Someone who Draco had been in love with. That he would have walked to the ends of the earth to protect.
She didn't know if that person existed anymore. If he expected that version of herself to come back along with her memories.
She felt as though that Hermione had died along with all the rest of the Order of the Phoenix.
All that was left was a shadow.
It was late night and moonless when the air in her room shifted. She turned and stared carefully into the darkness, after a moment Draco emerged. He was wearing his Death Eater uniform. She could feel the Dark Magic almost dripping from him. The sight and sensation made her chest tighten.
His expression was intent. And cold.
“Are you angry at me about something?” she asked after several minutes.
He froze for a moment and then blinked. “No.”
He waved his wand, and a sconce on the wall emitted a soft yellow light. He tilted his head to the side until his neck cracked sharply and then pulled off his outer robes and hung them over the back of the chair. The body-armor strapped to his torso shimmered in the light.
Hermione studied him, trying to pinpoint what it was about him that was different. “You seem like you're angry at me. I feel like I know that you are, but — I can't remember why.”
He looked away from her, staring across the room. “It hardly matters. It's all in the past.”
His voice was familiar. Clipped.
“If the past doesn't matter, why did you look for me?”
He looked back at her. “Do you remember why you were captured?”
She nodded. “I blew up Sussex.”
“Do you remember why?”
She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to think of the answer without trying to reach her occluded memories. “It was because of you, wasn't it?”
He gave a short nod.
She closed her eyes. “When you'd sleep. I used to promise you I'd take care of you. That I'd always take care of you.”
He gave a low laugh; it was almost a scoff. “That's what I said, actually.”
The corner of her mouth quirked upwards, but the centre of her chest ached. “I always said it back to you. Maybe you just didn't know.”
She wanted to reach towards him, but when she opened her eyes, he'd turned away from her. He was staring at the portrait across the room.
He said nothing in reply.
“What's the plan?” she finally asked. “What's the strategy behind all this? Are you able to tell me now that I'm”—her tongue twisted as she forced out the next word—“pregnant?”
Draco shrugged and glanced around the room. “It's Severus' plan. When the Dark Lord realised he was several horcruxes short following the Final Battle, he handed a considerable amount of the political maneuvering over to Severus. He's been undermining and destabilizing the regime since the Order fell. The situation across the continent is precarious. The Dark Lord's poor health has caused him to break most of his promises and commitments made during the war to the dark beings and allied countries. He's barely maintaining his hold. MACUSA has begun pressuring the International Confederation, they're signaling their intention of stepping in if things in Europe continue to deteriorate. It's arranged now — the regime will collapse soon, and when it does, the International Confederation will step in to restore order.”
“You've found a way to defeat Voldemort?”
His mouth curved into a faint smirk. His eyes were pale silver as he stared at her and nodded. “We did. We're waiting for the ideal moment. It'll likely be after the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.”
There was a sense of certainty in his voice. Hermione felt herself brighten, as she tried to calculate how exactly they might go about it, reviewing everything she'd read in the papers, trying to guess.
“What—”
“You will be out of Europe before it starts,” he said in a hard voice, cutting her off. “You just need to be well enough to travel. So — eat. That would be more helpful than anything else.”
She shriveled internally with disappointment, but once he left, she furrowed her eyebrows and stared into the dark, trying to piece everything together; turning Draco over and over in her mind.
The next day the pain was worse; she couldn't bear having any light in the room. She couldn't keep anything down. Draco was gone again. She tried to be calm, but when Topsy wouldn't say when he'd come back or what he was doing, she started to panic.
If he never came back, she'd never get to talk to him again. Never touch him. There were things she needed to tell him, she just wasn't sure how to say them yet. What if he died? What if he got hurt and she couldn't heal him because she didn't have magic anymore?
She kept hyperventilating and had several small seizures. Topsy appeared instantly each time with a potion in hand.
After the sixth seizure, Hermione was in too much pain to do anything but lie limp in bed, barely conscious of anything but the grinding agony in her head. She lay curled on her side as the hours crawled past and wished she'd lose consciousness so she wouldn't have to feel it all.
The mattress dipped, and a cool hand brushed back the curls clinging to her feverish skin, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
A minute later her left hand was picked up, and long fingers entwined with hers. She felt Draco's thumb brush across her knuckles and slide over the ring she was still wearing.
Her jaw trembled, and her eyes burned even though they were closed. She squeezed his hand in hers as tightly as she could.
He didn't say anything, but he stayed as long as she was conscious. When she woke again, he was still there, sitting in the darkened room, holding her hand.
His fingers spasmed occasionally.
Over the next several days, the pain in her head gradually lessened; enough to be manageable. She started eating, sitting up in bed, reviewing her Pregnancy Guide and reading the Daily Prophet.
As the pain faded, her memory improved. The overarching space was still vague and indistinct, but certain moments would suddenly return to her in stunning clarity as though she were reliving them.
“You are not replaceable. You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I took that fucking Vow was to keep you alive. To keep you safe.”
As she recovered, Draco withdrew. At first she thought she was imagining it. As her recollection of him improved, she thought perhaps it was simply the contrast of their past that made him seem more distant. But as the days slipped by, she realised with a sinking heart that he was moving further and further away.
When she'd been nearly catatonic with pain, he'd sat beside her, smoothing her hair and holding her hands in his, trying to heal the tremors in her fingers. But as she grew more wakeful and started trying to talk to him, he touched her less. He moved further down the bed until he sat watching her from the foot of it. He stood by the window.
He clasped his hands behind his back when she spoke to him. He gave short answers when she asked him questions.
He was still there, but further and further away. When she looked up and found him watching her, he looked away, his expression resigned. And bitter.
She didn't know where to begin.
She tried to remember how she'd been before. She'd memorised him, but not herself. Did she speak differently before? She didn't quite remember what that person had been like.
She'd been talkative. People had always told her she talked too much.
She couldn't think of anything to say that she thought she could talk about. What could she say about anything?
Was she supposed to tell him what kinds of flowers bloomed on the estate? Or about how to build a card tower? Or ask him if he knew how to fold an origami crane because she couldn't remember anymore?