This Bitter Earth

by Ikorous

Control isn't the only thing Draco Malfoy has lost. But he will get it back. He will get everything bac

26. TWENTY SIX

A/N: Hi. Yes, it's me. Heh. Surprise! We wouldn't be here without Bree so if you're happy to be reading this chapter, thank her as well as me. She is the reason I am not still rewriting things and rearranging them, then rewriting them to fit again. Speaking of, I did a lot of this, so if there are some continuity errors- sorry. I'll go through in a couple of days and try to clean any up, but I am very tired right now and have stared at this stuff enough. It's your turn now!

Enjoy!

Soundtrack: "Circles" by Hollywood Undead and "Gilded Lily" by Cults

TWENTY SIX

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Draco was pacing. There wasn't fuck all to do in this goddamn cell except walk from one wall, take three long strides, and turn to walk back across. His boots hit the stone ground with resounding thuds, breaking up the alternating sounds of hopeless wailing as he reached the door and howling wind when he turned at the window.

The window, that's how they must be getting in. Or at least, he thought so. Draco hadn't seen the door open once since he got here. Food appeared once a day, if it could be called food. Even the rabbit food Frenchie had made at the cottage had been better than the stale bread and cup of dirty water that froze if he didn't drink it fast enough.

Sometimes he did. Sometimes he was busy with the Fake Granger who was in his head distracted him with some terrible childhood memory of his Father snapping the back of his hand against Draco's cheek after he wouldn't stop crying and his grey water froze solid. The thirst didn't bother him as much as the fact that he was starting to think that the Fake Granger was turning solid too.

Fuck, he hated it here. Draco slowed as he reached the bars. If the dementors got in the cells this way, then maybe he could get out. He gripped two of the bars, feeling the cold iron against his palms, and tried… pulling. Nothing happened.

Sniffing, Draco shook out his arms, trying to warm them up a little in hopes that he could make some sort of progress this time. He flexed his fingers as he wrapped them around the bars once more. Taking a few deep breaths, he counted to three before he tried again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Feeling the muscles in his neck strain, Draco pulled with all his strength, forcing himself to hold on, to keep going, to… The scarred skin stretched and pulled tight. His arms were shaking, straining—

"Fuck!" Draco was panting when he let go.

Okay, now he was getting angry. He'd been here for a few weeks now and had lost a little of his muscle mass, but something should have happened. Right? Right.

This was bullshit. He was better than this. He was Draco Malfoy for fuck's sake.

Something snorted behind him. Some thing, because as much as she looked like his girl, she wasn't. She couldn't be. His Granger had never been this… mean.

Now she was laughing. It wasn't the soft ringing he loved to hear, but a bitter, cold thing. Just like her.

"Don't tell me this is your plan."

"Shut up."

"You can't really believe you're the first prisoner to try this. Obviously they are magically reinforced. Any idiot can see that."

Draco ground his teeth as the voice got closer. Why was she here? Why now?

Something fell and rolled across the floor. "Whoops," Fake Granger said with fake concern as his daily cup of dirty water spilled across the floor.

Draco stared at it. If she was just in his mind, she shouldn't be able to knock things over. Or… had he done that when he stepped back from the bars? He tried to remember, but the crying from outside his cell was distracting him. Lots of "No, please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Nooo!"

"I thought you liked it when people begged."

Draco rounded on Fake Granger. "You know what I don't like? You. Yapping in my ear when I'm trying to—"

"To what?" she scoffed. "Break your own arms?"

"Fuck off," Draco snarled.

"Ooh, is that the best you can do?"

Draco clenched his jaw. "I'll show you what I can fucking do." He turned back to the window, gripped the bars, and pulled.

He could hear his blood pumping in his ears. Once more, his scars stretched tightly over his straining muscles, except this time, he felt it across his chest and stomach too. Draco held on, determined to make some sort of difference, just to show her, to show himself that… that…

That it wasn't hopeless. That he wasn't useless.

That he wouldn't break another promise to his girl.

Draco held on until he felt his scars were nearly going to pop with the strain and even then, he pushed himself just a little more. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face, cooling as the wind sent a gust rushing in against him.

"It's not going to wo-rk," she warned him in a sing-song voice.

Draco let out a roar as his arms gave out.

"FUCK! FUCK!" He grabbed onto the bars and shook them. "FUCK!"

Fake Granger rolled her eyes. "Are you done?"

Draco sank down against the wall, letting the cold stone cool his heated body. Within seconds he was shivering as the sweat on his skin chilled him to the bone. He wished he still had his water. The heaving breaths had dried out his mouth and he could still feel his muscles twitching in his arms and back. He wouldn't get another cup until tomorrow. Maybe he would try again then.

Was there any point though? He was fucking stuck here. Trapped. It would take a monster to bend those bars. Even if he could, the drop alone would be impossible to survive. What was he doing other than fooling himself? Wasting his time with stupid ideas? If the door didn't open, then how the fuck was he ever going to get out and back to her, to… Hermione.

He hadn't even noticed he said her name out loud until he heard, "I'm right here."

Breathing heavily, Draco closed his eyes for a moment before looking up at her. Her curls fell around her with a dark shadow. From his vantage, she seemed too tall for a moment and her hair fell around her face, darkening it with a shadow until all he could see were her eyes. Not warm or deep like they should have been, but just glazed and grey and…

It wasn't really her, not his Hermione, but… It was as close to her as he was getting. At least today.

.

Hermione was perched on the edge of the couch. It didn't matter that she had been sleeping here for the past week, it still felt strange, like she was intruding in the Lovegood's home.

It was a lovely home, with lots of open windows that let the summer breeze blow gently through. Curtains would gently glide across the floors and ring bells hanging from doors, reminding Hermione of birds singing. Which they did, loudly and often at the break of day. Sometimes they even flew into the house which she would have found charming, if they didn't occasionally try to nest in her hair.

It was nothing like the other magical homes she had been in. Not cluttered in a cozy sort of way like the burrow or decrepit yet buzzing with activity like Grimmauld Place either. And it certainly didn't feel anything like Malfoy Manor, something that Hermione thought she would be grateful for, but now found herself… missing, in a way.

As much as Luna had prompted Hermione to make herself at home, she still found it hard to feel entirely comfortable here. Xenophilius was busy with the Quibbler at it's new offices, and the closest Hermione had gotten to exploring was to thumb through some of the strange books he kept on crooked shelves.

A quick look to her they were mostly rubbish, theories about bending Gamp's laws, which couldn't be done by any logic, and conspiracies about different magical governments covering up powers of strange plants and animals she had never even heard of and of which most seemed to fantastical, even for the wizarding world.

It hadn't taken her long to discard them and return to the stack of papers and pile of books on magical law she was working her way through. But even working, Hermione found it hard to lose herself in the information like she usually did. Instead, she would stay nervously balanced on the lip of the couch cushion.

Frozen. Stuck.

She thought about Draco, alone, in his cold cell and closed her eyes tightly. Hermione folded her body over, head almost touching her knees. Her hands pushed against her eyes, her fingers diving into the mess of curls on her head. She allowed herself to stay like that for three seconds, then took a deep breath and forced herself back up, opening her eyes to see Luna standing in front of her.

"Good Godric!" Hermione grabbed her chest, her heart jumping into her throat. Luna had a strange habit of moving through the house without making any noise. If it wasn't for her humming most of the time, Hermione wouldn't even know she was here. It didn't help that her mind was elsewhere these days, darting between appointments she had made with different offices at the Ministry and what previous court cases she needed to bring up to try and appeal Draco's sentence.

"I thought you might be hungry." Luna held out a chipped plate with a thick piece of toast on it, dripping with orange marmalade. It wasn't until Hermione saw it that she felt her stomach churn inside her with hunger. She had been so busy the past few days that she wasn't entirely sure when the last time she ate was. It must have been yesterday sometime… probably… Hermione bit her lip in thought, trying to remember.

"Hermione?" Luna asked softly.

"What? Oh! Yes," Hermione said quickly. Luna handed her the plate and sat down next to her. "Thank you, Luna. Would you like to share it?" she asked, already a little embarrassed about how much she had taken advantage of Luna's hospitality already.

Luna's eyes swiveled in her head to look at Hermione. "I've had two slices."

It… wasn't an answer, but… Hermione accepted it anyway. She bit into the toast and almost had to hold back a moan. It was soft, but crisp and she could taste melted butter running over her tongue right before the sweet and tangy taste of orange hit it. "Oh my God," Hermione mumbled as she swallowed. "This is so good!"

Luna smiled, looking a little maniacal as it widened, but Hermione felt her own cheeks lift a little. She wasn't able to smile back, not fully, but it was more than she was able to summon a week ago when she ran into Luna in Diagon Alley while she tried to stifle a panic attack so she wouldn't break down in public. The last thing she needed was to appear irrational or unsettled when she was trying to argue Draco's case.

After a quick discussion, Hermione gave up the room in the cheap Muggle hotel she had been staying in and moved into Luna's living room.

"I'm glad you like it," Luna said with a strange and dreamy expression on her face as Hermione took a second and then third bite of the toast. "You need some extra strength, after yesterday." She turned and looked out the window, starting to hum a soft melody.

Hermione swallowed hard and set the toast back down. It suddenly tasted burnt and bitter.

Yesterday had been the… funeral. It had been almost a year to the date since they entombed Dumbledore, that they buried the fallen souls from the Battle of Hogwarts. It had taken a while to organize because there were so many people being honored and remembered. They were turning a portion of the grounds at Hogwarts into a cemetery so that anyone who fell during the battle there, who didn't have anywhere else to rest, wouldn't be forgotten.

There had been discussions of where Harry should be interred; Godric's Hollow was the obvious choice and Molly Weasley had offered to have him buried with the Weasley family, but Hermione argued that Hogwarts had been Harry's real home and so he was to be laid to rest in a position of honor between Minerva and Remus.

