Chapter Eight
Hermione felt it the moment their bliss shattered—the fragile warmth they'd shared evaporating in an instant. Lucius closed himself off as if the connection between them had never existed. His movements were swift and mechanical, each one a silent barrier between them, each motion building an invisible wall. He turned away without a word, without even a glance, rolling off of her as though she hadn't just been in his arms, his touch, his world.

He stood up, his towering figure casting a shadow over her, and she could barely breathe, her heart thundering painfully in her chest. The man who had been so tender, so open just moments before, was now a stranger again—his eyes avoiding hers, his face hardening into the mask of indifference she had known for so long.

She watched, helpless, as he moved to the edge of the room, the soft rustle of the bedding as he gathered it up sounding like the closing of a door between them. The distance between them grew with every step he took, and she felt like she was drowning in it. How could everything shift so quickly? How could the warmth they had shared turn to this bitter, suffocating cold?

He handed her a shirt to cover herself, his hands cold as they brushed against hers. His touch was distant, as if they had never shared the intimacy they had moments ago. No words, no apology, nothing. Just the quiet weight of his absence as he moved to redress in silence.

When he refused to sit back beside her, her heart broke all over again. She reached for his hand, the simple gesture born of desperation and a deep need for him to acknowledge her, to feel something—anything—but he recoiled. The tension in his body was so palpable, it burned through the air between them. He pulled away, his back rigid, and without a single glance in her direction, he fled, retreating into the corner of the closet, away from her. Away from what they had shared.

Tears, hot and relentless, welled up in her eyes as she sat there, unable to move. They fell in steady streams down her face, each drop an ache, a reminder of what had been and what was now lost. She raised a trembling hand to her cheek, feeling the salt of her tears against her skin. Her chest tightened, and then the sobs came, wracking her body with the force of her grief. It wasn't just the hurt from his distance—it was the confusion, the way he had so easily slipped back into that cold, unreachable shell.

"M-Mippy," she gasped through her sobs, her voice broken. The elf appeared with a pop, her large eyes full of concern as she tried to comfort her Lady, but it was clear there was nothing she could do to fix this.

"M-Mippy, please," Hermione choked out, and the elf, her heart heavy with sympathy, vanished in a second to fetch Draco.

It wasn't long before Draco appeared. He didn't say anything at first, just pulled her into his arms, his warmth enveloping her as if trying to shield her from the chill that had settled in her bones. She clung to him, her body shaking with sobs, the emptiness inside her now echoing through the pit of her stomach. He held her tighter, murmuring softly into her hair as if he could make everything okay again with his embrace alone.

"I'm so sorry," Draco whispered, his voice thick with emotion, as he rocked her gently, his hands soothing against her back. But it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough to undo the distance that Lucius had placed between them, or the hurt that now filled the spaces where warmth had once been.

As her sobs slowed, Draco continued to hold her, and for a brief moment, Hermione let herself lean into his strength, letting the weight of her pain press against him, as he bore it with her.

Draco sat by her side until the early hours of the morning, not once pulling away, not once asking her to stop. He simply held her—his arms firm, his warmth a silent promise that he would be there for as long as she needed. He waited for the violent tremors to stop shaking her body, for the sobs to slowly fade into exhausted hiccups, for the tears to finally run dry. The silence between them was thick, weighted with all the things neither of them had the strength to say. Every soft sob that wracked her frame seemed to tear at his own soul, but he never let go. He just held her, letting her fall apart in his arms as he wished more than anything that he could fix it, that he could do anything to stop the heartbreak that was carving its way through her.

When her shaking finally subsided, when her breath became steady enough for her to drift into a fitful sleep, Draco gently tucked the blankets around her, his fingers brushing over her hair one last time. But even as he did, he felt that gnawing emptiness settle in his chest, the silence in the room growing heavier with each passing moment.

He didn't want to leave her side, but he knew he had to. He couldn't let his father—who had caused all of this—hide away in the dark corners of the house, consumed by whatever had happened between them. The thought of Lucius Malfoy, that cold, proud figure, reduced to nothing more than a shattered shell of himself, gnawed at Draco's insides. But there was no time to wrestle with it now. He had to confront his father, to understand what had broken him.

When Draco found Lucius, he was exactly where he expected him to be: curled up in a dark, forgotten corner of the closet, his body rigid, his gaze fixed blankly on the ceiling as if it offered him some kind of escape. It was a stark contrast to the powerful, self-assured man he had always known. Here, in the dim light, Lucius looked utterly lost—small, frail, like a boy who had wandered too far from home.

