" i search for patterns, sense that isn't there

you can have everything, and still you have nothing

so i take them all apart, then i put them back

sometimes it takes a long, long, long time "

-'the louder i call, the faster it runs' by wye oak (2018)

It had been in the middle of spring, just after Easter Sunday and the skirmish at Malfoy Manor, when Draco found Hermione again on the outskirts of a small muggle village. Assigned as the day's lookout, Hermione had been posted at a street corner, arms crossed as she nonchalantly leaned against the brick wall of a townhouse, while Harry and Ron went to find something decent for the three of them to eat. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail, a navy baseball cap atop her head. Her jeans were a similar shade of blue, cuffed at the bottom to reveal brown hiking boots that matched her slightly cropped t-shirt. Over it all, she wore an oversized, earthy-green flannel. Draco had swallowed hard at the sight, his throat constricting as he slowed his approach. He, himself, had also been adorned in a casual sort of costume. Instead of his then typical black suit and dragon-hide oxfords, he had been dressed in a cuffed pair of muggle khakis and a navy blue jumper, his feet covered by a worn pair of white trainers. He tried not to think too hard about how their outfits were very nearly coordinated.

"Granger," He had spoken upon arrival, his voice low. Before anything else, she had smiled. Her eyes met his directly for a moment - a warm feeling of relief - then looked him over twice.

"Where'd you get the outfit?" She smirked at him, waggling her eyebrows.

Draco had disregarded the question with a smile of his own. "And where's Boy Wonder and the Weasel?" Hermione's eyes had gone somewhat wide, her head suddenly on a swivel.

She had begun to scold him. "Showing up now of all times and places? Right now? Malfoy, when I said later in the spring-"

"I won't be long," He had assured her, nodding with his words and trying his best to channel civility. "But first… how is your arm?"

Her supposed irritation had subsided with his inquiry. "It's decent, thanks to you, but…" She had bit her lip and looked away, bringing her opposite arm to rest upon the injury. "It does hurt. The wound is healing on the surface but it still feels rather reactive. It's a bit… puffy."

"Let me see," He had insisted, coming towards her much like he had done in the forest. Her contemplative pause to search for the proper wording had worried Draco - exactly what Hermione had been attempting to avoid. She had allowed him to enter her space and take her flannel covered arm in his slender hands, basking in the pressure of being within his grasp, if only a small portion of her, but she held her forearm firmly to her torso. Draco had steadied himself to her, not pulling or pushing, just anchored himself to the curly haired witch, worries forgotten as he gazed longingly into her eyes. There had been somewhat of a hum to the air in the space between them, two individual bodies of magic radiating outwards from within.

"We can't, Draco." Hermione had to force the words out, choking on the contraction - a reply coated in obligation, but not to him. "They could be back at any second. And to be honest, I don't feel like revealing my disfiguration to the entire street."

"Fine then," He had stepped backwards in an instant, relinquishing her arm - the hum coming to an abrupt halt with the detachment. Her coldness had felt unfortunately familiar. "But there's something you must know."

"Get on with it then," She had said, her tone teetering on nervous.

"They're hot on your trail, not the snatchers." Draco had swallowed. "They have trackers dedicated to Team Potter."

Hermione crossed her arms. "You mean the Order?"

"Whatever, yes. The Dark Lord knows exactly where you've been, where you are," He had paused, trying to convey the certain seriousness of the situation. "And where you will be."

Her eyes had protectively narrowed. "How is that, exactly? How am I meant to trust you when you still refer to him by that foul title?"

"How do you think I found you?" Draco snapped. His face had scrunched up in irritation, rude regards clinging to the back of his tongue. "Besides, it's better than his namesake, Granger. You know this."

i thought you were on the oust. She had stared at him for a long while after that, trying her best to deconstruct the sentiment. "How would you even have that sort of intel? I was under the understanding that they were out to get you."

"And how exactly does the Order have any intel?" He had retorted, crossing his arms. "Every war has its spies."

They had stood there for a minute then, both guarded with arms crossed in front of themselves, until Hermione finally spoke. "You're a bit stranger than one would expect you to be, Malfoy."

"I prefer the term realistic. Be brave, Granger." With a final, steely look, he had turned on his toes and walked back in the direction from which he came. Hermione had watched him leave in his muggle outfit, unmoving from her position at the corner as he turned into the nearby alleyway. Her chest panged as the crisp crack of his disapparation had sounded through the air, regret stinging at the edges of her eyes.

