Thank you to Pidanka, who spends hours catching typos, making sure my often haphazard grammar and punctuation are whipped into shape, and making suggestions that are always a massive improvement 3

Eleven

She stands in the doorway and stares at him. She's beautiful. Beautiful and too thin, her firewhiskey brown eyes sunk into dark shadows, her lips bloodless and dry, her hair falling around her face, looking clean but otherwise uncared for. Draco's hands twitch at his sides as he backs up against the far wall. He itches to push her hair back off her face. To slide his hands around her waist. To kiss her right above her left eyebrow and feel the fragile warmth of her as she slides her arms around his neck and clings to him. She's angry, her brows dark slashes as she glares at him in the shirt and leggings he'd given her, feet in winter boots, a puffy jacket open over the top. She's hugging herself uncertainly.

"Remus says you don't want to see me."

He feels trapped. He is trapped. His throat is tight, and Merlin, he wants to go to her and grab her, yank her inside and slam the door. Hold her in here, his prisoner again, just the two of them; in the quiet safety of this cell, the outside world forgotten. Forgetting about guilt, and blame, and how much he's hurt her; just the monster and his captive, entangled together forever. It's a fleeting, mad impulse that makes him shiver with its intensity.

"I don't," he rasps, his back pressed to the stones as if he can sink through the wall and disappear until she leaves. He can't stand this. He can't stand seeing her there and not being able to touch her. It's fucking hell. It's dangling everything he wants in front of him, but he knows to take it would only hurt her. She's doing better without him. She doesn't need him. And it's best if she manages to make it without him. Without the man who had told her friends how good it had felt when he'd raped her. A man who can say those words shouldn't be with her. Shouldn't be near her. Should've died under Voldemort's wand, really. That would have been adequate penance.

"Why not?" She takes several steps toward him, shrugging off her jacket and tossing it on the end of the bed. His shoulder blades jam against the cold stone as he tries to back up further and can't, a cold discomfort spreading through him from the stones' chill. Her eyes are dark and wet, and the tip of her tongue sweeps over her lips, and his eyes are glued to that movement. He wants to kiss her, very gently, with his hand curling in her hair, lips pushing and pressing softly, tasting her on his tongue. Fuck, she needs to leave. Where's Potter? Or Weasley? Surely they couldn't be okay with this, after what he'd told them the other day. Panic skitters through him. His fingers flex. There's a lock of hair falling over her right eye, and he wants to tuck it behind her ear.

"Because you shouldn't be seeing me. I'm not good for you," Draco gets out, hating the strain in his voice. He swallows hard, breaking out into a sweat as Hermione sways another step closer, folded arms pushing up her breasts so that he can see the soft shadow of cleavage at the unbuttoned neck of her shirt. She isn't wearing a bra, and Draco can see the points of her nipples. And then there's the dip of her waist and the curve of her hips, the way the leggings skim over her, not hiding anything. He grits his teeth and clenches a fist as arousal flares up. If he gets an erection now, there will be no hiding it.

"Don't be stupid. Don't –" her voice cracks "– don't say that. How are you not good for me?" She sounds slightly scathing despite the wobble in her voice, challenging him, her chin jutting up. Draco wants to kiss her so badly. Or shake her. How does she not understand? Has he broken her so badly that she just can't conceive why she shouldn't cling to the man whom the Dark Lord used to torture her? Why that might be unhealthy? The guilt is suffocating. It chokes him. It's hard to think through it; it fogs his mind, cloying in his mouth, and making him feel cold and hot at once.

Draco has spent days doing nothing but thinking about what he did to Hermione, and he has tied himself up in toxic knots. He can't see past his own self-hatred – although part of him is aware that what he feels goes beyond reasonable guilt and shame, and into another level of self-loathing entirely. He blames himself for every pain she suffered, forgetting that ultimately it was Voldemort's fault, that he only did what he did to try to shield her from worse. He remembers only that he hurt her, and he wants her desperately, and that those two things together make him a monster. He feels dizzy.

"Because it's not healthy," he tries, weakly. For some reason, it's hard to think of a good reason, especially when she's standing there looking at him like that. Within reach, if he just swayed forward and stretched out his hand. Her eyes shining amber-gold around the pupil, her tongue pink as she licks her lips again, gnawing on the bottom one for a second before speaking.

"Please, Malfoy. You're being so fucking stupid. You can't –" She cuts herself off, and then her voice drops. "I love you," she says low and intent, and it hurts like a knife through the gut. "I need you."

