Chapter 49

Draco felt sick with this feeling growing in his chest for Hermione. He didn't want it. He didn't want her, he couldn't. He wanted Astoria, even though it was getting harder for Draco to remember what he liked about her. He wanted to live in the Manor, continue the Malfoy legacy with a respectable marriage, play professional quidditch, get accepted into the Oriel Winfeilde Institute of Wizarding Law, become a lawyer, earn a seat on the Wizengamot, and have a simple life. Hermione wanted…. he didn't know what she wanted. She wants Weasley, probably. She'll probably want to feel safe enough to laugh freely, have loads of kids, and live in some hovel like the burrow and have guests round for tea all the time not served by house elfs. Disgusting, truly, to settle for such a mediocre life. Or was it? It made for a sweet picture in his mind. Him and Hermione, laughing over tea in a ramshackle cottage, the furniture unmatching and chickens in the yard. Perhaps she would tell their children silly little muggle bedtime stories, and he would listen in at the absurdity.

But that would never happen. She would never want him. Not a treacherous Malfoy, one with a dark mark, one that called her mudblood and cursed her at every turn back at Hogwarts. One that allowed the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, one that conspired against all her loved ones. It would do him well to get over this crush and move on. Astoria would not want him, but maybe a life of solitude was what he needed. All of the greatest wizards died alone, didn't they? Snape and Dumbledore had both died alone. Perhaps, for all his sins, he deserved to be alone with his thoughts for the rest of his life. And how could he think with Hermione around? She was always talking, always asking questions, she had an answer for everything. That infuriated him...didn't it? It was annoying, not charming. Except, he wished she was doing it now instead of lying in her sick bed. He wanted her to wake up, so he could ask what kind of a future she envisioned for herself. She would make a wonderful professor, eager to teach, with exciting lesson plans. She would make an excellent healer, persistent and compassionate.

Draco had practiced with his new wand for a bit before Ginny had forced him off to bed. He lay in his bed now, alternating between fitful sleep, trying to digest everything Blaise had told him, and relentless thoughts of Hermione. It was consuming him; it couldn't be healthy. Why should he be cursed to want her? Was it not enough that he had lost everything already? He wanted to pull Hermione toward him again, as he had held her close at Seamus's house. Smell her hair, watch her face as it peacefully slept, and when she at last woke up, in his arms, ask her everything he did not know about. Yes, once the mystery was gone, he would not be interested. He would have her mapped out and she would return to being a nonissue in his mind. He didn't dwell on the thought long enough to ask himself why he needed to be holding her for him to ask her.

When he couldn't take it anymore, he returned to the front room. Hermione was asleep, but tears were leaking down her face. Ginny was standing over her, watching her intently.

"I want to make some broth, see if she can hold it down. Her starving isn't going to help her heal," Ginny said to him when she noticed him.

"Has anything changed?" he asked, nodding his head to the broth idea.

"She sat up and started crying a few hours ago, then she said some nonsense. She had a seizure-a bad one. Blood started leaking out of her nose again." Ginny looked stricken, and tired, and overwhelmed.

"What kind of nonsense?" He asked.

"She…err it seemed like she was talking to Lavender Brown. And she kept saying sorry to her parents," Ginny responded, not meeting his eye.

Lavender Brown was long in her grave, having been slain by Fenrir Greyback. He had never spared a thought for her parents before. Maybe they were alive? They were probably worried sick about her.

"Are here parents alive?" he asked, somewhat afraid of the answer.

"They…. are," Ginny answered slowly.

"I didn't hear of any muggle captives before my departure from the Manor, where are they?" He realized he wanted to know, he wanted them to be safe, this muggle pair he imagined in his mind. The mum would have wild hair, like Hermione, and the dad would have her teeth. Her teeth as she had them before he had hexed them, and she had fixed them herself to be less bucky.

