Edit: As of the 28th of April 2015, I have made major changes to this fic, thanks to constructive criticism by a reader. Scenes have been added, and the tone and content of many existing scenes have been altered or expanded upon. I hope that such alterations give a better picture of the dynamic between Draco and Hermione, which previously was not illustrated in a great deal of detail because I was trying to keep this fic short. However, the subject material does not lend itself to brevity, it seems - and in order to make a proper go of achieving what I set out to achieve, I have had to make some changes. I recommend skimming back through the fic from the beginning before reading on, but doing so is not necessary. I hope you find the changes I've made to be positive ones!

Liss xx

Part Seven

Hermione wakes from dreamless sleep blind and alone in the dark, panic sweeping over her as the memories of what happened earlier that night come slamming back in a vicious maelstrom. It's too much too fast, and she sits up with a jerk, gasping for air, injuries protesting sharply. She is no longer disconnected and locked away in her mind, but fully present and excruciatingly vulnerable to the onslaught. She remembers it all, and it hurts so much. Her gasps turn into sobs that tear from her raggedly as she pulls her knees up to her chest, and buries her face in her hands.

"Oh god. Oh Merlin." She whimpers and sobs softly, the cuts that crisscross her flesh stinging, the inside of her mouth raw and throbbing, her breasts and the insides of her thighs bruised and sore from pinching, invading hands. "Oh god." It all happened. It all really happened and she just wants to hide from the truth of it, to claw it from her mind. There is movement in the dark, the sound of rustlings and then a dim light appears, shining faint through the fingers Hermione has pressed to her eyes.

"Granger. Granger, hey, it's okay," Malfoy says, startlingly close, voice frantic and soothing at once. "It's okay, you're safe now. It's over." She lowers her hands and stares up at him through wet, swollen eyes as her breath hitches. He's standing over her in only his pyjama trousers and the swathe of bandaging around his torso, his wand in hand and a lumos illuminating him in the darkness of the room, his expression helpless and pained as he stares at her. A sudden fury wells up in her, and her tear-wet fists clench hard.

"It's not okay," she chokes out through her uneven sobs. "It's not okay, and I'm not bloody well safe."

Malfoy flinches back, but he doesn't try to deny the truth, doesn't try to contradict her, weary defeat creeping over his features. "No," he says, smudging a hand tiredly over his face, and then pushing his hair back, shoulders slumping. "You're not. You're not, and I am so sorry. I wanted to – I want to..." He trails off, looking away. "…but I can't…"

"Protect me?" Hermione fills in the blank bitterly, with a wet snuffle and a hiccup, not knowing whether she should appreciate the anguish and guilt he is radiating, or be angry at him for even hinting at the way her ordeal has affected him. Somehow, it's the anger that comes out as she looks up at him, acutely aware of all the places she hurts, all the ways she was tortured. "Of course you can't. I don't fucking expect you to, Malfoy!"

He hisses in frustration, eyes narrowing and shoulders tensing, hands flexing, his own anger seeping up through the cracks. "What do you expect then, Granger?"

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then all of a sudden Hermione knows; what she expects, as he says. It doesn't matter how wrong and ill-advised it might be – it's all she has and she needs it. The comfort. She swallows down a sob, picking at loose threads in the bedcover as she steadies her breathing, says in a small, cracked voice: "Sleep with me?" A breath judders out of Malfoy's lungs, and his pupils swamp his eyes.

"Wh-what? Now?" He takes an unconscious step toward her, his legs bumping up against the side of the mattress. His eyes are fixed wide and wanting as he stares down at her, his pupils still blown wide and fingers curling tight at his sides, but misguidedly noble protests still spill from his lips. "Granger, we talked about -"

"No! I didn't mean that. Just… I mean…" Hermione reaches out to Malfoy's hand - her fingers curl around his, tugging gently, curling and stroking, pleading. He closes his hand automatically, trapping her fingers, rubbing his thumb over the backs of her knuckles as if he can't stop himself from touching her. "For the record I don't care if you think it's...taking advantage, Malfoy, but – but seriously you stupid fucking git, that's just about the furtherest thing away from what I want right now. I just...Iwanttobeheld," she whispers in a blurred rush, almost ashamed to admit her weakness and her need. Malfoy eyes her long enough for the silence to grow oppressive, and then sighs in surrender.

