“I'm sorry,” Hermione said, pulling her hand back and looking away. She pressed her fingers against her sternum. She felt as though there were a cold weight inside her chest, like the sensation of touching a corpse. There was a fresh and visceral sense of contamination inside her. But it felt — appropriate. There were certain things that were supposed to hurt. That needed to cost something.
When you tore your soul apart, you were supposed to feel it.
She looked at Draco; he was staring out the window, his expression closed. The silence was heavy. She kept waiting for him to look back. He didn't.
Hermione swallowed and glanced away. Her skin felt cold, and she wondered if it was a sign she should go.
“I am sorry that I didn't ask,” she finally said, shifting toward the edge of the bed. Her clothes were — somewhere.
She felt a hand close around her wrist.
“Good god, Granger, your friends have fucked you over. I'm not angry with you.” He pulled her back across the bed. His expression was hard as he dragged her back toward himself. “And if I were, I would get over it. But — you didn't tell me what you'd done. I thought I was dying. Then I thought I was going mad. It didn't occur to me until December that you'd permanently healed me. It wasn't something I anticipated. I'm still coming to terms with it. Do you really walk through life expecting everyone you save to punish you for it?”
Hermione flinched. “It's easier to anticipate it than to be caught by surprise.”
“Do not presume it with me.” His expression was hard as marble.
Hermione gave a tight defensive laugh and pulled away from him with a sharp jerk. “Why not? You do it better than anyone.”
Her mouth twisted as she stared at him. “After all, the first time I healed you, you came back the next week and hexed me again and again until I looked as though I'd been whipped. When I didn't want to curse you when you were injured, you threw Colin Creevey's death in my face. After you kissed me while you were drunk, you left and I didn't see you for nearly two months. After I healed you in December, you grabbed me by the throat and stared in my eyes as you reminded me that you'd made me a whore — just because you could. Then—,” her voice cracked, and her head dropped as she turned away from him, “—after I went and told the Order you'd agreed to take an Unbreakable Vow and begged them not to kill you, you told me you couldn't stand to look at me because being sworn to me was worse than being a Death Eater. That was four days ago. Why shouldn't I assume you won't eventually decide to punish me for this too? You always do.”
She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him and gave a low sob. “I'm not blind to the failures of my friends. But you have no room to claim your treatment of me has been superior in some way. You — you're all the same.”
Draco was silent.
“I'm sorry,” he finally said.
Hermione gave a low, mirthless laugh. “Yes, they all apologise at some point too. Harry — Harry was very apologetic yesterday after I went back to the safe house. Until he remembered that I used Dark Magic; then he was angry that I hadn't saved Ron some other way. I'm sure he'll apologise again next week.”
Draco drew a sharp breath. “I am sorry.”
Hermione just stared at the floor without responding.
“I never expected you — anyone like you,” Draco said after a minute. “I knew what you were doing, but you'd look me in the eye and do it anyway. When I'd feel it work, I'd do whatever I could to make you stop. From the moment you walked into my safe house, I expected you'd eventually be the one to sell me out; I expected you to know that. But instead you acted as though I were redeemable. You acted as if you were going to be owned by me for the rest of your life, and you were just determined to live with it if it saved your Order. I didn't realise they wouldn't tell you.”
Hermione bit her lip. “I think they must not have thought I'd play my part well enough — if I knew.”
She swallowed, her mouth twisting as she tried to tamp down on the overwhelming sense of hurt and betrayal she felt toward everyone she had done the most to protect.
“I thought there would be a point when I was cruel enough, and you'd stop. I assumed you'd have a limit. I figured that once I found it, you'd — you'd stop emotionally blindsiding me.” He gave a low sigh. “I spent a long time assuming you'd be the one who'd get me killed in the end. I didn't want the additional pain of caring that you had. I was trying to hurt you. But I am sorry.”
Hermione stared out the window at the Thames below.
“We're a fucked up pair,” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting. “I can't believe it ended up like this. I did want to kill you the first time I saw you. I assumed you'd rape me or at least force me to have sex with you and amuse yourself by hurting me, and then someday, I'd get to kill you. I was looking forward to it. But I always felt that you were only showing me a mask; someone you thought would be easy for me to hate. Maybe if I'd been less lonely, I would have believed it, but you reminded me of myself. I thought at first we were the reverse of each other. Now—,” she looked over at him and extended her hand, “—I think we're mostly the same.”
His eyes were dark as he interlaced his fingers with hers and pulled her slowly back toward himself; until she was in his arms, their bodies pressed against each other. He kissed her. He kissed her, and she kissed him.
Life was not cold.
He drew his head back and kissed her forehead, sliding his hands along her shoulders and caressing her throat in a way that had grown familiar. He kissed between her eyes. “You're a better person than I am.”
She lifted her hand up to catch his jaw in her palm. She felt as though she couldn't possibly touch him enough.
“I never had to go as far. Like you said, I still had space to be naive. Even though I knew some of what was happening, it didn't occur to me how far the Order would go. I knew Kingsley was manipulative, that he uses people's impulses to get the results he needs. But — I'm not a strategist; I don't know how to think of people that way in the long term. Even when I try to,”—she rested her head on his shoulder—“I don't know how to stay detached about it.”
He turned her face up toward his. “You keep people alive. You look at them, and you try to keep all of them alive. That is considerably more difficult than calculating all the ways you can use them or kill them. I imagine it costs you more too.”
The corner of her mouth quirked sadly, and she looked down. Draco rested his forehead against hers, and she closed her eyes. It felt as though their souls were touching.
She turned her head until his nose brushed against hers, and she tilted her chin up so that their lips met.
She wanted to spend the rest of her life lost in that moment.
She drew back reluctantly. “I have to go. I'm sure the Order is waiting for an explanation.”
Draco didn't let go. “You should eat.”
“I have to go,” Hermione said, shaking her head.
His fingers twitched as his hold tightened. “Take a shower. I'll order you something. Any preferences?”
“Draco,” she took hold of his wrist and firmly pulled his hand off of her. “You can't keep me here. I have to go.”
His expression flickered briefly. Just enough to reveal a shard of possessiveness and something ravenous and desperate that she couldn't quite place. Then it all vanished as he withdrew his hands and let her stand.