00000

Hermione spent the next several days, following her initial awakening and reunion with Draco, drifting in and out of consciousness as her body slowly regained its strength. Sometimes when she awoke Draco would be there; other times not. Her conscious periods were brief and hazy- so much so that at times she wondered whether they were not, in fact, merely extra-vivid dreams.

She woke at times to find Pinky sitting in the chair beside the bed, quietly knitting on what appeared to be a enormous and steadily lengthening pink scarf- three times as long as the elf was tall, at least… and there was one occasion on which she opened her eyes to find Snape in what she'd come, foggily, to think of as "Pinky's chair", leaning forward on the edge of the seat, elbows on knees and long fingers interlaced beneath his chin, regarding her intently through his dark, hooded eyes. Before she could find the words to voice her surprise, however, darkness descended like a veil and covered her again.

The most surreal of these experiences was when she awoke to find the chair occupied by Ron. It was almost, though not entirely, dark at the time- the faintest grey light was shining in through the window, making the time of day either dawn or dusk; Hermione couldn't tell which. Her internal clock had long since ceased functioning with any degree of accuracy whatsoever. Ron was faintly backlit where he slumped in the armchair, dozing, as Hermione blinked at him in surprise- then blinked again, harder, expecting him to be gone when she reopened her eyes. But he wasn't gone… he was still there, just as solid and- well, as Ron as ever. She would have smiled but for the fact that he looked so haggard; his freckles standing out in contrast to skin too pale to be healthy, with dark circles of fatigue under his eyes. How long had it been since he'd slept properly, she wondered- not this fitful doze she was witnessing, but had really slept, lying down in a bed?

Propping herself up on an elbow, she reached out to touch his arm- just a brief, light graze of fingertips before, still weak, she collapsed back onto the bed. It was enough. Ron's cobalt eyes flickered open and settled on her.

The expression on his face at that moment was… unsettling, to say the least. He looked as though he could hardly decide whether to hug her or hit her.

"Ron?" she asked, her voice hesitant; shaken.

Then he was out of the chair like a spring uncoiling, and instantly pacing, pacing the room.

Despite the difficulty it presented her, Hermione struggled back up onto her elbows. "Ron," she said again, brow creased now in anxiety. He paused near the door and whirled to face her, abruptly raising a hand and raking it through his coppery hair, which appeared today to have taken on an unkempt quality that was more normally characteristic of Harry than Ron.

He opened his mouth- shut it. Shook his head; a jerky, agitated motion. Opened his mouth again.

"It is true?" he burst out at last. "What I've heard about you and Malfoy? He told me himself and I didn't believe the lying scum, not for a second, but then Snape and… and now even Dumbledore…" he threw his hands up in the air. "Hermione- it can't be true!"

Hermione took a deep breath, her eyes quickly scanning the room for Draco, caught between wishing he was there and feeling relieved that he wasn't. Ron's behavior was… well, worrisome. The room seemed to give a slight lurch beneath her and she thought she felt darkness encroaching on her from the corners of the room, but fought it off with grit-teethed determination; she didn't want to fall back into oblivion right now. This needed to be dealt with, head-on.

She swallowed hard. In her brief periods of wakefulness, her thoughts and feelings about Draco had been conflicted. Well, no. That wasn't exactly accurate. Her thoughts had been conflicted, all right- and when Harry entered into them, downright anguished- but her feelings… to be perfectly honest, her feelings had never once wavered since that first moment she'd opened her eyes to find herself alone in the blue and silver bedroom.

She had wanted Draco then- desperately; deliriously, almost- had wanted him so urgently that her need had cried out to him over all the distance between Hogsmeade and London- hundreds of miles- and had brought him running.

And she wanted Draco now.

Her thoughts on the subject, when she attempted to think logically, were, of course, rather more complex- but there was one thing she was sure of; she wanted Draco safe and well, she didn't want him coming to harm, and judging from the way Ron looked right now- as if he were nearly capable of hurting her, one of his oldest and most beloved friends- he posed a considerable threat to Draco at the moment. So she needed to hash this out with him, right now.

But the thing was, she had absolutely no idea what to say- how to explain herself to her best friend.

She took a deep breath; in… out. "Ron," she stammered, "I-"

That was all she got out before she saw realization strike Ron, suddenly and completely. He looked for an instant as if his legs might actually buckle. She had thought he'd looked pale before, when he'd been dozing in the bedside chair, but he went sheet-white now; frighteningly white.

