He could feel the softness of her arm beneath his hand. He looked at the connection and released her running his hand through his hair quickly. He didn't like the look in her eyes, he had seen it many times from her this year and every time it made his blood boil beneath his skin. He did not need her pity nor her sorrow.
"Dammit Hermione I'm not asking you to do anything but make a decision to either be here or leave. If you're going to stay then stop looking at me like that and get on with it. Nothing is going to change either way, so if you're leaving there's the door"
"You used to beg me to run away from you. Told me I would get myself killed if I didn't. Now you want me to stay? You almost killed two of my friends" She was getting frustrated, but it held nothing to the anger he had inside. He could feel the tension in his shoulders as he met her brown eyes with full force. She reached down and touched his shoulder and he stiffened.
" I never said I wanted you to stay, no one in their right mind would stay and you're right the weasel did almost die, but only because others were selfish I didn't single him out. But what does it even matter Granger, I remember you said you didn't care, that you could make your own choice to leave when things got to hairy. I left you alone and this is what you did, you ran away. So stop coming back." He shook her hand off his shoulder and pulled away from her quickly.
He watched her walk around in front of the chair and get on her knees in front of him. He tensed at the new position. He could feel the muscles in his body both tensing to run and urging him to stay put and she placed her hands on either side of him and forced him to look at her.
"What are you doing?" He could feel the confusion playing on the corner of his eyes and quickly disguised it with a scowl. She was looking at him as if he was an experiment that she was determined to solve. He had given her the out she needed, the one she was looking for.
"What are you doing." He finally asked again after a moment. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, still thinking about what it is she was going to say.
"How close are you to finishing it. Really." The breath stopped in his lungs. He had imagined having this asked of him many times by many different people, he had been tortured for months over the moment someone would ask him this question. He had imagined it taking place in many dark rooms with hooded figures but he never once thought she would ever be the one. He looked through her and reached out a hand, fiddling with a stray curl that had fell from her pulled back hair, before tucking it into place.
"It will work, soon." He whispered looking anywhere but at her. Her hand caressed his cheek bringing his eyes back to her.
"Stop this Draco, run away with me, we can go to Dumbledore and tell him everything. This is not you." He inhaled the vanilla and strawberries that came off of her in waves and sighed, grabbing her hands and pulling them down to his lap.
"I think you need to leave Granger." He said with more volume.
"Draco… please, just stop this. You can walk away." He gritted his teeth and squeezed her hands.
"You forget, this isn't just about me. They. Will. Kill. Her." He forced the words out as he pushed her even further. She fell backwards as her feet gave out from underneath her and he stood and paced in the small space between the bed and the chair. It would be so easy to walk away with her, he wanted it more than he wanted his next breath. To just walk away and be done with everything. Even if the good side locked him away for what he had done he wouldn't have to do it anymore. The pain of failure would be gone. Narcissa's screams echoed in his head as they had many times. He bit down on his fist as he stopped and looked at the frail bird on the floor, girl, not bird. She was alive not dead. No not dead.
"Get out." He finally was able to get the words to come.
"Draco they will protect her. The order members would help…"
"Get out!" he screamed at her and she scrambled before taking flight out the double doors.