Note: Thank you again to my amazing beta Pidanka, who has done an incredible job.

Part Five

Draco presses his fingers to his lips, remembering the feel of hers. Soft and dry, and so tentative. He closes his eyes, remembering the smell of her and the way she'd felt in his arms – too cold, and too thin, all bones and angles pushing into his soft spots as she'd clung desperately to him. Birdlike, her heart thrumming madly and her breath shallow, and Draco hates Potter and Weasley for taking her from his arms when she'd so clearly been on the brink of shaking apart, and he'd felt like he was helping hold her together. Hermione had been whisper-fragile and trying so damn hard, and he'd wanted to snarl at Potter and Weasley and throw them out. To take her down onto his cot, cradled in his arms, using his body to shield her from the world and everyone and everything making demands of her.

He'd thought 'mine' and 'protect' at the same time like some kind of animal, and neither was really true. Neither was possible. Instead, he'd had to convince her to let go of him, to detach in increments. To leave, even though she didn't want to. Even though she was scared and miserable, and wanted to stay with him. And it had ripped his heart out. She couldn't sleep. Draco inhales short and rough and holds it, trying not to cry as he remembers the small, broken way she'd admitted it. She should be sleeping in his arms, where he can soothe her nightmares away and make her feel safe if she wakes gasping and lost in memories.

It's pathetic. Draco knew this would happen, though. He'd told himself for hours last night that Hermione was better off without him. That she doesn't really love him – it's just situational. That she'd be better off without him. And then, just as he'd predicted, as soon as she'd walked into the cell, he'd been at her mercy. Choking on remorse and self-loathing, but still desperate to touch her. To comfort her, yes, but if he was honest, he was desperate to cling to her for his own selfish sake. Because she is everything. She is the only thing he has, and he doesn't really even have her.

He'd told himself that he has no right to touch her. No right to her at all, because he is a loathsome monster who turned her into this ghost of herself, broken and insubstantial, flinching away from her friends' comfort because she can't stand the feeling of any hands on her except, ironically, his. The one who pressed all the bruises and hurts into her flesh. Who hurt her literally from the inside out in the worst possible way. And yet a tiny, buried-deep, monstrous part of him is ferociously glad that it's his touch that she seeks. If it were anyone else, he would want to kill them.

Draco sighs and stares at the stone ceiling, running over every second of her too-brief visit. Over and over. Every word. Every hitching almost-laugh. Every time his skin had touched hers. Every moment that shame and self-hatred had enveloped him. He hopes desperately that Hermione's coping, and he tries to believe that she is. She might be broken, but she's still incredibly strong. And no one here is trying to hurt her. She'll be alright, he tells himself. Potter and Weasley will take care of her; the thought grates horribly even as it reassures. Mine, he thinks instinctively.

He finds himself wondering if every footstep, every distant noise echoing through the stones, is her.

The minutes drag and boredom creeps in, and with a squirming sense of shame, Draco ends up jerking off as he lies there, more out of a total lack of anything else to do than any kind of desire. Draco tries to remember the soft push of Hermione's lips against his as he moves his hand in short, efficient movements. But his mind ends up meandering down dark, unwelcome corridors. The way she'd looked when she'd asked him to lace her corset. The way she'd kissed him afterwards, breasts bare and pushed up on display. The cool softness of her hand on his cock in bed before she pulled it away. It's dangerous territory, but he's too fixated on chasing his orgasm to care.

Draco's breath turns shallow, skin heating, biting his own lip as he slides his hand up and down, quick and firm, head filled with images, trying to string snatches of memory together into fantasy. He imagines her on his bed – back at the mansion – curled naked beside him with their legs entangled, her arms around his neck and her breasts crushed to his chest, her mouth open and hungry as she kisses him. And then he's on the verge of coming, whole body tensed, muscles strung out, and pleasure grinding through him. And he remembers viscerally the velvet, delicious feel of her cunt gripping his cock while he lies above her, his body bloodied and still shaking from the Cruciatus, and her weeping.

