Manacled

Chapter 75: Epilogue 1

Ginny tugged at the tips of her hair, and then her head gave a little jerk as she squared her shoulders. "I think we should plan to have dinner all together most days. It doesn't have to be every day of the week, but I think it should be most. The rest of the time, we can all have- our privacy, but we should have dinner together."

She studied Hermione and Draco's reactions. Draco said nothing.

"Dinner would be nice," Hermione said. "That's a good idea."

Ginny's expression flooded with relief. "Good." She nodded. "Great. Um. I'll tell the elves and see you both at dinner then."

Ginny turned and hurried inside.

Hermione watched her walk away and realised belatedly that Ginny would probably stop and come back if she called to her. She opened her mouth, but Ginny had already disappeared through the door.

Hermione and Draco stood in the garden for several minutes in silence. She didn't know what they were supposed to do.

It felt surreal. They'd been cut out of one reality, dropped into another one, and just left to find their way.

It didn't feel like a dream. It was real. She could smell the salt in the air, hear the leaves shift in the breeze and the water trickling. She could smell camphor and pine needles. Draco's hand was warm and entwined with hers.

And yet there was an edge of paranoia that she couldn't shake. There had to be something lurking, something waiting, something that was going to go wrong. Inevitable ruin was dangling over her head like the sword of Damocles.

The island felt as though it were built upon a razor thin sheet of ice. If Hermione stepped wrong or forgot to the careful for a moment, it would crack, and she'd plunge back into the black, cold, world she'd just escaped from, dragging Draco and everyone else with her.

Every step. Every breath.

Careful. Be so careful.

You always lose the things you love. Always.

Her jaw started trembling. She wanted to go back inside; it felt safer to be inside. Where was her wand?

"I never made any plans for this," Draco said. "Being here."

Hermione looked up at him, startled from her reverie. He was staring out towards the sea as though he was having difficulty believing it was there.

He found it all as difficult to believe in as she did. The world was never kind to them.

However, when he looked down at her, she realised there'd been a tension in him that was absent for the first time that she could recall. He was still on edge; he was still carrying two wands and several knives and a dark artifact, but there was the absence of a certain bracedness that Hermione had grown accustomed to. He no longer held himself as though he constantly expected to be struck on some quarter.

It was the expression he used to wear when they met in Whitecroft; when she could tell as he apparated into the room that he'd mentally prepared himself that she could be injured. Since she'd arrived at the manor, she realised, he'd always looked that way. Now, for the first time, it had faded.

Thin ice was at least something to stand on.

"What do you want me to do now?" he asked.

She blinked. "Whatever you want. You get to do whatever you want now."

He looked around them. "I don't think I remember how to do that."

Hermione gave a wan smile. "I don't either." She looked around and held his hand more tightly. "We'll find out what it's like together. We don't have to hurry. We have the rest of our lives to figure it out."