Chapter Text
Hermione floated, suspended in warmth.
Not the kind that burned. The kind that smothered. Soft and slow and all-encompassing, like sinking beneath bathwater with no intention of coming up.
Am I dead?
The question didn’t frighten her the way it probably should have. It passed through her mind like an idle thought, distant and abstract, untethered from urgency. If she was—if this was what came after—she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
She’d do it again. Whatever it was that got her here—she’d do it again.
But… what had she done again?
The thought rose, bright and sharp for a second, before dissolving back into the haze.
Then the warmth around her shifted. Warped.
Sound pressed in from far away. Muffled shouting. A crash, like wood splitting against stone. It pulled at her, jagged and insistent, yanking her back into herself.
Her fingers twitched.
She felt sheets. Softer than her own. Familiar. Safe.
Then she drew in a faint, shaky breath, and her lungs filled with a scent she knew intimately.
Draco.
Memory surged like a current, dragging everything with it. The fear. The blood. The sting of fangs.
She remembered.
She had saved him. She was sure of it.
Her lips curved before she could stop them.
He was alive.
She was alive.
Her chest ached with the realization. She could still have it—all of it. The tiny flat, the overcrowded bookshelves, the shared mugs of tea left half-drunk on a windowsill. She could still have him.
She forced her eyes open, but they barely obeyed. It felt like trying to lift stone. Her lashes fluttered, and the room slid into view in pieces—light fractured through dust, deep emerald shadows, shattered wood.
The room was wrecked.
Furniture lay splintered along the edges of the floor. Books had been knocked from shelves and strewn everywhere. The curtains hung unevenly, one nearly torn from its rod. The dresser stood crooked, one leg snapped, threatening collapse.
And then there was Draco.
He stood with both hands braced against the fractured dresser, his shoulders hunched, spine rigid. He looked like a statue trying not to break apart. His head was bowed low, white-knuckled fingers digging into the wood. She couldn’t see his face.
She needed to see his face.
Her body ached as she shifted, trying to push herself upright. Her uniform clung to her—stiff with dried blood. Draco’s blood. The sight of it turned her stomach as she thought of him lying near-dead on the floor.
She could still feel the weight of him against her. The desperation in his grip. The sting of fangs sinking in.
Movement caught her eye and she turned her head to see Blaise and Theo standing in the threshold.
Theo’s expression was drawn, mouth set into a grim line. Blaise’s gaze was glued to Draco like he was waiting for an explosion—calculating the damage before it detonated.
Something was wrong. Worse than wrong.
Hermione blinked slowly, confusion mixing with the thin edges of fear. She opened her mouth to speak—but the sound that left her was little more than a rasp.
Both men turned at the noise.
Theo took a step forward. “Hermione—”
“Out,” Draco snapped, his voice slicing through the room like a blade.
Hermione flinched.
Theo halted. Blaise didn’t even argue—just cast one more look at Draco, then at her, and stepped out of the room, motioning for Theo to follow. The door clicked shut behind them, silence swallowing the space whole.
Draco remained motionless, still facing away from her, his grip on the dresser white-knuckled.
Hermione stared at him, at his back. The strained set of his shoulders. The barely concealed trembling in his arms.
Slowly, he straightened, his broad back rising and falling with measured, deliberate breaths. Something about his posture was off—too rigid, too tense.
Hermione rasped his name, but the sound barely escaped her dry throat. It was weak, unsteady.
She didn’t think it reached him.
But then he spoke, his voice low and detached in a way that made her stomach knot.
“There’s water on the bedside table.”
She turned toward the glass with trembling fingers. It wobbled in her grip, tipping precariously, but before she could panic, Draco was there, steadying it in her hand.
Their hands brushed.
He still didn’t look at her.
She drank greedily, the water cool against her tongue, her throat still aching. The glass emptied too fast. She set it down with a shaky clink, then looked up.
He was beautiful.
Of course he was. He always was. But this—this was something else.
Every trace of injury was gone. His skin was radiant, flushed with color. His frame strong again, composed. There was no blood, no bite marks, no hollow under his eyes.
He looked alive.
More alive than she’d ever seen him.
And she’d done that.
The pride bloomed in her chest like warmth from a fire, gentle and golden, and she reached out instinctively, her fingers brushing toward his hand.
