Draco seemed to lean harder against the cabinet then, as if he was physically leaning into her words. She watched him, scanning his face for any emotion that might have come into expression. His face was questioning; eyebrows lowered and gray eyes narrowed so slightly that it was hardly noticeable.
"Only sometimes." She told him, rather quietly. She'd intended to lie and turn it on him, but truth came dripping from her mouth like a leaking faucet. "It's usually not so bad. But ever since spending so much time in here, I've turned away from my friends. Feels like usually we share the scary moments between us. But when there is no one to remember them with, they tend to come out in my dreams."
He didn't move a muscle. He looked frozen beneath her words, with the exception of the orange shadow of flame from the nearby torch light that danced over the left side of his face.
"Do you? Have nightmares?" Hermione kept her eyes wide, open, accepting– whatever she could do to seem welcoming, she wore it on her face.
Draco stayed silent until the air between them grew stale, urging Hermione to lean closer. She noticed Draco's gaze flicker down to her lips, then arrive back at her eyes. She tilted her head so that the corner of her forehead rested on the wood.
Then Draco's chin bowed. He nodded his head in a slow, reluctant way. His masked expression stayed emotionless and unknown to her.
Hermione felt like crying then, for some reason. She tried to avert her eyes, turning so that the back of her head rested against the cabinet and she could press her cold fingers against her eyes.
Having sex with Draco was the closest she'd felt to anyone in so long, and yet she couldn't even work up the bravery to talk about her dreams with him.
"Gryffindor–" he began, but didn't finish his advance.
Don't be stupid.
She pulled paling hands away from her eyes and blinked for a quiet minute before she was able to turn back towards Draco.
"What do you have nightmares about?" He asked. He'd waited for her to be ready for the next blow, she thought. Even though his face was still stern, his eyes were considering and calm.
"Different things on different nights. And you?"
"Different things on different nights." He returned her quietness as he returned the phrase. The pressure on Hermione chest lessened. Or maybe it was the need to keep such a thick wall between them flickering.
Draco pushed himself away from the cabinet, fidgeting with his hands before stepping back into the pathway behind him. He seemed to hesitate there for a moment, waiting for her. She caught onto his motion and stepped out from behind the cabinet, placing herself next to him.
"What is it you dream about most?" He asked as he moved to place both hands in his front pockets. As he did, Hermione noticed the dark-red notches that lined his palms. Then he pushed his hands into the fabric of his pockets and stepped forwards.
She thought for a moment, matching the pace of his steps to stay right at his side.
"I'm not sure...." She was nervous to tell him anything. How much of herself was safe to reveal?
She thought about the Department of Mysteries.
It had terrified her ever since. The other morning, before catching Draco walking on the second floor, she'd woken up because of it and been too scared to fall back to sleep.
She felt the burn of tears behind her nose again. Now, she thought of Draco's father– wild and deadly. Bile threatened to rise up against her throat. One of her greatest nightmares was likely one of Draco's most poisoned thoughts too.
It was the night Lucius' arrest. He'd been in Azkaban ever since.
She sucked in a sharp breath and found that she couldn't walk any further.
It was like unlocking a memory she'd forgotten about. Finally thinking about it in a waking moment. She pressed her hand against her mouth. She spun to face the other way in hopes that he wouldn't see and pressed another hand into the center of her chest, like she could feel Dolohov's curse ripping her skin open all over again.
Draco turned in an instant, the second he'd noticed that she had disappeared from his side.
"Gryffindor." He didn't touch her, but Hermione could feel his presence directly behind her just a second later, his hands hovering inches away from her shoulders as if he expected her to fall.
She made a muffled, tearful sound. It was then, when he'd said her name– his specific name for her, that she cried.
"Oh– I'm so cruel–" she held in a sob. Behind closed eyelids she saw Lucius' snarl and felt Dolovhov grip at her neck as if it had happened just yesterday. She'd talked about it with Ginny before, but since Ginny's fascination with Dean and Hermione's obsession with the Room, it had been a long time since she'd spoken of it.
Draco. Lucius. Draco.
Ron and Harry would never forgive her. Draco would never forgive her for sending his father to prison. She'd fucked him and he was going to hate her. Everyone was going to hate her.
"I haven't even thought– I didn't even–" She felt like choking. Hermione recognized the feeling. Weakness or dizziness. Chest pain. Tingling or numb hands. Pounding or racing heart. Panic attacks were a muggle diagnoses. Draco likely thought she was crazy.
"I'm sorry... Just–" She wanted to run away from him, to get far enough away that she could scream without him hearing. But her vision had blurred with her tears and she wasn't sure he legs would carry her anywhere.
"Granger. Granger. Hush... Granger, what can I do?" His hands were on her shoulders now, burning her down to the bone. He turned her to face him, slowly, and she kept her hands pressed into her face to shelter herself.
"I– I can't say it–"
"Granger, you're a smart girl. Tell me what you need. Let me help. Have a breath and tell me what to do."