It's too late to stop himself; Draco comes with an almost pained groan, regret and a sick, sick self-disgust ripping through him, obliterating any pleasure from the orgasm. And then he's stumbling to the toilet and throwing up, cum on his left hand and trousers low on his hips, his cock bobbing there, erect still as bile burns acrid in his throat. He stands panting, clean hand braced on the wall, and he feels even more like a monster than before.

Hermione sleeps.

She wakes, pale morning light filtering in through the window. A suffocating feeling of horror lays upon Hermione when her eyes open, and the memories that were bottled up by the Dreamless Sleep rise up in her mind. They're raw and brutal in her head, overwhelming, her skull throbbing and nausea gripping her. She balls up handfuls of the blankets and screams into them until her voice is cracked and raw. Rage, and horror, and an animal suffering ripping through her, tearing her open from the inside out. She's bleeding from the inside out, her memories spilling on the floor like entrails, her thoughts juddering and nonsensical. Someone must hear her because, at some point, her door goes crashing open, bouncing off the wall, and there are voices crowding into her room.

A woman talks to her, low and reassuring, but Hermione can't process anything, locked in memories, hands over her ears and face buried against her drawn-up knees. She sobs until she retches, but nothing comes up. Her sinuses ache, her nose blocked and streaming at once. There is so much to remember; fingers and bruises and ripping out Malfoy's nails and the Imperius and that soft little grunt of pleasure Malfoy made when he came inside her. She screams. That last memory makes her want to peel her skin off. It isn't fair. He didn't want to, he didn't. She tugs at her hair mindlessly, howling out her misery.

Voldemort ruined them. He ruined them both. He tainted everything, and yet – she wants Malfoy. Because she knows he won't hurt her. Not any more. Not now that Voldemort can't make him. He'll keep her safe or die trying.

She thinks maybe she cries for him aloud, but he doesn't come. He's locked in a cell now, and she can't even be there to try to protect him like he tried to protect her.

And then magic sinks into her flesh, cool and tingling, and everything goes black again.

When Hermione wakes up again, she's lying on the bed in her tiny room with a blanket settled over her, along with a strange sense of calm. Tonks sits by her bedside, flicking through a wizarding magazine idly, her hair brown, legs crossed in front of her. She looks up as soon as Hermione shifts on the bed, and her eyes are tired. "Wotcher, Hermione," she says, cheerful and careful at once, putting the magazine aside and leaning forward attentively. "You're awake at last."

Hermione blinks at the older witch, trying to make sense of and catalogue the vague memories of whatever happened before this moment. It all feels foggy and muddled. Oh. That's right. A sense of embarrassment crawls up her, heating her cheeks. "I freaked out," she whispers, and her voice is ragged and raw, her throat burning as she speaks. She's screamed herself hoarse.

"You did," Tonks says matter-of-factly, a faint, undemanding smile on her lips. There's no real humour there though, only a deep, terribly sad sympathy. It itches beneath Hermione's skin, unwelcome. She doesn't want Tonks's sympathy – the older witch has no idea. She doesn't know what it was like. She doesn't know what happened. "We had to use a somnium on you, in the end. And a Calming Draught, which should be wearing off soon."

"I'm sorry." Hermione exhales, rubbing her hands over her face and sitting up. She feels insubstantial and hollowed out, but at least the rage has subsided, reduced to a murmur in the back of her mind. Presumably thanks to the Calming Draught. She thinks perhaps she should be angry at having her emotions controlled, but of course she's incapable of feeling anything more than irritation. Hermione grimaces as she remembers her meltdown in broad strokes, details lost to the madness of the moment. "Merlin. That's so mortifying."

Tonks waves her off. "It happens, Hermione. You've been through a lot. No one's judging you." She eyes Hermione cautiously, that sympathy printed all over her face. "I couldn't understand most of what you were saying –" Hermione feels sick. She'd spoken? She doesn't remember speaking. Her stomach lurches as she thinks of what she might have said. But Tonks is still talking, and Hermione tunes back in to: "– you want to talk, maybe it would help."

Hermione swallows, swinging her legs off the bed and pushing her hair back, trying not to think about what she'd remembered. Or what she might have said. Talking is the last thing she wants to do. If she talks about it, then she'll have to think about it, and doing that will just lead to another spiral into madness and nightmarish memory. God, she doesn't want that, for a multitude of reasons. The foremost being that Malfoy isn't here to draw her out of her mindless state with his presence, and his soft words, and the smell of him; his soap, and fresh sweat, grounding and safe.

