The end of November brought with it plummeting temperatures and weak sunlight, until Hermione's entire world was cloaked in grey. Dreary skies hovered over head every day, as the days grew shorter and nights grew longer. When she awoke one morning in her bedroom and padded over to open the windows, she found a layer of frost upon the glass.
Ice crystals had grown overnight, crystallizing in fractal patterns that shattered and broke, reflecting and refracting the subdued morning rays. Hermione rested her palm against the glass for a few moments, feeling the cool surface against her skin.
When she pushed the window open a few moments later, it came as no surprise that she could see her breath as little puffs in the air.
November had always been a time of waiting for her.
Waiting for the holidays, yet to come. Waiting for a break from the monotony of classes, the stress of homework.
She was waiting again.
The war had already been lost, but she was waiting still.
Hermione waited with bated breath every day, wondering when the hammer would fall. When Voldemort might realize that something was amiss, and seek out his horcruxes.
He would find them destroyed and stolen, pilfered by someone with intimate knowledge of his life and doings. He would add up the clues. He would follow the trail.
She closed her eyes.
The trail led to her.
Her heart was already racing, beating away in her chest like a terrified rabbit. Hermione reached a hand out blindly, eyes squeezed shut, to grip the window sill and steady herself.
She was the best friend of the Boy Who Lived.
Her breaths came faster and faster.
Voldemort would come for her, crack her apart, tear out all her secrets. She would bend and break, and doom her and Draco both.
Hermione had to be ready for that day.
She turned from the window, heart pounding, and began to dress for the day with shaking hands.
They eased into a détente of sorts, her and Draco.
She didn't know what else to call it, but thought the term fit. An easing of tensions.
It had started after that night she had thrown herself at him. Crawled into his lap and held his face between her hands, after touching him all over for the better part of an hour.
Kissing him along his jaw; stealing kisses, more accurately, because Draco had been paralyzed by choice and regret.
Every time the memory came unbidden, she felt a burning deep within her. Desire and shame were at the forefront. Rejection stung, no matter Draco's reasons for doing so — she was still a girl, too occupied by a war already lost, pushing onward for the wrong reasons.
In truth, part of her was grateful for his control.
She was still healing, and healing came slowly.
Healing wasn't linear.
Some days, she drowned in the grief and memories. Flashbacks of the final battle, so crisp and crystal clear in her mind's eye that she could smell the acrid smoke, feel the burn in her lungs and the stinging in her throat.
She felt frozen, trapped in time. Fear and genuine terror ate away at her until she was a little girl again, caught in Devil's Snare, choking and suffocating with no way out, no matter how still she stood.
Other days, she found she had grown a little around the grief — it lingered still, but she could manage her way around it, edging away from the elephant in the room to go about her day.
Falling into bed with Draco and tangling herself in his sheets, and tangling him into all her grief and regrets, had no ending except for more heartbreak with a future as uncertain as theirs.
Hermione knew all this as well as she knew the back of her hand, the sprinkling of freckles across her own face. That going down that road was like driving recklessly down a one way street, throwing herself headlong into disaster.
And yet, a little part of her still wanted it.
For better or worse, the realization seemed to have occurred to him too. Maybe it was the longing in her face — the same longing that she knew he must've felt, because ever since that night, he had changed.
Bit by bit, Draco was unthawing.
He had never been forthright with his affections. On some level, Hermione knew he must've felt as strongly about her as she did him.
Draco had been plucked from childhood and sharpened into a man, under duress and through coercion, and the threat of blood on his hands. He had never known softness nor intimacy. For the longest time, all he had known was survival, and that was what he pushed Hermione to.
Ruthlessness had kept him alive, and he was trying now in turn to keep her alive.
But after that night, she began to notice little details.
He tried, haltingly, to engage her in conversation on her days. What books she had read. How the house elves were doing.
There wasn't much conversation to be had. It was rather difficult as her captor, he seemed to realize.
So Draco quieted, and in the few calm moments after their training sessions, when she worked on healing him, he asked her how she was doing.
