Her jaw trembled.
“Hermione…”
She looked back at Draco.
His expression was devastated as he watched her. He started to reach for her but then stopped and withdrew his hand. “Will you eat?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. His eyes flickered, but he looked unsurprised.
He stood up, glancing away from her. “I'll send Dreamless Sleep. My father is expecting me to go to dinner tonight. Let Topsy know if you need anything.”
That was all he said before he left.
She should research more. It was what she should do.
She didn't move.
Topsy appeared with a vial of Dreamless Sleep which she placed beside Hermione without a word.
Hermione was still sitting in the corner beside the bed when the clock down the hall struck midnight and Draco appeared silently in the room.
“You're still awake.”
“I wanted to know when you came back.” She stood up.
She stepped closer and buried her face in his robes. It was barely more than a week until the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.
He rested a tentative hand on her head.
She looked up at him, watching the way his silver eyes shone in the dim light.
She forced herself to manage a wan smile. “Come to bed. It's cold without you.”
“Severus is expected to arrive within the next six days,” Draco said while they were wandering through the hedge maze.
Hermione felt her stomach drop. “Oh.”
She didn't know what to say. She walked blindly until she hit a dead end and then stood staring at the wall of yew, swallowing and trying to think of something to say.
She finally turned and looked at Draco, standing behind her.
“Can I go to the library one more time? Just once. I just want to look one more time.”
Draco stared at her for a moment and nodded. “My father is gone for the day. I'll take you.”
She felt his eyes on her as she wandered from aisle to aisle, as though there was a weight to his gaze.
She glanced over at him as she was pulling an encyclopedia of fifteenth-century arithmancy formulas down from the shelf, and her fingers wavered against the spine as she caught sight of his expression.
Wistful.
To him, she was stealing time from them. If she didn't find anything, it was all just wasted. All that time she could have had with him.
Her jaw trembled. She looked down and bit her lip as she slipped the encyclopedia off the shelf, as well as the four books beside it, adding them to a stack.
“These too.”
“I found what I was missing to remove your Dark Mark,” Hermione said when Draco walked through the door to her room after lunch the next day. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, empty-handed, her meal untouched.
He stopped at the door. “Oh?”
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she looked down at her hands.
“I figured it out with arithmancy. I even had Topsy write down all the numbers for me — to make sure I'd calculated it right.” Her voice was empty. She looked down, and her jaw trembled before she forced herself to look at Draco. “Phoenix tears. I'd be able to remove it if I had a vial Phoenix tears.”
She might as well have said she needed the moon.
Draco stood staring at her for a minute before he blinked.
Phoenixes rarely cried. When they did, it was always over an injury, not into a vial so that the tears could be saved or used in a potion. Trying to buy Phoenix tears would cost a fortune, and the buyer would be more likely to end up with watered down unicorn blood. It could take years to manage to track down a seller with actual Phoenix tears.
She swallowed and fidgeted, rolling the fabric of her robes between her fingers. “Maybe — if I start over, I can find something. I might have just come at it from the wrong angle...”
She twitched and her shoulder jerked.
“Or — a bomb. I could build a bomb — like the ones I used at Sussex.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and gnawed at it. “I think — I mostly remember how. If you bring me an analysis of the wards on Voldemort's castle, I might be able to design a bomb for them. We could blow it up.”
Draco's expression was closed, but his gaze was enragingly patient as he walked over to her. “Can you build a bomb without magic?”
Hermione swallowed, and her mouth twisted. “N-no... But — I could tell you how—”
“Can you safely handle the materials while pregnant?”
Her jaw trembled, and she realized that this was an idea he'd likely already considered and discarded at some previous point.
“No. But you could place wards around me, it would mute the effects and I can show you the techniques beforehand. We could work together—”
Draco picked up her right hand and pressed his left hand against it. His thumb and index finger both twitched faintly. Hermione's entire hand spasmed against his.
“Which of us has hands steady enough to build a bomb?”
Hermione pulled her hand away, curling it into a fist so tight she could feel her metacarpal bones under her fingertips. She could feel the blood draining from her head, and she felt as though she might topple off the edge of the bed.
She pressed her other hand firmly against the mattress to steady herself. “Maybe I can—”
“Hermione, I'm tired.”
She looked up at him and saw it in his eyes.
The war had eaten him; there was so little of him left. The ghosts in his eyes, the war, it was almost all there was.
The other Death Eaters had retired from the war after the Battle of Hogwarts, but Draco hadn't had the ability, had never been afforded the luxury. He had continued, because he couldn't find her, because he'd made a vow to defeat Voldemort.
His best to defeat Voldemort.
His best.
Always his best.
Day after day.
He just wanted an endpoint to look towards.
“Draco… I—”
He took her hand in his, running his thumb over her ring. “I would like to say goodbye to you before you're leaving.”
Her throat caught as she stared up at him. Her jaw was trembling visibly, and he swam in her eyes when she nodded slowly and buried her face against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and sighed.
She wrapped her arms around him, but her mind raced.
The minute he left she went back to researching. She asked for more books from the house-elves. When he returned in the late evening, she'd put them all away. She didn't mention it. She knew he knew anyway.
She kissed him. She pushed him back against the bed and slid her leg up until she was on his lap, her fingers threaded through his hair as she caressed his lips with hers.
She pushed his robes off his shoulders and unbuttoned his shirt, trailing her fingers along his clavicles and following them with her lips. Her hands slipped down his arms. She guided his hands to her waist and then pulled his mouth back to hers.
His hands gripped her. His thumb pressed against her lowest rib, and he arched her against his chest. His other hand rose up and wrapped around her throat, pulling her impossibly close and tilting her head back as he deepened the kiss.
She started unbuttoning her dress. Her hands were trembling, and her fingers fumbled with the buttons. He drew back and tried to close his hands over hers. She jerked them free.
“I want this,” she said in a tight, shaking voice. “I want this. I want this on our terms before I go.” Her voice wavered. “This was ours...”
She swallowed and blinked hard before meeting his silver eyes. “It was ours.”
She twitched her shoulders, and her dress slipped off and pooled at her waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close and kissing him again.