Draco wants to say it back, but all he can think about is what he did to her. He may have been trying to protect her, but he still broke her. He made her want him – the situation made her want him. It had confused her. Because he had been safety and comfort when he hadn't been hurting her. Out of sheer terror and animal fear, she had clung to him as her protector. Her feelings were because of that. Not genuine. They couldn't be genuine feelings. How could they be, after what he'd done? Draco thinks now that he should have never confessed his feelings to her in the woods when they'd escaped, but he'd thought he was going to die.

I love you, he thinks. Merlin, I love you.

"I – I – no you don't, Hermione," Malfoy denies, using her first name, as he stands there as still and pale as a marble statue, and cold with it. Bitterness saturates his voice. "I'm the one who hurt you. Now that you're safe – I'm not who you need. You don't really love me. It's just that – that Oslo Syndrome."

A hysterical snicker escapes her. "Stockholm," she corrects, throat feeling tight and eyes stinging with unshed tears. "And I do. I do. I love you," she tells him insistently, as breathless as if she's just finished running a marathon. Her chest hurts. She feels too hot still, even though she's taken off her jacket. He's an idiot, she thinks blindly. So damn stupid. After everything they've been through, now, when they're safe, he decides to try to pull away?

"Draco, please." She uses his first name too, and it feels good on her tongue. She's usually so careful to think of him as Malfoy; first to try fruitlessly to preserve the distance between them, and then so she doesn't accidentally call him Draco in front of the others. But maybe that risk doesn't matter so much anymore. "Please. Draco." Her cheeks heat further as she says his first name again, and his lips part, his eyelashes fluttering. "I do need you. You can't –"

"You don't know what you need," he says, and he's so cold and hard, but his fingers are trembling at his sides as she takes another step closer to him. She reaches out, wanting to feel the roughness of the stubble at his jaw, and he shudders under her touch, his jaw clenching, huffing a breath out his nose. He's like a wild animal, ready to break and bolt, his pupils dilated and ringed with moon grey, his shoulders rising and falling with his breaths.

"I raped you. I took you, and I held you down and beat you, and then in front of everyone, I forced my d–" She slaps him as hard as she can, cutting him off, a red handprint blazing up hot on his ashen skin. It makes a crack sound. She's panting, and tears are streaming down her cheeks, anger hot in her blood. But Malfoy – Draco – just stands there, cold and expressionless, looking far older than twenty, his grey eyes dark and blank like stones.

"Don't you dare," she gasps, and he twitches the corner of his mouth into a cold, horrid smile, her handprint still flaming red on his cheek.

"You're better off without me, Granger. After what I did to you. Do you really want to wake up in the mornings to the man who came in your–" she goes to slap him again, and he catches her wrist, fingers holding it almost painfully hard as he finishes, "– who came in your cunt while the Dark Lord watched? Remember that? My cum dripping down your thighs?" Draco is ashen and his voice is sharp and brittle, and she suddenly would prefer to think of him as Malfoy again. Malfoy, she thinks. Not Draco, not when he's doing this.

"Shut up!" she shouts, furious as tears start to well over, not wanting to hear it. Why is he doing this? Why does he have to say it that way? Hermione fights his grip and tries to pry his bony fingers off her wrist, panting and sobbing with effort and emotion.

"You can't even stand to hear me say it. That I'm the –"

"Shut up and let me go!"

"– who handed you over to be used as some fuckdoll by the Dark Lord's foreign guests. Who watched as they –" He keeps listing things in that icy, awful voice that sounds like he's dying, like he's already dead inside, and Hermione wants to scream and vomit and hit him all at once.

"Let me go!" She stamps on his bare foot with her booted one, and he winces and cuts off his rant, his grip on her wrist loosening. She jerks free and backpedals to the door, snatching up her jacket along the way. She stares at him. Horrified. As stunned as if he'd struck her.

"Is it because of when Harry and Ron came down here?" she asks quietly, and Malfoy's expression crumples and twists, like she's driven a blade in and gutted him completely.

"What?" he asks, just as quiet as her, and there is nothing in his voice but a stark, wounded horror. It's like the world spins to a halt. Hermione forgets to breathe.

"When they came and –" she begins to explain, staring at the red mark still bright on his pale skin.

"What did they tell you?" he demands nearly angrily, with a raw desperation that runs in his voice and burns hollow in his eyes. She gasps in a breath, words spilling out messily.