"I'm alive," was all she could respond at first. Hermione had been taken aback by his question; their time together was limited. She had thought that surely he would use it wisely on planning or strategizing.
He didn't respond, so she returned to her healing and continued her ministrations. It hadn't escaped her notice that he was more bruised and battered than ever these days. Mottled purple contusions spread across his ribs like spilled paint; a cracked rib was the culprit. Every breath must've sent shooting pain through him, but he never once protested.
Hermione murmured the appropriate healing charms, and watched as his side was enveloped in a gentle blue glow as the rib began to repair.
"Being alive is so exhausting," Hermione whispered. She did not look up as she continued healing him, but could feel his eyes on her.
"I wish I could just … sleep … for a long, long time," she continued haltingly. "I think about it. How nice it would be. I'm just so tired of it all, you know? I wish … I wish I weren't me, I guess," she finished quietly. Her left hand was splayed against Draco's bare side, gently palpating his ribs and chest, while her right hand held his wand. "I wish I were someone else. Someone who didn't have to keep going. Someone who could just … give up."
It felt like a confession.
It was everything she had secretly traced, over and over in her mind, again and again, until the words had worn a rut six feet deep in her head.
Ever since the Insurgency had lost.
She felt like she had damned herself. She could feel her heart racing; how would Draco feel, knowing all this?
She was trying.
She was trying, so damn hard, every day.
"Do you think I'm a coward?" Hermione blurted out, finally looking up.
Flickering candlelight distorted his face, casting shadows that melted and melded to skin. His beautiful face looked eerie and ethereal, and Hermione couldn't help but feel apprehension.
He looked cold.
He looked untouchable.
He committed unspeakable, unthinkable acts when he wasn't around her.
Draco's gaze was intense. She nearly flinched under the weight of it, expecting to be reprimanded again. Then, it softened. He reached a hand out, hesitantly, to cup her cheek. His thumb ghosted across her cheekbone.
Hermione leaned into it, closing her eyes.
Comfort was so rare these days. Life was so cold and bleak.
She wanted to savour the moment, to stretch it on until it lasted forever. If she concentrated hard, maybe she could memorize the touch of his hand. The feel of it.
"No," she heard him say, as if from far away.
"No, I don't think you're a coward," Draco continued quietly. "I think you've sacrificed so much of yourself for the war and for your friends, lost so much, until there's hardly anything left."
Hermione could feel the sting of unshed tears, sharp and pinching in her nose. Her lip was trembling a little; a tell-tale sign of impending emotional disaster in slow-motion.
He paused for a moment, trying to figure out the right words.
Maybe he would never have the right words. Maybe they didn't exist; never had, and never would. Not for him.
"But I'm still here," he finally finished.
The tears came for real this time, and Hermione hastily swiped at her cheeks. She tilted her gaze back down again and blinked hard to dispel the moisture, making a show of checking his now-healed wounds once more.
Draco was still watching her carefully, but thankfully made no comment about the internal war she was waging to regain control over herself.
"I'm still here because of you, you know," he said. His voice was quiet and clipped, but he could've shouted at Hermione, for the effect it had. She stilled, and slowly turned to meet his gaze.
"I'm here because of you. I'm alive still, because of you. You fought for me. My mother is, too. I won't forget that. I'm not going to forget that debt," Draco continued.
His jaw was quirked in a slightly stubborn manner, but his expression had relaxed as he gazed at Hermione.
"I'm not going to give up on you, Hermione," he finished.
Hermione lost the battle with her emotions and dissolved into soft sobs, that wracked her shoulders and left her shuddering. Draco eased himself up into a sitting position, and gently tugged his wand out of her hand. He wrapped his arm around Hermione's shoulders and she buried her face into his chest, gasping raggedly and weeping unabashedly. It felt like confession; something holy, like sins leaving her soul.
She felt lighter than she had in a long time, cloaked in warmth and the clean, fresh scent that she had come to associate with Draco. Eucalyptus and evergreen; sharp, bright and verdant.
Clean.
They sat in silence together for a long time, long after her breathing had evened out.
