The common room was quiet when Hermione returned from the hospital wing. Harry and Ron were waiting for her as though she had come back from war. Neither said anything at first.
She didn't meet their eyes. Her clothes were rumpled, her face blotchy and pale. She looked wrecked. She dropped into an armchair across from them as if her limbs could no longer hold her up.
"How is he?" Harry was the first to speak.
Hermione blinked — slow, purposeful, as if she were bringing herself back to life. "Alive."
Harry nodded.
Ron scoffed.
Slowly, she turned to face him. "What?"
"Ron…" Harry warned.
"I just want her to explain herself." Ron huffed.
Hermione shook her head. "There's nothing to explain."
"That's bollocks and you know it," Ron snapped, turning away. "You attacked Harry. Over Malfoy."
Hermione felt her chest tighten as she looked over at Harry.
His hair was messier than usual, and there was a pale, guilty look on his face.
Had he looked that guilty when he'd cast the spell?
"I know you didn't know what you were doing," she said finally, barely above a whisper. "But that doesn't change what you did."
"He pulled his wand—"
"You could have stopped it without nearly killing him."
Ron looked between them as if he'd been Portkeyed into an alternate reality. "So what — are we just pretending it didn't happen?" he demanded. "Pretending you didn't scream like he was dying? That you didn't sob in Blaise Zabini's arms like — like he meant something to you?"
Hermione looked at Ron steadily. "Blaise is a friend. A good one, at that." She chose her words with care.
"And Malfoy?"
"What do you want me to say, Ron?" She sounded more tired than exasperated.
"I want you to tell me you hate him."
Her throat bobbed, but no sound came out. How could she explain that she did hate Draco Malfoy? That she wished him dead — painful and slow. But that she loved him more.
"Bloody hell," Ron breathed, dragging a hand through his hair. "Merlin's beard, Hermione — you've gone mental!"
She didn't flinch at the venom in his words.
Harry leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I didn't realise you were this serious," he said quietly.
Hermione pulled her legs up into the chair, knees pressing against her chest, forehead resting against them.
Ron looked from one to the other. "You knew?" he asked Harry, and Hermione couldn't help but notice the far less accusatory tone he reserved for him compared to her.
Harry didn't pay Ron any attention. "I'm trying to understand. Really."
Hermione wasn't looking at either of them anymore, her cheek turned towards the fire. "You can't."
"You don't—"
"You can't, because I don't." She cut him off. "Please don't ask me to explain it. I don't — I don't think I can."
Ron moved towards her then, dropping to his knees in front of her. "You're the cleverest person I know, and you're throwing yourself — throwing yourself — at someone who's hated you for six years. Who's hated all of us." It was as though he were trying to make her see the absurdity of it all.
Hermione's jaw tightened.
"He's a pureblood," Ron said, as if that settled it. "He's a Malfoy. He's called you a Mudblood more times than I can count — he brought Umbridge to the Room of Requirement last year, don't you remember?"
"That's not—" she began, but Ron cut her off.
"And now you're crying over him? Sneaking around behind our backs? Lying to us?"
"I never lied to you," she whispered.
"You never told us either!" he snapped.
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
There it was.
She had laughed at the very same absurdity in the hospital wing. "I've been defending you to my friends. And you've been lying the whole time."
"I never lied," Draco had said to her, his hands still cradling her face as if afraid to let go.
She had pushed him away. "You didn't tell me."
Her eyes fought to close — to let the tears fall — but she refused. Every time her eyes shut, she saw it.
The livid black mark on his arm.
The guilt and desperation on his face.
And every time, it killed her.
She had said the very same things to him that Ron was now saying to her. And what was the difference, really?
That he was a Death Eater keeping it from her, versus her having fallen for a Death Eater and keeping it from her friends?
"You're falling all over him just because he's rich and blonde and sneers the right way?"
Hermione stared at him. "You can't be serious," she whispered.
"Well, it's not his charming personality!"
"He's more charming than you!" She knew the moment it left her mouth that she shouldn't have said it. She didn't feel bad for it, either.
Ron turned nearly as red as his hair. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
Hermione slowly uncurled herself from the chair, her feet landing on the floor with a quiet thud. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and met Ron's furious gaze with something sharper than anger — something colder. Something bone-tired.
Tired of pretending.
Tired of acting as though everything was fine when it wasn't.
"You want to know what I meant?" Her voice was low, cutting through the thick silence. "Fine."
Harry rubbed his hand over his face. This was never going to get better, he decided.
Ron scoffed, arms crossed tightly, as if bracing for a blow.
"I mean that Draco Malfoy — yes, Malfoy — has never pretended to be anything but exactly who he is." She kept her voice low and even. "He said terrible things. He was a prat. But he never hid what he thought of me."
