Notes: Sorry this is a touch late. I hope you all are well. And yes, the Buffy reference is a touch anachronistic, but just roll with it please.

WARNINGS: a touch of horror/gore

37. Precious Friends Hid in Death's Dateless Night

The light is golden, like summer sun upon the sand. Hermione turns in a circle, but all she sees is the subtle glow spreading infinitely outward, a halo that never ends. She reaches out and the air ripples, heavy and visceral. She takes a step and feels warmth—warmth she has craved in vain for months—slide over her like the water off a steaming bath.

She searches the infinite glow again and finds emeralds sparkling back at her.

Hermione's inhale is sharp.

Harry smiles at her, his mouth pulling into a familiar curve. He raises a hand and beckons.

A moment later he's turning away, his form swallowed by the light.

She races after him, tripping over her own feet in haste. She catches a glimpse of shadow and follows. The glowing air prickles her skin, the warmth of it searing into her lungs, but she doesn't mind. This is the most comfortable she's been in months, the chill of the house on the moor finally burned away.

But as Harry continues, the glow fades. At first, she makes out nothing but indistinct snarling shadows, but then she recognizes gnarled branches and towering trees. They're in a forest and each step brings them closer to the heart of it.

Darkness swallows the light, taking the warmth with it and replacing the heady comfort with a chill due to far more than the rising cold. But Harry doesn't pause, doesn't look back, and Hermione follows without question.

The swaths of glowing air no longer veil him from her. She watches the familiar expanse of his back as he winds his way through the trees. Everything is as she remembers. The cadence of his steps. The minute hunch of his shoulders. The wild expanse of his unruly hair.

The shadows grow longer as they continue, their edges becoming sharp and malevolent. Hermione refuses to be intimidated.

This can't be real anyway. She knows he's gone. She knows this is nothing but a dream.

She follows anyway. She owes him that.

Branches scrape against her skin, leaving fine trails of blood. She bats them away without a second glance.

Harry plunges deeper into the darkness, his body shrouded in shifting shadows that crawl like oversized spiders. Hermione is sure she fairs no differently. The warmth is long gone, consumed by the forest. But she is accustomed to the cold.

The rational part of her brain tells her this could go on forever. That she could chase Harry through infinite darkness. But dreams aren't rational creatures and Hermione has learned to trust her instincts, battered though they may be.

When she can see nothing but whirling darkness, Harry stops, a twig snapping beneath his boots. He turns and she can just make out the dim glow of his eyes against the preternatural night.

"Look within, Hermione," he says in a voice that is at once familiar and foreign. An odd amalgam of his and something older, something sinister.

Goosebumps crawl across her flesh. She shakes her head at him. "What?"

"Look within," he repeats, less himself and more the other.

She fights the urge to look down, to consider her body. She will not lose sight of him.

Hermione takes a step forward, closing the gap between them to an arm's reach. Harry's head tilts at an odd, unnatural angle. She flinches, but refuses to look away from the emerald embers of his eyes. Within the familiar jeweled green, flames of the purest gold dance, threatening and foreign.

There's a moment when she feels the forest breathe, when the darkness retreats a fraction and she sees him clearly as he always was, hale and handsome. Then the tension snaps back and his familiar features contort, his flesh dripping from his bones like wax.

Hermione stumbles back. Blood spills into flesh as his muscles and viscera tear from his body in violent jerks. Her mouth is open, but she can't hear her scream. All she can hear is the sick pop of tendons and ligaments as they rip away from him. Only his eyes remain unscathed, blazing brilliantly with golden light in the hungry darkness.

She wants to close her eyes, to block the gory sight. But she's riveted, stuck in the horror of the moment. His jaw, dripping blood and mottled flesh, moves and his skeletal teeth form a grin that cuts through her like a dull blade, maladroit and torturous.

His eyes flash again, changing, and this time she hears her answering scream.

"Hermione!"

She stumbles back from the sudden pressure, from the deep midnight gaze. Her lips are chapped and her throat raw. She blinks. The room comes into focus.

Awake. She's awake.

