A/N: Thank you again for the follows, favorites, and kind reviews. Please enjoy the third installment.


I wish I could say that I dreamt of peace—lush, green fields ripe with the scent of spring, glistening dewdrops beading on blooming wildflowers, and the balmy Scottish sun shining its light and life onto my face.

I wish I could say that the curse's terrible monsters stayed at bay, forever hidden in the farthest shadows of my mind, locked and guarded, while the moon and stars kept watch over the cottage.

More than anything, I wish I could say that I didn't wake up drenched in sweat, throat ripped in a blood-curdling scream as I thrashed and kicked at phantoms who'd not only stolen my parents' faces but disfigured them until they were almost unrecognisable.

I wish they'd been unrecognisable.

Now the memory of my parents is tainted like everything else.

Before I could topple off the bed and smash into the floor, Draco immobilised me to the mattress, pounds of hard muscle sitting atop my thighs, heavy as a stone, while powerful arms barricaded my shoulders against the pillows. In the haze of battle, I tried to bite him, gnashing my teeth at the pale flesh of his wrists, head careening side to side as his harsh breath blasted into my face.

"Settle, Granger. Settle. There's no one here but you and me."

A flick of his fingers brings the oil lamps to life, bathing the room in weakened, yellow luminescence. My screams subside into stifled, choked gasps as my eyes adjust to the onslaught, the adrenaline waning. It's evident by the light that the bedroom is empty save for the two humans grappling for purchase on the bed.

No phantoms lurk in the shadows, only dust motes and the wisp of a broken girl who used to be whole.

Draco's eyes bore into mine through a row of thick blond lashes. The black in his pupils swallows his steel irises until they're nothing but thin, flinty rings, his mouth twisted in a grimace as I buck and grunt, trying to unseat him from my thighs.

It's a useless endeavour until he deems fit to move.

"Are you injured?" asks Draco, easing his weight onto his knees. Despite my wriggling, he hunches lower and examines my face, the skin hot and wet with tears. Our breaths mingle in the cold air as I glare at him, fury registering in my scowl even though the man balancing above me isn't the problem. Blood swells in my mouth from where I've bitten my tongue, metallic-tasting and bitter. It pools against the back of my teeth and slips against the soft tissue of my palate, another reminder that the most perilous threat at this moment is me.

I want to shout, yes, you absolute buffoon, everything is painful, but mostly on the inside, where the wounds are invisible. Everything hurts, but not where magic can heal it. I hate this curse and what it's done to my body. I hate this war and how it's altered my soul. And I hate your aunt Bellatrix perhaps even more than I despise the Dark Lord. If she weren't already dead, I'd kill her with every torturous spell in existence for ruining my precious memories and poisoning my mind. Anyone who tried to stop me would suffer the same fate.

If you'd asked me a year ago if I could conjure an unforgivable curse, I never would have thought myself capable. But now? There's so much vile anguish festering in my gut that I think I could cast one without a wand.

Through gritted teeth, I seethe.

"I wish she were alive so I could cleave her in half with my bare hands."

Draco's eyes widen for a fraction of a second before they soften in dull recognition. His grip loosens as he smooths the wrinkles creased into my shirt from his fingers' indentions. When he's off my lap and sitting cross-legged on the mattress, he studies me again with a speculative stare while I avoid his gaze, examining the mess I've created.

The pillow fort he'd so painfully constructed for privacy is strewn all over the bedroom, clumps of goose feathers flung across the floor. The blankets and sheets are crumpled in a haphazard pile that hangs halfway off the bed. Our water glasses are shattered near the opposite wall, fluid dripping down the plaster, whether from accidental magic or being hurled through the air with my fist; I do not know.

It's quite the spectacle, given my weakened state.

Draco rubs his jaw and appraises the chaos.

"Even with your broken arm and obvious impairment, you're still the most dangerous creature in the house," he says, lips twitching with the ghost of a smirk. "Remind me never to piss you off."

My mouth cracks open in a feral grin, too late before I realise that my teeth are likely streaked with blood. Draco's face blanches in the weak lamplight.

"Merlin, Granger." He taps his wand to my chin and mutters a clipped episkey. The cut on my tongue sews itself into a smooth, sutureless strip as the blood banishes from my smile. "Why didn't you answer when I asked if you were hurt?"

His voice holds a frustrated edge as if lying by omission is where he draws the line.

I wipe the sweat and tears from my face with my good arm and stare at a fixed point on the ceiling.