"Make room then, Granger," he says, squeezing her hand tight and trying for a reassuring smile that comes out wan and lopsided. "Budge over."

The bed is plenty big enough for them to sleep without touching, but that isn't what either of them want. Malfoy gingerly settles down on his back, and when Hermione shuffles closer to him, he opens his arms to her. She sinks into him eagerly, head nestled at the juncture of his chest and shoulder, his arm around her waist and her hand resting balled up at his sternum, and he is warm skin and rough-soft bandaging, and his fingers card through her hair. He asks her softly if she needs more healing or numbing charms, or for the lumos to stay on, bombarding her with concern. When Hermione shakes her head no to all of them, Malfoy puts his wand down and tucks the blankets up around her, kissing the top of her head as if she is a child.

They are cocooned in the enveloping dark, and Hermione feels nearly safe.

"Do you...need to talk? About…?" Malfoy asks eventually, hushed in the silence that is only disturbed by their breathing, and Hermione shakes her head 'no', only to reconsider almost immediately.

"I don't blame you, but. I can't stop thinking about. How. You...you just watched," she says haltingly, and Malfoy makes a choked sound but doesn't speak, his body going stiff with tension under her. "You watched while they…they hurt me. Like I was nothing."

"You're not nothing, Granger. You're not. You're infinitely fucking better than anyone in this damn place, including me," he tells her so intently that it almost sounds angry. "And fuck, I'm so sorry, Granger. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, I know that doesn't undo what happened, but I'm sorry. I fucking hate that I just sat there and let them do those things," he grinds out, tense and furious. "But if I tried to stop them, or I let them see that I cared..."

"Then we'd be both be being tortured right now? With no chance of ever escaping?" she wobbles out, and he nods shortly.

"Yeah."

"I know," she whispers, because she understands that intellectually, even as she recoils emotionally. It just feels so awful, even though she knows that it's the only option. He echoes her thoughts, sad and defeated.

"But knowing it's the least worst option doesn't exactly make it any easier for you."

"No, it doesn't, " she agrees in her wobbling whisper, and lets out an uneven sigh against his chest. Her own chest feels tight and her eyes are stinging with the need to cry. "It...really doesn't." Her chin trembles as tears spill over in a silent flood: "I'm so afraid. I just - just want it to stop." Hermione shakes against Malfoy, her chest heaving and tears tickling over her nose and cheeks to plop down onto his bare skin. "I want to go home, Malfoy."

He wipes her tears away with gentle sweeps of one thumb, chest rising and falling under her cheek as he sighs, tired and heartsore. His tone is oddly tender in the darkness. "I know. I know. And I will do everything in my power to get you home, I swear it. No matter what it takes."

If healing isn't linear, as they say, then neither is coping it seems.

The day after the dinner and the torture, and the night spent curled in Malfoy's arms, Hermione shuts herself in the bathroom. She stays in there all day, crying and raging, and scrubbing herself raw - until blood blossoms in pinpricks under her skin and the cuts inflicted on her open up again, staining the bathwater pink. When Malfoy tries to speak to her through the door and persuade her to come out, to let him help, she screams at him, incoherent and furious and full of blame. His coaxing only results in the - wizarding - shampoo bottle becoming a missile, hurled at the door and breaking into shards of lead cut glass. Hermione sits in the cooling, murky pink bathwater and cries, arms wrapped around her knees and face buried in the hollow between her knees and body.

The next night, she wakes from potion-induced dreamless sleep to low lamplight and Malfoy slumped over at the table, snoring faintly. She clambers out of bed and walks on silent feet to him, floor cold beneath her soles. He looks drained even in sleep, a little furrow between his brows, dark shadows under his eyes, the stubble dusting his jaw and cheeks catching the light. "Malfoy?" She reaches out and brushes her fingers over his shoulder. He jerks upright blearily, fingers closing around his wand and body coiling with tension, before he wakes enough to register Hermione.