Tom leans against the bed, wild eyes scanning her frantically. She forces breath into her lungs. The air is damp and chill, but familiar. She sucks down more air, concentrating on the rise and fall of her chest. The allegro of her pulse slowly fades to an adagio.

It was a nightmare.

Nothing more.

She pushes off the headboard and crawls to where Tom kneels beside the bed. She runs her hands through his silken ebony curls, brushes her lips over the flutter of his pulse at the base of his throat.

"I'm fine," she whispers. A lie she tries desperately to believe.

She watches the pale column of his throat as he swallows. "I couldn't wake you. No matter what I tried, you just kept screaming." He pulls back, searching her face. "Was it…?"

"No," she assures.

Her myriad assaults still haunt her dreams, but as the shadowy impression of fetid fingers against her flesh. She wakes with searing pain cleaving between her legs and the horror of memory rattling through her. But she has learned to let the terror fade, to turn into Tom's warmth and trust she will never endure such a violation again.

Indeed, her body is accustomed to the touch of a lover once more. To the infinite and impossible trust she must give to bridge the gap between them. She's not sure she could endure the intimate touch of another, of someone who didn't truly understand every facet of what she survived, but it doesn't matter, Tom is here.

Here and warm beside her. She buries her head into the slope of his neck and inhales clove. He strokes a hand through her hair, gently working through the tangles.

"Then what was that?" he asks, deep voice vibrating her.

She doesn't know. Calling it merely a nightmare seems shallow and naïve. But it couldn't possibly have been something else. Could it?

Hermione shudders. "I felt trapped. Like I was truly there. Not in my mind, but somewhere else."

"What happened?"

She doesn't particularly want to share, but Tom already knows every excruciating detail of her suffering. Whatever she says, she knows he will not judge.

"I saw Harry. At least it seemed like Harry until he…" she breaks off, the visceral horror clogging her throat. "Until he was torn apart in front of me."

Tom blinks, sooty lashes shuttering blazing sapphires. "Torn apart?"

Hermione's hands become claws. He releases her hair and catches her twitching fingers. "Hermione, what did you see?"

"It was awful," she whispers, the image of Harry's flesh tearing from him in bloody chunks drowning out her vision. "He came apart, Tom. His skin melted off, his muscles and organs were torn out…"

Even Tom, one time murderer and child of darkness that he is, flinches.

She works a hand free to trace the line of his chiseled jaw, of his high cheekbones, even the orbitals of his eyes. She doesn't share what haunts her the most. What makes the bloody gore seem trivial in its sensational horror.

His eyes are midnight jewels in the night.

The exact same tone that stole the emerald from Harry's burning eyes moments before the nightmare fractured.

Tom strokes her cheek with the back of his hand, the onyx stone of his ring cool. Hermione jerks, snagging his hand. The ring. The Resurrection Stone.

"Have you tried it?" She taps the stone and Tom looks down.

He shakes his head, dark curls falling over his brow. "I don't have anyone I wish to see."

That truth fractures her heart. Of course, he doesn't. His past is a mire of darkness, a father who didn't want him, a mother too maniacal to think about her son, an orphanage full of echoing trauma. Even his time at Hogwarts was laced with only suspicion and manipulation, Tom too far gone to trust any of his peers.

Staring at him now, she has no idea how to contain the swell of emotion in her chest. How to convey to him the startling depths of her love for him, dark scars and all.

She presses her lips to his, butterfly soft. He responds to her delicate touch with an equally reverent exploration of her lips. It's less passion than pure emotion. The closest either of them can come to explaining.

The nightmare is almost a distant memory when she pulls back. But it's impossible to forget golden flame licking sapphire eyes framed by the skull of the mangled corpse.

"Can I borrow it?" she asks. "Just for a little bit. I need…"

Tom tilts his head, waiting. She doesn't want to admit exactly who she needs to talk to. But there's no sense in keeping secrets either. "I need to talk with Harry. To say goodbye."

To figure out what exactly Tom is hiding from her.

Because he might be sitting beside her right now, but his features are gaunt. Still painfully handsome, but in a sharp and lean way. His chest is still broad, his muscles still hard and inviting, but with each passing day he becomes… less.