A clock ticked somewhere in the room, counting down the minutes and seconds, but Hermione could've sat there in Draco's embrace forever.
The détente lasted into December, and Hermione would've allowed herself to relax, if not for the warning signs she recognized. She had been an active combatant in war for years; she could read the writing on the wall, even if Draco refused to say.
The Daily Prophet reported nothing new, that she could see. Hermione had expected a clear victory against the Insurgency to tighten Voldemort's control over mainland Europe; he would've gotten all his ducks in a row immediately.
Instead, Rita Skeeter droned on and on about the improvements to the collective wizarding society with the downfall of the Boy Who Lived, the renewed attention towards pureblood breeding, and future plans of the Ministry of Magic ("Magical Might; Today and Tomorrow!").
There was no word of Voldemort's iron grip over Europe, as Hermione had expected.
The lack of news was troubling, but nowhere near as troubling as Draco's condition.
He grew more exhausted and withdrawn, each and every time she saw him. Their training sessions grew shorter too — not because of Hermione's improvement, but because Draco no longer had the stamina or energy to maintain Legilimency for long periods.
Clear signs of torture were evident, smeared across his body like wine stains.
Mottled bruising across his back. Lacerations, punctures, contusions. Sometimes, tremors wracked his body, and his hands would tremble too much to hold his wand.
He had had a house elf fetch her to the drawing room to begin Legilimency, but Hermione found herself blocking his Legilimency attempts with ease. After the third failed assault on her mind, and upon spotting Draco wavering slightly where she stood, she had stopped completely.
"What's happening to you? What's going on?" Hermione demanded. throwing aside all pre-tense of training to rush to Draco's side.
He swayed slightly, but reached an arm out to ward her off and keep her away.
"I'm fine," he muttered through grit teeth. He blinked, bleary-eyed, and winced in pain.
Hermione stilled, then slowly drew closer.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" she demanded, peering up at him. Draco seemed to be squinting hard and struggling to focus, but maintained a level of calm detachment in his tone.
"The Dark Lord was … not pleased with the outcome of the final battle," Draco eventually muttered. "He has been mulling it over for some time, and deduced that it must've been the fault of his followers. He performed Legilimency on me for a long time, sorting through my memories to see if I had failed him in any way."
Hermione's brow knit together in confusion.
"Does Legilimency cause damage to your eyes? I've never read anything about that," she asked slowly. She reached an arm out to steady Draco and to her immense relief, he seemed to have realized the direness of the situation.
Draco accepted her steadying arm and allowed Hermione to gently lower him onto his back to the carpeted floor. He kept his eyes closed the entire time, his own forehead tensed in discomfort.
"It doesn't," he replied curtly. "Unless you're being Crucio'd at the same time, focused directly in the optic nerves."
Hermione felt bile rise in her throat.
"Why?" she whispered, casting diagnostic charms with Draco's wand.
His optic nerve had been damaged, as he had guessed. She watched in horror as the charm lit up his head in a fluorescent orange warning light, concentrated on his eyes and head. A small projection of his optic nerves floated up beside his head, and Hermione stared in horror at it. Voldemort's sustained Cruciatus had burnt down the nerve fibres, singed them until they were raw. He had overloaded the nerves with electric impulses until they had combusted.
Hermione couldn't imagine how painful it must've been for Draco, to be subjected to his vision being burnt out for hours, all while experiencing the relentless violations of Legilimency in his mind.
She could heal them, but it would take time. If she were a less skilled healer, there was a chance Draco's vision would be permanently damaged.
Voldemort didn't seem to care that he was dulling his finest blade.
Draco, who had his eyes closed still, spoke in dull monotone.
"He's beginning to suspect that something went wrong at the final battle. He's battled great wizards before; through the first and second wars, murdered hundreds. It's never taken him this long to recover, not even after he regained his body during the Triwizard Tournament."
His words were enunciated clearly and spoken quietly, yet every syllable felt like a gut punch to Hermione.
She lowered Draco's wand, staring at the diagnostic charm results but not quite seeing them.
Voldemort was beginning to suspect.