"Hermione obliviated them at the start of the war and sent them away. I don't remember where, but off the continent. She made them forget they had a daughter and start new lives somewhere so that they couldn't be used to get to her." Ginny said, casting him a dark look, as if it was solely his fault that she had done that. And would that be so far-fetched?

Draco shuddered at the sacrifice Hermione had made. A trench was forming in him, and it was full of guilt. Guilt for his parents' death, for Dumbledore's death, for Harry Potter's death, even for Fred Weasleys death. For the way his actions had affected the lives of so many, the desecration of The Order. He thought of sweet, strange Luna Lovegood, with her doe eyes, probably being tortured, because of him. How hard it must have been for her to cast her parents out. To look at them for the last time as they knew her, and the next moment she was a stranger to them. How alone she must have felt, an only child just as he was, with no parents anymore. And yet, she persisted. She threw herself into captivity, into almost certain death, for her noble cause. What had he done when his life was tough? Cry to myrtle and misinterpret his own convictions.

Hermione stirred Draco from his thoughts.

"It hurts," She whispered, her lips barely moving. "Make it stop," She pleaded. Draco knelt next to her.

"Where does it hurt?" he asked, leaning in close. "Hermione?"

"Harry, it hurts so bad," she said, eyes fluttering open, but not focusing. Blood was coming out of her ears now in a slow trickle. Draco moved to wipe it away. Hermione was shaking, shivering, her brow was starting to sweat.

"Is it safe Harry? Can I come?" Hermione asked, voice wavering. Her face scrunched up in pain, and bloody tears leaked from her eyes.

"Ginny!" Draco called. Blood was coming out of her nose now. He felt frantic.

Ginny appeared, wand pulled, ready to settle her.

"Spinners End, Cokeworth, Magicae ex Mortius; peperit extra velum!" Hermione seemed to screech, her hands flying up to cover her own ears. "It's burning, please it's burning!" She cried, her hands flying down to her ragged robes. Draco and Ginny reached for her at the same time Hermione pulled the compact mirror from her pocket, which was glowing red, and threw it. Hermione collapsed back down onto the couch and fell back asleep.

'What the bloody hell?" Ginny asked, looking at the mirror.

"It's transfigured," Draco replied, staring at it. He did not want to tell Ginny what it was. His first instinct was to pick it up and hide it and tell Ginny it was something of Hermione's that he would hold onto. Ginny might want to take it for herself, and it was not hers to take. He wanted to put it back into Hermione's hand when she awoke. But that was wrong. Ginny was trustworthy. She took him in, she sheltered him, she trusted him. She wasn't a self-serving Death eater, on the prowl for a step up, for an opportunity, eager to sell out anyone in his way. She wasn't deceitful. Maybe Draco could learn to settle down, to be less suspicious. He was in new company, in a new life.

"It's…." He trailed off, as Ginny looked at him curiously. He swallowed. Blaise was still cunning, and clever, and vindictive, and Ginny was tied to him now. How much did that affect her, turn her against her righteous beliefs? Or was she turning Blaise into a more noble version of himself? Blaise's alliances had changed, profoundly, since the beginning of the war. He was in a relationship with a Weasley, for Merlin's sake. Underneath his whirlwind stream of consciousness, a small light shone through. A weird hope. If Blaise could be someone Ginny wants, maybe I could be someone Hermione wants.

"It's the Resurrection Stone," Draco finished, nervously. He hoped he was making the right decision.

"She did it! Brilliant!" Ginny cried, throwing her hands up.

"Err…what?" Draco said, stupidly. Ginny believed it was real without coercion, when he, himself, had laughed at the notion it was real.

"I didn't know what she and Ron were up to, but I had a feeling. Harry would be so proud of them," Ginny finished, teary eyed.

He couldn't wait any longer, he had to know.

"Where is Ron?" He asked, pit in his stomach.

Ginny looked up at him with the saddest expression Draco had ever seen. Her eyes, which were watery a moment ago, were leaking tears now, and her face began to fall in on itself.

"He's with Fred and Harry now," She finished, starting to sob.