"You?" She pressed on. "You hide behind this façade of loyalty and friendship, but you're the first to turn when someone doesn't do what you think they should. This is precisely why I didn't tell you anything — because I knew you'd react like a child. Because you use me for help, and then mock me for caring about my coursework and putting up my hand in class. You resent that I'm cleverer than you, because I'm not supposed to be. Because you grew up in the wizarding world and I didn't — so how can it be possible that I know more than you do?"
Ron opened his mouth, but she didn't let him interrupt.
"You want to talk about charm? Draco listens. Actually listens. He asks questions. He remembers the answers. He knows when I've had a bad day without me having to say a word. He looks at me and understands what I'm feeling. And he keeps making mistakes, but he keeps making up for them. You think he's just rich and blonde and sneering? He's also clever. Witty. Sharp in ways you've never been. He challenges me." She let out a short, bitter laugh. "He reads Muggle books I've given him, and he sat through The Outsiders with me and then teased me for finding Sodapop attractive, and it was infuriating but it was him."
Hermione let out a shaky breath. The words were out there now. She wasn't sure she wanted to stop.
"Believe it or not, he doesn't make a show of being tolerant when he asks about my parents, even if he hasn't the faintest idea what a dentist is. He understands me when I tell him about the distance between them and me — because I'm a witch and they're not. You've never once asked about them in six years. Neither has Harry, for that matter. But he did. He just tries."
"Malfoy tries?" Harry asked before Ron could, and there was no malice in it — only genuine shock.
"Over Christmas, I mentioned once — once — that my mum used to make these crinkle biscuits every year. He dragged me down to the kitchens and made them himself — no house-elves, he made them — and all I had to do was sit on the counter and watch. It was a disaster. Flour and cocoa powder everywhere. And they were delicious, but even if they hadn't been, it was one of the best days I've had all year."
She paused, her heart cracking slightly as she recalled it. He was already marked then.
"Then he let me drag him out into the snow like a lunatic. He complained the whole time — Merlin, did he complain. Whining and groaning. But he was laughing. Even when I shoved a snowball down his shirt. When I Transfigured a sledge and begged him to get on it, he let me be ridiculous. Happy."
Harry sat quietly, his expression unreadable.
"When we got back — frozen and soaked — he let me use the bath first. Didn't make a joke, didn't ask for anything in return. I came out in pyjamas two sizes too big and he'd already made hot chocolate. Real chocolate, not the powdered stuff. He brought it to me so I wouldn't have to get off the couch. Sat beside me and just... stayed. And all of that?" Her voice dipped, cracked just slightly. "All of that happened before we were even anything. Before we kissed. Before he…"
She looked at Ron then, really looked at him. She wasn't sure how to finish that sentence.
Before he let me fall in love with him?
Before he told me how he felt?
Before he kissed me like I was the air he breathed?
"When have you ever done something like that for me, Ron? When have you ever tried to understand me, instead of expecting me to fit into your world? You don't want me to love him. Fine. I don't want to love him either. But I do. And I won't stand here and apologise for the one person who made me feel like I wasn't too much to love."
Ron stared at her as if she'd slapped him. Because in a way, she had.
His hands dropped to his sides. Mouth slightly open, as if he wanted to argue but couldn't find the words.
Hermione looked over at Harry, her brow furrowed, silently begging him to say something. To understand. To tell her that perhaps, just perhaps, whatever was happening between him and Pansy wasn't entirely different.
Harry had been quiet for a long while, and he wasn't entirely sure what Hermione was asking of him.
To step in?
To tell Ron to stop?
To apologise?
To reveal what he'd been up to with Pansy?
To say he accepted her and Malfoy?
"He's using you," Ron said at last. "I don't know why. But he doesn't — he hates people like you. He's faking it. Apparently he's quite the actor."
"I know what I am," she said. "Trust me, I'm painfully aware of it right now."
"Are you?" Ron's voice dropped, suddenly too quiet. "Because it doesn't look like it."
"I just—" He looked away, but not fast enough. "It's just — he's not like us, Hermione. He's not someone you can trust. He's—"
"You don't get to tell me what I'm supposed to want!" Hermione snapped. "What I'm allowed to want. I wanted Draco Malfoy and I got him. It's as simple as that."
"Does he have the Mark?" Harry asked, for the first time in what felt like hours.
Her heart didn't even falter. "No."
Too fast.
"He doesn't." She doubled down.
It was out before she could think. Before she could stop it.
The lie came so easily it frightened her.
The moment the first word left her mouth, she knew.
She would protect and defend Draco Malfoy.
From them.
From himself.
From herself.
She would lie for him.
She would lie to Harry.
To Ron.
To anyone.
She looked at Ron. "Not that it would matter to you."
"He's halfway to getting one," Ron answered, as if he'd been holding it ready to throw in her face. "Probably just waiting for his father to get out of Azkaban."
Harry jumped to his feet as Hermione's palm connected with the side of Ron's face.