But he twitched away, the reaction enough to stop her cold.
Her hand hovered in the air for a moment before falling to the sheets. Her brow furrowed. “Draco?” she asked, her voice still hoarse.
Still, he didn’t meet her eyes.
His jaw was set tight, and tension rolled off him in waves. He stood like someone holding back a tide.
She hated it. Hated the distance. Hated that he wouldn’t look at her when she’d given him everything.
“Draco Malfoy,” she snapped, stronger this time. “You better look at me.”
And he did.
But it wasn’t him.
His eyes—silver, beautiful, familiar—were empty. Not cold, not angry. Just… empty. Like the part of him that let her in had been locked behind some invisible wall, and she’d lost the key.
Her stomach knotted. The dread she’d felt since waking expanded, thick and suffocating.
She reached for him again without thinking, needing to feel him, needing to anchor herself to something real. Her fingers curled around his, cold and rigid and wrong.
“Draco,” she whispered, barely more than breath. “What’s wrong?”
His lips twitched into a grimace.
“This,” he said flatly, gesturing vaguely between them. “This is wrong.”
The words didn’t register at first and she blinked, her head tilting like she’d misheard.
“Stop,” she said, voice cracking. “Don’t say that.”
But he was already pulling his hand from hers. The absence of it—of his touch—felt like a door slamming shut.
“It’s the truth,” he said, his tone sharper now, like it cost him something to say it and he wanted to make it count. “This—us—it was a mistake.”
And that—that landed. Her whole body flinched.
“No,” she said immediately, the word fragile and horrified all at once. Her head shook in disbelief, her hands curling into the sheets. “No, you can’t—we can’t—” She couldn’t even finish the thought.
We can’t break up.
The words rang like a curse in her skull. Like poison.
“Draco, please.” Her voice cracked around the syllables. “You can’t—don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”
Her chest constricted as her breath caught, shallow and sharp. The panic built so fast she couldn’t think around it. Her hands trembled where they clutched the bedsheets. Her skin prickled like it was being pulled too tight over her bones. The world tilted—her vision swimming, throat closing.
“You were dying,” she gasped, voice high and ragged. “You were gone, Draco—you, and I—”
The panic surged through her, dark and dizzying. Her hands flew to her chest, shaking violently. Her fingers felt like someone else’s. Her limbs numb.
She couldn’t breathe.
The bed felt like it was moving beneath her. Tilting. She couldn’t see him through the blur of her tears. She didn’t know if she was crying or breaking or just dying entirely.
“Please,” she sobbed. The word came apart in her mouth. “Please, don’t leave me. I lov—”
“Shh.”
The sound was sudden. Soft. Desperate.
The bed shifted under his weight as he moved toward her, and then his hands were on her face, cradling her, grounding her. She couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think. But she felt him—warm and solid, pulling her in.
Her body folded against him as if it had been waiting to all along.
His arms wrapped around her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other gripping her waist like he was the one afraid she’d vanish.
“Breathe,” he murmured into her hair, his voice splintering. “Just breathe, Hermione. Please.”
She tried. Tried to follow his rhythm, tried to remember how to breathe through the pain.
Slowly, the sound in her ears dulled. The static faded. Her lungs began to pull air again, ragged but functional.
She pulled back, just enough to look at him. Her face damp and splotchy and cold, but she didn’t care. Not when he looked like that.
His expression was shattered. The cold mask from earlier was gone, melted away like it had never been real. In its place was something far more unbearable.
Grief.
Her breath hitched as she tried to speak, to beg, but he cut her off, lifting her arm carefully.
“Look,” he said, his voice low and trembling.
She followed his gaze to her arm, her eyes widening as she took in the sight.
Bruises. Ringing her forearm, deep and purple-blue, the shape of hands. His hands.
Her breath caught. Her gaze traveled lower.
Her wrist.
The cut had begun to heal, but it was more than just that. A jagged, raised scar bisected the skin in a rough, silvery arc—uneven and angry-looking, even under the soft lighting.
Her mouth opened, but no words came.
“It’s nothing,” she managed, finally. “Draco, I’m fine—”
“No.”
His voice snapped through the air like a whip.
His grip on her arm remained gentle, but his expression was gutted. He swallowed hard before speaking again.