"What's the time?" she asks instead of answering Tonks, the question snapping out more harshly than she meant, her voice itself a croaky, discordant thing. Tonks looks startled by the segue, and then checks her watch.

"Um...mid-afternoon. Probably about 2.30?"

"I want to see Malfoy." Merlin, she's a stuck record. Even she recognises that, but she won't apologise for it. Hermione figures after her experiences, she's allowed to be a little crazy. Tonks shifts uncomfortably, mouth making a tight line.

"I'm afraid that's not possible right now." Hermione's stomach drops out. It's a gut punch and it makes her want to double over. "We spoke to a healer while you were unconscious, and she said it would likely be best for you to have some distance from Draco. After what has happened, you need –"

Panic rears up again, her heart thudding fast. Her breath short. "Who's we?" she rasps, anger sparking along with her fear.

Tonks grimaces. "Remus, Harry, and Ron," she admits reluctantly, and Hermione's rage goes up with a thwump, like a wildfire eating dry grass.

"Ron? You have Ron making decisions for me? In fact, why are any of you making decisions for me? I'm not a child. I've been of age for three years." Hermione glares at Tonks, who holds her gaze unflinchingly.

" We aren't, Hermione. Healer Siobhan will be. She'd like to speak to you when you're ready."

Hermione feels sick. Her palms are clammy, her breath tight and quick, sweat breaking out as she makes sense of what Tonks has said. "You can't force me to see a Healer." It comes out on a panting breath, panic seething, fingers curling tightly against her palms. She doesn't want to talk about it. Any of it.

"No," Tonks says, gaze still clear and direct, and Hermione understands why Tonks got the dirty work of informing Hermione rather than Ron, or Harry, or even Lupin. She might have been able to sway them with guilt and sympathy and careful pleas, but she knows instinctively as she meets Tonks's eyes that the metamorphamagus will be immovable. Except they can't force Hermione. She doesn't have to speak to a Healer if she doesn't want to. She's not a ward of the Order. They have no right to make her do anything, or stop her from seeing whoever she likes to see, concerns for her mental health or no. Hermione sets her jaw, prepared to say that as Tonks goes on.

Her next words completely dismantle Hermione's plans. "But we don't have to take you to see Malfoy either."

Hermione's jaw drops and an involuntary whimper escapes her, hand clapping over her mouth as if she can shove it back down. She pulls her hand away. Her head is buzzing, and she can hardly hear herself speak when the words come out. "You can't do that." She whoops for breath, dizzy, grabbing at the edge of the bed and getting a fistful of blanket. "You can't do that." She feels like she might hyperventilate.

"We can, and we will if we think it's best for you, Hermione."

"I remember that Remus thought it was best for you two to not be together," Hermione spits out in her hoarse, wobbling voice, and Tonks presses her lips together, sighing. She looks old and tired as she shakes her head, sadness and regret clouding her eyes, her hair growing mousier brown.

"Remus didn't rape me, Hermione."

It hits so hard, and it hurts so much. A judder runs through Hermione's body as she chokes down a sobbing gasp. Hearing Tonks say it like that is like knives in her sternum – so piercing and stark, the words loud in the quiet room. Pain spikes through her, emotional translating to a physical ache in her chest, her lungs burning, her hands trembling now.

" Don't." It's half gasp, half snarl, and all desperate plea. Hermione remembers the feel of him inside her. The way he'd gasped hopeless despair against her breast. The soft, stifled grunt of pleasure. All the torture and horror is suddenly haunting her, now that they're free. A spectre looming in her mind, demanding her attention every time her mind wanders. It's as though escaping the nightmare has given her subconscious permission to try to process it, except Hermione can't see a way to process all of that. She wishes she could forget. Part of her mind has considered an obliviate – not that she'd be likely to convince anyone to perform one – but an obliviate would take away Malfoy. And she refuses to lose him.

What a fucking mess.

