Hello everyone! I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during this difficult time. Sending love to you all.

If you're looking for something to do while the world has stopped, I just wrote a one-shot called 'When The World Ends'. It's Dramione as well. Sorry for the shameless plug.

TSP also hit 1400 followers last chapter. That's incredible. I really appreciate all the support this story has gotten. I'm also going to go back soon and do some minor edits on TSP. Don't worry, no plot changes, I just have lots of time and want to do some editing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.


He wondered briefly if there was a way to salvage this.

Hermione stared at him from where she stood by the door. It did not escape his notice that she had placed herself as far away from him as the small bedroom allowed.

He had barely been conscious when Blaise had practically thrown him in here. Even if he had a wand, the beating that Finnigan had given him alongside the effects of the Cruciatus Curse still coursing through his veins had decimated his ability to resist.

Blaise had tied him up without a fight, casting spells on the ropes to make sure that Draco couldn't escape. Not that he could. Not even that he would.

Where would he go?

On a gut feeling, on the way that his blood was pounding as Hermione had walked, transfixed, towards him in the drawing room, he had denounced everything he had ever known. And now here he was, without a side, without sponsors, hated by the Death Eaters for his betrayal, and hated by the Order for a different betrayal altogether.

He was thankful that Blaise had healed his broken nose, but he wasn't stupid enough to think he deserved that small mercy.

Hermione continued to watch him from across the room, and Draco considered if she would take mercy on him at all. But he was a murderer, a betrayer, a double turncoat.

Mercy would be salvation, and that, he knew, would never happen.

He did not deserve it.

"Well?" Hermione said, finally breaking the silence. "Do you have anything you want to say for yourself?"

The scolding tone she used reminded him of their Hogwarts days. Normally he would have laughed.

But none of this was normal, was it?

Draco scoffed slightly. "Like anything I say could make this better."

"Not a chance," she replied. "But I do want to know why."

"Why what, Hermione?" he asked, her name burning his throat as he choked it out.

"Why did you do this, Draco?" she asked.

He wondered if his name burned her, too.

"Which part?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Stop deflecting. Merlin knows I don't have the patience for it right now."

"Merlin?" he asked. "Or Morganna?"

The reaction was instantaneous.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, those emeralds that he had gotten so used to were ablaze. Anger, he recognized. But there was more there.

But he couldn't read her. It was like looking into two emeralds themselves.

Cold, hard stones with all their secrets hiding beneath the surface.

"You knew the whole time," she said. It wasn't a question. There was no point in questioning what had been made so blatantly clear. But she didn't say it as if it were a mere statement either.

She spoke only in indictments.

"I knew," he confirmed, wincing at the sudden widening of her eyes.

"And that was your mission wasn't it?" she asked, fury simmering in her tone. "Get me to join your side because I'm a Le Fay."

He nodded; unsure what else he could add.

Her eyes narrowed. "And was getting in my pants absolutely necessary for that?"

The knife she had been slowly and methodically pushing into his chest twisted.

"Hermione, I didn't… that wasn't part of the plan," he said, shifting uncomfortably in his ropes. God, he wished he could reach her, touch her, anything.

Not that she'd let him.

Not ever again.

"Not part of the plan," she muttered. "Just an added benefit."

"You weren't just an added benefit," he snarled, a wave of emotion overtaking him. "You were…you were bloody magnificent."

He watched her gulp. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Believe that," he said, his voice approaching a beg. "I know that I'm a bloody liar, and a betrayer, and that I've fully wronged you and your people, but for the love of god believe that. I didn't sleep with you to convince you to come back with me."

Why did she have to keep looking at him like that?

He sighed, exhausted. "I slept with you because I wanted to, more than anything I've ever wanted in my life."

He saw her blush faintly before shaking her head. "Don't lie to me, Draco. We've had enough of that."

"Hermione," he started. How could he make her see, make her understand that things had changed? He had changed. She had changed him.

"When did you find out about my heritage?" she asked, pulling him back to reality.

"I found out when you lot saved Blaise," he said quietly, thinking back to the day that his life had changed so drastically. Had it only been a few months?

She raised an eyebrow. "When your father grabbed my mark?"

He nodded. Perhaps all he could give her was silence.

"So, this whole time," she said, her voice breaking slightly. "Every time the mark came up in conversation, all those hours we spent in the library researching this, every time you…you touched me, you knew who I was."

Her voice broke fully, but only on one word.

