May 2003
It was near the end of May when the Death Eaters launched an attack on a Muggle town in Surrey. It was a trap. They didn't even bother to conceal the fact they were luring the Resistance out.
There was no need to. The Resistance would go anyway.
Hermione watched the Order depart to join the fight and worked with Padma to transfer the hospital ward down into the foyer and expand the walls of the sitting room. They called in several of the Resistance members who functioned as healers and nurses at the hospice safe houses.
Poppy Pomfrey had caught Black Cat Flu and was under quarantine. A disease that caused chronic bad luck was one of the last things that the Order could handle sweeping through the Resistance.
The clock ticked relentlessly on while Hermione paced, carefully and meticulously organising her mind. She gathered all her memories of Draco, shoving them into the furthest recesses of her consciousness where she kept her memories of her parents.
She could not think about Draco. She could not worry about whether he was fighting. Whether Kingsley or Moody had him doing anything that put him into extreme danger in order to give the Resistance a slight edge.
She had to work. Thinking about it wouldn't change anything.
She walled it all away.
Seamus appeared at the door carrying an unfamiliar woman and Michael Corner in his arms.
"Vampire," he said, nodding towards the woman. "I dunno about him."
He dropped them and quickly apparated away again.
The foyer began filling with bodies. Muggles, Resistance fighters; they were all being brought to Hermione and Padma.
Hermione poured Blood-Replenishing Potion and the antidote for the bite down the woman's throat before trying to quickly diagnose what had happened to Michael. A diagnostic charm indicated his organs were shutting down, but she couldn't figure out why. She started casting an analytic web on the curse signature in order to try to identify it.
Crack.
Kingsley appeared, carrying Tonks. Tonks was screaming at the top of her lungs; her eyes were rolled back in her head.
Hermione cast a stasis charm on Michael in the hope of buying time and rushed over.
Tonks' arm had been cursed; the skin was sliding away as her body flayed itself. Hermione cancelled the curse and cast a spell to soothe the pain before holding a vial of Skin-Regrowth Potion against Tonks' lips.
Blood and a black, acrid liquid spattered onto Hermione's sleeve. She glanced up sharply.
"You're cursed," she said, watching a growing stain spread across Kingsley's left shoulder through his robes.
"I have to get Potter out," he said, turning to leave.
She grabbed his arm. "It's close to your heart. Let me heal you."
He pulled her hand off. "There's no time. Get ready, we're bringing more your way."
There was a crack as Parvati appeared, weighed down with four bodies.
"Get them to Padma," Hermione said, chasing Kingsley as he swept out of Grimmauld Place. "Let me heal you, Kingsley."
She reached out to grab him before he reached the edge of the protective wards. As her fingers closed around the fabric of his robes, he apparated. They both reappeared in the battlefield. It was a town square, hazy with dust, blood and residual magic.
There were bodies everywhere.The Death Eaters were casting curses at the Resistance members who were trying to get the injured away. Dementors were floating overhead, Kissing anyone they came across.
Hermione glanced around with horror.
"Go back to Grimmauld Place! Your job is to stay in the safe houses, Granger." Kingsley snarled at her; his expression furious when he realized she was standing beside him. He cast a shield around them.
There was a scream of rage that Hermione recognised as belonging to Ron.
"Get back to the safe house, Granger," Kingsley said over his shoulder as he moved toward the sound.
Hermione prepared to apparate but, just before she vanished, her eyes landed on a boy lying on the ground. His stomach was torn open, likely by a hag or a werewolf.
She knelt down and checked his pulse. Too late; he was already dead. There was a wand in his hand. A Resistance fighter. He couldn't have been fourteen.
A witch beside him had a necrosis curse crawling up her leg. She seemed to have passed out from the pain. There was another body on top of the witch; a young man who'd fallen across her. Hermione rolled him over to see whether he was still alive too.
Instantly he sprang forward. Hermione felt fangs sink into her shoulder as he pulled her to the ground. Hermione cast a dark curse without pausing to think.
The vampire crumbled.
Hermione staggered to her feet, levitating the injured witch into her arms. She glanced around for anyone else within reach.