The grounds were full of people coming to pay their respects and say a final goodbye to their loved ones. Hermione had already done that on the battlefield and felt an odd sense of anxiety being here again. When Elphias Doge made a speech about the brave heroes who gave their lives, she couldn't help but think of Draco who hadn't lost his life, but had lost his furture, even after giving just as much as anyone did.

And she had lost him. At least until she could get him freed.

Hermione sat the toast back down on the plate, unfinished and wondered what Draco had eaten today or if he even had.

Luna had invited her along to a gathering at the Burrow after the funeral, but Hermione had merely said she had more work to do, which, wasn't not the truth; there was still plenty that needed to be done, but she also didn't want to have to hide how she was really feeling just to make Ron and the rest of his family feel better.

When Hermione had caught up to Kingsley after the burial she had tried to talk to him again about Draco. She knew it wasn't the best time or even the most appropriate, but if it helped, it was worth the risk. However Kingsley just stepped to the side, saying she needed to make an appointment with his office to discuss official Ministry business.

"I've tried," Hermione argued. "They just say your schedule is full and refer me back to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who I've spoken with a dozen times—"

"I understand your frustration, but I can't meet with every concerned citizen, Miss Granger."

"I am not just a concerned citizen, I was a member of the Order!" Hermione shouted, ignoring the way other voices fell hushed around her. "And Draco helped the Order! We would be burying more people today if it wasn't for him!"

Mrs. Weasley appeared at Hermione's side and patted her arm. "Come now, dear. This is a day of mourning, to honor those who died and what they died for."

Hermione didn't want comfort right now and shrugged Mrs. Weasley off to face Kinglsey again. "Yes, we are supposed to be honoring them—" she pointed at Harry's grave, Minerva's grave, and Remus' grave in turn. "By building a world where we don't let injustice stand! If they were still here, you know they wouldn't have agreed to that sentence. Not after what he did—"

"What he did?!" Kingsley exploded. "You were there! You heard what he said in the courtroom! What he said to the judges!" Kingsleylooked at the graves of his friends, his eyes going dark and soulful. "If they had been his judges then maybe… but they are not with us anymore. And what else was I to do?" Kingsley's brows furrowed. "I know what Draco Malfoy did, all of it… but the boy damned himself. I had no choice."

"Hermione, come away. This isn't the time," Mrs. Weasley said gently and put her arm around Hermione's shoulders to lead her away.

"Stop, stop it!" Hermione cried out, trying to keep the tearful notes from her voice as she pulled away from Mrs. Weasley a second time. "Don't touch me!"

Mrs. Weasley looked shocked at first, but then… hurt and Hermione felt a hot pit of guilt churning in her.

"I… I was only trying to help," Mrs. Weasley said softly.

Hermione wanted to say 'then help me, please!' but Mrs. Weasley was fretting over a thick sweater in her hands with the letter F sewn onto the front and the pit deep in Hermione widened, threatening to swallow her whole. The feeling brought back the image of Harry being lowered into the ground and her throat tightened to the point where she could barely breathe, let alone say she was sorry for shouting at Mrs. Weasley.

"Come on, Mum," Ginny pulled on her mother's hand, leading her away. Hermione caught her eye for only a moment, but saw the disapproval as Ginny shook her head, her long hair shining in the bright summer sun.

Hermione was thankful that Luna didn't bring up her outburst at the funeral and when she declined the invitation to the Burrow, but only said, "I'll bring you back some pudding."

The pudding was sitting there on the table in front of the couch, still wrapped up, next to the plate with the unfinished toast. But what caught Hermione's eye was the still sealed scroll next to the uneaten food that Hermione had nearly forgotten about in all the emotional calmour.

A goblin had tracked her down when she had broken away to walk along the lakeshore after the burial and resulting upset.

"Excuse me, EXCUSE ME!" the goblin had called out when Hermione didn't stop. She wasn't in the mood for… much of anything except looking out over the cool, calm waters of the lake. "Miss Hermione Granger?" he croaked and prodded her in the side with a scroll sealed with silver wax and the familiar insignia of the Malfoy family crest.

Hermione lifted her eyes from the seal to his black ones, magnified by large spectacles resting on a wart nearly the same size as his nose. She wasn't able to summon a smile to greet him, merely nodding and confirming who she was.

"This is yours." He shoved the scroll into her hands. Hermione merely blinked back at the goblin who sighed, hefted his trousers up by the belt, and explained. "This is the will of Draco Lucius Malfoy."

Oh God… The blood rushed out of her head and Hermione swayed on her feet. "Is… Is he…" she barely breathed out.

"No, no," the goblin waved a clawed hand, "and it won't be official until he is dead, but there are quite a few of our clients spending the rest of their days in Azkaban. Adjustments must be made. Any wills with heirs or benefactors listed are entrusted with the caretaking of the estate."

"I'm sorry," Hermione breathed out. "The estate?"

The goblin gave her a long suffering sigh. "Any lands or titles held, along with any goods or gold belonging to the Malfoy line."

Hermione stared at him. Draco had mentioned changing his will, but she hadn't realized the exact extent of what he was doing at that moment. "But I'm not a Malfoy," she protested. "I can't—"

"I just pass it along, as is my fiduciary duty," he interrupted her. "What you can and can't do or will or won't do is none of my concern. If you have any questions about the vaults—"

"Vaults?" Hermione repeated. "Plural?"

"Please make an appointment with Horkack Bonegrinder. He's over high security clients since…" The goblin trailed off then wrinkled his nose, making the wart twitch and his glasses almost fall from his face. Pushing them back over the hump on his nose, he went on, "Now, if you will excuse me, I have other clients to attend to."

"Wait!" Hermione called out, but the goblin was already shuffling off, pulling another scroll from a briefcase and heading for his next beneficiary. She followed him into the crowd, but he was a good deal shorter than her yet somehow almost twice as fast.

She glanced around, seeing strangers and people she'd known for years all mixed together. They broke around her, like water around a stone and she suddenly felt very… alone.

Hermione hugged the scroll to her chest as she watched the people take comfort in their friends, their families, their loved ones. But she didn't have that because the person she loved was gone. Taken. And she was burning every bridge in an effort to get him back, but… would it be enough? And if it wasn't, then what would she do?

What could she do?

Hermione had come back to the Lovegood's, alone, as Luna was at the Burrow and Xenophilius at the Quibbler's new offices to print a special edition with the obituaries of those passed. She sat on the couch, in the same seat as now, in silence. Too nervous to open the scroll and see what Draco had… given her. And what exactly that meant.

"You get the Manor, the estate, the whole fucking mess. The vaults too. They aren't what they once were, but don't worry, I filled them up with enough blood money to keep you comfortable for a few lifetimes."

Taking a deep breath, Hermione tried sorting her mind for the day, stacking thoughts in piles that grew larger every day, but she didn't have time to organize them properly because when she wasn't completely concentrated on Draco's appeal, she was sucked down into the cold, black hole in the bottom of what she was pretty sure was her soul. Sometimes thoughts and ideas would fall down there and Hermione would look around with no idea what she had just read or why she had even walked into a room.

She was worried that Draco had fallen down there too because anytime she was brave enough to push scattered thoughts from the back of her head where he used to lurk, she found… nothing. Like the Draco who had lived in her head last year had been taken too.

All the more reason to work harder, to keep pushing. She needed to go to the Ministry again this morning and put in another request for the transcript of a case where a witch was wrongly imprisoned in 1748 from the archives. She hoped to find some information about the appeal process, which from what she read already had taken 13 years to fully overturn.

Hermione felt the warm air blow in from outside. June was already gone and Draco had been in Azkaban for over a month. She didn't want to wait for thirteen years for the Wizengamot to overturn their verdict.

She didn't know if Draco would last thirteen years. The witch in the case she wanted to research had been innocent, same as Sirius, who had been locked up for twelve years and Hermione knew what condition he had come out in.

Sirius had told them that it was only the hope of freedom left in him, and the fact that he hadn't done what he was imprisoned for that kept him going all those years, but Draco was far from innocent.

Hermione looked down at her arm, at the crudely carved letter M that was imprinted there and ran her finger over it, remembering the gleeful gleam in Bellatrix's eye as she put the knife to her skin. Bellatrix had been driven on by more than her purist point of view, it had been madness that drove Bellatrix to the horrors she committed. Madness that had been brewed in Azkaban.

Hermione shivered despite the warmth of the day.

"Oh," Luna said dreamily and turned around, the smile finally fully forming on her face. "She's here."

Hermione's eyes went wide, but before she could ask Luna who 'she' was, the door burst open. Hermione jumped to her feet, snatching up the hawthorn wand and holding it out in front of her. She hadn't even meant to, but her body naturally fell into a defensive stance, ready to attack whoever—

"Are you in the habit of cursing the neighbors?" Ginny asked as she rounded the corner into the living room. "It's fine, but if you're going to be staying here I'd just like to know."

"Ginny!" Hermione breathed out, her chest sagging with relief. "Good Godric, I thought—" but she stopped, not wanting to finish her sentence. She didn't want Luna and Ginny to know that she was jumping at shadows during the day and running through nightmares of long, cold corridors at night.

Luna moved around Hermione and greeted Ginny by lifting herself up on her toes to kiss her girlfriend. Hermione felt something sharp right through her middle at the sight of them, together. She was a little embarrassed that she hadn't picked up on it earlier, but once she saw them together after the battle, how they consoled each other and how they supported each other… and she had been all alone, just like she was now.

Hermione stood there, with her arms at her sides, as they held each other in theirs.

Ginny's brows pulled together, causing a crease to form in between her eyes when she looked over at Hermione. "That's not your wand."

"Oh." Hermione looked down at it. "I know. I mean, mine… mine snapped and…" She didn't know why she was finding it so hard to say what had happened, but…

Ginny nodded forward with her chin, making the light catch her hazel eyes in a strange way. "Whose is it?"

Hermione gripped the hawthorn wand tighter. "It's mine now."

"Hmm."

Hermione held Ginny's gaze until Luna spoke, pulling her attention away. "Come see the dirigible plums! Daddy doesn't have much time for gardening anymore since the Quibbler has picked up, but they have been doing even better in his absence. They nearly reach my bedroom window now!"

