Disclaimer: the world is JK Rowling's the story is mine.

1997 – March 24

Hermione blinked open her eyes. Her entire body ached terribly and she was still rather shaky and weak. Looking around, she recognized the room instantly and it left her with a warm sense of relief.

She was at the Burrow.

Hermione didn't remember much after the horrors of what they made Draco do. She recalled how he had finally fought off the curse, but next, she remembered his arms coming around her. He had kissed her cheek and told her they would be together. Everything was pretty in and out at that point, but the moment she was held in his arms, hearing the words he thought may be his last, she would never forget.

"Hermione." It was Harry's voice. Slowly, she turned her head to see him, wincing even at the slight movement. He had bruises and partially healed cuts covering his face and his arm was in a sling, but overall, he seemed alright.

"Harry," she croaked.

"We thought you were dead," he told her, his eyes slightly watery with unshed tears.

"I know and I'm so sorry," she replied.

Harry took a deep breath. "It's alright. It wasn't your fault," he told her.

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she had let this happen, but she realized something much more pressing.

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked. He must have been at the battle, as she couldn't see him let Harry go on his own. He should be there with Harry now. It scared Hermione that he wasn't.

"He'll be alright," Harry started. "He was hit with Dolohov's curse. It wasn't good and we barely got him out in time, but he's stubborn, he'll recover," he assured her, and took her hand in his. "I can't believe I'm really seeing you again. I went a bit crazy there. I thought I lost one of my best friends. And Malfoy, well, I was sure he was the one who did it. Ron was too. Especially when he stopped coming to classes and it came out that he wasn't even at the school. I wasn't sure what to think when I got that owl from him."

"He sent you that message? I thought he sent it to Dumbledore."

"Reading from him that you were actually alive and in trouble…" Harry shook his head. "Thought for sure it was a trap. But I had to help, in the slim chance that he was telling the truth. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do, waiting to leave, sending word to the Order. I wanted to drop everything and go, so did Ron, but then I thought about what you would say, that I was being reckless and needed to get help. But boy, was I tempted just to leave."

"What happened at the Manor? How did you get in? How did you escape?" Hermione questioned.

"Dobby got us in. Apparently Malfoy house elves can apparate and disapparate from there even if we can't." He looked at her, giving her hand a squeeze. "It's over. It's all over Hermione."

She didn't understand. The last she heard, they had no idea how to defeat Voldemort. What did Harry mean it was over?

"Harry, what are you saying?" she asked.

"He's dead. Voldemort's gone."

"But how?"

"When we thought you had been killed and Malfoy stopped coming to school, the only thing we could do was to focus on ending this. I poured everything I had into finding out how. I know Dumbledore did too. I got the memory from Slughorn and found out it was so much worse than we had thought. Voldemort had made horcruxes, split his soul and put it into significant objects," Harry explained. "We spent practically every waking hour hunting them down, finding ways to destroy them."

He paused, shaking his head. "I died, Hermione. He killed me, and I came back."

"What? I don't understand."

"The connection I had with him, the fact that I could speak Parseltongue; I was the last horcrux, the one he never meant to create. When he killed me, it only killed the part of himself that lived inside me. Now, it's all over. We won," Harry finished, a slight smile on his face. "I know it's a lot to take in right now. . . maybe I should have waited – "

"No, Harry. Thank-you for telling me. Yes, it is sort of insane, and I'm not quite sure I am understanding everything correctly, but, you did it," she told him, giving him a small smile.

"Lucius is headed back to prison, Dolohov was captured, Bellatrix escaped though." Hermione shuddered at the mention of Draco's aunt. How the two were related, she would never quite know. "Oh, I almost forgot." He placed something beside her and she strained to see what it was.

"My wand, you found it," she said, grinning. Harry nodded.

"I still don't quite know why Malfoy would do something like this. He hurt so many people," he whispered, more to himself than to her.

Of course they would blame Draco for all this. They always did.

"None of this was his fault," she insisted.

Then it struck her that Harry hadn't told her what had happened to Draco.

"Where is he? Where's Draco?" she asked, starting to panic. He wasn't killed, was he? He couldn't have been. She would have known somehow, wouldn't she? Had they already sent him away? Was he on his way to Azkaban? They wouldn't do that would they?