"I knew you were a Le Fay," he said. "I didn't know about any of the 'Other' stuff… I didn't know about us."

She laughed without humour. "Us? There is no us."

"It doesn't seem like we get much choice in that," he said. "Old magic, remember?"

"Of course, we get a choice," she nearly spat at him.

He shook his head. "When you bleed, I bleed. There's no choice in that."

"But how do you know?" she exclaimed, as her hands balled into fists.

"Easy," he replied. "Because if we got a choice, I would never have put you through what happened in the drawing room today."

She was silent for a moment, her lips pursed in thought. Merlin, he wanted to know what was going on in her brain. Was she trying to figure out how to reverse her magic's Othering of him? Was she arguing with herself about different ways to hurt him without feeling the effects on her own body?

"Do you feel any regret, at all? Any semblance of shame or guilt?" she asked him suddenly.

"Of course, I do," he said, sitting up straighter and wincing at the pain the sudden action caused. "Hermione, I know you don't believe me, but it…it fucking killed me to watch you get hurt today…"

"Not that," she interrupted, her eyes narrowing. "I don't give a damn how you feel about me."

The Gryffindor Princess had always been a rubbish liar.

"Us, this, whatever that lie was," she hissed. He watched a spot of red appear on her throat, blood rushing to her head in anger. "That doesn't fucking matter."

"Then what are you asking me?" he asked, lost. "What shame?"

"Dean," she said, stoutly. "You killed Dean."

He closed his eyes, letting his head fall back gently onto the wall. There it was. The final secret.

And of all the betrayals and lies, he somehow knew that this was the nail in the coffin. She would have forgiven his mission if he had proven to her where his allegiance now laid. He could've convinced the Order after what had happened today, he knew it. He had fought on their side, saved their members, not divulged any secrets besides what was going on with Hermione…

But he had killed Dean Thomas. That first day, tied up in a different room in Grimmauld Place, being interrogated by a different Hermione… a Hermione he hadn't kissed, a Hermione whose power he had never felt, a Hermione he had never had… she had mentioned Dean's death. Her voice had shaken, and the pain had shone through.

At the time, Draco had thought that her reaction to her old classmate's death had been because of her relationship with Finnigan. But now he knew better.

Of course, Finnigan had been closest with the late Gryffindor. But Thomas, and Draco's connection to him… this was not fodder, not background music. The fact that Draco had shot down Dean Thomas was not a subplot in this drama.

Thomas was a main character, and the fact that Draco had taken him away from the Order, from Finnigan, from Hermione herself…

Draco flashed back to an old lesson from his mother about plot in literature, from back when he was a child. He remembered the picture she had shown him, with beginning, rising action, falling action, and denouement.

He frowned. What was the top of the triangle called? The highest point of interest?

He looked at Hermione again.

Oh yes.

The climax.

"Why did you…why did you kill him?" she asked, voice hushed, eyes on the floor.

"There was no massive conspiracy or reason," he answered, thinking back to the moment where he, unknowingly at the time, had altered all of their timelines. "It was a battle. I was protecting myself. I didn't even…I didn't even realize it was Thomas at the time."

"Dean," she said, stiffly. "His name was Dean."

He had no response to that.

She lifted a hand to her face and wipe away a stray tear that had escaped the corner of her eye. "Do you know how…how infuriating that is to hear, Draco? That this, this murder was so meaningless to you? Dean's death destroyed Seamus, it destroyed me, he was my friend and a good man. And you just shot him down and what? Didn't even realize?"

"It wasn't meaningless," he retorted. "I'm not as callous to murder without regard."

"Fooled me," she shot back.

He sighed. "Look, I'm not going to give you an answer that you like on this, Hermione. I…I wish I hadn't killed him; I do. It was in the heat of the battle. I wasn't even sure that I was aiming at him."

"You weren't," she said. "You were aiming at Seamus. Dean jumped in front of him and took the curse."

The admission floored him. "I…" he started, before his voice stuttered off. "I didn't know."

Her eyes narrowed. "Of course, you didn't. Because the sort of selfless love that Seamus felt for Dean is so beyond your comprehension of reality that you can't bloody understand how you randomly shooting an Avada into a crowd changed all of our lives irreparably."

Her voice was raising with every word, with every accusation she threw his way.

Not that he could argue. He knew that much to be true.

"Hermione," he started, not even sure what he wanted to say.

