Saved by Malfoy*

Chapter 10

"Hermione, you have nothing to be sorry for," I whispered.

"B - b - but I just - I..."

Her eyes shut as more tears poured down her face. I gently pulled her close to me again. I could tell she was trying so hard to keep another panic attack at bay, but she simply couldn't. I spent another half hour helping her recover from another panic attack.

"I - I wish you didn't have to see that," she whispered.

“So you thought last night when I made you take the sleeping drought that I was going to…?” I trailed off, hurt evident in my voice.

She bit her lip, looked anywhere but my eyes, and nodded. Wow, that hurt.

“Hermione, I would never do something like that to you or me,” I said softly, “I wouldn't ever be able to live with myself if I did that.”

I put my arms around her waist instead of her shoulders. She instantly flinched and hissed in pain, making me release her.

“Hermione?” I asked.

“I'm fine,” she stated.

I stared at her. She squirmed under my gaze until she cracked.

“It's just from the nightmare last night. It's only the branding I got after running. It came fresh again after last night,” she explained.

Before I could even ask, Hermione asked for herself.

“Do you think you could maybe…?” she trailed off.

I drew my wand from my back pocket and gestured for her to turn around. She turned around, but she hesitated on her shirt. She slowly lifted it just above the giant blister on her skin. It looked five times as bad as a sunburn. I muttered a few healing spells and watched how it healed. It faded back into the bright white scar it once was.

I was almost done healing her when I realized just how skinny she was. I could see her bottom ribs stick out if her skin by a half inch. Her spine was even more obvious. I lightly touched her ribs, making her flinch away from me.

“I wasn't allowed to eat much… what I ate yesterday is enough to fill me for days,” I remember her saying.

“Hermione,” I asked softly, “when was the last time you ate?”

She blushed and quickly pulled her shirt down.

“I ate a granola bar yesterday morning,” she replied.

“You know the cabinet of food there is free range, right?” I asked her.

“Yeah, I know; I just haven't been hungry yet,” she replied, pulling her shirt back down.

I marched to the cabinet and grabbed out a little bit of food.

“Eat,” I ordered, sitting by her.

“Why?”

“Because normal people eat three meals a day; you haven't eaten much at all. Eat.”

“I'm not hungry,” she stated.

“You should be. You need to eat every day,” I told her. "You're not moving from that spot until you've eaten all that food."

She sighed and started to nibble on the food. I waited a bit before I brought up the previous topic.

“Hermione, I want to say something, but I don't want you to freak out,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“I think you should use a sleeping drought every night to sleep,” I told her.

She tensed up but stayed calm.