"Granger. Wha-what's wrong?" is the first thing Malfoy says, his attention snapping fully onto her, alert and overflowing with concern. Hermione blinks at him, experiencing a sudden surreal moment of disbelief; this is Malfoy, sitting here in front her, full of worry for her. This is Malfoy whose hand she takes, who she tugs back to the bed. And for a blurring moment of something rather like mental double vision, it is the strangest feeling to feel so comfortable with Malfoy. He touches his fingers to her cheek, the gesture stopping her at the edge of the bed, and asking her again if she is all right. Asking her what she needs.

And Hermione shrugs and tells him: "Nothing I can have," and when she says the words, an odd sense of calm suffuses her, and the next words are easy to say. "Except the bed is cold, and..." Malfoy gets the hint. He slides in beside her, tugging her close - the big spoon to her little - and she falls asleep in warmth that she can pretend is safety. That she can burrow into, forgetting the outside world as sleep creeps ever closer, washing over her in a dreamless, welcome fog.

Several nights later Hermione sits up in her armchair until dawn comes, huddled and blank-eyed, and when Malfoy crouches before her and speaks to her in low, worried whispers, she can only shake her head, voice gone.

He refuses to leave her while she's like that, sitting silently with her until nearly dawn, when he falls asleep on the floor at her feet, his head lolling awkwardly against the base of the chair. Hermione unfolds herself when she notices the change in his breathing and the awkward twist to his head, and puts her legs down, nudging his head so that it falls more comfortable against her thigh. Malfoy stirs in his sleep then, lifting his head enough that dark grey eyes meet hers sleepy and dazed, and she smiles down at him in the pale light of dawn, feeling fondness well up.

"Go back to sleep," she whispers hoarsely, nudging her hand against his head again, and he settles against her, his head pillowing on her thigh and his fingers curling up over her knee. And after a while, she sleeps too.

When Malfoy's bandages come off one evening she cries over his back, horribly scarred and rough now, never to be as it was before, and it seems too much an analogy for herself. For what this captivity has stripped away from her. And Malfoy just smiles and pats her hand, shrugging off her sympathy, seeming uninterested in seeing how bad the damage to his back is. Minimising it. Dismissing it. "It doesn't matter," he tells her after she's finished unwrapping the horror of his back. "It was worth it. I was glad. It - it kept you safe for a little longer."

"You shouldn't have," she says in a tear-clogged voice, sitting on the bed beside him as he pulls on a tee-shirt, her nose running and one of Malfoy's handkerchiefs crumpled into a sopping ball in her hand. "It wasn't worth it. Not when they ended up - taking me anyway. You shouldn't have..."

"No. I shouldn't have let them take you the second time. I should have -" Malfoy begins, features tight and filled with self-loathing, and Hermione shakes her head in a denial, and leans forward, buries her face against his shoulder and breathes until she thinks she can speak without her voice breaking.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy." Her forehead against his upper arm, and he is warm and solid and she wants to stay like this forever.

"Don't be, Granger. It doesn't matter. Really." And his other hand comes up and cradles her head very gently, fingers soothing over her hair.

But when Hermione wakes up that night to an empty bed, she creeps to the bathroom door and sees him shirtless there, eying his back over his shoulder in the mirror. His expression is grim and just a little wounded. His torso is almost unmarred from the front, only marked by slim scars here and there, but otherwise lean and smooth and beautiful. His back is ugly. Ruined.

She wants to trace the scars with the tips of her fingers, and kiss every livid, knotted stripe in that overlaying quilt of scar tissue, and the intensity of her desire to do so frightens her. It is more than just thankfulness, she thinks. And she lies awake for a long time, eyes shut, remembering the feel of the scars under her fingers as she'd removed the bandaging.

