November 4th, 2004
The television blared. I hated the noise, and the senseless lights, the bright bursts of blood across the screen. It always disoriented me–the special effects–made me wonder how my own magic compared, what I was capable of.
I forget the name of the movie we were watching. Or that I was watching. A man who looked quite a bit like Harry–if Harry had shaved his head and gotten rid of his glasses–was bowled over, his face shiny from an exploded water balloon.
"It's fucking piss," Harry's doppelganger shouted, and a sudden, violent urge to laugh seized me because I thought of you, how you would have said something mocking, but without real vitriol: "Now you've really earned your moniker, haven't you, Potty?"
I always hear your voice, you know? I wonder if it's the same for you.
To my right, a low, brittle moan escaped. A lump shifted beneath the blankets, and then: "Mione? What are you still doing here?"
"Hi, dad."
He laid his palms flat on the bed, fisting the tan blankets between his fingers.
"Shouldn't you be getting home? Won't he worry?" His voice was paper-thin and raspy. He blinked, erratic and twitchy, tapping out morse code with his eyelids.
"It's fine. He knows." The steady pull and thump thump thump of the ventilator rattled around the room. "How are you feeling?"
The cracks in his lips opened when he smiled, and I reached for the tube in my bag, swiping my hand over the wedged tip and leaning forward without thinking.
"Don't," his fingers spasmed against his thigh. "I hate how sticky it is."
"Right." I rubbed the oily blob between my thumb and pointer finger and dropped my hand. "But you're bleeding."
He licked his lips, and I could see the patchy white spots on his tongue. "Don't worry. It'll close soon. And the nurses always come and force ointment on me anyways."
His eyes were slitted in focus, neck nearly folded in on itself.
"Do you want me to move the bed up?"
He jerked his head, his chin brushing against the wiry grey hairs peeking out of his hospital gown. "No, it's alright. I'll go back to sleep soon anyways."
"Are you in pain?"
Another smile. "You should go, Hermione."
"I know." I got up from the chair and moved to the other side of the room. The light above the top of the bed was out, leaving the shape of mum's body illuminated while her face remained shadowed and pale, mouth lax around the plastic tube snaked inside.
"Do you think she can hear us?"
"I don't know."
We both stared at her, the blue digits of her vitals blinking back at us.
"We could transfer your care, you know. To the teaching hospital near our place in London. The costs wouldn't be an issue." Her chest rose in steady waves, the only disturbance in her otherwise still form. "And I just think an urban hospital would have more resources than here."
"Darling, I love you, but–" he coughed, mouth puckering. I reached towards the water on the bedside table, but he waved me off. "–you really shouldn't be such a swot. It's bad enough that you and Draco are forcing us into a private hospital when the NHS is perfectly capable of providing adequate care. I'm putting my foot down on making us medical tourists."
"It's two hours away, Dad. Not in a different continent."
He grinned, and I couldn't help but grin as well. "Your mother and I want to stay in our community. It's where" –another cough rattled through, drawn out and bone dry–"all of our friends are...If anything were to happen, we'd want–"
"Please don't." My lips flattened, rounding against the edge of my front teeth. An orange streak of sunset wobbled in my periphery, and I blinked until it righted itself. "I know."
I looked up. Maybe if you were here, you would have pinched the edge of my palm. Hermione, hold it together.
"Sweetheart, you look tired."
"I'm fine."
"You should go home and get some rest."
The door clicked open and we both turned. "Miss Granger," I closed my eyes but didn't bother to correct him. "I was just coming to check on your parents."
"Hello, Dr. Marron."
He stopped by mum's bedside first, carefully readjusting the clear tubes threaded across her body. "We'll be doing rounds soon."
"I know. I'll leave soon. I just wanted to drop by early today."
Dr. Marron smiled, glancing at me while he laid the palm of his hand flat against dad's abdomen, pressing his fingers down and moving in a slow circle. "Ever the dutiful daughter."
"Too dutiful," Dad rasped. "You ought to convince her to go home, doctor."
"Far be it for me to tell a woman what to do." He shined a light into dad's eyes, squinting as he moved the beam back and forth. "It never ends well, you know."
They laughed, and then dad's face contorted, shoulders shaking with the force of his coughs. I counted down the seconds and was still counting when it abruptly ended and he leaned back, palm rubbing his chest. Dr. Marron handed him a paper cup of water.
