A/N Yes, I took forever. Please forgive me? If anyone's still reading?

And now, here be the next chapter. I'll warn you guys again: the next update might take a while. But hopefully not as long as this one took. Because there were literally months between updates.

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They were in her office, the newer one, in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Piles of papers covered the desk and the low table in the room; the waste bin was overflowing. A green top hat with a spinning four-leaf clover hummed to itself from atop a stack of books. Hermione was showing out a foreign wizard – French, by the looks and the accent – smiling and saying she'd be in touch about the upcoming meeting regarding the Quidditch World Cup.

She was still smiling as she closed the door, and as she made her way back to her desk to comb through some paperwork that needed to be done. She was still smiling even as an envelope fell into her drop slot, forwarded over by the Ministry Post Officials. She reached over and took it out, her expression mildly curious. Harry and Draco leaned over her desk to see what she'd received. The envelope was plain enough, her name scrawled out in ink. She opened it, drew out a photograph–

–and abruptly threw her chair backward as she scrambled away, her hands pressed to her mouth in an attempt to stifle her scream.

Draco himself had recoiled in horror, and Harry had gone from pale to a sickly shade of green. The photograph fluttered down to her desktop, lying innocuously amongst papers and quills. Staring at it, Draco felt the bile rise in his throat. Across from them, Hermione was pressed up against her office wall, shaking.

Both Draco and Harry remembered that moment – and Draco had even played witness – but neither of them could explain how there came to be a photograph – a moving, magical photograph – of Bellatrix raising her wand, training it on a screaming, scarred, thrashing Hermione, in that room in Malfoy Manor, every syllable of the Cruciatus Curse readable in the cruel curve of her lips.

The scene shifted, abruptly. Draco struggled to suppress the urge to retch. Harry was frozen in place, shaking.

They were in Draco's apartment. Twilight was setting in, the dying light filtering through the curtains. Draco watched his memory form read a book as Hermione, wearing only her underwear and one of Draco's older button-downs, idly traced meaningless patterns on his bare chest. Harry's embarrassed blush half-lightened the atmosphere, but Draco remembered this scene all too well to truly laugh.

"Draco?" Hermione spoke at length, the timidity of her voice filling both Dracos, and Harry, with unease. She propped herself up on one elbow, the other pausing its ministrations.

Memory Draco closed his book immediately, turning to his wife, one arm going around her shoulders. "Yes?"

Silence followed, the expectant kind, as Memory Draco eyed his wife curiously, and Hermione brought her free hand to her mouth, nervously chewing on a fingernail. "You – in our wedding vows, you swore to protect me always, yes?"

"Of course." Memory Draco frowned, drawing her hand from her mouth. "With my life."

"And I, you," she went on, withdrawing her hand and cupping his cheek.

"Though I hardly deem it necessary," Memory Draco replied with a smile. "Is something wrong?"

"No – nothing." Hermione let her hand drop and offered Memory Draco a smile, which he returned, drawing her down for a kiss. Their lips locked for a few moments before Hermione pulled back and settled contentedly in his embrace. The room darkened, some soft lights magically turned on, and within a few minutes Memory Draco was snoring softly, one arm draped loosely around Hermione. She sat up, gently dislodging his arm so as not to wake him. The happiness that had just been in her eyes had dissipated, replaced by fear and something akin to determination. One shoulder of the button-down had slipped, and there – if one knew what to look for – was a small scar, one of the few remnants of her torture.

"Could you protect me from this?"

The scene changed again.

Hermione in the early hours of the morning, her cheek pressed against the toilet seat, breathing heavy. Dawn peeked through the bathroom window. The nauseating scent of vomit clouded the room. She closed her eyes, breathed through her mouth, and then-

"Oh god," followed by the sound of retching. A soft knock on the closed door.

"Hermione?"

More retching. Harry had his eyes closed, hands clamped over his ears. Draco could see the sickened expression on his face in the mirror over the sink. A few steps away, the bathroom door opened, and Memory Draco stepped in.

"Hermione, what-?" He stopped at the sight of his wife, kneeling on the floor, bowed over the toilet. "What's wrong?"

"Draco-" Cut off by another round of vomit, cheeks splotchy and back heaving.

And again.

