Thirty-Four

He staggers when he arrives at the safe house, feeling sick and gagging as he pushes the shed door open, spitting on the lawn and taking a deep breath. Disapparating twice in a row is not kind on his stomach. He strides down the garden path toward the house, casting a quick scourgify. Hermione isn't going to want to look at him covered in blood and fluids, especially not if she's in a state. Draco's not sure how well the Scouring Charm works – he feels like he can still feel a faint filth on him, and his hands feel slightly gritty to the touch. Bone, he thinks, and grimaces. Scourgify works best with liquids, a little like tergio. And meat and bone aren't exactly liquid.

He yanks the door open and lets it bounce off the wall, swinging shut with a bang behind him as he heads for Lupin's office. She'll either be there or in their room, and Ginevra had mentioned files that had upset her. The door of Lupin's office is open, and he can see Potter's head behind the table Hermione has co-opted as her desk. He's crouching, and as Draco rounds the table, he sees Hermione. Scrunched down into a little ball, her breathing weird and shallow, and thick-wet with tears and snot, her hair loose and a veil around her, but otherwise whole and unharmed. Potter looks up as Draco glances at the table, thinking 'files?' and wondering what he's dealing with here. What is he going to have to coax Hermione out of?

"Thank god. Malfoy," Potter says, voice full of relief, but Draco is looking at the table, horror crawling up his spine and establishing a chokehold on his throat. There are a number of files spread messily out on the tabletop, photos attached. Oh fuck. He recognises those men. They're the wizards from the dinner. Voldemort's potential American allies. Draco suddenly feels like he's been punched in the gut, all the breath driving out of him, nausea churning. Why. Why did she have to see that, he thinks numbly as he looks back to Hermione. And why now? When he was gone?

"Hey, 'Mione," Potter says again, and his eyes flick to the files spread across the table and then meet Draco's, and they share a look of sickened horror. "Malfoy's back. Safely."

She doesn't move. She gives no indication she even heard Potter. Draco crouches as Potter stands and takes a few steps back. "Hermione," he says gently, very aware of the other man watching, and listening. She twitches at the sound of his voice, and her breathing pattern judders for a moment. "What do you need? What can I do?" he asks, variations on what he's always asked her, ever since her capture. Placing the power in her hands, and himself at her service. She swallows audibly, and her shoulders hunch and then relax a little; an agony of tension running through her, and Draco longs to touch her, but he can't.

He sits next to her tailor-fashion, legs crossed and forearms braced over his thighs. He sighs, staring at his left arm, jersey sleeve pulled up, so now he can see the Dark Mark on the underside of his forearm, and the cut on top. It goes from wrist bone to two inches below his elbow, diagonally, and was deep enough that it left a scar despite getting dittany on it quickly. "The mission went well," he says, his voice quiet, just wanting something to say. "We saved thirteen Muggles."

"You didn't save me," she whispers, face still buried so that her voice is muffled. "Not that evening. You just let them do it." Draco's heart breaks in his chest. She lifts her head and looks at him. Her eyes are puffy, bloodshot, and swollen around, her cheeks blotchy and tear-streaked, nose reddened, and her lower lip is trembling. There's no real blame in her eyes, no anger – but the wounded misery there is almost even worse.

"Get out, Potter," Draco says, his gaze locked onto Hermione's, and there's a sigh and then footsteps, and a moment later, the office door closes. He swallows around the lump of emotion in his throat. "I know. I just sat there, and I did nothing." The words come out dull. Dead. She sits back, feet sliding forward along the floor until her ankles bump up against his left shin, her head falling back against the wall as she looks at him, exhausted and so sad, and Draco wants to disappear. He wants her not to look at him like that, but he knows that he deserves it, and worse.

"I wish I could hate you for it, sometimes," she says, her voice hoarse from crying. "Like now," she adds unnecessarily. She looks down at her fingers, twisting together in her lap. Her hair falls in fluffy waves around her face, straggly here and there at the front where her tears and snot have gotten in the curls and dried. "But I know you didn't have a choice."

"I do hate myself for it. All the time," he tells her tiredly, rubbing his right thumb over the back of his forearm, along the fresh scar. "It doesn't matter that I didn't have a choice. I still did it. And I fucking despise myself."

