Hello, me again. Thank you for the showering of reviews you are so kind to always give me. I look forward to seeing the next reviews. I'm not promising that the updates will continue coming this quickly, but please let me know if I need to space out my updates more if you're getting behind.

Grammarly is my beta. I apologise for any mistakes, and hope you can overlook them.

Hermione had not spared a single breath, or glance for Ron as Draco led her to the public floo. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have Padma come along?" Hermione asked, her voice a low mutter. "Instead of me, I mean," she cleared her throat.

While he didn't look at her, his hand caught hers. His fingers slid through the spaces of hers, tugging her into the fireplace with him as they neared it. For a second time in such a short amount of time, Hermione found herself pressed to his hard chest. Catching herself by flattening her hands against his chest, a warm flush rose to her cheeks.

She knew without looking that Ron and Harry had to be staring at her, gobsmacked by her actions and the display that came with it. "So, you're sure then?" Hermione asked.

His chest shook as he rumbled a laugh, and Draco raised a hand to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. "I'm positive. Unless you would rather—"

"I'm good." Hermione said.

"Then it's settled." He looked over the top of her head, the corner of his mouth twitching and then he was smirking. "He's storming over here." Draco said as he grabbed a handful of floo powder. "Shall we?"

She nodded quickly. "Probably for the best," Hermione sighed, her shoulders tensing as Ron bellowed her name. "I don't fancy the idea of being ripped out of the floo by him, or the way he'd criticize me after."

Draco shrugged. "Perfectly fine. I'd love to see his face when I do this,"

Hermione paused, her brows rising as she asked, "Wh—"

Craning her head back, and still making no movement away from Draco, even though she really could have, she caught just how red Ron's face was. He was still yelling her name, and making rude gestures while he was at it. "Malfoy Manor!"

For how red his face has been, Ron's face all but drained of colour. Landing in a foreign fireplace, Hermione slapped Draco's chest. "He'll be worried." She muttered. "I, um," she glanced around.

The manor was not in the state she expected. During her incredibly brief stay in the looming walls over the Easter holiday that year, she'd had a moment to take in the immaculateness of it all. There was a grand staircase in the centre of the room, completed with smooth railings that stretched up to the second story, and the steps were ivory. Clearly it had not been properly cleaned since the war given the blood stains she saw.

"The Ministry had curse breakers sweep through the manor," Draco said from her side, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I'm surprised they didn't destroy the place while they were at it."

"Well, this is just one room. We haven't seen the rest." Hermione replied. She took a step forward, recognising where she was certain would lead her to the only room she truly knew. "Do you imagine they found many Dark objects?"

He snorted. "It's adorable that you're given me the benefit of the doubt. Yes, they found several items. If Father wasn't dead, he would have certainly been sentenced to several life terms in Azkaban."

She blinked. Her back was too him now as she turned, taking in the manor as she hadn't had much of a chance last time. "That bad?" She tugged her shorts down, making sure her arse was properly covered. A draft rolled through the manor, chilling her legs as it did. "Did they belong to your father, or the Malfoy family in general?"

"Passed down from heir to heir," he answered. "Father would have given me a gift last month on my birthday had he been alive. Thank Merlin he wasn't." He muttered darkly.

Hermione turned quickly. "Draco, don't,"

He raised his hand, effectively cutting her off. "It's fine. He was a despicable man. If it weren't for him, Mother would be alive, and I would have been set on a very different path."

Hermione wanted to ask what he thought the hypothetical path would have been, but she pushed the unrelated thought away. "He was still your father." She whispered. "Do you ever miss him at all?"

He shook his head. "For my sixteenth birthday, I was marked by Snake Face."

Her laugh was airy. "Draco,"

"But that's not the only gift I received." His body stiffened, as if he was revisiting a memory, and he glanced away from her just as she'd looked up. "It's a potion, made by a Dark Wizard before even Grindelwald. He made it to be used against Muggleborns."

Her eyes widened. "What did the potion do?"