"Where do you want to have lunch, Hermione?" Harry's voice startled them both; he hadn't appeared in the memories until now. They were in Muggle London, a district with many restaurants. Hermione's cheeks were happy pink as she leaned against a street lamp, looking around her.

"I-" She blinked and frowned. "I have the strangest craving for a burger."

And again.

Another street in Muggle London. Hermione wove through the afternoon crowd, a scarf wound around her neck and the lower half of her face, a hat obscuring most of her hair. She had her coat pulled tight around her. She stopped a few times to look over her shoulder or at her surroundings in general. Finally, she paused outside a large building near the river. Hesitating, and with another glance over her shoulder, she ascended the steps into the London Bridge Hospital.

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Draco stumbled as his feet hit the floor of Harry's office; beside him, Harry was blinking dazedly. This new series of memories had been just as confusing as the last one, except this time they made much less sense and gave them no new information. And Draco could not stifle the guilt he felt at the memory of her, tangled up in their sheets, his button-down hanging loose on her slender frame, the hands holding it closed clenched 'til her knuckles stood white on white. Asking him to do as he had vowed at their wedding –asking him to do what he had ultimately failed to do.

Could you protect me from this?

"What the bloody hell was any of that about?" Harry gave voice to both of their thoughts as he plopped into his desk chair, his tone one of utter confusion. His skinny arms dangled over the armrests, his body slumped.

"Search me," Draco replied, one finger tracing the rim of the Pensieve. Those last three memories had been the most baffling. He remembered waking up at daybreak to find her warm presence gone, replaced by the sound of someone throwing up in the toilet. That visit to a hospital, however, he knew nothing of. Why had she gone to a Muggle hospital? Why had she been so wary?

"Goddamnit, Hermione," he whispered, hands clenched in fists on either side of the shimmering bowl. "What were you hiding?"

Harry stirred at the sound of Draco's voice. "Did she ever tell you about the hospital? Was she sick?"

"No."

"Didn't you ask? I mean, didn't you want-?"

"I said no, Potter!" Even Draco had to flinch at the venom in his voice. He hadn't meant for it to come out so sharp. "She never told me," he went on, softer, regretful. "She never told me any of this!"

"Draco-"

"Why didn't she, Harry?" Draco looked up at Harry's pained expression. "Why did she never tell me? Why didn't she tell me she was hurting, that she was haunted, that all this crap was going on in her life? I'm her husband, damnit – didn't she trust me?" He was ranting now, and he knew it. He wasn't directing this at Harry anymore. He wasn't asking Harry all these questions. He was letting this out, not at the pained man in front of him, but at the woman lying alone in the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo's.

"I don't know why she didn't, Draco, but that's what we're trying to find out." Harry had stepped closer, dropping his voice to a more soothing tone, trying to calm Draco down. "We'll work this out."

"I promised her, Harry." And Draco was on his knees now, forehead pressed against the wood of Harry's desk. "I promised I would protect her all her life, with all of mine." Heavy heart, heavy thoughts. "I promised."

For a moment they were silent, Harry standing at his desk, green eyes fixed on white blonde hair as Draco knelt on his carpet. There was so much that could have been said, but in the end Harry simply looked away from his grieving friend and said, "I'll have someone check out that hospital, or do it myself if I have the time. Check her diary, see if she wrote anything about it there. I'll call on you tomorrow when I get off."

Draco nodded from where he was, a little reluctant to get up, but incredibly grateful for what Harry had said. Words of comfort would have been meaningless and would have assuaged nothing; at least this way, he had something definite to do. He could not keep breaking down like this.

He got up, nodded at Harry, and left the room, making his way down to the Ministry lobby. Standing in front of a vacant fireplace, he stared at the flames, unsure of where to go. Going home meant facing an empty apartment and her diary; going to St. Mungo's meant enjoying the company of a lucid Hermione, or withdrawing from a deranged one. And going to the pub meant inciting Harry's wrath the minute he found out Draco had let alcohol touch his lips. He remained standing there, feeling rather lost, until someone hesitantly tapped his shoulder.

Expecting Harry, Draco lazily looked over his shoulder, ready to cock an eyebrow at whatever his friend had to say now. Any playful arrogance on his part, however, disintegrated when he was greeted not by glass-covered green eyes, but nervous, slanted brown ones.

"Draco?"

Said boy could not help but back away a step at the sight of his former friend and Housemate. Of all the people he'd expected to be greeting him like this at the Ministry, it was not Blaise Zabini. And yet here he was, hand still raised, shoulders tense.