Coupled with her unrelenting sickness, Hermione worries both of them are headed somewhere perilous. Draco hasn't been able to figure out what's wrong with her and now she has two days before she has to lay this additional burden at Tom's feet. Before she has to admit defeat and let her broken body win once more.

Tom slides the ring from his finger and presses it into her palm. "Do you think that's what your dream meant?"

She fears it meant something much worse.

"Maybe?" She won't lie to him. Even if she won't admit the truth. "I just know I have more to say to Harry."

That, at least, is fully truth. Despite the memorial. Despite her long talks with both Ginny and Draco, there's still a thread tying her to Harry. She's not sure she wants to cut it loose, but perhaps it is time to truly say goodbye.

Tom rises slowly to his feet, cigarette already in hand. "I'll give you some privacy."

She eyes him, suspicion churning in her gut. She was won this battle without even a fight. "What are you going to do?"

He jerks his head toward the dark abyss beyond the window. "I could use some air. As long as you're sure you're okay."

Okay is a relative thing. She supposes she's close enough. "I'll be fine."

Tom stoops, dropping a dizzying kiss to her lips. "Don't forget Potter never kissed you like that."

Hermione's breath comes a little easier. Jealousy is a good sign. She squeezes his hand. "Thank you."

His gaze becomes liquid fire, scorching through her until she fears he's seen the sum of her secrets.

"Anything for you," he finally says, turning on his heel and leaving before she can construct a coherent reply.

Hermione moves to the window, leaning against the sill as she watches him wander into the mist. Only the faint glow of his cigarette tells her he's still close.

Her fingers twitch, the urge to raid his stash strong. But Hermione's honored Tom's request. She avoids cigarettes almost entirely, except for the occasional second hand smoke she gleans from Tom. It hasn't made any difference in her nausea or the pervasive chill, but she's intelligent enough to know avoiding the lung cancer magnets certainly isn't hurting her.

And right now, she'll use every advantage she can get.

Hermione looks down at the ring, still clutched in her hand. She's not sure how to use it, but skin contact seems like a good idea.

She settles into the middle of their expansive bed, legs crossed and elbows resting on her thighs. She turns the ring so the stone rests firmly against her palm. Then she closes her eyes and pictures Harry as he'd appeared in the brilliant light, before the shadows and ghastly disintegration.

Silence stretches out before her, only the quiet groans of the house interrupting the still night. She goes through the litany of her memories of Harry, from their awkward childhood encounters to the feel of him above her, inside her.

"I didn't think you'd miss me that much."

Her eyes snap open and she's faced with luminous emeralds. She stares, half expecting his flesh to strip from his bones as before. But Harry remains perfectly intact. Whole even, no trace of the wound that took him from them, no flames dancing in the depths of his gaze.

"Is it really you?"

He perches on the edge of the bed. "I suppose that depends on what you believe. What comes after? Do I cease to exist? Or do I merely move on somewhere else?"

"Do you?" she can't help the curiosity, the doubt and hope mingling into a powerful craving.

He laughs, light and exactly as she remembers. "I'm afraid it's not my place to reveal the secrets of the universe, Hermione."

She tamps down the wild disappointment. He's right. This isn't the time or place. "Are you okay?" she asks instead.

Harry shrugs. "As okay as I can be seeing as how I killed myself to save the world."

Hermione doesn't need to reminded of his sacrifice. She's reminded of it every day. Every time she watches Tom struggle with the new reality he faces.

"Before you…" she can't make herself say died, so she simply plows onward. "Before, you said Tom knew what he was doing, can you tell me more about that?"

"After you and Draco left to draw Voldemort out, Tom and I discovered the only way to be one hundred percent sure we destroyed Voldemort was to destroy his magic as well. We knew we could return all the portions of his soul from the Horcruxes—even if we had to cut them out of the living creatures—but there was a possibility he could shelter himself in the swathes of dark magic he commanded. There was a loophole though, one Voldemort didn't know because he didn't know about Tom. If we used a spell to destroy Tom's magic, Voldemort's—being essentially the same thing—would vanish as well."