Harry seemed confused. "Why do you care? He's the one who kidnapped you, who kept you hidden somewhere, made everyone think you were dead and ended up getting you tortured, nearly killed! And why did you call him Draco? He's Malfoy, he's always been Malfoy."

"No, Harry, you're wrong about everything. Draco isn't the monster you think he is. He didn't follow through on his orders. Please, where is he?"

He sighed. "He's here, locked in Percy's room," he told her.

"I want to see him. Please. He shouldn't be locked up. He shouldn't be treated like a criminal."

"But he is Hermione! He is a criminal! He's a Death Eater, like I've been telling you from the beginning of the school year!"

"You're wrong! Yes, he is marked, but that does not make him a Death Eater. He didn't choose this!" she insisted.

"I don't understand what's gotten into you. Malfoy is a Death Eater, just like his father. They both followed Voldemort, took orders from him, killed people. You're kidding yourself if you think any differently! He has always held his family's messed up views!"

"Please, believe me. He isn't the same cruel boy he used to be. He isn't the person you knew!" Hermione felt her heart rate rising her body tensing, and suddenly, the pain was back, her muscles shaking and cramping. She cried out in agony as the after effect of the curse shook her.

"Hermione!" Harry said, alarmed.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, waiting for the wave of pain to fade.

"I'm alright. Just, please, bring Draco here. I need to see him."

Hermione hated to see the confusion, alarm, and hurt on his face. He nodded and turned to leave.

"I missed you," she told him as he reached the door.

"We missed you as well. You have no idea how much," he replied.

The past day and a half had been horrible psychologically. He was trapped, imprisoned. But it hadn't been anything like he expected physically. He had been treated better than he could have ever dreamed, being a Death Eater, and practically better than his own parents had acted towards him growing up.

He shouldn't have been surprised about the Weasleys, but he was taught to hate them. Even though they accused him of being evil, of being the enemy, Mrs. Weasley treated him like a person. The others just seemed loyal to Hermione and unsure about him, but somehow, they defied everything he had been told about them.

Even though he was locked in a room, it was not a dungeon or some prison cell, but a bedroom, tiny, yet somewhat comfortable. He hadn't been treated as a prisoner should be either. Though closely watched, he had been allowed to wash himself up, been given clean clothes and fed. It seemed as if Mrs. Weasley could see right through him and saw, not a Death Eater, but a lost teenage boy, at least that was what she had told him. Draco wasn't quite sure.

He wondered whether Hermione had woken up yet and if she was alright. As much as it hurt Draco to think, she shouldn't want to see him now. She was surrounded by people she loved and who cared about her, and he was one of the people who had tortured her. He had been under the imperious curse, but that didn't mean he was any less responsible, did it? He should have fought harder. He shouldn't have let himself be forced to hurt her.

The door creaked open and there, Potter stood, arm in a sling, looking completely off put.

"Malfoy," he greeted coldly. "I have no idea why, but Hermione wants to see you."

Draco stayed where he was, silent. She shouldn't. He couldn't go to her now, could he? How could he face her after what he did?

"As much as I hate it, you have to come with me and I'll take you to her," Potter said distastefully.

Another moment of silence went by between them before Draco spoke. "I can't," he said quietly.

"Why not? You realize that now you can't do any more of, whatever you were doing to her, so now you don't want to?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about Potter," Draco sneered.

"Oh, don't I? You kidnapped her, made everyone think she was dead so no one would look for her, she ends up at the manor being tortured and now for some reason she wants to see you? I know you did something to her."

He had done something to her; something terrible. He had tortured her at his aunt's will.

"Bellatrix, what happened to her?" he asked.

"You were working with her weren't you?"

"Not even close," Well, not by my own desire. "I want to know if she's dead or not."

"She escaped," Potter told him.

"Damn it!" Draco yelled, punching the bed beside him. If she escaped, that must mean that the Dark Lord escaped as well. How Potter had gotten away himself, Draco wasn't quite sure.

