The next morning followed the same pattern, Lucius firing question after question at Hermione and Hermione with her non-answers being hit with a crucio from Draco. Two hours had passed when Lucius stormed from the room with his usual flare. Hermione lay, crumpled on the rug, clutching her ribs.
Draco called for Trissa, the small creature appearing with a crack.
He pointed with his chin as he moved to shelf lined walls, "Take her back to her room."
A loud crack signaled their departure. Draco spent the next hour fighting through his emotions as he searched the library. They sucked at him like a riptide, Draco twice found himself curled in a ball, tears streaming down his face, unsure of how he had gotten there. Finally, he found it, her favorite book. Anyone with two eyes and six years of forced interactions would know that it was her favorite, Hogwarts, a history. With a quick resizing spell Draco dropped it into his pocket.
Draco hurried from the library, Mother expected him to be washed and dressed for company. Despite housing Voldemort and his death eaters, his mother refused to be reclusive. She would often host families of other death eaters, their wives and children invited for a night of small talk and finger foods.
Draco fingered the small book in his pocket, intrusive thoughts of Granger sneaking in throughout the evening. The story of her missing friend, her adamant statement that the abuse, the overwhelming sense of relief he could feel by stepping into her room. He froze, unaware that the smirk on his face as he listened to Pansy's story had taken on a brittle edge. The hand on his arm drew him back into the conversation.
The guests his mother had invited finally trickled from Manor, and Draco headed to bed. Stripping from his clothes, he heard a soft clunk. Digging out the small book Draco tossed it on the bed. Donning a thin robe over his night clothes Draco ascended to the fourth floor. A light touch on the door opened it inwards, a pale shimmer of moonlight illuminating the space. A sniffing sound helped Draco locate Hermione in the darkness.
He found her sprawled across the sagging bed, elbow thrown over her eyes.
"Granger?"
She made a sound deep in her throat, "Can we not do this right now Malfoy?"
"Do what Granger?" He replied quietly, slowly stepping closer.
"This back and forth where I invariably end up depressed and you slam the door on the way out," her breath hitched once before she forced it back into a normal pattern.
"Does it always have to be like that?" Draco's heart jumped to his throat.
She didn't reply, only sniffed once, never removing the arm from her eyes.
Draco mouthed the reverse spell on the book he had taken from the library. With no space on the bed beside her he placed the book across her stomach.
The darkness emboldened him, comforted him. "Malfoy's never apologize," a touch of emotion tightening his fingers, "but I think they have been known to show an odd act of kindness once a generation."
Three quick steps brought him to the door. He pulled it closed quietly behind him.
They say that it takes seven days to create a habit. Mornings began to follow a pattern; torture session with his father in the library followed by a bout of wild emotions and self-accusations. dinner snatched from the kitchen dogging everyone he could. He had not visited Granger since delivering his non-apology. Day eight since her death to the world Draco found himself slipping inside the small room, well into the night. Insomnia had sent him to her, questions that demanded answers could not wait any longer.
Granger stood at the window, Draco let his eyes drift over her, coated in dirt and grime she looked more like a goblin than the girl he knew. He knocked on the wall to his right, suddenly sheepish.
"I had a few questions for you, if you are up for it," he rubbed the back of his neck while he awaited a reply.
She didn't speak, only turning and sitting beneath the window. Draco swallowed, better than he expected.
He sat down a step closer to her than he had been before. No sounds came from her beyond those of her settling into her position.
The silence stretched between them as he crafted his questions.
"Why...were you crying..." He paused, gathering his words, "the last time I visited?"
Almost glad he couldn't see her expressions he waited for an answer.
"It was my mother's birthday."
Hermione studied Malfoy, Draco, who sat before her. She had started to call him Draco in her head since she now associated with Lucius on a daily basis. Gaunt cheeks and fading bruises did not flatter him. The dark robe he wore accented the paleness of his complexion.
He looked sharply to the darkness beneath the window where she sat. Shock passed over his features.
She could see him forming another question.
"Is that why you were crying?" He looked down, fingers trailing over a knot in the floorboard.
"One of the reasons."
Without looking up he questioned her again, "What happened to them?"
Hermione took a deep breath, sighing it out through her nose. She told him, how she had charmed herself from their memories, setting up their lives in muggle Australia. She told him that for years she had kept it to herself, staying with the Weasleys during the summers until the war began. How she planned to retrieve them once the light won the war.
"Do you really think they are going to win?" Draco's voice echoed with an unfathomable ache.
"I have to believe that they will win, it's all I have left. Well, that, and a book," Hermione could hear the smile in her own voice.
The hint of shifting muscles on Draco's face made her glad she had said it.
They sat in darkness and silence long enough that Hermione had begun to doze against the wall when Draco spoke again.
"Do you think I am evil?"
Hermione jerked awake, mind scrambling to hold onto the question before sleep dragged it away.
"I don't think you are evil," she spoke slowly, laying each word carefully. "I think, you have never had a chance to become anything but what you are right now."
"A death eater, you mean?" Draco laughed dryly.
"No, I mean a prisoner whose cage is an abusive father," she shot back.
Draco did not speak for a long time.
"Thank you for answering my questions."
He stood, leaving the room as quietly as he had come.