A/N: I am going to change my posting day to Saturday instead of Sunday. Again, thank you for all of the continued support. I am writing this as I go (it's all planned out, though, and I am just bursting with excitement to write some of the upcoming chapters and know you'll be just as happy to read them) so your feedback is incredibly motivating. An especially big hug to the folks who have been leaving comments as we go along.

Time passes differently after the fire. Tomsy brings so many scheduled potions that it's impossible not to at least try to keep track of it. There are salves, pastes, calming draughts, mixed potions, and even some chocolate. Most of them keep me awake, like the Wiggenweld Potion designed to heal some of my burns. But it's the kind of alertness coated in sleep; I can't find it in me to move. Only to think. And it's killing me.

I've willingly invited a mudblood into my home. And then again into our library. A sanctum designed for purebloods. Witches and wizards who believe in the sanctity of our livelihood. And then some silly girl - one who has been hurt inside of the Manor before- comes prancing in with a smile on her face, ready to discuss romance novels as if she hasn't just survived a war where I fought against her and her friends.

But what about her and her kind was so wrong that Voldemort and the rest were willing to risk their lives defeating it? Her parents were muggles, yet she was one of the brightest witches ever to step foot in Hogwarts. She had no shortage of devotion to the wizarding world either. Why would anybody want to hurt her? Why did I?

Perhaps there was a layer of truth to Valencia's defense strategy. Maybe I was raised to believe in purifying the blood of wizards everywhere. Would I have thought differently if I grew up in a house like Granger's? Or worse, Weasley's? Had I ever been given the time to think about my own beliefs, or did I get by believing in those that my father held because it was easier?

"Tomsy, what do you think about muggle-born wizards?" I ask lazily during one of his potion drop-offs. He's brought crumpets this time, too.

He looks shocked at the question.

"Why does Master be asking Tomsy?"

I shrug. "Who else is there to ask?"

"Tomsy does not be having very many opinions, Sir. But Tomsy is not having any problems with any muggle-borns today."

He doesn't ask me the same question back. Of course, he doesn't. But I start to wonder what I would say if he did. Suppose I had any proper opinions brewing inside of me. Merlin, maybe muggle-borns were the same as the rest of us. No better, no worse.

I've always known that torturing, killing, threatening, and the like were bad. That part I was sure about. Since my fifth year, nausea in my stomach each time somebody got hurt was enough to tell me that. Yet it all seemed as if it served a purpose, and it was one that I believed in. But now the war looks so bloody unnecessary. Trying to preserve blood purity had meant killing thousands of witches and wizards… and we were the ones trying to save our kind? Bollocks.

My guilt brews stronger as I start overthinking what point my actions served, making me want to march back to Azkaban and crawl up on the cold floors until I rot into them. But then I would be another casualty in a war that I should never have believed in, and there doesn't seem to be a difference between fighting for my freedom or rejecting it for the rest of my life.

After a day of recovering from the damage of smoke filling my lungs and some surface-level burns, Tomsy relents and gives me a powerful sleeping draught that stops the thinking for a little while. The only time I wake up over the next two days is to drink more.

There are piles of rolled-up parchment on my nightside table when I finally wake up, eyes groggy from the dreamless sleep. One is from Valencia, pushing back our next meeting date. The rest are from Granger, piled atop her burned copy of Crafted Creatures.

Just wanted to check in. I'm fine, like I said. Are you fine?

Hermione Granger

I tried to come round the Manor today but Tomsy said you were sleeping. It was dinner time, which seemed rather odd. Let me know when you get this.

Hermione Granger

Malfoy, you absolute tosser. Let me know you're alive or else the next letter will be a howler.

Granger

They're all the same, and they're all angry. As they should be, considering that my property caused her physical harm. The memory of it – her scream, the brief fear in her eyes- causes an uncomfortable flip in my stomach that only draws attention to the stiffness in my skin. Suddenly, I have a desperate need to see the remains of the library. I slip on house shoes and a thin black robe to cover my nakedness and abandon the coziness.

Fearing for the worst, I tip-toe down the stairs as the dread rises through my body. The door to the library feels hot to the touch. Impossible. The house must be playing tricks on me because the air inside the room is colder than usual, and the heat from the door drops the moment I close it behind me.

