A/N: Yeah, I know, it's been a while. I had writer's block, lost the inspiration for the story, got super busy with college apps and everything. I still am really busy, actually, so I can't promise any regularity with updates. I'll try. I'm sorry for the…what was it, a two month delay? Three? Anyway. I won't abandon it, but again, updates will be pretty sporadic.

Draco's POV
I've never been good around screaming people. This will probably be a hindrance when I begin to actually work as a Healer. I'm not sure what it is about the sound of screaming, maybe that it's so visceral and overwhelmingly human that it seems to shock you to your core, the vicarious agony infecting you until everything aches in tandem with the screaming person. During the war I would almost revel in it, this small bit of evidence that I was a human being, that I could feel empathy.

When Hermione starts having nightmares, her screams rouse me from my sleep and tug on the faded fibres of my humanity, begging me to come to her aid, to make myself useful for once. She must know this; even when the nightmares become nearly-daily occurrences, she never once casts a Silencing Charm over her room. She must know what it does to me, must do it just to fucking spite me. The more I think about what I did to deserve it, the more I realise I can't blame her.

It's not that I hate her. I'm past that, really, the immature, indoctrinated blind hatred, my idiotic eyes following Mother and Father's fingers as they pointed to all the types that were supposedly beneath me. In our formative years, I truly despised her, not because of her, but because of what she is. But when shit hit the fan in our sixth year, once it was too late, I realised everything I had fucked up beyond repair. And now, like a true Malfoy, I'm too fucking proud to fix it.

On the morning after the fifth night of a nightmare streak, she shuffles straight into me in the hallway. Given the narrowness of the Manor's corridors, it's hardly my fault that I was unable to dodge her. I end up slopping my coffee down the front of my robes. It's alright, Hermione, I can take care of it. Try to get some sleep. "Watch where you're going, Mudblood, these were expensive." My voice lacks its usual acidity and I wonder if she notices how hard it's becoming for me to keep putting up the pretense of contempt. She doesn't say anything, doesn't even meet my eyes, just keeps walking down the hallway toward the kitchen, greeting the portrait of Armand Malfoy, who, as Father told me, was the first Malfoy in Britain. In fact, this Manor has been the Malfoy home since he got the land around 1066.

I watch her until she's out of sight, slack-jawed at the fact that my long-deceased ancestors can swallow their pride and at least greet her with cordial formality and I fucking can't no matter how hard I try.

When I get home from St. Mungo's, Hermione is gone. She doesn't leave notes when she goes. I guess she doesn't see the point. On my bed, the robes I had to change out of are clean and folded neatly. I smell the faint scent of laundry detergent, something I've only ever smelled on the Muggle clothes some Muggleborns wear. They're softer than clothes usually are after Cleaning Charms, too, the work of Muggle dryers; I've been told they do that. It occurs to me that she washed them without magic. She must have known what it would do to me. That this small kindness would make me hate myself just a little bit more.

Hermione's POV

When I reach the kitchen, I can hear his footsteps going the opposite direction. I didn't apologise for the mess I caused; it's not a big deal anyway. I make myself tea the Muggle way, finding comfort in the old rituals, the ways I used to do things at home with Mum and Dad. He's due at St. Mungo's in a few minutes, won't have time to fuss with cleaning spells unless he's particularly proficient at them, which I know he's not. He'll probably just change and Apparate out and, because I don't have work today, leave me the whole Manor to myself.

I hear the crack of Apparation and the house seems impossibly empty. Chatter from the countless portraits condenses into a low rumble of soft noise like the whisper of a constant breeze sweeping through every room, the words of hundreds of people settling over me like a blanket that serves no purpose in shaking away the cold and the emptiness.

I don't want to hate him. Hate is what caused this whole mess in the first place. I'm sick of hating him. It's tiring and time-consuming, and I don't have any more hatred left in my body for anybody. I'm past it. I don't know if forgiveness would make me feel any better, any cleaner on the inside, but at least it would be one less thing to worry about, one less burden to bear.

I wander the corridors, memorising silver placards of Malfoys, Blacks, Zabinis. Most of the families from the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the twenty-eight British Wizarding families that were still pureblooded by the 1930's. And because all purebloods are at least distantly related, at least a handful of people from each bloodline have found their way into a portrait frame somewhere in the Manor, in one of the rooms, hallways, behind one of the numerous mysterious doors that I've been instructed to "keep my grubby paws off of." He seems to be meaning these prejudiced sentiments less and less, seems to despise me more out of familial obligation now. It must be the Amortentia. Even if it isn't, I'm not going to be the one to instigate the forgiveness, not when I'm the one who has all the forgiving to do and none of the apologising to owe.

Draco's bedroom is spacious and exquisite, with Slytherin green paint and long, winding silver snakes with emerald eyes coiling their lithe bodies up the walls, their cylindrical shapes in constant motion yet going nowhere, serving only as decoration at the four points where one wall meets another. Floating candles, all currently unlit but each carrying the faint scent of vanilla. Slytherin House pendants, ceiling bewitched to show the sky outside. It's overcast and grey, gloomy with the promise of rain storms later. The floor is some kind of dark wood, the paper-covered desk and chest of drawers and nightstand all mahogany. The bed is, to my great surprise, made, but probably by magic. Green bedspread, black sheets, four poster, all obscured by silvery curtains. It's luxurious, actually, enviably so. Stacks of well-worn books decorate the available surfaces, predominantly medical texts. In a heap on the chest of drawers, I spot the grey robes from earlier, with a deep brown stain left from his black coffee.

I could just get the stain out with magic; it would take me ten seconds, if that. But that seems lazy, overly simplified and perfunctory. I gather the robes and Apparate away.

The air in my parents' house is stagnant and chilly and musty with settled dust. After being in the Wizarding world for so long, I'm surprised by the frozen faces in the photographs. Everything is still and silent, no whispering portraits to break the quiet. Every family photo still lacks my face, but the sorrow I feel at the absence of my parents has gradually settled to the back of my mind. I will go back for them, but now isn't the time, not with everything else that's going on. Part of me wants to walk through the house again, look at every photograph and captured memory, but the more reasonable part of me knows I can't do that to myself.

I slip into the garage to use the washing machine and dryer. The creaking doorhinges only remind me of the wrenching emptiness. I sit quietly, thinking of nothing in particular as I run Draco's robes with detergent and bleach, then toss them in the dryer. The whole process only takes a few minutes. I feel like a housewife, some patriarchal stereotype. On my way out of the house, I take a picture of my parents off the fireplace mantle.

Three days later, I return from the MoM to find a bottle of Dreamless Sleep Potion resting on my nightstand, next to the photograph of my parents I took from my house.

A/N: Armand Malfoy was an actual Malfoy. You can wiki it.
Again, I'm so sorry about how ridiculously, absurdly long I went without updating. Reviews and con crit are greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys.