"Hermione, Hermione, stay with me," Draco begged. Hermione's eyes rolled back in her head, and she shook violently. Her skin was ashen and cold to the touch. "Hermione!"

He shoved his panic behind his Occlumency walls. He had to think. The flat was empty except for the sleeping Grangers. He'd never been able to conjure a Patronus, and he certainly couldn't Apparate her like this. And by the time he could Floo someone or write a letter and affix it to his owl's leg, it might be too late.

Draco cast every warming charm he knew, although charms had never been his strong suit. Despite the shower of sparks raining down from his efforts, her skin remained glacial to the touch, so he did the only other thing he could think of. He whipped off his holster and shirt, buttons pinging across the hard floor. Sparing only a fleeting thought for her modesty — if she pulled through, surely she'd forgive him — he hauled his little wife into his arms, ripped open her green wrap dress, and held her against him.

Draco put his ear to her chest and listened to her heartbeat stutter erratically. If it were possible, she was even colder than she'd been moments ago. She'd stopped seizing, but her lips were tinged blue. He rose, carrying them to her bed, and climbed in, rubbing her arms and back.

"Please, don't go," he whispered. "Not now."

Not ever.

Just then, she whimpered his name. It barely broke the air, yet it thundered in his ears.

Hope renewed, Draco wound himself around her and redoubled his efforts, fingers scraping over her lingerie in his haste to bring her back to him. He blew hot air across her delicate features and left red marks from the intensity of his touch. As he massaged her left arm, the bandage around her injury loosened. He slid it off, hoping it would have some answers for why this was happening.

He knew he'd have to face the scar — the scar Aunt Bella carved, the scar that if he'd been less cowardly wouldn't mar his wife's innocent flesh. But nothing could have prepared him to see the Dark Mark staining her skin.

The brand was vivid, fresh; as if the Dark Lord had bestowed it upon her himself. Black veins spiraled out from the skull, thrumming with dark magic. It shouldn't be possible. When Voldemort died, the ability to take the Mark died with him. New Death Eaters simply swore on their wands. So how did the Order's most faithful witch have the magical world's most feared tattoo?

While he stared at her arm, she stirred. Draco cupped her jaw with a mix of terror and relief. He lowered his mouth to her ear and said a thousand things he'd never remember; his words tender and fraught with emotion. But it didn't matter, he'd promise her anything, because she was waking up. Her teeth stopped chattering, and her lashes fluttered. Her slow return seemed to go on forever.

Finally, she opened her eyes.

"Draco," Hermione said, finding her voice. She wet her lips as if to say something, perhaps about the fact that they were nearly fully unclothed in her bed together. It astonished him, too.

"Hey, it's alright," he soothed. Draco waved his wand over her, casting a simple diagnostic charm. Her vitals were strong, thank Merlin. "I'm here."

His words were calm, but he couldn't Occlude when his emotions ran this high. And not when she buried her face in his shoulder.

Hermione shivered. "I don't know where I went. I fell and then…" She trailed off, stiffening in his arms as she followed his gaze to the Dark Mark on her arm.

Draco leaned away so he could tip her face to his. "Hermione, who did this to you?"

"It… it was an accident."

Fat fucking chance.

"I'll kill them, I swear to all the gods," His magic flared around him, his anger made corporeal. He lowered his voice to a growl. "Give me a name right now."

"I can't!" Hermione twisted in his arms, but he held her fast.

"You can. Don't you know by now, I'd do anything for you?"

His adrenaline was wearing off, and he began to tremble. He'd almost lost her. Someone had Marked his wife, claimed her for the Dark Lord.

It would not stand.

Draco's better angels, the few that remained, tried to convince him all that really mattered was that Hermione was alive. If she couldn't provide an answer right now, it'd be okay. But his demons insisted he continue down the path of vengeance. He would find the Death Eater that did this and he would make them pay.

Aunt Bella's Crucio may have been legendary, but she'd executed it almost blithely, without reason. Draco now had a very good reason to deploy the Black aptitude for dark magic.

"It was me."

His thoughts screeched to a halt. "But why would you... when? Did the Order send you undercover during the war? This is a bridge too far, even for Moody or Snape…." He relaxed his hold on her in disbelief.

Hermione slipped from his arms and reached underneath the mattress, rummaging around for a moment until she withdrew a black book. She tried to hand it to him, but he recoiled, the pungent odour of dark magic assaulting him. "Two nights before I went to St. Mungo's, I performed a spell from one of Tom Riddle's books. One where he documented his and other wizards' experiments on Muggles."

"How the fuck did you come to possess one of his books? And why would you cast anything his twisted mind came up with?"

Hermione tried to hold the remains of her dress closed and failed. "I stole it during seventh year, when Harry, Ron and I were Horcrux hunting. I checked the Riddle House, and it was just laying there on the table… I thought it might help me with my parents." She pressed it into his hands, insisting.

"You used these spells on them?" He flipped through horrifying diagrams, sinister thoughts in slanted, cruel cursive.

"I told you, it was dark magic that helped them most."

"Merlin and Morgana," he breathed, settling his eyes on hers. "What have you done?"

"What do you want me to say? My mum told me she wanted to die, okay? I know it doesn't excuse it. I just thought if I modified the spell —" She waved her hands about but the meaning was lost on him.

"We should get Blaise." He checked her vitals again. Just as before, everything looked good.

"There's nothing he can do. I'm fine now, Draco. Really, I'm fine."

That wasn't true. He'd almost lost her. But he knew the urge to deny, to hide. He knew it all too well. "You're always changing the game, aren't you? Never letting anyone get too close."

"We're close," she protested. "I felt so close with you today I kissed you in front of hundreds of people! And we couldn't get much closer than we are right now!" A healthy blush bloomed from her décolletage all the way up to her cheeks, and relief and awareness hit him in equal measure.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "We are close. That's not what I mean. I'm saying I do the same thing." Draco pulled her back into his arms where she belonged.

Hermione didn't resist him, and as he predicted, her curiosity took hold. "What do you mean?"

Shit. It was now or never. He tried to memorise her silken skin, the curl pattern in her hair, the scent of honey and vanilla and something uniquely Hermione underneath it all. Taking it all in, because it might be the last time she let him hold her close like this.

"I've kept something from you, too," He took a deep breath. "After I got out of Azkaban, my mother asked me if I would fulfil my duties as the sole Malfoy heir and find a bride. She introduced me to Daphne Greengrass's younger sister, Astoria, and we agreed to court with the intent to marry. The Greengrass family was all for it, especially Daphne, but my father was against the union. When I informed him of my plan to propose, he warned me off. Of course, I didn't listen. I thought my father's opinion had no bearing on my future anymore, that he would live and die in Azkaban where he belonged, so what did his feelings matter? I wish I could go back and tell my younger self not to fall into that false sense of security. Things could have been different…" He shook his head and swallowed hard.

"What happened?"

"The night I went to get a ring from the vault for Astoria was the same night I believe he sent someone to the Manor. She was there, with my mother."

"No. Draco," Hermione wound her arms around his neck, and he collapsed into her embrace. She was warm, he reminded himself. Alive.

"They were making dinner," He forced the words out. "We were going to celebrate."

"I'm so sorry." Her voice was sincere, but he could hear the wheels spinning in her head as it fell back against a pillow.

"I know it's awful, what I did… marrying you less than twenty-four hours later. But Theo told me that my father would inherit if he wed again immediately, and I couldn't stand the idea that he would take them from me and everything else, too. And I'm sorry I kept it from you. I just thought if I told you, you'd think…" He couldn't bring himself to say the next part — that Hermione might think he didn't care for her so much more than he'd ever thought possible. Not tonight, when every word cut a little deeper.

"I don't understand. Why would your father not want you to align with the Greengrasses? They're as Pureblood as they come."

"I don't know how he knew this — maybe Mr. Greengrass confessed over too many Firewhiskys — but Astoria wasn't his daughter. She wasn't a Pureblood."

"What?"

"She was a Squib. We wrote to each other since we couldn't spend time together without a chaperone, and she told me in a letter. We'd built up a friendship over the courtship. She was funny, you know. I've kept her letters, and I read them every now and then. At first for clues, but sometimes just because I miss her, and I think she could have changed the world."

Hermione fell quiet. "Astoria was familiar with the Muggle world. The Muggle money, clothes, Shakespeare… she's the one who changed your mind."

He nodded. "And my mother's, and Theo's, and Pansy's… and so many more of my friends. Most of them didn't know until after her death."

"But not Goyle?"

"Daphne didn't believe it, and Goyle, he'd do anything for Daph. I chose the worst possible moment to tell everyone. Goyle and I nearly came to blows at the funeral — not that we'd been on good terms anyway, since he and my father grew close while we were in Azkaban. I'd changed my views on Pureblood supremacy — they were already changing before the war, but I was a coward."

"Hey," she said, pressing a finger to his lips. "Don't use that word anymore, okay? You're not a coward. Far from it."

Oh, but he was.

The curious witch in his arms hadn't pulled away, nor had she asked him the one question he'd been expecting. "Aren't you going to ask me if I love her?"

Hermione smiled. "I don't think you'd fight this hard, for this long, for anyone you didn't love. Of course you love her. It's normal to love dear friends."

For a moment, words failed him. It was rare that anyone in his circle spoke openly of love in any form. Even Pansy, who was the happiest married person he knew, usually demurred. "Thank you."

She held his face in her hands, brushing her thumbs across his cheeks. "Your heart is not a Horcrux, Draco. Love won't splinter, it only strengthens you the more you share it with others. We'll keep her memory, and your mother's, too."

He cleared his throat. "You were angry with me before."

"Yes. Well, you're an idiot for going along with Goyle. We'll have to figure out his game and beat him at it. But you also had a good point. I'm not a Healer. Dark magic helped my mum regain the memory she has. The minute I cast it, it burned, but I knew it was going to work. But I think… I think it took something from me. And when I tried to do it on my dad, it didn't work. I felt nothing. I tried for what must have been hours. I made him stand there while my mum screamed at me, asking me what I was doing. I changed my intonation, tried to hold my arm higher or lower, anything, anything to feel that magic swirl into him like it had my mum. But there was nothing. I would have given almost anything to feel it again." Her entire posture spoke of defeat.

"Those spells destroy the caster and everything they touch, but the dark arts mask the damage with power," Draco recounted. "My father was addicted to the way his magic intensified. Even when it drained him and he came angrier and more abusive towards me and my mother, he returned to the Dark Lord. My first impressions of love, loyalty, everything — it was all tied up in the pursuit of power. And my mother loved him, but it wasn't enough, was it?"

"Draco —"

He couldn't stop the words pouring out. He bared his soul to her now, word by painful word.

"I surrounded myself from a young age with people who understood the abuse, but we also perpetuated it. I'll never forgive myself for how cruel I was to you, all because of your blood status. All because I needed to put you down to make myself feel better. It makes me sick to think how often I imagined driving you and others like you out of the world altogether."

She dragged her fingers through his hair. "And yet I'm still here."

"I have nightmares sometimes about Greyback thanking me as I opened the cabinet and let him into our school. I can still see him, covered in rotted leaves and smelling of death. It kills me that I'm the reason so many students died. Our friends. None of it is excusable, no matter the sorry excuse for a father I had. Everything that's happened could have been different if I'd only been brave, if I didn't value power more than life. I'm so, so sorry, Hermione. I'm sorry for everything."

Teardrops gathered in his eyelashes, but he didn't wipe them away. He moved to get up from the bed. He couldn't look at her. Didn't deserve her touch. No matter what she'd done, he'd done it ten times worse, and for indefensible reasons.

She sat up, clutching a wrinkled sheet to her chest. "I don't think Hermione Granger could ever forgive you for what you did. You made my life hell, you know?"

A tear ran down the side of his nose, then another and another. Draco hated that he was crying in front of her, but he couldn't stop. "I know, I know. I don't deserve your forgiveness."

He had been a fool to think she'd forgive him. His wife was there until the ball, fulfilling her end of an Unbreakable Vow, an irreversible marriage ritual, and a bargain struck after a chance run-in with the paparazzi. She didn't owe him anything, much less forgiveness. Why had he gotten his hopes up?

"I said Hermione Granger couldn't forgive you. I didn't say anything about Hermione Malfoy."

He couldn't believe his ears. Did she just…

She blessed him with a teary smile and reached for his hand. "Malfoy women are very forgiving, I hear."

Draco took it and sat back down, dipping the mattress. He had to be sure. "Aren't you afraid?"

"Of what? That you've got a hidden agenda? Nine, almost ten years is a long time to lie in wait, even for a snake like you." The corner of her lips turned up. The fact that she could tease him even at a time like this endeared her to him even further.

She never mocked him. Here was her chance to let him have it; kick him while he was down. Laugh at his long-held desire for redemption. Favourite son of the Sacred Twenty-eight, Draco Malfoy, at the mercy of his former victim. The witch who had his heart. But Hermione Malfoy chose to tease him, and maybe, eventually, she'd forgive him, too.

Something delicate bloomed in his chest. Could she…? He couldn't allow himself to even think the word. The hope began retreating as soon as he remembered how he got here in the first place — or rather, who had gotten him here.

Astoria. It was Astoria he'd found laying beside his mother, awash in crimson blood. Pureblood, half-blood, Muggleborn, Squib — all blood looked the same when it swirled together, spilled from the only women he'd ever loved.

But were they the only women he would ever love? More love, Hermione said, wouldn't splinter. It would be stronger.

The petals began to unfurl again.

Draco turned to the side, only daring to look at her from out of the corner of one eye. "Deep down, I know my father beat me and killed my mother because it was all tied up together — his magic and his love. Believe me when I say I understand why you did everything you had to do to save your parents. I would have done anything to save Astoria and my mother."

"I know you would have, Draco," A familiar look washed across Hermione's face, the one that meant she was thinking. "Have you considered that your mother might have been collateral damage?"

He suddenly found himself back laying beside her. "How so?"

"Your father didn't want you to marry Astoria, right? Yet you were going to do it anyway, so he put out a hit on Astoria. But whoever went to Malfoy Manor to do the job found Narcissa there too, and they couldn't leave a witness…." She trailed off, frowning.

Of course. How didn't he think of this before? "My mother loved my father. She followed him into Voldemort's service. She hated what he did, to her, to us, but she loved him. He wouldn't have had her killed just because she signed off on the marriage. She didn't know until Astoria told her, and she wasn't perfect, my mother, but she was trying."

"It's hard when we stop seeing our parents as perfect and start seeing them as people."

"I remember thinking my father would live forever, and I'd never be free of him. Even when I saw him in St. Mungo's, dead and missing a finger, he somehow looked like he was only resting under the coroner's sheet, waiting to give me another lecture, another beating."

Hermione sent him a look of disgust. "A finger?"

"A finger."

They sat together in silence. A clock chimed from the hallway. It was late, and he was spent.

"Hermione, promise me — don't turn to dark magic again. Dark doesn't cancel out dark, it compounds it. It will destroy you." He let the other words he wanted to say die on his tongue.

It will destroy us.

"I promise. But I did this, and now I need to undo it."

"If anyone can figure out how, it's you. But don't do it alone. Let me help you." He turned to her, reached out and gripped her hand like a lifeline.