"It would attack your magical core, depleting it slowly over several weeks. It looks just as if you've fallen ill, but effectively, what it truly does is turn you into muggle."

She gasped, the sharp noise the only sound stretching between the two of them. "That's not attacking a magical core," Hermione uttered tersely, "it's turning a magical core against the user. A muggle can't withstand magic."

Draco nodded. "My father told me I should use it when I returned for my sixth year, that I should take care to impress the Dark Lord. Murdering Harry Potter's best friend would have been a good start, he said."

"Did you… Did you ever try?" Hermione asked. She stared at the floor, afraid for the answer. Draco was a redeemed person in her eyes, and even if he were to say he'd given it careful consideration, she wasn't sure it would have angered her. "Draco?"

He was waiting for her to raise her head, staring down at her with an unreadable expression. "I had the potion on the train," Draco admitted, watching her face fall as he grabbed her wrists and tugged her forward a bit. "Even then I could have never—I destroyed the potion. Later that term, I requested my personal house elf to destroy the book which detailed how to make it.

"He wanted the book when the three of you didn't return for seventh year, for reasons I don't believe I need to explain," Draco continued, his gaze flicking up to hers. "He was furious with Father when it was revealed to be missing. Of course, he found a way to recreate the potion; other families have duplicated the book in the past, but he and I were punished for the missing book."

Her eyes were watering. Hermione stared up at him, struck silent. "I'm so sorry." Her voice cracked as she uttered the words, and she blinked several times in an attempt to keep her tears at bay. "Was it terrible?"

"He didn't torture me, if that's what you're asking."

Hermione's lips parted.

"He liked to host revels, and he enjoyed seeing his cronies torture others. He'd never join in, and it was no secret how much I hated them."

Bile rose in her throat. "No." she insisted, as if the weak plea could change the past.

He nodded. "There was a muggle girl, our age, and I killed her. I cast the curse that snuffed out her life. Her boyfriend was beside her, being flayed alive by Rodolphus and Bellatrix."

She thought she might throw up from the imagery alone. "They were kidnapped together," she commented.

"Bellatrix mocked them for their idea for a date night. They were found in the middle of a field, under a sky of stars, and it's where they were left afterward."

"The muggle girl, did she suffer?" Hermione asked. She wasn't sure why she needed to know. Maybe it was to assuage the guilt that they could not save everyone, that the nameless girl deserved to be remembered, just like the boy who had died with her. "Draco, if it's too much—"

"Thorfinn Rowle raped her," he said, his voice flat, and his fingers tightened around her wrists. "There wasn't much to be done, but I cast a numbing spell. There was nothing I could do for the boy."

Hermione nodded. "That's okay."

"It's not."

Silence fell around them, tense and unyielding. Hermione traced the lines of his palm slowly, weaving the tip of her finger along the jagged scar that stretched out from his wrist. "I mean it's okay that you couldn't save her. You would have gotten yourself killed."

His lips curved into a grimace, and he wouldn't quite meet her gaze. "I sabotaged one of Rowle's missions later, caused him to fail. I reported the failure to the Dark Lord, knowing he would be tortured as a result."

"Was he?"

"Yes." There was a pause. "I would know; it fell to me to carry out the punishment as I saw fit." Draco finished, a ragged breath slipping from his mouth.

Hermione didn't feel like herself when she asked, her voice weak, "Did he suffer?"

Draco didn't answer, not at first anyway. He laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing slightly. "It was in the file from the Ministry, wasn't it?"

She swallowed. It had been. She knew about how he'd confessed to the events under Veritaserum, claiming that it had been the reason Rowle had been so desperate to cut Draco down in the final battle. "It was, but I try not to think about the file. I wish I hadn't learned all of those things without your permission now."

His hands skimmed her arms, sliding down from her shoulders. "Yes, it's unfair to know everything about me when I seem to know nothing about you."

"I'd tell you anything you wanted to know." Hermione said. "All you needed to do was ask."

He dipped his head. "I'll ask you some day, but probably not today. Probably like you, I don't want to stay here any longer than we need to. I'm going to visit my mother's portrait. I know where it should be."

