Twenty-Eight

It's been ten days, and it's felt like ten months. Somehow, it's worse now Draco has his wand. He could just walk out the door and disapparate to any number of small bases of operations or encampments he knows about and could potentially take on alone, but he doesn't. He could join Order members on missions, but he doesn't. The other day, Weasley had walked past the kitchen when just back from a mission, while Draco and Potter had both happened to be in there. He'd been muddy and smeared in blood, and Draco had stared at him with naked longing – and then met Potter's eyes and seen a reflection of his own feelings there. It had been a deeply uncomfortable experience, empathising with Potter. He'd hated it.

He's having more nightmares, too – as though his brain knows he's shirking his duty in order to keep Hermione happy. And she's not even that happy, honestly. She keeps watching him with worried eyes when she thinks he isn't looking. Keeps fussing over him, the way he fusses over her, until the pair of them probably look ridiculous to everyone around them. He's heard Mrs Weasley calling them sweet; that, too, was uncomfortable. The stairs creak faintly as he makes his way down them in his joggers and t-shirt. Hermione is still fast asleep upstairs – a cosy little ball under the blankets, her hair in a braid and nothing but one of his t-shirts on, not even any knickers.

Before bed, Hermione had sat on his face and then tried to suck his dick while he tried to dissuade her, perhaps not as emphatically as he could've. Or should've. It didn't work, of course; she'd nearly thrown up, sick and retching, and he'd tried to call it all off. He didn't need to come. That she had come was enough for one night. But instead of losing herself in flashbacks, Hermione had been insistent, and eventually she'd ended up sprawled on her stomach with her arse in the air, and they'd had what turned out to be delicious sex.

And then he'd woken with a nightmare about the way he'd killed a pubescent girl in the dungeons by opening her wrists and making it look like suicide when, really, she'd fought him. Desperately. Biting and clawing, begging for her life as she struggled futilely, with no idea that what he was doing was actually a horrendous, abhorrent mercy because she was destined to be the entertainment at the next revel. They would have torn her apart piece by piece in the worst possible way while he watched. So Draco had killed her, and pressed a sharp shard of glass into her hand, closing it hard enough that blood had welled up sluggishly.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs. He feels guilty about the sex he'd had earlier. He feels guilty for feeling happiness, guilty for being alive. There's a cupboard under the sink in the kitchen, which Draco noticed one night while rummaging for snacks, has more than tins of spam, pork brains in milk gravy, tongue, and mushy peas. There's also a bottle of firewhisky, hidden by the aforementioned disgusting tins. For months now – Merlin, has it been so long? – despite knowing it's there, he's refrained. Alcohol only inflames a situation. It doesn't help unless there is no help, only enduring. He feels like the refreshed memory of murdering the nameless girl can only be endured.

This is why he wants to fight. These nightmarish memories. He crouches in the darkened kitchen, the light slanting in from the hallway bright enough to see by without casting a lumos; he left his wand upstairs, on the bedside table. He stretches back in the cupboard, his fingers closing around the cold glass neck of a bottle, and he pulls it out with a scraping sound. It's heavy; good. Whoever it belongs to must replace it when needed because last time he longingly looked, it was only half full. And when he withdraws this bottle, he sees it's unopened. He grabs a glass from a cabinet and walks through to the dining room, sitting down heavily at the end of the table, facing the stairs. He pours a generous measure and swigs without ceremony. It burns, delicious and searing, opening up the nasal passages and making him wheeze, creating heat in his centre.

He isn't sure if it helps or not. But when Weasley walks in, he's six shots down and, given his recent abstinence, half-cut. He's too pissed to be startled by Weasley or to try to hide the bottle. The redhead seems more surprised, swearing softly under his breath as he jumps. He probably wasn't expecting to find Draco sitting there in the dark when he came down for his midnight snack, or whatever the hell had him waltzing through the dining room, heading for the kitchen. He's in plaid pyjamas, and he narrows his eyes on Draco, who sits at the head of the table.

"What're you –?" And then he takes in the bottle sitting there. "Hey, where'd you find that? There's not s'posed to be hard liquor at the safe houses."

"Under the kitchen sink. Behind the weird tins," Draco says, and is annoyed by the slur in his voice. "Don't know whose it is."