"I've told you I spent years and years trying to undo the damage I did to my parents, and yet you place your faith in me. Why?"

His eyes trained on hers. "I spent years and years believing that you were a lesser witch. I won't make that mistake again," She slowly took his other hand in hers, and he stroked the back of her wrist. "And you've placed a lot of faith in me, too."

Was it so wrong, to want to reach out and touch the soft hand of desire, grasp its fingers and let it pull him up to a place the dark could never find?

"Thank you for apologising."

Draco nodded and wiped his eyes, one hand still clinging to her. "Anytime. I'll apologise for the rest of my life. I can't change my past, but I want our future to be different." Our future came out before he could stop it, but he meant it.

They both yawned at the same time, but Hermione didn't look pointedly at the door or ask him to leave. Draco took a risk and rose to light the fireplace, then extinguished the lights in the room. Hermione held up the covers for him, and he slid back in bed.

In the dim glow of the fire, she pulled her hair back and away from her face, twisting it into a bun. "I wish I could change it for you, Draco. For both of us. You didn't seem like a happy child. I just didn't see it."

"Well, that's having a Dark Lord in the house for you. No one else knew about my father except Theo. You didn't seem very happy either."

"That's having a Dark Lord hunt your best friend for you," she quipped back. "I was happy, before Hogwarts. My parents were — are everything to me."

"We were both only, unhappy magical children, then."

Draco debated cosying up to her, but didn't want to press his luck. Instead, he readjusted his pillow and laid with his back towards her, closing his eyes. He'd never shared a bed with a woman overnight before, but it was unquestionably nice.

"Do you want children?" She spoke so softly, sleepily, but he didn't miss the question.

"Seems like something we should've discussed before we got married."

"Very funny," she said, poking him in the side.

Children, or at least one child, had been an expectation for his marriage with Astoria, as it was for every Pureblood marriage. And although Astoria waxed poetic about a brood of Malfoys, he hadn't been keen, then. He told himself he was focused on never committing the atrocities and abuse his father had. But laying here with Hermione, the night settling in and smoothing everything out, he knew that he'd just needed to find the right witch.

"I do," he admitted, rolling over to face her.

Her reply came quickly, relief playing across her features. "Me too."

He thought back to their Unbreakable Vow. Unlike the other terms, it had taken her a while to come around to the idea of not having children. The thought that she'd want them, even if they were his, stirred something in his chest.

And maybe she'd forgive him, and she'd want them because they'd be his.

"Goodnight, Hermione. Wake me if you need me."

She reached for him and found his hand, covering it with hers. "I will. Goodnight."

Draco closed his eyes and replayed his childhood fantasy. He would never be a star Seeker coming home, sweaty and victorious, to the wife and child he imagined. But there was hope he could be a loving husband and father. The first one was up to him, and he resolved right then and there he would be the best husband he could, for as long as Hermione would have him.

The second, well, that decision lay with the woman beside him.

She never withdrew her hand, and when her breathing evened out, Draco hid from himself no more.

00000

A shaft of early morning light woke Hermione. She slipped from the bed and summoned her dressing gown, careful not to disturb Draco. He slept on his side, face buried in a pillow hugged to his bare chest. She smiled as she shed her ruined dress and wrapped herself in the familiar silky gown.

She'd just shared a bed for the first time with Draco, her husband, and they'd both been en déshabillé, to boot. Yet even after she'd come back from the brink, he'd focused solely on her well-being. Her entire body heated at the realisation.

Finding her wand, she cast a quick Accio. Narcissa Malfoy's diamond earrings whizzed through the air and into her waiting palm. Hermione considered them for a moment before reaffixing them to her ears.

Draco saved her life last night. Of this, she had no doubt. She closed her eyes and her mind wandered back to the hallucination. The dread, the cold, the bitter earth and the starless sky. It felt like a place between worlds.

