Draco's thoughts and memories were still buried deep; the calculation of his senses taking the forefront of his mind as he slowly began returning to consciousness. Pain. Pain was the first and most dominant feeling. Warm. The air around him was comfortable. Light. He could see a soft flickering glow through his closed lids. Soft. The surface he was laying on was soft and plush. The smell. Draco's eyebrows twitched as he tried to place the scent. It smelled old, like ancient dust, a dull musty smell, yet not unpleasant. It was sweet, almost floral. It reminded him of the unused formal sitting room at the Manor. That, and his friend Pansy's grandmother's house. Friend, he thought bitterly. I have no friends. No family...His thoughts were returning now with many questions. No friends and no family? The war. The chamber. The smoke. Hermione! What happened?
Draco's eyes flew open and he sprang into a sitting position, his head spinning due to his quick movement. He quickly surveyed his surroundings and found himself sitting on top of the blankets of a single bed. The room was small; its walls covered in lavender wallpaper, the rest of the room coordinating with it. He didn't know this room at all. He didn't know this house. But what worried him the most was that Hermione wasn't there. He was alone.
Draco leapt from the bed and stumbled forward as pain shot through his left foot and up his leg. He steadied himself against the doorframe and pulled the door handle. It was locked. Of course it's locked. Who trusts you?
"Let me out! Let me out! Hermione? Someone let me out!" Draco slapped the door repeatedly with his open palm, becoming more and more desperate each second.
"Malfoy, calm down," a stern, irritated voice admonished from the other side of the door.
"Who are you? Let me out!" Draco demanded.
"I'm Ginny Weasley and you need to calm down first," she said flatly.
"Calm down? I'll calm down when I'm not locked up anymore! Where's Hermione? Let me out!" Draco jerked the handle angrily.
"Lupin, he's freaking out," Ginny said in her continued calm voice.
"Lupin? Lupin, let me out!" Draco shouted, slapping the door again. "Let me out!"
"Draco, if you want out of there, you're going to have to calm down," Lupin responded firmly. Draco clenched his fists at his sides, still seething but trying desperately to compose himself. "Alright Draco, I'm going to open this door, but you're going to have to stay calm."
Draco stepped to the side as the door opened, revealing his old professor and a saucy-looking redhead. Draco was unexpectedly distracted and uncomfortable as the red-haired girl scrupulously surveyed him. It was as though she were trying to see straight into him. Only once had he felt searched like that and it was by his old Headmaster and he was as uncomfortable now as he was then. He quickly shook the thought and turned to Lupin whose expression simply looked stern.
"Where is she? Where's Hermione? HERMIONE?" He shouted her name through the house, hoping she might answer. But he knew that she wouldn't. If she had the ability to speak, she'd be with him. He knew it.
"Draco, you're not calm. You must control yourself," Lupin persisted, his hands out in front of him as though this may soothe Draco in some way.
"Don't patronize me! Just tell me where she is!" Draco demanded.
Ginny bit her lip and nervously made a quick glance down the hall. Her glance was an unintentional answer. Draco knew Hermione had to be in that direction. He shoved through the two bodies without a word and jogged down the hall, his foot splintering with each step.
"Draco, stop!" Lupin commanded.
Only two doors down was a room that was overflowing with redheads. He had no doubt it was the room he wanted. Without a word, he pushed through the crowd. And there she was. Hermione lay motionless on a single bed under soft pink floral blankets. A Healer stood at her side with his wand pointed at her.
"Don't touch her!" Draco yelled, shoving the man's wand to the side.
"Malfoy!" A man cried his name and he turned to look at the group at the door. There were three ginger-haired men, two of them identical, with their wands pointed directly at him. The woman next to them, presumably their mother, simply scowled. The group was soon joined by Lupin in the back, Ginny pushing her way in front of her mother, her own wand drawn. The Healer tried to ignore the conflict and turned back to his patient.
"I said, 'don't touch her'!" Draco barked, ripping the wand from the old man's hand. The man quickly backed away.
"Draco! Stop this!" Lupin insisted. Draco turned his attention back to the group at the door and backed closer to Hermione's bed, the wand raised in defense.
"Malf- Draco, calm down," Ginny ordered. "He's just trying to heal her."
"No! No one touches her!" he roared.
"Stupefy!"
"Protego!" Draco was able to shield himself just in time to protect himself from the stunning spell shot by one of the twins.
"Stop it!" Ginny shouted. "Can't you see he's scared?"
Ginny's outburst stunned the others. "And he should be," said Fred.
"Get away from her, Malfoy," Charlie ordered.
"No," Draco responded, chancing a glance at Hermione.
"Draco, we just want to help her. We're not going to hurt her," Lupin said calmly.
"'Cause you're not going to touch her," Draco repeated brusquely.
Ginny saw a movement at her side. "Lower your wands!" she commanded her brothers. The three of them looked at her like she had grown another head. "I mean it! Lower your wands! He's not going to hurt her. Look how scared he is!" Draco stood near the head of Hermione's bed, his arms stiff at his sides, his brow creased with fear, a great frown deepening the lines of his face. The boys grudgingly complied, but still firmly gripped their wands at their sides.