A man two feet away appeared to have been attacked by a dementor. Hermione moved towards him to check whether he'd been fully Kissed. His soul was still intact, but he was hypothermic and in need of chocolate.
An icy sensation came over her. She looked up sharply to find several dementors closing in.
Hermione took a deep breath and cast a patronus. A flash of light shot from her wand, but her patronus failed to corporealise.
As her patronus drove away the dementors, she pulled the wizard's arm over her shoulders and readied herself to apparate.
She sagged under the weight and cast a quick lightening charm. As she did so, there were several cracks of apparition. Hermione gripped the bodies more tightly as she looked up.
Four masked Death Eaters had appeared less than ten feet away. One of them was facing her. He instantly whipped his wand forward.
Hermione's eyes widened, and she set her mind to Grimmauld Place. Destination. Determination. Deliberation.
She felt the curse collide with her chest as she vanished.
She reappeared in the street outside Grimmauld Place, dropping the witch and wizard and falling forward with agonised gasp.
She was vaguely aware of swearing, and someone grabbing her and dragging her up the steps into Grimmauld Place. She was flipped over and stared into the faces of Padma and several of the Resistance guards in charge of Grimmauld Place security during skirmishes. Hermione shuddered and tried not to sob.
"What spell? What spell?" Padma's eyes were wide and panicked as she leaned over Hermione. Her wand was shaking in her hands.
Hermione gestured wordlessly towards her chest. Padma ripped Hermione's shirt open and gasped.
The acid curse had struck Hermione squarely in the sternum. It had been powerfully cast. The boils were already burning deep into her bones and across her chest up to her collarbones.
Padma rapidly cast the countercurse. Hermione lay on the floor and tried not to sob as Padma summoned potions from across the room.
She was burning. The agony from being cursed in the wrist was nothing compared to this. It was in the middle of her. She was barely aware of anything but the corrosive pain in the centre of herself. She couldn't make out sounds. She couldn't feel the rest of her body. All she could feel was that she was burning. Inside her chest. In her bones. Her skin. Like there was acid in her throat.
Surely someone would stun her. She was on the verge of pleading.
She closed her eyes tightly and waited for everything to stop.
"Hermione."
"Hermione." Padma's voice broke through the blur of agony.
Hermione forced herself to open her eyes and look up at Padma.
"I can't remove your bones now," Padma said. Her voice was trembling as she poured the analgesic across Hermione's chest. "There are too many people dying—and I need you. There are too many curses here I don't know how to analyse. Besides the pain potions and the analgesic, what should I give you?"
Hermione stared at Padma in blank horror for several seconds, struggling to make sense of the words.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe shallowly before she forced herself to answer. Everything was burning. Even with the analgesic potion, the burning wasn't stopping. If she hadn't felt certain that screaming would have hurt more, she would have screamed until her voice gave out.
She swallowed repeatedly before she forced herself to speak. "Strengthener. A drop of Felix Felicis. And a Draught of Peace," she said in as low voice as she could manage. She could feel vibrations of her vocal chords in all the pockets of burned flesh.
Padma carefully poured the potions into Hermione's mouth and lightly massaged the analgesic into the skin before dripping small drops of Essence of Dittany into each of the boils. Hermione lay on the floor for several minutes, waiting for the moment when the potions kicked in, in the hopes that somehow things would become somewhat bearable.
She could feel the damage in her bones. It inched toward her lungs as she struggled to breathe. She forced herself to stand and shakily flicked her wand to repair her shirt as she made her way across the foyer.
She was dying.
It felt like she was dying.
She forced herself to mentally separate from the pain and set to work, immediately moving to the most difficult injuries while Padma and the other healers tended to everything else.
Every movement was painful. Breathing was agonising. Hermione couldn't so much as twitch her arm without feeling every bit of damage in her chest. She bit down on her lip and forced herself not to cry; if her chest heaved from weeping, she was afraid she'd black out.
Her lungs kept agitating her with the urge to cough. Her esophagus contracting, and her chest jerking slightly as she fought against it. If she coughed, she would probably fracture her sternum.
She nearly cast a diagnostic, but she didn't think she could handle knowing how much bone damage she was ignoring.