The Nott Estate was just as extravagant as Hermione had expected, although not as cold. It was very unlike the gaudy gray and marble interior of Malfoy Manor; the Nott residency was built from wood and decorated in friendly earth-tones. A warm redwood floor greeted her feet as they carried her out of the floo and into a large room with chestnut brown walls and deep blue armchairs. Hermione spun around once to get a full feel of the room, her eyes gliding over the ancient portraits and abundance of framed mirrors that decorated three of the four walls. She hadn't witnessed opulence like this in the wizard world.

"Hello," Theodore Nott stood tall in the doorway, his hands stuffed into the back pockets of his slacks as a small smirk bloomed across his lips.

"Christ!" Hermione yelped, bringing a hand up to her chest as the rest of her body turned with a jolt, messenger bag bouncing at her hip. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"Christ?" Theo questioned and raised an eyebrow, unable to mask his growing grin.

"Merlin, Christ, whoever-the-fuck. You nearly made me have a heart attack!" She panted. "Do you have some sort of silencing charm on those loafers?"

He snorted. "A silencing charm? Absolutely not. I wasn't even making an effort to be quiet. Perhaps you might've ventured a bit too far into that tremendous brain of yours and got lost in the calculations."

Hermione scoffed, crossing her arms. She could feel a faint flush rushing up her neck, red beginning to blossom just beneath her chin, but she refused to falter. "Perhaps I simply didn't want to hear you."

"I said your name, twice!"

Looking to the floor, Hermione sucked in her cheeks.

"You look different," Theo said, giving her the up-and-down. Hermione's arms tightened across her chest before she could prevent it, her mouth slouching into a frown. Rolling his eyes, the man took note of the shift. "That's a good thing, Granger. Green's your color."

"Don't," She warned him, mentally chastising herself for not wearing any other shade.

"Easy now," Theo took a few steps back with his hands up. "All's fair in love and war, is it not?"

"That's a muggle phrase." She said stoically, though the palm of her hand grew slick against the outside of her leather bag. "A muggle phrase in your vernacular seems… incorrect."

Theo shrugged. "I like to read. Though, John Lyly's work does tend to weigh on the denser side - I nearly gave up on Euphues three or four times."

Hermione wasn't sure how to respond.

"Nott," She began, choosing her words very carefully. "If I didn't know better, I would say that in a different universe, we were destined to be friends."

"And what about in this universe?" There was a specific sort of twinkle in his eye.

She smiled, willing herself to become open. "We'll see, I suppose."

Theo led them from one ostentatious room and into another. This one had green walls and a long hardwood table that sat atop a similarly green area rug. Candlelight illuminated the room and their faces as they took a seat across from one another at the mahogany table's far end.

"On the topic of Draco Malfoy," Theo began without warning, just as Hermione was pulling in her chair. "I must first preface, he and I have been friends since before either of us can even remember. If your intentions for this meeting are anything but genuine - if this is at all related to information seeking or the damn Ministry - you would be remiss."

Hermione exhaled lightly, bringing her bag up onto the table. "Luckily for both of us, the information I seek stems purely from selfish intentions." She briefly rifled through the bag, feeling for the thin roughness of twine and grabbing hold. "He sent me these," She said flatly, sliding the stack of postcards across the table. "The photos won't move, meaning these were muggle-made."

Theo placed a finger atop the stack and slid it in his direction. "Muggle-made, you say?"

Hermione nodded and watched as he undid their binding.

"How intentionally peculiar," He said, slightly drawing out the first word and taking a moment to flip through the images. "Of a choice, I mean - on Draco's part."

"I would agree on that front. Have you heard from him at all since…" She let her sentence drift away, not wanting to recount what they had each endured.

Quickly, Theo shook his head. "No, nothing at all, crickets."

Hermione felt her stomach sink; she hadn't expected a reply so finite. so why me? She felt the question burning at the tip of her tongue, but swallowed it whole. Asking questions to which one already had answers for would always be a waste of time.

"But he reaches out to you," Theo snorted, sounding somewhat offended. "Granger, I reckon you have some explaining to do."

"Now, I wouldn't exactly call a stack of postcards 'reaching out.'" what about a letter? She had left that little detail back at the Burrow on purpose.