"Draco, I know you're worried about her, but we all are. We only want to help her andyou," Lupin continued in his annoyingly pacifying tone. "She trusts us, Draco."
"She trusts me! I'll help her. I'llheal her. But no one else touches her." Draco's tone was part insistence and part pleading.
"Never will there be a day I trust a Malfoy," Fred declared.
"Fine. I'm not a Malfoy! I'm not a Death Eater! I'm no one! I just want to help her," Draco earnestly proclaimed.
"He's gone mental!" George piped, looking at Draco with a confused disgust.
"I trust him," Ginny said simply, earning every eye in the room on her.
"Ginny, Death Eaters don't change their Marks. You can't-" Charlie explained as though to a small child.
"Can't they?" Draco growled, thrusting his left arm out for all to see. The flesh on the inside of his forearm, where the Dark Mark was once branded, was covered in a wet angry burn, the scarring skin forming in swirling patterns.
"He's not one of them. Can't you see that? Look at him for Merlin's sake!" Ginny ordered as she gestured wildly. "He's covered head to toe in blood. Look at his cuts! He's not one of them."
"Cuts or not, Mark or not, he was a Death Eater and I am not about to just trust him," Fred declared, two nods beside him agreeing to his words.
"Draco, I wantto trust you, but you have to understand that we can't just leave you alone with her," Lupin said simply. "What if we compromise and let you stay in the room with one of us while the Healer-?"
"No! Not the Healer! He doesn't touch her! No one touches her!" Draco warned again, the wand shaking in his hand. His outburst caused the three red-haired men to lift their wands again.
"Wands down!" Ginny flared. "That means you too, Draco. If you want us to trust you, you have to show us we can."
Draco looked into Ginny's blue eyes. She was trying to help him. A piece of her understood. Draco lowered the wand, flipped it in his fingers, and extended it to the Healer. The old man snatched it away and moodily pushed through the group and into the hall.
"I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to help Hermione," Draco said calmly.
"Then let us help her," Lupin pleaded.
Draco gently shook his head. "I can't let you touch her. I promised her. You'll just hurt her if you do."
"Draco, we're not going to hurt her," Lupin repeated.
Ginny took a small step forward. "Draco... Do you know something about her that we don't? Will she be hurt if we touch her?" Ginny chanced gently.
Draco gave a small vigorous nod, his lip quivering.
"Draco, you have to make a compromise with us," Lupin explained. "You have to see this from our side. No matter who you are now, you were once a Death Eater. I trust you, but not enough to just leave you here alone with her."
"Then you try to see it from my side, too!" Draco ordered. "I've been with her every minute for the last couple weeks. The only times I wasn't with her were the worst times imaginable. I was with her there when she cried herself to sleep thinking that you all gave up on her! I'm not leaving her and I won't let anyone touch her."
"Draco..." Ginny started sadly.
"Fine! If you don't trust me alone with her, then let herstay with me," Draco bargained, pointing at Ginny.
"Like hell we'll leave her with you!" Charlie bellowed.
"He hasfucking lost it," Fred agreed with George's earlier statement.
"You said to compromise. I did!" Draco growled in frustration.
"Let me stay instead of her," Lupin offered.
"No. Her."
"We're not going to leave our little sister with some-"
"I'll do it," Ginny interrupted softly.
"No, you won't!" the three men shouted in unison.
"Absolutely not!" Mrs. Weasley spoke for the first time, surprising everyone.
"I'm not asking for permission," Ginny said heatedly. "He's made a compromise and I accept."
"Ginny, he's-"
"He's worried about her. She trusts him. Itrust him," she defended.
"Well I don't. Not with you," Mrs. Weasley said firmly. "What if he were to-"
"I have a wand. He's wandless. I think I could handle a situation," Ginny said in a snippy voice, punctuating each fact.
All the redheads looked ready to argue further when Lupin cut them off. "It is not an unreasonable request. Hermione trusts him and so do I. And it's seems as though Draco may know something that we don't. I feel that it is riskier not to let him. And it is obvious that Draco feels he can trust Ginny. Ginny is more than capable with a wand. The longer we stand around arguing, the longer Hermione suffers." Lupin's statement was so firm that it was understood by all that it was the final decision and not to be challenged. "Everyone out." Fred, George and Charlie glared at Draco as they were ushered from the room.
"I will not leave my daughter here with him, Remus!" Mrs. Weasley hissed.
"I'm not asking," Ginny replied. "I'll be fine and I'll make sure Hermione is, too."
"I wouldn't allow this, Molly, if I were concerned. I really do trust him. Hermione trusts him. You should have heard the way she spoke of him. If you don't trust him, trust Hermione." Lupin spoke softly again, "Come now. Why don't you ready her some food? You know she'll be starving when she wakes." Lupin escorted her from the room but turned one last time to Ginny. "I do trust him, but that doesn't mean you should drop your guard."
Ginny nodded and closed and locked the door.