Ginny's expression flickered and softened and she nodded, letting Luna lead her over to the window.

"See up there? That's my window," Luna explained, pointing at the second-and-a-half-story which Hermione still found odd that a house had a half-story even if it was a magical home, but maybe that was just part of its charm.

It certainly was working on Ginny who wiggled her eyebrows and said, "I know."

She and Luna fell into a small fit of giggles and Hermione felt the tension blow away out the open window, causing a few of the larger plums to bump into one another.

"I can…" Hermione cleared her throat a little. "I can give you two some space."

"What? No!" Luna shook her head. "Don't be silly, Hermione."

"Yeah," Ginny chimed in. "You weren't anywhere to be found after…" The funeral. Hermione felt the sharp stabbing in her middle again. "And you didn't come to the Burrow last night." Hermione expected her to look upset, angry even, but instead Ginny looked… sad. "You were missed."

"I—" She didn't know what to say and with each passing second, it became harder and harder to force herself to answer.

"Ginny, it's okay if Hermione didn't feel like visiting. We are all processing in our own way."

Hermione had never been so thankful for Luna. She wanted to tell her how grateful she was for everything, for sitting quietly with her, for offering her a place to stay, and for sticking up for her now, but all Hermione found that she was able to do was give another one of those half smiles again, hoping it was enough.

"It's okay, really," Hermione assured them. "Anyway I have to travel to London again today," she gathered up the scroll and a few other papers, "and I know you two have to start on your planning and packing."

"Ooh, yes!" Luna's light eyes brightened. "It isn't long now and we will be in the beautiful jungles of Thailand. I simply can't wait."

Hermione was happy for her friends, she really was. They made it through the war and instead of just surviving, they were thriving. Ginny and Luna had planned a trip starting in Thailand to explore the world and search for a variety of creatures, all of whom Hermione was pretty sure were mythical, but… if it made them happy, then she was all for it.

Who was she to judge?

"Do you really have to go so soon?" Ginny asked. "I mean… I just got here. What are you in a rush for?"

Hermione took a breath, tried to smile and nodded. "I can stay for a bit."

Ginny visibly relaxed and sat down. Luna sighed as she slotted in next to her and Hermione took a seat in a chair across from them, still holding onto the scroll tightly, needing to take out some of her nervous energy somehow.

"How… How was last night?" Hermione asked, trying to break the ice.

Ginny laid her head back on the couch Hermione had been using as a bed for the last week and a half. "Frustrating."

Hermione glanced at Luna; she hadn't said anything like that when she got back last night.

"I told you," Luna said calmly as she sat beside Ginny, "Ron isn't actually upset with you. He's upset at everything that's happened."

Hermione shifted her weight and picked at her fingers, not knowing what to say.

"He doesn't have to take it out on me!" Ginny said angrily. "I… I miss Harry too."

Hermione stopped moving and looked up to see Ginny staring down at the floor and Luna rubbing her back. "We all do, Gin Blossom."

Ginny smiled at Luna, her girlfriend, with unshed tears in her hazel eyes.

They shared a soft, but sweet kiss and Hermione felt her emotions teetering, threatening to spill down from the tall stacks she had piled them all in. It was too much. The mention of Harry, of Ron, getting to see how happy Ginny and Luna were together and then the seeping guilt at how… envious she was of them.

She should have been able to sit with Draco, taking comfort in him so that she didn't fall apart. Hermione gripped the scroll tighter in her hands.

"Ron is being a right prick about everything," Ginny went on. "He was the one who encouraged Harry to… stay away from me and now thinks me not being there for him somehow drove him…" She sighed heavily and threw herself against the back of the couch. "I don't even know! He broke up with me so how could I have possibly cheated on him?!"

Hermione stifled a gasp.

"Harry didn't think that," Luna reassured her. "When I told him… He said he was glad you were happy. He told me I was very lucky to be with you, but he never thought you betrayed him."

Hermione bit her lip, remembering their conversation on the shore. Harry had been upset, but not angry, not resentful. And he had told her he wanted her to be happy too, that one of them should be at least. But now Harry was gone and Hermione was probably the furthest from happy she had ever been.

"Everything is already hard enough. I just don't want to deal with him on top of..." Ginny pushed her hands into her hair.

"You can stay here for a couple days if you want," Luna offered brightly. "It is only a few days before we leave and Dad won't mind. He loves you and anyway, he's so busy with the Quibbler lately because no one trusts the Prophet anymore."

Ginny snorted. "With good reason."

Hermione couldn't help it, she smiled a little at that and it caught Ginny's eye who slowly smiled back. "Only took them what, four years and one evil overlord to realize the Prophet only prints what the Ministry approves?"

"They've taken Rita Skeeter back on," Hermione offered as an olive branch.

"No!" Ginny exclaimed and Hermione nodded, feeling a bit of their old camaraderie again.

"Daddy calls it the Profit," Luna giggled. "Get it? Profit?" She began to laugh madly.

Ginny caught Hermione's eye again and laughed so hard she snorted. Hermione covered her mouth to stifle her own, but it came out anyway.

It slowly died down, Luna's lasted the longest and Hermione's cheeks hurt from smiling when Ginny grabbed Luna's hand and beamed at her. "I love you so much, Moonbeam."

Luna's face lit up and Hermione could tell how come Ginny had chosen that particular name for her. Her blue eyes sparkled like stars and she looked radiant as she beamed back at Ginny.

Hermione's heart swelled, then ached from disuse. Goodness, she missed Draco. Her thoughts circled back to him, as they always did. She needed to get back to work.

Hermione looked at a clock on the mantle to check the time. It was upside down and one hand was moving backwards while the other swirled and spun in seemingly random movements. It was entirely unhelpful.

"Oh, look at the time!" Hermione said a little louder than necessary. "I really have to get going."

"Going? Where?" Luna blinked dreamily up at her.

"Uhm, the Ministry," Hermione looked away from them, gathered up her bag and stuffed a few papers and the still-bound scroll into it.

"What for?" Ginny asked.

This was what she was hoping not to discuss with Ginny.

"A request from the archives for a court transcript."

"What for?" Ginny asked more firmly and when Hermione had fastened her bag closed and turned around, Ginny was already standing.

Hermione lifted her chin. "Because I need it."

She knew Ginny knew. She wasn't trying to hide her efforts to free Draco, but she wasn't sure how Ginny felt about it. No, that wasn't true. Hermione knew exactly how Ginny felt about it. She had lost a brother in the war, it wasn't easy to forgive someone who had fought for the other side, even if Draco had done it for his own reasons.

Maybe Hermione had been too quick to think that Ginny had forgiven her too.

"Don't tell me you're still trying to get that motherfucker's sentence—"

"Don't." Luna was on her feet, her hand on Ginny's shoulder.

Ginny's mouth dropped open. "Luna, you know better than most what that asshole has done!" A flush of red was creepy up Ginny's neck and into her face. The resemblance between her and Ron was unmistakable and Hermione felt warring emotions inside her chest.

"Yes," Luna's voice seemed a bit more rooted in reality. "I do." Her hand dropped from Ginny's shoulder. "I was in his cellar for weeks. I saw how Draco acted as a Death Eater. I saw what he did." She stepped closer to Ginny, looking up at her. "And I saw what he could have done and didn't do. More than that, I saw why."

Hermione could feel their eyes on her. She didn't want to hear this. She didn't want to listen to other people's opinions on Draco when they weren't the ones who could decide whether he could come… home or not.

Home… As kind as Luna had been to let her stay here, it wasn't her home and if her being here was going to cause problems between Luna and Ginny, she didn't want to stay.

Luna had been through enough. Ginny had been through enough and… Harry had wanted them to be happy. The least she could do was not get in the way of that.

"Say your goodbyes and then we'll go."

That's what she needed to do. Hermione pulled her bag over her shoulder. "It's fine, Luna. I'll talk to you later," she mumbled as she walked past them. She'd come back, thank Luna for… everything, and then get out of her way. Luna needed to focus on her life and the good things in it and Hermione needed to focus on… research and working.

Like she always had. It was the one part of her life that didn't feel like it was spinning away in the hectic hurricane that she spent most of her time lost in.

Before Hermione opened the door, she turned back and took a deep breath. "I'm glad I got to see you, Ginny. Really, I am."

Ginny looked shocked for a moment, then… nodded, her coppery hair catching the light. "Me too."

Hermione pushed the scroll into her bag, then headed out the door.

.

She didn't know where else to go so she came here. It looked mostly the same, magnificent in its dark glory, but there was a feel to it, as soon as she crossed the threshold it hit her like wall. This place had been touched, no, more than touched, it had been infected by dark magic.

Hermione lit the tip of Draco's wand and held it out before her as she entered Malfoy Manor once again.

She hadn't spent much time in the rest of the Manor, but when she had, Hermione committed to memory each step, memorizing every turn and twist so that if she broke out, she would be able to make her way out of the house. It felt strange, turning the map in her mind backwards and trying to find her way back to Draco's room.

Hermione breached the top of the stairs and bit her lip.

Their room.

Because this… all of this… was hers now. Or at least, under her care.

She had finally opened the scroll from the funeral after she had spent close to fourteen hours buried in the Ministry archives. Her eyes were dry and scratchy, but had widened when she read what was written there. She read it through three times, making sure it wasn't sleep deprivation making her think this was… real.

Draco had told her he changed his will, but she hadn't really believed it until she read it in black ink and saw the seal of his ring pressed into the wax at the bottom of the scroll. He hadn't just left her enough gold to live a comfortable life like he claimed, he left her everything.

Hermione looked over the figures listed, reckoning the accounts in the seven vaults the Malfoys owned. This is what was left after Draco claimed his father liquidated them? Not to mention the Manor, the estate it was located on and… a property in France attributed to some inheritance through the Black family line.

It was… a lot. And yet it was nothing to her. She'd trade it all just to see Draco one more time.

Hermione sat quietly for a while as the Ministry archives slowly emptied. She turned the Malfoy signet rings over in her fingers, tracing the silver M again and again as her mind accepted and processed what this all meant.