She's always so scared that he'll be unable to protect her again. It's hard to keep food down, and headaches plague her. The weight drops off and she keeps the curtains drawn, growing thin and pallid in the suite that comprises her entire world, Malfoy the only other occupant of that world. She feels claustrophobic. Panicky. She watches the gardens through cracks in the curtains, and thinks of Harry and Ron, and the memory of them is distant and coloured with nostalgia, as though entire lifetimes have gone by since she saw them last.

Hermione doesn't try to kiss Malfoy again, although she daydreams about it, once her injuries have healed and the sense of violation has eased in its visceral intensity. She fantasises about doing things with him that make her insides twist up deliciously instead of with fear, but the right moment never seems to come. And she can never seem to quite get up the courage anyway. She worries he was right that it would be taking advantage, even though it feels like a free choice, and she wonders if she should care if he is right. So Hermione doesn't kiss him, even if she wants to. And she does. Want to. She wants to a lot.

But Malfoy kisses her when she looks at him a certain way, or presses close against him; her forehead, the insides of her wrists, the top of her head, and the round of her shoulder, in the dark when she invites him into the bed. She smiles then, and hums at the fleeting sense of luxurious contentment it gives her, but he never takes it any further, never kisses her mouth, and she is always a little relieved. Little kisses and touches and gestures of comfort are safe, are irreproachable, are wanted. But sharing any more than this unspoken, nearly-platonic intimacy could become...messy, and Hermione doesn't think she can handle that.

Voldemort doesn't order Hermione's presence again - yet - but Malfoy returns to his duties as Death Eater. The evenings that he returns smelling of burnt flesh, or stained with spatters of dark blood, are the only ones that they don't always share a bed. Those are the evenings that are...not good, for either of them.

Malfoy is trying to get her out though. He went to the drop point as soon as he was able to slip away, and left a message there detailing the situation and demanding an urgent meeting. He goes back out to check if the Order has collected the message and left a portkey for a face to face meeting every chance he gets, but so far the message has been untouched. Or so Malfoy says, and Hermione trusts him.

He has done everything possible to protect her so far - the evidence of that is scarred rough and vivid into the ruin of his back.

Since the dinner, Malfoy has been carefully distracting Voldemort from Hermione's presence with other issues, appearing to go above and beyond in his duties in the hopes that he can gain enough favour to be allowed keep her exclusively to himself should Voldemort request he share her again. Happily, Voldemort has been occupied by the idea of furthering his conquest of the wizarding world - the visiting American contingent having left him unimpressed - and Hermione has been left alone for now, still trapped within the confining walls of Malfoy's suite, but untouched.

Days tick by in a monotony that is exhausting in its very self, and Hermione feels like she has been here forever. The time before her captivity seems unreal; so long ago, memories so fuzzy compared to the vivid suffering in her recent past, and the thought of ever getting back to Harry and Ron and the Order seems like a childish fantasy. This is Hermione's life now. It has only been a little less than two months now, but this captivity has eaten who she is, devoured everything and left her hollow and hopeless and turned inside out. Hermione can't even imagine going back. So much has changed. How would she face them all? How could she ever hope to fit in again? She knows it isn't her fault, but it happened and it can't be taken back, or fixed, and if she ever escapes from this hell she doesn't think returning to the Order will end the ordeal, only start the next part of it.

Hermione has changed, she acknowledges as she sits in her armchair watching the clock as it ticks around to 5pm, an open book half-read on her lap. How she feels has changed. She used to have feelings for Ron; fluttery, wanting, giggly feelings. She used to have romantic, sweet dreams of what could happen between them when one of them was finally brave enough to make the first move, and now all of that is…gone. Crushed, erased, dashed to pieces beneath the weight of reality. But what she feels for Malfoy now seems like a betrayal, what she feels and can't deny and doesn't want to deny despite her guilt and unease. It's not fluttery or giggly, and if she believes what Malfoy says - she doesn't - not even healthy. But she feels inextricably connected to him now, tied together by what they have been through, are going through. If she does escape, the thought of leaving him here is intolerable. His ability to stoically do what must be done no matter what is safety to her, his arms around her at night are comfort, his mouth at her wrists is want, his very presence is home.