She downed a cough suppressing potion and forced herself to breathe shallowly.
Recovering would be slow. Just repairing it would likely take hours.
She turned slowly, taking in the seemingly endless number of hospital stretchers she was surrounded by.
There were so many injuries. Hag disembowelments and vampire bites. Werewolf maulings. Dozens of curses that Hermione had never seen before. Sussex was a death chamber, slowly wiping out the Resistance. She recognised some of them as curses Severus and Draco had warned her about and provided counter-curses to. Deep cuts that wouldn't close; non-serious looking boils that suddenly swelled and burst, causing the individuals to begin hemorrhaging. She pulled conjured scorpions, vipers, and even a lobster out of stomachs and chests.
The air stank of internal organs and blood and Dark Magic.
She healed and healed, and the bodies brought to her never seemed to stop. She thought she saw Harry and Ron arrive, but they were gone again before she could look away from the injured Muggle boy she was healing.
As she performed a complicated spell to repair a shredded large intestine, she gradually became aware of someone standing beside her.
She glanced over and found Kreacher looking up at her.
"Is Potter's Mudblood alright?"
She stared at him blankly but didn't reply as she moved on to the next injury with a wince, downing another cough suppressing potion as she went.
"Potter's Mudblood is hurt." Kreacher said in a tone that was as conclusive as it was derisive.
"Kreacher, get out of here." Padma said, her eyes narrowed and furious. "I need someone with basic healing over here."
"How hurt is Potter's Mudblood?"
"How about I curse you with acid in the chest too, and you can see?" Padma snapped, kicking him out of the way as she bustled past.
Kreacher skittered back and stared at Hermione for another minute as she deconstructed an unfamiliar curse signature on a witch whose bones were slowly dissolving inside her.
When Hermione looked up again, Kreacher had disappeared.
When the witch was done, Hermione stumbled over and took another dose of pain relief, a strengthener, and Draught of Peace as she tried to force her hands to stop shaking.
Her lungs were beginning to rattle. She downed yet another cough suppressant and tried not to think about it. Padma hadn't indicated that anything about the injury was life-threatening.
She turned trying to see where she needed to go next. Most of the most complex injuries had been dealt with. She went to join Padma in healing the mid-level curses.
"Do you want me to try to treat you now?" Padma asked, hesitantly touching Hermione's wrist.
Hermione paused for a moment, considering, then shook her head. "Do you know why our backup healer isn't here? We summoned her two hours ago."
Padma's face grew tense. "I don't know. I've sent five more patronuses. I haven't heard anything back."
Hermione flicked her wand and healed an entrail expelling curse. She felt almost numb beyond the searing pain in her chest.
"Then"—she said slowly—"we should wait a little longer. Until we know no one else is going to be brought in. Kingsley—Kingsley never came back. I should wait—in case he does. He was cursed."
"You should stop moving," Padma said. "There are enough field healers here; we can manage all the treatment that remains. Go rest while you wait for Kingsley. I can stun you if you'd like."
"It's more bearable if I have something else to concentrate on. Just—give me something that doesn't require me to move my arms."
"Why don't you close the cuts? All the ones over there have had the curses removed. That's just a wrist movement." Padma's face was grey with worry and guilt as she stared at Hermione.
Hermione nodded and turned to go.
She was beginning to suspect that her injury was beyond Padma's abilities. The lung and esophagus damage she could sense would require advanced healing magic and possibly two healers in order to coordinate the spellwork.
With Pomfrey sick—without their healer from St Mungo's making an appearance—Hermione was the only person who knew it all.
Hermione would need to stay conscious while Padma removed Hermione's sternum and ribs and repaired her lungs and throat in order to instruct her about how to do it. The mere thought had Hermione on the verge of breaking down.
She would probably black out from the pain and have to be rennervated—
Repeatedly.
Her hands started trembling violently. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Her chest spasmed and she gave a low gasp of pain.
She needed to make sure everyone else with serious injuries was healed so Padma could heal her uninterrupted. It would be worse if Padma had to take breaks. Maybe if Kingsley came back, he'd be able to get a healer.