"So you weren't merely destroying the Horcruxes."

"No," Harry admits. "Only part of the ritual was to unite Tom's soul. The majority of it was to destroy his magic."

"And he was willing to do that?"

Despite the proof of his choice, Hermione still has a hard time believing Tom willing took such drastic measures.

Harry gives her a look that is vast and ancient, nothing like the expressions she's accustomed to seeing on his boyishly handsome face. "He will do anything for you."

So Tom has said on more than one occasion. "Why?"

"I'm not inside the boy's head, Hermione. Death doesn't make me suddenly omniscient. All I have is the evidence I've witnessed. And that tells me that Tom Riddle values you above all else in this world."

She wants to ask why again, but Harry is right. He isn't Tom. He can't fully explain the other boy's reckless choices.

"I think he regrets it."

Harry's gaze skitters to the window, to the darkness that hides Tom. "He doesn't."

"Then why is he pulling away? Why does it feel like I've lost him too?"

Harry sighs and buries a hand in his hair. "Not everything is as it seems. You have to remember to look deeper. To look within."

The echo of the words from her dream sends a chill down her spine. She waits, dread curdling her stomach, for him to fall to pieces, to mirror the horror of her nightmare.

But he stays wonderfully whole and she releases a pent-up breath. Harry studies her, silent and patient. Nothing and everything like she remembers him.

"We're not doing well, Harry. I always thought we'd win and then the world would spread out before us infinite and vast and all ours. But we won and moving forward is harder than anything. We're all such broken, lost children."

"You're not broken. And neither is Tom or Draco. You're survivors and that's the opposite of broken."

"That's all well and good coming from someone who doesn't have to deal."

Harry looks at her, solemn. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."

"Did you just quote Buffy?"

An abashed smile tugs at his lips. "Maybe. It's good advice. You're right. Your journey is far harder than mine. I'm no longer part of the fight, but that doesn't mean I don't wish I could be beside you, helping you."

Her chest aches with the loss of him.

"I never got to say this, not before…" she swallows around the hard lump of grief and regret, "but I forgive you. For all of it."

"I suppose my sacrifice was sufficient atonement."

Hermione looks up at him sharply, "Not atonement. I just needed time. Time we weren't given."

"Time heals all wounds," he muses, pensive. "I don't suppose it does, but it certainly tempers them."

Hermione looks down at the dark stone in her hand. She's not ready to let go. She'll never be ready to let go. But she knows she can't keep doing this. This conversation is a gift, not the beginning of a habit.

"Do you know why he has the Hallows?"

"Yes."

Her heart misses a beat and skitters wildly. "Why?"

"Some secrets aren't mine to tell," Harry murmurs, compassion coating every word.

She tries a different tactic. "Should I worry?"

Harry takes too long to reply and when he does, he only says, "that's something you'll have to decide for yourself."

She lets the questions die on her lips. They talk instead of Ginny and Ron. Of the progress of the ministry. Of Draco and his rise in the ministry ranks to Dark Arts consultant alongside Snape. Of the house on the moor she shares with Draco and Tom.

It feels like they have pulled the threads of time taut and stalled its progression, if only for a moment. For a handful of breaths, Hermione forgets she talks to a ghost, to an echo of the Boy Who Was. She loses herself in blind hope and for a time, it is enough to stave off the frigid truths of reality.

But dawn fractures the night with grey whisps of mist and Harry smiles, a foreign, ancient smile that breaks her.

This is the end. She has the power to return, but she has tasted madness and she knows its allure. There cannot be a next time. Not if she is to hold her pieces together. Not if she is to continue crashing blindly forward into the unknown and not backward into agony.

She tries to touch him, but her fingers slide through him, his form insubstantial mist. Harry hovers his hand over hers on the bed.

"This isn't the last of your losses. Or your pain," he says. "Life is full of suffering. It is what we do despite it that matters."

Death has made him painfully wise. She can't help the flood of moisture that coats her cheeks.