She realises belatedly that tears are sliding down her cheeks. "Don't you dare ever say that again." Hermione hiccups a sob as she swipes at the tears, scrubbing her cheeks and staring furiously at Tonks. She hates the other witch right now. Can't stand the sight of her. With that calm, sympathetic expression, her mouth downturned and her eyes so sad. Fuck her, Hermione thinks ferociously.

"But he did , Hermione. And that's a concern. The way you are now is worr–"

"That's not how it was – he couldn't – we had to! There wasn't any other fucking choice!" Her voice slides up too loud and half an octave too high, a broken, shredded thing. She's losing it, standing now, her hair falling in lank tangles around her face, fists clenched as her chest heaves. Tonks has to understand. "Voldemort made him do it! He didn't want to! It killed him, Tonks, he –"

"Please stop, Hermione." Tonks's voice cuts through Hermione's tear-distorted gabble. The older witch's face is tight, emotions clearly held in fragile check. "I know all that. I do. But that doesn't change that it happened to you anyway. And you shouldn't have to defend the person who did it." The pity in Tonks's eyes hurts. It kills her to see the older witch look at her like that, as if Hermione is some mewling, pathetic wreck. And she probably is.

"But..."

"You should have a shower and breakfast, and then see the Healer," Tonks says, and Hermione lets out a harsh breath, feeling oddly punctured. Deflated. All the anger runs out of her and leaves her empty again. A seed husk. They aren't going to let her see Malfoy. It's hard to process – it hasn't quite sunk in yet; Hermione is still wrapping her head around it. Getting the taste of it, sour on her tongue. She sits on the edge of the bed, looking up at Tonks, who stands there, her hair slowly shifting greenish.

"I'm not hungry." It's her second full day without food, and her stomach is gnawing on her spine. The idea of food passing her lips makes her feel sick. Tonks eyes her worriedly and doesn't speak for a long moment.

"A shower then," she tries at last.

"I don't have any clean clothes." Hermione tugs at her shirt. Malfoy bought her this. The idea of losing it makes an irrational panic skitter over her mind. She wants to scream again, and she doesn't know why.

"Mrs Weasley put your old clothes away in the dresser," Tonks tells her gently, hair the colour of pine needles now. "And your other things are in the case on the dresser." Hermione looks over and sees it there, a squarish case in maroon leather the width of a briefcase, and realises she has no idea what could be inside it. Books? Photos? Everything from before seems so distant as if it's from a lifetime ago. It's hard to care. About anything.

"Okay," she says limply but doesn't move, and Tonks has to get out a change of clothes for her – underwear, jeans, long-sleeved tee shirt, and hoodie. Tonks opens the bedroom door then, and looks over at Hermione, the clean clothes bundled under her arm.

"Come on then, Hermione," she says coaxingly. "The sooner you get sorted, the sooner Siobhan – the Healer – can decide what's best."

They won't let her see Malfoy. She's lost the battle before she even tries to fight it, she knows, but she'll still have to see the Merlin-damned Healer. The bitch who has said she needs space. Who says she knows what's best for Hermione. What would've been best for Hermione was not to be captured and tortured, but that didn't fucking happen. She's not operating on the ideal anymore, she's operating off what works. What keeps her afloat, rather than drowning in the morass of her trauma, and Malfoy keeps her head out of water. Just barely.

The lack of control over her own life makes Hermione want to throw things. Her life – her sanity – is in this unknown Healer's hands, and she already hates the woman. She stands. She feels like a prisoner still. Not free at all. Just trapped in someone else's cage – and yes, it's a gilded cage, a kind one, with people who don't want to hurt her, but it's a cage nonetheless. Hermione wants to beat herself against the bars like a panicked bird. Instead, she follows Tonks quietly down to the bathroom, and while Tonks waits outside the room, Hermione has a scalding hot shower, scrubbing herself until her skin glows pink and her hair squeaks. That part of things is nice.

Hermione's bra feels uncomfortable when she hooks it on, and she frowns, fidgeting with it unsuccessfully for five minutes. The underwire digs in, and the back is too loose, and she wants Malfoy's clothes. The ones that smell of him. Because the rest of her clothes feel foreign and wrong, too. The denim of her jeans is too rough, the zip on her hoodie sticks, her t-shirt too stiff. When she looks in the mirror, her eyes are shadowed, and her cheeks hollow and gaunt, her skin the kind of pallid that looks unhealthy. As if she hasn't seen daylight in months. There are bits of dry skin on her lips, and she nibbles at one, staring blankly at herself until Tonks knocks on the door.