"Don't!" She pointed at Harry. "Come talk to me when you're ready to open your mouth for something useful, but if it's only to say more of what Ron has, stay away." She turned and stormed off.
She reached her dormitory, the door slamming shut behind her.
Lavender and Parvati had been curled together on one bed, whispering, but their gossip died when they saw Hermione's face.
"What?!" she snapped.
She stormed into the bathroom, seized a bag from the shelf, and began shoving in her toothbrush, toothpaste, and whatever else counted as essential. Back in the room, she grabbed her pyjamas and shoved them in, along with everything else she'd need for the night.
Parvati cleared her throat. "Are you… spending the night with somebody?" The implication of somebody was unmistakable.
Lavender huffed. "She can't just pick one, she needs to have them all."
Hermione shoved her dresser drawer shut with too much force. "Lavender, I will hex your nose to look like Snape's if you don't shut it."
Lavender's jaw dropped. "That's a threat! She threatened me!"
"And I'll make good on it!" Hermione said, zipping the bag. There wasn't much inside — just enough to get her through the night. Maybe the following day, if it came to it. "Let me give you something more to work with, since you're so keen on spreading gossip about my life. I am not sneaking off to crawl into Draco Malfoy's bed in the hospital wing. I'm going to sleep in Pansy Parkinson's bed. So do with that whatever you like."
Lavender and Parvati stared after her as she walked out.
"Pathetic bint," Lavender muttered under her breath.
"At least I'm not easy!" Hermione snapped, and the door swung shut behind her.
---
Blaise had told them everything the moment he'd returned from Gryffindor Tower, hours ago.
Theo had a Snitch loose, buzzing above him as he lay across Daphne's bed. "Not to be funny, but what if we're wrong?"
"We're not." Daphne and Pansy said together.
"It's almost midnight," Blaise pointed out.
"And Snape went to see Draco about an hour ago," Daphne added. "I bribed a house-elf to let me know."
Pansy grinned. "That's my girl." She settled back. "She's had a dreadful night."
"I would too, if my best mate nearly killed the boy I'd been secretly snogging in broom cupboards," Theo muttered.
Daphne hummed. "Much experience snogging boys, then?"
"Finding out that the boy she's been snogging in secret is — y'know — a Death Eater probably isn't great either," Blaise said bluntly, ignoring Daphne and Theo, who was now sputtering something about how he didn't fancy blokes.
Pansy waved a hand. "Minor details. She might not know."
Three short knocks.
Pansy stood with a quiet sigh, smoothing her hands against her pyjama shorts, taking her time before opening the door.
"Did you know?" Hermione asked the moment the door swung open.
Pansy didn't flinch. "Did I know what?"
"Don't be daft." Hermione moved past her into the room, dropping her bag by the bed, and looked around at the others. "Who here knew?" she asked, as casually as if she were taking a quick poll.
She watched as they all exchanged glances — a silent conversation she wasn't privy to.
Then, one by one, they raised their hands.
She looked around the room, slowly shaking her head. "Brilliant," she breathed. "Really, just wonderful. So it was only me left out?"
"To be fair," Theo said, getting to his feet.
Hermione fixed him with a look, and he sat back down immediately.
He swallowed and lowered his voice. "We only found out recently."
"How recently?" She crossed towards him.
He shot a desperate glance at Blaise, who simply shook his head.
"January," Theo murmured, bracing himself.
Whatever anger had been written across her face seemed to dissolve. She sank onto the bed, gaze drifting away from all of them. "January," she repeated.
"Hermione—" Blaise started.
"That's five months," she whispered, closing her eyes as if she could will the timeline to change. She turned back to face them. "You lot — you all let me—"
"We didn't know," Pansy cut her off firmly. "We didn't know the two of you were together. Not straightaway."
"Daphne did!" Hermione accused, pointing at her.
Daphne met her gaze steadily, no trace of guilt behind her eyes.
"You let me carry on like a complete idiot!" Hermione said. "Helping him. Snogging him!"
She turned to Theo. "And you let me crawl into his bed! You should have told me! You should have stopped me!"
She looked back at all of them. "Did it not occur to any of you — hey, perhaps we ought to let Hermione, our friend, know that the boy she's sneaking around with and falling in love with has a Dark Mark burned into his arm and a mission to carry out?!"
"You didn't ask," Pansy said then, still by the door, watching Hermione as if she could read her perfectly. "You didn't want to know."
"Everyone needs to stop saying that. It's not fair. I can't ask what I don't know to ask."
Blaise let out a short sound. "Don't pretend you didn't know something was off. We all did — even before we knew. You're the cleverest witch of our year, aren't you? He's not exactly subtle."
The silence that followed was thick. Not cruel.
Just honest.
"I did ask," Hermione said quietly. "He brushed it off. Told me the same thing — if I wanted to know, I'd know."