They both sit in silence for a moment, her feet bumped up against his shin, and he remembers. That evening is carved into his mind in blood. Branded into him. He remembers everything. Every violation, every scream, every time they drew blood, every time she threw up. Mostly, he compartmentalises now. He purposefully suppresses the memories because it does no one any good for him to wallow in old shame, and pain. It's self-pity, not punishment. Or if it is punishment, it only benefits his sense of self-hatred. It doesn't help Hermione. But when he does think of the dinner, even the lesser things are like thorns broken off beneath his skin, infected and agonising, poisoning him.

The way one of them had yanked Hermione off the table by her ankle while her hands were bound behind her, and laughed when she hit the floor, sobbing from the pain. Another had made her lick the soles of his shoes. And then a different one tried to make her eat her own vomit. One had told her to tell them all what she was. He'd forced her to give a speech as to how she was a worthless mudblood whore whose only purpose was to serve them – physically, sexually, and emotionally – and she'd cried. And there is a reason she throws up if she tries to suck Draco's dick.

"I failed you," he croaks, guilt crushing him as it always does when he remembers. "I know I couldn't do anything except what I did, but that doesn't mean I didn't fail you. It just means that I was always doomed to fail you." Elbows on his knees, he rests his head in his hands.

He doesn't know exactly how much Hermione remembers; the Imperius tends to make memories hazy, and he thinks, from the way her behaviour shifted that evening, that she started dissociating pretty heavily after the first time she passed out and was ennervated. But she obviously remembers enough. Most of her nightmares seem to be about that. And seeing all the wizards' faces probably uncovered memories she didn't realise she even had. Draco's jaw is so tense he feels like his teeth are creaking, a headache beginning to pound behind his eyes, tension and pain building in his shoulders. His eyes are dry, though.

"Doomed. Yeah," she says bleakly. A shaky sigh escapes her. "I wish you'd been able to save me." It comes out very small, a tiny confession that he has to strain to hear. That takes him a second to process. I wish you'd been able to save me. He swallows hard, biting his tongue, fighting his emotions. His voice is rough when he speaks.

"So do I," he says brokenly because what else can he say? He looks up, meeting her eyes, and she's watching him with those misery-struck firewhisky eyes. No blame, just pain.

"I know," she whispers. "I know you would've, if you could've." She sniffs wetly, wiping her nose on her sleeve cuff. "And you did save me, when you could," she adds. "I just wish…"

"Yeah." He drops his gaze again. Only a few seconds later, Hermione's hand settles on his knee, and when he looks up, her expression is needy and brittle. Draco knows what she wants. He draws her onto his lap, and into his arms, heedless of the remnants of filth still clinging to his clothes, and holds her very tightly. No one comes in to disturb them.

When Hermione finally pulls herself together enough to sit up and actually look at Draco properly, with eyes not blurred by tears and haunted by old horrors, she sees Kenmare written all over him. He's covered in what looks like dust, and she's afraid it isn't dust. She can see the stain of pinkish-red here and there like blotches of watercolour paint, and the brown of old blood is still streaked sparsely in his hair. His eyes are hollow, but behind his grief and pain, there's a fierce kind of triumph. She sits sideways in his lap, and he looks down at her and brushes a bit of her hair back from her face but doesn't speak.

"So the mission went well?" she asks, and he clenches his jaw, muscles bunching, eyes cutting away. He's not happy with the question, and Hermione frowns.

"Yes. But I think we should talk about – about the dinner," he gets out, explaining his unhappiness, and Hermione feels her chin tremble as tears suddenly threaten to well up again. They're on a hair-trigger, her chest tight and her eyes wet. She'd thought he might want to talk about it – or rather, that he might think they should. She doesn't.

"I – no," she says, voice taut with strain, her chest feeling tight and sore. "I only just calmed down," she tells him very honestly, feeling as brittle as a dead leaf, picking her words carefully and speaking them slowly as she holds her tears down by sheer force of will. "I don't want to – to talk about it. I don't."

"But –" he begins and Hermione shoves herself off his lap. She lands on the wooden floor with a bump and scrambles to her knees.