"It didn't seem important compared to my jumbled brain. Clearly, I'm losing it."

There's an awkward hush in the room when Draco doesn't bother placating me with false reassurances. Moisture wells in my eyes again, and I blink it back, frustrated that I haven't yet exhausted my supply.

"You're fighting it like a true Gryffindor," he says, at last, a blush staining his cheeks. "A weaker witch would have succumbed by now."

I swallow the knot in my throat and roll my gaze towards the rafters.

"Don't patronise me, Malfoy. Come tomorrow's light, and I might not even recognize my own name."

Draco stiffens and falls so silent that I wonder if he's attempting apparition despite the ban. He didn't join the Order to play as my personal therapist, nor did he agree to be my handler, regardless of the unbreakable vow. We are prisoners under different means, bound and shackled to the success of Harry and Ron's cross-country trek, helpless observers of our fate as time flits through our fingers.

It's mortifying how much weakness I've shown him in the span of a few days.

Anything must be better than listening to me whine.

The bed creaks as Draco draws closer, his knees resting against my side.

"That isn't going to happen," he says, imbuing so much heat into his voice that it coils down my spine, making me shiver. My eyes slant shut as liquid pools in their depths. "Granger, look at me. Look at me." His fingers grasp my jaw, gentle and warm, tilting my chin upwards as I peek at him through wet lashes. "You will survive this war and be better for it because you'll understand the pain it's caused," he says, voice a low growl. "People will need your strength and compassion to guide them into brighter days. Don't let anyone steal your light, most especially my dead, fucked-up aunt. She can't hurt you anymore."

With the lamp flinging shadows on Draco's cheeks, he is both elevated and damned: the bedraggled saviour, the bag-eyed captive, the sharp-tongued anomaly who influences my weary spirit and forces it to engage.

However, logic demands a practical response, no matter how impassioned he may be.

Tears stream down my cheeks as my lips part with a quivering, despairing smile. Draco's eyes narrow as if he knows what I'm going to say before I do.

"Even in death…." My voice wavers. "The pain Bellatrix has caused is insurmountable."

It's both a relief and another crack in my jaded heart when Draco doesn't invalidate my experience further. The roughened pad of his thumb brushes across my jaw, tracing soft strokes along my skin from cheek to chin, again and again like a lover's caress, before his palm falls limp to his lap. We sit in fraught silence while I cry it all out, ugly sounds that grate my ears until the dawning squawk of birdsong swallows them whole.

Conjured tissues float to my fist, scourgified by Draco's wand as I douse them in thick wads of snot. When the fluids run dry, and I start to hiccough, Draco eases the clean kerchiefs next to my head and turns his gaze towards the greying morning.

"I should go to the village before it's light," he says, raking a hand through his mess of hair. "The disillusionment is easier to hide without the sun rippling around my silhouette."

The idea of being alone in the cottage summons a swath of gooseflesh up my arms.

"Before you leave, can you stun me?" I ask, wincing at Draco's stricken expression. "Please?"

"Granger…." He scoffs, jaw and shoulders tense. "You can't possibly prefer that."

I clutch his wrist and squeeze until my fingers turn red, pleading with every cell in my body for him to relent. Draco's eyes dart from my face to where we're connected, a sullen frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"What I want is never to see my parents' faces twisted in horror again."

A shudder wracks his frame before he loosens my grip one finger at a time, drawing his wand and rolling it between his palms.

"There's no guarantee this will give you peace. The healer said mind-altering spells could accelerate the curse."

I lick my cracked lips and laugh with a mirthless cackle.

"How is that a revelation? The curse accelerates with every second, regardless of how many potions I drink. Just do it, Malfoy. Give me a pain tincture first and be done with it. I'm a danger to myself."

The bedside drawer creaks open as Draco retrieves one of the last vials. Without asking, I know exactly where he's going to go when he leaves the cottage. I can only hope the Order will agree to make reparations for all the damage we've caused.

I down the drink and banish the bottle myself, wincing as fresh pain throbs in my skull.

Draco's disapproving tsk makes my blood boil.

"No more showing off your wandless spells, Little Witch," says Draco, staring down his nose at me. "Can't believe you had me thinking that you couldn't do it."

The tip of Draco's wand touches my temple, red spools of magic spreading across the air, warming my skin with his familiar signature. It's the last thing I remember before my consciousness is robbed blind.