Pansy stepped towards her. "And you let him. Hermione, nobody is blaming you — we know you didn't know — but if you'd truly wanted to, you wouldn't have let him brush it off. You would have pushed. You didn't want to know."
"Of course I didn't — I already bloody loved him!" Her voice broke. "I just wish one of you had knocked some sense into me while I was still falling."
"It wasn't our secret to tell," Blaise said. "We told him to keep you out of it."
Theo cleared his throat again. "We didn't just stand by, either. We covered for the both of you. Every time you disappeared. Every time you came back late looking like you'd been — well. Thoroughly snogged."
Pansy shot him a look.
"What?" he said, unrepentant. "I'm just saying — we didn't breathe a word. Not to anyone. Not even them. Do you know how many nights Draco came back looking absolutely giddy, like he'd been Confunded? We just pretended it wasn't obvious he'd been out snogging Hermione Granger."
Hermione looked over at Pansy. "I hate you."
"Join the club. I imagine Potter's the president." Pansy murmured, finally coming to sit beside her. "I brought you into this because I thought you could help him. I didn't expect you to fall for each other. And, trust me, I worked hard to keep it from happening."
Hermione laughed — a short, hollow sound. "You're not all secretly Death Eaters too, are you?"
Theo clicked his tongue and rolled up his sleeves. "Didn't get as lucky," he said, the sarcasm bone-dry.
Hermione said nothing. She looked down at her hands, the others letting the silence settle around her.
She had lied to Harry and Ron.
Flat out.
No hesitation.
No excuses.
Just lied.
She swallowed hard. Ron's voice still rang in her ears.
He's a Malfoy.
He's faking it.
He's a pureblood.
It had been everything she'd expected him to say. Every reason she had kept it a secret.
He's a pureblood, he's a pureblood, he's a pureblood.
The implications were louder than the words could ever be.
He doesn't want you. He never will. You shouldn't want him. You don't belong in his world. There's no future. There's no world where you meet his parents and he meets yours.
The worst part was, she had already considered all of it. It was what had made her feel so ill the moment she realised she fancied him. It was what had her losing her lunch when she'd admitted it to Daphne.
But Ron saying it — pointing out everything she was and wasn't, that she'd never belong —
The lines were blurring too fast. Nothing felt clean anymore. It wasn't black and white.
She should have told them what she knew. What he was. What he was carrying. But she hadn't.
She had protected him.
Standing up, Hermione crossed to the nearest desk, pulled out a quill, and Transfigured it into a piece of chalk before Transfiguring the desk itself into a chalkboard.
The others watched with varying degrees of bewilderment.
Daphne spoke first. "Hermione, love, what are you doing?" she asked softly.
Hermione didn't turn around, brow furrowed as she held the chalk. "The only thing I know how to do," she said, slightly breathless, her mind racing. "Think." She pressed the chalk to the board and began to write — a pros and cons list.
"What exactly are we doing?" Blaise asked. "Because I'm not entirely sure a pros and cons list will help get him out of being a Death Eater."
Hermione took a step back. "No. A pros and cons list of Draco Malfoy."
Of why she should stay.
Of why she should leave.
The cons came first — they were easy.
Death Eater
Dark Mark
He lied
He's a pureblood, I'm not
There's no future
Harry and Ron hate him
I hate him
He pulls away
He's cruel
He called me a Mudblood for years
He doesn't trust me
I don't trust him
I hate him
He shuts down
He says things he doesn't mean
He says things he does mean
He kisses me one minute and lies the next
I hate him
I don't know who I am when I'm with him
I don't know who I am when I'm not
I hate him
He looks at me like I'm a dream
He kisses me like I'm the air he breathes
He won't touch me
I hate him
I can't think
I love him
I shouldn't
He loves me
Her chalk paused. She erased the last one with her sleeve.
He doesn't love me
He sneers
He never stops smirking
He makes me feel stupid
He makes me feel brilliant
He makes me afraid
He makes me brave
He makes me second-guess myself
He let me fall first
He won't fall with me
He won't ask me to stay
He won't beg me not to go
He doesn't—
She stopped. The chalk slipped slightly in her fingers. Her breathing was shallow, jaw tight, the words on the board bleeding into each other — all scratched in the same desperate, frantic hand.
She hated him.
She hated him so much.
Theo read the list over her shoulder. "Don't forget that he's a git."
Hermione didn't respond. She turned to the other side of the board. The pros.
Those didn't come as quickly.
Not because there weren't as many, but because she didn't know how to put them into words.
Slowly, she lifted the chalk, pressing it to the board.
I love him
She took a step back. A heavy silence filled the room.
Three words.
It seemed so small and insignificant next to the sprawling list of cons.
And yet it felt more powerful. As though she could write a hundred reasons to leave him, and this one reason would still hang over her like the Sword of Gryffindor.