"No. No," she nearly snarls, and he flinches. "I don't fucking want to. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it – it won't change anything, it won't help. So no," she says as she wipes at her face and gets to her feet on wobbly legs, Draco shoving himself to his feet as well so that he can steady her with a hand on her elbow. His expression is worried and guilt-ridden, and Hermione sniffs and firms her chin. "I won't."

She just spent who knows how many hours trapped in the halls of her own mind, drowning in nightmarish memory, vaguely aware of Harry sitting there watching her like she was mental. Which she was. Is. It's humiliating and upsetting, and she feels sick, awful, and shaky now. Wrung out, exhausted, and stupid. Falling to pieces over some photos. It's pathetic, really. Her eyes slide to the desk despite herself; the dossiers are gone, and she feels a small shudder of relief, her hands – unconsciously balled into fists – relaxing slightly. They may only be photos, and it may be pathetic, but she can't deny the effect they have on her. Hermione turns her gaze back to Draco with an effort as she takes a deep breath. She refuses to fall apart again when she's only just calmed down. She lets out her breath slowly.

"Tell me about the mission." Hermione runs her eyes over him again, taking stock. His left sleeve is shoved up, a healing purple slash up the length of his forearm that makes her hiss with worry, but otherwise he looks unharmed. Grubby, as though he'd been scourgified by a quick, haphazard spell, but unhurt. A little ripple of relief runs through her. She'd been so scared for him, in amongst the maelstrom of panic and horror that she'd been locked into. "It went okay?"

He nods and looks down at himself. "It did. But I should have a shower. And maybe you should have one too." He eyes her, and gestures to a bit of whitish grit on her sleeve. "I used a confringo while I was in close quarters. I think that might be –"

"Oh god." Hermione brings her hand up to cover her mouth, stomach churning as she realises she has a person smudged on her clothes – on her left sleeve, and the seat of her leggings, and then down her left leg a bit. She's been covered in blood, guts, and other filth before, when she used to participate in missions out in the field, but it was always disgusting. It always made her want to throw up. Every time. It wasn't something she had ever gotten used to. Perhaps Hermione just never had the stomach to be a fighter, even before she was captured. She certainly doesn't now.

"Sorry. I didn't have time. You were…" Draco gestures helplessly and shrugs, and Hermione nods even as she grimaces. She wants to brush off the marks she can see, but she doesn't want to touch what she now knows is a person, blown to smithereens. A Snatcher, probably, nearly atomised by Draco's curse. At least that thought is a grim distraction from what she has been thinking.

"It's fine." She looks down at herself. It's not a lot, really. Just a few smudges on her clothes. "I'll go change and get you some fresh clothes, and meet you in the bathroom?"

Draco looks at her as if he's worried she'll fall apart if she steps out of his presence. She can't blame him, after what he'd come back to – she'd been a wreck, and unfortunately, she still feels like she's hovering worryingly close to the edge. "I can come with you," he offers instantly, and she forces a smile, the skin on her cheeks feeling taut and stiff with tears, and probably snot. She may not need a shower, but she needs to wash her face at least. Pragmatic thoughts sweep in, gradually overwhelming the memories she had been drowning in, and that still echo in her head, sharp and bloody. Shards of memory are strewn through her mind like a minefield, glittering, dangerous, and liable to cut her to the bone.

Like the way he'd smiled and said, "I find it only enhances the experience when she cries."

Hermione sucks in a sharp breath, panic rushing through her again. And then she grabs hold of his jersey in one hand, stepping close enough that she can smell his sweat, and the scent of metallic blood, and that faint ozone scent that destructive magic carries, and it all yanks her back to the present. He's here now. She's here now, and the past is gone. It's over. Right now, Draco is home safely and only slightly injured, and he needs a shower, scar liniment applied to his back, food, and a cup of tea, she tells herself firmly.

"No. I'm fine," Hermione says as she forces herself to let go of his jersey, and he looks at her doubtfully. "Honestly," she insists, and she's aware of how ridiculous and unbelievable it must sound after the meltdown she just had. But these breakdowns always pass, and afterwards, while she feels more vulnerable and fragile, she feels better for it too in a way – hollowed out right to her spine, but better. Like some more of the poison was drawn out of her.

