A/N:

Sorry again for the delayed update - life has got a little crazy. I'm planning for my updates to go back to once a week now, on Fridays again.
Thanks so much for all you comments on the last chapter - they're greatly appreciated.

The quotes in italics in this chapter are taken from an actual book about psychological trauma called 'The Body Keeps the Score' by Bessel van der Kolk, so huge credit to him.

Oh, place your hands on my hope / Run your fingers through my soul. / And the way that I feel right now / Oh lord it may go / ...You know you cannot hide, from what's inside... / So I ask of you, to help me through / I ask of you, this thing to do

- Place Your Hands, Reef

xxx

They stayed like that for some time, with their arms wrapped around each other. Draco was surprised at how natural it felt, to be like this with her. Part of him didn't want it to end but as he sensed her heartbeat quieten and her breathing slow, he knew it would have to end soon. He wished they could be somewhere else – maybe an alternative universe where the war had never happened, where 'mudblood' and 'Pureblood' didn't even fucking exist, where they could just be two young people who'd discovered they liked each other. Where he could be different with her, and not have to be forced to be someone he'd always been because he had no idea how to be anyone else.

Because writing those letters – both the obscene one and the 'more formal' one – had awakened something in him. Something he'd refused to admit to himself before now: he wanted Hermione Granger, powerfully and completely.

He didn't know if it was just a physical desire – he couldn't think too deeply about that. Not least because, although her body might like him, Granger's mind clearly hated him.

End it must, and end it did. She pulled away from him, and he missed her immediately – missed the warmth of her body next to his.

Despite the flush of her cheeks, a familiar guarded, reproachful look had returned to her eyes.

"You haven't finished reading the letter," she stated.

He frowned. "I – what?" He'd read all of the letter, hadn't he?

"The last line," she said, her voice resigned and rueful. "'But worst of all I hate myself for wanting any of this at all'." She took a small step backwards, straightening her skirt and smoothing her hair. "You hate that fact that part of you wants to touch me, to – to do all those things you said."

"No! I – I hate that I want those things because – it's not right. It's not right for me to want them," he fumbled about in his mind for the right words, but they failed to materialise. What was it about her that made him so inarticulate?

"Of course it's not. You, with your pristine blood, wanting me with the filth that runs in my veins." A bitter smile twisted at her lips, a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"No – no – it's because –" It's because you're far too good for me. You're far too good for me and I don't deserve you and there's no way I want to taint your existence with my sullied, rotten self! But despite the fact that his mind had finally provided him with the words, he couldn't speak them. Instead, he voiced words which were a poor compensation: "Because you're Hermione Granger and I'm, well, me, and we – we have a fucking shitty history and it would be a disaster, it would be fucked up if we –" His words failed him again. He gestured helplessly between himself and her, attempting to indicate what had just happened. "Did this. And you hate me. I mean – your body doesn't hate me – but you clearly do."

Her eyes glinted with something he couldn't read, and despite the ambiguity of the expression, he felt the familiar relief that at least they were glinting with something, and not filled with the dull passive indifference they so often were.

"Maybe that's why it'll work," she said quietly, tentatively.

"That's why – what? What's why what will work?"

Her expression twisted then, as if echoing her mind's difficulty in expressing itself. "That we don't really – don't really like each other – not really. If we just carried on with a – with a kind of physical-only relationship, maybe because of how we really feel about each other, it will help keep it physical, and our emotions won't get in the way."

It sounded like the best and worst idea he'd ever heard, all at once. Draco's thoughts reeled, trying to understand Hermione Granger's mind.

He remembered Alethea's notes: ...high sense of responsibility, esp. for others' welfare and safety….high compassion for others... These are all risk factors for compassion fatigue/emotional burnout….

"I can't hurt you, you mean?" he said, realisation dawning as he spoke. "And you can't hurt me? I'm not another person you need to feel responsible for, or feel guilty about? Because you think – because we don't actually care about each other?"

She let out a kind of amused huff, looked at the floor and scuffed her foot absent-mindedly. "It's so ironic that, out of everyone, you understand me so well." She spoke so quietly, it was as if she were talking to herself. Then she looked at him, her eyes piercing, and said more loudly, "But – well, Nott told me about your family's tendency to feel love more deeply –"

"That's not a thing," he snapped out.

"Well, even if it was, it wouldn't impact us, would it? 'Cause you could never like me properly. Not seriously."

Something twisted his insides. He tried to make his voice as expressionless as possible when he said, "No. I suppose not."

