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Chapter 5

Hermione stood from the floor where she'd slept the rest of the night. Her eyes looked bruised, hair greasy and limp, skin palid. She'd spent the dark, lonely hours of the morning crying on the floor of the bathroom, shivering. Half was fear, half anger at her own weakness. Every time she closed her eyes, even to blink, the trees of the forrest loomed, evil looking blue eyes (that belonged to Theo, or didn't, she couldn't even tell anymore) spinning through her mind. Theo's words rang through her head. She hated him, hated that he could affect her so much. Their interactions had been limited to less than three hours and he'd already taken over her life. Tears dropped to her cheeks, she was surprised she had anything left.

Moving into the bedroom, she pulled out a small overnight bag, packing a few pairs of jeans and dresses, and picking up the cat carrier. She called out to Crookshanks, encouraging the reluctant cat into the basket. If Theo wouldn't leave, she would. She'd done it before and she'd do it again.

Shouldering her bag, she picked up Crookshanks and marched to the door, once she was settled she could always come back to collect the rest of her belongings and sell the shop. It made her heart ache, but she hadn't left her whole life behind once just to crumble all over again. She took hold of the door knob, pulling it open and, "Fuck off." She spat out angrily, teeth grinding together. How was this possible?

Theo was standing on her doorstep, fist raised as she caught him mid-knock. "You look like shit."

She whined, almost like a petulant child. "Why are you here?" Why wouldn't he leave her alone?

Theo stepped back, looking at the bags by her ankles. "I came to apologise for last night. But, it looks like you've decided to take the easy way out."

"Fuck, Theo, it's not the easy fucking way out. Stop saying that." She clenched her hair in her fists, trying to push the images of him gripping her neck on the floor of the Forest of Dean out of her head. She turned, retching the final contents of her stomach into a bin sat by the front door. Theo stepped forwards, a hand coming to gather her hair in a hand and pull it out of her face. "Don't touch me." She hissed choking as she gagged again, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth and bracing herself on her knees.

Theo didn't listen, rubbing his free hand against her sweat soaked back, "I'm just trying to help, Hermione."

"Stop!" She used her remaining energy to stand, pushing against his chest. He didn't budge, "Stop trying to fucking help me. What gives you..." She choked out a sob, "You the right to help me. To look at me with pity." She pushed again and again and again and he let her, just watching and waiting as she screamed on the doorstep. Eventually she stopped, the steam gone, and he wrapped her in a hug that she didn't have the energy to brush off.

Tears dropped, staining the light blue shirt he was wearing. Theo waited, letting her cry, wrapped in his arms on her doorstep. The rain continued to fall around them.


When she'd burnt herself out and stopped crying, he'd asked if he could take her inside. She'd nodded, letting him step in and kick the door shut behind himself. She shook like a leaf in the wind, her body and mind almost giving out. He reached down to let Crookshanks out of his cat-carrier, as he moved Hermione back towards her bedroom.

He sat her on the bed, squatting down to unlace her white trainers. She sat, staring blankly, he wasn't even sure if she still knew he was there. His heart broke for her. He shouldn't have pushed her, should have listened to Potter and watched from a distance.

He'd just wanted to try and help her. But, she was right, who was he. Some arsehole with an ancient crush and two years of penance, and he thought he'd be able to sweep in, some sort of miracle saviour? He'd made everything one hundred times worse. He'd risked losing her, letting her run off - unaware and unguarded - because he'd wanted to be close to her... to what? Play out some schoolboy fantasy he'd had? He didn't even know anymore.

One thing was clear, he should go back to lurking in the shadows and protecting her from afar... but as he tucked her into bed, he just didn't want to. He was selfish.


Theo sat with her, propped against cushions he'd stacked on her headboard. She'd closed her eyes when her head hit the pillow and had slept quietly, almost soundlessly, since. He'd picked up the book on her nightstand, thumbing the well-worn pages and turning back to the beginning, making sure not to dislodge her bookmark.

He'd read for hours, the rain turning to drizzle and then to thunder. He'd always found the rain comforting, like a new slate.

She screamed, a gutral sound, without moving a muscle. The air in the room changed, a clap of thunder ringing ominously. He tried to soothe her, placing a soft hand against her forehead and brushing her hair back. A flash of lighting illuminated the dark room, her eyes snapping open against the backdrop of the darkening evening. The scream turned to yelling, her limbs tangled in the duvet as she struggled, clawing at him. He didn't know what to do, trying to sooth her with words as she fought him. She wasn't awake or she was but she was caught in the trap of a dream, a nightmare - she was living it, he realised as she screamed again. "No, no, no." Her voice was hoarse, her hands scratching at him as he tried to wake her.

He shook once, trying to pull her hands away as she clawed at her neck, "Hermione."