"Well, I think the answer's obvious, then, isn't it?" Theo finally broke the silence, clearing his throat. "I mean, you've got, what — forty things on the cons side?"
Daphne looked at him with an expression that conveyed exactly how much of an idiot she thought he was.
Hermione swallowed. "No," she said, re-reading the board. "Because every reason I put under cons is also a reason I love him." Her voice cracked as she stepped closer.
He makes me laugh
He makes me cry
He listens
I lied for him
He looks at me like I'm his whole world
He sits with me
He touches me and it feels like Fiendfyre
He kisses me like I'm oxygen
I don't have to think when I'm around him
He never stops smirking
I'm allowed to not know things around him
He won't ask me to stay
He's a Death Eater
I love him anyway
He won't touch me
She stared at the list. It was small — she couldn't begin to put into words all the ways Draco Malfoy made her feel. How she ached to be near him. How she ached when he was away. How he let her ramble on about the things she loved and simply watched her with something soft and bright in his eyes. How he kissed her every time as if he'd never get another chance to. How every brush of his hands against her skin set her alight — whether they were snogging and he was boldly attempting something more, or simply sitting in the library and his hand grazed hers.
"That's on both sides," Pansy pointed out, nodding at the last entry on the pros list.
He won't touch me
Hermione nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly.
"I'm probably going to regret asking this," Blaise said, tilting his head at the board. "But what exactly do you mean by that?"
Hermione didn't look away from the board, didn't even flush. "He won't touch me," she repeated. "Not the way he… not the way I…"
Not the way he wants to. Not the way I want him to.
"I asked him once if it was because I was Muggle-born. He said yes. Tonight, when I saw the Mark — when we were fighting — Merlin, we weren't even fighting, he wouldn't fight me — he told me he'd never let himself touch me. That no matter how much he'd wanted to, he wouldn't cross that line while I didn't know the truth." Her eyes fell closed, tears pressing behind her lids. "I yelled at him. Asked if he really thought that was where the line was."
She dropped her head into her hands. "The whole time, I thought there was something wrong with me. That I — that he didn't — and he was just trying to protect me in his own twisted way."
Theo let out a low whistle. "Well. That explains the long showers."
Daphne grabbed his arm. "We're getting Hermione a glass of water before you say something else." She hissed, yanking him toward the door.
As Daphne dragged Theo out, Blaise settled down beside Hermione. "So… what now?"
Hermione lifted her head. The chalkboard was a mess. A war on a single page.
"Now we fix the cabinet," she said.
---
She woke on the floor of Daphne and Pansy's dormitory. Her back ached. Her hair was matted. She hadn't been back to Gryffindor Tower since —
Since.
Daphne passed her a cup of black tea. "He asked about you."
Hermione blinked up at her.
"Draco. Asked if we'd seen you."
She didn't respond. She sipped the tea and looked towards the window.
---
Hermione sat at their usual table in the library, surrounded by texts from the Restricted Section, searching for anything more on Vanishing Cabinets.
Pansy dropped a sandwich in front of her. "Eat."
"Did he mention me today?" Hermione asked, reaching for the sandwich without looking up from the book and taking a bite.
Pansy pulled a book of her own from the stack — already half-annotated in Hermione's hand. "No. I think he wants to seem like he's managing."
Hermione nodded. "Good. He shouldn't be asking about me."
The look on her face did not go unnoticed.
---
Hermione carved a rune into the base of the cabinet. Her hands were shaking. She'd done it wrong. Again.
"Bloody hell," she muttered, louder than she meant to.
Theo, from the sofa: "Want me to kick it for you?"
"I already tried that. Draco had to—" She bit her lip. No. She wasn't going to think about him.
---
"You smell like the dungeons," Ron muttered one morning in Transfiguration.
Hermione's expression didn't shift. "Clean? Well-aired? Unlike your room?"
Harry had been trying to smooth things over for days. "Hermione…"
"No, Harry!" She slammed the book on Vanishing Cabinets shut. "If he wants to apologise, he should do it himself."
"All right, then — I'm sorry." Harry sighed.
Hermione frowned. "What?"
"For what I did to Malfoy. For not stepping in when Ron was laying into you. I should have said something. Done something."
Hermione held his gaze for a long moment, then stood and gathered her things. "Yes," she said quietly. "But you didn't."
---
She stood outside the door to the hospital wing.
Just stood there.
She didn't go in.
According to Blaise, Draco had been cleared to get out of bed.
In all honesty, she knew he was behind on his recovery — he should have been up and about days ago.
She didn't want to see him. Not yet.
---
The cabinet hummed one night.
She had been sleeping in the Room of Requirement for about six nights by then — after four in the Slytherin dormitory. She'd started feeling guilty about taking up their space, so she'd moved.
She still couldn't face her Gryffindor housemates.
When she heard the noise, she sat up. The room brightened around her.