There was a pause as they both looked at each other. Draco's thoughts shifted and slid and tried to arrange themselves into a coherent whole. "So, you're basically saying you want something purely physical? Just to fuck?"

"I suppose so, yes."

It was absurd, and could go wrong in a myriad of ways – but he couldn't help looking at the exposed skin just above her collarbone and how he desperately wanted to kiss it….how he wanted to rip the shirt from her body, how long he'd spent fantasising about what she would look like in her underwear – her breasts, the dips and curves of her… His cock was stirring again.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was what they needed – what he needed – to get her out of his system.

He moved slowly towards her, lifted her chin with his hand so she was looking him in the eyes. He saw sincerity there – she really wanted this. He bent down and kissed her – a tentative kiss for once, and she responded eagerly. When he felt her warm hands grasp at his waist, he pulled away.

"Okay," he said, although it came out a kind of grunt. "But on one condition."

She looked uncertain, a frown creasing her forehead. "What?"

Memories of the rage he'd felt when she saw him kissing Ernie Macmillan collided around his head. "We're exclusive...for as long as we're doing this...I need to know that you're only doing this with me."

"Of course," her voice was indignant. So indignant he believed her whole-heartedly, and that felt like a relief.

"So whatever that thing was with Ron Weasley – it's off right?"

"It's most definitely off."

"And nothing else has happened with the Hufflepuff? Macmillan?"

She let out another amused scoff. "No."

He felt his face softening. "Good," he said gently.

There was another pause. Her eyes were on his torso, one hand fiddling with a button on his shirt.

"And we won't tell anyone," she said quietly, not looking at him.

Of course she would want to keep it their dirty little secret – she wouldn't want the shame of others knowing that she'd allowed Draco Malfoy to touch her.

"Of course not," he said through gritted teeth.

She looked up at him then, through half lidded eyes, and he couldn't help but lean forward and meet his lips with hers again, before peppering hurried kisses down her neck. His hands scrambled to get under her shirt, up to her breasts, kneading and squeezing, and she was gasping into his mouth in between kisses, whilst she fisted one hand in his hair and stroked the other one down his chest.

He impatiently tried to pull the cup of her bra down, causing her to giggle – a glorious sound – at the fumbling nature of his movements. He was vaguely aware of her reaching for her wand and casting a spell which undid all her buttons at once. A really rather wonderful spell, Draco concluded. He pulled back, looking down at her chest, which was just as beautiful as he'd imagined – maybe even more so – as her hands reached for his belt.

As their lips joined again together in yet another kiss, he pulled at her shirt, trying to get it off her, but her hands were fiddling with his flies by that point, and it was impossible. So he gripped her wrists, yanked her hands away from him and pulled them to her sides, before immediately reaching up to take her shirt off. But she grabbed hold of his forearms, instantly stilling him.

"No," she stated, her tone uncompromising.

His eyes drifted over her face and along her arms, trying to understand the reason for her inexplicable halt. Then he caught a glimpse of white gauze, poking out from her left sleeve, and he remembered: the bandage.

He pulled his arm free from her grip – she relinquished it easily – and encircled her left wrist lightly with his hand, before softly stroking down her arm, over her shirt. She took a sharp intake of breath, which he hoped wasn't from pain, but couldn't be sure.

"Take off your shirt," he murmured, not inhibiting a note of command that instinctively came to his voice. "I know. Just let me see. Take it off."

Her look of defiance dissolved into one of resignation. She pulled out of his grasp and shook off her shirt. His eyes immediately went to her bandage. It looked fairly fresh, possibly freshly applied that morning, and something twisted his insides as he took in the bright red spots of fresh blood that had seeped through, staining the white.

"Okay, there are two conditions," he heard his own words before he was really aware of saying them, or – more importantly – why he was saying them. "You're to leave this alone," he whispered, running his hand lightly over her bandaged arm, deliberately avoiding the crimson blotches.

Her eyes flashed with anger or fear – he couldn't tell which. Maybe it was both. "Malfoy, that's none of your business. I – I hardly do anything to it...it just keeps bleeding. It won't heal, I think it was the dark magic that was –"

"I know all about the dark fucking magic in that was in that blade, Granger. But your arm isn't still bleeding because of that. I've seen the way you can't leave it alone. The way you scratch and rub at it. God knows what you do when you're alone. I don't want you hurting yourself." His last words were definitive. A command.

Granger's face fell. She looked small, childlike, and he hated that he'd caused her to look so vulnerable. But her expression was an admission that he was right.