Hermione opened her eyes and blinked dazedly. Kreacher had appeared once again and was standing in front of her.
"Potter's Mudblood is still working," he said, looking her up and down.
Hermione began to move around him. As she passed him, she felt his bony hand reach up and grab her wrist. She glanced down in surprise as she felt herself vanish.
The squeeze of apparition on her damaged bones was mind-bending. She felt them fracturing as she reappeared. She gave an agonised cry and the bones ground together. The cry made her chest abruptly expand and contract, resulting in a sharp, searing pain as something snapped inside her chest. She screamed.
She fell forward and felt herself caught by the shoulders.
Everything hurt, and hurt, and hurt. Blinding, blinding pain. She was barely conscious of anything else. Every time she sobbed, she felt the bones grind together and break again inside her chest. She kept trying and failing to stop.
"Stupefy."
When she reawakened, she found herself immobile. Glancing around wildly, she found Draco staring down at her, pale and wide-eyed.
She stared at him.
"You..." She felt her jaw clench with anger and had to force the words out. "What did you do?"
"You were injured. What do you think I did?" His voice was vibrating with intensity.
Hermione tried to look down and found she couldn't move her neck. She was paralysed. She rolled her eyes down towards her chest. It was wrapped in bandages and an exoskeleton cast that supported her lungs while her sternum and ribs were regrowing. She could feel the sharp, needle-like pricking of the Skele-Gro. It had been hours since she had been knocked out based on the regrowth she could sense.
"I was going to be treated." The sensation of having no upper ribs, sternum, or clavicles was horrifying. She couldn't move her arms, torso, or neck. Her fingers barely managed to shift. "I was waiting for Kingsley."
"You nearly died." Draco's voice was shaking. "You were dying."
"He might have come back. He might be there now—" she gasped and tried to make her head turn. "He was cursed. I have to go back."
"Shacklebolt is dead."
Her eyes darted up, and she looked at him, horrified.
"How do you know? What do you know?" she said in a voice that shook with outrage.
"I killed him." There was not a trace of regret in his face or eyes.
Hermione stared.
"You—you what?"
The sinking sensation inside made her feel as though a bottomless pit had opened in her stomach, and she was being dragged in. Collapsing into herself.
Somehow she had forgotten. That he'd killed Dumbledore; that he was a Death Eater; that she'd seen him kill dozens of people at a time without showing a hint of remorse; that his murderousness was why he was a valuable spy for them; that he brought them valuable, vital information because he continued to run successful raids and attacks for Voldemort.
She knew it all. But she'd also forgotten it.
He'd killed Kingsley. He had probably been pleased to do it. She knew how much he hated Moody and Kingsley.
"You shouldn't have brought me here," she finally said.
"You would be dead if I hadn't. You were bitten by a vampire and took cough suppressing potion. Did you even know you were drowning in blood? You had minutes left when you arrived. Two casualty healers were barely enough to save you."
Hermione blinked. She had forgotten about the vampire bite—it had happened so quickly. How had Padma overlooked it? Had she not even cast a diagnostic charm advanced enough to detect it?
She shoved the question aside.
"I didn't know. There was a roomful of dying people. I was in line like all the rest of them. Pomfrey was sick. Our backup healer didn't come. They needed me. Once someone started healing me, I wouldn't have been able to move anymore, no matter what kind of advanced injuries came in. It took hours, didn't it? Repairing everything? There wasn't anyone available to do it. Do you have any idea how many people died today? How many are cursed so they'll never recover? Just because you don't care about them doesn't mean they don't matter."
"You are mine!" Draco bared his teeth with rage. "I turned, and I saw you get cursed as you disappeared, and I didn't even know if you were still alive. You said you wouldn't leave the safe houses. You told me you'd be safe. You were in the middle of a massacre. Then—I learn that you were alive but not being treated."
He was so angry he looked ready to explode. She could feel the rage emanating from him.
"I even thought I was going overboard by having you kidnapped out of the safe house. I should have known—I should have fucking known, you idiotic Gryffindor. You would have just let yourself die."
