"Talk to me." Malfoy's voice sounded distant. She didn't like the sound, any sound, because her head was pounding to the beat of her heart. "Granger." She tried to open her eyes but nothing happened. Her neck felt awkward and someone was holding her head up.
"Shit, wake up, come on." Malfoy's voice sounded clearer. She tried again to open her eyes and there he was. Warm light bounced off the white of his hair and pale skin so he looked like dimmed gold in the semi-darkness. His face broke into a relieved smile. "There you are."
"Whahappened?" She slurred.
"I hope I didn't further the damage," Malfoy muttered, as he flashed his wand in one of her eyes and then into the next. She blinked away the bright spots.
"I'm damaged?" Hermione thought it felt about right. Her body screamed like she had run a marathon and taken a fall. Her head throbbed painfully.
"Rest, and we'll talk in the morning." Malfoy sounded a bit further away again. There was a rustle, footsteps, and the door. She thought she heard Madam Pomfrey saying something and then she was asleep.
She woke when light streamed through the one half-window, illuminating an empty bed where the dispersed sunbeam fell. She thought perhaps the light had triggered her automatic awakening, but she realised Madam Pomfrey and Malfoy were both engaged in a fierce whispering battle. It sounded like hissing and spitting and reminded Hermione of Crookshanks.
"-told you the muggle techniques don't work for magical injuries-"
"She's not only injured by magic!"
"-you've risked her short-term memory-"
"It's severe depression and I think that's what's fucking with her memory-"
"What nonsense!"
"She lost a child -"
"Depression causes short-term memory loss-"
"She was cursed, she killed two Death Eaters, she was hexed, which caused her to miscarry a child she had no idea she was carrying-"
Hermione winced. I did what ? She coughed. Their whispering stopped and Malfoy was at her side.
"How long have I been out?" She sipped the offered water without hesitation.
"You slept about twelve hours." Malfoy sounded anxious and his entire body blocked Hermione from Madam Pomfrey.
"Why?" Hermione remembered the diagnostic charm being cast. She frowned. "Wait, you tried to get me my memories back-" She inhaled sharply as a ripple of pain threaded its way through her temple to the base of her neck.
"I did. And I'm sorry, it didn't work." Malfoy was studying her with laser focus and carefully contained anxiety. "But, if you still remember me, then, I don't think I've made it worse."
Madam Pomfrey made an impatient noise from behind Malfoy's broad shoulders. He turned slightly to look at her and then his frame slumped, seemingly giving in to whatever Madam Pomfrey wanted.
"Hello dear." She came up beside Malfoy now, her body carefully distant from his. Her lips were pursed in such a manner, it appeared she had just swallowed something unpleasant. "I think your memories will come back in time; we just have to wait it out." She looked at Malfoy now, and he looked properly chastised. "I don't think we should attempt any magical healing, or muggle healing, or any hybrid of either."
"Hybrid?" Hermione interrupted.
"Ah, well. Yes, but I have to run." Madam Pomfrey shifted a satchel on her shoulder. "Foraging run for the potions and remedies." She set a stern gaze on Malfoy. "Do not meddle."
"You're meddling, are you?" Hermione flashed him a wry grin as the door clicked shut.
"Do you need anything?" Malfoy already turned away and Hermione grabbed his wrist. She let it go almost immediately, but he had stopped walking away. He went rigid, flexed his hand and looked at her. "I'll have food for you in two hours. You missed breakfast and the rations were given to someone el-"
"I murdered two Death Eaters?" she whispered, afraid that by saying it louder it made it more true, as though truths could be half real and half a lie.
"Maimed a third," Malfoy nodded, "but Potter or Weasley finished him off."
"We're killing people?" Her stomach turned and threatened to regurgitate the water she had sipped upon waking.
"It's war, Granger," Malfoy sounded sad, "They're killing us as much as we are killing them."
Us and them , she thought. His phrasing clawed at a sludged memory but it refused to be unburied.
"I don't think I've killed anyone before." Somehow, she felt this was true in her gut. Memory loss or not, the magic used to kill someone stayed with you forever. She could feel the dark thread of it, lacing itself into her system like slow-working poison. Corrosive. Acidic.
"No, I don't think you ever had to," Malfoy agreed. "Not until-"
She yelped as her head cracked open, and the Death Eater's mask flashed into her mind, and another, their bodies lifeless as she lay bleeding. Ron dove at her, grabbed her, and they were gone.
"Granger-" Malfoy held her face in one hand and shone a light into her eyes with his wand in the other. "Fuck. Hey, stay conscious." A gentle clink and a soft uncorking sound; he poured a bitter liquid into her throat and she swallowed.
Her breathing, which had been shallow and uneven without her noticing, settled into a steady rhythm as she closed her eyes and allowed the potion to lull her into calm. She was floating in the ocean, the sun on her face.
"I killed two men, but the man who did this to me," she spread her hand wide onto her tender abdomen, the bandage across her ribcage tingled like tiny feet crawling against her, "he got away. The bastard. He got away."
"You'll get him," Malfoy said half convincingly. He was looking at her in a way she never wanted to be looked at again. Pity. She sneered at him, baring hate for the unnamed Death Eater (whose mask bore a rose crown and thorns across its forehead), and directed it at the only person who was around her.
"I'll kill him." Hermione felt cold calm settle over her. The strength of her conviction was that there was no other way to go on living. And Malfoy didn't move, or breathe, or make a sound. He simply looked at her, and whatever pity he had let through was now completely gone.
"I got you something." Malfoy walked to his workstation, pulled one of his books off his stuffed, disorganised shelf, and walked it back to her. She kept her eyes on him, this man she recognised and didn't, this man who was here every single day she woke and Ron wasn't.
It was like studying him, a trapped animal in a cage for her deciphering. His mannerisms were elegant in a way she only saw with high-born wizards. Like Sirius – despite his stint in Azkaban – they shared the same air, gait, posture, and similar mannerisms.
The extension of his hand and the delicate curl of his fingers across the battered and stained paperback almost successfully coaxed a giggle from her.
"A book?" She took it from him, the paper was dry and rough on her fingertips. Looking at the cover, she couldn't make out the title.
"You like to read, right?" Malfoy sounded like he was teasing her. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Why are you being nice to me?" Hermione let her hand with the book drop onto her lap. It was strangely comforting to have it there, familiar and right .
"Would you rather me be an asshole?" he quirked an eyebrow, "because everyone around here already thinks I am-"
"So why aren't you?" Hermione furrowed her brows as though it would help her focus on him. "An asshole, I mean."
He sighed, "I know you have memory problems, Granger." She scoffed, and his mouth threatened to curl at the corners. "But, we're at war ." He turned away and rifled some papers on his desk, the quill in his hand clinked gently against the ink pot as he began to scrawl notes. "And, it seems like you need a friend."