When I'm rennervated sometime later, a long time later, judging by the tall shadows slanting like towers on the walls, it's to the scent of smoked meat and baked bread curling in my nostrils. A headache pounds behind my eyelids as my retinas adjust to the brightness, my pupils zeroing in on the new commodity on my nightstand: a plate piled high with steaming grub.

A masculine voice announces its presence by clearing its throat. I drag my gaze across the room to where Draco sits perched in a chair near the wardrobe, a thick book laid flat on his lap. He marks the page with a folded edge and arches a fair eyebrow.

"Alright, Granger?"

I point wordlessly to my temple and breathe a relieved sigh when Draco levitates a pain potion into my hand. It tastes different from the others, sweet yet earthy, unfamiliar on my tongue. When the vial is drained, an overwhelming fuzzy sensation spreads along my skin, tingling down every neural pathway as it wraps my body with heat.

It almost feels… Good.

"What was in that?" I ask, lips turning numb as my weighted, tingling tongue slips across my teeth. The pleasant pins and needle sensation travels down my jaw and chest until it spills through my fingertips and toes like magic. It feels like my head is floating off my shoulders, a relatively manic squeal bubbling from my throat as the room spins on its axis. "Malfoy." It's both a command and a sputtered giggle. "What the hell did you give me?"

Draco shrugs and relaxes deeper into his chair, crossing his long legs, which appear absolutely gargantuan through my fish-eyed lens.

"It's some muggle and magic concoction," he says. "Probably illegal. Trust me when I say that you'd rather not know." He thumbs open his book and looks quite pleased with himself when I hook my fingers in my mouth and tug on my cheek, experimenting with how far the taut skin can stretch. "Supper is on the nightstand," he says, hiding the lower half of his face behind the book. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was laughing. "Let me know if you can't operate your hand, and I'll feed you."

Come to think of it… I don't even know where my hand is. After searching the bed for what feels like hours, I find it floating above my head, attached to my wrist all along, and snort into my fist as my knuckles bop my nose.

"Fuck," says a male voice, guiding silver prongs speared with shredded meat towards my mouth. "Stop giggling, Witch. You're wearing more food than you've eaten. I should've fashioned you a bib."

When did Draco move from the chair? I giggle anew as he brushes dribbled juice from my chin, and I know beyond all doubt that I am absolutely high as a kite because it looks like Draco's sucking my mess from his thumb.

"Is it good?" I ask, opting for a suggestive eyebrow waggle that uses every muscle in my face.

Draco's forehead creases as he studies me with speculative eyes that are far too round, almost like little full moons suspended in his skull, glowing with a grey luminescence.

"Is what good?" he asks, fair eyebrows furrowing into a wiggling caterpillar that scurries and drops to my lap. A squeal rips from my throat as the bug bounces onto the bed, though it morphs into a harmless hunk of bread with my next blink.

"The juice," I say, mouth full of chewed sourdough, crumbs falling onto my chest. "I saw you lick it off your thumb."

Draco's cheeks flush pinker than a newborn babe's as his eyes roll heavenward, a crooked smile extending impossibly past the edges of his cheekbones.

"How's the pain, Granger?"

My head tilts so far from my shoulders that I fear it might tumble through the Earth's core.

"What pain?" I say, searching again for my hand to steady myself. A solid grip rights me against my pillow, tucking extra fluff against my hips until I'm secured. Draco's laugh is a beautiful, gravelly sound in my ear that wraps around my heart and spreads across my belly like a warm, soothing hug.

Supper is over when I next blink, the plates cleared and the crumbs banished from the blankets. The telltale pressure of a full bladder makes me grip my pelvis and hunch over my thighs, though my flatmate understands what I need without me asking. Cool air floats beneath my legs as I'm levitated to the loo and charmed to the seat like usual, cackling the entire time as Draco tries to preserve my modesty with a sheet.

However, it's far too hot for covers, so I kick the offending linen off and use my massive hands to hide my nether regions.

A series of colourful swear words follow Draco out of the washroom.

Sometime later, when I'm situated back in bed with the blankets tucked only on my feet, Draco drapes a wet washcloth over my forehead and casts a cooling charm on my neck.

"I'll cut the next dosage in half with water," he says, frowning as I grin at him. "Tell me, is this better than being in pain?"

I nod sagely, mouth slackening as curved, blackened horns sprout from behind Draco's ears, coiling towards the ceiling in sharpened points. Even painted as one of Hell's guardians, Draco is still more handsome than most men.

