45 years ago

Complete and utter pain.

Hermione woke to an odd combination of sensations. Her body was sore, all of her muscles felt beaten and bruised. Her pelvis periodically pulsed with profound pain before thrumming back into a manageable threshold.

The sounds of the room were soft and gentle, nothing like the agony that built and built, layer by layer inside her the longer she was conscious. Her throat was dry, but she somehow felt like her clothes were wet. She couldn't see – it was blurry or too dark, or both; her eyes had been crusted closed and they itched when she forced them open to look around the room.

Where am I? She thought, though she tried to ask it and all that happened was a croak. Someone stirred in the semi-darkness and approached her with a glass in one hand and vials woven through the long fingers of his other.

Her vision was hazy, she only saw blond, and white skin cloaked in black robes. She knew who it was, but it didn't make sense. He helped her sip water so she wasn't choking on air as it dried her throat. He looked tired; dark circles formed purple bags under his sunken, silvery eyes.

A yelp escaped her lubricated throat after she rubbed her eyes clear and his face came into focus. Draco Malfoy. His eyes widened in surprise and he lifted his hands, vials and all, to show he meant no harm. But Hermione's thundering heart betrayed her attempt at calming herself.

If she was a hostage, it did nothing to act aggressively toward him. She needed to be calm and collected about this. She needed a wand. Her eyes hardly focused, but she glanced around quickly and found nothing.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was raw and unused. It hurt to speak – much like it hurt to move.

"I'm healing you?" Malfoy sounded as confused as she felt. He turned to show her his bicep, where a band with a printed Caduceus symbol was wrapped tightly over top of his dark robes. She frowned at it.

"What?" Her brain was still sludge and her thoughts couldn't make sense of it. She recognised the symbol. Her parents were dentists; she knew real-life doctors. She had met Healers at St Mungo's. There was irony in the snake being on his arm, like he was announcing himself as a Slytherin. Untrustworthy.

"Granger?" A small frown showed his concern. Concern she could not understand. It was Malfoy concerned about her, not torturing her, despite it feeling as though she were being tortured. "I'm not going to hurt you." She gave a sharp, short bark of humourless laughter, but Malfoy powered on. "I'm part of the Order. You've been injured. I'm head of the Order's infirmary-"

"Why would we allow you to join us?" Hermione didn't mean it in an offending way. It sounded offensive, and he looked offended, but she simply had no idea how he was capable of lying about something so obviously a lie and not bat an eye at it.

He looked uncomfortable and shifted on his feet. She could tell he had an answer and was about to coax it out of him – demand it, really – but something stirred in the far corner of the room. Hermione's eyes, having finally adjusted, were able to see that she was surrounded by at least seven more beds in a long room without much space for manoeuvring. A sharp pain ripped through her and she thrashed for a second before willing her body to still even as her limbs protested.

Malfoy looked to be holding his breath as he watched her. His limbs were tight, his back rigid, his eyes sharp in the low light and she felt like a fucking lab animal.

"I need you to stay calm." He said slowly as her stomach clenched painfully again. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. "You're having a miscarriage."

Hermione couldn't help it. She laughed, and the laughter caused the pain to increase tenfold, but she was gasping and laughing and groaning all at once. When she surfaced for air, Malfoy looked more concerned than before.

"Granger. I need you to understand, you're going to birth a foetus and it is going to be painful." Malfoy held up the vials hopefully. "I couldn't give you this without the risk of you choking when you were unconscious, but these can help. With the delivery, and the pain."

"Why should I trust you?" Hermione gritted through her teeth as she bent forward, clutching her stomach which was very obviously too small for her to be pregnant. "I don't even know you."

"Fuck it, Granger. I've been here for almost three years." His eyes flashed and Hermione didn't know why she understood that look in his eyes; the look he had when he was calculating something. He lifted his pointed chin. "Poppy, call Weasley."

Poppy?