She climbed out of bed and crossed towards the cabinet. The hum grew louder as she drew closer, but the usual rattling and shuddering was gone — the sound was smooth, steady, like a charm that had finally settled.
She pressed her hand to the wood. She could feel the magic flowing through it, more evenly than it ever had during all those months she'd spent working on it with Draco.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think about what it meant.
Her fingers traced the runes. Most had been carved by Draco; the newest, freshest ones were hers. She moved over them slowly, murmuring the corresponding incantations under her breath.
They had argued over so many of them. Tested and retested and started again.
She wasn't sure which part made her ache more — that the cabinet was nearly repaired, nearly usable, and what would follow from that, what she had helped bring about — or the simple fact that Draco wasn't here to share in it.
She stepped back and clicked open the doors. Then she reached for an orchid she'd borrowed from the greenhouse.
Something living.
Not a person, not a creature — but alive.
If the cabinet was to carry people safely through, she had to be certain it wouldn't kill anyone. So a plant it was.
She placed the orchid carefully inside, closed the doors, and murmured the incantation. The cabinet thrummed in response, and then went still.
By morning, she would know.
---
She had heard the cabinet rattle at dawn, but she hadn't moved to open it. The others drifted in throughout the morning, bringing food with them.
"He's doing better," Daphne said, settling beside her. "But he keeps looking at me like he wants to ask after you."
"Don't tell him," Hermione said, taking a sip of her cocoa. It wasn't anywhere near as good as the cup Draco had made her over the Christmas holidays.
Theo pushed his food around his plate. "Why are you punishing him?" he asked. "I mean — you're still doing the work. You're still helping him. But you won't go see him? Won't even let him know whether you're done with him?"
Hermione paused. "I'm not punishing him," she said, as if it were perfectly logical. "I'm punishing myself."
---
Hours later, when everyone else had gone, Blaise remained.
"If you're leaving him, at least let me tell him," he said.
Hermione blinked. "What?"
He was clearing the table. "He deserves to know if this is over."
Hermione turned to him. "Do you think I'd be here if it were?" she asked carefully. "Do you think I would be helping the very people who want me dead if I weren't terrified of losing him?"
A look of relief crossed Blaise's face. "You're not leaving him," he said quietly.
She dragged her hands through her hair. "I am so angry with him, Blaise, and I don't know how I'll ever forgive him for the position he's put me in." Her voice cracked. "But I — I made my choice to protect him the moment Harry asked if he was marked and I said no, knowing the truth."
Blaise watched her, the half-cleared table forgotten. "You lied to Potter?"
She nodded.
"He thinks he's lost you."
"I know."
"He thinks it's his fault."
"It is." She gave a sad, humourless laugh. "He didn't tell me any of it, and he hasn't asked me to stay — he barely defended himself."
She hated how small she sounded when she spoke of how much he had hurt her. "I've given him every piece of me, and he couldn't do the same. He knows my every thought, my every feeling, my every word. Every action, every secret, every — every passing fancy."
Blaise said nothing. There was nothing he could say. The only person she needed to hear from was Draco, and neither of them was certain she was ready for that yet.
"They're letting him out of the hospital wing tomorrow," Blaise said.
Tomorrow.
She crossed towards the cabinet. She had to know whether any of it had been for nothing.
She opened the doors.
There, standing exactly as she had left it, was the white orchid — perfectly, impossibly alive.
She swallowed hard, barely hearing Blaise behind her as he finished tidying. "I need a bird," she said.
---
She placed the bird inside the cabinet, and that night she slept in her own dormitory for the first time in eleven days.
It wasn't so much that she wanted to — or that she was ready to endure Lavender and Parvati's commentary — but more that she was worried about running into Draco if he arrived before she'd woken.
It was a Saturday, the seventeenth of May, which meant no classes and no reason for him to delay. The moment he was discharged from the hospital wing, he'd head straight to the Room of Requirement.
With a quiet breath, she got out of bed and made for the bathroom.
The sun was already high in the sky, and though she wasn't certain of the exact time, she'd clearly slept through breakfast.
As she brushed her teeth, she turned the question over in her mind.
What would she do when she saw him?
What would she say?
What would he say?
She hadn't wanted to be found already waiting in the Room of Requirement as if she'd been counting the hours — and yet that didn't mean she wasn't planning on ending up there.
Though she'd spent the last eleven days in nothing but her uniform and a rotating pair of joggers — much to Pansy's despair — she thought today warranted a little more effort.
Not much.
It wasn't as though she cared what he thought.
She did.
She also didn't want him to think she'd spent the entire time thinking about him.
She had.
Or that she'd been brooding.
She had been.
She didn't want to impress him.
She had no reason to.
That's what she kept telling herself, at least, as she stepped under the warm rush of the shower.
The heat was a striking contrast to how she felt inside.