"Oh, yes. It's so much better. The horns suit you."

Draco drags his palm down his jaw, muttering nonsensical words that sound suspiciously like fuck me, and chuckles as I yawn and stretch.

"Bedtime?" I ask, flinging my arm over my eyes to block the light. "Will you read to me? Please say you will."

The bed shifts as Draco takes his side.

I couldn't tell you what story he's chosen, just that I hang onto every word as if it was spoken from God, clinging to his voice's rich, soothing timbre. When Draco stifles a yawn and announces that he's finished, the book slotting into its place on the nightstand, he extinguishes the lamps with a snap of his fingers and plunges us into darkness. A dreamy, pleasant sensation thrums through my veins as I sigh into the night, relieved beyond measure that the monsters from yesterday lie dormant in their caves.

The room is still spinning, however, and I know that the reprieve from my curse, temporary as it is, will undoubtedly end when my kidneys and liver fulfill their function. Until that happens, I revel in the quiet hum of nature, the ocean waves washing along the shore as the breeze rattles the paned glass.

Never again will I take such beauty for granted.

The blankets rustle as Draco shifts beneath them, his long-suffering sigh floating above the wind.

"So…" he drawls, almost sounding bored. "You and the Weasel. Never thought he had the balls."

There's a slight accusation in his tone, yet I cannot place my finger on why I think that's true. The ludicrous insinuation takes me by surprise.

"Ron?" Spittle flies from my mouth. "Are you joking? He's family."

Draco's voice is carefully controlled. "Is he now?"

I nod even though it's too dark for him to see, then hum in agreement and turn my cheek towards his pillow, ever determined to set the record straight. Our breaths are mingling again, mint mixing with mint as I lick my lips, tasting nothing but clean air.

"Oh, yes. Harry's family, too. We've all been friends for so long that I can't see them any other way. It would be like kissing a cousin."

Draco's stifled chuckle brings a grin to my face.

"Is that funny, Malfoy?"

There's a beat of silence, followed by more rustling and the gentle dip of the mattress before warm, long fingers brush the curls from my forehead. Roughened knuckles trace the curve of my cheek as I hold my breath, speechless in the dark.

Draco's touch draws a peculiar sensation on my skin, searing and chilling all at once, though it's welcome after days of starved loneliness. When he murmurs near my ear, the timbre ignites a fire low in my belly, a foreign stirring I haven't felt in months.

"Hilarious, Granger." He's far closer than ever allowed in ordinary circumstances, his breath caressing my neck. "Get some sleep."

As if sleeping is possible after that.

It's ages before my chest rises and falls at a normal tempo and minutes more until my eyelids grow heavy.

As Draco's soft, even breaths lull me into a state of drowsy complacency, I'm contemplating if the past few hours actually happened at all or if they were part of some drug-induced hallucination.

In what world would Draco Malfoy ever care enough about my love life to ask about it?

Before I can dwell any further on what may or may not be true, a blinding white stag gallops through the cottage walls, a harried message from one of my favourite voices booming into the blackened night.

"Ran into some trouble outside of Edinburgh, but we're at Grimmauld Place now. We had to journey part of the way on foot. It's a mess out there, but help is coming, Hermione. Hang on a little longer." The stag rears up on its hind legs, antlers tossing back with agitation. "And Malfoy? I know you're in there. Remember our deal."

As the glowing stag fades into the ether, a phosphorescent Jack Russell Terrier trots into the cottage and prances where the other Patronus stood.

"Harry's an idiot and forgot the most important part," comes Ron's teasing tone. The dog's tail wags with excitement. "We miss you more than anything. Everyone does. Can't wait to have you back home."

The terrier's glimmering light recedes into the darkness, my outstretched fingers grasping only air.

"I miss you, too," I whisper. "Please hurry."

I blink back tears and swallow the thick lump that's formed in my throat. The only evidence my friends were ever here is manifested in the overwhelming joy that ripples through my body, every cell filled to bursting.

"Malfoy?" I turn my cheek towards where he's lying, my voice unsteady. "Was that another hallucination?"

The lamps ignite with flames to reveal Draco sitting bolted upright in bed, his wild eyes searching my gaze.

"Not an illusion," he says, voice wavering with a mixture of awe and some untold emotion. "Those idiots actually did it."

My heart is so light that I'm positive I would levitate through the ceiling if not for Draco's hand anchoring me to the bed, his fingers knotted with mine.