The sudden act of anger seemed to confuse Potter. "My aunt is insane!" Draco explained. "She's one of the Dark Lord's most trusted, and most ruthless followers. She'll come back and make sure the job is finished. They can't keep us alive now. I know too much about the inner circle, about the Dark Lord and they can't keep Hermione alive either because they think she might know too much now as well."

Potter opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to decide against it.

"What's really going on here Malfoy?" He asked after a moment of silence.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," Draco said.

Potter sighed in frustration. "This is taking too long, she's going to start to panic again."

"What are you talking about?" Draco asked.

"When she panics she gets after shocks," Potter informed him. "She wants to see you and I don't want to cause her any more pain. That's the only reason I'm here."

"She shouldn't want to see me," Draco groaned. "I hurt her Potter. I couldn't fight it."

"Couldn't fight what?"

"They put me under imperious and my aunt ordered me to torture her and I couldn't resist! I tortured her! She shouldn't want to see me," he explained.

"They got you to do all that to her? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They put you under imperious?"

"Not all of it. Not even close. Only at the very end. Made me listen helplessly to her screaming though."

Those words seemed to get to him because he stormed out, leaving Draco locked in the bedroom again. He didn't want Hermione to panic and be in more pain, but how could he go in there when he was responsible for even some of what she was facing, him being the reason she was in the situation in the first place?

He should be happy. At least now Draco knew that she was awake and that her mind was intact.

He wondered where Potter went. He had obviously only tried to talk to him because of Hermione.

Draco chuckled ruefully to himself. He always managed to piss Potter off, no matter what he said. He remembered the moment when Hermione had told him the two of them could have been friends. No chance of that! The boy was angered by his mere presence! Granted, he had just described Potter's best friend's torture . . .

Draco hung his head in his hands.

A few minutes later, the door opened and the man Draco recognized as Lupin, who had taught at Hogwarts for a year, stepped inside, coming to sit down on the bed beside him.

"Draco, I understand you've been through a lot in the past little while. I was told you were forced to do some things," he started.

Was that where Potter had gone? He had told Lupin? This surprised him.

"I couldn't fight it. I should have been able to fight it," Draco said, face twisting with despair.

"Even some of the strongest wizards cannot fight that curse," the former professor informed him.

"Potter could. If he could, why couldn't I?"

"Fighting that curse takes a lot of strength and will. Harry is strong, stronger than I think even he realizes. You were cursed with a very powerful imperious that I'm sure would be difficult to fight for anyone. The way the curse works inhibits that part of you that holds motivation, drive, a sense of purpose, of your own identity. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

How could he even say that? There was no excuse for hurting Hermione like that. Draco couldn't understand why he was defending him, a Death Eater.

"Why are you even talking to me? I'm the enemy."

"I don't believe you are. The way I saw you cover Hermione at the start of the battle, I think there is a lot of the story that the boys may be overlooking."

"They made me torture her and I couldn't stop myself. Not until they told me to kill her."

"So you did regain control. Don't take that lightly. You did fight it in the end. Hermione is strong, she'll recover. You saved her life by fighting the order to kill her."

"She wants to see me, but how can I face her?"

"Hermione knows it wasn't you. That's why she still wants to see you. Don't keep the girl waiting any longer." Lupin told him.

Draco looked at the man curiously. He didn't think he was evil? He didn't think Draco held the same beliefs his family did? He knew Lupin must care about Hermione, all these people did, so why did he feel comfortable letting Draco anywhere near her?

"You won't hurt hurt her again and she knows that as well. Go to her," the older wizard said, giving Draco a pat on the shoulder.

Was he crazy? Draco looked at him, finding only genuine concern in his eyes. Concern for him and for Hermione.

Draco took a deep breath. "Alright," he said finally.

Author's Note:

So, not really sure what I think of this chapter. It isn't one of the best ones I've written, sorry about that. I also know I may have rushed a few things, but I feel like it may be realistic with nothing for Harry to focus on except finding the answers and with Dumbledore still alive. Let me know what you think!

This story is winding down, the main climax is over, but there's still a few things to tie up; Ron, a trial and maybe one more chapter after that.

Thanks to SereniteRose for the review, you are awesome!

Thanks for reading!