And it was his fault. All of it.
Draco Malfoy's fault, with his stupid schemes and his stupid face and his stupid hair.
She was still furious with him — and the thing was, it wasn't even really about the Dark Mark.
It wasn't because he was a Death Eater.
It was because he hadn't told her. He had drawn her into it. He had made her care — too much, too fast, too completely.
When she cared, when she let her emotions in, there was no rationalising. No careful thought process.
She shut off the water, wrapped herself in a towel, and headed back into her room.
She pulled out a soft blue sweater that fell off one shoulder and a pair of low-rise Muggle jeans her mum had posted her for Christmas, still unworn. She tried to ignore the small voice in the back of her mind that reminded her Draco had once mentioned she looked good in blue.
The jeans sat gently at her hips, the faintest edge of white lace visible at the waistband.
Simple.
Clean.
She paused in front of the mirror as she twisted her hair up with her wand.
She really hoped she wouldn't cry.
---
When she stepped into the Room of Requirement, she felt it — a shift in the atmosphere, a subtle charge.
He was already there.
She should leave. She should turn around, march straight to Harry, and tell him everything. Beg for forgiveness. Undo as much of this as she still could.
She walked further into the room instead, making her way around the stacked books and scattered materials towards the cabinet.
She came to a stop a few feet away. Draco stood with his back to her, facing the open cabinet doors. A white dove swept lazy circles around the room above him.
She waited.
The dove flapped and came to rest in an open cage.
"You shouldn't have done this," Draco said as he closed the cabinet.
Hermione closed her eyes briefly, steadying herself. Of course he had known she was there.
"What?" she asked.
He turned slowly.
His face was paler than usual, the hollows of his cheeks a little deeper, his eyes shadowed with sleeplessness — but he was still him. Still devastating in a way that made her chest ache.
She couldn't help noticing the thin scars visible at the collar of his shirt, the faint marks across his jaw.
"Congratulations, Hermione. Really." His voice was quiet and utterly without warmth. "You're even better at this than I am."
She blinked, caught off guard — not by the words themselves, but by how much it seemed to cost him to say them. "I — I'm not — I didn't — what do you mean?"
She wasn't sure what she'd expected, honestly.
An apology, perhaps.
A thank-you.
Not this.
He laughed. It was bitter. Ugly. The kind of laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all.
Draco rubbed a hand along his jaw, looking everywhere but at her. "You fixed it," he said. "You did what I couldn't."
She shook her head. "That's not fair. You've been working on it for months. I only finished what you started. We did it together — I just happened to be the one who was there at the end."
Draco scoffed, and dropped heavily onto the sofa.
Hermione moved towards him. "You don't get to do this. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not a year from now — not ever, actually." She stood in front of him, her own anger rising. "You dragged me into this. You showed me the cabinet months ago — long before we were anything. You let me help you all that time without once telling me what we were actually doing. You think I wanted this? To lie to Harry? To have Ron loathe me? To have helped fix this — this machine that's going to bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts?"
Her chest heaved as she fought to keep her voice steady. "You think I wanted to lie awake night after night trying to justify my own choices?" Her voice cracked. "Trying to decide if I hated you enough to let you die?"
"You should have!" His voice broke as he said it.
The anger drained out of her. A cold chill crept up her spine.
You should have.
Should have what?
Hated him enough?
Let him die?
"You don't mean that."
Draco leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head dropping into his hands as if the weight of what he'd said was too much to carry upright.
Hermione didn't move.
"You don't mean that," she said again — louder this time. Firmer. Less a question, more a refusal to accept it.
He didn't answer straight away.
When he did, his voice was so low she almost didn't catch it.
"I've spent the last eleven days in the hospital wing, waiting to find out whether Potter was coming to finish what he started, or whether the Ministry was on its way to throw me in a cell next to my father."
She let herself sink onto the table across from him, her hands pressing against her knees. "You think I'd let that happen?"
His head was still bowed, as if he couldn't bring himself to look at her. "Get a Death Eater arrested?" There was no edge to it — just exhaustion. Guilt.
Hermione looked away. "This is all my fault," she said, her voice breaking.
Draco's head came up at once. "What?"
"I'm the reason your father is in Azkaban. I'm the reason he had to be made an example of. I'm the reason you're…" She quickly swiped a hand across her face, catching a stray tear. "That you were marked."
He reached out then — his hands finding her legs just behind the knees, holding her there. "Hermione—"
She shook her head. "You should have told me. You should have trusted me."
"I didn't want to."
She looked at him properly then. "I hate what you've done to me. I hate that you didn't tell me — that you didn't trust me. I hate that more than I hate the bloody Mark on your arm." Her voice was shaking.
"I didn't want you to look at me the way you are right now. I can live with you hating me — I've managed it for six years. What I cannot handle is you looking at me like you pity me. I don't want your pity, Granger."