"Huh." Weasley starts walking again, disappearing into the kitchen. Draco huffs a laugh when he comes back holding a glass. He sets it down at the place to Draco's right and pulls the chair out, slouching down and nabbing the bottle. "I won't tell if you don't," he says, oddly companionable. Feeling rather like he'd slid into a peaceful nihilism between drinks number four and five, Draco shrugs.

"Why not," he says and swills down what's left in his glass. Weasley pours a two-finger measure into his own glass, then Draco's, and then they clink the rims together and down them in one. Weasley coughs and beats his chest.

"Merlin, that's strong stuff." He pours again, eyeing Draco, his expression blank. "So, what's got you up and drinking then, Malfoy?"

"My sins," Draco says shortly. He thinks of the girl's face. She'd been only about twelve; caked in filth, her eyes desperate and wet, sunk in hollowed pits. The fingernails she'd clawed him with had been ragged. He'd thought she was asleep when he'd gone into the cell and crouched down beside her to murmur the cutting curses. She hadn't been.

"Huh. That'd do it." Weasley's expression is cold. Scathing. "You have enough of 'em."

"Mm." He doesn't argue. "What about you, then?" The words keep slurring a little on the way out.

"Sins? I'm clean as the driven snow, Malfoy. I haven't done what you've done." Disgust saturates Weasley's voice as he pours another drink. He's being civil, but both men know that the redhead despises Draco.

"Lucky you," Draco says coolly. "But no, I meant, why're you up?"

"Oh, I just woke up hungry." Weasley grins, teeth gleaming white and eyes sharp as he scratches at the short, rather patchy beard he keeps. "Thought I'd make a sandwich."

Draco arches a brow. How typically Weasley. "Of course."

"And then here you are, wallowing in self-pity that you don't deserve."

"So you thought you'd come and disturb my pity party?" He slouches back in his chair, legs kicked out under the table and crossed at the ankles, shoving his hair back off his face, eyes narrowed on the redhead.

"Why not," Weasley says angrily. There's a long silence. "I read your full debrief, finally. A few weeks ago. I'm not much for reading, but it was a real page-turner. Gripping. It'd make a good one of those 'horror movies' that Hermione's talked about." Draco doesn't say a word, although his stomach turns, and the firewhisky threatens to make a reappearance for a moment. Really though, he'd already figured Weasley had read his debriefing notes – in fact, he'd have thought the other man would've done so much, much earlier. Well, he supposed Weasley wasn't much for reading.

"You're a monster, y'know that? Disgusting." It's said almost blandly. Weasley pours himself another drink, and his hand is shaking, the bottleneck rattling against the glass. He's almost caught up to Draco now. He grabs the bottle off Weasley and tops up. Monster; it echoes in his head.

"Yeah." He doesn't argue, but that just seems to piss Weasley off more.

"Does Hermione know what you did?" he demands, and Draco bites the inside of his cheek before answering, his heartbeat picking up. He was already slightly flushed from the firewhisky, but now he feels hot. Sweaty.

"No," he admits, swallowing drily. Sips at his firewhisky again, making this measure last a little longer.

"Don't want her to know what I know, huh?" Weasley taunts, bright blue eyes shining darkly in the half-light as he nurses his glass, arms crossed over his chest.

"Not particularly," Draco says honestly. "But she doesn't want to know, actually." He levels a flat look on Weasley. "So if you go telling her, she won't thank you. She's had the option to know, and she doesn't want to. Respect that." His heart is thundering. He imagines Weasley bailing Hermione up and spewing descriptions of the terrible atrocities Draco has committed at her. He doesn't know what that would do to them, but he knows how devastating it would be for her. She doesn't need to hear about horrors, no matter who committed them.

"Maybe she should. I see you there. All cosy. Such a lovely couple," Weasley snarls, as though he's mimicking someone. His mother, probably. "Hands all over each other. I bet if she knew what those hands have done –" Draco feels sick "– the fucking horrible things you did –"

"I did what I had to. I was the Order's man, Weasley. I worked under Shacklebolt's supervision, and you'd do well to remember that," Draco says, cold and vehement. "When I got out and went to Potter nearly three years ago, wanting to defect, he and Shacklebolt sent me back in." Anger rises up, hot and vicious, and he sits forward, glass thunking on the table as he glares at Weasley, hair getting in his eyes. He rakes it back impatiently. "I didn't fucking want to stay, Weasley. I wanted to leave and fight on the right side. I was willing to leave my mother and father, and everything I'd ever known, to join you lot. Because I saw Snape's memories before he died, and it changed everything. I saw another option."