"Don't say that," she muttered, eyes looking down again.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Hermione. Don't call me that."

"Your name?" he repeated. "What else should I call you? Granger doesn't exactly work anymore."

"Nothing," she spat. "Call me nothing. This…we… don't speak to me at all."

"It's not like you're giving me much of an option here."

Her eyes snapped back up to meet his. They were overflowing with tears now.

"How can you be so cavalier about all this?" she demanded, choking on the words. "Are you really that selfish that you don't care about any of this? You murdered Dean…"

"I'm not trying to be cavalier," he answered, floundering. "I'm just… I'm just trying to be honest. I didn't mean to kill him specifically, and I'm sorry that I did. I was defending myself in a battle. You lot would have done the same."

"We would never," she nearly screeched. "None of us would ever be so fucking dismissive of murder."

"Did you or did you not kill Rookwood just three days ago," he replied, finding himself annoyed.

As if he had the right to be annoyed, given the circumstances.

Even from the distance she had forced between them, he could see her pupils dilate.

"How dare you," she hissed. "Dean was a good, decent human and… that was different."

"How?" he demanded, clenching his fists. The rope rubbed against his skin, chafing it.

"Rookwood was a Death Eater," she said, trying and failing to steady her voice.

"You still killed him. Not specifically, right? You didn't have a deep hatred of Rookwood, you killed him in the middle of a battle in the middle of a war, remember?"

She started shaking. Draco watched her cross her arms again, holding herself together.

"Those are not even comparable situations, Draco."

He shrugged. "Maybe not. All I'm saying is that it's not as black and white as your emotions are making you feel. I didn't hate Dean Thomas. I didn't know the effect it would have on all of you. As yes, I wish every bloody, miserable day that I could reverse it, that I had never killed, that we didn't live in a war where sometimes you have to kill to survive. Wouldn't that be brilliant if that were our lives?"

Now he was shaking.

He sighed, shifting against the rope. It chafed his skin again. "But it's not. And these are the times we were given. All we can do is get on with it."

Her eyes narrowed. "I can't just 'get on with it', Draco. You're talking about murder."

"I'm talking about reality," he answered. "And I wish I could keep you in a tower somewhere, Hermione, where you could be protected, and not feel pain, and loss, and hurt, and where maybe you could fucking forgive me, but that's just not the cards we were dealt."

"I don't need you to protect me," she said quietly, her previous anger deflating.

"I know," he answered. "Doesn't mean that I don't want to."

Her pupils dilated again.

"Besides," she started, her voice shaking. "You're forgetting that I didn't kill Rookwood haphazardly in the middle of a battle."

"Oh?" he replied, raising an eyebrow. "You didn't?"

"No," she shook her head. "I killed him to save you."

His heart was pounding in his chest. "And I bet you anything that you wish you hadn't done that as much as I wish I hadn't shot down Thomas."

He watched as her mouth fell open. Her jaw didn't drop, but her lips separated enough to let out a small gasp of air.

His eyes were fixated there, on that space between her two pink lips.

"I don't regret saving you, Draco," she whispered, as she wrapped her arms around her chest. Holding herself together.

He wished he could.

"I'm so angry at you that I can barely put it into words," she whispered. But he could hear her. "I want to scream and cry when I think about what you did to us… to me. Betrayal beyond understanding. I can hardly believe that I missed it, that I was so bloody stupid to fall for your lies."

She was crying.

"But I did, didn't I?" she said, sniffling. "I fell for your performance. You really did an excellent job, highest commendations. You made me believe that you… felt something for me. That what we had, what was happening, the transfer, the 'Other', I don't care what you want to call it. It meant something to me. I thought it meant something to you."

"Meant?" he asked, heart skipping a beat.

She had used the past tense.

But even the past tense means something was real, once.

Tears slipped out of her eyes. "But that's selfish. It's selfish for me to be really fucking hurt that I felt for you and you used me. But that's not the reason that you are unforgivable, Draco."

She pushed a stray tendril of her hair behind her ear. He was fixated on it. On her.

"And do you know what kills me, what really just ruins it?" she asked, voice shaking. "It's that I thought you could join me in the light."

The implication of her statement hit him in droves.

"I'm not a good man, Hermione," he said, knowing the truth in his words as much as she did. "I'm not. I'm not a saint, I know that. I know that I don't deserve the time of day from you after what I did, even though I want so much more from you."

He could feel her heartbeat increase.