"Father," Draco's voice broke the heavy stillness, carrying an edge of frustration that he couldn't suppress. He approached cautiously, every step towards Lucius feeling like a weight pressing down on him.

Lucius didn't look at him, didn't acknowledge his presence, and for a moment, Draco wasn't sure if he was even aware of him. But then, as if pulled by some invisible force, Lucius shifted slightly, his body tense, his eyes unfocused but knowing that Draco was there.

Slowly, Draco sat beside him. His knees brushed against his father's side, and he reached out—tentative at first—before resting his hand on Lucius's arm, rubbing it in a slow, calming circle. He felt his father flinch slightly, but the moment didn't pass, and he kept his hand there, not letting go, as if that physical connection might somehow bring him back from the edge.

"Please," Draco whispered, his voice raw, his emotions spilling out of him in a flood that he couldn't contain. "Tell me what happened. Why... why did you do that? Why did you shut her out?"

The words sounded desperate, but they were born of something deeper—a confusion, a hurt, a betrayal that he couldn't even put into words. He didn't understand what had happened between his father and Hermione, why everything had unraveled so quickly. The night had started with such promise, with such intimacy. It had felt like something real, something lasting. But now, here they were—his father lost in himself, and Hermione broken beyond anything Draco had ever seen before.

Lucius didn't answer immediately, and the silence stretched between them, oppressive and suffocating. Draco could feel the weight of it pressing on his chest, each second more unbearable than the last. His father's gaze was distant, lost somewhere in his mind, and Draco's heart twisted in his chest, realizing that whatever had happened, whatever had caused this rupture, it was far deeper than just a moment of weakness.

His hand tightened on Lucius's arm, as if to ground him, to remind him that he wasn't alone. But even as he tried to hold onto that thread, Lucius remained silent, his body trembling slightly under the weight of whatever darkness he was battling.

"Father, please." Draco's voice broke again, quieter this time. "I need to know. For her. For me... What happened?"

But even as he spoke, a part of him feared the answer. A part of him was terrified that the truth, whatever it might be, was something too devastating to fix, something that might shatter their already fractured family beyond repair.

The silence between them was suffocating. It hung in the air, thick and unbearable, as if every breath was weighted with the gravity of everything that had gone wrong. Draco sat beside his father, watching him, waiting for something—anything—to break the stillness, but Lucius didn't move, didn't speak. His gaze was lost somewhere far beyond the present, locked in some private battle with the ghosts of his past.

Draco's throat ached, raw with unspoken words, but there was nothing to say. What could he say? His father had retreated so far into himself, and Hermione was broken beyond recognition. The sight of them—her heart still shattered from the painful moment they'd just shared—was like a knife twisting deeper into his chest. The family he'd once known, so untouchable, so powerful, had crumbled right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He reached for Lucius' hand. It was a small gesture, one that had always felt so foreign between them, but right now it was the only thing he could think to do. *Don't let him be alone* Draco thought, even if there was no answer. Even if his father never spoke again, never explained why he had undone everything they had worked toward, Draco couldn't leave him like this. *Not alone. Not in the dark.*

For a long while, there was nothing but the cold weight of Lucius's hand limp in his. But then, finally, Lucius stirred, his body twitching as though struggling against some invisible force. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Draco pulled him to his feet, feeling the tension in his father's limbs, the way he fought to remain distant, to keep himself locked inside his fortress of isolation. But Draco's hand remained steady, his grip unwavering, until—after what felt like an eternity—Lucius allowed himself to be pulled along. His eyes were vacant, almost empty, as though he was just going through the motions, too exhausted to resist.

They made their way back to the makeshift bed beside Hermione. Lucius collapsed beside her without hesitation, his body curling instinctively around hers. It was almost animalistic, the way he sought her, the way his nose buried into her hair, inhaling deeply. He shuddered, a quiet, broken sound that tore at Draco's heart, but there was no response from her. She lay limp, still lost in her own pain, unable to offer the comfort he so desperately needed.