There is a light dusting of ash on the floor, and my shoes leave behind footprints as I move deeper into the room. Books are piled against every inch of the walls, organized by level of damage. Tomsy's doing, of course. The shelves are all barely hanging on, with some missing altogether. The windows that once lined the back of the room have all been blown out, leaving behind tiny shards on both sides. They litter the once-green couch nearby, which is now a dozen shades of dark.

The air still smells smoky, and it pulls me back to the source. How could I have caused this without my magic? Was it years of anger waiting to be unleashed? Or was the Manor finally working with me to bring itself down?

"Come to finish the job?" A soft voice asks from behind.

I spin around to see Granger standing at the door, desperately trying to cover her surprise at the burned room. She spends time taking it in, no doubt pained from the death of precious knowledge.

"I don't condone ruining books, cursed or not. But your continuous need to destroy them is making things a lot easier if we're still trying to renovate."

We. I push down the urge to scoff at her, knowing it won't do anything good.

"I've been doing some research, and I've discovered that the only way to break your family's pureblood curses is to have somebody from the bloodline cast a counter curse on each of the items. But I don't suspect you'd be too eager to do that."

I open my mouth to object, but she doesn't leave enough space between her words to give me a chance.

"And even if you could, you don't have your wand. So, I still won't be able to touch the books."

"Then why come back?"

"Well, Malfoy, I don't particularly like seeing a library of this size in ruins. I'm still offering my help to clean it up. It just looks like a bigger challenge than before, that's all."

"Are you going to ask what happened?"

She stops and thinks. She shakes her head after a beat.

"Never mind that. Are you ready to get to work, or would you like to sleep for another two days?"

She's right; the idea of crawling back into bed is tempting. But I don't suspect she's giving up on this project any time soon, so I might as well get it out of the way. Her presence does remind me of the goose-pimpled skin that's hidden beneath such a thin robe, and I can't help but wonder if she's noticed my immodesty, too. She doesn't say anything if she does.

"Right – er. Let me go and get changed then. Tomsy," I call out with a snap.

"Master Draco is awake! And Miss Hermione!"

"Right. Ask Granger what she'd like to drink and if she'll need any supplies to clean up this mess."

"But Master Draco, Tomsy is cleaning up the mess!" The familiar glint of tears prickles his eyes.

"Tomsy, you've been doing a lovely job. But would it be okay if Malfoy and I were to help you?" Granger pipes up, approaching Tomsy with an unfamiliar warmth. She squats down to his height before she continues, lowering her voice while she does. "I suspect that your Master Malfoy feels a little guilty for giving you so much extra work. It would make him very happy if you let us help."

Tomsy redirects his head to me, waiting for permission. But the tears are gone, leaving behind a sheepish smile on his wrinkling face.

"Whatever," I nod, leaving the pair to do whatever planning they need. There's a chance that Granger tries to give Tomsy a high-five of success as I go, but I turn my back too quickly to be sure.

I hurry back to my bedroom to change, returning to the library in dark trousers and a grey waffle knit jumper. My fingers ache for the familiarity of fiddling with my wand as I walk down the long corridor.

Tomsy and Granger have set themselves up in the library. A silver tea tray holds my regular cups of coffee and a large mug of tea for Granger, along with a plate of biscuits. The duo stands further down the room, looking up at the shelves and toward the windows.

"Malfoy, did you know that there are significant expansion charms on the library?" Granger asks on my approach.

"I can't say that I did, no," I admit. "But I'm not the least bit surprised."

"Well, Tomsy and I were just thinking that we could get rid of the expansion charms. It would give us less space to clean and would also make it less obvious that you've lost a lot of books."

"Can we do that?"

"Tomsy can, with your consent. Right Tomsy?"

"Right, Miss Hermione!"

"Tomsy, you can lift the expansion charms in the library," I say, waving my hand to the giant space in front of us.

Granger steps aside, leaves the elf alone, and walks back to the entrance. She sits herself down in front of the silver tray, grabbing at her cup and slurping down tea. Her eyes widen with excitement as she watches Tomsy lift his hands, working his elf magic on the corners of the library. I find myself sitting next to her, taking my own drink.

"So how does…." I start.

"Shh. Just watch." She doesn't seem to mind that she's told me to be quiet in my own home, and I wonder if this should offend me.

But it is a sight to behold. Tomsy seems to collapse the room onto itself, and sections crumble away like a falling tower of playing cards. Shelves and burned books shrink away in a blip as they tumble to the ground, and the walls start to close in on the closer shelving units. The elf looks steady and focused, and his magic looks stronger than I'd ever seen it before. Maybe the House Elf community could do severe damage if they weren't so loyal. A tinge of gratefulness floods through me as I redirect my eyes to Granger, who watches on as if she's never seen magic before.

