“Slightly,” he said, after a beat.
With a wave of her wand, she carefully drew out and banished the murtlap and dittany, and then administered a very gentle cleansing charm over all the cuts.
Draco jerked and dropped his head down against the back of the chair.
“Fuck, Granger!” he snarled, his knuckles white where he was gripping the chair.
“It's done now,” she said after another moment. “I'm sorry. I had to. Wizarding folk may be immune to most infections but there's no knowing what else that knife had been used for. Or exactly what properties Nagini's venom has; it may neutralise your natural immunity.”
“A bit of warning next time, please,” he said, his voice shaking slightly.
“Sorry. Most people prefer not to know. Bracing for it can make it worse.”
“I'd prefer to know.”
She stared at the runes. A cold sinking sensation came over her. The tendrils of dark Magic were already beginning to creep out from the runes again. She had been too late. The runes would continue to poison him.
She lay a hesitant hand on Draco's arm. “This — is going to hurt again. Do you — want me to stun you?”
He glanced back at her, and studied her face. Something in his eyes flashed for a moment, and his expression hardened.
“Is there really any point?” he said.
Hermione flinched and she dropped her eyes. “Let me try,” she said quietly.
Draco stared at her for another minute before he snorted faintly and shook his head in disbelief as he looked away.
“Fine. One more try,” he said in a resigned voice before resting his head on the back of the chair.
Hermione stunned him again.
It only took her a few minutes to remove all the traces of dark magic. Then she cast several diagnostic charms, trying to break down the layers of the ritual and find something she could deconstruct and nullify.
The ritual was set.
She was too late.
She traced her fingers over his back as she wondered what to do.
He had to know. She was almost certain he knew the runes were going to kill him eventually.
A gradual death sentence for his aid to the Order. Whatever he wanted by aiding them couldn't be a long term ambition. With the price he'd paid, she doubted he was planning to usurp Voldemort. If he did, it would be a short reign.
The Order needed him. The first Wizarding war had lasted eleven years. When she told Moody what had been done to Draco and said she had offered to heal him he told her to do what she could.
If Hermione couldn't find a way to stall the erosion, they would be extremely lucky to have Draco last that long. If he did, he'd barely be reliable at that point.
Hermione reached up and ran a fingertip along the chain around her neck for several minutes before pulling the amulet out from under her shirt.
She stared at the sun-disk. Then she unclasped the chain and slid the amulet off. She pressed the tip of her wand against it and reversed the series of protective wards and charms it carried before placing it on the floor. She stomped sharply on the amulet and felt it break under her heel. When she removed her foot, a small white stone lay amid the crushed red glass and twisted metal.
She didn't touch it. With a flick of her wand she levitated the stone so that it hovered in the air. She could feel the magic emanating from it. It made the air hum. She reached over and pulled Draco back into her arms, trying not to put any pressure on the runes.
Then she floated the stone over and lowered it to the left side of his chest, against his bare skin.
It started glowing, brighter and brighter, until she had to squint. Then she watched as the light slowly sank into his skin and faded away.
Hermione stared, wondering if anything else would happen; if there would be any immediately noticeable effects. There wasn't an abundance of information about how to process worked.
She performed a diagnostic and inspected it, Draco was sleep deprived and living on a high dose of top quality pain relief; he had muscle damage from the cruciatus, and the runes were still an unintelligible, mangled concentration of wounds and poison and ritual curse. The diagnostic charm did not indicate anything else. Which was normal — she thought — that was how it was supposed to work.
After a minute, when nothing else occurred, she carefully leaned Draco forward in the chair again.
She reapplied the salve she'd made, pressing it in as lightly as she could before replacing the containment enchantment and all the protective spells.
Then she slipped the remnants of the amulet into her pocket and rennervated Draco.
He lifted his head sharply and stood. Hermione gently pulled his shirt back up over his shoulders. He stared down at her as she buttoned his shirt and then straightened the fabric before staring up at him. He had a tired expression on his face as he stared down at her.
She impulsively reached up and touched him on the cheek. She felt his jaw twitch faintly under her hand as she studied his expression. She thought his skin felt a little less cold.
His eyes glittered, and the corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn't pull her hand away.
“I have to go,” she said, “I'll see you tomorrow night.”
Draco didn't say anything as she left the shack and apparated away.
The next night, there was no poison or dark magic bleeding out from the runes. Hermione said nothing as she quietly removed the salve, cleansed the incisions, replaced the salve, and then carefully recast all the spells.
Draco was more silent each night. He'd tense and gasp slightly in pain as Hermione cleaned the wounds, but he rarely said anything unless Hermione asked him a question.
“Is it going to be suspicious — that someone is healing you?” she abruptly asked after several days.
Draco froze for a moment and then laughed faintly. “Did that just occur to you now?”
Hermione flushed. “It's not usually a concern.”
He shook his head. “There are no orders restricting me from getting them treated. If you somehow manage it, it will hardly be the first time I've succeeded at something against improbable odds.” His lip curled faintly. “So by all means, continue poking at them with your wand.”
Hermione continued without another word.
She discovered, to her faint offense, how rarely anyone paid attention to her comings and goings. She didn't even need to offer any excuses for leaving Grimmauld Place every night.
Harry, Ron and Ginny had gone to investigate a lead on horcruxes. Hermione had realised that several artifacts of the Hogwarts founders had gone missing during Voldemort's lifetime and so the Order had assigned Harry to try hunting them. Hermione suspected that Kingsley and Moody had very little hope that Harry would find anything; she thought it was likely just a way to keep Harry from insisting upon fighting in every single skirmish.
With the intelligence Draco provided, Moody and Kingsley had begun approving more risky and ambitious attacks. The decisions were partly because of the opportunities that Draco had afforded the Order, but primarily because the situation was dire enough that Order had to either begin taking risks with long odds or conceding that they couldn't win the war.
Despite the success of the Order's attack, it had also set them back severely.
They had hundred of new fighters to feed and house, and at the same time their resources in Europe were steadily drying up as Voldemort's hold grew stronger. The French Resistance had all but vanished. They had received word that Hagrid and Olympe Maxime had been captured and executed shortly after the prison attack. All of Eastern Europe was firmly under Death Eater control, while the Northern European countries were so occupied with keeping Voldemort's encroaching forces at bay that they had little support they could offer.