"Okay." Hermione nodded. "I'll be," she waved her hand, "somewhere."

He smirked. "Don't wander. I'm unsure of how competent the curse breakers were, and I'd rather you not walk into a grisly death." He left her with that, climbing the stairs, and taking the time to avoid the dried blood stains.

She wondered if any of them were his.

Her portrait had been crafted long before her death, and it was just as he remembered it. Walking past the empty frame as a child, but knowing that one day his mother would sit inside of it, it had always made him uneasy.

She had not been meant to find her way to the portrait for a long time he'd hoped. When the war had fallen right at the their door, riding on his father's robes, Draco had feared her life would not be exceptionally long. Lucius had been punished fiercely and frequently, the bizarre punishments stretching to his son and wife.

"My dear," Narcissa said, her voice filled with love. "Have you been eating?"

He snorted, dragging his fingers through his hair. "It's been a hellacious night, Mother. Death Eaters, and a Ministry hearing, just the normal sort of things that follow the war."

Her nose crinkled with disgust as she gazed down at him. "I thought all of that was over? You were officially pardoned, and you've been—what has happened?" In the portrait, she folded her arms over her chest, looking every bit as angry as he could imagine she was.

Draco slid his hands into his pockets, kicking the base of the wall with his shoe. "Hermione Granger created a summer camp for displaced orphans, or children whose parents are otherwise incapacitated, for whatever reason. That's where I've been."

She nodded. "I hear things, just as I overheard a few portraits discussing the new friends you've made as well."

"Are you disappointed?"

Her lip curled into a half sneer. "Of course I wish she was at least a halfblood, but what does my opinion matter, dear? I'm dead. The Mud—muggleborn girl, she's important to you now? Is she why you found yourself in a hearing all over again?"

For a moment, he considered not telling his mother a thing, knowing how she was sure to react. Draco squared his shoulders, adjusting his weight from one leg to the other as he raised his head. "Uncle Rabastan intended to kill her. I killed him myself. There's a Ministry mandated trace on my wand until my probation ends, and it alerted them the moment I cast the spell."

Seconds crept by. "You killed your—"

He shook his head. "They're not family to me."

She heaved a sigh. "I suppose I can understand that much. Does she care for you as much as you do?"

Draco looked down the corridor, wondering where she'd gone off to inside the manor. She surely hadn't stayed in one place, he was certain. "I haven't asked her, but I would think so." Draco replied. Perhaps one day he would discuss the events of the night they'd stayed up for the majority of the night, but for the moment, he wasn't keen to reveal what had gotten them there.

His mother would be terribly disappointed to know he'd wished to die.

"Are you happy?" she asked.

"Yes," he nodded, "I would say so." As he opened his mouth, a scream ripped through the manor, the sort of scream he could place immediately. "I should—I'll come—"

His mother smiled. "Hurry on, dear. The Ministry did not send the best curse breakers to vet the manor. It would be a terrible shame for her to find herself in danger."

Hermione wasn't sure why she'd done it to herself. It was painful to take in the room, immaculate as the early morning rays filtered in through the glass windows. But she'd sat in the exact spot she'd been tortured, and she'd given a soft sigh to herself as for once, the logical side of her mind lost the argument completely.

She laid in the floor, clasping hands over her stomach as she stared at the ceiling. She can see where there was a chandelier, and her throat closed up at the thought of Dobby. Dobby, who had risked his life for Harry. Then her mind wandered, dangerously, toward Ron. She remembered the day vividly, as the chandelier had crashed down, possibly going to kill her.

He'd gotten her out of the way when no one else had.

Hermione swallowed. She should fix things with him the first second she was able. They had been through several things together, her friendship with Draco Malfoy wouldn't be the one thing to finally break it.

Closing her eyes, and naively believing she could grasp just a bit of closure for herself, Hermione stretched her scarred arm out. The tile was cool against her bared arm, and fear rolled over her in suffocating waves.

She was lost to the flashback before she even had a chance to pull herself out of it.

