He arrived, miraculously in one piece, just outside the school grounds- and fell forward…right into the side of the stone archway that marked the boundary of Hogwarts land. He hardly knew whether to curse the ancient stone structure that he had impacted with such jarring force- or be grateful to it for halting him mid-fall, allowing him to use it as leverage and, with however much difficulty, regain his feet.

This accomplished, he stumbled through it and began his slow and painful progress toward the school, which, from this distance, was just a dim shadow, black against the star-filled sky, with only a handful of lights burning within. It was, after all, the dead of night.

He managed to make it about halfway before the inevitable happened and he collapsed to his hands and knees on the gravel path.

At this point the invisibility cloak, which he had been wearing all this time, became tangled and fell off to his right side, trailing on the ground, though it remained fastened about his throat. As a result, Draco was left completely exposed to sight, except for, oddly enough, a thin band at the base of his throat, which made it appear as though his head and neck were hovering about an inch from his body.

For his part, he was beyond noticing, and, being back on Hogwarts land, there was no longer any need for secrecy anyway. Even if there had been, there was no one around to see him there- yet.

He let his head drop right down to the ground, resting his forehead against the cool, scratchy gravel as complete and utter exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. He was bleeding profusely from a long, deep gash in his side, not to mention several other, lesser wounds. Then there were the non-visible injuries he had sustained.

The world was still spinning. His head was spinning too. If felt as though his head and the world were spinning in opposite directions, the result of which was a faint urge to throw up. Fortunately, he was able to fight off the urge. He didn't want to stay here, prostrated in the gravel, retching. He had to keep moving.

He had to get back to-

"Hermione," he muttered aloud. And then, as he began to slip inexorably down toward delirium, "I have prom-promises to keep. And…miles to…go b'fore I sleep."

It wasn't miles to the school, of course; but it felt like it. It felt like it might as well have been a thousand fucking miles.

Nevertheless, he began to crawl.

00000

Snape was on his way back down to the edge of the grounds. After Draco had disappeared, he had tried several times in rapid succession to apparate to Malfoy Manor, where he was sure the boy had gone, but had been thwarted time and again. Draco, he'd realized, had scrambled the coordinates; it was something that those of Malfoy blood could do. He'd cursed a blue streak, given up, and hadn't tried again. Instead he had walked the path between the castle and the stone arch at least a dozen times since finding Ron just outside the front doors of the school; back and forth, back and forth, hoping desperately to encounter Draco on his way back up to the castle- his mission, which Snape now realized had been to recover Ron's body, long complete. Yet Draco still had not come, and he grew more frantic with each hour that passed.

He was now actively considering embarking for the manor by broomstick, though it would mean flying for the rest of the night and most of the next day as well.

Was that boy ever going to get a piece of his mind, he thought furiously.

Then he saw him.

And all anger fled.

He stopped for just the merest second, staring at Draco- his Draco, his almost-son- in utter horror. It was like the time Potter had come crashing through the window of the infirmary on a pair of lashed-together Firebolt broomsticks; Draco, a good deal more than half-dead, clasped in his arms. Now, as then, he was certain that his heart literally stopped beating for a moment.

He was running, then, before he was even aware of moving at all.

"Draco!" he shouted, "Draco!"

The clearly hurt and exhausted boy, who had been crawling up the path toward the school on his hands and knees, head hanging low, now raised his pale face toward Snape. The two of them locked gazes long enough for Snape to realize just how ill Draco looked; deep dark circles under haunted eyes in a face that was, even for him, far too pale. Then the silver-haired former Slytherin's strength gave out altogether and he pitched forward, sprawling face-down in the path.

"DRACO!"

Putting on an extra burst of panic-induced speed, Snape reached him in an instant, hurling himself to his knees beside the prone form of the one person on earth he truly and deeply and paternally loved.

"Draco-" his voice was anguished as he pulled Draco over, onto his back, and then up into his lap. "Bugger. Oh no. Oh God-" his sharp eyes were quickly taking in the blood and signs of other, less obvious damage- "what have you done? Draco, what the hell have you done?"

Pale eyes blinked slowly open as Draco, a small, puzzled frown on his face, focused on Snape.

"Sev…(he paused and swallowed hard)…Sever…rus?"

Snape hid his amazement at being addressed thus; he had told Draco all the way back last summer, when the boy had stayed with him over the holidays, that he could feel free to call him by his first name, so long as there were no other students around- but this was the first time Draco had ever actually done so.

