"So why not tell us?" Hermione's voice was sharp with anger. "She's been going slowly crazy for years and if you'd just…"

"What?" Draco snapped at her. "What could I have done to make this right? Go on."

Hermione glared at him. "Told us. She might have not have believed you if you tried to tell her that her parents had wiped her memories; but she would have believed me. She'd have believed the twins…"

Draco shook his head. "Maybe," he said. "It's beside the point."

"Did you think we would refuse to help you? Like getting back at you for stupid things you said in school would be more important to us than Bones? Or did you think we wouldn't believe you? I mean, I know you tried to hide whatever it was between you and Bones at school, but you did an awful job of it. At least a third of the school knew that something was going on."

"I didn't ask for help because I don't need your help. I don't plan on telling Bones what her parents have done. Not for the next three months at least."

Pansy laughed, sharply incredulous. "Three months? Forget that. I'll tell her."

"No."

Draco had pretty much given up on Nott for help, so hearing his flat, cool voice was a relief.

"Malfoy has it under control," said Nott.

"Malfoy has no damn clue what he's doing," snarled Pansy, snatching her scarf off the back of one of the lounge chairs. "I'm going to tell her."

"She's dying." Hermione's voice was as fragile as Draco had ever heard it. "She's working herself to death. When – when we've found the last Death Eaters, we're pretty sure she'll go somewhere and kill herself. You have to tell her. We can't keep her alive, but maybe…"

She broke off, eyes on Draco as though he was an oasis in the desert.

"No," he said. "Don't put this on me like I'm the bloody answer. It's nothing like that."

"It's exactly like that," exclaimed Pansy. "Bones was fine and then she lost you." She snapped her fingers. "You could sort this out like that."

Draco scowled at her. "If I could, don't you think I would?"

"Why come back if you don't think you can save her?" demanded Hermione. "You just want to watch her die?"

Draco recoiled.

"That's enough." Theo's voice didn't get sharp, but he shot Hermione a cold look. "You are not our friend. Don't assume that you can come here and talk to Malfoy that way."

"I'm your friend," said Parkinson. "And you're both insane if you think that I'm going to let you keep this from Bones a moment longer." She turned and headed for the door, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

"Wait." Hermione didn't take her gaze off Draco, eyes narrowed with suspicion. She folded her arms across her chest. "What's the downside to telling her now? What are you afraid of?"

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose, turning away from her to study the fireplace. He was afraid of everything. Too much could go wrong, and he had no idea what he was doing, no matter that Nott thought he did.

"It's not me," he said finally. "If she hadn't been obliviated and I had died in the war…"

Hermione's mouth pulled downward at the corners as she figured out what Draco meant. "You're right," she said. "Bones would have grieved if you'd died fighting, but she would have survived. She wouldn't be the mess she is now. What is it then? What else did she lose?"

"People she trusted cut her mind apart," said Draco. "She may not remember it, but on some level she knows."

"She lost her family, you mean," said Hermione.

"She lost herself," said Draco. "They took away her ability to make her own decisions, they took away part of her mind, and now she's something else and she has no fucking clue why."

Hermione chewed her lower lip, a scowl spreading across her face. "Obliviate cannot be undone," she said. "There's no way to reverse this. We can't…"

"We can tell her what happened," snapped Parkinson. "Are you guys stupid? What else is there to do? Tell her why she's falling apart and maybe she'll catch herself."

Hermione glanced from Draco to Nott. "Objections?" she asked, voice unsure.

"I don't know how she'll react," said Draco. "We'd have to tell her why her family obliviated her…"

"She'll believe that she loved you," said Hermione sharply. "I'll make sure of it. The twins will back me…"

"She'll believe it," agreed Draco. He rubbed the back of his neck with both hands, trying to massage the tension out. "But I don't know how she'll cope with that knowledge. She might…" He broke off, lifting his shoulders and letting them drop. "Just because she loved me once, it doesn't mean that she will again. I don't want her to force herself to have feelings for me and if I tell her everything, she will."