She wasn't sure exactly how much time passed when she finally had the idea, no, the courage to act on the idea she had as soon as she read Draco's will the first time—to go to Malfoy Manor and…

And just be there. Because if she couldn't be with Draco then that was the next best option, wasn't it?

Anyway, Ginny was staying at Luna's tonight, maybe even longer, and Hermione didn't want to be in their way. As much as she was grateful for being able to stay with Luna, she felt like she needed some time on her own and… and Draco had made sure she didn't have a home to go back to, at least one that wasn't also his.

Hermione turned the corner and saw a familiar hallway. A shiver ran down her spine as she started forward. She had been here dozens of times, but almost always in her dreams, running, following the sound of Draco screaming in pain and terror. Then she had seen it in real time, Draco being tortured, the pain flashing through his silver eyes as he called out her name…

Trying not to think about it, Hermione hurried forward, coming to the two large double doors that led to Draco's quarters.

They were open.

Pushing one a little farther, Hermione walked in and froze. It was mostly the same as she remembered, except that books had been knocked down from the shelves and the drawers to Draco's desk were hanging open. She looked at the corner and flashes of Lucius Malfoy hitting Draco with his cane burned the backs of her eyes. She had rushed forward, out of the bedroom, not thinking about anything but the fact that Draco had been lying on the ground, blood seeping into his white blond hair.

Hermione closed her eyes, refusing to let the memories of this place take over her. She picked her way carefully through the room. Draco's hand of glory was lying on the floor and she picked it up, placing it on his desk. She tried not to think about how Draco had shoved her against this very desk and whispered terrible, wonderful things he wanted to do to her. Or how she had sat on the floor beside him while he worked, her chains attached to his wrist and came up with her own terrible ideas she had never dared to whisper out loud.

Not out of fear of them, but out of fear of loving them if she did.

Hermione turned away and faced the bedroom door. The knob was just the same, goblin wrought iron, enchanted to open only under a specific spell, but as she tapped it with the tip of her wand, it swung open. It had never been locked back since they left.

She felt anxiety churning inside her as she walked back into the room she had spent months in as a prisoner.

Even torn apart, it had to be nicer than anywhere she had lived before and certainly better than whatever cell Draco was currently sitting in. The tapestry on the walls was torn. The wardrobe flung open and the mirror shattered on the ground into thousands of sparkling silver pieces. One of the windows had been broken and the curtains were waving slowly at her as the nighttime air whipped through the room. There was plenty of damage, but what caught her eye most was also the thing that made her heart thud so hard it hurt.

The chaise, the one Draco had conjured in the Room of Requirement, the one that she had refused to sit on until the fateful night she drank Draco's stash and let him… let him back in again, was broken nearly in half.

The stuffing was pulled out and the soft velvet charred from whatever spell had hit it and cracked the beautiful piece of furniture in two. Hermione trailed her fingers over it, remembering how it felt when it was whole and unbroken.

Her throat ached around the lump that was growing in it. She wasn't sure what she expected when she had come back here, but… it still hurt to see a tangible piece of her life with Draco so carelessly ruined.

Her whole body hurt. Every muscle ached from holding in the grief and sadness and sheer agony she had been in for… for so long. All she wanted to do was have someone hold her, tell her it was alright and they were going to make it better. That she was cared for and… and loved. That she wasn't alone. That she wouldn't spend the rest of her life feeling like she had been broken in half and her heart ripped out of her chest.

She turned away from the chaise, not wanting to see it like that. And there was no one here to see her fall apart either.

Hermione didn't put much effort behind the thought, just letting her body take the action it needed as she climbed into Draco's bed. Curling up under the ripped covers, Hermione grabbed the pillow from his side of the bed and buried her face in it. Faintly, she could smell the creamy parchment of his skin and for a moment, it felt almost like he was there with her.

Wrapping his arms around her, letting her bury her face against his chest, and whispering filthy promises mixed with the sweetest devotions in her ear. Gasping, Hermione sat up, staring into the darkness around her. The grand house was silent around her, oppressively so, but somehow, it wasn't enough.

Hermione flicked Draco's wand and the door locked, the complicated mechanism sliding into place. She bit her lip, then made up her mind and tapped it again.

The iron bars shot up from the base of the bed, caging her in.

How many times had she laid here, in Draco's bed, wishing she could reach out and touch him, that she could pull him to her, on top of her, and forget everything until it was just him and her, like it should be.

If she could go back now, would she do it any differently?

Tonight, she could. Hermione blinked in the darkness and slowly waved Draco's wand over herself. Her clothes faded until all that was left was the slip of lace dress she had been wearing the last time she was here. A shiver passed through her, which did nothing to cool her heated skin.

It had been so long, so incredibly long since she had enough energy to feel any sort of sexual desire, besides, thoughts of Draco were usually followed up with overwhelming anxiety building up higher and higher until the messy piles in her head threatened to fall around her. They might get to break down, but she never did. She had to stay strong, stay determined, for Draco.

But tonight she wanted to do something for herself. Hermione hadn't felt like herself in weeks and… she missed it. Missed the girl she had been and the woman she had grown to be during the war. Being with Draco in her sixth year had changed her, opened her up in a new way, and let out something that had always been there. And when she was on the run last year, she had tried to lock it away again, but it had come back as the slumped figure who had stared at her with silver eyes from the back of her head.

Only now, she didn't want him in the back of her head anymore. She wanted him here, in front of her, on top of her. Hermione's hand slid down the hem of the lace dress, pulling it up inch by inch. The sensation of the soft fabric sliding over her made goosebumps rise on her skin and once it was over her hips, Hermione felt her nipples harden, making everything feel more… more.

Moving her hand back down, resting it right before her body curved down. Her heart beat a little faster, sending a delicious thrum though her body which reverberated in the small bud at the top of her center. She spread her fingers out and shakily, slipped one in between her fold.

Hermione gasped feeling a frisson run up her spine. It straightened against the bed, her body already responding to the slightest contact. Taking a deep breath, she tried not to think about the fact that the last time she had been touched, it had been by Draco. No. It wasn't the last time. She refused to believe that. He said if she waited, he would come for her this time.

And Godric help her, she believed him. Even after all the lies, she still believed. Believed he loved her. Believed they would be together. Believed she was still his girl, would always be his girl…

Hermione let go of the sheets she had been holding onto with her free hand and grabbed the signet ring she wore around her neck, pressing it against the burn mark on her palm from the fiendfyre curse and squeezing it until it hurt.

Her eyes fell closed, lashes brushing against the tops of her cheeks as her mouth opened, gulping down a breath of air as bubbles rose up in her, higher, faster, almost near bursting…

Draco had always known just the right moments to tweak her pleasure with pain and Hermione let out a small whimper as she let go of the ring and trailed her hand down to join the other between her legs. Dipping her fingers inside herself, Hermione bit her lip. She knew what would push her over the edge, knew what she needed in order to release the tension and pressure surging up through her.

Hermione bit her lip and spread her legs a little farther, trying to find the bruised bite Draco had left on her skin, but…

But it wasn't there.

Hermione's eyes flew open.

She should have known, it had been almost two months since their last night together, when Draco had told her that he'd never be gone long enough for it to heal. With everything going on, she hadn't really had time to think about whether it was still there or not. Last summer she had charmed it so it wouldn't heal, but after the battle she had just plunged headfirst into trying to get his sentence overturned and… and…

Hermione pulled her hand from herself, ripping her own orgasm away at the last minute. Her body screamed in protest, but she didn't want it. She didn't want anything but Draco, here, with her—now. Holding her, telling her it was all going to be okay and that he was going to take care of all of it. That he was going to take care of her.

She curled up on her side, tears streaming from her face as she let out the sob she wasn't able to keep in.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

She was so alone.

Hermione buried her face into Draco's pillow, crying into it until her whole body was shaking. She curled up, pulling her legs against her chest and holding herself as best she could. She had kept so much inside her for so long, but tonight it was all coming out and Hermione couldn't stop it even if she tried. She cried until her body was sore and her eyes hurt. Until her throat burned and her chest ached from the heaving breaths.

It felt impossible, that someone this empty, still had so much in her.

She stayed curled up, caged up, until the early grey shadows of morning crept in from the windows. Eventually, Hermione evened her breathing again as the salty streaks dried against her cheeks. The darkness was fading with every passing minute, making her face another day that she didn't want to.

Daylight showed the ruined mess of the room to her in stark relief. It resembled the inside of her head too much for her liking. She pulled herself from the bed and walked over to one of the torn tapestries. She could still see the missing thread from the bottom that she had torn to play with Crookshanks.

A pang rang through her chest and Hermione felt herself on the point of collapsing again when she heard a rustling sound of flapping followed by a demanding screech. Soaring in through the broken window, Hermione saw Calix land on the top of the wardrobe.. He screeched at her again, flapping his wings in agitation.

"Oh!" Hermione hurried over and picked up his overturned perch. As soon as it was upright, Calix swept towards it, settled comfortably on the bar and ruffled his feathers. "Are you thirsty?"

Calix clicked his beak rapidly and Hermione hurried to the bathroom to fill the small silver dish. Tapping the faucet with the wand, cool, clear water came forth. It certainly was easier to exist here with magic. Last time she had…

Hermione lost her train of thought. On the counter next to her was the green toothbrush, sitting there just where she left it.

She wondered if the red one Draco had used at Shell Cottage was still there or… if they had thrown it away.

"Fiddlesticks!" Hermione muttered when she noticed the water running over the edge of the dish. Tapping the faucet again, she wiped her hands off and returned to Calix who gave a sharp cry as if to tell her to hurry up. "Sorry, sorry!" Hermione said quickly as she placed the dish beside him.

Calix took a few long gulps and Hermione stroked his feathers softly. "You're not the world's worst owl," she said thoughtfully. Calix raised his head, then shook it, making water fly off his beak and hit her in the face. "You could use some manners, though."

He hooted haughtily.

"Are you hungry?"