I reached for my bag, feeling supplementary and useless.
"Miss Granger, a word please?" The doctor had his hand on dad's shoulder, guiding him into a seated position. He pressed the stethoscope down, gesturing for me to wait as he listened, eyes squinted in concentration.
"Bye, dad." I waved, and then, feeling stupid, I dropped my hand and said, "I love you." I turned, my voice rising, like maybe a few more decibels would be all I needed to wake her up. "And you too, mum."
In the hallway, we passed a blur of azalea-pink scrubs, and the doctor nodded to a few, his stride so light and fast that his camel loafers blurred against the linoleum.
"My office," he said, shouldering open the stairwell door and motioning for me to go first. His office was on the third floor, a small room swallowed by a wood desk cluttered with files.
Across from me, a wall of certifications and diplomas framed his shock of copper hair as he sat. His unnaturally bright blue eyes skimmed across a file before looking up, eyebrows pulled together in thought.
"I apologize for the short notice, and for not being able to sit down with you and talk sooner, but I wanted to review your parents' condition today."
He spoke slowly, like he was witholding a punchline.
"When Dr. Chase asked me to take over this case, he mentioned that your parents have been a very...unusual case."
"Yes," I cleared my throat, "I suppose they have."
"I don't want to alarm you," he said, "but I wanted to talk to you about their treatment plan, and how we will be moving forward." He paused, lacing his fingers together. "In addition to the testing that Dr. Chase and his team did, we ran a variety of tests as well, but we have not been able to identify what's caused the sudden decline in your parents' health. The contemporaneous onset and similarities of the symptoms between the two of them led us to believe it must be environmental, a toxin or a virus."
He paused, and when I didn't respond, he inhaled and continued. "At this point, with all the tests we've run, it seems unlikely to be a toxin. Your parents do, however, have some markers of inflammation, which suggests autoimmunity of some sort. Hermione," he had to say my name twice. A finch outside the window swept downwards in a graceful arc before jetting up, "are you familiar with what an autoimmune disease is?"
"A condition in which your body's immune system begins to attack its own tissue," I recited, the textbook's lines crisp on my tongue. "The body's security system suddenly attacks what is native and familiar."
"You've done your research, I gather." There was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Though I admit I'm not acquainted with that particular analogy."
"That's all I do now."
"Your parents have some symptoms of these types of disease, and autoimmune conditions can be notoriously tricky to diagnose, but–"
"But it couldn't just be that." My voice came out flat. "Their rapid decline, the aggressive deterioration. It couldn't just be that, it would be too…"
"Simplistic, yes. It would be blaming the security system for the collapse of the infrastructure," he cleared his throat, and I felt a sudden surge of pity for him, stumbling to explain what I already knew. "Sorry, I was trying to match your analogy."
I stared, counting the splash of freckles underneath his eyes.
"Miss Granger–"
"Hermione," I corrected.
"Hermione," he repeated, "is there anyone you want to contact? Any other family? Aunts or uncles? Siblings, perhaps?"
"There's no one else. It's just me." He exhaled. "You're telling me you're giving up."
"No, of course not, but I'm telling you that there are certain preparations–"
"Don't," I put up my hand. "Please. Not now, at least."
He stared at me like I was a frightened animal. His eyes really were the most unnatural shade of blue, Draco, like the glittering stalactites we saw on our trip to Belize.
"Your father is getting worse. His decreasing lung capacity is consistent with what happened before your mother-"
"I know that," I breathed. "I can see that."
"He's also...his memory has been getting worse." I wanted, badly, for him to stop. I started to play this game: What if I got up and knocked over the letter tray on his desk? Shoved all the files off? Ripped the frames down from the wall? What would make him stop?
I saw your reaction in my mind, the curve of your lip. There you are, Granger. .
"Hermione," he said the vowels of my name soft and cautiously, "does your family have a history of neurodegenerative disease?" I imagined transfiguring the books on his shelves into a swarm of crows, the violence of their voices loud enough to drown everything else out.
I shook my head.
"Did your parents suffer any sort of trauma prior to their symptoms?"
Yes, I wanted to say, but only to keep from experiencing greater trauma. A zero sum game: the emotional trauma of forgetting their daughter for a year to prevent the physical trauma of Death Eaters showing up at their door.
"I don't know," I said finally. "It's...it's hard to say."
Dr. Marron gave me an odd look. "You don't know?"
"There–there was a period of time I was out of the country. I was away, on assignment, for my job...I wasn't able to communicate as frequently with them."
"How long were you gone?"
"I–is this pertinent to the question?"
He blinked. "I want to establish a clear diagnostic timeline. It's important that we identify any symptoms that may have been over–"
"Nine months and a day," I said, "but it was longer, before they saw me again." There was over a year of searching for them, followed by another half a year of spells and potions and healers, months spent trying to reverse what I had done. And then there was that period when they wouldn't speak to me yet, but I usually didn't include that one.
I had been successful, and then, this.
"I think," I said, my voice cracking through the floo, "that they'll have to go to the hospital. Dad has all these...rashes over his body, and his chest hurts, he says. And mum, she...she just keeps moaning that everything hurts."
"I'll come right now," you said. "We'll portkey them to St. Mungos and–"
"Draco, they'll have to go to a muggle hospital...Mum's GP said if her symptoms got worse she should go to the A&E. I-I don't know too much about the hospital system where they live, which ones are good or–"
You were silent for a moment, and then: "I'll handle it. All of it. Just wait for me there."
I don't know what you had to do. Who you called to get them admitted so quickly, to get all those tests run so soon. Did I ever ask you? I must have.
"So when you came back, everything was fine?"
I shrugged. "More or less. There was nothing that I thought was more than...general aging, but then a few months after my 22nd birthday, things got worse."
The doctor looked startled, his eyebrows rising as he shifted in his chair. "You're very young," he said, slowly, and then: "I apologize, I just thought with what you said about your job and–"
I started laughing, with that laugh of mine that you hate, Draco. The one that makes my eyes teary, until you can't tell if I'm laughing or crying. I laughed and laughed while he stared at me with his unnatural eyes, until finally I stopped, unfurling my shoulders and composing myself enough to say, between giggles: "Yes, I suppose I am. I forget that myself sometimes."
Outside, the drizzle threatened to turn into a downpour, and I hurried to the apparition point, gasping against the familiar squeeze of magic around my sides before I landed unsteadily on brick.
I stumbled, bashing my knee against the planter vase framing the door. "Christ." The hydrangeas shivered, their leafy arms dancing as I rubbed my knee. You were always telling me to move the damn plants.
They're a hazard.
But in the spring they're so lovely. It's nice to have some color out here, especially if you insist on having a black door.
I should have listened to you. You were right more than I let on.
The door opened, and from my crouched position, all I saw was a wall of black fabric.
"You're home."
"How did you know I was here?"
"With all the banging about, it was either you or the entire Weasley clan."
Your words were light, but when I straightened all I saw was a flash of blonde hair as you retreated into the house.
"How was work today?"
"Fine–I have some paperwork to finish, so I'll be in my study until dinner." Your footsteps paused on the stairs, waiting for my answers.
"Oh, alright."I bent over and removed my boots; I had thought we could go for a walk. "I'll get dinner started then."
The fridge was surprisingly full even though I had forgotten to go grocery shopping again. You had restocked my favorite yogurt, stacked in a pyramid on the bottom shelf, the kind that they only had at the muggle supermarket down the street. It made me smile, suddenly, to imagine you standing there under that awful fluorescent lighting, disoriented by the loud speaker and the screaming children zigzagging between aisles of seasonal vegetables.
It made me miss you.
I embarrassed myself with dinner, the noodles of the spaghetti bolognese overcooked and soggy. You didn't say anything, but I saw you cut your pieces smaller and smaller, feigning progress. I know you missed the house elves, all of them freed since I moved in. I would have never admitted it, but sometimes I wished they were back too, if not only for the extra noise in the house.
We ate in silence, and I thought about apologizing, but I wasn't sure what I'd be saying sorry for. Sometimes I felt like all I did was talk, but I never really said anything anymore: How are you? What would you like for dinner? Is it cold outside today? Everything insufficient and tepid.
You sipped wine and stared down at your plate, the jerky drag of your knife across the porcelain the only clue to what you were thinking.
What did you do at work today? How were things coming along? Did you want to do something after dinner? I keep going back to these instances and thinking of all the things I should have asked.
