"

Draco swallowed, but his throat was dry and the taste of Blaise's question was bitter. It wasn't like the question was one he hadn't asked himself. He'd asked himself that question a million times since he'd woken up that morning to find the bedsheets still tucked up to his chin and the chair beside his bed tucked neatly to the side. Part of him, a very small part, scathingly suggested that she was just doing what she'd always done: Draco was just her next pet project. He'd noticed she had a thing for the broken and forgotten when she burst into his carriage in First Year, spouting off about some toad. He hadn't really listened, eyeing her bushy hair and buck teeth with a sneer because he knew she couldn't possibly be Pure enough to step foot in one of his Mother's parties, but the name Longbottom had jumped out at him. Of course he'd heard that name before. The boy who it belonged to was broken and bumbling and Draco knew it the moment he laid eyes on him. He didn't think twice about the girl but he supposed it made sense now. The fact that she made friends with Potter and Weasley only seemed to cement the fact. Then, there was the mortifying disaster of her bloody House Elf campaign.

Granger had a thing for lost souls.

Draco Malfoy was not lost. He was not broken and forgotten. He would not be the next charm in her string of miserable misfits the world chewed up and spat on. He was not in the gutter and even if he was, Hermione Granger was most certainly not going to be the one to haul him out. Draco didn't want her pity.

And yet, there was another part of him, a little bit bigger than the last part, that sought her out in the corridor. When the doors of the Hospital Wing opened, he would automatically assume she was back to check he still had a pulse. He didn't want her to. He still couldn't stand to look at the despair in her eyes, nor listen to the bossy know-it-all voice she used on him, but some part of him yearned for those things. Draco wondered if it was because she was unwavering normalcy, a snippet of Life Before. That he clung to Granger was terrifying enough- he didn't allow himself the liberty to dwell on any other reason why it might be so, because the moment he'd done so, all he could hear was the clatter of the spoon as it fell from her nose and her surprised laugh.

"Are you friends?" Blaise asked. His voice was even, neither mocking nor curious but Draco heard both regardless.

He said immediately, "No."

The silence that followed was hard and unrelenting that he couldn't let it persist.

"She helps me sleep," he murmured. It was the most he could allow himself without tearing a massive hole in his body and letting his organs spill out. Any more and he'd give himself entirely to her. "I don't know how. I don't know why her. She's as empty as I am and maybe I like seeing her broken, maybe it's some leftover part of the person I used to be, or maybe it's a reminder I'm not alone in this constant fucking nightmare. We're both wrecked and somehow, I get peace from the fact."

When Draco looked at his friend, Blaise's face was taut and pained. "You hated each other for years... and now, you're- what? Civil for the sake of a good night's sleep?"

"I still hate her," said Draco but it was too quick. "She makes me feel weak."

Blaise leaned back in his chair. He watched Draco for a very long time, and he must've caught the twitch of his eye and the crack in his voice. He must have seen everything that had happened, all of his nightmares, all the horrors from the war that played out in his eyes, every single secret meeting with Granger, because it encompassed the sag of his shoulders and crumbling resolution of his face. When Blaise spoke next, Draco remembered how to breathe.

"I'll be honest with you, Draco. It sounds to me like she makes you feel hope."