"Blaise," he managed to get out, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. "Did you want something?"

"N-no, I just…" Blaise trailed off, looking quite unsure of why he'd come up to Draco in the first place. The uncertainty brought a small smile to Draco's lips. He'd have paid good money to see his former friend like this back in the Hogwarts days, to see smooth, cocksure Blaise be so…unconfident. "You looked pretty lost, so I thought I'd just… check," he offered half-heartedly.

Draco tilted his head slightly to the side, studying his former friend. Of all the people who he'd socialized with back in Hogwarts, Blaise was the only one he was still on something resembling speaking terms with. Pansy had all but dropped from his radar, and he didn't even know if Crabbe and Goyle had survived the war. Most of the Slytherins had been granted amnesty because it had been their parents and not them who'd participated in Voldemort's rise, but Draco had distanced himself from them, and they had only been too happy to do the same. After all, Draco was pretty much a traitor to the Dark Lord, a double agent who'd been on Potter's side in the end.

"D'you wanna get something to eat?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and judging by Blaise's expression, he was as shocked as Draco felt. And yet Draco found he was not entirely averse to the idea. Their past was just that: the past.

"I'd…" Blaise looked like he didn't know what to reply. But then a hesitant smile – but a smile nonetheless – broke over his face. "I'd like that."

"My place or yours?" Draco felt his trademark smirk turning up the corners of his lips.

"I don't think you could cook at mine, mate." Blaise chuckled and gestured to the fireplace. Draco laughed and grabbed a handful of Floo powder, tossing it into the flames with a flourish. Suddenly going back to the apartment didn't seem so bad.

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Eight bottles of butterbeer, three plates of penne in basil pesto, and a match of wizard's chess later, Draco was sprawled out on his couch, Blaise lounging in the couch nearby. Draco was still wheezing slightly from his laughing fit over a story Blaise had recounted, about a recent engagement he'd managed to wiggle out of. It was a little hard for either of them to believe that even after all these years, Blaise's parents refused to believe Blaise was batting for a different team.

"So how is she?" came Blaise's quiet voice around a swig of butterbeer, and Draco sobered immediately. He'd been hoping Blaise wouldn't touch on this subject, that his friend's (because that's what they were, really, despite the silence they'd held up to now) presence would distract him from his guilt and his regret and his pain. But Blaise only meant well.

"Her condition hasn't changed," was his curt reply, try as he might to keep his tone moderate.

"Oh." Silence. "How long has it-"

"Two years."

"Ah." Another silence, longer this time. "Have you ever thought-"

"No." Draco raised his head to glower at his friend.

"Did you even know what I was going to ask?" Blaise raised his eyebrows at Draco over the mouth of his bottle.

"Doesn't matter." Draco slumped back on the couch, suddenly irritated at his friend. Why had he thought it was a good idea to invite him over again?

"It's a legitimate question, Draco." Blaise's voice was soft but serious. "Have you ever thought of…you know…letting her g-"

"NO!" Draco shot up from the couch, blood boiling. How dare Blaise – how could he even think of – never, not in his life - ! "I would never, Blaise. She's my wife!"

"And she's in pain," Blaise went on in the same voice, setting his bottle down onto the table. "She's suffering, and it doesn't look like she's going to get better. It's an option-"

"No it isn't." Draco was standing now, his hands clenched at his sides, his body shaking. "How could you even suggest-!"

"Because you're in pain too." Blaise's eyes were lowered now, his hands clasped, elbows on his knees. "Because this is driving you crazy as well."

And Draco stood there, staring at his friend, his one-time enemy, at the person who'd gone through the same things he had as a child. The person whom at one point he would have willingly called his closest -well, not friend, because Slytherins did not have friends. Closest ally. Draco fell back onto the couch and stared into middle distance and did not know what to say, except "I can't."

"I know, my friend." Blaise stood and walked over, taking a seat next to Draco, seeing not the traitor Death Eater or the Muggle-born lover or the arrogant schoolboy, but a man who simply wanted his wife back by his side. "I know."

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A/N So, was this chapter too jumbled? Did too many things happen? Was the Blaise part too weird? Any guesses on what Hermione was hiding? I hope you liked this chapter, especially after the delay. Constructive criticism is always welcome!