He looks down into his glass. "And honestly, because even without seeing the memories, I couldn't take it anymore." He's saying far too much, but he's drunk, and he doesn't care. Weasley is listening, eyes cold. "The cruelty, the death, the – it was disgusting. I couldn't take it. So I left. And your best mate sent me back in." He snarls the words, fury leaping up. "He gave me no choice, him and Shacklebolt. Either go back in and feed them information whenever I could while doing whatever I had to do to stay undercover and move up the ranks, or die. Right there."

"Harry wouldn't –!" Weasley begins, and Draco laughs bitterly.

"But Shacklebolt would." He sighs, spinning his drink in slow circles on the tabletop. "And I don't blame him. It made sense, tactically. With Snape dead, you'd lost your man on the inside. And there I was, the perfect replacement." He clenches his jaw, remembering how he'd begged not to be sent back. The way he'd turned his face away from Potter to hide his tears. "So your Order forced me to go back in. The blood on my hands is on yours too," he accuses, jabbing a finger at Weasley, and the other man gulps audibly, gaze sliding away from Draco's.

Draco downs his drink in one and tops it up; sticking to a two-finger measure at a time. He doesn't want to pass out at the dining table.

He stares at Weasley challengingly. "The people I killed and tortured – the bodies I disposed of, the innocents I kidnapped. They're all because your precious Potter and Shacklebolt sent me back in, after I got out. After I fucking begged them not to send me back." To his mortification, tears well up as he remembers the impotent horror he'd felt when they'd told him he had to go back in. He swipes his wrist over his eyes, furious, and Weasley looks at him, something in his gaze that Draco can't untangle. The redhead doesn't speak. Doesn't argue.

"Well shit," he just says at last, and snags the bottle to top himself up. He looks ill.

"I know what I am, Weasley. But I am what your Order made me."

"Yeah," Weasley says shortly, and it's grudging and unfriendly, but it's an acknowledgement. "Doesn't change what you are, though. And it doesn't mean you should be anywhere near Hermione." He glares at Draco, who can't disagree as he swipes at his eyes again. Weasley's not entirely wrong, but it's also far more complicated than that. He and Hermione are entwined inextricably, bound together and entangled, and it's become clear that separating them wouldn't be an easy thing.

"I do what she wants." He doesn't drop his gaze from Weasley's, staring him down even as his eyes sting with unshed tears, a knot of emotion in his chest. He does what Hermione wants. Always.

Weasley isn't dissuaded. He sneers, made sloppy by too much drink. "And what are you doing now, then? Sitting around on your arse, having a lovely holiday, fucking the woman that you raped. That you've turned into your wh–"

Draco's on his feet before he realises, grabbing Weasley by the shirt-front and shoving him back into his chair far enough that it teeters on the two back legs. "Don't you fucking call her that. Don't you fucking dare. She's not – not that. And I saved her. It had to be done. You know what would've happened to her if I hadn't –" Weasley shoves Draco back and manages to rebalance himself with a flailing of limbs before pushing to his feet, his expression dark "– and if you call her that again, I'll shut your fucking mouth for you," Draco finishes, meaning it. He'd welcome the opportunity to take on Weasley again. The redhead frowns.

"Sitting around, though. You can't deny that," he counters, but he drops the subject of Hermione. "You're happy to watch people go out there and die for you while you sit here safe and sound. You killed Colin's brother, and now he's out there, putting his life on the line for you." Weasley jabs his finger towards Draco, sneering and disdainful.

"You think I fucking like that? I thought you would've heard – Hermione's banned me from fighting," Draco says, too surprised that Weasley missed the drama to be anything but honest. Bitterness oozes in his tone. "I asked Lupin. I want to be out there, but she..."

"Oh, and you just do whatever she says, do you?"

Draco looks down at his feet. Sits back down with a defeated huff, feeling suddenly exhausted, and nearly ashamed. She has him whipped. "Yeah," he admits wearily. "Yeah, I basically just do whatever she wants, Weasley. Is that news to you? After what I did to her, how am I supposed to choose to make her miserable again?"