"Tha–that you blamed yourself. That you felt guilty, and you wished you could've taken it all for me." Hermione flushes, hoping Harry and Ron had been honest and not made things up to be kind. Malfoy looks at her intently.

"Is that all?"

Hermione frowns, bewildered by his intensity over something that, to her, seems less important than everything else they've just said. Does that mean it is why he's become so fixed on pushing her away? She isn't sure. "I mean, pretty much?" Something like relief crosses his face, just as Hermione is about to ask why, and as Ron appears behind Hermione and makes her jump with fright instead, clutching her chest. "Merlin, Ron!"

"Sorry, 'Mione. I know you told us not to come down, but I heard – are you okay?" He interrupts himself as he takes Malfoy in properly and her. She probably looks a state, and she realises she's rubbing her wrist where Malfoy had grabbed her, fading red marks imprinted on her flesh. She drops her hand quickly, sleeve covering the marks.

"I'm fine. I just –"

"Get out," Malfoy snarls. "Just get out. Both of you."

Hermione stares at him. She feels sick. He's supposed to protect her, she thinks stupidly. She should be in his arms right now. None of this is right. Ron touches her sleeve tentatively, and she flinches away on instinct. Both men see her flinch and react accordingly, twin expressions of pained empathy, but Malfoy sways forward as Ron quickly pulls back.

"C'mon, 'Mione. Just leave it, for now," he says softly, and Hermione follows him out with one last look at Malfoy, misery consuming her. Hoping against hope that he'll tell her to stop. To come back. He doesn't.

The days tick by, all sliding together into a grey, miserable haze, memories haunting them both. Everything just gets worse.

Nearly two weeks after her ill-fated visit to Malfoy's cell, Hermione goes on a hunger strike. Not on purpose – not really. She just suddenly loses the desire to eat altogether. And then, just a few days later, to shower. Or talk. Sometimes she slips downstairs like a wraith and watches the sunrise while she drinks a hot cup of tea with sugar; it probably helps keep total collapse at bay. And sometimes, in the evenings, she listens to the war news on the wireless from the front hall, sitting on the bottom stair. Or shuffles down the stairs some time after midnight to sit in Lupin's empty, dark office and stare at his file on Malfoy, too afraid to read it. But mostly, she's in her room, dosed up on Dreamless Sleep.

After months of just barely holding by bloodied fingernails on through constant terror and abuse, and now apparent permanent separation from Malfoy – her anchor, her support – Hermione's grip has finally slipped. Losing him was the final straw. She just can't. She can't do it anymore. She won't. She wants out. Sick of the constant memories that crowd in on her mind, sick of the loneliness, sick of forcing herself to do everything that she does when she just wants to not. Sick of the effort it takes to do the simplest thing. Sick of not feeling happy even when she should. Everything makes her so fucking sick.

Without Malfoy's strangely stabilising presence, the fragile balance of Hermione's brittle world had slid all off kilter – and now it's fallen and smashed to pieces. Hermione has been trying so hard to keep it together since they escaped because she had thought she'd be able to fall apart in Malfoy's arms eventually and release the pressure. Now that she knows it won't happen, her tenuous control has shaken apart. She tried, she did. So very hard. But she couldn't keep it together any longer when she found out there will never be any relief. Any break.

She isn't suicidal, Hermione thinks to herself as if from very far away, as she becomes aware that the Healer is asking her that one afternoon as she lies on her bed, eyes shut and hands over her ears. She wouldn't mind if she died right now, but she doesn't want to kill herself. She just wants it all to stop. She wants the world to stop, and go away, and leave her be, unbothered and vacant, everything else fading away. A husk. A shell of a person, locked in memory. Depression isn't a word that occurs to her, nor is breakdown.

By the fourth day, Hermione just lies in her bed half the day, a miserable ball of unwashed human, shivering despite the blankets and drinking far more Dreamless Sleep than she should in an effort to block out the world altogether. She's careened into depths she can't climb her way out of, memories cocooning her like a acromantula saving her up to eat after first injecting her with all of its venom. Nearly catatonic, she ignores Lupin's warnings that they'll have to have the Healer force-feed her if she won't eat, and Ginny's occasional pep talks and impatiently cheerful company, and Harry and Ron's pleading attempts to talk her back around.

