Day: 1444; Hour: 14
Missions were almost always at night unless they were an emergency or they discovered something that forced them to be during the day. Wards were placed around most Death Eater spots in the Wizarding World, and any magic like concealment charms were a dead giveaway to the Order's presence. Darkness was the natural concealment they were forced to use. Hermione had grown used to sleeping when it was light out, and not sleeping at all.
"If these are in the Muggle world, why can't we do it during the day? It's not like--"
"Because we're sort of on the run." Justin smiles about this in a way that suggests he might be hanging out with too many Gryffindors.
"If we run into anyone we're going to have to use magic anyway - if that happens, we're going to the second plan to control the situation and search the house then get out quickly. Not using magic beforehand, when it's unnecessary, buys us time." Draco made his first appearance that day, and Hermione hoped no one noticed her jump at the sound of his voice behind her.
He walks past her and to the fridge, but he doesn't meet her eyes. There's probably a dozen things she wants to ask him, but only one that she actually will - did he know before. He didn't seem surprised at Lavender's flippant attitude toward finding them, and he acted like it was fairly normal himself. At least that's what she remembered in her panic mode. She would also like to ask him things about the status of their "relationship" now, but she wouldn't dare.
It might have always been a guessing game about how he felt, but that was partly her fault as well. Even as nerve wracking as it was, she had decided to just let it be whatever it was going to be since they first started this all. She was scared it would push him away, give too much of herself away - she could admit that, if only to herself.
"Good plan," Harold nods and sips his coffee. Draco had obviously decided his slight suspicion of Harold wasn't worth continuing the argument with Lavender last night. Creepy grin or not, the guy didn't seem to hold much capability of being a spy.
"Later there's another house in a Muggle neighborhood; the address we found at the building with the rats. It's not close to any authorized Apparition points or wizard/Muggle lines. We're going to have to use Muggle transportation to get there."
They had made Portkeys for all the locations they had found before they left Grimmauld. Their inability to use magic unless it was absolutely necessary prevented them from making one for the new location. Justin had suggested stealing a car. Hermione had no idea what they would do.
"It looks like it's about an hour, maybe two away. An automobile?" Justin bent over to page through the notes of plans with an oddly silent Seamus.
"There looks to be a train system close to the first house we'll be going to. We'll pick up a city map when we arrive at the second location."
"Right. Do we have Muggle currency?" Lavender gave Draco a look that plainly said he was an idiot.
The room is silent, all eyes on Draco except for Seamus who continues to stare at the stack of papers. Draco is staring at the tiled floor, not in thought, but waiting. Waiting because he knew that she did, and he wasn't even saying it or looking at her. She had never seen him back down from anything, so what was he doing it from now? Her reaction after a night of thinking about what happened? Her reaction last night? Was he angry or just giving her time? Because she didn't need it and she didn't want it.
Perhaps he had decided to call the whole thing off. Maybe he was done, and he was sick of her keeping him some dark nasty secret, and he was done. She wanted to throw something at his head, maybe. Just to knock whatever he was thinking out of his mouth.
She chokes a little when she breathes in, and they all look at her except for him. "I do."
Day: 1444; Hour: 18
"That place was cleaned out months ago. Waste. Of. Time. Again." Seamus sounds completely furious, and his overreaction does nothing to help the desperation welling up inside of her.
"Ron is here somewhere. They all are, we just have to--" Hermione cuts herself off sharply at the look of raw fury Seamus gives her before practically marching on ahead of her.
Hermione's heart jumps and the hairs rise at the nape of her neck. She has seen Seamus angry more times than any other emotion, but she had never actually feared him like that moment. It makes her slow her pace enough for Justin to walk right into her.
Justin mutters a quick apology and squeezes the top of her arms before coming up alongside her. "We're not giving up hope, Hermione. It's just frustrating."
"I know."
"How far is the train station from here?"
"Thirty minute walk about." Harold checks his watch twice in the amount of time it takes for him to say it.
"Great."
Day: 1444; Hour: 19
He doesn't say anything, just grabs her arm and drags her past him. At least it was some normal manhandling and not a, 'Hermione, I would like for you to please sit with the harmless looking female rather than the criminal looking bloke in the only available seats, so please come forward.' She almost expected it with the alternate universe she had stepped into. This Draco hadn't even glared at her once all day, even when she purposely criticized his plan.
So she sat and stared as the back of his head, watching him glare at the burly man next to him as he sized him up. She wondered if other people could sense the danger around Draco, or if was something confined to their world and reputation. By the way the man decided to ignore Draco after, she was guessing he carried at least as much danger-vibe as the man who looked like he was recently paroled from the penitentiary. The deep cuts along his jaw and the fact that he looked as if he hadn't slept in three years added to it drastically.
"Draco," there wasn't much escape from her direct line of questioning, and he knew that by now judging by the increased tenseness to his shoulders, "can I see the map?"