Weasley laughs, a humourless bark, and sits down as well, pouring them each a fresh drink and sliding Draco's glass across to him with a flick of his wrist. "She's got you over a barrel," he says with a wry indelicacy. "Any time she wants to, she can just hold that over your head, huh? For the rest of your life, you're stuck catering to Hermione's every whim. Well. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow." The redhead bares his teeth in a grin that looks more like a challenge, and Draco grimaces. It's not funny. He's trapped and miserable, and the guilt is beginning to slowly crush him. It's why he's sitting down here, drinking himself into a state of numbness.

"Fuck you, Weasley." He downs his drink. He feels messy drunk. Angry. Breathless. Shit. It all pours out of him as he glares at Weasley. "I hate this. I hate it. I'm trapped between a troll and an acromantula, here. Lupin finally gives me permission to do what I always fucking wanted to do – fight on the right side – and Hermione tells me it'll break her heart if I do. Instead of getting to do something, instead of getting the chance to be useful and try to make up for the fucking horrible, abhorrent things I had to do, I get to sit here. Thinking. Remembering. All the fucking things you read in the debrief." He glares at Weasley, eyes sore and stinging as he sits forward and taps his temple. "They're all up here. All the fucking time. And the longer I sit here, safe and sound, the guiltier I feel. The worse it is."

He's crying. Shit.

"I killed kids. I killed kids." Draco buries his head in his hands, elbows on the table, a tear trickling down his nose. He scrubs it away. "How am I supposed to live with that? I can't. I can't fucking take it. I dream, constantly – remembering. I thought – I thought that maybe if I go out there and fight, I might be able to make up for it, a little. I might be able to balance the scales. I might be able to kill some of the fucking cunts I watched do those things. But Hermione...she doesn't want me to." He looks blearily at Weasley, the room swaying slightly. All the firewhisky has caught up with him.

"I can't – can't make her sad, Weasley. How'm I gonna do that? After – after what've done." He gulps down his drink, tears trickling down his cheeks, and Weasley refills him, the other man's expression stark now. Bleak.

"I shouldn't've survived," Draco mumbles, lost in misery. "I shoulda died. Why do I get to live? Me? An' every day – every day tha' goes by, it's a little harder to rem-remember why'm alive. Why bother. If I can't even p-pay m' penance." He looks at Weasley, the redhead's eyes shining by the hall light, his face set and grim, and admits what he hasn't even to himself, before. He enunciates carefully, trying not to slur. This is important. "Sometimes, when I wake up in the night, and I've jus' had a nightmare about k-killing someone, or hurting H'mione, or just watching while... And I can't even try to atone 'cause of her." He sighs, hating her a little. "And then I think: it would be best if I was dead. If I just killed myself."

He laughs, hollow. "You prob'ly don't disagree, Weasley." He stares down into his glass. "I've served my purpose," he says, cold and numb. "Right? And I can't live like this much longer. It's fucking killing me." He feels sick. He buries his head back in his hands. "I don' – don't wanna hurt H'mione, but I can't do this. I can't fucking live with it." He's so drunk he's not even embarrassed when he starts properly crying in front of Weasley. He's too lost in his head. Heels of his hands pressed against his eye sockets, tears trickling out as nausea roils in his belly. He wants to die. He wants it to end. He wants it all to be fucking over. "I want to fight," he mumbles, like a litany. A mantra. "Fight, or die."

Everything goes blurry. At some point, he finds himself on his hands and knees on the carpet, vomiting. And then the world is spinning as Weasley's half dragging him up the stairs, Draco's arm slung around his shoulders. The bannister is cold under his hand as he clutches for it. Leaning against the wall by their bedroom door as Weasley helps hold him up with one hand pressed to the middle of his chest. Like a butterfly pinned to a card. Weasley's not so bad, really. The redhead laughs and then turns away from Draco, hand still splayed on his sternum.

"He's your problem now, 'Mione," he says, and then Draco sees her there, so beautiful. So fucking beautiful, standing in front of him in a t-shirt and leggings, out of breath and worried. "But I want to talk to you about him tomorrow," Weasley says, as if Draco isn't standing – swaying – right there. Rude. Both of them look at him, and he realises he might be thinking aloud. He bites his lip. Silent. "He's not in a good way, 'Mione."

"I can see that, Ron," she says, all sharp and angry, and so wonderful. Resplendent. She chokes a teary little laugh as she takes Draco's hand, and he turns toward her, wobbling, and buries his face against her hair, his arms around her shoulders. So perfect. Merlin, he loves her so much.

