A/N: Try not to hate me too much after you read this, you guys. Also, I've just recently come across Ellie Goulding's "I Know You Care" which is an AMAZING song (ahem soundtrack ahem) to this fic.

Chapter 7

She had missed her opportunity to talk to Draco for the rest of the day until their Heads patrol later that night – but even that was starting to look like another dead end when she noticed he hadn't even bothered to show up to lunch or supper in the Great Hall. She sat there at Gryffindor table like a tightly-wound metal coil, her eyes constantly watching the giant wooden doors, only to look down at her plate towards the end of the meal to realize she hadn't eaten a bite of it at all.

It was funny how any and all efforts of trying to tell herself that her worrying was a waste of time, seeing as how Draco was a complete arsehole and her good intent wasn't being appreciated on either sides of the spectrum – but she was past trying to talk herself out of it. Hermione knew a hopeless case when she saw one. She just never predicted she'd ever look in the mirror and see one looking right back at her.

By the time she and her friends finished up dinner, gathering up their things to begin heading back to their rooms, Ginny had moved herself right next to her.

"It's Malfoy, isn't it?" she whispered, as the boys in front of them began an enthusiastic conversation about the latest professional Quidditch match.

Hermione only pursed her lips, giving Ginny a look. Ginny nodded somberly.

"Just be careful, all right?" she told her, her voice in a low murmur and easily getting swallowed up by surrounding conversations. "He's hurt you enough."

Before she could think up an answer, they had already separated ways – Ginny going along with the rest of the boys back to the Gryffindor dorms. Hermione thought about what she'd said and sighed, making her way to the Heads rooms. There she knocked on Malfoy's door, knowing he wouldn't be there to answer her. She was right.

She waited for him for their partner patrol, but when twenty minutes passed their curfew and he still hadn't shown up, she decided to go on without him. She walked their route without her usual attention to detail. She found a few stray students, hidden in an alcove or two and engaged in a heated snog, whom she dismissively warned and sent on their way. But whenever she found herself in a place where the shadows outreached the light, she looked harder, as if she was expecting him to step out of them any second now.

The end of their patrol usually took place in the Astronomy Tower. She lingered there for a few minutes afterwards, needing the fresh air and trying to find some way to pacify her thoughts. She would never admit it, but the fear and worry had begun eating her up inside like a cancer. It made her restless and unhinged. She could feel it messing with her insides, twisting her in knots, filling things with lead, sucking the marrow out from her bones. That was what darkness did. It emptied you out just so it could fill you back in.

She was about to leave when she heard footsteps, and whirled around to see Draco, having just gotten there. She stared at him, feeling her heart clench and her back straighten.

"You're late," she said through her teeth, as he neared her.

"I was with Snape. I owled you, but apparently you didn't get the memo," he said coolly.

"Snape," she scoffed. "Right. Has he got a message for me, then?"

"Hell if I know. Do I look like your sodding messenger?"

She knew better than to believe his glacial tone of detachment. She could see that little vein in his neck, the one that bulged out whenever he was straining himself.

"I checked the corridors on the way here, and they were clear. So I announce that tonight's Head patrol is over," he said, before giving her a little sneer and starting to turn away. But Hermione knew her chances of getting him alone and that they were slim – having obviously been warned by Snape – so she reached out, digging her fingers into his elbow, and swung him back around.

"Tell me what's going on, Malfoy," she said, firmly but calmly. "I know you're messed up in something. Whatever's going on with you – you can tell me."

"Don't make me laugh, Blackwell," he snapped at her, his ash-colored eyes flashing, snatching his arm back from her grasp. "As if I could ever be tempted to disclose any of my secrets to you. And – by the way, keep your fucking good intentions to yourself, all right? Nobody appreciates it. Especially not me. You keep waving that thing around, you're going to poke somebody's eye out with it. So fuck off."

She planted herself in her spot, never once taking her eyes off of him. "Why did you have a pensieve in your room, Draco?"