She had been trying to find a way to show him that she was okay with people knowing about them - that she wasn't ashamed to be with him, or wanted to stop being with him. She wanted to show him in a way that got to the point but didn't seem too desperate, like it meant a lot, or that she was only doing it because she felt bad. She wanted to know if he was still okay with all of it. Hermione knew this couldn't be accomplished through asking for a map, but she needed some interaction.
At least when he was angry she usually knew how to handle him. She didn't even know what this was, and she was so frustrated she wanted to whack him over the head with said map.
He handed it to her silently, and it takes her a moment. "This is for the place we just left."
"No shit," finally, finally.
"Oh," because she realized that they had established hours ago that they would get the other map when they got into the town. "Why did you even give it to me then?"
"Because you asked for the map, and that happens to be the map." He is speaking to her like a child, but just this once, she'll take it.
No, she won't, so she smacks the back of his head with the rolled paper. The temptation had proved too great. He turns quickly and glares at her, and she almost smiles before he grabs her wrist and squeezes uncomfortably.
"Hit me again," he warns and yanks the map from her hand.
He was angry then, on top of whatever confusing emotion was on his face when he purposely ignored her. It took ten minutes before she thought it might be from her reaction last night, when she realized she might be a little angry too if he reacted like the world was falling apart because someone found out he was shagging her.
Draco was still a prideful man. Despite the lack of an actual relationship, there was probably no one else he was more vulnerable with. It had been bad enough when she was so over cautious about keeping them a secret because of who he was. The only thing that could have made her reaction worse was if she had spoken the terrible excuses in her head and perhaps a crying jig.
She felt even worse than she had before.
Day: 1444; Hour: 22
She kept staring at him, and he noticed it judging by the exasperated looks he keeps sending her. She had seen him in Muggle society before, but it is strange to see him in the sharp lighting of a gas station, standing between a mechanic and a group of kids into the fashion statements of rap artists. She has to grab for the popcorn three times before she finally drags her eyes away from the sight over the shelf.
The group of teenagers glares at her when she passes them to stand with Draco. In the war Hermione has learned to differentiate the attitude of others. The cocky confidence that has no reason for it, the fear of not knowing what kind of fighter they made, the ugly blood thirst of those who had been overtaken by the fighter they became. Draco, like Harry and Lupin among others, had a quiet yet powerful confidence. The sort of confidence that came with knowing how to kill, and that you could kill, if you had to. It was dark and terrifying, yet controlled. Hermione, however, doesn't think she will ever lose her Holy-Do-Good visage, so when she glares back they just glare harder.
"Is the popcorn necessary?" His voice sounds dull; she hates it.
"Let's see if you're asking that later when you're stealing it again."
He looks down at her, her nose up in the air and her eyebrow arched to match his. She drops it when she notices that he is scrutinizing her expression, and she is reminded of the other night, the cough outside the door. She opens her mouth but she doesn't know what to say, just the feeling that she should, so she breathes in really deep and feels his exhale across her skin.
"Sir?"
Draco looks up at the woman behind the counter and moves forward, leaving Hermione to blink at the spot between his shoulder blades. "A town map."
The worker turns to grab one and she swears she can hear Draco mutter something that sounds too much like "fuck" for her to not become more confused. Whatever he had found in her expression didn't seem like it pleased him. It makes her nervous, like she might have failed a pop quiz even though she was always attentive in class.
He reaches behind him to grab the popcorn from her and it snaps her out of it, stepping up to the counter to pay for their items. Her shoulder presses against his arm and neither one moves away.
Day: 1444; Hour: 22
The house sits in a row of houses not an arms length apart on a street across from another row of houses. They go through the back door, Draco standing back awkwardly with his unspoken for injured shoulder until Seamus and Harold ram theirs into the wood. They are halfway across the kitchen when a man appears naked in the doorway to the hall, and until he raises his wand, Hermione is sure they have the wrong house.
Justin kills him, his shoulders heaving forward with the effort. It is an overwhelming black coldness that rips so hard out of your gut the tissue feels raw and bound to scar; that is the Avada curse. Whenever she thinks of it, Hermione will live the rest of her life feeling nauseated, overtaken by the empty, and ice cold from the feeling that never ceases in its determination to be remembered.
Hermione doesn't look down as she jumps over him, because she had learned long ago that eyes with glazed death never left her either. It was a necessity to go into shutdown mode - no emotional response meant you got the job done, and it has taken Hermione several years to know that. She felt too much for everything for it not to be a lie if she said she could do it properly, but to hell if she didn't try.
Plan B splits them into pairs to move more quickly now that magic has been used. A green jet shoots down from the staircase, and far from their feet as Harold and Justin take to the right, Hermione with Draco to the left, and Seamus sends up his own Killing Curse with Lavender behind him up the staircase. Draco always put them in the same pairs, and though they didn't much discuss Plan B for this mission, they did it almost naturally.
