Hermione's P.O.V (the next morning)
I slowly came around in the morning. My mind flooded with memories from last night. I quickly realized Draco was beside me with his arms around my waist.
I squirmed out of his arms and rushed to the bathroom. I knew I was panicking. I shut the door as softly as I could.
I stood in front of the mirror and gripped the sharp edges of the sink. I couldn't breathe right.
I can't believe Draco did that to me.
I hadn't realized how loud my gasps for air were until I felt a hand run up my back. I tensed.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," Draco murmured.
"Why did you do it then?" I managed to choke between gasps.
"I want you to get better," he stated.
"You're making it worse," I snapped, still trying to breathe right.
"Why did you panic last night?"
"You wouldn't understand," I replied, able to breathe a bit more now.
"Make me understand, Hermione. Why did you panic?"
I turned around and looked at him. His hair was messed up, his eyes tired. He looked stressed.
"I can't talk about it," I whispered.
"Then let me see," he said suddenly.
"What?"
He grabbed my arm and led me to the bed.
"I'm a Legilimens. If you will let me, I'd like to see your memories. You won't have to tell me, but you will relive it for a few moments," he explained, sitting beside me.
"I - I don't think - I don't know if - "
"Please, it will be really fast," he pleaded. "I promise."
I was terrified. I didn't want him to, but I needed him to know, to understand.
"I - I'll panic... it will be really bad," I whispered.
"I'll understand, and I'll help you," he said firmly.
I decided I didn't really have any other options.
"Make it fast?" I whispered.
"I can make it less than a minute."
I nodded, grabbed his hand, and closed my eyes.
"Legilimens."
Draco's P.O.V
I was instantly sickened by what I saw in her memories. Every time she was forced to drink the sleeping drought, she woke in a green room, completely bare next to Ronald. Sometimes she woke on the middle of his evil acts.
When I pulled out of the memory, Hermione was trying as hard as she could to keep the panic at bay.
I pulled her on my lap and hugged her.
"Shh, it's okay now. I'm here," I muttered softly.
The panic attack was one of her worst ever. She would get her breath back for a few seconds, then lose it all over again. It was close to an hour later when she was able to breathe. She pulled back slowly, but didn't look at my eyes.
"I - I - "
A hiccup cut her off. Tears were already pouring down her cheeks.
"I'm s - sorry," she whimpered.
"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.
“Why?” She asked, her voice a bit higher than usual.
“You've got that curse on your nightmares. I don't want to wake up with you being tortured all the time,” I replied simply.
She nodded, her body still tense. I leaned over and pulled her closer.
“You can trust me, Hermione,” I whispered.
She barely nodded.
“Draco?”
“Hermione?”
“If I - if I don't want to take the sleeping drought, can you - can you make me take it anyway; I want to get better?” She asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
"Just... if I don't want to... just let me have a minute... please... last night was bad."
"Of course."
She was really quiet after that. I was curious as to how much she would trust me.
“Hey Hermione?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“Can I try something?”
“Depends,” she replied, pulling back.
“It's nothing bad, I just want to make sure I won't scare you,” I stated.
“If it's nothing bad, then I don't see why not,” she agreed.
“Sit still,” I ordered.
She froze so I put a hand on the back of her neck and pecked her lips with mine. I pulled back and watched her expression closely. She smiled a bit.
“That was… random,” she grinned.
“Shush, I'm not done yet,” I muttered, pulling my face to hers again.
Just before I touched her lips I whispered, "If I go too far. You tell me to stop, and I will stop."
She looked at me funny for a minute before I pressed my lips to hers.
This kiss wasn't just a peck. I kissed her gently and waited for a reaction. It was three and a half seconds before she responded. She barely kissed back.
I wanted to test the level of trust she had. I pushed her back on the bed and put my legs on either side of her. She tensed up, but didn't push me away yet. I started to kiss down her neck, so she started to panic a bit.
"D - Draco... stop," she gasped.
I pecked her lips one more time before I got off her. She looked shocked.
"Y - you actually moved?" She asked.
"Of course, I told you I would stop if you told me to," I stated, smirking a little at her shock.
“What was that for though. What's the point?"
“Just checking to make sure you trusted me enough to stop if you wanted me to stop,” I replied.
She nodded and leaned on my shoulder.
“Now what?” She asked.
“Theo’s coming over in an hour for a check up, so finish your food then you might want to shower,” I told her.