He felt a new and even stronger surge of protective love for the boy; he wanted to find whoever had done this and tear them limb from limb; rip their bloody heads off with his bare hands. He wanted to murmur soothing nonsense to Draco- something he had NEVER done before in his life to anyone- tell him he was safe now; that everything would be okay. Instead-

"Goddamn you for a fool, boy!" he exploded, his anger returning in a bright, crimson wave; as red as the blood that soaked Draco's clothes, and now his own. "What the bloody hell were you thinking, running off alone like that! I'd have come with you if you had just- DRACO!"

This frantic shout was the result of the exhausted boy's eyes beginning to roll back in his head- fortunately, it had the desired effect of bringing him back around- at least, for the moment.

"Huh?" he said, eyes flying wide, expression guileless; it was, Snape thought, nearly the same expression Draco was able to turn on at will whenever he got caught goofing around in Potions. This thought tore at his heart.

"Draco, what happened?" he asked, in a gentler voice.

"Had to…get…Potter's cloak back. And I ran…ran into…a few of my parents' friends." He coughed, then added, his inborn sarcasm shining through, "they really…rolled out the ol' red carpet for me…Severus."

"I can see that," Snape replied, shaking his head. Idiot boy! Running off alone when all he would have had to do was take one bloody minute to explain the situation and he, Snape, would have gone with him- fought with him- died, if need be, to protect him from just this sort of harm. And that was no small matter; there were only two people on earth Snape would willingly die for- Dumbledore and Draco.

But enough. There was no changing what had happened; what was called for now was not recriminations, but action- he had to get Draco to the hospital wing.

"I'm just going to get a stretcher under you," he said to Draco, whose eyes were drifting shut again, "and then I'll get you to Madam Pomfrey faster than you can say I'm-a-bloody-idiot-who-should-have-asked-for-help!"

All right, so I'm still mad, he thought grimly, as he prepared to conjure a magical stretcher; I have a right to be, damn it! Of all the stupid, reckless, arrogant-

"No."

Snape looked down. The pale eyes were open and alert again, boring into his own.

"No stretcher," Draco whispered. "C'n bloody well walk…myself."

This was, of course, absurd.

Bloody well walk, indeed.

Snape's first impulse was to snort his disbelief, and then to ask why exactly, if Draco could walk so bloody well at present, had he been crawling a moment ago?

But he resisted this impulse, which would have been needlessly cruel. After all, the boy had his pride. It was one of Draco's most defining characteristics, Snape knew- that pride. So, after a moment's careful consideration, what he said was, "we'll walk, then, Draco, but at least let me help you. Lean on me. We'll get there faster that way."

After a moment's hesitation, Draco, whose thoughts were all bent on the hospital wing not because of the aid that awaited him there but rather because that was where Hermione was, nodded his reluctant acceptance of the offer of help, refusing to meet Snape's eyes as he did so.

To accept even this much assistance chafed him, despite the condition he was in.

"All right," Snape said. "On your feet, then." Getting to his own feet, he hauled Draco up with him and slung the boy's arm about his shoulder.

Draco was unable to suppress a low, agonized groan, as he pressed his free hand to the deep, ragged wound on his side.

"Draco! Are you-"

"I'm fine," Draco cut him off, biting out the words from between clenched teeth, his face a grim mask of pain.

"For God's sake, boy, there's no shame in-"

"I'm FINE!"

Snape shook his head, scowling; there was no point in arguing further, though secretly he hoped that Draco would fall unconscious before he could do himself any more damage through his damned, stubborn pride. For a moment he actually considered Stupefying the pigheaded boy, but decided against it. Draco's trust was not easily won, and once lost, it was lost forever. He was not willing to jeopardize the trust Draco had put in him.

So they began to walk.

00000

By the time they reached the infirmary, Draco was contributing very little to the joint walking effort. Snape was, in fact, half-carrying, half-dragging the now barely conscious boy along.

Nevertheless, when Snape attempted to ease Draco down on a bed near the door, removing the invisibility cloak as he did so, Draco resisted. Calling on his very last reserves of strength and determination, he pushed away from Snape, and the bed. As close as he now was to Hermione, he was not going to rest without first seeing her.