Five days pass. They do force-feed her, in the end. She was already far too thin, having lost weight since her return, and she can't afford to lose anymore. Hermione thinks they won't, surely not, until they do – and then a mindless panic takes her because it reminds her of things, and she screams and fights and throws most of it back up again. The next time they threaten her with it, she cries quietly and tries to eat, but nothing wants to stay put. The misery and stress have made her stomach uncooperative, and she manages to keep down very little even when she's actually trying.

"Go tell Malfoy," she overhears Lupin say just outside her door as she slides back into the grip of Dreamless Sleep the morning of the sixth day; not that she's aware of the days. Everything is just a haze of dead sleep, and waking nightmares. "If he doesn't turn up knowing how she is, then he doesn't actually give a damn."

Tonks then – "Tell him to stop being such a bloody martyr. And that he can hardly make things worse. He's got no excuse."

Hermione thinks: he won't come.

Draco raises a brow at Potter and Weasley, who stand taking up all the space in his doorway, having crashed through the door like a pair of mating dragons, making it rebound off the wall nearly hard enough to splinter. They look angry, both of them, and Draco wonders what prompted it. He says nothing, just gives them a curious look as he buttons his shirt; they'd caught him dressing after a strip-wash over his sink. He is glad they hadn't burst in just two minutes earlier.

Something has them riled, though, and Draco's mind pages through memories – there are so many things he's done that could have prompted their ire. He's clenching his jaw, tension buzzing through him as he prepares to snap something scathing in response to whatever they say, when Weasley just begins "Hermione –" in a tone that makes Draco's blood run cold, and his muscles go oddly weak with terror.

"What?" he snaps out, hard and sharp-edged, a horrible fear looming in the back of his mind, frozen on the spot as he stares at Potter and Weasley, button halfway through the buttonhole. "Is she –" But no; the two other men look strained and angry, but not devastated. Hermione has to be alive, at least, Draco tells himself, something awful stirring in his belly. The last thing he'd said to her; get out. He hadn't told her he loves her. He'd pushed her away by saying cruel, terrible things. He regrets everything with a sudden acuity that rocks him to his core.

"You need to come," Potter says, green eyes intent. "No fucking around and playing the martyr, Malfoy. Hermione's – well, she's had a breakdown, we think. She's not eating, and she's taking Dreamless Sleep all the time. She won't talk. Won't do fucking anything." Potter scrubs a hand through his mop of hair. He looks like hell. "We think..." It's like the words are being dragged out of him unwillingly. "We think you might be able to help. God knows why, but we think she wants you."

"Well. None of us are helping," Weasley says bitterly under his breath, and Draco stares at them both, trying to process what they've dumped on his lap as he automatically does up his last two buttons. Hermione needs him. She's not okay. She's bad enough to drive Potter and Weasley to seek Draco out for help. And he's just spent over a week telling himself that he needs to not give into the selfish, gnawing desire to see Hermione, for her own sake. When it turns out that perhaps his absence has hurt her. He's hurt her. Again. Fuck. The world has warped on him. It makes a horrible kind of sense; even when Draco tries to do the right thing, the self-sacrificing thing, it turns out to be wrong. A familiar guilt sinks into his bones, along with the adrenaline and the fear. His misguided attempt to do the right thing has only hurt her further.

He looks dumbly down at himself; in shirtsleeves and trousers, no shoes or coat because he doesn't have any right now. Weasley glares at him. "Are you going to make us beg? Or –"

"Fuck. Shut up, Weasley, of course I'll come," Draco snaps – as much as he'd like to hear Weasley beg, he's not fucking around when it comes to Hermione. "Did you bring shoes at least?" Potter and Weasley exchange a glance that makes it clear that no, neither of them had thought of that, and Draco accepts that shoes and a coat won't be in his future, despite the winter weather. The stone floors are cold on his feet as he strides along behind the two others through the long basement cell block, Potter leading the way.

"How is she? How bad...?"

"She's okay, physically," Potter says, the pace brisk as they head down the long stone corridor. "When we left, she was sleeping, I think. She needs to eat properly, but she's not in critical condition or anything."

"When did she last eat?" Draco asks, mind working. For the past week, he's sat mouldering away in his dim cell. Rotting in the dark. It had felt fitting. The only thing he's been planning has been how to convince Lupin to give him his wand back and let him fight – Lupin has told him he thinks Draco should be assessed by the Healer before he's allowed to do so. Draco found that unacceptable. So he's been waiting and hoping that Lupin will change his mind, and every time he sees the older man, he argues that he doesn't need to be emotionally sound to fight anyway. No one ever assessed him while he was a double agent. Lupin has been unconvinced, so far.