"This is war, Draco. People die." Hermione said in a flat voice. "Given your personal death toll, you should know that better than anyone else. If you knew anything about me, you would know I'm not going to prioritise my survival over everyone else's."
Draco stared at her for several seconds. He was breathing through his teeth, his hands clenched into fists.
"Well, you should." He was suddenly ice-cold. "I have warned you. If something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order. That isn't a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the survival of the Resistance as Potter's. If you die, I will kill every last one of them. Given that the risk of their lives is apparently the only way to make you value your own."
Hermione stared up at him in state of shock that slowly twisted into rage.
"How dare you? How dare you?"
If she could have moved, she would have cursed him, stabbed him, tried to beat him with her bare hands.
She wanted to weep as the full realisation of what his threat meant dawned on her.
He was too dangerous.
Too much of a risk to the Order.
When she reported back to Moody, he would probably decide they had no choice but to kill Draco.
Whether Moody used his memories or hers, the result would be the same.
Tears welled up and streamed down from the corners of her eyes. She closed them so that she wouldn't have to look up at Draco.
The silence hung between them for a minute before she heard him sigh heavily. She felt the bed shift, and his fingers stroked her face, brushing away a lock of hair and then resting on her cheek.
"You're thinking you'll have to kill me, aren't you?" he said. "That I'm too much of a liability now. If you go to Moody, he'll order it."
His hand trailed down and rested lightly on her chest over the spot where her sternum was re-growing. The heat of it seeped gradually through the cast and into her skin. It made her breath catch.
"And you'll do it. Won't you?"
Hermione opened her eyes and looked at him. He was seated on the edge of the bed, staring down at her. The rage had vanished from his eyes.
"You aren't leaving me any choice." she said in a shaking voice. "You know—you know I will not choose you over everyone else."
He studied her. "You'll never forgive yourself."
Her jaw trembled. "No. I won't—" her voice broke. "But—it wouldn't be the first unforgivable thing I've done. I'm already a whore." His hand resting against her flinched. "Becoming a murderer will just be an extra line in the history books."
"If you did, what would you do then?"
"I'm sure you can imagine." She wanted to turn her head away, but, without her bones, her muscles couldn't function.
His hand withdrew. Its sudden absence tugged at something inside of her. She struggled not to sob.
She hated this war.
She had thought she could do anything. She thought there would be no limits to what she would be willing to do to save Harry—to save everyone. That she would be able to bear with the consequences for long enough to reach the end.
Apparently Draco had become her limit.
She didn't know how to endure the war on her own anymore. The thought of watching the light fade from his eyes...
A ragged wail tore itself from her throat.
Suddenly Draco was over her, holding her in as much of an embrace as he could without injuring her. His face only a breath away from hers.
"Just live, Hermione." His voice was shaking. "That's all I am asking you to do for me."
Hermione gave a low sob. "I cannot promise that. You know I cannot promise that. And I cannot risk what you would do if I died."
He kissed her. His hands caressed her face, and his fingers tangled in her hair. She sobbed against his lips.
"I'm sorry..." she kept saying again and again as she kissed him. "I'm sorry I did this to you."
His lips were still against hers when he suddenly stiffened and hissed.
He wrenched himself away, gripping his left forearm until the knuckles of his right hand were white. "Fuck."
He stood up and stared down at her. "I'm being summoned."
She could see the calculation in his eyes. His jaw clenched, and he seemed to be wavering. An expression of despairing resignation flickered in his eyes.
"I can't delay. I have to go. Topsy!"
A house-elf popped into the room. Hermione started slightly and glanced around, realising that she was not in a hotel room.
"Am I—in Malfoy Manor?" Her voice shook with disbelief.
Draco gave a short nod, his expression brittle. "I had to bring you here. I can't summon healers to Muggle London." Draco grabbed a pile of robes. Hermione recognized them as his Death Eater uniform. He pulled them on rapidly. "I didn't expect to leave you here alone."
He leaned towards her, and his fingers ghosted along her wrist. "I swear, the wards won't let anyone onto the estate. You'll be safe. I'll come back."
His pupils were dilated as he stared down at her. She recognised the terror in his eyes.