He stumbled down the long ward, leaning briefly, as he went, on the footboards of each empty bed he passed, then using them to push against, to propel himself on to the next one, and the next. He was almost to the end of the ward and starting to panic at not having found her, when his knees gave out and he slumped against the footboard he'd been holding onto, clasping it fiercely in a desperate attempt to prevent himself from sliding the rest of the way to the floor.

He would not go down! He would not!

When he felt Snape's strong arms grasp him and pull him upright again, the potions master shouting all the while for Madam Pomfrey, he snarled and tried to wrench himself out of his mentor's grasp- but to no avail. He no longer possessed the strength to throw Snape off- or to stand unaided, for that matter, even if he had been successful.

"Draco!" Snape, his patience at its very limit, gave him a quick, hard shake. "She's not here! She and Potter were moved to a private room. I will take you there if you will just- stop- fighting me!"

At this, Draco slumped defeatedly against him. "Private room," he muttered distractedly to himself, "why pri-private room? That's bad…always…very, very bad…."

"I think that at this point, you're worse off than either of them, and all your own doing!" Snape growled in frustration. "Come on, then, since you obviously won't listen to reason until you see Miss Granger."

Since Draco had already made it nearly to the end of the ward, they didn't have far to go. Snape led/dragged him through the first door off the small hallway at the back of the ward that held the school's four private hospital rooms. Draco could hear sounds of hysterical grief coming from further down the hall, and thought briefly that Ron's body must be in the room at the end, and that his family had arrived to claim him.

But all thoughts of Ron vanished from his mind when he saw her lying in the narrow hospital bed, so still, so pale, so deeply, deeply wounded, just as she had been over a year ago when he had first grudgingly come to realize and accept that what he felt for her was more than respect for her intellect, more even than the close friendship they had formed over their secret study sessions in the library; it was love. A bright, hot, sharp, almost painful kind of love that he had never before even dreamt existed.

There she lay, the very reason he was here, the reason- the ONLY reason- he had not simply lain on the grass in front of the manor, watching it burn and waiting for death- the reason he had walked, staggered, stumbled, crawled his way back to Hogwarts. It had all been for her.

Hermione.

With a hoarse, inarticulate cry, he threw himself toward her; Snape let him go. He fell against the foot of the bed- then managed, somehow, to drag himself up the length of it- (registering, just barely, that Harry was in a bed opposite hers, looking like death)- until he was sitting beside her, leaning over to trace the outline of her face with a finger, to smooth back a stray curl of her unruly hair, which was fanned out over the pillow, dark and lustrous; clean, thanks to Madam Pomfrey, of the dried blood with which it had been matted the last time he had seen her.

So far gone was he in pain and fatigue that he didn't even notice the tears that leaked from his eyes the moment his hand made contact with her too-warm skin.

"Hermione-" he croaked; "bookworm?"

Her eyes flew open all at once, wide and startled, and the fear was there, of course, as he had known it would be; that wretched fear his bastard of a father had planted in her and that he wondered if he would ever, even over the course of a lifetime, be able to erase.

But it only lasted for a second. The flash of fear was gone as she raised a hand to brush the tears from his grimy, blood-smeared face.

"Draco," she breathed.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long," he murmured, and paused for a moment to bury his face in her soft brown hair before continuing, "but it's over now; it's done. I'm not going to leave you again. Not ever."

"Draco," she whispered, her brow creased worriedly; even in her groggy, heavily sedated state she could tell, with intuitive certainty, that something was very wrong here. Draco's eyes had a faraway look she had seen only once before- as he'd lain sprawled on his back in the aftermath of the battle with Voldemort, bleeding his life away- and he was slurring his words. "Are you okay?"

The corners of his lips quirked upward in just the faintest hint of a smile. She couldn't resist the impulse to smile back, even as hurt, tired and suddenly anxious as she was. She loved it when he did that- of all the expressions to sometimes cross his usually guarded face, this one had to be her favorite.

"I am now," he said.

Then, abruptly, belying his words, his eyes rolled back and he slid from the bed, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

00000

(A/N: This chapter was somewhat shorter than my norm for this story, but was- or was meant to be, anyway- positively overflowing with lovely, lovely Draco-angstiliciousness… so hopefully that made up for what it lacks in length!

FYI, Draco's quote, "I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep," is from one of the most beautiful poems ever written in the English language, in my opinion; "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. It's a short poem, so I've included it in its entirety here.)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep