She drinks greedily, broth dribbling from the corners of her mouth in great streams, and each mouthful sloshing into her empty stomach warms her from the inside. With this warmth comes the pain.
No longer distant, the agony in her feet blisters through her legs and claws its way up the column of her spine, manifesting itself as a strangled gasp she can't quite staunch, even though she tries, clamping her teeth tightly around the sound. She will not cry out. Whimpers stutter at the back of her throat and she rocks back and forth as though to lull the pain to sleep, but she will not ask him for help. Her pride will not allow it.
Draco is soon at her side—at a respectful distance, maintaining a length of loamy soil between himself and the reach of her fists—turning a metal tin over and over in his now-bare hands. She recognises it from the cottage and fancies she can catch a faint whiff of dittany, though this might be her imagination.
"Will you kick me in the teeth if I approach?"
I might.
This is the lie she tells herself.
She bites down on her lip hard enough to draw blood—anything to keep from making a noise as she uses her toes to swivel away from him. It stings and aches all at once, searing beneath her skin right down to the bone, burrowing deep into the marrow, curling inside, hibernating.
It is a pain which is not grievous enough to render her insensible but nonetheless feels as though it will be with her forever.
He follows, crouching within kicking distance, gazing at her levelly with the barest lift of his eyebrows; daring her, but she barely has the strength to set her ruined feet in his lap, biting her tongue against a fresh wave of pain.
His movements are quick and methodical—clinical, almost, but his fingers tremble and the tips of his ears flush as he rubs his palms together, chafing warmth into them, fire by friction. She flinches, sucking in a sharp breath when his hand closes over her ankle.
Cold. His fingers are still freezing cold, he's holding her still, prying out pine needles and chips of bark with such delicate, subtle movements, but it hurts, Godric, it hurts. He winces up at her, apologetic; she gnaws sharp red patterns across her knuckles, sinking into this lesser, butterfly-kiss pain, cocooning herself.
Think of something else.
Draco's hair falls over his forehead, swaying slightly, catching the weak light and shining like burnished white gold. He puffs it out of his eyes and her heart lurches in a double-beat. It's so much longer than when she first met him, curling boyishly around his ears and down his nape.
Think of something else, so she thinks of him, but what is he thinking? Lips set in a thin line, brows drawn close, bandaging her feet with his quick, pale spider hands, nostrils flaring, he breathes, slowly, deeply, she can't read the swirling molten silver in his eyes. There is no pain, just the steady thumping of her heart, sunlight moving across the crown of his head, his hands skating higher, up to her ankle, her calf, expending the bandages. The backs of his fingers brush her skin and she holds her breath, waiting, waiting, for what?
Does he know what his touch ignites inside of her, that he is her anchor, her lodestone, her safe port in a wide, roiling sea? Even now, when he is rowing her into the open ocean to throw her overboard—fish food, masticated, ingested, and spat back out—she wants to touch and be touched by him, draw his lips to hers and let the forest recede into the middle distance.
It's the most natural thing in the world to brush the hair from his face, soft strands running through her fingers. Stillness seizes him. He glances up at her and that short, flickering look cast through his lowered lashes is enough to catch the breath in her throat.
Damp palms, skittering pulse, stomach swooping and soaring like a flock of seabirds, she cups his cheeks and coaxes his eyes to hers. A long, low howl warbles through the trees, distant and lonely; the only sound above the whispering branches. He's silent, staring up at her, lips parted slightly, hands clasped behind her knees, searching her eyes. For what?
What does he hope to see in their depths?
"Lord Voldemort will execute my family if I do not return you to the castle."
Oh. She sways backwards, her hands tightening around him, centring herself, fighting against the sudden lightheadedness descending like a body in free fall.
"They… they could escape. Your mother…"
"Is already imprisoned, as is my father. This is punishment, Hermione, for you and me both, make no mistake."
Snowflakes spiral through the gaps in the canopy, falling thick and fast, alighting on his eyelashes and blinked just as quickly away. The year's first snowfall. If she returns to the castle, will she have a window to see winter turn to spring? Will she be alive to see spring turn to summer?
She tilts her face to the snow, eyes closed, cold kisses on her skin, melting, trickling from the corners of her eyes, mingling with her warm tears.
"Dance with me," she whispers to the air.
Such a strange request, but he has lifted her with two hands around her waist before she even opens her eyes. Cradled to him, one arm banded behind her thighs, the other across her shoulders, he spins them, carefully, her bandaged feet hovering above the ground. Flecks of white drift around and above them, dancing on air, swirling in time to music she feels in her bones.
Faces pressed together, arms around her, clinging, she breathes in the frost and loam and feels this perfect moment suspend itself in time, pressed tightly between the pages of an old book, brittle and paper-like and fragile but so, so beautiful in all its faded colour glory. Her heart swells, then her lungs, her diaphragm, cold air licks her throat and her eyes snap open to the heavy thud of the metal collar, discarded on the forest floor beneath the tattered shreds of her nightdress.
Draco's hand is warm on the back of her neck but soon feels cold in comparison—magic soars through her in great droves, burning, healing, her skin glowing like a firebrand, her feet made whole and supple beneath the twinkling waves of power.
He's freed her. She slides down his body to stand, hands on his shoulders, gazing up at him with a question in her eyes. Why?
His lips twitch into a sad smile. A life in Lord Voldemort's castle is not a life worth living; he knows this. How could she ever believe he was a stranger?