Lucius's body trembled as though he was holding back an ocean of grief, his chest shaking with the effort to suppress whatever was rising in him. He whimpered—softly, barely audible—but it was enough. *Enough to break Draco's resolve.* The sound of his father's brokenness was too much, too devastating for Draco to bear. He knew Lucius had suffered, had been destroyed by his own choices, but this… this raw, unfiltered pain was something else entirely. It wasn't just regret—it was guilt. *It was guilt that had hollowed him out.*

The whimpers stopped after a few long minutes, and, with the silence once again claiming the room, Lucius's body finally relaxed. His grip on Hermione loosened slightly, his breathing evening out as he sank into a fitful, troubled sleep. His face was soft in repose, but the lines of anguish were still etched deeply on his brow, even in sleep. Draco couldn't look at him for long. The pain was too much. He wanted to scream. *This is my fault. All of it. I should've seen this coming. I should've done more.*

He crawled into the bed beside them, laying on the opposite side of Hermione. His hand sought hers in the dark, fingers trembling as they closed around her smaller ones. His chest ached with the weight of everything that had happened—the tangled mess of their family's history, the brokenness that had never been healed, the truth that now seemed impossible to face. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. *It was never supposed to end like this.*

He pressed his cheek against her shoulder, and for a moment, it almost felt like the old days—like when they would sleep in the same room after everything had gone wrong, just to feel a sense of comfort in each other's presence. But even then, it was different. It always had been.

He closed his eyes, his fingers tightening around hers as if that small connection might be the last thing holding him together. He didn't know how to fix this. He didn't even know if it could be fixed. All he could do was hope that the fragile thread of connection between them—between him and his father, between him and Hermione—was enough to keep them from falling into the abyss completely.

It wasn't enough.

But maybe, just maybe, it would have to be.

Morning came far too soon for Draco. It felt like the night had stretched on forever, yet somehow, it was still too brief to make sense of everything that had happened. His body ached in places he didn't want to acknowledge, a dull throb of exhaustion that mirrored the heavy, oppressive weight on his chest. The rawness inside him was unbearable, as if he had been ripped apart and left to heal in pieces. He wasn't sure he would ever be whole again.

He had known that intimacy between them—between his father, and Hermione—was never going to be easy. He knew that. He had braced himself for the tension, for the awkwardness, for the silence that would settle between them after everything they had done. But what he hadn't prepared for was the *fall*. The abrupt, unforgiving collapse of something he thought might have been real. The way they had gone from tentative, fragile companions to broken, shattered souls in the span of hours. It was almost laughable how quickly everything could turn to dust.

Lucius had been so affectionate the night before. So *close*. It had felt like a moment of connection, of something more than the distance they'd shared for so long. For the first time in ages, Draco had thought—*maybe, just maybe*—that his father could still feel something. That the fractured pieces of their family, once so disconnected, might finally begin to fit together again.

But it was all gone in an instant.

The warmth, the closeness, the tentative trust they'd begun to build—it slipped away the moment Lucius pulled back. Draco could still feel it, that cold, suffocating distance, a chasm growing between them where there had once been something soft and fragile.

And Hermione…

He could hardly bear to think of her. She was the one who had suffered the most, the one caught in the middle of their mess, the one who had been drawn into a world of confusion and heartache that she had never asked for. He knew that it was his father who had pulled away, that it was Lucius who had closed himself off, retreating back into the darkness of his own mind, abandoning the warmth of the moment they had shared.

Hermione had seen it all, though. She was always so aware, so attuned to every shift in the air, every subtle change. He could see her face in his mind now, the way she had tried to reach out, the way her eyes had begged for something—*anything*—to bring them back to the fragile peace they had only moments before. But Lucius had been lost. Lost to his own demons, his own self-loathing, his own fears.

Draco had watched her, watched as she tried to make sense of it, watched as her heart broke before his eyes. He had seen her try to be strong, to hide the hurt, but it had been impossible to ignore. She had known. She had felt the coldness creeping in, felt the rejection even when he couldn't fully understand it himself.

And now, here they were—broken, fractured, lost in a silence that felt so much heavier than it should have. He couldn't fix it. He didn't know how to.

What had they built, after all? A house of cards that had come tumbling down the second a breath of wind touched it.

Draco closed his eyes, pressing his palms against his face, willing himself not to fall apart. But it was so hard. So impossibly hard.

Taking a few steadying breaths, Draco stood up, feeling the weight of the night still heavy on his shoulders. A long soak in his father's washroom would help clear his mind, give him a moment to gather himself. He needed the quiet, the solitude, before he faced anything else. Once he felt a little more composed, he would call for Mippy. Hermione would likely need fresh clothes, something of her own to make her feel more... herself again. He wasn't sure how she was holding up, but he knew it wasn't easy. Neither of them were.