"Get off me!" Her scream was so scared and gutral, so caught in the fear of the nightmare, it shot to his core and he dropped her. Backing away, he stopped touching her, put distance between them.

The screams turned to sobs, "Hermione, I'm not going to hurt you."

She blinked, her mouth still open in a silent scream, her eyes staring into the dark. Slowly, she shook, her hands moving slowly to her mouth, trying to hold in her tears. She turned away from him. Her back curved as she rolled herself into a ball. Hugging her knees to her chest. He could tell by the movement she was crying now, "Granger."

"Please don't look at me." Was all she said. There were bloody streaks against the white bed sheets from where she'd broken through her skin and his. Her voice was so fragile, so small, he was scared to reply.

The only noises left in the room were her sobs, tearing through the silence. He could feel the cold wall against his back, holding him up as he tried to collect himself. She shivered on the crinkled sheets, the cold hitting her bare arms and forcing goosebumps onto her flesh.

The floorboards creaked as he took one step and then another. He walked around the bed, crouching before her, meeting the brown eyes that were rimmed with tears. "Can I?" He reached out a shaking finger. She didn't bite his hand off, so he moved forwards slowly, carefully, he pushed her hair off her face and gently cupped her cheek. Brushing the tears away, he used his hands to help pull her up. Taking one of hers in his, he led her to the bathroom.

He didn't know what to say as they walked. The tiles were cold against his feet. He'd never wanted to encroach on her, and his presence had obviously made that nightmare worse. She must have thought she was still in it, opening her eyes to the face of a Death Eater - he blanched at the thought. He sat her down on the edge of the bath, squatting between her knees, he inspected the cuts.

"I'm sorry." He said, wincing with her as he started a healing spell. He watched the pink skin knit over, until all that was left were bloody streaks. "I should have gone."

She was shaking, her hands clasped in her lap, one thumb picking at the skin around the nail of the other until she drew blood, "It would have been the same if you were here or not." She sucked her thumb into her mouth, tasting the tang of iron on her tongue - one pain to mask the other. It didn't work. She couldn't even look at him.

"What do you see?"

"Most recently? You."

"Me?"

"Chasing me, through a forest. You always catch me, strangling the air out of me."

He stood, pulling away from her and looking at himself in the mirror and bracing himself with his hands on the sink. Looking at the face that had been haunting her dreams, "Hermione, I would never-"

She laughed, "I know you never, but it happened to me. It might not have been you, your face on the man who caught me, but the fact is it happened and it could happen again." He didn't want to, couldn't, tell her how close a possibility it was of happening again. The thought of Fenrir touching her, torturing her, doing worse, made him sick with fear, "And, you might have not chased, not tortured, me," she walked closer, dragging his shirt sleeve up until the faded tattoo sat stark against the bright bathroom light, "But you were one of them." Their eyes clashed in the bathroom mirror, brown against blue, before she looked away again, her hands shaking.

"Hermione, I never hurt or tortured anyone."

She laughed, "Did you stand and watch?" He couldn't meet her eyes, "Then you were just as bad."

He spun on her, his eyes flashing again - with something she didn't know, "Don't you think I know that?" He choked on the words, it was something he'd had to come to grips with himself - something he would never be able to forget. "I could just about live with myself. That year I was locked away, alone, I had nothing to do except think about everyone I had hurt." His fingers kissed her cheek, wiping over the soft skin. "Please don't go." For the mission, or for him, he didn't know anymore.

Hermione pulled her arms around her body, hugging herself together as he watched her hold on her soul slip. "I don't know how to stay."

"Let me be here for you."

"Why?"

He couldn't tell her why he was actually here - the threat of Greyback constantly lingering in the back of his mind. He also didn't want to tell her the truth of why he couldn't leave her alone, that he thought he might be falling for her again - this time though, it felt like more than a childish infatuation for someone he couldn't have, it felt like his soul crumbled with her. A painful truth that he knew would never be reciprocated. How could she reciprocate anything but hate for a man whose face gave her nightmares?

He'd thought the years apart would have made him grow out if his childish fantasy of her. Seeing her, speaking to her, being with her, made him realise it hadn't; instead it had morphed into something else. He was drawn to her; she was smart, whitty, strong in ways she'd given up finding again, beautiful... and so alone. He didn't want her to be alone. He couldn't leave her to be alone.

"I need you too." He said instead. She hadn't heard those words in a long time.

"No one needs me, I can't even look after myself." She laughed sadly, gesturing to herself.

"You've made me feel again for the first time in a long time. I was numb, just going through the motions, and it's been hard for me too, seeing you again, the shame, the sorrow, the regret, the faces of people I hurt, but seeing you and talking to you, you've made me feel more alive - even if it doesn't feel good, it feels like something." He said. "If you'd rather I go though, I will."

He started to turn and as he did, she cursed her stupid, empathetic, Gryffindor heart. "Stay... for dinner. We will start with dinner."