"Why do you do it?" His words were forceful, and he realised he was angry. Angry at whatever it was that meant Hermione Granger continued to gnaw at a cursed wound his own fucking aunt had cut into her.

Then he saw a watery glisten in her eyes and he realised, to his dismay, that it was the beginning of tears. He wanted to scour them from her – burn them from her eyes – and inexplicably found himself bringing her left wrist up to his mouth and planting a firm kiss just where her bandage met her skin.

Her lips parted and she took a long, slow inhale before saying, "I – it just distracts me, when something difficult happens. Or when sometimes I don't feel anything at all – it helps me feel...something…" she trailed off, and Draco remembered her attempt at falling into oblivion off the Astronomy Tower battlements just for 'the rush'.

He was aware his expression was still stony, but didn't know what would happen if he allowed other emotions to play across his face – there was a danger in how vulnerable that made him. He entwined his fingers with hers, guiding her hand so it rested on his waist and kept it there with his own before cupping her jaw with his other hand and pulling her lips towards him in another kiss, slow and deep. Then he pulled back again and looked down at her, his eyes burrowing into hers.

"So next time, if you need a distraction or just need to 'feel something', you find me," he said. Granger opened her mouth to speak, no doubt in protest, so he carried on before she had the chance. "Write to me in our stupid Books or whatever. Just don't fucking hurt yourself."

She frowned, clearly uncertain, so he continued with his last shot: "Otherwise, this whole thing is off."

Her shoulders slumped resignedly. "Fine," she conceded.

He nodded shortly. "You promise?"

She smiled then. A small, possibly amused smile. "I promise."

Something relaxed inside him, and she stroked her hand along his cheek. Confusing emotions aroused in him at the unusually tender gesture from her. "I should go," she said quietly. "But – do you want to meet tomorrow evening, maybe? Here again?"

She didn't need to state the reason for their meeting, and his cock stirred at the enticing, unspoken promise in her suggestion.

"Okay." His voice was low, husky.

She took a step backwards from him, withdrew her wand and magicked her shirt buttons up again. Then she rifled in her skirt pocket and withdrew a folded piece of parchment which she held out to him.

"That's my letter. To you," she said quietly.

"Oh. Thanks."

She nodded shortly, and gave him another rueful smile before brushing past him and walking from the room.

He waited until he'd heard the sound of her footsteps fade away before unfolding the letter. It was short, but the content was no less compelling because of it:

Malfoy,

I want you to help me forget. With your touch and your lips and your body. I want you to help me forget.

Granger.

Over the last few weeks before the end of term, Draco met with Hermione Granger with increasing frequency. Secretly and surreptitiously, often in the old Divination room when their meetings were planned, but sometimes more spontaneously – in alcoves, behind ancient statues, in disused cupboards, and once in an old broom shed on the other side of the Quidditch pitch.

They touched at first – with their hands and lips and tongues – touched each other amidst passionate, prolonged kisses, and learnt the contours of each other's bodies. Draco thought of doing much more with her but part of him didn't want to rush, lest he jinx what was happening between them somehow.

Sometimes, his feelings for her became so overwhelming, he had to stop and just look at her – take all of her in; he felt a confusing mix of emotions with her that he'd never felt when he'd been with Pansy.

They were both eager and hungry with their touches. Not long after they'd start kissing, she would often burrow her hand into his trousers, wrap her palm around his hardening cock. He would always be rock hard; normally, his erection would be stirring for the previous hour, just from knowing they were meeting, from just thinking about her.

As with everything else, she was a committed and diligent learner when it came to his body; she quickly mastered the exact speed and pressure which brought him close to the edge. Sometimes, she would tease him with that, stopping and starting and stopping again in a kind of delicious, exquisite torture.

He, in turn, learnt about her. He was determined to become an expert in exactly how she liked to be kissed, sucked, licked. He spent over an hour once, caressing and stroking and teasing her without letting her touch him. Her cunt became so wet, and she'd started pleading to come, prompting him to mumble from between her thighs, "Fuck…I love it when you beg…"

He found that it was often his words that turned her on just as much as anything else. But really, he shouldn't have been surprised that words would be such a turn on for her...the power of language…

When he wasn't spending his free time exploring Hermione Granger's body, he read. Alethea's notes from Granger's file kept drifting into his mind's eye, and he wanted to understand them, to know what they meant, to know how they fitted with the Granger that he'd started to have furtive, illicit meetings with.