Calix flapped his impressive wings and screeched at her again, lifting one foot to show some dried blood on his talons.

"Well," Hermione tried not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. "I'm glad you've had breakfast."

He took another drink then began to preen his feathers, ignoring her entirely.

"You're welcome," she muttered, but before she could feel upset over Calix's abysmal social skills, an unseasonably cool breeze blew through the broken window. Carefully picking her way through the broken glass, Hermione looked out over the grounds of Malfoy Manor. They were… as far as she could see. Probably more. And she was supposed to look after them now.

How was she going to do that when she could barely even hold herself together? The longer she stared, the more… strangely quiet they seemed. Even the expansive pastures were empty. Something about it made her unsettled. It was as if she could feel the dark magic still hovering here.

Hermione had work to do. She'd start with Draco's study, that way, she would have somewhere to work on his appeal that wasn't the Ministry archives. And who knew? Maybe she would find something among the torn parchment that would help. It wasn't likely, but she was desperate enough to try.

She walked over to the small beaded bag that she was still living out of and pulled out a change of clothes and… Draco's coat he had given her during the battle. She slipped it on and started rolling up the sleeves before she tucked Draco's wand, her wand, into the pocket.

"Will you be here this evening?" she asked Calix who merely blinked his large orange eyes in response. "Well," Hermione shook her hair back, "I will."

She was at the door when she turned and said, "I promise."

.

"You're a fucking bitch."

"I see we haven't made any progress yet."

The pain had caught up to Draco and everything hurt. His arm, his back, his… heart.

It was making him testy.

"I see we haven't made any progress yet," Draco mocked in a high, nasally voice. "GET FUCKED!" Draco nearly bent at the waist with the effort to shout the words, then straightened up and sneered. "My Granger did and she became much more amenable after that."

Fake Granger put her hands on her hips. "You're disgusting."

Draco shrugged. "She liked it."

Tilting her head, Fake Granger asked sweetly, "Did she though? Let's check."

He groaned as he felt himself falling into another memory.

Fake Granger cleared her throat and Draco stopped rolling his eyes long enough to see they had landed on the Quidditch pitch.

Great. He was back here again, in this shit of a school.

Fucking perfect.

"Pay attention," she snapped.

"Or what?" Draco said in a bored voice. "You'll leave? Good. Get the fuck out of my head."

Fake Granger just shook her hair back and directed her attention at the far end of the pitch.

Draco seethed beside her. He hated her. Loathed her. More than he ever had his Granger. He had hated her because of what she was, not who she was, but this Granger, the one he couldn't fucking get away from, he hated everything about her.

But nothing more than the fact that when she turned to glare at him over her shoulder, it was with flat, dull eyes. The softness of her cheeks weren't tinged with that cherry red he loved and her lips were colorless and bland. He'd rather have the real Granger here, hating him with everything she had, than this pale imitation of her.

"Look," she said, pointing as familiar green robes moved across the pitch.

It was him. He was young, but already tall enough that he blended in with the rest of the team. Draco's eye twitched when he saw his slicked back hair. He'd almost forgotten he used to wear it like that. His mother always said he looked handsome with his hair out of his face, but really he thought it was because it made him look less like his father. His father, whom Draco had idolized at this time in his life and who had bought him the Nimbus 2001 he was holding. It had been a gift when he made the team. In fact, his father had been so pleased, he bought each team member a broom, giving his son every advantage to win. Draco frowned at his second year self, looking smug as the Gryffindor team landed and approached the Slytherins.

"Are you going to tell me it was wrong to stop their practice?" he drawled, already annoyed by the thoughts of his father and not in the fucking mood for another one of Fake Granger's morality lessons. So far she'd shown him his memories of torturing people the Dark Lord ordered him to, of throwing Muggleborns in cages at the Ministry, and one particular memory of him stumbling home drunk and his mother yelling at him until he passed out in his father's chair.

He hadn't actually remembered that, having blacked out, but it didn't make it any more comfortable to watch just because he didn't recall his own memory of it. Clearly, it was still in his head somewhere, sunken down wherever all the nights of his drunken stupors were.

"Don't interrupt," Fake Granger scolded him. "Watch." She pointed again and Draco's blood turned solid in his veins at what he saw.

Granger, the real one, was marching across the pitch. She… she was so small. He'd almost forgotten how short she used to be. For a moment he wondered if that was a Muggle trait, but then remembered he knew plenty of wizards who had small statures. Not Weasley though. He was trailing behind Granger, his legs long and gangly. Draco, past and present, sneered at him as he took his place between Granger and Potter.

She was arguing with him now, the little Granger and the past version of himself that Draco tried not too hard to look at. Even so, he couldn't help himself from smirking, just a little. Granger had always been such a firebrand; he had almost forgotten how… annoying she could be and how… cute it was.

"No one asked your opinion," the Draco from his past spat. "You filthy little Mudblood."

Draco felt the words like a punch to the gut. He didn't need to look at her to see her chocolate colored eyes shade with something he'd never seen in them before—confusion.

He'd never quite recognized what it was, until now, and when he did, Draco quickly looked away.

"You know," the fake Granger said in her snotty know-it-all voice, "that was her first time."

Draco glanced down at her, face devoid of color, of life. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared back up at him with eyes that were the wrong color, a dark charcoal shade instead of how they should be, how would be, if she were really Granger.

She pushed on, as Granger was wont to do though, nodding at the scene in front of them.

"That was the first time anyone had called her a Mudblood."

Draco felt his stomach churn sickly inside him. He… had never thought of that before. He mostly remembered feeling humiliated and… pissed off that someone like Granger of all people, someone who didn't give two shits about Quidditch when it was practically his whole life at that point, would go out of her way to say he didn't deserve a spot on his house team.

As if he hadn't practiced all summer. As if he hadn't studied plays and strategy out of every Quidditch book and magazine he could get his hands on. He had earned his place. He had caught the snitch in half the time as anyone else in try outs. Granger didn't know any of that and she hadn't bothered to ask, which, was probably the first time she hadn't gone above and beyond to fucking figure something out.

And it bothered him that she said that to stick up for Potter when none of Draco's friends or his new teammates who all owed him for getting the new brooms hadn't said a word in his defense back to her.

Still, seeing her standing there, eyes going big as everyone else whispered behind their hands at what he had just said, made Draco hate himself. Hate that little boy standing there, who had just taken away a little bit of her innocence.

And he hated that he had called her that even after kissing her years later, that he used that as a way to state his superiority over her so she wouldn't be able to tell how nervous she made him or how his skin burned in every spot she touched him so that he felt her there for hours afterwards.

Weasley was pointing his lopsided wand at the younger Draco right before he was thrown back and barely turned himself over before he puked up a slug half a foot long.

Normally, Draco would have still enjoyed watching that little weasel nearly choking on his own vomit, but the short Granger had shot him one last look, as if to say 'how could you' before running to his side.

"Take me back," Draco said, his voice a little raspy.

Fake Granger craned her neck. "You don't want to watch your practice? You caught the snitch so quickly Marcus told you to slow down because it was throwing off the other players."

"I said," he growled, "take me back."

Granger smiled sweetly at him. "As you wish."

When he opened his eyes, Draco was sitting in his cell, faint light from the window filtering in through the bars. There was no warmth in it, although it must have been sometime in late July, the sun was pale and anemic.

"I thought you would have liked that," Fake Granger said from a darkened corner. "Being my first."

"You don't know what I like," Draco said softly, breathing in deep so that the lump in his throat bobbed a little.

"No?" She moved a bit closer, but stayed in the shadow along the wall. "Why don't you tell me what you like then."

Draco didn't think too hard about his answer, he was trying not to think at all. "I like to hurt."

"Hmm, yes," she agreed. "Quite talented at that along with Quidditch, weren't you?"

"Yeah." Draco stared out at the bland sky. No color. No shapes. No nothing.

"You can do that now," she whispered in his ear, sending a chill down the right side of his body. "If you want."

Draco stood up in one fluid movement. He looked down at the line separating the light from shadow at the toe of his boots. He counted to three before stepping over it.

Granger smiled at him as she backed against the wall. "Right here," she said in that same soft whisper.

Draco felt his heart beating, the blood moving down his arm, under the scarred skin, still tight from the burns.

He balled his hand into a fist, watching as the muscles twitched and hardened under the warped scars.

When he looked back up, she was gone and Draco threw his fist into the unforgiving stone of the wall.

He did it again, and again, ripping the flesh from his useless fucking hand. He only stopped when the pain of his bone grazing against the frozen wall made him cry out and sink down to his knees.

The blood ran warm over his fingers, the first bit of heat he had felt in weeks. Even his tears were cold here. Draco cradled his mangled hand to his mangled chest as he hunched against the wall. Gritting his teeth, he ripped a piece of fabric from the hem of his shirt and wrapped his shaking hand. It didn't do much and the blood soaked through it before he tucked the frayed end in against his palm.

What did it matter? Draco leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His blood was as useless to him now as he had been to it his whole life. He had betrayed it, straying from his pureblood lineage and in return, it had betrayed him; his magic was gone. Even if he could somehow break out of here, he had no way to get to Granger or any way to make her go with him.

Or if he did, he didn't have a single reason she should stay with him.

Draco winced as he flexed his hand, black spots dancing in his vision. He gasped, the cold air hitting his chest hard and pulling him back from the dark brink of oblivion the pain had almost pushed him to.

"There," she said softly, appearing out of one of the black spots and crouching in front of him. "Doesn't that feel better?" She trailed a single finger over the back of his hand, softly cupping it and holding it up for inspection. Her expression was innocently curious as she gazed down at his bleeding hand.

For a moment she didn't look like herself. A dark circle hung around her head and her hand was cold and… hard. He could feel every bone in it. That wasn't… normal, that wasn't like her. Something seemed to have changed in her, she was looking at him differently and she wasn't as… aggressive as she normally was. Instead she softened her expression and shifted her body in almost a seductive manner.

Fake Granger brought his knuckles to her lips, pressing a small kiss to them. Her lips were stained with his blood, the only color on her, and even though it wasn't her, it wasn't her, he knew that, Draco felt his heart skip a beat when her red mouth smiled sweetly at him.