I had barely set down my fork before you levitated it to the sink, a trail of our dishes following. We both watched as the sponge whipped across the plates, your wand arcing every few moments to keep the pattern going.
"I'm sorry I forgot to go grocery shopping."
You shrugged.
"I can cook again tomorrow instead. I know you hate going to the muggle grocery store." I wanted to thank you for the yogurt, but you were looking at the dishes.
"Tomorrow is Blaise's birthday. We have the dinner party."
"Right."
"You forgot." You said it like a statement.
"No. I just," I looked up. "Sorry, I just have had a lot on my mind."
"Of course."
"Draco, I'll be there...I just might be a little late."
You stood up, knees bumping against the table. "It's fine. You do what you feel is right."
"Draco–"
"–How were they today?"
You were still standing, and I thought about my laughing fit in the doctor's office, his startled blue eyes blinking owlishly back at me. I wanted to tell you about his face, how it seemed to pucker from shock, but no matter how I tried to frame it, the image came out deranged, all the funny bits buried under my too-loud laughter.
"Fine."
"Any updates?"
"No, but my dad seemed to be in good spirits."
"Good," you pushed back your chair, long fingers curling against the ornate back. "I'm glad." You didn't ask anything about my mum, but I know you must have been thinking of her. "I'll go with you tomorrow, if you want."
"Don't you have that meeting tomorrow?"
Your face shuttered, cheeks hollowing with your inhale. I hadn't meant to brush you off, but I didn't want you to miss out on anything important for me; I didn't want you to have to keep doing that.
"Right. The meeting."
"I just mean–"
"It's fine, Hermione."
I exhaled. A beat passed, but you were still standing there. "Should I be expecting you in bed tonight? Or will you be preoccupied?" You said the last part like it was a dirty word.
"I'll be late," I said. Your jaw tensed, and I continued. "I have some more research I need to do...you shouldn't wait up."
You closed your eyes, rubbed a knuckle between your brows. "I'm going to bed."
November 5th, 2004
On Fridays we went to marriage counseling at our healer's house, a plain tudor-style home in Godric's hollow. The hallway leading to her office was decorated entirely of clocks charmed to display how late each patient was running. The names, of course, were visible only to Susan.
I had to change our appointment four times in the last month to accommodate your schedule. You had been working from home lately, but spent your days locked away in your own study, the whoosh of the floo the only confirmation I had that you really were stuck in meetings and not just avoiding me.
Or maybe you were stuck in meetings to avoid me.
Susan is young, with straight black hair and pale green eyes. She looked like the type of witch you'd have dated in school. If you hadn't found her so annoying, I might have felt insecure.
I know you hated the sessions, but it meant a lot to me that you came. I hope you know that, Draco.
"It's not–Draco, I think going could really help us. Molly told me that when things were difficult between her and Arthur–"
"For Christ's sake, are you really going to hold up the Weasleys as the paragon of successful marriages? In that case, should we start popping out brats to save our marriage too?"
I looked away, folding my arms around myself. "Healer Bard comes highly recommended….And I never said our marriage needed saving. I just need to know that you're willing to try this, for us."
She gave us journals our first session, nondescript leather notebooks identical to the one you used as a planner. We were supposed to write to each other, record what we felt we couldn't say. Today, she wanted us to read out loud from them. I hadn't known we would be doing that, and I started to protest; the tips of my ears burning at the thought of you reading about me giggling to myself over yogurt. But you beat me to it.
"No."
"No?" Susan dropped her quill, and leaned back slightly. "Mr. Malfoy, we cannot make progress here if you aren't willing to let yourself be vulnerable."
You scoffed. "Or perhaps we cannot make progress here because you don't know what you're doing."
Susan smiled, her teeth white and straight. She looked like she had had muggle orthodontic work done. "Why do you think the thought of being vulnerable upsets you so much?"
"I never said that."
"No, but your aversion to opening up in what is supposed to be a safe space–
"–Nothing about this feels particularly safe or inviting–"
"–I asked you to write journal entries to one another in order to facilitate open communication between you two–"
"–Writing in a bloody journal like it does anything–"
"–The journal lays the groundwork for our sessions and is a pivotal part of our discussions each week so–"
"–I didn't do it."
I turned to you, and you barely glanced at me. "I've had a lot on my mind."
I looked down, picking at the skin around my thumb.