"You're the strongest person I know, Hermione," Harry tells her solemnly. "Don't let life convince you otherwise."

"I don't want to do this alone."

"You're not alone," he chides. "I will always be with you. And so will Tom and Draco and Ginny and plenty of others."

"I love you."

Harry smiles at her, placid. "I will never forget. And I love you."

Salt water drips onto the stone in her hand.

"You have to let go."

She memorizes every facet of him, from the wild hair to the freckles across his nose and the angle of his collar bone beneath his dark tee shirt.

It takes every dreg of her will power to pry her fingers from the Resurrection Stone. When they finally release, she flings the ring away, the temptation to grab it once more overwhelming. Perhaps it is safest with Tom, who experiences no such yearning.

Her shoulders shake and nausea swells.

She just makes it to the toilet before it crests and her stomach heaves violently. Hands are in her hair a moment later, gently pulling it from her face.

She sags into Tom and lets him hold her, too wrung out to do anything but breathe.

~*~Break~*~

"I heard her scream."

Tom turns slowly to face Draco, cigarette between his lips and shadows in his eyes.

"So what are you doing out here?" he asks.

The darker boy takes a long drag before answering. "She wanted to speak with Potter. I felt it best to absence myself from that particular reunion."

It takes Draco longer than it should to piece together the real meaning behind Tom's reply. Perhaps it's the haze of sleep still clinging to him. Perhaps it's the absurdity of the truth.

"You let her use the Resurrection Stone."

"She hardly needs my permission to do anything."

"You have no idea what that might do to her," Draco hisses.

Tom's jaw becomes a hard line. "There are no known side effects of the stone besides an attachment to the illusions it presents."

Draco sighs, conceding the point. Much like the cloak, the stone is innocuous enough except for its allure of the lost becoming found. Tom's wording catches his attention though. Draco slides him a pensive look. "So you don't believe we can truly visit the dead?"

They watch the smoke trail into the mist a long while. Only when he grinds the blazing embers into dull ashes does Tom say, "I don't pretend to understand all the nuances of Death and his power."

That he refers to Death as sentient creature is not lost on Draco. "But you don't feel the stone reveals the souls of the dead."

"I believe the stone is a mirror, just as the cloak is a shield and the wand is a weapon. It provides what is needed."

"Accounts of the stone I found while cleaning out the Malfoy archives indicate that users of the stone had information revealed to them that only the dead could know," Draco counters. He's not entirely sure what he believes himself, but he wants to understand what Tom believes. It's the most insight he's had into the other boy's state of mind in weeks.

"That certainly could be true," Tom allows, brushing an ebony lock out of his eyes. "But aren't these things Death himself could know?"

Draco blinks. Tom is stoic before him, only the shadows haunting his azure gaze giving away the tumult within. Even after all this time, he is brimming with darkness and lies. Despite everything they've endured. Despite the vast changes he's endured.

But Draco no longer believes Tom's deception is to be feared. For he too has crossed fathoms to find himself on foreign ground. Their journeys may not have been the same, but they are kindred spirits in the raw assault of change, even if it is for the better.

And because of this, he knows there is more to this conversation than he understands. More that Tom is telling him that he simply does not have the vocabulary to grasp yet.

"You believe Death is truly that powerful?"

Tom tucks his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, material worn soft and supple with age. "I believe, Draco, that most people forget Death not only has the power to end life, but also to deliver it."

A chill spreads across Draco's flesh, crawling inward until his veins are thick with ice.

"What?"

"What is sparing a life, but giving it?" Tom replies, voice low and reverent.

This time Draco's heart loses a beat. He's missing something here. But no matter how hard he searches or how many pieces he fits together, nothing concrete forms. He's on the cusp, but the wave refuses to break.

Draco shakes his head before running both hands through his matted hair—Hermione's shrieks startled him out of the depths of slumber. He'll dwell on this unnerving conversation later.

Tom still hasn't explained what happened to Hermione and Draco's beyond concerned. Her health continues trending for the worst and Tom still does nothing to acknowledge the fact.

"What happened, Tom?" he asks, perhaps a touch too sharply.