"It's certainly more than I received! Blaise and I-" He stopped short, pressing his lips into a thin line. "Nevermind that for now. I want to know why in the world Draco Malfoy would send thee Hermione Granger anything at all, full stop."

"Well,"

"Does it not sound absolutely preposterous - that sentiment alone?"

"It does." Hermione said coolly. "Isn't that why I'm here, to make sense of it all?"

" It all ," Theo repeated back to her. "What is the all ?"

"The post-"

"No!" There was a laugh woven into Theo's exclamation. "Granger, there is no reason for him to have just randomly sent you a personalized puzzle as a means of grabbing your attention without any additional context! And besides, we saw you ! The two of you together in the hallway!"

With an over dramatic sigh, Hermione leaned back in her seat. "We just- ugh, Theo, I really don't want to get into this."

"Well, you're going to have to go elbow-deep into this at some point, Granger. Lest you've changed your mind all of a sudden."

Hermione conceded, murmuring. "He helped me first."

"Pardon?"

"Malfoy - he helped me first." She said once more, her gaze trained on the tabletop as the memory of their second meeting - when he found her in the muggle town - swirled about her mind. "Before he came looking for me after Easter, I mean." and then some.

"Bollocks." Theo squinted.

In a whoosh of an exhale, the story spilled from Hermione's mouth. "They got us - Harry, Ron, and I - to the Manor, the snatchers did, but they weren't certain if they had Harry or not because I had used a stinging jinx on his face, so they took the boys downstairs and eventually I-"

"Woah, Granger." Theo held out his palms to slow her. "Let's breathe, shall we?"

She stalled, her eyes racing up to meet his as she took in a gulp of air. Within her exhale, more words tumbled out of her mouth. "To make a long story short, Bellatrix-"

"Ah," Theo stopped her before she could begin. "So that's when it all happened."

"What do you mean?'" Hermione could feel her cheeks begin to flush.

"Draco's undoing, they called it. After the manor, you saw him in the Spring?" He questioned, suddenly serious. Hermione curtly nodded. "How were you able to track him down when neither Voldemort or any of his cronies could? They had a search party organized for weeks, Granger."

"Draco came looking for me, not the other way around. He wanted to make sure I was alright, that my arm-"

"Your arm?"

Without giving it a passing glance, Hermione yanked up the sleeve of her shirt and rested her arm upon the table between them to display the mark from Bellatrix. "Yeah, my arm."

It looked awful - swollen and leaking with the black pus-like substance that Hermione hadn't bothered to identify. She didn't want to admit it, but the wound had started to reject her glamour spells altogether.

Theo's eyes widened as he leaned in towards the angry, offensive mark. "Christ,"

He stood cautiously and bent over the surface, sliding a hand beneath Hermione's arm to hold it steady as he reached for his wand.
"No," Her tone was acidic. She recoiled fast, pulling down her sleeve and bringing her arm back beneath the table. Theo hovered silently for a few seconds, their eyes deadlocked until he finally withdrew.

"She couldn't have been a bit more original?"

Hermione wasn't able to stifle her laugh - Theo's obvious relief at her reception humoring her even further. "Right on."

He sat back down. "Tell me, what happened after Easter?"

Reluctantly, she explained that Draco had come to warn her about the additional measures Voldemort had taken to try and find members of the Order, this time skipping over his inquiries about her arm. Despite her admittance, Theo still wasn't satisfied.

"Granger, I only want to help, but I can't properly do that if I don't understand what's going on. You've got to explain the root of this… thing between the two of you."

Again, her face felt rather hot. "If I tell you, you won't want to offer your help any longer. You'll think I've gone mad." She really did want to tell him, and badly, but letting someone else in on her and Draco's situation without him being privy felt like a violation. but this is his friend.

"Bit dramatic, don't you think?"

"Theo, you don't understand."

"I can try!"

oh, fuck it all.

Slowly, she began - desperation dwarfing her qualms. "We-I have these… dreams about him, or us. We're always together." Her eyes squeezed shut under the heavy weight of embarrassment, but she continued on. "And for the longest time, I thought maybe they were merely one-sided, that my brain was maybe trying to get me to see things from a different perspective, but then…" She exhaled. "I asked him about it - about the dreams - just before you came upon us in the corridor, and it's him, Theo. We share the same dreamscape. But it's not- I wouldn't call it an ability, the access, it just happens."

