Absence
Summary: Hurting and healing
Azkaban was cold. The stone walls pulled any heat that might be in the air and leached it from the prisoners' bodies. It was dark. Eternal night, the torches on the walls were mocking as they stayed unlit. Tracking time was nearly impossible. Draco spent days counting stones. Counting breaths. Counting screams from prisoners in adjacent cells. Counting seconds of silence.
Counting meals did not help. They were sporadic and often inedible. He had thought his body frail after his sixth and seventh years but after just a few weeks his bones began to hurt no matter how he lay on the threadbare cot.
The cold lifeless walls of Azkaban never saw a red string during his six months there.
As he lost count of everything, he lost hope.
"Harry I won't argue about this again." Hermione smacked down the top of the last of her moving boxes. Her whole life looked so small when packed into cardboard.
"Mione—"
"No." She tried to keep the tremble from her voice. Staying in anger was easier. "I'm done. You and Ron and the rest of the family have made it quite clear. Merlin, all of England has made it quite clear. I am done. I can't do this anymore."
Harry took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a gesture she knew so well and for a moment it pulled at her heart as she saw an eleven year old boy on a train in front of her, then the memories of their last arguments came flooding back.
It had been a month since Draco's trial. A month of her trying and failing to make someone, anyone, understand why she felt so strongly that his sentencing was unfair. Because of Ron, the press was ruthless. He had given interviews that ranged from claims of her being imperiused to her being fed Amortenia. She had realized quickly it stemmed from his ugly jealous streak and made her more grateful she had kept her connection to Draco a secret. To everyone, she was just the justice seeking warrior for the downtrodden as always. To them, Draco was her new S.P.E.W. It did not make them any less ruthless. Rita Skeeter vilified her. Ron and the Weasleys, Molly especially, provided ample context. Harry stayed mostly silent, but had quietly agreed with them.
It was Narcissa who finally told her it was time for her to stop. She had held her hands, tears in her eyes, and thanked her for how hard Hermione had fought but told her firmly that she needed to stop. If anything the press was getting worse and the Wizengamot had stopped accepting appeals from her all together. She had faith that Draco would get through his sentence and there was truly nothing more Hermione could do.
It was also Narcissa who had helped Hermione with her next steps. She had confided in the older woman her troubles with Harry and the Weasleys. How viciously they had turned on her after her rejection of Ron's romantic advances and her adamant support of Draco. Narcissa had gotten her in touch with the Headmistress at Beauxbatons and arranged for her to take their version of N.E.W.T.s and start a Charms Mastery if her scores were acceptable.
Both women had teared up on their final goodbye. Narcissa had insisted that she write her often to keep her updated on her new journey. She had also not told Narcissa of her connection to Draco but Hermione was sure she had seen a glimmer in her eye when she talked of her son.
Hermione shrunk the boxes and pocketed them, ever grateful for magic. She turned to her oldest friend and searched for some hint of support. She had sacrificed so much for him. He had once been a boy she was willing to die for, had almost died for. She had never dreamed he would take her side over Ron's but for him to not even consider staying neutral, to give her no support, it was too much. Too much after what she had given.
"Goodbye Harry." She disapparated from her flat with a crack.
Mind healing sessions with Healer Miller were more tolerable than Draco had imagined. After Azkaban, anything was tolerable. He had no idea how anyone survived more than a year there. He had barely survived six months.
He had spent the first two weeks home on house arrest in bed. He had barely been able to do more than swallow the small amounts of food and potions his body would take. His family's private healer had confided to his mother that the damage to his body was not permanent, but much longer there and it would have been. Thanks to magic and nothing else to do but recuperate, his body recovered fairly quickly.
His mind on the other hand was a more complex. The nightmares plagued his sleep and the Manor haunted his waking hours.
It was Healter Miller who suggested a relocation after his house arrest was over. He had described enough of the horrors that had gone on in the house for the man to understand it no longer held any good memories. It was also Healer Miller who had gently encouraged him to look outside of England.
They had talked at length about his upbringing. His relationship with his father. His views on blood purity. How they had changed over the years. It took a year of sessions but Draco finally broke down and told him about his string. The string he had not seen in over a year and a half at that point.
He knew she was alive. His mother kept him vaguely informed. He knew she lived outside of England after a falling out with her friends. He felt slightly guilty for that. However knowing what he did of them, he did not feel too bad that she had moved on from them. She deserved better.
He and Healer Miller had talked at length over what she deserved. Draco believed she deserved better than him. After a year and a half of sessions, Healer Miller was still trying to convince him that Draco deserved to be happy and that she should be able to choose what she deserved. They disagreed on this point. Healer Miller held the opinion that he should trust in magic. Magic had connected them for a reason.
After two years of not seeing his string, he wondered what magic meant by the lack of red in his life.
He applied for Potions apprenticeships outside of England and spent hours brewing to distract himself from thinking about it too much.
Hermione spent the better part of her post-Hogwarts schooling studying soul bonds. It had not been her original intention when she began her Charms Mastery. She had thought she would specialize in something more practical. However, after years of researching bonds, she found she did not want to stop. Her Charms Master also enthusiastically encouraged the study as it was a fairly obscure and not well documented branch of magic.
They had discussed Hermione's own experience with her string a year into her studies. She and her Master had gotten rather close and the older woman had told her of her own soul bond with her recently past husband. While a different experience to Hermione's, it gave her the confidence to share the secret no one but Luna knew of.
She did not confess that she spent many nights alone in her flat with her fingers around her wrist, praying to see the string that connected her to him.