Hermione was confronted by the faces and the memories, and she's still here. Still standing, with Draco's help. Without him, she'd still be a mess on the floor, but with him – with him, everything is different. He's her anchor. The one stable point in her life. He was tortured for her – by her. He would have died for her, and he would have saved her from the dinner if he could have. If there had been any way at all that wouldn't have led to worse consequences for her. She knows it intellectually, even if sometimes she just feels pain.

But Hermione doesn't want to think about that right now. Instead, she leans in on impulse and kisses Draco, who's looking at her with worried, tired eyes, his mouth twisted with lingering guilt. She's uncaring of whether his lips are as dirty as the rest of him, but they don't seem to be. They're soft, and wonderful, and he makes a tiny sound in the back of his throat that's nearly a moan as his hand comes back up, clutching her elbow. His lips part and her tongue sweeps along his bottom lip, darting into his mouth and just brushing his tongue. A curl of arousal bursts to life in her stomach, bewildering and beautiful. Hermione draws back before she loses her head and deepens the kiss – she's too fragile right now, with everything just beneath the surface, threatening to break back through. It would be playing with fire.

"Come on," she says and takes his hand, tugging at him. Draco follows her, his eyes full of her, an adoration in them that carries a weight. He'd follow her to his own death if she led him to it by the hand, Hermione thinks with a shudder. He'd bare his throat to her wand and believe he deserved it.

They are each other's greatest weakness precisely because they are each other's source of strength. If she is without him, then she falls apart at the first hurdle, and if he were to be without her, she thinks he would kill himself, in battle, or through neglect. She swallows, sobered by the thought. And then his fingers slide through hers, interlocking, and her heart swells. Because apart they might shatter, but together – together they can go through hell and come out the other side, broken but unbowed.

"It felt so good," he tells her as she sits on the toilet lid in clean clothes, her face scrubbed pink and glowing, and hair in a loose braid. She's watching him through the shower curtain; his silhouette moving like a shadow puppet show. A beautiful show. He's all lean and lithe, shoulders straight and hips narrow, his thighs making her eyes linger even in silhouette, and she smiles to herself as she fiddles with the lid on the scar liniment jar. Listening.

He's been talking non-stop about the Kenmare mission, like a child talking about Christmas. Excited and overflowing with energy, giving her an outline of what had happened – with some things redacted, she suspects, based on the way he pauses at times, mostly when talking about how he killed the enemy. He goes from telling her a smooth, flowing story – albeit one that jumps around a lot in his excitement – as he lathers his hair, or tries to scrub his still-scarred back, to breaking off and becoming stilted. Hermione doesn't pry. She doesn't really care how Draco kills the bastards, she realises with a cold shock. He could've skinned them alive for all she cares – as long as they're dead, and he's alive.

"I saved a girl," he tells her as he gets out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his hips, water dripping from his hair, sliding down the planes of his chest and over the flat, hard lines of his abdomen. And running down the channel of the scar cutting across his face – which he won't let her put liniment on, irritatingly. She hates that. He plucks up his wand and casts a silent charm that dries him instantly.

"Tell me," she says encouragingly because she knows how much that must mean to him. He has nightmares about the girls he's killed, in particular; an abhorrent sentence to ever be able to think. But more girls were captured and taken than boys, and he had been witness to ugly deaths, and uglier existences – and taken too many lives, giving them a horrible kind of mercy. Better to die quickly and cleanly at his hands or wand, than to suffer as entertainment at a revel, or as one of the Death Eater's slaves. Or so he'd thought, and she agrees. "What happened?" she asks him. He casts her another worried, doubtful look, and she realises belatedly what his fears are.

"I know what the Snatchers would've been doing, Draco. You don't have to sanitise it for me," Hermione says tightly, and hopes she's telling the truth and isn't going to collapse into a wreck all over again halfway through his story. And so he tells her as he dresses, turning away from her to provide some modesty that Hermione doesn't feel she requires anymore, even now, as fragile as she is. His body doesn't represent pain or fear to her now – it's safety and comfort. Protection and pleasure.