"Merlin, it's true," he breathed. "Hermione, how could you do this? How could you do this to Harry?"

"I'm sorry," she croaked, "it wasn't planned, it just… happened-"

"How, Hermione?" Ron shouted. "How in the hell did- did you and Malfoy JUST HAPPEN? How could someone as clever as you do something so stupid? How long has he been stringing you along, eh? Because that's all it is- you know that, don't you? You have to know that, you couldn't possibly be blind enough to actually believe that Draco Malfoy has feelings for you? Come on, Hermione, he's used you to get out of a prison term, that is the extent of his interest in you! WAKE UP!"

"You don't understand!" Hermione burst out, "this isn't a new thing, Ron! Draco and I were together at Hogwarts, we-" she broke off abruptly as Ron's face went in a heartbeat from white to purple. Now he looked positively apoplectic. She knew him well enough to anticipate the outburst that was coming, and had a brief instant in which to wish fervently that she hadn't just blurted out this particular fact at this particular moment.

And then the explosion hit.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? You and that Death Eater scumbag were what? When in the hell were you together at Hogwarts? Was it around the time he called you a filthy little mudblood- oh wait, I reckon it must have been, since that happened every bloody year we were there! So was it before or after he said that he hoped the heir of Slytherin killed you first, eh? Or was it closer to the time he said that as soon as 'his lord' came into power, the mudbloods would get what was coming to them, starting with you? Maybe it was nearer to when we met him in the woods that night of the Quidditch World Cup, when that poor Muggle family was being tortured and he asked how you'd like to be the one up in the air, floating upside-down with your knickers on display- was that it, Hermione? Was that when you decided to- to get together with him, as you say? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING? And what about HARRY? If you- if you and Malfoy were- were- and then you dated Harry, you agreed to marry him, for Merlin's sake, how could you toy with him like that? He LOVES you, Hermione, you are the only reason he's ALIVE right now! And you… God… you…"

He broke off finally, panting from his tirade, leaving a shocked Hermione to whisper, "Ron- I- I'm sorry- I didn't…"

Ron sank onto the edge of the bed, down near Hermione's feet, and dropped his head into his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was muffled.

'Harry wouldn't let me be with him at the end. Not for the final confrontation. I know you were angry that he left you behind, Hermione, but in the end he left me too. It was something he had to face alone, that's what he said. I had to stand there and watch him walk away and the next time I saw him he was on the ground, he was… mangled. God, I'll never forget the sight of him like that. I wouldn't leave him again, the mediwizards tried to throw me out and I told them to piss right the hell off. I stayed right there with him the whole time they were working on him and- Hermione, I swear this- there was a moment when he stopped breathing, and they said he was gone. I knew what I had to do then; the reason I had stayed. I leaned over and I whispered your name in his ear- just your name, that's all- and when nothing happened I whispered it again, and then he breathed, Hermione. He came back for you. For you."

He raised his head then and looked at her with haunted, bloodshot eyes. "And now I come to find out that you have this- this history with Draco Malfoy that you never saw fit to confide in either of us… I thought we were meant to be best friends, Hermione. I thought best friends told each other things like that! And I- I know you almost died as well and I know that Malfoy saved you, and I suppose I should be grateful to him for that because I still… I love you, Hermione, and if you had died it would have ripped me apart. But I can't- I just can't quite wrap my mind around what you've done to Harry- how you've betrayed him." Sighing deeply, he stood, and approached Hermione where she remained sitting up on her elbows, eyes wide, rendered completely speechless by Ron's revelation about Harry's brush with death- and incentive for life.

Standing over her, he cupped her cheek with surprising gentleness. "I am glad you're safe," he said quietly, "and I do- I do still love you, Hermione. But Merlin help me, I don't like you very much at the moment, so- so I have to go."

He bent, planted a kiss on her forehead, spun on his heel, and left.

00000

The first sob actually took Hermione by surprise- there had been no build-up to it; all of a sudden it was just there, ripping through her weak and tired body, doubling her over with its force. And more followed, and more, until she collapsed onto her side, curled into a ball, one arm trailing over the edge of the bed, and just cried and cried. She couldn't say when Draco arrived exactly- time had ceased to mean much to her by that point. One moment she was sobbing alone and in the next he was just there, gathering her, flushed and feverish and sticky-damp from crying as she was, into his arms and rocking her, shushing her, stroking her hair.