"You want to wait and see if she falls in love with you again," said Hermione.

"Don't be ridiculous. The girl is a psychopath," said Nott. Draco shot him a hard look and he shrugged. "It may be her parents' doing, but she's unhinged. From the accounts I've heard, I doubt that she's capable of loving anyone."

Hermione gave a jerky nod at that, as though it was true. It made Draco hate both of them a little.

"What then?" asked Pansy.

"We wait until she has any opinion of me," said Draco. "She won't try to love me if she forms the opinion that I'm irritating in the next few months."

"And lie to her until then?" asked Hermione.

"Lying to her will be easy," said Pansy. "How will we keep her parents away from her?"

#

Draco wanted to go straight back to the hospital but with the state he was in Bones would probably just send him home again. Instead he slept the remnants of his hangover and the Dementor attack off.

One of the twins was sitting with Bones when Draco went back to St. Mungo's. Her parents were too. They were in the seats by the window on the opposite side of the room, both of them watching Bones like they couldn't bear to look away.

They'd brought her a gift. At least Draco assumed that the brightly wrapped box on the foot of Bones' bed was from them. He set his own present on the bedside table, propping himself against the bed to watch Bones' sleeping face.

She looked no softer asleep than she did awake.

The twin in the seat by the door stood up, stretching his spine and yawning. "You're okay to take the next shift?"

Draco hummed agreement, not looking away from Bones.

"She hasn't woken yet," the Weasley said. "Another hour or so before the sleep potion wears off."

Draco nodded, stepping back to take the chair by the bed.

The Weasley said goodbye to the Bones' and left.

Draco pulled his wand the moment the Weasley had closed the door. He doubted that Mr or Mrs Bones would try anything with him there, but he'd underestimated them before.

The fact that they were waiting around with Bones made him nervous. Like they were waiting for someone to slip up and leave her alone with them again so that they could wipe out any memories they didn't approve of. It didn't help that Mrs Bones kept shooting anxious glances his way.

Mr Bones shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat finally. "Did you have a pleasant Christmas Eve?" The anger from earlier was gone and he sounded exhausted.

Draco studied him across the expanse of Bones' bed. "Fine," he said flatly.

"And Suzie? Did she enjoy it?" Mrs Bones' voice was hopeful and forlorn all at once; as though she desperately wanted to believe that Bones had had a good time but didn't dare.

Bones had drunk herself into oblivion and told Draco that when the war was truly over she would make it her mission to die. As satisfying as it would be to throw that into the Bones' faces, Draco couldn't bear saying aloud the things Bones had told him. Admitting it made it far too real. And what if the Bones' didn't care – or worse, the idea of no longer having to deal with such a difficult daughter brought them relief? "What do you care?" asked Draco.

Mr Bones flinched and Mrs Bones turned her face away; slender shoulders shaking as she dragged in short gasps of air.

"Of course we care." Mr Bones put a hand on Mrs Bones' back, rubbing gently. The kind of gesture that Draco had never seen in his parents' marriage. It was, Draco realised with an unpleasant start, similar to the way Bones had touched him back at Hogwarts. Unselfconscious – like it was so natural that she didn't even know that she was doing it. "She's our daughter."

"I advise you to give up on her," said Draco. "Try again with the other one. You have more chance of cutting her to fit the mould you want her in."

A shudder passed through Mrs Bones' frame. She turned back to her husband, speaking too quietly for Draco to hear.

Bones moved under the covers then, so he wouldn't have listened anyway, attention riveting to her instead.

Both Bones' gazes went to the bed too; Mrs Bones' eyes wide and haunted. Mr Bones touched her shoulder once, lightly, before withdrawing his hand and standing.

Mrs Bones stood too; following her husband to the door. He left, but she paused by Draco's chair.

"She trusts you?" Her voice was fragile and more question than statement.

Draco levelled a cold look at her. "I'm not the one who's given her reason not to."

A shadow passed across Mrs Bones' eyes before she squeezed them shut. Hunching her shoulders, she turned and withdrew.