Susan sighed. "I understand you have other obligations, but the reason you come to these sessions is so that you can prioritize your marriage, and if you aren't willing to put in the effort–"
"–Did I say that?" You leaned forward, fingers curled into the armrest so tightly the veins in your hands bulged. I want to reach out and touch you. "Did I fucking say I wasn't willing to put in the effort?"
Susan said nothing, mouth pursed. And then she breathed out and her features relaxed. "Will you be able to complete your journal next week, Mr. Malfoy?"
"I don't know," you snapped. "But I suppose if this whole session hinges on the completion of the journal then today's session is more or less futile, so I believe we're done now, aren't we?"
You stared at Susan, and then me. It felt like you were asking me a question that I didn't know the answer to. After a moment, you spun and left, the door shutting with a hard click.
There was a soft pop and then silence. My thumb bled, a ragged edge of skin dangled where I had ripped it. "I'm sorry," I said, and Susan looked at me with something that felt like pity.
"It's not your fault, Hermione." Her voice sounded tinny and far away.
"But I think it could be."
You were gone when I got home, but I closed the door to my study anyways. Fridays were now my letter-writing days. I wrote the stack of them in one sitting and then lined them up on the shelf above the fireplace, one for every day of the week. I never used transcription or duplication charms, and the tight loops of my words curled together in the later letters:
St. Mungos Muggle Relations Department
Floor 8, Room 221
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing, once again, to appeal the denial of my request to transfer my parents to St. Mungos for care. Due to recent developments, as noted in my latest letters, I strongly believe that my parents are experiencing complications of a magical nature. As such, that would overrule clause 285B prohibiting the treatment of non-magical beings at St. Mungos.
I always kept the top half of the letter similar, but the bottom half sometimes differed: a quote from one of their doctors, an update on their worsening condition, a reminder of the Wizarding Hippocratic Oath. The replies were the same, written in an identical steady script: insufficient evidence to suggest a magical malady, unusual timing from exposure to symptom onset, lack of resources and care to treat non-magical maladies.
Except for the most recent reply, which had Penelope Clearwater's familiar words slanting across the parchment. Miss Granger–Malfoy, it read, I'm very sorry, but there's nothing we can do. We have reviewed your parent's cases, along with the medical records you sent last week, and there is no reason to believe that their symptoms are caused by the memory charm you performed, or any of the subsequent counter spells and potions. We have received all of your letters up to this point, but our decision has not changed and is binding. This is your final warning. Please desist from contacting this department again.
It's strange, isn't it? How quickly bureaucracy could reduce a relationship into fragments. She had been our partner when we were struggling to find the counter spells and potions needed to fix my parents. She had helped us procure the last ingredient, a fistful of scurvygrass, harvested exactly at midnight. She was our friend. Now she was just a closing salutation: Penelope Clearwater, Head of the St. Mungo's Muggle Relations Department.
The night I showed you the letter, you were sitting at the kitchen island, nursing a cup of tea and marking up a document.
I dropped it in front of you, on top of whatever you were working on. You didn't say anything as you read, just got up and kissed me on the forehead, your palm warm and firm against the back of my neck. I watched as you made me a cup of tea, hitting the perfect milk-to-sugar ratio, your hands confident with muscle memory.
You gave me a tight smile when you caught me staring; your cheeks bunched into strained parenthesis. You hated when I looked at you like that, like a puzzle to solve. But I knew how hard you were trying, how even if you didn't know what to say you always did something. That was enough for me; I thought we would be all right.
You found me in my study later that night, surrounded by medical textbooks, squinting in the limp, yellow light coming from the lamp.
Your hair was slicked back, and you had on a light blue button down with black slacks, freshly pressed. I looked down at the sweatpants I had on, the white tank top spottled with earl grey stains. "Oh," I said. "Shit, the party."
"Right," your eyes lingered on the mess of my hair, a pencil stuck haphazardly through the topknot, "the party."
"I'm sorry," I got up, knocking my hip into the desk and wincing. "I'll go get dressed. I just lost track of time."
"It's fine. I assumed you would and floo-ed ahead to let him know."
"Oh," I felt relieved, and then, suddenly: very hurt.
"I'll tell him you send your regards," you held up a bag, the gold foil of a champagne bottle sticking through the top.