"Beyond being pissed as a loon, I mean," Weasley says, and Draco groans and regrets whatever he'd said to Weasley. He can't really remember it now. It's like trying to squint through a darkened glass. Hermione is warm and soft, and he tries not to lean on her too much as she guides him into the bedroom.

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's – it's nothing like, well..." Weasley begins awkwardly as Hermione gently pushes Draco down on the bed. He slumps onto it, loose-limbed and floppy, sitting on the edge and nearly falling before he regains his balance. "It's just his head. His mental –" Draco can't hear the rest. Hermione joins Weasley outside the doorway, and their voices are low.

The last thing he hears before he starts to slide into unconsciousness, slumping sideways on the bed, is Hermione's sweet voice – "Thank you for taking care of him, Ron. Truly."

Hermione shuts the door behind her quietly, and turns to assess Draco, Ron's words rattling in her head. He'd insisted that whatever Draco had said to him could wait until morning, but what little he'd said before he'd taken himself back downstairs had worried Hermione deeply. His mental state isn't great right now. He was talking a lot about what he had to do, before. I think he'll be fine, but keep an eye on him tonight. She eyes him. Well, if he stays like this, the only thing she'll have to worry about is him choking on his own vomit. He's snoring faintly, slumped sideways on the bed, and looks disarmingly like any Muggle university student who's gotten too blitzed on a night out, in his joggers and t-shirt, with his hair long at his neck and falling well over his eyes.

She fetches her wand and bends over him, gently brushing his hair off his face, and he twitches and mumbles her name. "H'mione?" He stinks of firewhisky, undercut with the acrid smell of vomit – of which she thinks a little bit is on his shirt – and she wrinkles her nose in distaste, cleaning him up slightly with several wordless charms, including a breath-freshening one. The last one both makes him smell of peppermint and rouses him back to awareness. "What? H'mione?" He shoves himself back up to a sitting position, and she tosses her wand aside and steadies him with her hands on his shoulders.

"Careful. You're very drunk. You need to get into bed," she says slowly and clearly, and he blinks up at her, thick, dark blond lashes framing his glazed eyes so prettily. He looks bewildered, and wounded. He frowns, brows scrunching together. "Come on," she says, tugging at his upper arm, and he wobbles to his feet with a lurch, tall and lean. If he falls, she won't be able to catch him now that she's left her wand on the end of the bed. Shit. But he uses her for balance, and together they get him around the bed with her murmuring quiet encouragements the whole way. He stands wobbling like a newborn mooncalf as she flips the blankets back for him to crawl into, not bothering to take off his joggers.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles miserably, and Hermione hushes him, not knowing if he has a particular reason to be sorry tonight, or if he's talking about then. She strips off the leggings she'd hurriedly pulled on when Ron had knocked on the door, and switches them out for knickers. And then she slides in on the other side of the bed, and they roll to face each other, nearly nose to nose. She lying on her right side, he lying on his left. His hand finds her hip. His fingers are hot and clammy, and his expression is wretched. His eyes are bloodshot and wet, and his lower lip trembles a little. "'m so sorry. I din't mean – din't mean to ge' this drunk."

"Well, exactly how drunk did you plan on getting, then?" Hermione asks lightly as she tries to tuck his fringe behind his ear – but it's just barely too short to stay there reliably and falls straight back over his right eye. He blinks, hair tangling in his long lashes. Her attempt at lightness has failed; she can see he hasn't even registered it. He's too drunk. Too caught in whatever he was trying to escape. And then he says it, words slurred and broken.

"I just – I wan'ed to forget th' girl," he mumbles, and it feels like a fist clenches around Hermione's heart. Her pulse races, and it feels like there's a lump in her throat when she swallows. She doesn't want to ask, but he's looking at her through the white-blond strands of his hair, and she feels like he's waiting.

"What girl?" she whispers hoarsely, the words feeling like a death knell. He presses his lips together hard enough to bleach them white, before he speaks, careful, trying not to slur. His eyes are desolate.

"About th-three weeks af'er I got you out 'f the d-dungeons, I was down there t' get a girl for a revel. The Dark Lord said he wan'ed this one in p'ticular, in the cell by the stairs." He shuts his eyes for a moment. Opens them again, and the look in his eyes makes Hermione want to block her ears, shut her eyes, and hide under the blankets. She doesn't want to hear the next part. "She can' have been more'n twelve." He looks at her like he's seeking an absolution he knows won't come. "I couldn' send her up there, H'mione. For th-them to rape, an' torture, until she died. I couldn't."