The basilisk, which she somehow understood, seemed to offer her help. But why would she want help from Death Eaters? She'd been too paralyzed with fear to ask questions, sure that the snake would lunge at her and sink its fangs into her heart.

Was it implying they had magic that could save her parents?

Near the end of the hallucination, she heard Draco. Her limbs tingled, as if waking up from a dream, and the graves around her began to warp as if they were being sucked into black holes. The basilisk shuddered, slithering away.

The next thing she knew, she was awake and in his arms.

Warm. Safe. Alive.

And judging by the emotion in his eyes, it had been a close thing. He'd fought for her, and won.

They'd never be even, and there was no use keeping score with how much they'd both hurt each other. But maybe she could do something for him. Something to show him that however he felt, she felt the same way. She grabbed her beaded bag from the top of the armoire and made her way noiselessly to the kitchen.

After he'd been so honest with her about Astoria, she'd have to tell him about the hallucinations — one hallucination could be explained away by the whirlwind of the past week or so, but two? She'd been too shocked earlier to say anything, especially after he'd discovered her Mark.

Hermione took a deep, cleansing breath and exhaled slowly. This was good. They could get everything out in the open, finally. He'd looked so unburdened lying in her bed, and she suddenly regretted her swift departure. She might've drawn closer to him, kissed him again without an audience or somewhere they had to be.

But she'd left the warm bed with a purpose. She set to clearing and Scourgifying the kitchen worktop, her previous conversation with Draco replaying in her head.

It shouldn't have surprised her that Draco had almost married someone else. Purebloods typically married young, mainly to give them time to conceive and bear as many children as possible. But what really surprised her was the fact that he'd known about Astoria's blood status, but loved her anyway. Hermione rubbed her upper arms, suppressing the little zing that zipped through her body. It gave all his earlier words and actions a shiny ring of truth. It had always been there, if she'd only been able to see it.

He hadn't sobbed on their wedding night over the fact he slept with a Mudblood. He sobbed because only a day ago he'd been planning to share his life with a different woman, and he'd just lost his mother in the same horrendous instant. She recalled the way he'd held her at arm's length, making her promise to stay away.

It wasn't because he hated her. It was in case he courted danger.

The holster, snug against his muscled chest was a symbol of devotion. He'd seen what could happen to a woman who couldn't claim her blood was pure.

Draco Malfoy was not who she expected him to be. And gods, she was glad for it. She just didn't expect the revelation to hurt so badly. Hermione didn't blame him for keeping his secrets to himself; it wasn't that at all. And she wasn't jealous of Astoria. There was Draco with Astoria, and Draco with Hermione. What they had was different. No, the knot behind her ribs tightened insistently because she knew they did have something. And now she couldn't imagine letting it go in just a few short days.

Satisfied with her cleaning efforts, she settled on a stool and withdrew the necessary items to brew. First, her cauldrons. A large one for big batches of Dreamless Sleep, per Blaise's request; next, the one she'd toted around Hogwarts, which still saw the most use; and lastly, sealed in plastic film, the cauldron she used for dark potions. She'd replaced it many times over the years of caring for her parents. After a while, a thick layer of black powder caked the outside, and the inside corroded, even the strongest metal curdling under the volatility of the magic.

Next Hermione assessed her ingredients. She needn't Apparate back to Cyclamen as she expected — she'd been thorough even in her distress. Herbs, flowers, berries, feathers, even her phial of venom from her Venomous Tentacula were all accounted for, and the rest Blaise had left for her, along with some more tea. She smiled at his thoughtfulness.

Finally, she opened Potions Most Potente. She knew exactly what she wanted to make, but it was one of the rare potions she didn't have memorised. It usually took months to brew, but Professor Slughorn passed along his secret to accelerate the process (in exchange for a few wildly embellished stories about Harry, of course) — the famed Slughorn Shortcut. Pages fluttered softly as she found the recipe.

Felix Felicis.