“Your arm was broken in two places, Hermione. Your wrist—” His voice cracked. “It looked like an animal had mauled it.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her stomach twisting violently.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured. “I didn’t feel it.”
“You wouldn’t have.” He said bitterly. “The venom numbed you.”
He let go of her like she was glass and dragged a shaky hand down his face. His shoulders fell, his whole body sagging like the weight had finally caught up with him.
She watched him, her own chest tight as she waited for him to speak.
Finally, he looked at her, his eyes haunted.
“You nearly died, Hermione.”
She held still, breath caught in her throat, not daring to move as his gaze dropped.
“I came to,” he said slowly, “and Theo was holding me down while Blaise was forcing blood-replenishing potions down your throat.”
His jaw clenched. He looked like he might be sick.
“I woke up, and I still wanted—” He stopped, eyes flickering shut. “I still wanted to drink from you.”
Hermione’s heart caved in. Her hand rose instinctively, aching to reach for him, to close the distance, but the moment she moved, he flinched like she was fire. His shoulders curled inward, his eyes snapping away from her face like the sight of her was too much to bear.
He spoke again before she could gather the words to stop him. “The only thing that finally pulled me out of it was when you wouldn’t wake up.”
Her breath hitched. “Draco—”
“You were broken and bleeding.” His voice fractured mid-sentence. “And I thought I had killed you, Hermione.”
Something inside her cracked. Her chest felt too small, her skin too tight. The look on his face—guilt, fear, heartbreak—was worse than anything she could’ve imagined. Worse than the pain. Worse than the hunger. Worse than the darkness that had swallowed her when she passed out.
She tried again to reach for him, her fingers brushing his—
But he pulled away completely this time.
He rose to his feet in one harsh movement, pacing across the room, his hands tugging violently through his hair. The tendons in his arms stood out sharply as he moved—his whole body thrumming with tension, with despair, with something frantic that wouldn’t settle.
“That can’t ever happen again,” he said finally.
She swallowed hard, her voice barely steady. “I’m fine now. I’m okay—”
He turned on her then, eyes flaring. “Would you do it again?”
The question hung in the air, sharp and bright and impossible.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
“You were dying. I couldn’t just let you—”
“That’s exactly why we can’t do this anymore!” His voice cracked open like a wound. “You would do it again, Hermione. And next time… next time you might not survive it.”
Tears pricked hot behind her eyes.
“That’s not fair,” she choked. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, and his voice was raw. “Because I’d rather live the rest of my life in hell than risk watching you die again.”
She reached for him anyway. “Draco—”
He stepped back.
“Please,” she whispered. “We can figure this out. There has to be a way. We’re not just—we’re not over.”
His expression wavered for a split second—just enough for her to see the pain underneath the control. But then it was gone, sealed behind something cold and impenetrable.
“I’ve made my decision.”
“No,” she breathed. “You love me—”
He looked away.
And that was worse than any answer.
“You can stay and shower,” he said. His voice was flat now. Mechanical. “But after that… you need to leave.”
“Draco—”
But the door was already opening. His shoulders were rigid, his face averted. He didn’t look back.
And then he was gone.
The door clicked shut behind him with a finality that stole the breath from her lungs.
Hermione sat there in silence, her whole body stunned.
Then the ache broke free.
It started low, in her chest, a sharp twist that built and built until it was unbearable. And then it exploded.
She folded forward with a sound that wasn’t quite human. Her hands fisted in the sheets— his sheets, still carrying his scent—and she pressed her face into the mattress as if she could disappear into it. The tears came hard and fast, shaking her to pieces. Sobs wracked her frame, her throat raw, her ribs aching.
He had held her like she was everything.
And now he wouldn’t even look at her.
She didn’t know how long she cried.
Time blurred. Her skin felt cold. Her limbs heavy. At some point, she stopped moving, curled on his bed like a ghost of herself. Her arm throbbed faintly. Her body felt hollow. Like the best part of her had been cut out and carried away when he left the room.
She wanted to scream. To tear the place apart. To do something.
But instead, she lay there.
Motionless.
Waiting.
Hoping that the door would open again.
That he’d change his mind.
That he’d remember how to love her more than he feared losing her.
But the door stayed closed.
And she stayed shattered.