"You are fundamentally good, Hermione," he said, not giving a damn about the emotion overtaking his voice. "No, not good, perfect, you're bloody perfect. You care about people, and the difference between right and wrong, and justice, and the rules, and who you hurt. You care about the light, and you cared enough about me to want me there with you. That's not who I am. I don't care about those things. I'm not saying that my allegiance lies with the dark, it doesn't. Not anymore. But I don't really care about the morals and ethics involved."

"How could you not care about morality…" she started, her voice rising in anger once again.

He shook his head, before cutting her off, letting a chuckle escape his mouth.

"Hermione, I barely care about anything. But I do care about you."

Silence followed his admission. She looked shocked. Her unreadable eyes had returned.

As had the small space between her lips.

And he watched as her gaze moved downwards, staring at his mouth. She was fixated on him as he had been moments ago.

He swallowed.

"Draco," she murmured. Before she said anything else, she took a small step forward, such an inconsequential movement that normally, he would not have noticed.

But this was not inconsequential. This was momentous.

"Hermione," he answered, straining to move forward towards her, struggling against his restraints. "I would say that I'd take it all back if I could. But I can't."

"I regret killing Tho…Dean. I regret hurting you and betraying your trust. But I don't regret getting to know you, to feel your magic, to touch you…"

"Don't," she whispered.

She had moved another inch towards him.

"The premise was a lie," he said, suddenly finding it difficult to breath. "I can't deny that. But what happened between us was not a lie, or a con, or a deception, I swear on…on magic itself. I know that what I did was unforgivable. But you've done the impossible before. I watched you do it myself."

She was white, watching him with that small space between her lips overtaking his mind.

"Could you ever…" he whispered his plea, closing his eyes. "Could you ever forgive this?'

"I can't believe," she started, stuttering. "How can you ask me that?"

He sighed. "Desperate men make desperate demands. And, in case you haven't noticed, Hermione, I have nothing left to lose."

"Nothing to lose except me," she replied, her eyes still fixated on his lips.

It sucked the air out of his lungs.

"Please," he whispered.

"You never had me," she said, quietly, as if trying to convince herself. "Only for a fleeting moment."

"You cannot deny that this bond, this is real."

"I know it's real," she answered. "I can feel it in my bones, your presence, you're…you're etched into me."

"Then, why are you still standing over there…"

"Draco," she snapped, her eyes meeting his again. "I didn't choose this, I didn't choose you."

"I know that it's subconscious, but you cannot deny how you feel…"

She shook her head. "I'm not going to choose you, Draco. Not like this, after having just found out you killed my friend, after finding out that you tried to trick me into joining your side. Not with you looking at me like I'm your salvation. I can't be your bloody salvation, Draco. I'm only human."

"No, you aren't," he said. "You're a Le Fay."

She shook her head. "I can't do this now, I didn't… I didn't think this conversation would go this way…"

"Go what way?" he asked, not bothering to hide his desperation.

"Like this!" she replied. "With you looking at me like that, and my blood, my magic, my body demanding that I go to you. I came into this room to yell at you, not to fall apart at your feet."

She was so much closer to him now.

"I can't think about this damn 'Other' bond right now, not with everything going on. Not after discovering what you did. We can't fucking forget the context, Draco, no matter how much…"

"How much what?"

She sighed. "No matter how much I want to."

There was silence for a moment.

God fucking damn it, why couldn't she walk one more foot forward?

As if she could read his mind, she shook her head. "Not now, Draco. I just… I'm not going to let this 'Other' thing override what my rational mind is screaming at me."

"And what's it screaming?"

She took a step backwards.

"That maybe I shouldn't have come."

Before he had time to argue, to plead, to beg, she had pushed her way out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

He was alone again.

But he wasn't. He could still feel her presence, so close to him. She had been standing close enough to touch, to taste. He could've leaned forward and…

And what? She wouldn't have let him. She probably was never going to let him again.

He looked down at his hands, where blisters were starting to form where the ropes had held him back.

Held him back from everything he wanted.


On the other side of the door, Hermione had slid to the floor, head in her hands.

She had been so close. She could've leaned forward and…

And what?

No. She couldn't.

Even as whispered the words over and over in her mind, she felt resistance.

It was just her magic, trying to make her do this, she thought weakly.

But her magic was an integral part of her, wasn't it?

She felt tears escape the corner of her eyes.

And now, so was he.


Review :) I read them all, I promise, and they really make my day.