Either way, it's been mind-numbing and depressing to sit in his cell with little to do except run over and over things that are best not thought about. But now Draco has a purpose outside himself again, and it kicks his stagnating mind into clear, sharp focus. Hermione does need him. It's like he's been given permission to lift his self-denial without feeling guilty for it. There's a wild, stifled thrumming in his chest – something that feels a little like hope. It's tempered by his more immediate worry.

Weasley looks over his shoulder at Draco. "The last time she ate of her own free will was six days ago," he says as Draco pulls even with him, walking at the other man's shoulder as they crest the stairs into the wood-panelled upper hall, Potter still several paces ahead. "Not that she was eating much before then either."

"Free will?" Something dark stirs in Draco's gut as he cuts his eyes sideways to look at Weasley.

"We had to force-feed her," Weasley answers, and without even thinking, Draco grabs him and slams him up against the wall, left arm across the man's throat.

"What?" he snarls, his head filled with images of Hermione fighting them while they – they – fuck. He can't bear the thought of it. "How dare you. How dare you –" Draco doesn't know what he's trying to achieve; he's not thinking, just angry. He should've been there. He should've shielded her from that. If he had been there, they never would have gotten the chance to force her. He thinks of her weeping, struggling, helpless. He remembers. All the ways he hadn't protected her, all the things he couldn't shield her from, and this is yet another fucking failure added to the pile.

Potter is trying to drag him off Weasley, as Weasley swears under his breath, trying to shove Draco off him. Draco's lost in his own head. Taking out his own guilt and blame on Weasley; unfair and unhelpful, and not under his control right now. He remembers how Hermione had reacted to him just mentioning force-feeding when she'd been refusing food during her time at the manor house – the sickened, helpless fear in her wide, dark eyes. "Don't you think she's had enough forced on her? How the fuck did you think that would help? You stupid fucking –"

"Malfoy! Jesus, calm down!" Potter grabs him by the arm and tries to wrench it back, but Draco is intent and filled with blinding anger, shouting at Weasley.

"Don't hex him, Harry," Weasley croaks, "just –"

There's a brief, violent scuffle before Weasley clocks Draco in the jaw hard enough that he staggers back shaking his head dazedly, hands on his knees, gasping and trying to pull himself back together. Weasley is coughing, deeply and painfully sounding, slumped back against the wall, mirroring Draco's position.

"You fucking – you force-fed her? You should have gotten me days ago," Draco pants as he straightens, glaring at Weasley, furious.

"We didn't think you'd come," Potter says, and Draco scoffs as he looks at him – glasses knocked askew and wand in hand, staring at Draco suspiciously.

"Bullshit," Draco snaps, shoving his hair back and glaring at the shorter man.

"Fine. We didn't want to have to involve you if we could avoid it," Potter admits sullenly. "Considering what you've done to her." Hearing someone say that hurts just as much every time, like driving a needle beneath his nails. Draco would've thought he'd become desensitised over time; he hasn't. "You all right, Ron?" Potter asks, as Draco stands silently rubbing his jaw, struggling to keep his expression blank even as guilt digs under his skin.

"Yeah." Weasley sounds a little hoarse, but he straightens and nods, pushing off from the wall and giving Draco a dark look. "What the hell, Malfoy?"

Draco clenches his jaw. Grits his teeth. "Sorry," he bites out, knowing it has to be said. "I lost it." Weasley looks wide-eyed, startled at the apology.

"But you deserved it," Draco adds immediately, anger still smouldering under the surface, trying to be calm and communicate reasonably. He can't help Hermione if he doesn't keep it together. He takes a deep breath and counts to five. Exhales. When he speaks, he nearly sounds normal. "I can't believe you stupid gits tried to force her. She did something like this before I got her out. When things are bad, Granger shuts down. And trying to force her out of it is the worst fucking thing you can do. She can't distinguish between that and –" He cuts himself off, thinking the rest in a slew of awfulness. "It all feels the same to her."

"Well, at least she started eating a bit again after that, so it did something," Weasley says unhappily.

"Because she's so fucking terrified you'll do it again," Draco snarls and feels like strangling Weasley again as he follows Potter down the hallway, Weasley keeping pace beside him still, rubbing at his throat. The idea of Hermione being cowed into obedience makes him feel sick.