Draco drew in a slow, ragged breath and whispered, "Yes."

She seemed pleased by this. "Would you like to keep going?"

"Will you stay if I do?"

She nodded slowly, the curls on either side of her face bobbing with the movement.

He struggled to his feet, head light and blinking heavily, but then held out his injured hand for Grang… Fake Granger to take. She considered it for a moment before slipping her smaller one in his and Draco pulled her to her feet. Holding her close, Draco brushed his thumb over the blood on her bottom lip and hoarsely repeated, "Yes."

.

Hermione held her papers close to her chest as she made her way back to the lifts, doing her best not to cast a look over her shoulder down the corridor to where she knew the Ministry holding cells were.

She failed and nearly tripped when she took too long to look back ahead. She was saved a tumble only by the strap on her long suffering bag that got caught on a handle to a door. Untangling herself, Hermione pushed her hair back out of her face, blowing it up with an annoyed huff of breath and hurried over to the lifts, catching one right before the grate closed.

"Thanks," she said automatically to the people crowded in together. No one said anything back and after a moment, Hermione looked around to see some people looking away from her and pushing themselves against the walls while a few others stared back with judgment in their eyes. Her efforts to free Draco had not gone unnoticed by the general public.

But even that hadn't stopped her from working on trying to get Draco's case appealed and for the first time in weeks, in months, Hermione actually felt… hopeful about it. After spending another two months gathering up all the information she could and filling out more forms than she ever thought possible, Hermione had been granted a meeting with the senior members of the Wizengamot. She laid out her evidence of mishandled cases in the past along with the notes Fleur had taken at Shell Cottage as proof of Draco's willingness to help the Order.

Not to mention he destroyed a horcrux and gave Harry his wand while he was facing Voldemort, but no one seemed to care too much about that and in the midst of the confusion of the battle, no one was able to give an exact account of Draco being the one to do these things. So it was her word on this and unfortunately most Ministry officials didn't put too much stock in a Hogwarts dropout who was trying to free a known Death Eater. But she relayed it all to the three Wizengamont members assembled before her.

"We will take this into consideration," the oldest wizard had said. He had said it so slowly that Hermione nearly felt like she was going to jump out of her skin while she waited for him to get it out. Her mind had been in overdrive ever since… always, and to try and slow it down now of all times was impossible.

"What does that mean?" Hermione asked. "Exactly?" she added, not wanting to be put off as she had so many times before.

"It must be discussed between us," he went on, "and then proposed to the Wizengamot as a whole. If a majority votes to open the case back up, the Minister must ratify the decision and we will enter into session again."

"When do you think—" Hermione started, but was stopped as the wizard held up a wrinkled hand.

"We are currently hearing the cases of collaborators and profiteers, but… this will be added to the docket."

It was as much of an answer as she was going to get right now, and meant Draco would have to go through another trial, but at least it wasn't a no.

It wasn't a no.

There was still a ways to go, but if it got there and Kinglsey had to ratify it… well, he had said he knew everything Draco had done which included the things like breaking out the Muggleborns and destroying the horcrux in Nagini, right? The notes Fleur had taken when Bill interrogated Draco were given to Kingsley. He knew the exact information Draco had passed on. That meant something, that meant… it meant it wasn't a no.

It was all she had going for her, but it was enough to put a bounce in her step so that the heavy looks in the lift didn't bother her one bit. When the doors opened into the Atrium Hermione started to step forward, but was immediately pushed back by the crowd that had assembled in the large area.

It was a mass of people, some shouting at others, some shouting at guards. Hermione saw a few people holding banners, waving them and she squinted, trying to read the words on them.

The most she could see were "Protection", "Never", and "Forever". None of them made Hermione feel any sense of certainty or security.

She did her best to push her way into the crowd. She had heard that the community was in a state of unrest; Kingsley had complained about it enough and it had been in the Daily Prophet when she scanned it over, but she had been so focused lately that she hadn't bothered to look around her and see how much it was affecting people. She had never seen people like this, so upset, so… angry.

Holding her papers close to her chest, Hermione tried to fight her way to the fireplaces on the other side of the atrium. She dodged elbows as people raised their fists in the air, either agreeing with or siding against the people swarming the newly erected statue of witches and wizards holding their wands aloft what she was sure was supposed to look like solidarity, but what really looked like a battle formation.

She got stuck, unable to move as the people around her thickened and Hermione was barely able to lift her hand up to push her unruly curls out of her face to see none other than Percy Weasley standing on the base of the state, face beet red, and yelling into the crowd.

"We aren't going to let them get away with it this time!" he bellowed, throat straining as he held his wand to it in order to magnify his voice. "The Ministry let the guilty walk free last time and look where that landed us!" Large swaths of the crowd cheered him on.

Ministry guards tried to quell the protesters, pushing them back, but this only succeeded in penning the crowd in tighter. There were some people shouting back in disagreement, but those were quickly overwhelmed by the people near them, some by out-shouting them, others by pushing them around until they quieted down.

"We need order!" Percy shouted and the crowd answered him with resounding cheers. "We need laws!" Again, the atrium was filled with voices. "We need JUSTICE!"

Hermione stood completely still, aghast at what she was seeing. She wasn't happy with the way the Ministry was handling things, but… this wasn't the answer either. Inciting people into a frenzy wasn't going to help anything. They were just scared and lost and… and hurt by what had happened to them and their loved ones during the war.

She wanted out of here and fast. This was the last place she wanted to be because she wasn't sure she would be able to keep the creature in her chest from roaring and she didn't need all her hard work to go to waste because she got arrested for a public disturbance. Maybe more if she got close enough to Percy to send a hex at him.

But as she tried to move again, Hermione found herself being jostled around. The crowd was getting more rowdy and Hermione felt herself being pushed back and forth. Some papers slipped from her arms.

"Fiddlesticks." Hermione bent down to try and pick them up, but they were crushed and ripped under the stamping feet around her.

"How can they protect us when they can't even protect themselves?!" Percy was shouting, pointing to the guards who were now being pushed back themselves as they tried to reach him on the base of the statue.

Hermione stood back up, abandoning the documents and hoping they weren't essential ones. There were too many people around her, too much noise. Screaming, yelling, shouting… Angry voices, all too loud. Hermione thought of the sounds of battle and in her head, the two mixed together, deafening her until even her own thoughts were drowned out.

Out out out. She wanted out right now.

Hermione tried pushing her way through again and made it a few feet before she was roughly shoved to the side, almost falling over as a group of people marched up to the statue, lifting their wands just like the stone figures behind Percy.

At first she thought they were coming for Percy, but then they turned and fanned out around him—protecting him.

"Hermione?" She vaguely heard her name, but couldn't tell what direction it was coming from. She tried to turn, but it was impossible to move in this mess. "Hermione!"

Someone tall was sticking their arms through the crowd, trying to reach her and for just a moment, she expected to see a metal mask and shining silver eyes staring back at her. Instead, she had to blink a few times before she was able to recognize the boy—no, the man—standing in front of her.

"Neville!"

Hermione looked at his hand, the one that had held the sword of Gryffindor and took Voldemort's head off. She glanced up at him, meeting his eyes; green like Harry's, but a darker shade and shot through with streaks of brown. She clasped her hand in his and Neville pulled her forward.

He was much larger than her and shoved his way through the crowd until finally it started to thin. Hermione felt better when bodies weren't pressed in on every side of her. As they reached the line of guards Neville slowed. For a moment Hermione thought they would be turned away, but when the Ministry guard tried to stop Neville, he ignored him and pulled Hermione quickly behind him.

He darted into the first fireplace available and Hermione squeezed in next to him. She chanced a last look out and saw the crowd chanting as Percy and a few others raised their wands in time to the cheers.

She felt her eyes widen and her mouth fall open as Neville shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and green flames shot up, enveloping her in cool wisps of air.

They landed in The Leaky Cauldron and Neville dropped her hand, brushing old ash out of his hair as he stepped out.

"You alright, Hermione?" he asked as she followed him coughing and hiding her face in her sleeve.

Hermione nodded, clearing her throat and knocking some soot off of the papers she had managed to hold on to. Black smeared across the front of them and she frowned.

"Yes, thank you," she managed to add when she realized Neville was still waiting on an answer.

It was quite obvious that they had caused a commotion coming in as they did based on the looks they were getting from the patrons scattered across the pub. Feeling a little self conscious and not wanting to draw any more attention than she already had, Hermione tugged on Neville's shirt sleeve. "Come on," she said quietly and headed towards the door alley behind the Leaky Cauldron that led to Diagon Alley.

Hermione had her wand out, ready to tap the brinks to let them through when she noticed Neville was empty handed.

"Neville," Hermione said slowly. "Do you… have a wand?"

Neville slid his foot across the broken cobblestones. "Erm," he cleared his throat. "I lost it. Sometime during the battle I was knocked out, typical, I know." He looked up at the overcast sky and sighed. "When I came to it was gone. I got the sword from beside Harry after…" he trailed off. "Well, you know."

"They weren't able to recover it?" Hermione asked. Many witches and wizards were still lacking wands and it wasn't as if new ones were being made at the moment so those without didn't have any options, but hope theirs was turned in and even then, there was a mountain of paperwork they had to apply for through the Ministry.

"I'm getting by," Neville said as they stepped through into Diagon Alley. "Better than some at least."

What had once been a bustling, busy street full of magical shops, but now half the stores were still boarded up and the other half had hasty repairs and paint slapped over broken doorways, trying to hide the damage. Neville glanced around, his eyes catching on a small alleyway Hermione knew led to Knockturn Alley. She had followed Harry down that path two years ago to spy on Draco. Harry had been convinced Draco was becoming a Death Eater and… he had been right.

Hermione bit her lip. What if she had believed Harry? Would… would she be here right now? Would Harry?

Would Draco?

"Hermione?" Neville called her name and she realized she was staring at the dark, twisting alleyway.