Everything has been turned inside out, and her heart is raw and exposed, and Hermione is just flailing to keep afloat.

The door swings open as the clock approaches 5.30, and Hermione's eyes snap from the clock to the doorway, where Malfoy stands with shoulders bowed and grey exhaustion written on his face. The weight of death and torture and guilt carved into the lines of him, and his eyes meet hers shadowed and weary, but lighting with something at the sight of her, and she feels something tremble in her stomach that makes her very scared. Malfoy tries to smile and fails, and the hand he shoves the door shut with is spattered with dried blood. His shoes thump against the floor by the door one by one as he toes them off, and then he sags back against the door and pushes his hair off his face - only for it to fall back immediately, palest platinum strands flopping almost into his tired eyes.

"He had me on clean up with Aster, in a nearby wizarding village that he'd decimated," Malfoy says, and his voice is a smoke-roughened rasp, and the muscles in his jaw twitch and jump as he steels himself against the memories of the day. He shuts his eyes for a long moment, head falling back against the door, breathing. "Some of them were - were still alive when Aster put them on the fires. He likes... I managed to put most of them out of their misery, but not fast enough. Never fucking fast enough." His voice cracks and breaks over the words, expression pained; eyes still screwed shut and brow furrowed. Hermione thinks of twitching limbs and burnt screams, of the stench of flesh and faeces in the smoke, and a wretched empathy for both the victims and Malfoy seizes her.

"Merlin," she murmurs. "That's awful." It's an enormous understatement, but there's nothing else to say. Malfoy opens his eyes, and from across the room she can see they are bloodshot from the smoke.

"Yeah. It was...bad," he tells her, drained of feeling and looking shell-shocked. "Really fucking bad." He sighs, still slumped against the door as if he hasn't the strength to move, watching her as she gets up from the armchair and moves to stand in front of him, hovering awkwardly. Malfoy is clearly curious; she hasn't done this before. She always avoids him when his clothing smells of suffering and death, instead of the usual, indefinable scent that is him. "Granger?"

He is exhausted, bloodstained, and guilt hangs heavy on him like it always does; the strain of doing unforgivable things in the hopes that he can do some good, that he can help bring it all to an end forever. For the greater good. Hermione still cannot reconcile herself to accept the idea of making sacrifices in the name of the greater good. She cannot approve of how the Order is using Malfoy. Not because of what Malfoy does - if he didn't do it, another Death Eater would, and without the mercy he tries to provide where he can - but because of what it does to him. Staining his soul irreparably. Giving him this guilt.

"Granger? Are you all right?" Malfoy reaches out tentatively, gathering up her hand in his, fingers tangling. In a second his expression shifts, his own exhaustion pushed back in favour of worry for Hermione.

Hermione stares at Malfoy and thinks: I care about him. Too much. Too much.

"...yeah. I'm..." She steps forward blindly and presses her face hard against his chest, breathing through her mouth, her hands grabbing fistfuls of his shirt at his sides. Frantic and clinging, her heart thundering in her ears as she thinks: can this be love? It doesn't feel like anything she feels - felt for Ron, not at all. What she had felt for Ron was warm and soft and tingly, a crush that had deepened with friendship and time. What she feels for Malfoy is raw and wrenching and frightening, born out of need, and she doesn't want to name it love. "I'm fine."

Malfoy had frozen for a moment as Hermione had thudded hard against him, but now his arms come up around her, tight enough to make her mending ribs protest. He buries his face in her hair, and breathes deeply, as though he's luxuriating in her.