She gives Tonks her dirty clothes with the plea to not lose them, and the witch assures her they'll be on her bed that evening. It's hard to trust that, but Tonks has no reason to lie, does she? Tonks walks her up to the empty room in the loft, letting her in to reveal a bedroom just like Hermione's but with two blue and grey striped easy chairs squashed in. One at the end of the bed, one by the side. It's clearly been set up just for this. Hermione wants to run away from it. "You'll see the Healer here. I'll let her know you're waiting." Tonks offers her a tight smile as Hermione hovers on the threshold.

"Tonks, wait. Is – is Malfoy okay?" It comes out very quietly as Hermione twists her fingers together nervously. She can't decipher the look Tonks gives her, but it makes her feel deeply uncomfortable.

"Of course he's okay, Hermione, I'm sure. As far as I know, he would've gotten his breakfast this morning like everyone else. And Remus was due to begin his debriefing this afternoon."

"Oh." A pause. "Okay," Hermione accepts and then walks into the room, resigned to her fate, misery making her feel leaden and numb.

"Hi, Hermione." The woman looks to be in her thirties and has a cascade of braids and an expression of warm empathy on her face as she sits in the empty chair, straightening her muted green robes. "I'm Siobhan, the Healer. I'm here to talk and see where you're at."

Hermione nods. Siobhan smiles faintly and then refers to her notes. "I hear that you were held prisoner for three months." She stops and waits. Hermione presses her lips together, refusing to be drawn. After a few seconds, Siobhan nods and goes on, choosing her words carefully. "You were, hmm...held with Draco Malfoy, a Death Eater and agent for the Order, this says. Is that correct?"

Hermione stares at her hands in her lap. There's a hole in the cuff of her left hoodie sleeve, just big enough to work her right index fingertip into. She does. Her hands are cradled together stiffly, tension trembling in them.

"I've been told that you suffered trauma and abuse while held prisoner. Much of it at Draco Malfoy's own hands."

The words prompt Hermione to break her silence at last, which is probably Siobhan's intent, and she hates herself for doing it, but she can't leave Malfoy undefended. "He protected me," she says sharply, tone brittle and voice hoarse. The Healer looks down at her notes, nodding and scratching her quill over paper.

"I understand that, Hermione. And I'm sure you feel that he did –"

"He did!" It bursts out furiously, Hermione's fist slamming down onto the arm of the chair with an abruptness that startles herself. Siobhan eyes her quietly and waits as though she's counting to three in her head.

"And that's a valid way to feel. But it's clear that he also abused and ra– hurt you in some very severe ways," Siobhan says, and Hermione is so relieved that the Healer didn't say exactly what Malfoy did that she doesn't argue or yell at the witch. "As well as allowing harms to come to you, I believe?" She looks down at her notes, and then shoots Hermione a faint, apologetic smile. "I'm not working off of much information here, I'm afraid."

"He had no choice," Hermione says, trying to be calm out of appreciation of the Healer's delicacy. "We're lucky we both survived at all, and that's entirely thanks to Malfoy. He did whatever needed to be done to get us both through that hell as intact as possible." She surprises herself with how coherent she sounds. She pauses and then adds: "I hurt him too, you know."

"Would you like to tell me about that?"

No, Hermione wouldn't. But she does. "I – I electrocuted him. I beat him. I burned him until he was crying, like a child, in agony and – and then I flogged him until my arm ached and his back was – was." She takes a hitching, shuddering breath and digs her nails into the flesh of her palms, tears welling over her lower lids and sliding fat down her cheeks. She doesn't look at the Healer. "I don't think he even knew what was happening by the time I started pulling his fingernails out. He was sobbing, and screaming, and begging me for mercy. And then I kept going." Hermione leans forward in her chair, hair falling around her face, and the Healer leans back instinctively, holding her paper and quill in front of her defensively. "Do you know how hard it is to yank out a fingernail? I was surprised." She feels angry and sick, pressing a fist against her belly and trying not to vomit.