But he jerks his boxers swiftly on "– found her huddled under a blanket, terrified –" a streak of pain in his voice as he confesses, "she made me think of you." His boxers are followed by a pair of joggers, continuing his story. "– clinging to me, wrapped in a blanket while I held her up. A hell of a way to fight, with only one arm free and not able to move easily. Which was why –"

Draco's mouth snaps shut and he looks at Hermione with those unreadable quicksilver eyes, his hair flopping over his forehead, and his mouth settling into a shape that says as clear as day to her – I'm not telling you something because it'll upset you. And this is where she will pry.

"Which was why what ," she demands, and wants to smack him as he turns his back to her. Ostensibly he's turning so she can apply the liniment to his back, but she knows it's really to hide his face. "Let me do your arm first," she says sharply, tugging him around to face her.

"I can do it," he protests weakly, and Hermione bats his hand away from the jar, sitting on the bathroom counter now.

"No. I will," she says decidedly, and then she grabs his left hand in her right and dips some liniment out of the jar, carefully dabbing it on, very slowly. Draco sighs, and when she sneaks a glance up, she sees frustration written on his face, his nostrils flaring and his mouth a thin line now, his brows dark blonde slashes above his eyes. He knows what she's doing. "Which was why what," she asks again – a lot of "w's" in that sentence, she thinks randomly – her fingers and thumb wrapped around his wrist as she smoothes the liniment on the fresh scar. "Let me guess – when you nearly died?"

He looks away, silent. And that tells her all she needs to know.

"Fuck," she swears, and tears fill her eyes in a sudden flood, threatening to well over.

"Well, obviously I didn't, Hermione," he says with an edge of irritation, and even that minor annoyance is so rare it feels a little like a slap. She swallows.

"I can see that you didn't. But – but you nearly –" She stutters to a halt. It's terrifying. It scares the shit out of her. The first mission he's been on that involves battle, and he nearly fucking died. This is why Hermione hadn't wanted him going out there. Because she could lose him. So easily. All over some stupid girl. "Tell me," she demands, half angrily, making herself start applying liniment to his arm again. And he tells her how a Snatcher came through the door and disarmed him, and he couldn't dodge because of the girl, and Hermione feels like a terrible, terrible person for hating the poor girl and wishing Draco had just left her.

"– and then Weasley came through the door and dropped him with a sectumsempra," he finishes as Hermione stares up at him, still holding his wrist although she's done with the liniment. He looks worried and guilty, and Hermione feels bad for making him feel that way. He'd been so happy over saving the girl who would've gotten him killed if not for Ron's serendipitous appearance, and now he looks uncertain, and remorseful. Like he's done something wrong, and he hasn't. She swallows and tries to force down her visible fear with it, suppressing it so she doesn't unfairly inflict it on him.

"You owe Ron then, hm?" she says, proud that her voice only wobbles slightly, and smiles up at him. Draco frowns at her a moment, as though the sudden lack of angry fear emanating from her has set him off balance.

"I suppose I do," he says mildly, eyes still searching over her face, and Hermione tries very hard not to look on the verge of tears, which she is. Fear is eating her alive. He almost died.

"Turn around and I'll do your back," she says, patting his side, and he furrows his brow at her but does as he's told. Now her face is hidden from him, and so she gnaws her lip a moment, hard, as she smears on the liniment. Blinks back tears. Scrunches her face up in a silent scream, trying to exorcise some of her emotion that way, and then asks, "So what happened after that?" And now she doesn't really have to talk, either. Just listen to him as he gradually gets into the swing of the story again, and that purposeful, proud satisfaction seeps into his tone once more. He's finally doing something good – outright good, for the war effort. Something that doesn't involve being a model Death Eater, only able to try to mitigate harm. No; he saved innocent Muggles, without having to hurt them first, and he killed the people who hurt them.

And he didn't die.

When Hermione's done, he turns around and kisses the corner of her mouth very gently, his thumb sweeping over her chin in a caress. He doesn't say anything, but the look in his eyes is knowing and grateful. "Thank you. For letting me do this," he says softly, as they stand very close, one of his hands cradling the base of her skull now, and the other spanning her side. She presses her lips together and shrugs.

"You need this," she says very quietly, and her voice gives her away – it's strangled, and heavy with emotion. She runs the backs of her fingers down over his scarred left cheek, and speaks again before he can say anything. "I wish you'd let me put liniment on this." Her thumb traces the scar.