The first door Hermione opens has her pausing long enough to have been killed four times over by the woman in front of her. The same expression stares back at her in the dim light of the bedroom: shock, fear, confusion, an insurmountable lack of certainty that had both their wands aimed and their mouths tightly shut.
An arm wraps around her shoulders from behind and she knows it is Draco from the feel of him, his forearm sliding up against her neck as he spins them quickly from the doorway. She jerks forward when she catches a glimpse of his wand, but he only shouts a Stupify. Which is good, because she would have never forgiven him. She would have never looked him in the face again, and she chokes out a breath because she knows that is the absolute truth.
"Portkey her," he barks gruffly into her ear and releases her, Hermione's shaky hand digging into her pocket as she rushes forward.
The woman stares blankly up at her, wand now frozen on the ceiling, and Hermione stares down at the protruding stomach that could only mean one thing. Death Eater or not, there wasn't an excuse in all the world Hermione could feed herself for killing a pregnant woman. It was somehow the last thing she expected to see on the other side of the door, and for a reason she couldn't comprehend; it was as if all the charms and spells she knew had left her. All she could think of was the Killing Curse and the sheer impossibility of performing it.
She hadn't frozen up like that in so long. Embarrassment proved distant when something hard collided with her temple, another to her shoulder, another flying just a breath from her face. She snaps her head up just as the woman disappears beneath her, finding the wild, crazed eyes of a sobbing child.
"Shit," Hermione breathes.
"You- What did you do to my mum?" The little boy screams this so hard that the tendons pop out on his neck and his face immediately shines bright red.
He reaches for a vase, and it shatters against her shoulder. "Your mum is fine! She's okay, she's--"
He screams again, animalistic, raw and desperate, and in a way that no five year-old child should ever sound. He runs at her and she stays kneeling, bracing herself for the little ball of fury, and grabs him by the shoulders. His tiny fists smack soundly into her face, and she drops a hand into her pocket for another portkey.
"She's okay! I promise! I just put her in a safe place so she-- I'm going to send you to your mum, okay? I'm going--"
She wondered if this is what all children would do. If this is how they reacted when they found out about the death of their parents. If the people she had killed had children who would look at her with those same pain-ridden accusing eyes, and if she would ever forget this. She realizes that she's shaking, a suspicious knot in her chest, and she feels the sudden, almost undeniable urge to hug him.
His nails are dragging lines of skin off her arms, her blood packed under his fingernails, and she yanks a ribbon from the bag in her pocket. "I'm very sorry," she whispers, and she's crying and ridiculous.
It is an effort to tie the ribbon around his wrist, his other hand smacking into the side of her face as he sobs, but she moves quickly before the Portkey takes her as well. He's gone two seconds later, leaving her kneeling on the floor of an empty bedroom, blood covering her arms and her face full of tears. Hermione has never done well with the victims of war, the innocent bystanders who looked at her to help them or as a vessel for their revenge. The fallout of war extended far beyond the spell line of a Killing Curse. Both worlds they touched were forced to devastation. She wonders if any of them could reclaim their lives again, and if she would ever stop feeling guilty for so much.
She enters the hall, still shaking, as Draco emerges from a door further down. His face is blank, eyes calculating and intense in the look that screams survival instinct. They all wore it well in a battle, an instinctual expression no one wanted to discover about themselves. It's gone a second later, and something close to panic breaks like a wave across his features.
"What the fuck," and she remembers her bloody arms and the tears she didn't wipe away. There is also something wet and sticky sliding down her shoulder and back, and she knows she must look a lot worse than what it is.
"Is it clear?" She manages to keep her voice even, but it comes out weak. The rooms are cleared, judging by the sole purpose of his march toward her.
"Spell?"
He grabs the back of her neck and pulls her forward, her forehead hitting his chest as he leans over to get a better look at her back. This is familiar, and comforting in a way she can't understand, waking her from the abyss of thoughts too heavy for battle.
"He thought I killed his mum. He threw some stuff at me. I'm fine, let's--" She cut herself off with a scream as pain erupted from her shoulder blade. He drops the piece of glass to the floor.
"I'm not good with healing charms," he bit, and she doesn't know if he is angry with her or himself for admitting this.
"Draco, what the hell! You don't just..." Hermione trails off and bites her lips hard, pain roaring up again as the skin stretches at her wound.
"Tha--" Both their heads snap toward the ceiling as a loud crash sounded above them, then Lavender's voice screaming.
They both take for the stairs, Harold already at the top before turning a corner sharply. Justin takes the steps two at a time, his hair and face wild. "Cleared for us."
Justin and Draco both trip over the body lying just around the corner, and Hermione makes to vault it before something has her turning back around. Awareness, that sense honed in war, on that line of life and death.
"Avada Kedavra!" Hermione screams before she can even think about it, her heart stopping and then exploding with beats as that dark feeling overwhelmed her.