"Merlin, you smell so good," he mumbles against the top of her head, one hand sliding up her back to tangle and play in the curling ends of her hair. Then: "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yes. Fine." She isn't. Hermione really isn't, in so many ways. She shouldn't be feeling these feelings for Malfoy. This tenderness, this worry, this care. It frightens her. She goes up on tippy toes and places a gentle kiss on a clean patch of his skin at his jaw. "I'm just..." Exhausted. In constant fear. Glad Malfoy has returned. Filled with sympathy for him at what he's had to do today. How does she explain all of that? And even if she could, what would be the point? "...just fine. You should go wash up." She draws away and smiles at Malfoy, watching after him as he makes his slow and aching way into the bathroom. She cares.

Instead of spooning as always, Hermione turns to face Malfoy when he comes to bed that night. She presses her head to his chest, one arm sliding over Malfoy's side, one leg entangling itself between his two. There is nothing remotely platonic to this intimate clutch, her pelvis snugging against his crotch, and Hermione's heart pounds fast as Malfoy's breath catches. She can feel something become slightly more apparent; she thinks with a stupid, embarrassed shyness that he is no longer entirely flaccid, the bulge of his penis stiffening just a little at her closeness. With her heart in her throat, she rocks her hips out, pushing her pelvis against the growing stiffness she can feel, and Malfoy makes a throaty, stifled sound and his fingers dig into her back.

"M-merlin. Granger," he grinds out unsteadily, like a warning and a plea at once. A flutter twists deliciously in Hermione's abdomen in response, a surge of want that seizes her hard. She swallows dryly, and slips her hand down between them, fingers searching until they close delicately over the length of his penis, where it juts out against the pyjama trousers he wears. Nervousness washes over her in an overwhelming flood as she grasps him; hot and hard and real in her hand. Too real, she realises, remembering the revel where he'd...and oh Merlin she can't do this.

"I-" Hermione stutters and gulps and her fingers loosen their firm grip around his dick. She doesn't want to tease him, but she doesn't want to do this either. She's scared. Desire is still twisting in her belly and fantasies flicker temptingly in her mind's eye, but the reality is...too much.

Malfoy inhales long and slow, and then gently but firmly removes her hand from his erection. She lets her breath out on a sigh; disappointment and relief both. He pulls her even closer then, until she is moulded to him, and places a kiss upon the crown of her head. "Go to sleep," he tells her softly, as his fingers card through her hair. "It's late."

She does.

Days pass. Days and days and days, and Hermione thinks she will go mad with waiting for the Order to send word that they have received Malfoy's message. "You sent it weeks ago," she says, speaking her fear as complaint as she pushes her food uneaten around the plate. "And you've dropped other information since. If you're a valuable informant, why aren't they checking the drop point?"

They are eating dinner together at the small table in his suite, and Hermione is watching Malfoy carefully. He has been acting just the slightest bit strange the past few days - a little distant and guarded, and she's noticed the added grim sadness about him, as much as he's tried to hide it. It makes her suspicious, a feeling that she hates, because he doesn't deserve it, and because she has no choice but to trust him.

"Maybe they haven't just haven't been able to check the drop point yet," Malfoy offers, eyes on his plate, and he doesn't sound at all convincing to her. "They've not always been regular."

"Maybe they've been attacked. Forced onto the retreat. Maybe the people in the Order who know where the drop point is have been killed or captured. Maybe you've been exposed and we only don't know because your master is toying with us," Hermione rushes out, filled with fear for her friends, and for Malfoy and herself. Tears well up and she blinks them away. "I just wish I knew everyone was all right. It's not knowing if Harry and Ron and - and everyone else are all right that's the worst part of this Merlin-damned waiting."

"Really?" Malfoy lifted his eyes from his food, looking Hermione over uncertainly.

"Yes, really!" Hermione snaps without thinking, and then narrows her eyes on him. "...why? Malfoy, what do you know?"

"No. Nothing. I know nothing. Except that I've not heard of any key Order members dying." He sounds utterly truthful and genuine.

"No," she insists. "No, you know something that you're hiding from me."

"Granger, honestly..."