Dark lashes flutter over pits of azure flame. "She had a dream."

"It didn't sound like one of her usual nightmares."

Draco's more than well acquainted with her night terrors. If not from the months spent living in the same house, then from the weeks together before Voldemort's defeat.

Tom nods, "you're right. It was something different. Something strange and strong."

For all the words of concern, he looks as aloof as ever. Of course, Draco knows him well enough to see the tension straining the façade. Cracks in his armor just waiting to split wide open. But Tom is on the precipice like Hermione and Draco won't push.

He wants to pull the boy into his arms, to chase away Tom's burdens with the soft press of his lips against porcelain skin. He wants to love him the only way he knows how. But they aren't like that anymore and Draco doesn't know how to express his affection in a way that doesn't let Hermione down.

He's trying. Truly, he is, but Tom is deeper in his psyche than he ever imagined. Tom forced him to become the man he is today, to face his cowardice and make a stand, to become so much more than a failed Malfoy. It's not just the thrumming shock of attraction between them; it's Draco's entire identity.

He turns abruptly away, unable to bear the sight of Tom a moment longer lest he do something they'll both regret. He tangles his hands together, nails biting into his palms. The pain brings focus, the strength he needs to hold the roiling mess of his emotions beneath the pale mask of his skin.

"What did she dream about then?"

"Harry."

No wonder Tom's standing out in the dank night chain smoking. "What about him?"

The click of Tom's lighter hisses across the field. Draco glances over his shoulder to watch him take a long drag from the newest cigarette.

"She wasn't particularly forthcoming on all the details, but she described his flesh being ripped from his body."

Draco chokes on his inhale as he whirls back around. "She said what?"

"A gruesome image, isn't it?"

It certainly explains the blood curdling cries coming from their bedroom. Draco shakes his head, willing away the visuals he conjured. "Sweet Merlin, why would she dream such a thing?"

Tom is silent for too long. Draco narrows his eyes and closing the distance between them. "What aren't you telling me, Tom?"

A cloud of smoke blows in his face and Draco coughs, retreating. "We've talked about this. There are some things I just can't tell you."

Draco wants to trust him, he truly does, but Hermione health is sliding backward at an alarming rate and Tom himself seems a half step away from shattering before Draco's eyes. His capacity for trust only runs so deep, and Tom is testing his limit.

He knows he promised Hermione he wouldn't confront Tom about her health until they'd figured out what ailed her on their own. But he has no idea what's wrong with her and a sick twist in his gut tells him Tom does.

He reaches out between them and yanks the cigarette from Tom's nimble fingers. He grinds the butt deliberately beneath his boot, holding Tom's bewildered gaze.

"I think you're perfectly capable of telling me. You simply won't," he accuses, ice riming his words.

The other boy looks away. "It's complicated."

"It's been complicated since she poured her blood in that diary and you found a way into our lives, Tom. Complicated doesn't scare either of us."

Tom cards a hand through his hair, eyes searching the dark skies above. "Give me just a while longer."

"For what? So you can run away into the mist and smoke yourself to an early grave? So she can vomit every meal she eats? So I can reach my limit and leave you to your fate?"

He didn't mean to include the last question. But now that it's out, Draco doesn't regret it. He's stayed for Hermione. Because he sees how fervently she needs help. Because Tom is too lost in his own misery to be there for her.

But he's not going to live the rest of his life as a third wheel to them, pining after the boy who is no longer his. He has a stable job with the ministry—enough income to make a life despite the surrender of the Malfoy assets. It's only a matter of time before he leaves.

Tom's hands claw into Draco's shoulders, an echo of a sensation that heats his blood. "You can't."

"I am most certainly capable of leaving," Draco hisses, his emotions cracking his voice.

Tom's nails bite into his skin. "No. You can't."

"Unless you find a way to tell me what's going on, I hardly see any other choice." Draco doesn't particularly enjoy ultimatums and this is a particularly rubbish one, but his patience has worn dangerously slim. "She's sick and all you seem to do is run away. So give me one reason why I shouldn't take her away, get her the help she needs and leave you to rot in your misery."