"It doesn't restrict my movement," he counters. "But I've said before I'll get rid of it if you don't like how it looks."

Hermione frowns, frustrated at his refusal to understand that she doesn't find it ugly. None of his scars are ugly to her. "It's not that. It's because I put it there. I hate looking at it and knowing I did that to you."

"That's why I love it," he admits, slightly awkward, shoulders hunching a little, as if he's embarrassed. "Because you put it there. I don't want to lose it." And then his fingers brush over the line of it, light and fast as his eyes hold hers, and Merlin, the love in them is like a bottomless well. She could fall forever. Hermione doesn't know what to say to him. She licks her lips and his eyes follow the motion. His hand cups her cheek.

"I'll get rid of it if you want," he says, his gaze holding hers again, that purple groove cutting across his cheek, from just below his left eye to just beneath his left ear, and Hermione thinks again how terrifyingly close he came to losing his eye. Because of her. "If it upsets you."

"No," she whispers, shaking her head fractionally. "No. Leave it, then." She goes up on tiptoes, liniment-greasy hands sliding behind his head and using her wrists to guide him down so she can place a kiss on the scar. She loves him so much. And Merlin, she's so scared.

She meets Ron in the kitchen when she goes down to get food and tea for both her and Draco while he heads out to give Lupin his belated briefing. He nods at Ron as he kisses Hermione's temple and leaves her in the kitchen, and Ron nods back. The total lack of sniping and bristling tension makes Hermione feel as warm and happy as if they'd hugged. Hopefully, Ron will put in a good word for Draco with Harry, she thinks, as she listens to the back door click shut. He's said he won't be long. She hopes he's right because she still feels a little fragile.

Ron hangs about in the kitchen like he knows she'd rather not be alone and tells her about the mission from his side of things. The conversation with him that follows is enlightening, and what Ron tells her is probably not information Draco would be happy knowing she was privy to, but Hermione doesn't care. She listens and asks questions as she puts together four cold sausage sandwiches – two for Draco, one for her, and one for Ron, who'd fluttered his lashes hopefully at her and made her laugh. Besides, she supposes she should pay him for his insider information, and for keeping her company.

"– just tossed him on the fire," Ron says as she butters the bread, and suddenly she feels rather less hungry. "And then left him. I had to put the bastard out of his misery. When I told him no Unforgivables, I didn't think I'd have to specify no unnecessarily burning people to death!"

Six months ago, Hermione would have been just as horrified. Now, she just shoots Ron a sharp, sideways look. "They were raping women and girls," she says coldly, and while the thought of Draco doing that makes her feel sick, she feels no sympathy for the Snatcher. Maybe her captivity took away some of her humanity along with her innocence. Ron grimaces, but inclines his head in acceptance.

"Well, true," he allows. "It's not like I feel bad for the bastard, it's just… fuck, it was brutal." He shudders. "It gave me the heeby-jeebies, the way Malfoy did that, without an ounce of expression or anything. Like the bloody Exterminator."

"Terminator," Hermione corrects absently. Ron shrugs and goes on talking as he watches her make the sandwiches with hungry eyes. And then she passes him his sandwich and asks him about the girl, and the Snatcher, and what he says first isn't exactly what she was expecting.

"He was shielding her, 'Mione," Ron says around a mouthful of his sandwich as he leans back against the kitchen bench, watching her put the kettle on to make two mugs of apple pie tea – one of Justin's purchases. "It was the damnedest thing." He sounds almost wondering. Hermione glances up sharply.

"What do you mean?"

"When I saw him in the doorway, right as I dropped the Snatcher with Snape's curse. He thought he was going to die. And he'd turned, to shield the girl. Maybe he was hoping she might survive, at least. He could've kept facing forward and used her as a shield, but…he didn't."

Hermione suddenly feels like crying, picturing that. "Of course he didn't," she says aloud, and a tiny part of her wishes he had put his life above a stranger's – but then he wouldn't be the man she loves. Fear trickles through her. No doubt there were other close calls he had tonight. Other near-death encounters. Draco had saved six of the women and girls himself, and he had still been glowing with a bone-deep satisfaction over that when he'd left for his debriefing. And that happiness – that absence of self-loathing – is so wonderful to see.

But what if he dies?