Alethea had recommended a book to him once. "If you'd like to know more about psychological trauma and its consequences, it might be worth a read," she'd said. Towards the end of the winter term, he asked for it during one of his sessions, but she said that she'd leant it to Theo. This didn't surprise him – Theo was almost as prolific a reader as Granger.

"Oh, yeah, I've mostly finished with it," Theo said when Draco asked him about it. "It's over there – help yourself." Theo nodded to a stack of books on his bedside table.

As Draco carefully pulled the text out from a precarious pile of books, he spotted another one – Me and Pureblood Supremacy – and remembered Theo explaining about confronting 'unconscious Pureblood baises'.

"Can I borrow this one as well?"

"Sure," Theo replied, a knowing look on his face that Draco purposely ignored. "I've finished it. It was good."

He dipped in and out of the trauma book at first – The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, it was called. Then he started to read it cover to cover. It was a Muggle book, but Alethea insisted all the theory applied to magical kind too; "When it comes to trauma reactions, our brains are essentially the same," she'd said.

While we want to move beyond trauma, the part of our brain that is devoted to ensuring our survival (deep below our rational brain) is not very good at denial, Draco read one evening at the beginning of December. Long after the traumatic experience is over, it may be reactivated at the slightest hint of danger and mobilise disturbed brain circuits and secrete massive amounts of stress hormones, intense physical sensations, and impulsive and aggressive actions.

...reactivated at the slightest hint of danger and mobilise...impulsive and aggressive actions... Draco remembered when Granger had happened upon Freddie Flint and his bullies, remembered her startling, violent reaction at the word 'Mudblood'...

These reactions can feel incomprehensible to the person and overwhelming. Feeling out of control, survivors of trauma often begin to fear that they are damaged to the core and beyond redemption...

...damaged to the core and beyond redemption – the words resonated with Draco in a visceral way – it was something he and Alethea continued to talk about in their sessions.

...if, during a traumatic event, the flight/flight/freeze response is successful, we escape the danger, we recover our internal equilibrium and regain our sense. If, for some reasons, our normal response is blocked, for example, if someone is held down or trapped, the brain continues to fire in vain. Long after the actual event has passed, the brain - if it's triggered - may keep sending signals to the body to escape a threat that no longer exists… Being able to move and do something to protect oneself is a critical factor in determining whether or not a horrible experience will leave long-lasting scars.

...if someone is held down, trapped...Draco's mind was invaded with images of Granger being pinned down on the floor of his drawing room, for what had seemed like hours…

Nothing he was reading was entirely new to him, it all related to things he'd talked about with Alethea. But reading it with Granger in mind meant pieces of a puzzle he hadn't realised he'd been trying to solve were slotting together in his mind.

He would watch Granger during the day – across classrooms and courtyards, as they passed each other in the halls. Her eyes continued to look dulled, except when they were together – when he was burying his fingers deep inside her, or when she'd look up at him as she knelt at his feet, just before she wrapped her lips around his cock – when they were together like that they'd sparkle again with some kind of life.

And he even began to understand her dead eyes better...

...the breakdown in the thalamus explains why trauma is primarily remembered not as a story, a narrative with a beginning, middle and end, but as isolated sensory imprints: images, sounds and physical sensations that are accompanied by intense emotions, usually terror and helplessness…. People with PTSD have their floodgates wide open. Lacking a filter, they are on constant sensory overload. In order to cope, they try to shut themselves down and develop tunnel vision and hyperfocus. If they can't shut down naturally, they may enlist drugs or alcohol to black out the world….

He thought of ecstasis, and the way Granger had relentlessly downed the alcoholic punch at the Reconciliation Ball.

It was odd how familiar he was starting to feel with her mind, as well as her body, considering they barely spoke when they did meet. They mostly exchanged whispered requests or fervent comments: "...please...yes, like that…that feels so good…" He was surprised at how unsurprised he was at her forwardness, and was desperate to know, but at the same time loathed to know, her sexual history.

...many traumatised people find themselves commonly out of sync with the people around them...in the past two decades it has become commonly acknowledged that when traumatised adults or children are too skittish or shut down to derive comfort from human beings, relationships with mammals can help. Dogs and horses and even dolphins offer less complicated companionship while providing the necessary safety. They are now extensively used to treat some groups of trauma patients...engaging with them may be much safer than dealing with human beings...

"You know the ugly cat that Granger used to have?" Draco asked as he read on his bed, looking up at Theo and Blaise, who were lounging around their dorm. It was a few days before the start of the Christmas holidays. "You know – the one with the manky fur and squashed up face?"