Hermione stared at him. Eyes wide, lips parted.
Pity?
Was that what he thought this was?
Was that truly what he saw when he looked at her now?
She felt pain.
Heartache.
Fury.
Love.
But not pity.
"I'm furious with you. That you lied to me. But I have never pitied you, Draco," she said quietly.
"You should have run. To Potter. To anyone."
"I chose you."
"You shouldn't have. You should have chosen Weasley. You should have gone out with that Apparition instructor."
"No. You don't get to make that choice for me. If you don't want me, then say so. Tell me it meant nothing. Tell me, and I'll go — but I won't leave simply because you think it's the tidier option."
He didn't speak. His hands curled tighter around her, fingers pressing in.
"Say it," she challenged. "Say it and I'll get up right now."
"I can't." His voice was rough, scraped hollow.
He was looking up at her through his lashes — devastatingly, unfairly handsome even like this, even broken.
It was fear.
It was shame.
It was want.
All of it knotted together, impossible to separate.
"I ruined you," he said. "And I can't let go."
He looked at her the way a man might who would give her the world and burn it at her word.
"You didn't ruin me," she said quietly. "You broke me open. You made me question everything, reconsider things I thought were certain. But you didn't ruin me."
His eyes closed, and his head dropped.
She reached out and placed her hand beneath his chin, tipping his face up until he was looking at her again. "I put Rita Skeeter in a jar fourth year. I gave Marietta Edgecombe a permanent reminder of what happens when you betray Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge's lot. I lured Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest and left her to the centaurs." She paused. "I set Snape on fire when I was eleven." She laughed — genuinely, at the sheer absurdity of it all.
Draco stared at her, stunned into silence. She could see disbelief war with something very much like awe behind his eyes.
"I'm not good, Draco," she said, softer now, the laughter fading. Her expression was raw. "You think you've corrupted some perfect girl with a prefect's badge and a cause — but I've always known exactly where the line is. And I've crossed it before."
His brow furrowed. He looked as though he didn't know quite what to do with that. With her.
Her hand slid from his chin into his hair, and she felt him lean into the touch — helpless against it. "I've justified every difficult choice I've ever made. And I've justified this one too. Trust me, I worked through all of it before I came back after leaving you in the hospital wing. Our friends think I've lost the plot."
Draco was still staring at her — eyes wide, pupils dark, breath gone slightly ragged.
She watched it happen. The twitch at his jaw. The almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers at her legs, drawing her fractionally closer. The way his mouth parted. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth — then lower — and a quiet, undone sound escaped him when he caught sight of the lace just visible above her waistband. His eyes flickered back to her face, guilty.
"You really are terrifying, Granger," he said, his voice rough like it'd been dragged over stone.
She swallowed. "I love you, Draco." She'd wanted to say it somewhere other than the hospital wing. Somewhere outside of all that grief and rage. "I love you," she said again. "And you don't get to tell me I don't. You don't have to say it back. But you don't get to decide what I feel anymore. You have to let me in — you have to tell me things. Because I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."
Draco shook his head, as if he could unsay the moment, unmake it.
"You shouldn't," he said. "You really, truly shouldn't."
"I hate you too, if that's any consolation."
His hands moved then — slowly — sliding from the backs of her knees up her thighs, drawing her forward until she was at the very edge of the table, close enough that all he'd need was a single word from her to pull her the rest of the way. He looked up at her as though she were something wild and volatile, and he was fool enough to reach for her anyway.
"I'm trying very hard not to kiss you right now," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
He blinked. "I wasn't certain I was still allowed to," he admitted.
"Draco. I have slaved away over this cabinet for you. I think you owe me considerably more than a kiss."
Something shifted behind his eyes — want and ache and something broken and bright all at once. "I owe you everything, 'Mione," he said quietly, leaning in to press his mouth softly to hers. "Whatever you want. Anything. Everything." Each word was punctuated by another gentle kiss.
He kissed her as though afraid it might be the last time. As though he wasn't sure he deserved it. As though he was silently promising to be better.
"Merlin, Granger, you've ruined me." His voice was low and undone as Hermione's fingers curled into his shirt. "Absolutely destroyed me."
Hermione smiled against his mouth, pulling back just enough to look at him. "You always do that. Start confessing everything the moment you kiss me."
"It's entirely your fault." He pulled her back in. "You have to stay away when they come through. You can't be there."
Hermione's smile faded. She closed her eyes. "You can't ask that of me. If I don't—"
"I'm not asking," Draco said. "I'm begging." He exhaled against her hair. "I know. I know you'll fight — I'm not a fool — but you can't be there when I…" His breath caught softly.
She let out a shaky sigh.
She had been trying so hard to focus on the cabinet, to keep from thinking about what came after — but after was now, and she still didn't know what came next.
"We need to talk to the others," she murmured.
They needed a plan.