"I'll come back. No one can come here. You'll be safe until I get back," he said again. "Topsy, take care of Granger."
Draco pulled his mask on and looked down at her for a split-second longer before he vanished from the room.
Hermione stared at the spot he'd disappeared from, trying to absorb the fact that she was lying paralysed, alone, in Malfoy Manor.
Hermione looked up at the ceiling and heard the house-elf, Topsy, fidget beside her. Hermione pressed her lips together for several seconds, trying to decide where to begin.
"Does Kreacher come here often?" Hermione finally asked, turning her eyes to look at Topsy.
Topsy stared back at Hermione with her enormous eyes and nodded. "Kreacher is coming most months to see the master. Kreacher serves the Noble House of Black. The master is being the last Black left."
"I see." Hermione was seething internally. "What does Kreacher do when he comes to see Draco?"
"He is telling the master about Granger and the Order of the Phoenix. And Kreacher is maintaining Mistress Malfoy and Mistress Lestrange's grave sites. That is how the master was finding that Kreacher serves the House of Black still."
Hermione looked back up that ceiling and licked her lips. "How long has Draco known that?'
"Topsy is not knowing, Topsy is thinking it was maybe for a year."
Hermione pressed her lips together as she reviewed the timeline of her interactions with Draco. "What kinds of things does Kreacher tell Draco about me and the Order of the Phoenix?"
Topsy shifted and her eyes dropped to the floor. "Topsy is not knowing. Master is mostly talking to Kreacher alone."
Hermione rolled her jaw. "How often does Draco come here?"
"He is not coming here so much. Topsy and the elves is doing their best, but he is not liking to be here. He is only coming to meet Death Eaters and visit Mistress Malfoy's grave."
There was a silence as Hermione struggled to decide what to ask next.
"Do—do you know what happened to the healers Draco brought here to heal me?"
Topsy was silent.
"Did he kill them?" Hermione's voice rose sharply.
"Topsy is not knowing."
Hermione let out a quick gasp and fell silent for several minutes.
"Is the Miss Granger wanting anything?" Topsy stepped closer and stared at Hermione. "Topsy can be bringing food, or tea, or broths, or whatever the miss is needing."
"No. I don't need anything except for my bones to finish growing so I can move." Hermione wanted to explode with rage. She was going to kill Kreacher.
How had the Order overlooked such a horrific vulnerability? If Kreacher was willing to kidnap her out of Grimmauld Place at Draco's request, what else could Draco have used him for?
She lay there while her mind raced. She managed to twitch her fingers slightly and experimented with how much she could move.
Draco returned after an hour. His apparition was silent, but Hermione saw him immediately.
She could turn her head a bit. She studied him, looking for any sign that he might be injured. His expression was tense, but there was nothing that indicated he was hurt or had been crucio'd.
They stared at each other in silence.
"What happened to the healers you called here?" Hermione finally said. Her voice was ice-cold.
Draco's eyes flickered briefly. "Obliviated."
"Really?"
"Two dead healers could raise questions," Draco said with a shrug.
"So you would have killed them, but you didn't because you decided it wasn't worth the inconvenience?"
Draco's eyes flashed. "Yes, Granger, for convenience which, as you know, I have so abundantly in my life with my two mutually exclusive masters."
Hermione felt the guilt catch in her throat. "I just—I don't want you to kill people because of me."
Draco gave a barking laugh and appeared amused as he stared down at her. "What exactly is it that you think I do with all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every spell. Because of you."
Hermione flinched and gave a low gasp as though she'd been struck.
Draco's vicious expression immediately vanished. "Granger, I didn't—"
Hermione jerked her head slightly and tensed her jaw. "No. Don't try to take it back. It's true. What you said is entirely true. Everything you do is on my head too. Every spell." Her voice wavered and faded.
"Don't." He sat on the edge of the bed and picked up her hand. "Don't carry it. It's not yours. Stop carrying this fucking war on your shoulders."
"It is, though. I did this to you." She squeezed his hand in hers. "Someone should regret it all. You don't have the time or space to hesitate. It makes more sense for me to carry it. Maybe if I do—you'll stop someday."
