Distance between us.

I took a deep breath and paced the common room for the hundredth time as Scorpius giggled from his play pen. I'd cast a spell to make little quidditch players to fly around him and recently, it had been keeping him entertained for hours. I was hoping that the arrival of Draco would get the others to come around a bit more than they had lately. I couldn't understand why they'd stopped coming around all together. I thought they cared enough to come around and help with Scorpius but instead I'd spent a decent amount of time alone. Now there were just two weeks left of our School careers and I had no one to enjoy it with. The first years were only just finishing their exams and I spent much of my time with Scorpius watching them all heatedly discussing their answers. I could remember doing the same with Harry and Ron in first year, not that they ever liked discussing exams with me in case I pointed out anything they'd forgotten. So much had changed since then, I don't think any of us would have guessed in a million years that this is where we would be all these years later.

I was excited to see Draco today, it might finally put my mind at ease after days of worrying about what had happened to Draco. Everyone had been so vague with me about how he was doing. I just wanted to have him in my arms again and let him know that I loved him. We'd been on a whirl wind ride this year, but he meant so much to me. In many ways he was like a different person these days but then the war had changed all of us in some ways. Finally, the portrait hole swung open and Harry, Draco and Blaise strolled through. Harry and Blaise both looked apprehensive and Draco wasn't quite meeting my eye. Looking him up and down I tried not to gasp. He was paler than normal, and covered in pale blue scars, it looked so unnatural.

"We're just going to take Scorp for a little play date, we'll give you two sometime." Blaise said looking between the two of us before scooping Scorpius onto his hip and turning to leave.

"Thanks guys see you in a bit." I said feeling a bubble of nerves as the two of them left. There was a moment of silence as Draco and I both sat unsure of what to say next.

"Hey." I said after a few moments unsure of whether to get closer to him. We both felt so out of place. It felt strange, and awkward, and pained. Draco sat down slowly before taking a few seconds to finally look at me.

"Hey" He replied, his piercing silver orbs looking deep into my soul. I gulped at the sound of his voice having a momentary flashback to his final words before both of our worlds went black. I could see now that he was a lot more hurt than the others had suggested. Maybe this was why they weren't around so much anymore. Had I done this to him?

"Have the others told you what happened?" I muttered a few moments later hoping to fill the silence in some way.

"Yes, you saved me. I hear you channelled the full force of your power at Lucius. He's actually dead at last." Draco explained at last sounding a little bit more relaxed. I took the opportunity to step forward and hug him desperate to feel the connection we'd had before. I instantly regretted it. Draco winced and cried out in pain the moment I touched him. He flinched away from me and cursed loudly hitting the coffee table in annoyance. I jumped back shaking slightly and my heart pounding against my chest.

"I'm so sorry" I squealed backing off until I was against the window. What the hell had just happened? Were his injuries still tender?

"It's not your fault." Draco growled after a few seconds, looking down to the ground.

"What happened?" I asked simply, unsure of how else to phrase the question. I was so confused with everything going on and no one had been around to answer any of the questions that I had.

"There's something I need to explain to you." Draco said looking at me sympathetically and gesturing for me to sit on the sofa as he stepped back. Slowly I moved to the sofa and sat down gently an ache in my heart knowing things weren't going well.

"I'm so confused. All of the others have been avoiding me and I've felt so alone and for days all I've wanted is you and now I can't even be near you." I blurted trying my best to stop the tears that stung my eyes from falling. Draco lowered himself onto the bottom of the stairs to his room and leaned on his hand.

"I asked them not to tell you, I wanted to see you myself." Draco said his voice softening as he looked at me and I could tell that he too wanted to hug me tightly.

"Is it to do with the curse?" I replied partially knowing the answer.

"We think so. After you were blacked out, they were taking us to St Mungos and I don't really remember what was going on but I just kept feeling surges of pain randomly and they quickly picked up that it was when you were too close that it made me worse, the pain they couldn't understand and they couldn't stop. That's why they wanted to keep you separate from me once you woke up. They also think that might be why the scars are blue." Draco explained staring at me intently as if being able to touch me with his words.

"So can we not touch? How do we solve this, how do we fix this?" I said aching to move to fix all of this but once again this stupid curse was in control.

"I hate this too Hermione, I want nothing more than to hold you in my arms again I really do but until we figure this out, we can't." Draco said and for a moment I could see the sadness in his eyes and I knew he was blaming himself for this too. It was far more my fault than his. If I didn't have this stupid curse that no one seemed to understand then none of this would be happening.

"What did it feel like when I touched you just now?" I asked after a few seconds wondering whether that could help us at all. Draco seemed to think about it for a few seconds before actually answering.

"It felt like I was being stabbed by a thousand knifes." He said quietly and both of us fell into silence. We'd reached an impasse, neither one of us knew what to say because for once neither one of us had an answer.

Throughout the afternoon Draco and I talked and for a few moments we almost forgot that we couldn't get any closer. We established that we could get no closer than 6 feet apart without Draco feeling pain. It was agony not being able to get any closer, but it was necessary. In many ways even having him to speak to felt better. Harry and Blaise gave Scorpius back to us at dinner and the others all apologised for not being around. They all said they were sorry they hadn't been around but they didn't know how to explain it and they wanted Draco and I to talk first. I could tell that each of them felt pity towards us but that they would be around a lot more in the next few weeks. Finally it felt like things could go back to some form of normality, we could all enjoy these next two weeks and say goodbye to Hogwarts properly. Draco and I would get used to not touching but we still had each other.

It felt weird bidding good night to Draco as we went to our separate rooms for the first time in a long time. Just knowing he was there but couldn't be with me felt strange. We had decided we would take it in turns to have Scorpius in our rooms and tonight was Draco's turn to put him to bed. That night I lay in bed just staring up at the top of my four-poster unable to sleep a wink. Somehow the bed felt colder tonight, I could feel its emptiness for once. Maybe it was all in my head, but I couldn't help missing him.

After hours of laying there wide awake a thought struck me. I'd been thinking through everything that had happened and everything Draco had explained today and a thought struck me. Grabbing a piece of parchment and a quill I sat on my desk and started writing. I wrote everything we knew and every theory I had. It had struck me that I needed to stop looking to books for the answer because clearly this was a rare curse and there was little to no documentation of how to actually stop it. Before I knew it the sun had come up and I made my way to the Gryffindor common room.

It was early but I knew Ginny would be up. She'd taken to going for a jog around the grounds at this time of day, I'd seen her when Scorpius had woken me up early. As I approached the portrait hole Ginny was just coming out in some muggle sporting gear.

"Ah Ginny just the woman I'm looking for." I said making her jump but she quickly smiled as she took a deep breath.

"Jeez Hermione you scared me, I was just going for a run." She replied smiling as we made our way towards the stairs.

"I know, you do it every day at this time. That's why I knew you'd be up so early." Ginny gave me a strange look as if studying me carefully.

"Have you slept Hermione?" She said cautiously. Clearly she didn't want to upset me but equally she was worried.

"Not a wink. I couldn't sleep, but I've been thinking." I replied sharply earning another concerned look from Ginny.

"Is this about the curse again?" She said pulling her hair into a tight ponytail.

"Yes, I've been thinking it all through. We need to stop researching." Ginny nodded clearly wanting to get to the point.

"I had thought it was a bit of a pointless task, clearly this curse is not widely written about." She agreed as we strolled down staircase after staircase making our way towards the grounds.

"Exactly, and that's why you're going to help me control this curse."

*****End of Chap***

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