"What? Oh, sorry," she said quickly. She had spent too much time alone lately and often found herself getting lost in her thoughts. It was all too easy to retreat into her own mind after the war and sometimes Hermione would find that she had been staring at the same piece of legislation for an hour without even bothering to read it. "I'm glad that you're getting on."

Neville gave her a simple, but encouraging smile. They walked on for a moment and Hermione noticed he looked back at the dark corridor that led to Knockturn Alley again.

"Neville," Hermione glanced up at him. "What have you been doing since… then?"

His smile came back only this time with a nervous twitch and Neville rubbed the back of his neck a few times before answering. "Helping Gran out around the house. There are a lot of repairs that needed to be made after the war." Hermione felt for her friend; she knew what it was like to try and patch a life up that was left in shambles. "But I've been able to install a small greenhouse with some of the leftover supplies."

"Really?"

Neville gave her a half grin. "Well, without a wand, herbology is a good hobby to have. I have to lift fifty pound bags of fertilizer instead of levitating them, but…" He shrugged. "It's doable."

"That's great!" Hermione said, a little too loud and Neville gave a friendly laugh when she blushed.

"I'm glad you think my hauling around sacks of dragon dung is so impressive."

Hermione found herself smiling back at him a little. They walked a little further on, passing by Weasley Wizard Wheezes which Hermione refused to look in the windows, instead she turned back to Neville and asked, "So is that something you are hoping to make a career out of?"

Again, Neville looked around a little guiltily and made a few noises of contemplation. "Uh, I… soft of am." Hermione lifted her brows, prompting him to go on. Neville exhaled and his shoulders slumped down. "Look, promise you won't say anything to anyone, but…" he glanced around to make sure they were alone. "I've been working with a new strain of sopophorous plants to help—"

Hermione had stopped walking and was staring up at Neville who looked like he was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. "Help who?"

Neville looked down at his feet, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Zabini."

Oh my. Of all the people Hermione thought Neville might name, Blaise Zabini was so far down on the list, she hadn't even considered him. They had struck up an uneasy alliance during their last year at Hogwarts together, but Hermione had no idea that Neville and Blaise were still in contact, let alone… in business together.

Hermione quickly put two and two together. Neville always had a proclivity for Herbology. Lines of supply had been disrupted while the Death Eaters were in charge and many of them had yet to be restored. If Neville had access to certain magical plants, it would certainly give Blaise an advantage at work. The only thing she couldn't figure out was why Neville was helping Blaise.

"You, er, you wouldn't mind not mentioning to anyone that I am supplying him, would you?"

Hermione huffed. "Who would I tell?" She barely saw anyone anymore unless she had a meeting at the Ministry. Now that Ginny and Luna had left on their trip to Thailand, she didn't have much of a reason to leave the Manor at all. Even with her freedom, Hermione spent most of her time locked up in Draco's room, sitting in his bed with books and paper spread out around her.

"Ron?" Neville offered. "He is an Auror now and if he has information on the illegal substance trade then he would be obligated to report it."

Hermione stared straight ahead. "Ronald and I aren't speaking." It was the nicest way she could put it.

"Oh," Neville said softly. "I—I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Hermione gave him a wan smile. "You couldn't have known. I haven't been around much."

They stood in silence for a moment, not needing to talk, and just offering one another a sense of companionship. A cool autumn breeze swept down Diagon Alley, blowing a few of Hermione's caramel colored curls across her face. She pulled her arms around herself, for warmth, but also for comfort.

"Look, erm," Neville rubbed the back of his neck again, then pulled his hand back down, sticking a thumb out behind him, "I was actually on my way to see him and he's asked about you a couple of times. Would you want to… come say hi?"

It was then she noticed his thumb was pointing backwards towards the darkened side street of Knockturn Alley. Hermione bit her lip for a moment, then lifted her chin defiantly. "Actually, I'd love to see Blaise. It's been far too long."

.

Hermione didn't really know how she expected to find Blaise Zabini, but stretched out on a velvet booth with a girl on either side of him wasn't what she had in mind. He was supposed to be one of the young, leading Healers at St. Mungo's and here he was, in the middle of the day, in a darkened club in Knockturn Alley with bass music loud enough that she was pretty sure it was going to cause damage if she stayed in here for an extended period of time. Not to mention he was drinking something that was a toxic shade of green and so strong she could smell its sweet cloying taste from where she stood.

She stood at Neville's side and waited until Blaise looked up from under impossibly long lashes. "Long—" he started and then stopped suddenly when his eyes landed on Hermione. She placed her hands on her hips. "Granger."

Her eyes narrowed at the use of her last name, or maybe, it was at the tug on her heartstrings at the sound of it again. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Hermione shouted over the thudding music.

Blaise tossed his drink back, wincing before licking his lips. "It's my day off."

"And you're spending it so productively," she quipped.

He gave her a strange smile, one she wasn't sure of. "I could be doing worse things."

"You owe me gold, Zabini," Neville chimed in and Blaise's eyes cut over to him, staying there for a few long seconds before he sighed, sat up, and took his arms from around the girls.

"Ten minutes," he stated loudly and Hermione wasn't sure if he was talking to the girls or her and Neville. Either way the girls shuffled off and Blaise motioned to the seats across from him. Hesitantly, Hermione sat down. As soon as she did, she saw Blaise raise his wand up, pointing it directly at her.

She had hers out in a second, but before she could even get a good grip on it, Blaise's mouth moved and the oppressive music that had just been vibrating through her was turned down to a manageable level. He swiveled his arm and did the same to Neville, who tensed as the wand was aimed at him, but had clearly known what was coming because he relaxed the moment after.

Blaise tucked his wand back into his jacket. "I've healed you, Granger, and you still don't trust me?" he said, shaking his head and making a tutting noise with his tongue.

Hermione sat Draco's wand in her lap, but didn't put it away. "You also left me chained to a bed," she snapped and Blaise had the good sense to break eye contact at that. She watched his nostril flare and took mercy on him. "And I've told you," her voice softened a little, "to call me Hermione."

"He did what?" Neville asked, his voice rising for the first time.

"It wasn't him, not really," Hermione explained. "It was…" Goodness, was it ever going to get easier talking about this? "Draco. And Blaise did heal me, and did a pretty good job of it too."

Neville looked the Slytherin over warily, but accepted Hermione's answer.

"Is that why you're here?" Blaise asked as he leaned forward. The smooth movement reminded Hermione of a large cat. "To talk about Draco?"

"No." Hermione wasn't exactly sure why she was here other than… than Blaise was someone she felt like she could talk to. "Although I would like to know why you didn't speak up for your best friend when he was on trial."

Blaise raised up a finger. "Technically it was a hearing."

"We both know what that really was," she argued back. If only she had known sooner. "And he could have used your help."

Blaise sighed. "No, he couldn't have." He leaned back against the plush booth. "What could I have told them? That he was fighting werewolves along with employing them? That he had you held prisoner in his bedroom for months?" Neville made a noise of discomfort in his throat. "That he was cursing his arm so much that he might as well cut the bloody thing off for all the damage he was doing to it? And yes, Draco was my friend, but Theo was my friend too. I don't have to choose sides, Hermione, we aren't at war anymore."

Hermione opened her mouth then closed it. She supposed there really was no explanation for the things Draco had done other than… he had done them for her. Blaise might have been able to speak to his self-destructive habits, but the way that crowd had been, they probably would have cheered at that. Finally, she settled on asking, "How bad was his arm?"

Blaise balanced a small metal grate on top of his glass and summoned a sugar cube from the table to rest on it. He looked up at Hermione before he spoke. "You saw how bad it got. I'm surprised the thing still even moves."

Godric that must have… Hermione felt her blood still then rush into her head so quickly it made her dizzy. She had handed him the elder wand and he hadn't used it against the Aurors after the battle. Even when he had disarmed the guards in the courtroom, Draco hadn't tried to use their wands to free himself. Draco had never tried to use magic because… because he couldn't. Not anymore.

Not since he crucio'd himself to save her.

Draco had given up his magic, had broken it, for her.

She felt like her heart was breaking all over again.

Blaise poured a bright green liquid over the sugar cube, letting it dissolve, before he pushed it across the table to her. "There's nothing any of us could have done."

"Not then, but… maybe now," Hermione said breathlessly. She was surprised the words even came out with the way her chest was collapsing on top of itself.

Blaise's brows pulled slightly. "What do you mean?"

Hermione pulled the silver chain out from under her shirt and laid the Malfoy signet ring down on the table. "You can help me find where his Mother has been."

Blaise just stared down at the ring on the table while Neville asked, "I'm sorry, but how is Malfoy's Mum going to be able to help?"

"Not Narcissa, but where she is," Hermione said quickly. "Draco's family has an island—"

Neville blew out a breath. "Of course they do."

"Oh don't act so surprised, Longbottom," Blaise said nastily, but the look on his face was playful. "You're a Pureblood too; don't act like you don't have multiple properties."

Neville blushed heavily. "Yeah, well… only one. In Palermo. Outside of it, really," he added. "Definitely not an island."

"How come you never told me you have a house in Italy?" Blaise exclaimed, sounding almost hurt. "Parli Italiano?"

Neville blinked heavily. "Erm, no."

Blaise gave him a dismissive wave of his hand and turned back to Hermione. "Did Draco put you up to this?"

She was surprised by his question. "What? Of course not."

Blaise kept his gaze trained on her. "He asked me to find her—Narcissa."

"What?" Hermione gasped.

"When he wrote to me, the day before the battle," Blaise nodded at Neville, "telling me to not go to London and stay in the school instead. I don't think he planned on You-Know-Who attacking there, so, London would have been the safer bet after all. I digress," Blaise went on when Hermione and Neville just stared at him blankly. "He asked me that if anything happened to him or if he wasn't around anymore, that I would try and locate his mother. He knows I have contacts in Italy and their villa was off the coast so he thought I might have some luck."

Hermione could only hope her mouth wasn't hanging open too wide. She had nearly forgotten about that, Draco and Blaise's little conversation in the Great Hall where she thought… that Draco was still keeping secrets from her. Goodness, if they had only had more time to talk so many of their problems would have been cleared up.