Draco stilled and his mouth twitched. Instead of responding, he drew his wand and cast the diagnostic spell she'd taught him. They both studied it. There were still at least two hours of regrowth left.
Hermione looked up from his wand and stared at him.
"I'm getting rid of Kreacher when I go back. Assuming Moody hasn't already killed him. You can have him, but he's never setting foot in Grimmauld Place again."
Draco's jaw clenched, and he glanced away from her without a word.
"How long have you been using him to spy on the Order?"
"I found him tending my mother's grave in April of last year."
"April," Hermione echoed. Then her eyes widened. "Is that why you hexed me? Because you read my notes?"
Draco said nothing in reply.
"I thought you did it because I healed you," she said after a minute.
"I know."
Her throat tightened. "Everytime I healed you after that, I thought—I thought you might hurt me again."
"I know." His voice was hollow.
There was a long silence. Hermione pressed her lips together and drew a slow breath, feeling as though she might choke on her grief.
"I don't know what to do. I can't ignore a threat to the Order."
Draco sighed and looked down. "I was just angry."
Hermione scoffed and jerked her chin. "You're always angry. You can't make threats like that. Especially not you. It was an accident. I was trying to heal Kingsley, and he apparated. I thought I'd take some of the injured back with me. My hands were full when I was cursed."
"You were still working." His voice was a carefully controlled. Clipped. She could hear the undercurrent of cold rage still in it.
"I wanted to," she said firmly. "Padma didn't know the spellwork to heal me. Pomfrey and she could have done it together, but Pomfrey was sick this week. Our other casualty healer never came. I think Padma panicked; I don't think she used an advanced diagnostic charm to verify the injury. I could have asked her to stun me, but I wanted to keep working, and if she had—well, I might have died then. Although, hopefully she would have put monitor wards on me. I'm going to have quite a bit to say about healing practice when I get back. It was a lot of factors. You can't reduce complex situations into a simplistic blame game. You can't hold the Resistance hostage to control me."
Draco gave a long sigh and stared across the room for a minute before he spoke. "If you die, Granger, I'm done. I won't continue this. I'm tired."
Hermione twisted her wrist enough to catch his hand. "Draco, don't—"
He looked down at her. His expression was closed, but she could see the whole war in his eyes. "I mean it. I won't kill them—but I will be done. You're my terms of service. The contract is void if you die."
She shook her head. "There is a life for you on the other side of the war; don't—don't reduce your world to me."
He quirked an eyebrow, and his upper lip curled. "Yours hardly seems larger. Or are there post-war plans you've forgotten to mention?"
Hermione swallowed and looked away. "Do as I say, not as I do."
Draco gave a low laugh, and they lapsed into a silence as empty as the future.
"You—you could become a healer," she said after a minute.
A smile ghosted in the corner of his mouth. "I hadn't considered that."
Hermione gave a faint smile. "You should. If you went somewhere else, you could be a very good healer—although your bedside manner could use improvement."
"It would be something to balance out that death toll of mine," he said without looking at her.
Her hold on his hand tightened. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It's not your fault."
His eyes flickered away. "Maybe once. I believe I own it now."
Hermione felt her stomach twist. "You are so much more than what the war has made you into." Her voice shook slightly.
He still didn't look at her.
"You are," she said, studying his face carefully. "Just like I am. There is more to both of us—it's just—just waiting to get out." Hermione traced her fingers along his. "Someday—someday—we'll leave all this behind. The two of us—I think we could."
His fingers entwined with hers tightened just a little.
She didn't know what else to say. She felt her eyes droop.
Draco brushed a hand against her cheek. "Sleep. You still have a few hours before you can move. Once the bones are regrown, there are restoratives I'm supposed to give you. You're not going anywhere for at least more twelve hours. I received precise instructions to ensure I'll know if you try to leave or apparate prematurely."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Twelve hours is excessive."
"It is the bare minimum, as you well know."
Hermione's mouth twitched and Draco snorted. "You are a manipulative little liar. Don't expect me to trust you."
Hermione's eyes slid shut, and she suddenly gripped his hand tighter. "Don't—leave me alone in this house."
"I won't."