"Tell me. Tell me now or I can't ever trust you again, and Malfoy, I need to trust you. Please." There is a long pause where Malfoy just stares at her. And then he lays down his fork and takes a deep breath, and when he lets it out again, she can see he's made a decision. He stands and goes to his desk, unlocking one of the drawers and pulling out a rolled up tube of parchment, slightly crumpled. He hands it to Hermione with clenched jaw and darkened eyes, anger and worry radiating off him.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, as she unrolls it and he - standing behind her and just to one side - taps the parchment with his wand, words coalescing out of nothingness. "I'm sorry, Granger."

Judas: prior messages received and understood.

Unfortunately extraction of asset not possible at this time, with Riddle in residence. The risk is too high. Keep asset safe, but do not jeopardise cover. Further contact will be made regarding extraction plans as soon as Riddle leaves residence on business he cannot easily be recalled from.

Request: information regarding Riddle's plans for American wizarding society.

Knight

Hermione turned stricken eyes on Malfoy. "H-who's Knight?" she asked through numbed lips, feel cold right through to her core. Dull. Hopeless. Lifeless. Abandoned. Dead. They were leaving her here. They knew that she was here and they didn't care.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt," Malfoy said, voice flat with a cold kind of distaste. Then: "Granger..." He touches his hand to her shoulder, sympathy saturating the way he said her name. She brushes his hand off, eyes stinging with tears as she thinks over and over: they left me here.

"You knew. You knew and you didn't tell me. How - how long? How long did you know? When did you get this?" Hermione waves the parchment, her breath skewing uneven as her chest constricts with grief and panic. They knew and they left her. Do not jeopardise cover. The Order had assessed the situation and decided she was expendable, and yes she was willing to die for the cause but god, the reality of it wasn't some noble death, but humiliation and pain and fear and she didn't want it. She was a coward.

"Five days." He takes the parchment from her fingers and taps it with his wand again, returning it to its blank state, and then to the drawer in his desk.

"Five...why?" Hermione doesn't understand. She stares at Malfoy in bewilderment as he sits back down opposite her. "You knew I was waiting. Why would you keep this from me?"

"Because you had hope." Malfoy's features twitch and he rubs a hand over his face; he looks worn and guilt-ridden, weighed down with the strain of everything he carries. "You still had hope when you were waiting, and now you don't. Don't deny it, Granger," he says as she opens her mouth to protest half-heartedly. "Don't even try. I can see it in your eyes." And he's right, damn him.

"You were trying to protect me," she realises dully.

"Yeah. Yeah, Granger, I was. I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have kept it from you. But when I got that reply I - I couldn't give it to you. I didn't want to take that hope away from you. I didn't want to be the one to fucking hurt you again." Malfoy sinks his head into his hands, the next words muffled and wretched, choking out raggedly, his control shattered. "I'm sick of being the one who fucking hurts you." Hermione stares at him wide-eyed and wordless. She doesn't want to see him like this. Can't stand seeing him like this. He's supposed to be strong - holding them together, strong enough for both of them, keeping her safe. It feels like her universe is tipping. And then she tells herself not to be so damned stupid.

"Malfoy. Malfoy, look at me." His eyes are bloodshot and wet when he meets her gaze, and she stares him down evenly, even though she feels sick to her stomach. "Never hide anything from me, that you think I might need to know, or want to know. Never. You understand me?" Her voice is a whiplash, and she's shocked that she still ahs that bossy tone in her, after everything. He looks like he wants to prevaricate, so she elaborates. "I need to trust you absolutely, no matter what. And I can't do that if I know you're willing to hide things from me, even if you're doing that for that - the right reasons. I need the truth. Please, Malfoy. If I can't trust you, I have nothing."

He nods. Once. "The truth. Okay." And then his face twists and shifts through anger and self-loathing and grief, and settles on a raw sort of compassion. "Granger...what they've decided...it's really all they can do. You get that, right? If they tried while the Dark Lord was here - it wouldn't go well for anyone. It's not like they're choosing to just leave you, even if the message makes it sound that way." He is desperate to reassure her, and Hermione nods. He's right - she sees that - but it doesn't matter.

"I know," she whispers as she pushes away the meal she no longer has an appetite for. "I know."

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