Hermione feels very cold, her hand resting light across his jaw and throat as he talks, feeling the reverberations and the bobbing of his throat as he swallows.

"S-so I killed her. She was s'posed to never wake up, I was gonna use a somnium, but she woke up. I ended up – ended up cutting her wrists while she fought me. Made it look like suicide. She was crying. Screaming. She din't know. It was...mercy." He looks at her pleadingly, and beyond the horror of what he'd said, Hermione can't help wondering why he hadn't used a somnium on the girl while she'd been fighting him. Part of her wonders if it was to punish himself. Or maybe in the moment, he just hadn't thought of it. Jesus. She feels sick. It's so awful. So terrible. While she'd been sitting upstairs in his room in the mansion, scared and alone, he'd been murdering girls to save them from being raped to death. She feels like vomiting. No wonder he had thrown up.

Draco's staring at her, eyes huge in his face. "But I still murdered her. I still killed a little girl."

And then, to her dismay, he begins crying. A heartbreakingly silent weeping, and she can see his features contorted with it before his hand comes up, hiding most of his face. She can see a sliver of his right eye, screwed shut, lashes wet as he cries. His mouth is hidden entirely, but she can see his shoulders shaking, and the juddering, rasping breaths he takes are the only audible sign of his tears. Oh shit. She pushes herself up on one elbow and cups the back of his head, dropping a kiss at his temple. Her fingers play through his hair.

"Hey. Hey, it's..." It's what? Okay? Alright? She can't say that, because it's not. Nothing's okay, or alright. He killed a little girl to save her, and everything about that is so, so wrong. She kisses his head again. "I love you," she tells him firmly. "I love you so much, Draco. So, so much. No matter what you've done, I love you."

Draco makes a wobbling, vocal sob that he stifles, at that, and his hand comes away from his face to wrap around her back, and then he's burying his face against her breasts. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I love you." And his breath is hot and damp, and his tears are soaking through her shirt. "I can't – I can't live with it. I k-killed so many people," he says, broken and hitching against her breasts, his voice muffled, as Hermione strokes her fingers through his hair, hoping to calm him. "I have nightmares about it all the t-time. Can' stop thinking 'bout it, sometimes."

"I'm so sorry," she says helplessly. "I'm so sorry."

"I wanna fight," he says, and her heart twists. "I feel so guilty. So fucking guilty. I don' deserve to be alive. She did. Her. Not – not me. An' – an' now I'm sitting here safe, and I can' even – can' even atone. I wanna atone, H'mione." He pulls back, huffing a breath, visibly pulling himself together as he knuckles the tears from his eyes and looks at her as he says, clear and urgent: "I need to fight."

There is a cold stone sitting in Hermione's stomach. She feels leaden and numb, even though from the moment he'd started talking, she'd suspected he was leading up to this. He wants to fight. He wants to make up for murdering the little girls he has nightmares about. Can she blame him? Christ, she doesn't know how he lives with it. She doesn't know how he acts so normal every day, with that in his head. With those memories always lurking. She finds her own memories hard enough to deal with, and as awful as they are – at least they're not that. That is beyond horrific. She wonders if this was what Ron was talking about, or if there's worse that she hasn't heard. A fear of the latter writhes in her gut.

"Okay," she says aloud, because now is not the time to discuss it, or argue. He probably won't even remember they had this conversation in the morning. She keeps working her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp as she goes, trying to be soothing and rhythmic even as horror gnaws at her. What he'd had to do. What he might not have told her. The thought that she might just have to let him fight. It might not be an option anymore. She feels sick, but she doesn't let it show in her voice. "Okay, Draco. If this is what you need. If you need to fight, then – then we can talk about you doing that in the morning. But right now, you need to sleep. Alright?" Her voice is low, and gentle.

"It's no' alrigh'," he mumbles, but his eyes slide slowly shut without him really protesting further. He's really very drunk. "I don' deserve..." he begins to slur after a moment, but Hermione shushes him softly, fingers still combing through his hair, and moments later, his breathing becomes heavy and snuffling; not quite a snore. She closes her eyes and presses her face down to the side of Draco's head, breathing into his hair, feeling shell-shocked and exhausted. He doesn't stir. And then she rolls onto her back next to him, staring at the ceiling as worries crawl over her, dark and cold.

She lies awake for a long time.