"I–thank you." And then, because I couldn't help myself. "You could have asked, you know, if I wanted to come...I would have gotten ready. I just–lost track of time."
"Hermione," Your voice was flat. If I didn't know better, I would think that you were bored, "you've been in here since three. I tried knocking earlier, but you didn't even answer."
"Oh." I had silenced the room to drown out the noise of the children next door. Chastened, I tried again. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I could still get ready...you could go first and I could meet you there."
"It's fine...you do what you think is right."
"I–why do you keep saying that? It makes me feel like, like this is some test you're expecting me to fail."
You looked down at your watch. "I don't have time for this. I'm going to be late." When you looked at me, it was like you were looking through me. "Come, or don't come."
I was still staring at the fireplace after you disappeared into the rush of green.
Crookshanks padded into the room and wound himself around my ankles. As I leaned down to pick him up, I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the fireplace. I walked closer and held him up so that our reflections touched, his worn fur bunching around my cheek as he blinked, irritated, back at me.
"What a sight the two of us are," I murmured, squinting at my frizzy curls. I needed a shower, but it would take forever to dry my hair, and by the time it was dry and ready, I would be so late to the party.
You hated tardiness. A few months into dating, you gifted me a watch, terribly expensive and engraved. I had been touched and reluctant.
"Draco, this is...too much."
"Relax," you slotted a finger through a curl, smiling when it bounced back up, "it's for me anyways, so you'll stop being twenty minutes late to every date."
"That is a gross exaggeration, I'll have you know, I am at most–'
"–Granger," You kissed me, once on my nose, and once on my jaw, right below my ear. "Shut up and just take the watch."
I bit my lip when your hand wound up my thigh, hiking up my skirt. You leaned forward and smirked, fingers stroking the soft skin behind my kneecap. We were on a bench in the park, and I held my breath, embarrassed and aroused.
You stopped, leaving just a sliver of space between us. I was almost cross-eyed from looking at your lips. "And stop being late."
I fingered the leather band of the watch. Another twenty minutes had passed; I would be an hour and a half late at this point. You would be embarrassed, I thought, of how late I was. It was better that I didn't go at all.
I made a lot of assumptions, didn't I?
I heard you when you came home, gait heavy from what I imagined was Blaise's impressive collection of scotch. I was in the bathroom, scrutinizing the dark circles under my eyes as I brushed my teeth. I waited until I heard you get into bed, the soft thump of your clothes hitting the floor, before I came out. You were bare-chested, palm splayed over the pages of a notebook to keep it flat. I blinked, but I remembered you didn't have time to do Susan's exercises. And then I felt sad at the way I could want something so bad that I could almost see what I wanted to.
"How was the party?" I leaned against the dresser, arms crossed over the toothpaste stain on my pajamas.
"It was good. Blase says hi, and Pansy says she'll drag you out by the hair if you don't return her owls," you looked up, reading glasses perched on the edge of your nose. You looked adorable. "Are you…" you pointed at the empty space next to you.
"Oh, I–" I held up the medical textbook I had left on the dresser. "I was going to finish reading this–"
"–Right."
"But I could stay, for a bit– if you wanted. I could stay and we could just talk."
You smirked. "Talk as opposed to…?" I walked closer. I hadn't seen you this playful in so long.
"Well, we could do that too," I tried to pitch my voice lower, like an invitation. "If you wanted."
You blinked. "If I wanted," you repeated dryly. Your mouth was a perfect, flat line.
When had this gotten so hard? I was leaning against the bedpost, and I felt stupid standing there with my fingers curled around the wood, hip cocked out, a caricature of a seductress.
"What exactly do you want, Hermione?" You said it like a question, but the inflection was all wrong.
"I don't know what you're asking right now, Draco."
"Right," you scoffed. "Of course. Silly me for thinking you could just give me a straight answer."
"Why are you being like this?" I sniffed. "Are you drunk?"
"Am I–" you sat up, tossing the notebook to the side. For one terrible second, I wanted you to yell, to scream, just so I could know what you were thinking. But then your shoulders deflated and you squeezed your eyes shut. "No, I'm just tired."
"Oh," My fingers fell from the bedpost, and I backed away. "I'll just go and let you rest."
You were still sitting like that, fingers pressed against the bridge of your nose, when I turned to leave.
You used to tell me I was brave, Draco, but I wasn't, then. Not with you.