He asked her repeatedly what was the matter, but she was crying too hard to get out an intelligible reply. In the end he just held her until she fell asleep with her face pressed into the hollow where his shoulder met his throat, then eased her back down on the bed, performed a temperature-reducing spell followed by a dreamless sleep charm, pulled the covers up to her chin, and went downstairs to inquire of Pinky whether anyone had been by while he'd been out visiting his mother. It was only when Pinky mentioned the name 'Ron Weasley' that Draco indulged in a little meltdown of his own, shouting and kicking at the furniture (which merely caused Pinky to roll her eyes and retire to her room until the storm passed)- and then ultimately going to work on the wards that guarded the house. They had previously allowed entrance to any person who approached with no ill intent in his or her heart- but now Draco, muttering furiously all the while, pausing every now and then to shove hanks of sugar-white hair violently back out of his eyes, modified them both quickly and competently to no longer allow one Ronald Weasley access, period, end of discussion.

00000

The following day Hermione was able to leave the bed for the first time since the battle; she made her way to the room's window seat where she spent several hours watching the light change over the Hogwarts Lake, and the lights twinkle on in the castle, one by one as nightfall approached. She took dinner there, along with Draco, and ultimately fell asleep there, leaning backward into him, her back against his chest and his arms locked loosely about her waist from behind.

Draco sat there with her in his arms for a long while, watching the progress of the moon over the lake and breathing in the scent of her hair, before finally rising and carrying her warm, sleepy weight across the room to bed.

00000

The next morning Hermione made it downstairs, and by evening was walking out in the garden, enjoying the breeze in her hair and the scent of the roses, which, through their magical protections, were in full bloom despite the snow. She was impressively bundled against the cold thanks largely to Pinky; among other things, she was wearing the scarf the elf had been working on over the past several days, which, though wrapped several times about her neck, still managed to trail on the snowy ground behind her, so long had it grown. Still, even all this protection against the cold did not prevent Draco from going ballistic when he returned from a forty-minute visit with his mother to find her outside.

She didn't resist his ministrations as he whisked her back indoors, but neither was she in the least intimidated by his obvious displeasure at finding her so exposed to the elements. All she did as Draco chafed and blew on her hands was inform him quite calmly and with iron determination that she intended to accompany him to St. Mungo's the following day. It was high time, she had decided, that she pay Harry a visit.

Draco looked up at her, her hands still captured between both of his, his eyes narrowed, the expression on his face a peculiar mixture of suspicion and concern.

"Hermione, I really don't think-"

But before he could finish his sentence (and quite possibly spark an enormous argument) the two of them were surprised by a large and haughty looking owl, immediately identifiable as belonging to the Ministry of Magic, swooping in through the back door, which Draco had left ajar in his haste to get Hermione in out of the cold.

The owl landed on the coffee table directly in front of where the young couple was seated on the couch, and extended a leg toward Draco, clacking its mean little beak in impatience. No sooner had Draco untied the scroll it bore, than the creature let loose a sound that was as close to a snort of disdain as any sound an owl could possibly make, then took to wing again and was gone.

"What an utterly nasty bird," Hermione mused, as Draco tore open the letter. "I never knew they could be so- Draco? Draco, what is it?"

Having finished scanning the letter, he had raised eyes to her that were alarmingly wide, pale and shocked. Hermione knew that she was the only person in the world, save perhaps for Severus Snape, that Draco would allow to see him in such a moment of naked and unguarded fear.

"Draco, you're scaring me," she said, reaching for the paper that he still held in hands that appeared to have gone wooden and stiff. "Draco-" and her voice was rising steadily toward hysteria, she couldn't help it- "what is going on?"

"Severus was wrong," Draco said dully as she pried the paper from his fingers. "Even Dumbledore was wrong. The Ministry- they're going to try me after all."

"Try you? On what charges?"

But he didn't answer- he didn't need to. Turning her attention to the scroll in her hands, she could see well enough for herself. The bulk of the letter was written in black, but the charges stood out in glaring red ink, ink like blood.

Treason.

War Crimes.

Murder.

00000

(A/N: Oh, how I love pissed-as-hell Ron! It's what he was made for, ya know? Next chapter; Hermione and Harry have their long-overdue tête-à-tête… and the trial! Dun dun dun…)