His entire body froze.

"It was there, when I found you," she went on. "Then when I went back later that night, it was gone."

His voice was hard and through his teeth. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Draco," she said again, softly. "Tell me what's going on. I want to help you. I need to know the truth."

"Oh, you need to know the truth, do you?" he laughed, the rough sound of it scratching the hollow of his throat, like a shovel grating against asphalt. "You want to help me? Does it seem like I care about what you want, Blackwell? Does it look like I'm here to do your bidding, to take care of your wants and needs just so you can sleep at night?" He vehemently scoffed at her. "I don't know what that badge has done to you, but you're overstepping your boundaries and you best step off if you know what's good for you. Go back and crawl into your little mud hole where you belong."

She didn't move. She was used to this. Him degrading everything that came out of her mouth – every move, every thought. It was like he wanted to suck the air out of the room and the oxygen straight out of her blood, the way he hovered over her, ready and waiting to pounce. But she knew what it meant when there was someone who made it their job to make you miserable. It meant they had something to protect. Something big.

"I'm not going to let it go. Snarl and threaten me all you want. I'm not intimidated by your stupid Slytherin parlor tricks. I want the truth, and even if you're not going to tell me, I'm going to get it."

And that was it. As soon as she finished talking, the air changed. He whipped around, his eyes ablaze, his face alive with rage.

"And what about what I want?" he shouted at her, his palm smacking hard against the stone pillar behind her, making her flinch. It rang in her ears like thunder. "Huh, Blackwell? What about what I fucking want? Does anybody ever ask me that? You stand there with your sad fucking eyes and your stupid badge and your quivering lip, poking around in everything like you're humanity's big fucking doe-eyed favor to the world, and I can't escape you, can I, even when all I want –" he said, before abruptly stopping, mid-sentence. He locked his jaw, forcing a slow, hard breath through his nostrils. "All I want is for things to go back to the way they were. But that can't happen, can it? Because of you. You're a Mudblood – no, worse. You're a liar. Just like everybody else. You're a fucking liar."

His eyes bore through her like fire-tipped swords, singeing her synapses and vaporizing her thoughts. Slowly, agony was beginning to gurgle up his throat and bleed out into his voice like an open wound, and she could make him out underneath the layers of stone, trying to resist it.

"I trusted you," he hissed, "and you conned me."

She felt dizzy. From his nearness. From his words. She caught an image of him in her mind – him years ago, lying down on her bed, hours before the clock struck midnight and thrust them into the New Year. His beautiful, careless face smirking at her, taking her breath away. "I trust you, don't I?"

Her voice was deep, coming from someplace that ached and begged for him to know better. "You know I didn't con you."

"Oh, I know that, do I?" He took a sharp breath that sliced through the muggy, throbbing air, and she watched his broad chest step back, as if retreating – but he wasn't, because a second later he was back, snarling in her face, mere inches away. "Do you know how tempting it is, sleeping one room away from you, day by day, knowing how easy it would be just to sneak into your room while you were asleep and just make you disappear?"

She closed her eyes, feeling his hot breath moist on her face. "Why didn't you do it then?" she whispered, swallowing hard. "Make me disappear. If I'm so repulsive to you. If you can't even stand to look at me."

Something fell over his eyes – almost as if he was stunned. His expression twitched with familiarity before another wave of hostility shook his body, and he pushed off of the pillar and stepped away from her with a loud, agonizing scream that muffled through his clenched teeth. She stared at him from where she stood, terrified with her knees hopelessly locked but unable to look away. In her fuzzy, whirling head, her only coherent thoughts were: Come back to me. You're better than this.

"Why can't you just do us both a fucking favor and just stay away?" he said to her, at the top of his lungs. She could see the faint veins in his neck bulging from his intensity and emotional fervor, his teeth bared like a rabid dog. He had finally broken free from his malicious reserve and instead looked wild and feverish, like he was being ripped apart at the seams. "Why can't you just be smart for once and leave it alone?"