"You weren't kidding about the mad thing, huh?" Theo tried, but rescinded the attempt at the sight of Hermione's frown. "How… long has this been going on for?"

Hermione brought her elbows up to perch on top of the table, catching her head in her hands and groaning again. "Ages."

"Months?"

"Years,"

"Years?!"

"Yes, years . The first time it happened, I had just turned fifteen. It wasn't much, to be honest - the dream." A weak smile crept onto her face as she thought back. "We were in Professor Snape's classroom, but it was just the two of us. It wasn't outright stated, but I instinctively knew we had been left to each brew a potion for some sort of competition. Draco asked me what was going on, I told him, and it was all quite civil. I distinctly remember wondering why he was being so… non-abrasive. That was it though, we each individually did our task and eventually woke up, I guess."

"When does it get less boring?"

"Oh, come off it."

"So this has been going on since fourth year , and you said Draco confirmed he's been having these dreams as well?" Theo asked, breaking out into a cheshire grin the second Hermione began to nod. "I fucking knew it. I knew it had been someone - I knew someone had helped him through those years!" He stood from his seat once more, spinning away from Hermione and clapping a few times.

"You seem far too happy for someone so completely uninvolved." She said flatly.

"Uninvolved, I am not! Blaise owes me twenty galleons now, but more importantly, I was correct! Aren't I allowed to bask in my accuracy?"

"I'm going to choose to ignore whatever that suggests for the time being."

"You know, Draco always implied that there was someone, just never told us who." There was that gleam in Theo's eye again, shining mischievously. "Had to practically pry that tidbit out of him though - he was honestly sick of us constantly wondering why he wouldn't succumb to Pansy's advances."

Hermione furrowed her brow, sitting up a bit straighter in the wooden chair. "They never…?"

A sharp laugh erupted past Theo's closed lips, spluttering on the way out. "Oh, you've got it bad , Granger."

"I don't know what the hell you're on about." She said, unable to conceal the slight embarrassed quiver to her voice as her unconscious actions became realized.

"Yes, you do !" He scoffed. "Don't kid me, and especially don't kid yourself."

Hermione grimaced. "Fuck off, Nott."

"You're even beginning to sound like him too. I don't ever remember you having such a vocabulary back in school."

"We have veered so far off topic."

"Context is paramount."

She couldn't argue with that.

"You have more than enough context for the time being." She said, pushing the conversation forward. Hermione reached forwards toward Theo to pick the stack of postcards up from the tabletop. "Going back to these, I did some research-"

"As you do."

"Let me speak!" Hermione raised her voice, eyes shooting daggers through her new acquaintance. "I did some research, and most of the photos are of relatively small villages - meaning that there's around 300-5,000 muggles in each town on average, which I found to be rather peculiar - all located in Scotland."

"I've never seen Draco as the quaint type." Theo leaned over the table, suspending his body up with a locked left arm. He motioned for Hermione to hand him the stack using his free hand, placing them out across the table one by one once she complied.

"That makes two of us. Now, what I found rather interesting is that he sent the postcards in alphabetical order."

"They're not sorted that way anymore."

"Correct," She nodded, shifting in her chair to cross one leg over the other. "I took it upon myself to order them in a more productive way, so there's a clear route from the southern Scottish coast, up to the western bits and islands, then the northern ones."

Theo raised his eyebrows. "A route?"

Again, Hermione nodded. "Isn't it obvious that he wants to be found?"

With that, the Slytherin let out a hearty laugh. "You," He said before slamming his hand against the grain of the table. "Can see right through him, now can't you?"

Hermione just stared.

"Draco is amongst the muggles," Theo spoke the situation aloud to see how it felt. "In Scotland."

"That would seem to be the case, yes."

"And you want us, together, to find someone who truthfully does not want to be found?"

"But he does want to be found!"

"That doesn't mean he'll accept us showing up out of nowhere, just because some part of him wants to be found doesn't mean he won't be angry when we wholly succeed." He said. "He's not going to make this easy."

"Do you take me for a fool?"

"You, Granger? Never."

She smiled up at him. "You're in then? You'll come with me?"
"Undoubtedly - 'selfish intentions' be doubled and damned." Theo stuck out a hand. "Friends, Granger?"