"Vaguely," Blaise said, vaguely.

"Think so," Theo replied, a little more helpfully.

"What happened to it?"

The two friends gave him blank bemused looks. Theo shrugged. "Probably another war casualty…or something."

"You've been asking a lot of questions about Granger recently," Blaise remarked, ever the one for subtlety. "Why don't you ask her yourself…or is your mouth too busy with other things when you're in her company?"

Draco's heart skipped, and Theo snapped his head at Blaise, giving him a warning look.

"What the fuck, Blaise?" Draco snapped angrily.

Draco had thought he'd been careful when meeting with Granger, but he supposed he was inexplicably missing a lot of the time, which was bound to quip Blaise's curiosity.

"Well, if it's not Granger you're fucking, then it's definitely someone. I'm not bloody blind."

"It's not fucking Granger," Draco retorted.

"No, it's not fucking Granger. You're fucking Granger."

"No. I. Am. Not." Draco wouldn't have actually minded telling them about his salacious meetings with Granger, but he'd promised her he would keep it between them, and he didn't break his promises.

"Whatever," Blaise said with a shrug.

Technically, he wasn't fucking Granger, so he hadn't quite lied to them anyway. As in, they hadn't had sex. Granger had attempted to initiate it a couple of times, but Draco had held back – he wasn't sure why. He was aware of the impending holidays, that he would have two weeks without seeing her, and couldn't bear to do something so intensely intimate with her when they'd immediately have two weeks apart – he didn't think he could handle that.

His desire for her hadn't waned; the idea of 'getting it out his system' seemed laughable now. If anything, their meetings had stirred something unwaverable in him that had only grown stronger and more intense, to an almost feverish degree. At least, that's what it felt like for him. Probably, for Granger, it was just another way of 'helping her forget', like the drink and the ecstasis. Maybe he was just another fucking drug to her that helped numb the pain for a while.

Regardless, he couldn't stop it. Not now.

On the last weekend of term, Draco found himself walking into the Hogsmeade branch of Magical Menagerie. The teachers allowed the eighth years to go into the village on any weekend; it was one restriction they'd obviously felt would be stupid to enforce, considering their age and experiences. Pity they didn't feel the same about other house rules, but anyway.

The bell that signalled his entrance jingled loudly above the squeaking, squawking, hissing and hooting of a myriad of creatures. The interior of the shop was dusty, dark and seemingly empty of humans, although plenty of animals scurried about in cages that lined the walls.

Greta, the shop's proprietor, came bustling towards him from the back of the building. She had a welcoming, beaming smile on her face which instantly faltered as she saw who he was. Draco was unfazed – he had gotten used to this reaction from people over the summer holidays.

"Hello. How can I help you?" Greta asked, in what Draco conceded was a good enough attempt at politeness.

"I'm – erm – looking for a cat. Looking to buy a cat."

"Oh. Right-oh. We have quite a range of cats at the moment. That one there – that's Bluebell, a British Shorthair, for example – and then there's …"

Greta started reeling off cat names and breeds, whilst pointing out the animals that were peppered about the shop – basking in the sunlight in the window, curled up on cushions on the front desk, brushing against his ankles. They all seemed…fine. Maybe too fine.

"Erm – I'm looking for one that maybe no one else wants? One that isn't so…pretty?"

Greta raised her eyebrows, and was silent for several his request had surprised her. Or else she was thinking. Possibly both.

"Oh. Well...there is Nox."

"Nox?"

"Yes. A black, cat-kneazle crossbreed. Not the most original name for a black cat, but there you go… He normally hides out the back." Greta turned and began shuffling towards the back of the shop, calling over her shoulder, "Come on, this way. He's a rescue cat. Was horribly mistreated before. Here he is."

She stopped in a corner and pointed to a cat who was lying in a ray of sun that slanted in through the back door. The cat raised its head, and looked at Draco, its expression sleepy but suspicious. Indeed, he was not a pretty cat. Some of his hair was missing in places – Greta explained he'd caught some illness that hadn't been treated for a long time – and one of his eyes only half opened due to an injury from the abuse he'd suffered.

"He's a little wary of strangers, understandably, but once you've earned his trust, he really is a very lovely cat," Greta entreated.

As Draco stepped towards him, Nox raised his hind legs, his fur standing on end, and let out a violent hiss.

The cat clearly hated him.

"He's perfect," Draco stated. "I'll take him."

A/N: As always, huge, huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazing alphabetas.

Your thoughts and comments are, as ever, loved!

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