She felt his mouth on the inside of her right breast.
Teeth.
She went rigid. Like being dunked into ice water, and suddenly the heat was gone.
She couldn't—
Sharp, cold little rocks.
She wanted it to stop.
She tried to breathe, but her lungs refused to expand. Just breathe, and it would go away.
Her throat closed. Her fingers twitched against Draco's shoulders.
She couldn't breathe. The memories were pouring over her in a rush.
“Just close your eyes.”
Better than Lucius. Better than Lucius.
She just wanted it to stop.
She tried to blink it all away, but it wouldn't go.
“Stop,” she forced the word out.
Draco froze instantly and started to draw back. She gave a dry sob and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, burying her face against his throat as she fought to breathe and willed her heart to stop pounding painfully in her chest.
Stop shaking. Stop shaking.
Draco sat immobile, not touching her. She couldn't even feel him breathing.
She drew several slow breaths and shakily lifted her head to look at him.
“I just—” her chest hitched, “It was too much for a moment. I think — I'll be better now that I know I can say stop. It was good.” Her fingers on him tightened. “It was good — until it wasn't…”
She swallowed hard.
Draco nodded. His pupils had contracted until his eyes looked like ice. His expression was tense and drawn as he looked at her.
He looked like something she could shatter in her hands.
If she ruined this, she might be destroying the last good thing he had.
She slipped her hand along the curve of his jaw and felt his pulse in the dip behind the bone as she pressed her forehead against his.
She wasn't going to cry, she told herself. She wasn't going to cry.
They just needed more time.
She went to library. She had avoided it, but the elves were limited in their ability to cross-reference for her when she didn't know all the potential resources there might be there.
Topsy fidgeted beside her as Hermione stood in the doorway, hesitating and trying not to look up.
“I want to start in the Dark Arts section,” she said.
“Which parts?”
“All of it. I want to see all the book titles.”
Hermione kept her eyes fastened on the floor or the shelves as she moved through the library. Focus on the books. Focus on the words.
She had to save Draco. It didn't matter if she couldn't see the ceiling. She just had to breathe.
Sometimes repeating the reminder to herself worked.
Other times it didn't.
She woke up, dazed, in her room and every muscle in her body was burning. Draco was sitting beside her, her hand in his.
She stared at him in bewilderment, trying to remember how she'd gotten there.
“You had a seizure in the library,” he said, expressionless. “You had a panic attack, Topsy couldn't calm you, and you had a seizure. A severe one, even with the interference of the anticonvulsant potion. I was in Austria.”
Hermione didn't say anything. Her throat felt as though she'd screamed it raw.
Draco stared out the window for a moment and then sighed. He began to massage the centre of her palm without looking at it, tapping his wand across the pressure points until the muscles relaxed and her fingers unfurled. “You don't get to have everything, Granger. There's a point when you have to realise you aren't going to get everything you want, and you have to choose and let it be enough for you.”
His hands stopped moving, and he just stared out the window for a minute. He swallowed slowly and turned to stare down at her. “The mind healer said if you have another seizure like that, you may cause irreversible brain damage to yourself and likely miscarry.”
Hermione pressed her lips together and pulled her hand away, curling into a tight ball around her stomach.
“I can't leave you behind,” she said, her voice thick.
She felt the bed shift, and Draco brushed her hair off her face, tucking a curl behind her ear as he leaned over her.
He gave a low sigh as his hand slipped down from her hair and rested on her shoulder. “You'll have other people to take care of. You promised Potter to take care of Ginny and James. You have a baby who needs you, and you know that.”
Her hand pressed against her stomach, and she gave a low sob. “I don't want to choose.” Her voice was rasping, and it hurt to speak. “I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I'm so tired of not getting to choose you.”
He squeezed her shoulder before his hand slid down to hers, and he began messaging away the rigid knots in it. “You're not choosing. You promised — anything I wanted, you promised that. Don't — don't break yourself trying to save me. I want that more than anything else. Get away from this fucked up world. Let me get you out, Granger. Let me know you're safe, away from all this. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That — is what I want.”
She clumsily pushed herself upright; her arms were not cooperative, but she forced herself up and gripped his hand. “Draco — I'm so close. Give me more time, and I'll find a way to remove your mark. I'm sure there's a way. Please — don't make me stop trying.”
Draco sat back and stared at her. His eyes flickered. “I've never known anyone as bad at keeping promises as you. You are — quite possibly — the worst promise-keeper I've ever met.”
Her throat tightened, but she pushed her chin up and met his stare. “I keep the ones that matter.”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “No. What you do is make conflicting promises and then pick and choose which ones to keep depending on what you want. I've devoted some thought to your methodology—” His voice was light. Then lightness vanished, and he glanced away. “That's why you never seem to keep any of the promises that I care about.”
Hermione looked down. “Draco—”
“Hermione.”
She looked up at him. He still used her name so rarely.
He stared at her, his expression serious and tired. “You care about this baby. She was all you cared about before your memories came back. Protecting her was all you thought about, every minute of the day. Now — you're so preoccupied with trying to save me that you're letting yourself forget that she needs you, that she's dependent on you. I can't protect her from you. Endangering yourself to try to save me is risking her.”
Hermione's jaw trembled, and she looked down. “I'm so close, Draco. I'm just missing one piece.”
Draco gave a sharp sigh. “Granger, if you miscarry, the Dark Lord will have you brought in to examine your mind.” His voice was flat and matter-of-fact, and she flinched at the words. “You promised — if it stressed you, you promised you'd stop. How many panic attacks are you up to since you started going into library by yourself?”
She ground her teeth together, setting her jaw. “It's so stupid. It's stupid that it won't go away. I'm so close — I'm almost sure I can figure it out, but the harder I try to put the pieces together, the worse it gets. But I'm so close — what if I wait and don't figure it out until it's too late?” Her chest started spasming, and she pressed her hand against her sternum.
Draco gripped her by the shoulders, his expression hard. “Let it go.” His teeth flashed as he spoke. “I was never supposed to be someone you tried to save.”
Hermione shook her head doggedly, “What am I supposed to do if you make me stop?”
Draco's lip curled as though he wanted to snarl at her. She didn't blink. His hands dropped away from her shoulders, and he gave an exasperated sigh.