"Because I can't. Because I—"

"Don't," he warned, whipping out his wand and pointing it at her, making her flinch. "Don't say it, Blackwell."

"I care about you!" she yelled, her heart wanting to leap out of her chest. It wanted to go far away. To the moon and beyond, to nothing. "There. Is it really such a surprise, Draco? Maybe you're heartless enough to forget about it, but I can't. I've tried and I can't. So I can't leave you alone. Not for you to ruin your life. Not now. Not ever."

"You care about me?" he echoed violently, tossing his head back and laughing, so harsh and rough that she winced, and it rebounded off of the stone walls, hitting her in resounding levels and layers, grating away her skin. "Fat lot you cared, leaving me with the rest of the world to find out about your little secret." He spat it like it was steaming poison. "So don't waste my time with meaningless sentiments. Save it for someone stupid enough to believe you."

"You want to know why I didn't tell you?" she shouted at his back. "Because I knew what would happen! I thought about it, every night, and I saw what would happen if I did. This. I knew it would all happen just like this," she said, wildly motioning around her, her vision blurry. When she licked her chapped lips it tasted like metal and salt. "So fine. Hate me for not telling you. But all I wanted was just to pretend for a little while longer – because once you knew, I knew you would leave." She paused, watching him, as his chest heaved up and down with his hand still tightly wound around his wand. "And I was right, wasn't I? You left. The first moment you got, you left."

For a moment they just stared at each other. She felt as if somebody had doused the air with gasoline and she watched him, not blinking once, impossibly trying to read his mind. Here, in this tower, with just the two of them – she felt as if they were the only people left in the world.

She wanted to see guilt. She wanted to see even the most miniscule trace of the hurt she felt. But most of all, she wanted to see one last remaining shred of humanity – a tiny spark that would let her know hope was not all lost.

"I thought you'd be happy," he said, his voice shockingly collected. He was composed now, tucking himself back in where he might have spilled out. Locking it all up, like he was so good at. "That's all you ever wanted, isn't it? To be right."

"Not here." She shook her head. "Not with you."

"Well, I guess we can't always get what we want." He kept his eyes on her, slowly dropping his arm. "Can we, Hermione?"

Her voice cracked with desperation, full of water. "It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to hate each other. We don't have to play this game."

For a minute he resembled those marble statues she remembered from his family's garden. Soulless. Silent. He didn't say a single word, his face only hardening, muscles rising and lines deepening. She watched him like the moon in phases.

"You don't get it, do you?" he finally said. "You and me – we're pawns. We don't get to decide whether we play or not. We play, or we die."

She felt it – the sobs invading her body, like a spinning punch from the inside of her chest, over and over again. She took deep breaths, trying to hold them back. But she could feel it, covering them like an elusive dark cloud – defeat. Hopelessness. And she was fighting with all she had but she could feel herself getting tired and wondering if there was any point to it, any point to it at all.

"We die anyway," she told him, her mouth filled with bile.

She shut her eyes for a moment and leaned against the pillar to steady herself, to keep herself from crumbling the way she knew she would, messy and uninhibited and against all of the vows she had made to herself, but when she opened her eyes again he was in front of her and grabbing her, softly but firmly, his lips grazing the burning trail of her tears. And she fell apart in his arms without questioning it because for once he was here and he was real and he wasn't telling her that everything meant nothing and that she was wrong. And she sobbed into his shoulder, wishing she could form words, like that she missed him and some days felt that she would give up everything just to get him back. And that she was sorry, she was so fucking sorry, and she was hurting too but that she didn't blame him completely for it, no, for that she blamed the world, too.

He murmured something into the cusp of her ear, his own voice salty and trembling, but before she could draw back and ask him what he said, she felt something cold against her temple where his lips had just been.

And his voice was so sad and in his throat. It sounded like yesterday and today and a million years from now. It sounded like a thousand nights spent alone.