"It's still eating! And what's your suggestion then, genius?" Weasley challenges him as they head out the front door, Potter yanking it open. A skirl of freezing wind rushes in, and Draco shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders against the punishing chill. The wind cuts through his shirt viciously and raises goosebumps all over him, teeth already beginning to chatter. He refuses to ask Potter or Weasley for a warming charm, and he doubts they'll offer. And they have to walk a good hundred metres to the gate before they can apparate. Shit. Weasley glances at him, still waiting for an answer as Draco steps out onto the icy ground.

Draco shivers, muscles wound as tight as springs from the cold, his joints aching, and cheeks burning from the wind. "We need to make a stop before you take me to Granger," he says in answer. "Do either of you dolts have Muggle money?"

They don't. But it turns out they aren't opposed to using a confundus on an unwary Muggle, and coaxing his wallet off him in an alleyway off the high street they apparate to. The Muggle keeps offering them his phone, and keys, and generally being difficult. He has no cash, only his bank card, and he doesn't remember his PIN. Weasley is taking point with the Muggle, after Potter's frustration got the better of him and led him to go stalking off and kick a shop's skip.

Draco watches them with amusement. "This is so illegal. And unethical," he says through chattering teeth, grinning without much humour. As funny as this is, Hermione is waiting. "I didn't think the Order would approve of preying on unwary Muggles."

Potter shoots him a look. Unamused. Draco just hugs himself and shivers. Potter has finally cast a warming charm, but it's not a very strong one, in Draco's opinion; Draco's feet are half-numb, and as the wind picks up, he's feeling colder. Potter notices – "D'you want his coat?" he asks, nodding to the Muggle.

"No." Yes, he thinks. But – "He'll freeze. Look at him," Draco waves a hand at the Muggle, who is currently trying to give Ron his wedding ring. Potter eyes Draco thoughtfully as if he'd thought Draco wouldn't care about a Muggle catching hypothermia. He admittedly doesn't care much about Muggles; their lack of magic makes them seem somehow unimportant. But he has seen enough of them suffer and die to know he wishes them no harm.

"True, Malfoy. Come on, Ron. Have you got his PIN yet?" Potter asks the redhead impatiently, and Weasley shoots him a long-suffering look.

"What do you bloody think, Harry? That I'm still chatting to him because I'm having a great time?"

Draco snorts. Weasley glares.

It takes another five minutes, but then they have the Muggle's card and PIN, and Potter gives the man orders to go sit in a nearby café for an hour, to give the confundus time to wear off. "Just send him home, Harry," Weasley says, and Potter shoots him a look.

"He might have to drive to get home, Ron. I'm not having him on the roads in that state. He'll kill someone. Or himself." Draco knows nothing about driving, but silently agrees the Muggle is probably incapable of doing anything much at the moment. He goes wandering off dazedly at Potter's encouragement, heading for the café. "Right," Potter says, once they've watched the man disappear inside, out of the cold. "Let's go."

They find what Potter calls an ATM a little further down the high street, and he withdraws £50 from the man's account – he explains the system briefly to Weasley, and by proxy, Draco, but it all sounds like gobbledygook to him. And then Potter snaps the man's card in half and shoves it in a slot in the machine, looking guilty. Draco stands there impatiently as Potter gives the weird paper money a forlorn look, his feet still freezing, hunched and shivering while Muggle passers-by give him weird looks.

"Hurry up," he tells two others dourly, eager to get away from the staring Muggles, out of the cold – and more importantly, to Hermione's side. "We need to find a McDonald's first. Preferably before I get frostbite. Your warming charm is shit, Potter."

Potter rolls his eyes. "I don't practice it a lot. I usually just wear a coat," he says defensively, and Draco curls his lip.

"Well, so would I, except you two geniuses forgot to bring me one. Or shoes." He tries shoving his hands under his armpits for warmth. It helps a little. "It doesn't matter," he mutters, looking around. He sees no McDonald's, not that he'd know what one looks like. At the mansion he'd just told the house elves what to get, and as far as he knew, they sent out Muggleborns to buy the food. He frowns to himself, frustrated. They're wasting time.

"Well, we didn't think we were going on a bloody shopping expedition," Weasley snipes, and Draco finds himself wanting to strangle the redhead again. He hasn't brought them out here for his own amusement. It's for Hermione.

"I think there's one this way, two streets down. Come on," Potter says, and Draco falls in behind him, gritting his teeth, impatience burning through him.