"Come with me." A vision of what their lives could be wavers tenuously in her mind's eye, a peaceful cottage on the far edge of a distant forest; she grips his hands, pouring that idyllic scape into him, but he shakes his head and steps away, still with that small, sad smile, maintaining a connection of their fingers until the last possible moment. Her hand falls to her side, suddenly icy without his touch.
Stones fill the chambers of her heart. He will try to save his parents. He will die.
Each moment she spent confined within the castle walls cascades through her consciousness like raindrops down a windowpane, tearing the wounds open, blood and tears and screams, echoing, but she would endure it a thousand times over if only to save him—her one bright star in the blackest night.
His horse nickers softly as she approaches, runs her hand down its neck and unties the reins from the low bough they were tied to. She looses a shaky breath, willing the bubbling in her stomach to settle. "I will be with you until the last."
She means it. Her heart thuds unevenly and a thin sheen of sweat has broken out along her spine, but she will ride with him until night falls and the castle looms menacingly against an indigo sky, she will be with him as they breach the gates and until their last breaths are gasped—oh, she hopes she dies first, and cleanly. It is a vain hope, but she holds it close to her chest all the same.
Silence reigns for three rises and falls of the horse's breath, curling in the air around her, before Draco's steps crackle and his warmth spreads across her back. He lifts her up and swings onto the saddle behind her then they're riding, slowly at first, but soon at a pace where the forest slides by in a blur of green and grey.
Lodged in her throat, her heart shares the horse's reckless speed, pattering so quickly she can feel her grasp on the writhing power slipping away piece by piece. It crouches on her chest and digs white-hot needles into her skin, pricking and prodding, searching for release.
Hold on, hold on. Save it for Lord Voldemort. Save it for Bellatrix.
Draco has one arm wrapped around her waist; she clings to it, squeezing her eyes closed against the dizzying spin of passing trees. This power does not feel like her own. It's too strong, too hot—nothing like her soft, glistening magic. There is no end to it. The well beneath her sternum stretches down, deep, deep within her, reaching for the centre of the earth, prepared to drag her down with it through every burning, crystalline layer.
She tries to tell him to ride faster, that her control is waning, but a howl rips through the consummate shadows of the forest. The horse rears, there's nothing but dark fur and gnashing teeth, she's flying, Draco's grip on her waist disappears and she falls, smashing to earth, wet leaves in her mouth and mud in her eyes, she's blind, barking and snarling presses in from every angle and she's deaf, teeth rattling, skull shuddering from the impact.
Draco, Draco.
She feels him close by, panting, swinging his sword; a wet thump and a high whimper breach the ringing in her ears but his scream eclipses all, piercing her through the middle, made all the more horrible for the fact she never dreamed he could make such a sound, so laced with agony her heart stings. She staggers blindly to her feet, wiping the mud from her eyes.
Flashes of white, smears of black and dark grey in a terrible painter's palette, colours bleeding into one another—where is Draco? She can't see him clearly. Magic surges forth from the neverending pit in her chest and she aims recklessly, casting out her arms, power ripping, tearing, wrenched from her and spilt into the world, searing her fingertips on the way out.
Please. Is anyone listening? She prays she doesn't strike him as the magic rolls from her in waves, culminating in a blazing flare of light which banishes every tiny scrap of darkness, illuminating Draco, sprawled on the forest floor, a dead wolf before him, the other's tail disappearing as it lopes through the trees and away, whining and disfavouring one leg.
Hermione drops to her knees, fingers fluttering over his sweat-soaked skin. "Draco? Draco, speak to me. Please, please be alright."
His eyes crack open and he struggles into a sitting position, hissing, clutching at his forearm. Relief crashes through her, curling her forwards against his chest where she stays, trembling until she can bring herself to move again. Gods, this pain in her chest is unbearable. She refuses to think of the heights the pain would rise to if she were ever to lose him; that thought is expelled to the very back of her mind, tucked far beneath everything else she keeps locked away.
Draco pulls blood-sticky fabric away from his arm, revealing a ragged circle of teeth marks oozing red and yellow onto the pine needles. In the centre of it, she can make out the faint line of their blood pact, smeared with blood though it is. His head falls back, chest heaving, cords straining in his neck, his jaw twitching as he grinds his molars together. He prods at the wound with shaking fingers and a gasped groan is wrenched from his lips.
"Let me." She takes his wrist and draws his arm into her lap; this close, the bite looks even more grievous, darkening unnaturally at the edges.
Daylight reigns and the moon is a sliver but those wolves were far too big and far too sentient to be anything other than the beasts of fairytale legend, told to her as a little girl to keep her abed at night instead of roaming the forest glades after sundown. Her fingers glide over the wound, leaking magic, the skin knits itself together, but the heaviness inside her doesn't disappear with the blood and gore. It stays—stubborn as a boulder—in the pit of her stomach long after Draco's arm is once again smooth.
"The scar is gone," he murmurs, running his thumb over the flawless stretch of skin.
So it is. She can't remember wielding this much power, even when her magic was at its height, before the litany of teas and sedatives. Looking within herself—examining the glistening treasure inside of her which is a kernel no longer but an endless ocean of gold—is like trying to fathom the height of the sky or the depth of the greatest ravine. Following her magic along its ceaseless length brings her deeper and deeper, plunging into the dark, there must be an end but there is not, just a small fissure, leading… out.
Her eyes flutter open and are drawn, inexorably, to the saddlebag, its contents scattered across the forest floor, including a cloth satchel, ripped open to reveal dark metal and blue gems that seem to leach the fading sunlight.