Draco breathes out hard enough to move the hair at the back of her neck. She thinks this might be for two reasons: he had forgotten his usual thoroughness and at least two of them (including him) could have just died, and the house had suddenly been set on fire. Flames were eating their way across the walls, ceiling, and down the staircase. The woman, revealed after the man fell, screams in fury and shoots a jet of fire at them before turning the corner behind her.
Someone counters the flame as Hermione raises her arms in front of her face in a move that her father used to laugh at during pillow fights when she was a child (oh, anything but the pretty face, huh? Anything but that!). Draco's shoulder impacts with the back of hers and makes them both grunt in pain. The wall catches her and she bounces off it, sprinting to follow after the long-legged run of the blond.
"We have to get out of here!" Lavender yells behind her, grabs her elbow, but Hermione punches her arm forward and continues.
Draco reels back from the corner just in time to miss a green jet. It disappears into the flames along the wall, a cloud of green exploding out into the air. "Draco, she has the sight advantage, there's no way--"
"Guys, let's go!" Justin yells.
Draco moves to turn the corner again and Hermione grabs his shoulders, throwing her weight back on her heels. A scream tears its way out of her as the skin rips at her wound, but the impact of the floor and Draco's sudden weight forces her to be silent. He turns over quickly but his shoulder is moving in a strange way that tells her she has injured him as much as herself.
"What the fuck are you doing?" It's the voice that always ignites fear at her gut, the voice so full of rage it scrapes its way out of his throat and along his tongue.
"Do you have a death wish?" Hermione barks back, because she does not fear Draco Malfoy, not really.
"Obviously, the entire staircase is on fire. We have to get out of here now." Harold is in blind panic mode, the heat in the house sweltering, and he's already soaking through his shirt.
"Draco, she's planning on burning this whole house down with her in it--" He yanks her up by her shirt, the cloth tearing at the collar.
She closes her eyes against the pain, and his sweat-soaked hand slides through the blood on her arm as he hauls her up the rest of the way. She digs her nails back into him, angry, but it's nothing compared to the look on his face as he brings it closer to hers.
"Exactly! If she's willing to burn herself alive, she's got information that-- Fuck!" Regret, anger. He knows it is too late, and there was no hope for it anyway.
He pushes her forward and he follows her down the stairs, Justin breathing relief as he follows. She throws cooling charms at the flames, which do not put them out but sway them to the side enough to make it to the exit. Harold, Lavender, and Seamus stand in the street as they barge through the front door. Hermione can hear the pop-pop-popping of her popcorn on the back porch between the sounds of groaning wood and growing fire.
"Hermione--" Lavender starts
"I'm fine."
"You pull that shit again, you won't be."
"Draco? Get over yourself," Hermione barks, in too much pain and because of him to care.
"Myself? I--" He's back to rage.
"The staircase to the attic was covered in flames, and that crazy woman was standing at the top of it with a death wish, waiting to Avada you as soon as you turned the corner! Talk about a Gryffindor Suicide Mission, Draco! There was no way you were getting up there alive. You're going to give your life up, for what? A chance in hell?" She didn't know just how furious she was about it until she started yelling at him.
Draco is glaring down at her, but his mouth is tightly shut into a thin line, and she knows she won this one. Finally. A light turns on across the street and they see, belatedly, that the lights are turning on all down the block. Justin turns his wide, blinking eyes away from her and up the block, Seamus muttering a stream of curses.
"The Ministry and the neighbors are on their way," Lavender points out, but they're already sprinting down the block, and Hermione runs out her anger.
Day: 1445; Hour: 5
They hide in the woods for five hours. Draco has said nothing to her besides "Sit," when he wadded up her coat and shoved it between her and a tree, pulling her back to catch the cloth between her shoulder and bark. Healing charms were out of the question now, and the only thing they could do was stopping the blood flow. He glared at her when he noticed the wound had reopened, though she didn't know if it was because she had tore it or because of how she did.
And the never-ending guessing game of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger raged on.
The most excitement in the afterglow of the battle came as soon as they made it through the tree line and Justin finally answered their questions about why they weren't Portkeying out. Draco looked as if a heart attack was about to hit at any moment as soon as Justin admitted he had left the bag in the house. They were left with Portkeys to the Ministry and St. Mungo's, and the anger lasted the entire five hours.
Hermione tried to sleep but her adrenaline took too long to leave, and every time she closed her eyes she saw the eyes of the little boy staring back at her. She also couldn't calm her thoughts that were mad with need to tear themselves down dark avenues. The little boy, the naked man in the hall no older than seventeen, the lingering cold of the Killing Curse, the pregnant woman, the possibility of Draco's death if she had been a second too late, if he hadn't moved a second soon enough. One would think she would have gotten used to the possibility of death. She didn't think anyone ever could.
It is hitting daylight when they find their way out of the wilderness. Lavender and Justin are shaking with the cold, Harold is well rested and back to grinning, Seamus doesn't speak a word as he walks ahead of them. Draco looks as tired as she feels, and she can only stare longingly at the breakfast layout when they walk into the hotel.