Draco fully expects violence in the face of such inflammatory language. He certainly doesn't anticipate the sudden gloss that coats Tom's dark lashes. Or the anguished twist of his lips as he sinks to his knees, pulling Draco down with him.

"I can't tell you what you want," he moans, voice rough as a stormy sea.

Draco can't help it. He reaches out and strokes the chiseled line of Tom's cheek. His fingers tingle where they brush the familiar alabaster skin.

"Then tell me something you can share."

"I…" the boy chokes on the word several times before managing, "I love her."

The jolt of surprise wars with the sting of jealousy. Tom's sentiment is no surprise, but hearing him admit his feelings aloud is something Draco never anticipated. It's further proof of just how much Tom is willing to sacrifice for Hermione Granger.

So why isn't he helping her now? Why does he allow her sickness to fester?

"If you loved her, you would help her."

"I am helping her," Tom insists.

Draco's hands curl into fists around the collar of Tom's jacket. He just barely refrains from shaking the other boy. "No, you aren't. She's sick and she's not getting better."

"You don't understand!"

"Then help me understand."

They glare at each other, midnight blue and grey clashing in the gloom. Tom breaks first, his head dropping so his forehead rests upon Draco's wrists.

"I can't. All I can do is beg you to trust me." He slowly lifts his head, dark curls brushing Draco's skin. "And I don't beg, Draco."

He releases Tom's jacket and cants forward to rest his forehead against Tom's. The temptation to close the gap between them, to taste those delicious lips just a breath away, is overwhelming. But Draco resists his baser instincts.

Hermione's health is at stake here and he no longer falls to the lowest version of himself.

"I want to trust you, Tom. But how can I when she's falling apart before my eyes? When both of you are?"

Tom exhales, harsh and warm against Draco's cheek. "I can promise you she'll be well. No matter what happens."

"And you?" Draco asks. "Will you be well?"

Tom presses his lips to Draco's cheek. "I'll be well enough."

Draco tastes the lie, sour and rotten against his tongue. He hates it and he hates his heart for breaking just a little bit further when he hears it.

"Stop asking questions I can't answer," Tom murmurs, mouth still against Draco's skin.

"Stop doing things that require me to ask."

Tom lets out a low chuckle and collapses back onto his heels. Draco feels abruptly cold and unreasonably bereft. The darker boy tilts his head at Draco, azure embers sweeping over him.

"Do you really want to leave?"

"I can't live with you and Hermione forever," Draco sighs. "It's not fair to me and all that I want."

Tom raises a hand and uses the back of his fingers to trace the line of Draco's trembling jaw, then the bow of his lips. He lets his hand drop and stares at the fingers that trailed sparks across Draco's skin. He shakes his head, dark curls falling in front of his eyes.

"I am sorry, that it ended up this way."

Draco is and isn't. He's glad for what they shared and despite his yearning for Tom, he's also glad to move forward into uncharted waters. To become someone new yet again.

"It's okay," he says and it's not a lie.

"But I need you to stay."

Draco searches Tom's features, but finds nothing beyond poorly cloaked desperation. This is Tom on the precipice of begging.

He wants to refuse him. To tell Tom that Draco's life is stuck in limbo until he can move on from this house, from this tension that still binds them together. But Tom doesn't beg. He doesn't rely on others. He doesn't admit he needs anything. So if Draco leaves, then all this progress will be nothing but a wound between them.

And Tom has come so far. Given up so much. Draco refuses to kick him when he's already down.

"Alright. I'll stay."

Tom's lips brush his, quick and chaste and everything he tries not to crave. "Thank you."

Draco sighs, hand rising to his temple. He has no idea if he'll regret this or not. "I'll stay, but you have to help her understand what's happening."

He expects Tom to refuse yet again. Instead, he nods, expression solemn. "I will. I promise I will."

They settle onto the damp heather, shoulder to shoulder, eyes seeking the stars hidden beyond the heavy mist. Sometime before dawn, Tom returns to the house, but Draco stays, searching the coiling mists for answers. He finds nothing but cool air and the musky scent of damp earth.