"Alright, Nott." She slapped her palm into his, shaking once. "Friends."

Draco had come to the conclusion that his least favorite part about being reckless was how consistently and acutely self aware he was throughout the entirety of his heedlessness. His mother had always said he had a tendency to live within his mind, that he preferred it to his own bedroom, but that was in regard to problems and fates forced upon him - not ones he himself had created. In his personal opinion, Draco should've been able to accept his own decisions without worry - that would make the most logical sense - but instead, he found himself disinfecting a blade that was decidedly destined for his own skin. That didn't seem very reckless.

He had obviously known that using Bellatrix's knife on himself wasn't the most brilliant idea, but it was truly his only option if he wished to progress in his self-assigned mission. Becoming his own test subject wasn't the worst fate in the world, and it would be worth it as long as he figured something out - anything at all that would help remedy what his family had done. He had taken some time to think on it, and had decided that the worst possible outcome (besides an unsatisfying, inconclusive death) would be losing his left arm, but even that outcome had its own morbidly motivational silver lining.

Holding the damn thing felt awful, the umbrella-like shaft buzzing against his palm. With a loathsome look, Draco eyed his Dark Mark and pushed the dagger's ugly point into the pale skin just above the snake's careening head, pausing for a beat to observe the indented tension, then slashed downwards into its open mouth. He felt the wave of dark magic before any semblance of pain, fear causing him to withdraw the sharp edge from his arm. perhaps using a cursed blade on something also embedded with dark magic wasn't the best move. The gash was relatively small, but the pain it radiated spread outward through his entire arm like fiendfyre. Draco cradled his arm and grimaced as he moved towards one of the cottage windows, intent on getting a better view of the wound in the late-morning sunlight.

"Let me go, please, let me go!" She had sobbed into her hands, tears seeping through the cracks in her fingers. "This isn't right, let me go!"

They had been cornered there, cowering within the skeleton of a cottage that once existed proudly along the shoreline. With no roof, their bodies were completely visible to the offending force, and the deflection spell could only hold up for so long.

"Don't look at it," Draco had begged into her ear, pulling her close to his side as they sat in the rubble. "Don't look up, don't uncover your eyes." He pressed his face into her hair, shutting his own eyes as the storm of chaos brewed above them. "Please don't look, Hermione. Please."

Tense against him, Hermione continued to sob and sob as the dense, black cloud above them swirled with stunning strength. Images such as those that would erupt from a threatened Horcrux danced in the darkness - an illusion of Bellatrix Lestrange wielding a small blade, of Fenrir Greyback drooling over the deceased body of Lavender Brown, of Draco's mother being struck down by cascading glass and stone. Foolishly, Hermione peeked through her fingers at the storm - watched as Narcissa Malfoy's body crumpled to the ruined ground. Without a second thought, she clamped her eyes shut and moved to collect Draco in her arms, to tuck his head into her chest as they simultaneously shook.

Sun high in the sky, Hermione awoke in agony - t-shirt drenched with sweat and a searing pain reverberating through the entirety of her forearm.

" Fucking! " Using her right hand, she grabbed hold of her other wrist and dug her nails deep into the throbbing flesh. "Oh my god ," The carved mark was oozing more than it ever had since the initial maiming - the thick, black sludge streaking down her skin and onto the bedding; somehow, the healed wound had completely opened once more. She sat up quickly, head rushing as she traversed the room to gather her first aid supplies and wand. Though she tried to work fast, sitting at her desk and sprawling out the armfull of items, everything hurt - from her teeth and jaw, to her ribs and hips, elbows and knees. It all felt just as it had on the Manor's marble floor, leading the too-tangible evocation that haunted Hermione on a forward march directly to the forefront of her mind: her first endured Cruciatus Curse, the ricocheting pain like a lightning strike through the core of her being, cast upon her by Bellatrix Lestrange with the force of a thousand suns, the coolness of the expensive tile floor, and his stare.

She had felt his eyes on her from the moment they forcibly arrived, even before he had been brought forward to unsuccessfully identify the abducted trio. Lined up before him, Draco had taken his time looking over the three of them, but especially with her. He had been so stiff, barely breathing as his steely attention honed in on Hermione's fearful brown eyes. " Hold on… " His voice had abruptly pleaded from within her mind, nearly causing her to flinch. " Hold on, and be brave. " Briefly then, she had been filled with a familiar warmth. At what had felt like the foot of death's inevitable door, his guarded stare was easily translated by Hermione - desperate and intense, unsure and pleading for a long overdue miracle.