She wasn't crying, not quite, but weak pleas are bubbling up. Hermione is alone, sprawled across a pretty linoleum floor as there is a weight—a terrible witch—pressing down on her chest. There was a hot sensation gliding over her arm, and she knew it was a knife without looking.

And she realised in horror that not only is her skin being thinly sliced, possibly into ribbons, the witch hovering above her with carving words into her forearm. "Filthy Mudblood," came a hiss.

Hermione knew without seeing what was being branded into her skin. She won't be ashamed of it. Harry and Ron's screams are echoing from the dungeons they had been forced into, but she can hear Ron yelling to take him instead.

She won't tell the truth, no matter what she's put through.

As the crucios begin to mount, she finally screamed, "Please, stop!" And then she was being throttled, shaken harshly.

Hermione thought it was because she remembered writhing on the floor, but there was a frenzied voice just below her ear. "Granger! Hermione, you need to snap out of it."

Her chest felt like it was caving in as she was propped up, her back against a hard surface. "Please, stop," she repeated.

Fingers brushed her sweaty hair back, and arms slid around her middle. She was aware that she was being cradled in between someone's legs, it seemed. "Come on. Come on back to me, sweetheart. It's not real, you know?"

She wheezed as she opened her eyes, finding that her fingers were digging into the arms wound securely around her. "Draco?" Hermione breathed, wiping her face. Tears were streaked down her cheeks, and she was humiliated to be found in such a state. "Can I have a moment alone?"

"Not bloody likely," he rasped beside her ear. "You scared the shite out of me."

"I don't know what happened."

"Panic attack," he said briskly. "I would have them whenever I was home for the holidays during the war. It'll pass, but you probably won't feel like yourself for a while yet." At her nod, he asked, "Would you like to leave?"

Hermione looked at the room once more. "Yes, I think that would be for the best. I can get back on my own if you would like to continue—"

"Shut up."

By the time they landed at the Apparition point just outside the wards, Hermione was dead on her feet. Draco steadied her by placing a hand at the small of her back, easily guiding her through the forest. It's by a stroke of luck that they found everyone was still asleep, despite it being the middle of the day.

It had been a long night, after all.

She leaned into the curve of his arm, her eyes fluttering shut with nearly every step. "Just a bit further," Draco murmured. He walked her right up to the door of her cabin, and when the door swung open, he saw the disarray that had been left. And not even a second passed before he steered her back down the steps. "Stay in my room."

She stared up at him with wide eyes. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, opening his own door and letting her step in ahead of him. "Sure, you take the bed. I'll take the floor." Draco took in the sight of her, even though he'd done it several times since the moment he watched her being slammed into the ground by Rodolphus.

Her hair desperately needed a good brushing. It was tangled, and there were still specks of dirt in the dark locks. She was still tugging furiously at her shorts, as they rode up with every step. He wasn't likely to complain, given the way they cupped her arse. She wore a Gryffindor quidditch top that bore the name Weasley across the back, and the sight of it garnered a scowl from him.

"Don't be ridiculous," she muttered as she tied her hair up. "We can share the bed. It's just a bed."

He wanted to question whether she really thought it was just a bed given the the pretty blush that crept up her cheeks and also spilt down her neck. She crawled into his bed, nestling herself against the pillows, and pulling the blanket over her.

"Alright," he said. Draco slid into the bed just beside her, his forearm brushing her back. "One of us needs to lock that door, or our sleep will be interrupted before—"

Granger let out a soft snore as she burrowed into the pillow.

He laughed. Draco waved his wand toward the door before laying it on the bedside table. Upon looking, Draco saw that her wand was still tightly clutched in her hand. It was impossible to sleep with her only breaths away, impossible to close his eyes and pretended she wasn't there.

Especially when she rolled over in her sleep, nuzzling his bicep and sighing as she relaxed against him.

It was impossible to sleep at all.

I'll try to update within a few days again. I'm off for the next two days, so time to get some things done! Next up, a dramione kiss, but it doesn't go the way you expect. Please leave a review.