Madam Pomfrey materialised from the dark, being previously crouched over a bundle on a bed. She shot him a half-annoyed look but she moved, disappearing through a creaky door, shutting it quietly behind her.

"Ron?" Hermione winced again because her breathing quickly became difficult as the tightness in her pelvis grew thicker. More urgent. "Why-"

"He's the father, no? Unless it was Potter?" Malfoy was looking at the door, his expression didn't flicker – like this was common knowledge.

It opened, and standing there, looking older than she ever saw him, was Ron. His hair was longer and half tucked behind his ears, curling under the lobes of his ear into an earring .

"Hermione." He said as he approached them. He seemed skittish, afraid to touch her or to do anything intimate. He had a blue bruise across a cheek and what looked like dried blood on the neck of his t-shirt. "Hey, you're awake."

"Where were you?" She asked instead of ' who are you? ' because he was Ron, just, with more scars and less joy. "I woke up and he, " Hermione jerked her chin at a nonplussed Malfoy, "Was trying to give me potions and he told me I'm having a miscarriage-" She made an effort to bite back the moan that threatened to turn into a scream.

"Yea, you are." Ron's voice was thick with shame. He sounded sad. And angry. She just felt confused. "You need to take the potions, Hermione." He took the vials from Malfoy and held it to her, uncorking them in clumsy movements.

"Will you stay?" She was scared now. Having Ron, even as unrecognisable as he was, tell her that what Mafloy said was true created fear that ripped through her like the pain flooding her body. Ron looked green.

Ron swallowed. And then he lied. "Yes, I'll be here the entire time."

"Weasley," Malfoy addressed Ron like Hermione wasn't there. "She seems to be suffering from memory loss."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione was sweating, shivering, her voice came in a tremble. Ron glanced at Hermione and inhaled deeply.

"Was it the curse?" He asked Malfoy. Again, like Hermione wasn't there. She felt anger bubble up inside her, unquashable by the pain. Malfoy shook his head slightly. "Hard to tell. It could be because-"

"I am right here !" Hermione half screamed, mostly groaned. Ron winced, Malfoy simply blinked at her. "Tell me what's happening to me." She had to fight back the sobbing. She was on the brink of blubbering and she didn't have time or space for it.

After a beat of silence, Ron's mouth opened stupidly. Malfoy watched him, and an expression of disappointment flashed across his features before his eyes softened as he looked at her. "Granger." Ron blinked away to look at Malfoy speak. "Take the potions, let Poppy and I help you. And then we can tell you everything we know, okay?"

Ron nodded at Malfoy, his eyes and attention refusing to come back to Hermione. The pain that rippled through her pelvis felt nothing like the fissure of her heart physically splitting into two.

Why won't he fucking looking look at me?

She yanked the potions from Ron's hand and threw all three different mouthfuls of liquids to the back of her throat. It stung, her eyes watered, she almost gagged. She forced it down anyway. Anything to make whatever was happening feel less like it was.

Malfoy looked mildly concerned but he appeared practised at placating his features. As soon as the warmth settled in her stomach, her sore limbs and the piercing pain she had no idea was so piercing until it finally lessened, turned into a low hum.

Malfoy seemed to glow in the dark now; the light went soft everywhere and Hermione relaxed into the bed. It felt like she was being swallowed by jelly that was warm and soft and coated in cloth. She was vaguely aware of Madame Pomfrey taking Ron's place beside her, then Ron's flaming red hair disappearing out the door.

It was a bloody business. She felt the slick between her thighs and thought it was wrong. It felt wrong. Someone's hands manoeuvred the little being inside her as they extricated him.

Him .

It was a boy. A copper-haired, curly-crowned, too-tiny alien human being. Malfoy swaddled him in blankets and as she sobbed, half drugged and dazed, she inhaled the new smell of him; brand new to the world.

The newest thing she had lost. He was so small, the blanket drowned him in soft clouds. It felt like she was holding nothing.

She fell asleep with her dead child on her chest.

And woke up with no one.