Isolation

23. Limbo

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"Draco?"

"Hm?"

"Will you help me wash the blood out of my hair, please?"

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The turbulent weather and his agitated movements roused her, and Hermione carefully removed her arm from under Draco's torso.

She must have coiled herself around him during the night, but she ignored the dull ache in her elbow and cheated some morning minutes to study his unknowing face. An agitated groan escaped him as he resisted the disruptive demons of his subconscious, and Hermione decided to linger and try to chase them away. Lifting her hand, she smoothed away the creases of his frown with her fingers, and relished a secret smile when he instantly calmed under her touch.

He was so beautiful like this. Unaware of her admiring gaze. Her fingertips caressed him gently; from the proud curve of his lips, to the blond dusting of his eyebrows, and every inch of milky skin in between. Her ministrations move to his hair, which was barely affected by bed, and her nails parted his cream stands in lazy circles. He might be oblivious to it, but the harsh edge that had once darkened his presence had eroded. Inside and out. And the difference made her heart tremble.

It struck her then

As hard as thunder, and as soft as lullabies.

She was falling.

Not yet love, but kissing the seams.

Her lips parted in a silent gasp, and she withdrew her curious hand. It felt wrong to have such romantic notions when the wounded and dying were just a few corridors away. Was there even room for love amongst the raucous throbs of impending War? Shaking her head and hastily leaving him alone in the bed, she scolded herself for misplacing her priorities.

There was work to be done.

Love would have to wait in the corner.

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His dream was simple; neither obscure nor corrupted with metaphors or enigmas.

He was standing in a dark and dull room that vibrated with silence.

Standing in one corner were his parents; his father's face scrunched up with scorn, and his mother's aged with dejection and stress. In the other corner waited Granger; a hopeful look on her face and typically chewing her lip, and behind her was a misty and translucent version of himself.

In his dream, Draco's conflicted stare shifted between them for hours, before he finally gulped down a lung-splitting breath, and lifted his foot.

And then it ended.

Draco's eyes snapped open as he bolted upright in the bed, shudders itching down his spine and a cold sweat glistening across his body. Dropping his face into his hands, he groaned against his clammy palms and wondered why goosebumps were bubbling under his skin. His attention drifted to his side, and he frowned at Granger's hollow indentation in the mattress, but the quiet sounds of shuffling beyond the bedroom door informed him where she was.

The cold chill in the room nibbled at his pores, and he slipped into his baggy pyjama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt as he left the bed. He paused to watch the thunderstorm raging outside the window; the pane distorted by hammering rain and whipping winds, but he could see that it had washed away the snow.

Granger wouldn't like that.

Heading out of the bedroom, he stopped in his tracks and quirked an eyebrow when he saw her. Leaning over her cauldron and muttering measurements of ingredients to herself, her hair was a gravity-resistant mess surrounding her flushed features as she sprinkled some purple powder into her concoction. Nodding with satisfaction, she lifted her busy eyes and finally noticed him, and Draco's lips twitched in response.