"Two bedrooms, double queen beds, please." Hermione's voice comes out too raspy, and the man behind the counter stares too long at her weary face and Draco's coat that hangs off of her.
She wonders what his reaction would be if she told him that she just hid out in the woods for hours on end after a battle where she killed someone with a Killing Curse from this stick-looking thing. That she was attacked by objects and a little boy, and was covered in blood, so that tall, imposing blond behind her gave her his coat. She wonders what he would do if she said it was for his life too. For his world too. And he would never have any idea.
"Been traveling?" The man smiles, typing into his computer, and she can practically feel Draco bite his tongue.
"Yeah. We fell asleep on our train and missed our stop." Hermione returned the smile and Draco sends her a harsh look. She doesn't know why until the man speaks again and she's floundering, remembering why Draco thinks she should give up the art of lying. Forever.
"Where were you headed?"
She doesn't know why she bothered saying that in the first place. She overdid it when she was nervous. The man's eyes were slowly drawing down from his curiosity and into suspicion.
"A friend's wedding," Draco lied smoothly.
"Oh, I hope you didn't miss it."
"We did." Well, at least saying they missed it could excuse the harshness and impatience in Draco's tone.
"Well..," the man trails off, giving Draco's glare a cautious look. "We don't normally let guests check in for a couple hours, but we have rooms open now."
"Great."
"Credit card?" Draco raises an eyebrow at the question, obviously having no idea what that even was, and slides the money across the counter. "Oh, alright. Get you set up here...201 and 317."
"Thank you," Hermione smiles, taking the key envelopes from the counter and following behind Harold and Justin to the elevator.
"We could use the stairs," Harold tries.
"Please. After last night I'm claiming lazy, and I don't care," Lavender muttered, pushing her face into his shoulder.
Hermione subconsciously cleared her throat and blinks at Draco's shoes as the elevator beeped the second floor. All of them exited except for Seamus and Harold, who stood in the path of the door to keep it open. "Who is sleeping where?"
"I think we need to discuss another matter first," Draco drawls, not bothering to look back at them as he walked down the hall.
"I really am sorry." Justin already knows what it's pertaining to, his bottom lip gnawed between his teeth and his head down.
"Mistakes happen." Hermione reaches over to squeeze his arm, speaking quickly before anyone else can tell him different.
"It's a costly one." She agreed - there wasn't much left of the savings she had from that summer before the war. God, it was like the memories of another life.
"No one died, we'll figure it out."
Hermione slid the key in and threw open the door, ignoring the desire to crawl her way to the nearest bed. Discussion, shower, bed, food. Draco crossed the room to the window to shut the curtains, Lavender and Harold took a seat on the bed and Seamus kept to the door like he was waiting for an escape.
"I have to use the bathroom..." Justin started.
"We don't need you for this." Harold smiled, waving him off.
"Why? He lost them, he should be the one going back!" Lavender, even tired, still had an annoying shriek when she was passionate about something.
"Going back?" Hermione shakes her head, as if the question itself wasn't enough to prove she was lost.
"Weren't you listening in the woods? One of us is going to have to Portkey to St. Mungo's. We need Porkeys to the safe house again, medical supplies, more food..." Lavender trails off, looking over at Draco. "How are they supposed to get back here?"
"The same way we did."
"We're going to be here forever!" Lavender throws up her hands.
Hermione gets nervous for a moment before common sense sets in. They didn't have enough money to spend more than three days here, but most of all, she didn't want to wait for days before they were out searching again. Hermione didn't even like to spend more than five hours sleeping. If she was functional, she wanted to be out searching for Ron. She had to be, even.
"A day to get everything, a couple hours to get here. It's a day and a half, bint, calm the exaggerations."
"Well, before you continue insulting my girlfriend," this is the first time Hermione has heard Harold stand up for anything, "I'm volunteering to go back."
"What? Baby, you can't go, what if they catch you--"
The two began whispering to each other in little purrs that had the rest of the room awkward. Justin flung open the door unaware, and Seamus smacks it away from him so hard it whacks off of Justin's shoulder. Seamus looks toward the far wall as everyone looks toward him.
"I'll go."
"No, Harold's going to go," Lavender nods and smiles at her boyfriend.
"If you want to go, Finnigan, by all means. But we need someone who is going to come back."
Hermione gives Draco a curious look, and when she looks to Seamus she is surprised to find his glare leveled on her and not the blond. "I don't turn traitor on my friends, Malfoy."
There was a fast silence in the room, and Hermione can't help but think everyone is in on something that she doesn't have a clue about. She knew the redhead had been in a silent rage all day and night, and now she has the feeling everyone knew why but her. Then, it hits her, just after Lavender mutters a curse behind her and right before Justin speaks.
"Seamus, why don't we go take a walk, mate?"