“He’s coming over?” She asked, “When did you make plans, I've been with you the whole time?”
“When you were in the shower last time Theo was here,” I replied.
I froze, remembering the last time he was here. I quickly snapped myself out of it and watched Hermione starting to eat.
She stood up and bounded to the bathroom the moment she finished the food.
“Hermione,” I called.
“Yeah?”
“How's your leg?”
“It's fine now, mostly healed,” she replied with a small smile.
She went into the bathroom and shut the door.
~ * ~ * ~
"Draco!" Hermione croaked, "I'm gonna be s-"
Before she could finish she started vomiting. I rushed to the bathroom to see her hunched over the toilet. I quickly held her hair back as she was sick.
Hermione started crying as she vomited.
"Shh, it's okay. You're okay," I muttered quietly, rubbing her back.
"Draco, I - "
Theo froze in the doorway. I waved him off. He went into the bedroom.
The second Hermione finished, she started muttering apologies.
"Draco I - I'm sorry. I knew it was too much food, but you told me to eat it, so I didn't want to tell you it was too much because I was afraid and -"
"Hermione, calm down," I cut her off. "I'm sorry I had you eat that much. It just makes me worry that you aren't eating. That wasn't that much food, Hermione."
I drew my wand, ignoring how she flinched, and cleaned her up. I gently pulled her to her feet.
Her legs shook when she tried to stand. The pale shade of her skin worried me.
"Hey guys," Theo greeted us.
~ * ~ * ~
Theo had been prodding at Hermione's back for ten minutes now. Hermione was getting really annoyed and kept wincing.
“Does this hurt?” He asked, poking another spot on her side with his wand.
“No,” Hermione replied for the millionth time as she winced.
Theo sighed.
“Granger, your body tenses every time I touch you. You're obviously in pain, but I can't help if you don't tell me where it hurts,” he stated.
"Everything hurts! Every single little part of my body hurts constantly. I was hurt constantly, and the spells they used made them keep hurting. Just... do what you can with that please," she told him.
My heart ached at the thought of it. She was hurt so often she didn't even know she was hurt.
Theo started to try and find any spots of internal bleeding and healed the minor stuff I never got to. He did a full on checkup asking questions about her eating, measuring her height and weight, and measuring her waist.
He seemed to get more and more concerned as he went. Eventually, he had her drinking tons of potions for certain things she had.
“Draco, can I talk to you for a moment?” He asked.
I nodded and we stepped into the bathroom. He put up a silencing charm so Hermione couldn't hear us.
“Draco, you were telling me you were worried about how thin she was?” Theo asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, the waist and the bottom of the rib cage are suppost to be the same measurements around at the very least. Even if it was even, she would be underweight. Hermione's ribs were 26 inches around, which is small all on its own, and her waist was 24 inches around. That's a two inch difference. That with her only wanting one meal every few days… I think she's anorexic,” he told me.
“I knew there was something wrong! She wouldn't say anything was wrong but she never eats! How do I get her better?”
“That's the hard part. You need to get her to eat at least twice a day until her stomach starts to tell her she's hungry,” he replied.
I nodded.
“Any onther problems at all?”
“That curse on her sleep you were talking about, it can't just go away with a spell. Hermione would have to overcome her anxiety and get over the nightmares for them to go away,” he told me.
“Thanks for all this, I owe you one,” I stated.
“Mate, I owe you my life,” Theo corrected.
He held out his left wrist, which was still bare.
"You saved me from having to get the mark. I owe you everything."
I sighed and opened the door. Hermione was playing with her hair on the bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sitting by her.
“I'm tying to remember how to braid,” she muttered, tugging on one peice of hair.
“No, it's like this,” I muttered, taking the hair from her hands.
She watched as I weaved the hair through itself.
“Do you mind if I stick around for a bit?” Theo asked, plopping down beside me.
“Not at all,” I replied. “I have a couple bottles of firewhisky in the cupboard.”
He went over and pulled out the bottles. I let Hermione try and braid her hair. Theo passed around the bottles so we all started drinking.
It was a while before Hermione started dozing on my shoulder. Neither me nor Theo were drunk but Hermione was. I summoned a sleeping drought from the cupboard.
“Hermione, drink this,” I ordered.
She tiredly took the potion and downed it. She passed out on my shoulder. I laid Hermione in bed and covered her up.