"Obliviate."

ooo

It was ten seconds to the New Year, and Hermione Blackwell was sneaking out of her own manor with a wine bottle in one hand.

She could hear the chants of the people, happy and alive and hopelessly drunk out of their minds, as they counted down and she sat herself down by her family's lake, popping open the bottle and cursing under her breath. She heard the crescendo of the shouts and watched the whizzing fireworks burst above their property on cue, forming shapes and fizzing away into spurts of glitter that illuminated the dark, bitter night.

She took one generous gulp of wine before leaning her head back against the tree, watching the voluptuous moon above the lake, whispering to it a happy new year. As her lips puckered against the bottle, tossing her head back for another drink, she tried not to think of what else her lips had touched earlier this evening. She tried even harder not to notice the way the tiny hairs on her arms stood straight at the thought of it, like little soldiers, barking for her attention.

"That prat," she muttered to herself, along with a few other words she'd heard others refer to him with casual regularity. She sighed and then tucked the bottle against her, thinking of how she had almost told him. Her secret that turned her insides black and boiling and dirty. She tried to imagine, for the hundredth time, how he would have reacted to her words. In her mind she had always tried to go against her instinct and make this imaginary version of him stay – and to embody all of the things she knew he would not. But even though she wished for this Draco – the Draco that would stick by her despite her blood – he was almost like a stranger, warped and unreal. As if she had taken his face and his body and hollowed him out – the bad attitude, the smirking, the inner turmoil – and she couldn't see herself being happy with it. She had grown too attached him too well to be happy with the comforting lie.

It occurred to her, sitting by the lake, that this was her first New Year's she had greeted alone. She told herself to accept this. Someday everybody was going to find out about her, and this would be the new normal she would have to face.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, taking another swig.

She didn't know how long she was out there, trying to pick through her thoughts and feelings of sadness and anger, trying to drink it all away as if her world were to end tomorrow. But in the middle of it all, she heard faint movement behind her, just barely eclipsed by the echo of the music. And she didn't have to look up to know it was him.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I should have never kissed you. Not for those reasons. You're right. We're better than that."

She should have felt relieved by this. Draco Malfoy hardly ever owned up to anything. Apologies were simply not in his blood. The Malfoys had made a career out of making other people apologize to them, not the other way around. But all she could feel was this sickening pang in her stomach that slithered all the way up to her chest and sat there, making it hard for her to breathe.

She kept her eyes hard at the lake. "I just don't want anything to change," she said, her voice so low and soft she thought he might not have heard. She wondered if he heard the heaviness behind it, the ugliness waiting to spill out.

"They won't," he replied. There was something in his voice, an artery of sadness that cut through the pulsing reassurance, that made her look up. He sat down next to her, the contact of his body pleasantly warm and making her shiver. "Happy New Year," he said to her.

"Happy New Year," she said back, trying a smile. She handed him the bottle and he took it, silently, taking a drink.

They sat out there until the sky was beginning to lighten, calling back the stars, and the music died down. The entire night she had thought of reaching for his hand, needing some kind of tangible reassurance, because she had an indescribable, dark feeling about this year. Like things were going to rupture open and fall fantastically apart.

But she never did because she was just so, so afraid.

ooo

The next morning, Hermione woke up with sore, aching eyes. She rubbed them and winced, groggily getting out of bed. She noticed an owl on her desk – one from last night. Draco writing to her to let her know he wouldn't be making it to their patrol. She couldn't even be that upset about it – after the terror he'd been, she was relieved he hadn't shown up. For once, she'd had a peaceful patrol not being used as somebody's verbal punching bag. It was perhaps one of the most peaceful nights she'd had since she'd been appointed Head Girl. She had returned from her solitary patrol and then had fallen asleep reading.

She tossed the letter into the trash and then went on to start her day.


Please review! Even if it's to tell me you hate me and will never read any of my work again because I'm a sadist and a terrible person because I torture my readers that I claim to love so much, etc.