"I'm not taking a fucking walk. I just walked half the night for no reason--"
"The more places we don't find anyone at, the more we scratch off the list--" Hermione tries to pretend that this can be a normal tantrum, but the tension is thick and her heart is pounding.
Seamus knew. He knew about her and Draco, and she is guessing that it was from Lavender who has now stood and is busy sending her apologetic looks. Hermione is breathing a little too fast and even Harold has stopped smiling. "Shut the fuck up."
"Seamus--" she tries, weakly.
"You know, Ron could be dead right now. Dead. And you're busy fucking Malfoy, that prick he hates, while he could be getting tortured to death by Malfoy's fucking buddies."
"Ron is not dead," Hermione attempts to make this come out angry, but it's hoarse and the words crack broken on her teeth. "He is not! And what I do is none of your business, Seamus Finnigan! Don't you dare judge me, you have no right--"
"Isn't he the one who--"
"Don't even try to talk to me about his past prejudice, not after all he's done, and not after you stand there, refusing to look beyond the past and--"
"You're a traitor, Hermione! You're shagging Draco Malfoy--"
"A member of the Order, a man - a good man -- who is on our--"
"Does it get you off, Hermione? Do--"
"I would watch what you say next, Finnigan." She didn't realize she was on the edge of hyperventilating until she hears his voice through it, closer now.
"Fuck you. Do you like shagging some Death Eater spawn? The son of the man who tried to kill you? Does he call you Mudblood when--"
"Seamus!" Lavender and Justin in unison, Hermione's reach for her wand, the fast footfalls of Draco behind her.
"--his little Mudblood whor--" Seamus cut his own self off, his hand coming up, but Draco is quicker, the crack of bone meeting bone resounding through the room.
Hermione stares in a sort of shock as Seamus rights himself against the wall and tackles Draco, his fingers clenching into Draco's bad shoulder and his fist colliding with his face. Draco grabs his wrist and twists it sharply, Hermione's stomach rolling as another crack fills the room. Seamus cries out and his fist comes away with Draco's blood on his knuckles, slamming it home again.
Justin grabs Seamus by the shoulders just as Draco lands another punch to the redhead's face. Seamus yells something but it is trapped behind the blood that sprays from his mouth. Justin manages to lift Seamus enough to get an elbow to the stomach, and Draco jumps to his feet. By the time Harold has a grip on the blond, Draco's fingers are vices around Seamus's throat, the redhead's back to the wall and his feet off the ground. Draco leans in, mouth open to speak, but Harold wrenches him back and Seamus's foot connects with nothing but air.
Lavender stands between the two, arms out, tears on her face. "Stop!"
Hermione gasps an inhale, edging out the black dots with dizziness, and finds she had been holding her breath. She stands completely still save the shaking of her hands, and if she is crying too she wipes it away before anyone can see to prove it.
That hurt. It hurt more than she had thought it would. A Death Eater spawn? Yes, once. Son of the man who had tried to kill her? Yes. But that son is nothing like that man, and Hermione knows this with a fierceness that sometimes startles her. Seamus had it wrong, but that wasn't what bothered her. It was the quickness in which he turned on her.
"You motherfucker," Seamus seethed.
"You went too far, Finnigan. I believe you shou--"
"One day, I'm going to kill you. Out on the field, when the battle is thick. My face is going to be the last thing you see," Seamus says calmly, as if he had thought about it a long time and it brought him peace. It probably did. It made her physically sick.
"You can bet your life that will never happen," Draco growled, wiping the blood from his face.
"You're slow, Malfoy. Took you long enough to get over here." Seamus blows out a laugh and Hermione's eyes find the side of Draco's face. "You put on a good show, but I see right through you. Was it the Mudblood that got you? Too close to the--"
"Stop. Stop it. Right. Now," Lavender seethes in a quiet way that Hermione has never heard from her.
It looks like it's physically painful for him to do so, but he does. "I'm going to St. Mungo's. Prick ca--"
He stops when Hermione hurls the bag of St. Mungo's Portkeys to his feet. Draco and Lavender step back as some of them skitter across the floor, not wanting to be sent to St. Mungo's on accident. Seamus pauses, clenches his jaw, and bends to pick one up. He glares at Draco until he disappears.
"Should I go now? Make sure he doesn't tell anyone where we are or...or are we going to leave...?"
"He won't tell anyone. He wouldn't risk ending the mission, no matter how angry he is," Justin mutters and takes a washcloth, using it to throw the Portkeys back in the bag.
Draco Malfoy had just defended her. Had just taken several punches to the face, a bloody nose and mouth, and defended her. What does someone do after something like that? Because all she could feel was the rapid beat of her heart and sort of dizzy as she stares over at him. That had to mean something. That had to mean more than just guilt for being a big part of the reason she was put in such situations with her friends. Didn't it?