"I heard that you were the one to turn your family into the Wizengamot," Granger says quietly, not taking her eyes away from Tomsy's magic.

"Not really. I just took down the wards that were keeping us hidden."

"That's very brave of you, Malfoy. It's something that, dare I say it, a Gryffindor would do."

"You know what else a very Gryffindor thing to do is? Insulting a Slytherin by suggesting he might have been sorted into the wrong house. And to say it in his own home… That's brave," I say, not a hint of threat behind my lips, even though there probably should have been.

She smiles, filling me with relief.

"Why did you do it?"

"I dunno. Guilt, I suppose."

"Did it help, then?"

She starts to sound like she's prepping me for trial. Maybe Valencia gave her homework, too.

"Blimey, Granger. What's with all of the questions?" The frustrations I should have spoken earlier start to come out.

"Sorry. Just curious," she backs off.

"How much longer is this going to take, anyway?" I ask, directing my gaze to Tomsy as he walks around in circles, eyeing the room. He's shrunken a considerable amount, and the library is a third of the size of what it once was. Granger was right; it will be easier to work with.

"He's almost done."

She's right. He finishes within minutes, coming up and looking at Granger for approval and not me.

"Excellent, Tomsy! Thank you so much," Granger glows, which Tomsy mirrors back.

"Right," I add.

Granger spends a few more minutes complimenting Tomsy while he eats it up. The praise helps by getting the elf to leave in the end, as he no longer feels like he hasn't done his part to clean up my mess.

"Now, because I can't touch the books, I was thinking that it might be best if you sort them while I tidy up. And then when you're done, I'll levitate them back on their shelves."

"Whatever. That makes sense to me."

She leaves me alone by the books, and as the space between us grows, I feel the weight of the task dawn on me. There are still hundreds of books. And now, thanks to my doing, I have to brush them all off just to read the title because of the ash.

I turn my head to see Granger with a broom and a dustpan of all things. She does know that she's a witch, right? If anything, I should be the one with the muggle cleaning tools. How did she even find such a thing in the Manor? After brushing down the path between bookshelves, Granger tosses the broom and finally pulls out her wand. She gives her wrist a twirl, opening a small vacuum portal in the air, and directs all of the dirt and ash into it. It disappears without a trace, leaving her with a satisfied smirk of completion. Without bothering to look back at my lack of progress, Granger keeps going and starts using a similar method on the shelves themselves.

It seems silly to turn around and pick up books, only to put them back down again in sorted piles while she gets to use magic. I pick one up, blow off the ash, and place it back down. Only to do the same, over and over again, while looking at the author's last name and the genre to later sort it. I'm nothing but a muggle bookkeeper.

While sorting, I try to tightly pull the corners of my mind and occlude, leaving out any thoughts aside from the task in front of me. There are visions of the castle at sunset, lush greenery surrounding the architecture, and the rippling lake next to it. The trees rock as I pick up book by book, barely taking in each name. The grounds are quiet at first, but then they start to shake from underneath, threatening the structure of it all.

"You're trying to occlude, aren't you?" A voice interrupts me, pulling me away from whatever relaxing atmosphere I had been working on to create.

"Trying."

"It's not working?"

"No. It hasn't really worked since I've been back at the Manor," I confess without meaning to.

"Maybe the Manor is working against you. There's still a lot of dark magic in these walls, and they might be punishing you," she says, confirming some of my suspicions.

"It's just a theory, is all," she says, acknowledging the silence when I don't say anything back. Maybe I need to try harder and be a better conversationalist.

"How do you know about it, anyway?" I finally ask. Questions seem to be easier. It gives me less reason to talk. "Do you know how to do it?"

"No. I haven't felt the need to. But Harry can."

"Why am I not surprised?"

She puffs out a quiet laugh and rolls her eyes.

"He wasn't very good at it, actually."

She laughs even harder at her addition. I let a bit of air escape my nose, finding my lips curling up at her giggles.

"It's tough. But it was the only magic I had in Azkaban. And before, when my family and I were in hiding.

"You miss it, don't you?"