It had changed over the years, the feeling of Draco's stare. A bitter beginning, his gaze had initially been pompous and cold, unlingering through their first couple of years of school, but it had shifted in the midst of their third year. Though marginal, there had been a degree of playfulness laced into his outward cruelty - easy to blame on age, but a noticeable change nonetheless. That was the year in which she punched him, and deservedly so, but it had been the look in his eye - the curiosity-edged, taunting nature of his gaze when it met her own furious one - that had truly put her over the edge at the time. Fourth year had been a handful and a half compared to the former - from the Quidditch World cup, to the Triwizard tournament, to Viktor Krum, and the start of the dreams. Throughout it all, Draco had always seemed to be somewhere in her proximity. He was always staring at her. Hermione had, of course, identified the correlation between the start of the dreams and the shift in her foe's gaze, but doubted herself nonetheless. It had seemed so entirely impossible at the time, for her wonderings to have any base in reality.

She had conducted some tests nonetheless.

In their fifth year, when she had stopped in the corridor to rearrange her bookbag after leaving the classroom later than the rest, she felt his ogle in an instant. It had such an identifiable pull to it, a quiet yearning for real acknowledgement. It's what convinced her fingers to intentionally release their grasp on the paperback novel, letting it topple to the ground; it's what had given Hermione the delusional confidence to bend at the waist for the book and, essentially, flash Draco Malfoy a clear image of her knickers. She had caught the tail end of his rapid head turn on the way back up, confirmation that he had, predictably, been staring. It had been exhilarating in the moment, but the embarrassed flashbacks had her continuously questioning throughout the rest of the year whether or not the 'experiment' had been worth it.

Then Sirius had died, and her priorities had entirely realigned.

Draco had kept to himself for much of sixth year. Pathetically aware of the absence of his gaze, she found herself chronically distracted by Draco Malfoy. Hermione rarely ever saw him in the corridors, never in the dining hall or their classes, and only on occasion in the library. When he was physically in the same vicinity as her, he wasn't really there. His eyes were always vacant and uninterested, any clever wit or curious aspects of himself had been snuffed out sometime within the previous summer. It was as though he had made some sort of resolution to never again look her way ever again.

Realistically, Hermione had been pretty certain of what it truly was - Draco had recently turned sixteen, after all, and was the sole heir to one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pureblood wizarding families. He had been predisposed to becoming a Death Eater since before his birth, probably. It didn't make accepting the reality any easier for Hermione, who had foolishly grown to search for the best within the boy's actions - because where he wasn't absent from, where she saw Draco most often during their sixth year, was within her dreams. They spoke about twice a week there throughout the fall, which turned to a regular three once the winter months had begun, then flourished to a minimum of four nights per week in the spring. And it had ached . Oh, it had ached, thinking of what they had discussed and shared inside the dreamscape for all those months.

From the second week of May to the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, for nearly two months, Draco had disappeared completely from the waking world, and he had told her why . He had told her about the vanishing cabinet - something she had kept to herself in spite of her dream related self doubt - told her about how absolutely petrified he was, how he didn't want to do it, how he couldn't do it specifically because of, well…

Hermione shook her head, teeth clamped down onto the inside of her cheek. " Tergeo ," She muttered, pointing her wand at the dark goop in an attempt to make it disappear. What rested on the skin's surface disappeared with the incantation, but was quickly replenished. It simply wouldn't stop oozing. She tried her best to stay present, taking advantage of the somewhat subsiding pain and working the gauze around her forearm in tight loops. When she thought back on that time, it was no wonder she had doubted herself so severely. The idea of Draco Malfoy risking it all to confide in her about his top secret, Voldemort appointed tasks - it had been nothing short of strange, but as reality played out in the ways it had, there was no denying that Hermione had, again, been right all along.

The black seepage was already beginning to bleed through the gauze, dark splotches blooming across the fabric. Uninterested in redressing the wound, Hermione simply compressed the saturated gauze beneath more bandaging, securing the tail end with a Permanent Sticking Charm.

someday, listening to myself won't feel so foolish. someday, i will remedy my regrets.