Siobhan looks ill, dark skin taking on an ashen undertone, and Hermione takes a weird satisfaction in that. "I broke him," she says, "because Voldemort told me to. I hurt him worse than he ever hurt me himself. Does that make me a monster, Healer?" There's a sharp edge to the title, Hermione flinging it at the witch like an accusation. She doesn't believe the witch will be able to heal her.

Siobhan swallows hard. "No," she says at last. "But it does mean it may not be healthy for the two of you to see each other, for a time. Now that you're safe and don't need to cling to that interdependence."

"No." It's a flat denial.

"I'd like to talk to you more, Hermione," Siobhan goes on, pushing her braids back, "but at this point, I would definitely recommend you take some space apart from Draco."

"No," Hermione says again on an exhale, starting to breathe shallow and fast again, hands such tight fists that her knuckles ache, an odd pressure in them.

"From what I know, both of you have clearly become deeply entangled with each other. It's understandable in the situation you were in." The Healer sounds like she means to be comforting. Hermione isn't comforted. "Trauma bonding is one term for it. I would venture you've become very emotionally interdependent, and added to that is the complication that he was – in a very real way – your captor, and hurt and abused you. And of course," Siobhan adds, "you hurt him too, as you've said. So I think –"

"No." The refusal grinds out of the depths of Hermione's chest, hardly sounding like her at all.

"I think twenty-eight days," Siobhan says, and Hermione thinks twenty-eight days? It may as well be a lifetime. She can't do it. It isn't fair.

"I think fuck you," Hermione snaps out before she can think about it, heartbeat bird-quick, adrenaline pumping through her. She thinks, in the seconds after, that she never would've said that before . This is another way that she has changed. One of the less terrible, perhaps, but she doesn't know how to handle it. Siobhan just eyes her calmly, pausing a moment before going on.

"That's all right, Hermione. I understand you're afraid. I know it must feel very scary, to think about being separated from someone you've become so entangled with –"

"You don't know anything!" She's crying now despite herself, not out of distress as much as her anger. She's so angry , and that she can't stop herself from crying just makes it worse, fat tears streaking her cheeks as her breath judders in and out unevenly. Hermione rubs at her cheeks with the cuff of her hoodie and tries to shove the tears back down, furious at her weakness. It takes an effort, but she holds back the protest of I love him that wants to escape her; it won't help.

"– But twenty-eight days is traditionally considered the time it takes to build a new habit and break an old one. I think that if over the next month you can find your feet without Draco, and manage to begin building a new normal, then I think you could see him if you still wish to."

Still wish to? Of course she'll still fucking wish to. Do they think she's just brainwashed? That it'll wear off? That she'll get over it?

"Get out," Hermione half-snarls, and Siobhan's expression never changes even as she stands; calm and empathetic, dark eyes unreadable.

"I think you could find it valuable to talk to me, Hermione. I know you're angry, but you've been through a very traumatic experience, and I'm here to help."

"Will you force me to see you again? Hold seeing Malfoy over my head to make me?" Hermione says bitterly, and Siobhan looks sad as she stands in the doorway.

"No. No, I can't make you see me again, Hermione. And I will advise twenty-eight days whether you continue to see me or not. But I hope you will see the benefit in further sessions."

Hermione ignores the Healer then – she's not seeing the stupid woman again – and the woman leaves, shutting the door softly behind her. The room is quiet, finally, and Hermione pulls her feet up onto the striped easy chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. It's dark in the hollow between her legs and her body when she buries her head down and cries. Twenty-eight days, and she has to prove she can manage without Malfoy. Hermione doesn't know how she'll do it. Everything normal feels foreign to her now, and she doesn't know how to regulate herself without Malfoy's help anymore.

She wants him. She needs the composed set of his features, and the little wry twist to his mouth, and the regret that nearly always burns in his eyes. She needs the way he holds her very carefully and urgently needy at once, as if he knows he has no right to touch her but can't help himself. She needs the way he chooses his words and so often speaks with such implacable certainty, even when the words are ones she hates.

It isn't fair.