I want to tell her that I miss a lot of things. Having coffee in the morning with Mother, the hidden excitement over good grades, the risk of getting caught sneaking around the castle after curfew. Merlin, even the odd afternoons of practicing Quidditch with Father, back before it all began. And magic, of course. Only a nod comes out in confirmation.

"Here," she starts and walks closer, closing the gap between us.

And then she's touching me. An internal burn ruptures throughout my entire body, leaving behind a thunderous ache when she doesn't let go. She slips her arm underneath mine and uses her left hand to place my right palm over hers. My fingers slide atop hers as if I've done it a thousand times before, and then I'm holding onto the hand underneath me. Her wand, of course, is gripped beneath our hands.

Her body slithers its way in front of me, fitting like a jigsaw piece beneath my arm. My left hand instinctively raises to the soft curve of her waist, hidden beneath her baggy jumper. The distance between the fabric and her skin allows me to pull my hand back to my side before she notices that I've tried to touch her. Before I notice that I've tried to touch her.

She smells like oranges.

I tense my hand atop hers and dance them together in a swift cursive 'U' shape.

"Avis," we whisper together.

A loud blast fires from her wand, and there are dozens of little green birds flying around the room, chirping in unison. They flutter around the depths of the library and then circle back, twirling around our bodies like a gust of air. Granger smiles, and I realize that I'm smiling, too.

"They're beautiful," she tells me.

Beautiful was a word that I'd never used. How could something be beautiful if it existed in a world that sought to destroy it? Nothing had ever truly been safe with the war looming behind it. Not flowers, castles, lakes, and certainly not silly birds. So why dedicate a word to it that only lies about its potential? But looking down, now… The word added itself to a dictionary of things I've seen, and its definition didn't stop at birds.

And then, all at once, it becomes too much. I grab at her hand again, and my skin asks her to send the birds flying out the still-broken window. They do, disappearing into the darkening sky outside.

"You should follow them," I tell her.

Granger's face changes. The lines of her smile still stick on her cheeks as her lips turn downward and her eyes blink for a second too long. She pulls her body away from mine without a word, leaving behind a coldness. I let my arm stretch out toward the door as if pointing her in the direction of the fireplace, and she starts to follow it, only to stop before her hand can push it open.

"Why is it that every time I come to this Manor, I'm sent away the minute you feel an emotion beyond apathy?

"Because I'm supposed to be suffering, Granger."

"Says who?" She shouts, anger creeping up her throat.

"Everybody!"

"That's not an answer, and you know it."

"I've done a lot of bad things, Granger." I could tell her everything and scare her badly enough never to want to come back.

"No shit, Malfoy! That doesn't mean that you have to keep doing bad things. Not to others, but especially not to yourself. And shutting yourself away counts."

She looks passionate. There is a fire twirling in her eyes, desperate to keep talking. To change my mind. It almost feels intoxicating, and I don't want her to shut up just yet.

"What do you care anyway?"

"I don't." She seems to shrink back with this comment, unsure of what to say next.

"Obviously, you do, or you wouldn't have come here in the first place. And you certainly wouldn't come back when you were reminded that I'm the same ol' Draco Malfoy that picked on you in school."

"Draco-," she starts, and we both pause to look at each other. My given name sounds like a spell coming off her lips. "Malfoy. I thought that I learned everything there was to know about my friends during the war. But as it turns out, it was just concealing their true selves from me. And now that it's over, I'm finding out that not all of them are the types of company I'd like to keep. And I'm lonely. Lonely. Okay? I've said it. And I know that you are, too. And maybe I'm taking advantage of that because I know you don't have many other choices. But so far, I haven't completely hated being in the same room as you. And I think you've felt the same. I'm not saying that we have to be friends, but it's nice having somewhere to go other than my flat."

Granger is winded by the time she's done speaking, yet I look at her, waiting for more to spill out. She has to have more to say. It's Granger. But she doesn't, and with each ticking second, I'm wondering what on Earth I'd be able to say that would keep her talking because I'm not done listening to somebody other than my thoughts. Maybe she's right. Perhaps it is nice having another voice around, even if we aren't friends.

The silence starts to linger even harder, and it's like we're both desperate not to be the first to speak next. Slowly, she starts to shrink inward again and take the motions to start leaving.

"Wait," I finally speak up. She jumps at the sound and spins her body back to face me. "I'm sorry. You're right. You don't have to go just yet."

"Well then," she smiles. "You better get back to your book sorting. You've got a long way to go before you're caught up with me."