Then again, talking wasn't what they were naturally drawn to when they were together. Even now, if she had five minutes with him, Hermione might say a few words, but most of them would be "yes, Draco, please".

"Okay, okay," Neville cut in and Hermione was grateful for it. She had started biting her lip again. Hard. And judging by the sly look on Blaise's face, he had an idea why. "How is Narcissa Malfoy or… Malfoy's island going to help get Malfoy's sentence overturned?"

Blaise laughed, a full bodied laugh, and clapped his hands in front of him once. "Oh… I should have had more Gryffindor friends in school. You lot are a riot." Neville looked unamused, but leaned in to listen when Blaise lowered his voice. "Hermione's a smart girl. She isn't putting all her dragon eggs into one basket."

Hermione held her breath and found herself biting her lip again.

Blaise's dark eyes glittered. "She needs somewhere to stash him if she gets him out using… other means."

Neville looked worriedly over at her, but Hermione was quick to smooth over Neville's worries. "Draco will need somewhere to recuperate and… his mother might be able to help speak on his behalf."

"Right," Neville said, searching her eyes and Blaise started to laugh again.

"I'm glad we are able to provide adequate entertainment for you, especially since you had to let your previous friends go," Hermione motioned to the two girls waiting by the bar, "to make room for you new Gryffindor ones." Blaise's grin stayed on his face as she continued carefully. "And since you are in such a good mood, then maybe you will agree to help me."

Blaise glanced down at the silver ring and then back up at Hermione. "And what do I get in return for my services?"

Negotiation. Hermione knew this part well. "You owe Draco. Any voice saying he had something other than a cold-blooded heart would have meant something. Not to mention, you already agreed to help find Draco's mother and it doesn't seem like you've done much in that effort so far."

Hermione nodded her head to the girls at the bar and Blaise's eyes narrowed.

"And you owe me," she added when Blaise raised a finger to make a counter argument. He wanted a negotiation? Fine, she had spent the last four months studying court cases and arguing with Wizengamot members, Hermione could easily take on Blaise Zabini after that. "I take it part of the reason you kept your silence was to keep the good name you had made for yourself during the war? Helping Dumbledore's Army certainly would have won you some points back that being a Slytherin would have lost you."

Blaise's lips pursed, but he was still listening.

Hermione shook her hair back. "I don't think people would care to know that you treated a Death Eater's captive Mudblood and didn't think to mention it to anyone."

"Yes, yes," Blaise sniped, obviously not wanting to dwell on this topic. "That's the trouble with playing both sides of the fence, sometimes you fall."

"And…" Hermione went on, wanting to finish strong. "Neville here will give you 20% off your next shipment of illegal potion substances.

"Hey!" Neville shouted.

"You told her?!" Blaise hissed. "Bloody Salazar, Longbottom! They might not teach you this in Gryffindor, but you don't tell people about—" He jerked his head in Hermione's direction quickly, "—this thing of ours!"

"Yes, he told me," Hermione pressed on. "So are you going to help me, or not?"

"I'm not giving him 20% off," Neville said firmly.

Hermione rounded on him. "You've got a house in Palermo. You can afford it." She looked back at Blaise and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Fine, but not here," Blaise said, cutting his eyes around them and then back to the Malfoy ring sitting on the table. "And put that thing away before someone recognizes it. I'll send you an owl to schedule."

Hermione frowned. "Why not today?"

"It's my first day off in a month." He jerked his head in the direction of the bar and the two girls who had seemingly just bought a bottle on his tab. "And I have plans. Speaking of which…" He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a drawstring bag of gold and tossed it at Neville.

Neville pocketed it swiftly. "I'll bring it by the lab in the morning."

"See that you do," Blaise said seriously, all the levity in his voice gone.

Hermione watched the two carefully, still not entirely sure about their operation, but wasn't exactly in a position to judge at the moment. But if Blaise hadn't had a day off in a month, would she have to wait another to hear from him again?

"Why not today then?" She didn't want to give up, not now, not yet.

"I have a date tonight," Blaise said simply.

Hermione's brows lowered. "With one of those girls?"

"No." Blaise flashed her a bright smile. "Why? Don't tell me you're jealous now."

Hermione scoffed. "So how long am I going to have to wait?"

Blaise leaned back against the round booth and stretched his legs out, spreading them wide. "Oh, I'll be sure to fit you into the rotation."

"Don't worry, Hermione," Neville said warmly. "Zabini is hard to pin down, but he does show up."

"Thanks for that shining endorsement, Longbottom," Blaise said dryly. "I see I've made a great impression on you during our business dealings."

"I was just trying to help, Zabini," Neville tensed next to her. "Something you might want to try yourself. If what Hermione said is true about the… chains, then you should be less concerned about your… rotation and more concerned about making it up to her."

Blaise pursed his lips for a moment. "I offered to get her out. She stayed. And I didn't speak up for Draco because it wouldn't have done shit. I'm a good healer, but even I'm not going to fall on a sword for no reason."

Hermione didn't want either of them to get distracted by arguing with one another. She was here for a reason and she wasn't leaving until she got what she wanted.

"If you don't help me," Hermione moved to the edge of her seat and let her hand rest on the hawthorn wand in her lap, "you're going to need an even better healer than yourself, Zabini. The war might be over, but I'm not done fighting. And I've learned even more curses than I knew back in school too."

Blaise's eyes flashed and Hermione shook her hair back proudly. She knew he remembered her threat to use every curse she knew on him after he found out she was Draco's girl. She had never followed through on it because after that night, and seeing Draco's mark, she hadn't been his girl anymore.

But she was now and would be again, as soon as she got him back. And if she had to threaten Blaise in order to do that, then so be it.

Hermione heard Neville blow out a low breath beside her.

"Fine," Blaise said darkly. "I'll owl you in the morning, okay?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "See that you do," she repeated in the same tone he had used himself.

Blaise slid the untouched drink in front of her back across the table and tipped it into his mouth, swallowing it with displeasure. He smacked the glass back down and pointed his finger at Hermione again. "I hope this works," he said, exhaling sharply. "Because you and Draco… you two deserve each other."

.

It was a little bit funny.

The fact that he had always called Granger a Mudblood, even after he'd plunged his dick in her. But despite her humble origins, she now controlled the elder wand, the most powerful wand in existence, and he… he was useless. His own magical powers tapped out, burned away. It didn't matter that his blood was pure, his body, his soul, had been too weak.

It was also a little funny that after months of storms and rain and freezing temperatures that the sun was actually shining. Draco sat on his knees in front of the little window, letting the pale light bleed over him. There wasn't any warmth in it, but that didn't matter. It was the best thing he'd felt since… since…

Since he kissed her.

And since she hadn't kissed him back.

Draco stared at the sun, the light blinding him, searing into his eyes but as long as he looked up at it, he couldn't see the grey, fake Granger hovering in the dark corner. He wasn't sure if she was actually there or in his head, but it didn't matter. There were only a few hours of daylight left and he wasn't wasting them.

He just wished that whoever was screaming would shut the fuck up already. It felt like they had been going on for hours. He heard screams, cries, and manic, animalistic sounds coming from the other cells all the time, but these were louder. It must have been someone close by. He had half a mind to shout back at them. Tell them to shut the fuck up before he gave them something real to scream about.

Funny, that after having to relive all the memories of torturing others, it wasn't those that made him feel like he was going crazy, but the ones of her. That all it took was seeing Granger's big doe eyes wide with tears as he pushed her down in the mud, or shoved her against the wall of his bedroom, or sneered at her from across the Great Hall to make him feel like screaming himself. Even so, at least he got to see her in those, not the fake, dead eyed version of her that haunted his every waking moment.

She never felt him alone now. She had burrowed so deep that he wasn't sure what it was like without her anymore.

Granger.

Hermione.

Draco tilted his head back to let the light hit his face, making the corners of his mouth curve up at the memory of her and even a small, strange laugh bubble up from inside him.

If only that fucker would stop goddamn screaming!

That's when her soft giggle penetrated his ears. "Oh Draco," she crooned and stepped a bit closer to him, still careful to stay out of the line of light he was kneeling in. "Can't you hear yourself?"

He tried to ignore her, but it was too hard to block out the question she had brought up from spinning around his head while the endless screaming echoed off of the stone walls.

Draco looked away from the white light of the sun and slowly his eyes adjusted so he could make out the colorless form of her. Fake Granger was shaking her head sadly, her tousled hair bouncing as she entered the stream of light until she had placed herself in front of him while he kneeled before her.

She touched his cheek with her palm and it was… cold.

"It's you."

Draco's brows pulled slightly. What the fuck was she on about now? Couldn't she give him a moment of peace so he could enjoy the sunlight?

Except… it wasn't there anymore. Where the light had once touched was now only… snow.

It was piled on the window sill and scattered across the floor around him. Draco blinked and felt it fall from his lashes. Fake Granger smiled sadly at him and wiped it away and when she did, he noticed his cheeks were… wet with cold tears.

But… he hadn't been crying… he was just smiling!

Wasn't he?

Of course he was. He probably would still be if those god-awful screams would stop.

Fake Granger straighter back up and sighed. "You'll wear yourself out soon enough." She shrugged and moved back to the corner. "You always do."

Draco stared up at the grey sky, watching snowflakes land softly around him. As they had been for hours. There had never been any sun. There had only been…

"You. That's what I've been trying to tell you," she said waspishly.

The truth of it crashed down around him and Draco's mouth fell open, or… would have, if it hadn't already been the one who was screaming.

.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, waiting, and commenting. I swear, I read every single comment and I am planning on replying to them but I have had a somewhat crisis of being of late and just… haven't. No excuse, I just haven't. But they mean a lot to me, more than I can say so when I tell you thank you, it is really from the bottom of my heart. THANK YOU!

And thank you all, dear readers, for sticking with me. I am SO close to finishing and I am really trying to get the ending all done and wrapped up. Hold on just a little bit longer, it's coming.

I promise.