She didn't feel smart. She felt horrible. Felt like a liar. A hypocrite.
"I don't know– I don't– I can't–"
"Alright." He interrupted her breath ridden rambling to pull her into his chest. Her hands were still covering her face as he tucked her between his arms and pressed her into his gray jumper. One of his large hands pressed between her shoulders. The other tentatively moved up to her head, flattening her hair against her crown before holding her by the back of the head.
She took a shuttering breath and filled her senses with his smell.
"I'm so sorry, Draco–" she hiccuped against him. "I'm such a dumb girl. I–I feel so embarrassed."
"Hush, Gryffindor.... It can wait. Everything can wait."
They stood like that, frozen to each other, for as long as it took for Hermione to calm herself. At some point, she pried her hands away from her face and wound them into the fabric of Draco's gray jumper on his back.
"I'm sorry." She repeated softly, muffled by sweater and shirt. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" His hand smoothed her hair again.
"I've never felt so inconsiderate.... I don't even have the words to tell you how sorry I am. I've been reliving this night– having night terrors over this one night. At the Department of Mysteries. And it's only just occurred to me that I likely saw your father more recently than you."
He made a small noise then, almost riddled with surprise, but more one of confirmation. "You were there. There were rumors amongst the other students that you were there. I never thought anything of it."
"I'm sorry–" she couldn't seem to get that phrase out of her mouth.
"Don't. Don't pity me. Don't tell me that's what you were in hysterics about. I don't care for your pity."
She couldn't find a worthy response. She only felt worse. His hands made their way to her shoulders, gently turning her body away from his. When she faced out into the Room, he drew his arms across her torso and pulled her back against his chest.
"Go on." He said, one side of his jaw carefully resting against the top of her head. "What happens in your nightmare?"
"It starts accurately.... We're looking at these prophecies, huge rows and shelves full of them. I'm scanning a row when the air in the room changes and I can practically feel it turn hot with rage and Dark Magic. Your dad was there, wearing that mask. A Death Eaters mask. When he took it off–" she tried not to cry again. "I thought he resembled you so much. Just hours before– it was you and your friends who'd trapped us in Umbridge's office. But your father.... In my nightmare I can still feel the viciousness in the way he cast hexes. Like he intended to kill without any cost."
She felt her hands tighten against his bicep.
"I know you might not believe me. I know they didn't include any of it in the news that the ministry released. But we'd hardly gotten away– bloodied and scrambling through chamber after chamber.... Dolohov followed us into the Time Chamber. And I tried to fight him off, but he was able to slash me. I've never known any spell like it. Like a purple flamed whip. Razors on my skin.... Some crazed physical form of the Cruciatus... Dumbledore said it would have killed me if he'd been able to speak."
"If he'd been able to speak?"
"I sealed his lips shut. It was my best idea to keep him from telling the other Death Eaters. To make him shut up. The foul things he said about me...." She closed her eyes and tried not to hear Dolovoh's gruff and assaulting tone. He breath caught as she shook her head. "The things he'd threatened to do to me– worse than death."
There was another moment plagued by their shaking breathing. His arms grew fractionally tighter around her.
"My father?" Draco asked, tentatively. Hermione couldn't tell which one of them was trembling.
"I didn't see him again. I didn't see much of anything after that. Paralyzed and blinded by pain from the curse.... I came to the next night. Back at school here. I made Harry and Neville and Fred write everything down so that I could read it when the headaches subsided. They said that your father had followed them into the Death Chamber and dueled fiercely–"
Draco made a noise of agreement then, and Hermione looked up at him with sorrowfilled eyes.
"My aunt, Bellatrix, has told me of it. That's where the Veil is, isn't it? She said it was one of the Darkest places she's ever been."
Hermione nodded, trying to swallow away that shake that hadn't left her hands.
"The ministry has it closed off for the toll that it takes on a soul.... Dark Magic like that is sticky. Harry said he felt it for weeks."
"Like the Darkness in Dolohov's curse. That's what makes your nightmares so intense." Draco's voice was hushed and his thumb was drawing clam, comforting swipes across the back of her hand.
"I think I've been realizing that.... I think I can feel it sometimes. Just beneath my skin. The scar faded entirely, but I swear– sometimes I can literally feel it still inside of me.... In the nightmares, sometimes I'm able to get up again and make it to the Death Chamber. When I get there, I fight and fight, but in the end the Death Eater's kill everyone. Always. Horrifically. No hesitation."
"My father?" Draco asked again, like he already knew the answer. It was as if he had looked inside her mind and seen the very brick that laid heavy in her chest.
"Always the executioner.... But– he looks nothing like you when he kills me. He takes off his mask before he does it...." Hermione shook her head as she tried to tell him. "He looks crazed with the Darkness, like it's finally eaten through his conscience."