Draco walks slowly to the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him. It doesn't close all the way and Hermione stares at the gap as Lavender grabs her elbow. "I'm so sorry. I thought he knew already, and that was part of the reason he hated Malfoy so much, you know? I brought it up in like a...a nonchalant sort of way yesterday, like, 'oh, isn't it silly how Hermione was worried about having her friends know'. And...and I was just hoping he wouldn't say anything instead of me having to tell you I screwed up."
"It's fine," her voice is distant, and Lavender looks even more worried. "I'm going to wash up."
"Oh. Oh, alright."
Hermione shrugged off Draco's coat, throwing it on the floor. It would have to be washed to get her blood out of it. Maybe he would throw it out - blood never really came out. They all looked away when she walked to the bathroom, and she makes sure the door is completely shut on their silence. She stares at the tile for four seconds before she has the nerve to look up at him.
"Need help?"
He meets her eyes in the mirror, his hand pausing before he squeezes the red water out of it. "I'm fully capable."
She doesn't know what to say to that that isn't awkward, so she grabs another washcloth and turns the tap in the bath on. She thinks of several things: taking a shower, but needing another excuse to stay there; stripping naked and getting into the bath for distraction sake; what she can say to get him to talk; stop acting like a stupid little girl and just snog him in thanks.
"Can you help me?"
He makes a sound like amusement, and she is surprised to find the twitch of his lips when she turns around. "That is an impossible request."
Oh. Oh, because this is what he always did. If he didn't grow angry than he made fun of her whenever he was feeling vulnerable about something. He had to go back to the familiar, or it just threw everything off.
"Haha," but it cracked too much to go along with the teasing. She hurried along before he turned to serious, which meant angry, which meant Very Hard to Deal With. "My back."
She stood strange for a moment before she yanks her shirt over her head, grimacing at the pull on her shoulder. She is happy to note Draco's full attention once her head has cleared the material. She pretends it's not excitement rolling at the bottom of her stomach. Seamus's reaction hurt, but was expected. Draco's reaction was unexpected, and made her feel things she absolutely refused to name and admit to.
"Not with that," she points to the bloody washcloth he's squeezing out in the sink, and her voice brings his eyes back up to her face where she's already blushing from the attention.
"I don't have any diseases."
"I know. Obviously. But it's...unsanitary."
He raises an eyebrow at her and smirks. "Are you saying I have dirty blood?"
She purses her lips and chucks her washcloth at him, but it's dry and falls to the floor before it even touches him. He breathes a laugh, and she thinks how she can hardly keep up with his mood swings lately. Though, she had defended him to Seamus - perhaps that proved to him where she stood on the matter. And he had defended her to Seamus, so maybe they were both a little more out in the open now, to each other as well. Their relationship was so confusing. He was so confusing. If she were honest with herself, it was one of the good points, for her. She was weird like that - he told her so himself.
"I was just getting the water out." He grabs another clean one and she nods, because she hates soggy washcloths too. "Are you taking a bath or just trying to suffocate yourself by way of heat?"
"Oh." She glances over her shoulder, and then back to him, blushing already. "Are you taking a bath?"
He raises an eyebrow, and she distracts herself by picking the washcloth off the floor. She doesn't know if she'll ever stop being shy around him in some ways, but she does know that this, whatever they are, forces both of them to go out on a limb sometimes to keep it going. By the time she stands, he's already pulling his shirt over his head.
She hisses in through her teeth at the sight of his shoulder, blue, purple, and harsh. "We need those medical supplies ASAP."
He shrugs one shoulder, the good one, and looks down to unbutton his pants. "How old was the child?"
"What child?" She's easily distracted by him, and he knows this because he smiles at the floor.
"The one who made ribbons of your arms."
It was an exaggeration. She had five claw marks on one, seven on the other. "I put him at five."
"Packs a punch then."
Her eyes were greedy on the patch of skin and hair his undone button exposed, though she tried to act nonchalant about it as she undid her own pants. She loved to see him naked - she could admit that to herself now. His fingers were cold, bringing her face up as they brushed along the swollen skin of her jaw.
"Bruise?" She whispers this, and he agrees with the sound because he lowers his voice as well.
"Indeed."
She reaches up with her own hand, her fingers hot against the coolness of his lips, cheekbone, jaw, the line of his nose. She thought it might close him down if she said something like "thank you", so she would show him instead. They always spoke through actions - words strained.
"I should wash the blood and stuff off first, so the water..." she trails off for a moment as he jerks her pants and knickers past her hips, but his eyes don't leave hers, giving her reason to keep talking, "...doesn't get all dirty and gross."
He bends to pull her clothes off the rest of the way, and she toes her socks off as he stands. "That's the thing about baths, Granger. The water always gets dirty and gross."
"It's relaxing, though."
"I don't disagree. Get in."
He hands her a washcloth and she awkwardly steps into the tub, sitting on the edge to wipe the blood off her arms. She hisses and grimaces under the heat of the water and the drag of the cloth, understanding why Draco's face and hands were cold. She hears the zip of his pants behind her and rustle of clothing, thinking briefly of her friends on the other side of the door, but doesn't care. This was the other part of proving that to him.