"My father knows no conscience, Gryffindor. I'd consider us lucky that he didn't murder you the moment he had the chance.... Dolohov, too. They know nothing but violence and selfishness and destruction. It's–"
Hermione's breath hitched in her throat, just when her eyes had begun drying out. She felt her grip tighten around his arm, sinking against him as the last of her energy came out in a shallow sob.
Draco's entire body tensed behind her. His hands were on her arms again, pushing and pulling her around until she was facing him once more. Hermione looked up at him through thick, damp eyelashes. Her lip trembled as he tried to read the concern in his face. She would have hid behind her hands if Draco didn't have them pinned the her side.
There was a deep notch of worry between his brows. His gray eyes danced with silver and unease, darting sporadically across her features. She sniffled and held back cries as he squeezed her arms.
"Gryffindor– please. You're alright."
She was shaking her head harder now. Didn't he understand? It wasn't herself that she was so worried about. She couldn't seem to keep her panic at bay.
"I'm so scared for you, Draco–" there was hardly any point in keeping it a secret now. There were burning tears streaking down each side of her face.
She saw his expression harden slightly, but the crease between his brows didn't lift. His hand was cold against her cheek, nearly freezing in contrast to the heat in her skin.
"I'm alright, Gryffindor. It's fine–"
"No, it's not fine. It will never be fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm such an idiot."
Both of his large hands took hold of her face and held her firmly.
"Hermione. Enough. I won't watch you torture yourself. That's enough."
She place her hands on top of Draco's, holding her own face, and closed her eyes. He was right, of course. Her outburst had been childish and absurd. There was no palpable reason for her to tell Draco anything, let alone her feelings. Maybe that's why it had all spilt out so easily– because she knew that he would be unsympathetic and tell her to regain herself.
He'd grounded her without even trying. Comforted her without saying a single kind thing. The allure that was Draco Malfoy was making less and less sense.
She tried to nod between his hands. "Tell me something. Tell me anything."
"What do you want to know?"
"Just tell me something truthful– I don't care."
He thought for a long moment. His hands drifted away from her face, returning to himself. The loss of contact was brutal and chilled; Hermione had to fight the urge to shiver.
"You were right, earlier. You said that you'd likely seen my father last. They didn't let me see him before taking him away. An Auror came to the school to escort me to the Ministry the next morning for questioning. One of our elves was given permission to come back to Hogwarts to retrieve my things. Then they sent me home for the Summer Holiday, nearly two weeks early."
"Why?"
"They didn't tell me anything. Kept saying it was for my protection, but I think anyone could have seen how misguided that was. I assume it's truly because Dumbledore and the other professors weren't sure whether they should have be back. I didn't find out until the end of summer that I'd be allowed to sleep in my old school bed again. I wasn't expecting to come back after that."
"But why? It isn't as if you'd done something wrong."
He sucked in a deep breath. When Hermione was sure he looked as if he too might shed a tear, his face hardened.
"Conversation for another time, Gryffindor. It's not worth your trouble."
"I didn't know."
"How could you? It was tightly kept. Conspiracy and all, not even the other Slytherin's knew. I've been... rather removed since then."
"None of your friends wrote after you just disappeared?" She thought it might be best for her to turn away from him in an attempt to hide her concern. She faced the other side of the Room and, as if it were second nature, leant her back against his torso anew. He was like stone behind her.
"I don't suppose any of them really had to. They knew about my father the moment the papers came out and made their assumptions." It took Draco a long time to bring his hands back to her shoulders and gently lace in front of her chest. Foreign yet comforting. "There is an expectation in a family as old as mine. All of the Slytherin's know this."
Hermione noticed how he didn't reference them as friends. She took into account that it had taken verging a hysteric breakdown for Draco to share something personal about his life with her. To be gentle and honest. And still, he was carefully pointed with all of his words. She was suddenly painfully aware that she'd never know anything that he didn't explicitly chose for her to know. He was so secretly evasive, he'd walk her only to the conclusions that he wanted her to make.
It made her feel more discouraged than before. She slumped further against him, somewhat pitiful and entirely exhausted.
"What kind of expectations?"
It wouldn't hurt to try.
"I'm sure you can imagine."
She'd reached his turning point now. He was finished amusing her. Hermione bit the inside of her lip. She was wildly desperate for more. She needed to know him just as much as she needed to breath.
"I can't.... I wish I could, but I can't." She sighed and let her head fall back against his collar bone. "I think Muggle familial obligations are much different than yours."
She heard Draco take a deep breath and felt his chest rise beneath her. She followed his lead, still trying to calm her racing heart. She was sure her eyes were puffy and her whole face was reddened, but she could smell him and feel his hands around her and had regained the feeling in her fingertips. He smelt of pine and clean shampoo, even slightly like vanilla and amber.
"Would you do anything for your parents, Gryffindor?"
"Yes."
"Even if...." He cut himself short, like he'd almost let his guard slip. "Even if you didn't always believe in them?"
"I think so."
"So would I."
"I'm sorry, Draco."
"So am I. Sorry for everything."