His hand appears, taking the cloth out of her hand and he steps into the tub. She watches him sit; sliding until his back hits the end. He looks at her, waiting, expectant, and she lets her eyes slide up the length of him before taking her seat between his legs. He grips her hips, pulling her back until she is nestled against him, his thighs at her hips, a growing hardness at her back, his hands moving to her shoulders.
"This is going to hurt."
"I know."
"I'm not going to go easy like Brown would, I'm going to get it cleaned."
"I know."
She toughs it out, but the way her fingers dig into his legs is rather telling. Red tinted water ebbs past their legs, and he hands the cloth to her occasionally to wash it out in the tap before she hands it back. When she does so, he runs his fingertips down the ridges of her spine and around the swelling of her shoulder.
She thinks she should find a heavy significance in this, but it doesn't hit her like it would have a year ago, even. Her blood was just blood to him - or maybe her blood was her blood to him, blood he had touched a dozen times, the blood of his lover, the blood of his friend. Perhaps she might stagger under the comparison from Hogwarts to this second, but there were years and years between those moments and this somehow made sense. As if there were no other roads this could have taken.
"Done."
She cleans the cloth out once more, waiting for the last of the dirty water to drain. She tosses the cloth toward the sink and misses, hitting the button on the tap to fill the tub. She isn't sure what to say so she traces along the bumps of his kneecaps and lets him pull her back against his chest.
"You're not going to breakdown are you?"
"No," Hermione shakes her head, taking in the caution of his fingers on her thighs. "I'm saving that until after the war."
"More right good times to follow then."
"What do you want to do?"
"What?"
"After the war," she explains.
"I don't think that far ahead."
"Pessimistic."
"Lazy."
"Bull."
She can feel him smirk against the side of her neck, but it leaves his lips when he kisses her up to her jaw. His hands - because he knows by now that he needs both - gather her hair up to the top of her head, using it to turn her face toward him. He kisses her slowly and she remembers his busted lip, kissing him back softly in return. She flicks her tongue out, along the cut, and this might be too affectionate for him because he kisses her harder.
Half her hair falls as he runs a hand down her neck and side, around her waist, and back up her stomach to lift the weight of her breast in his palm. She inhales heavily through her nose and turns in clumsy jolts to face him. His eyes are dark when she meets them and he is beautiful; his hands gripping her bum and sloshing her forward and against him.
She presses her hands into his stomach and pushes them up his chest, feeling his skin move with her palms as she kisses him again. His lip must have torn a little because she can taste the faint metallic of his blood in her mouth, and she should probably think it's weird, but she doesn't. He can probably taste it too, his tongue dancing across hers, and when she pushes her hips he groans into her mouth.
"Tap," he mumbles, and she sucks on his tongue as he rocks into her.
"What?" she asks after a moment, because she doesn't really care what he's saying.
He doesn't seem to either, his hand traveling down her stomach, his fingers questing. "Water."
"Uh huh," she has no idea what he's talking about.
He jerks hard when she wraps her fingers around the hardness between their stomachs, and he tears his mouth from hers to put it to her neck. "Fuck it," he groans, and presses open-mouthed kisses to her skin, his tongue swirling an instinctual alphabet of half-formed thoughts.
His head forces her to arch back and she has to grab his arms for support, his kisses circling her breasts. It isn't until then that she realizes her scalp is touching water. She blinks at the ceiling, trying to find rational thought through the haze and his-- she moans when his mouth closes over her nipple, clutching his head harder. His hand slides further up her back as he begins to kneel, lifting his head to look at her in that way that makes her breathing stop.
"Wait, wait...tap, water." She motions with her hand and reluctantly pulls away from him, turning to face the tap. The motion sends another wave of water to the bathroom floor, and she has just enough time to turn off the water before he's grabbing her hips.
More water hits the tiles as he pulls her back and over him, one hand digging into her hip and the other leaving to guide himself in. He breathes hot in the space between her shoulder blades, his breath rolling moisture across her skin. His lips find the back of her ear and they both moan when she sinks down onto him.
"Fuck, Hermione." She feels the words in the mouth against her ear, in the chest against her back, the arm anchored around her, the shoulders pulled up against the back of hers.
She begins moving faster, water sloshing over the edge each time. She moves her hand down, entwining her fingers with the ones on her hip, and she doesn't care if it seems too personal. He doesn't either, his other hand sliding up her stomach and to her breasts, her fingers clutching the edge of the tub so hard they almost hurt.
"Draco," she whispers, moans, and lets her head drop back onto his shoulder - the good one, she hopes.
He shrugs it and she opens her eyes, moaning loudly as he thrusts up hard, and her fingers squeeze his under the water. She lifts her head and turns it enough to look at him and he hunches forward, kissing her awkward-positioned and wonderful.
There were several reasons to defend Draco Malfoy. This is certainly one of them.