March 2003

When she woke in the morning, she found that she really was in a hotel with Draco. It was so surprising she thought perhaps she was still hallucinating.

She glanced about the room, trying to wrap her mind around it. She wasn't dreaming; she was really, actually in a Muggle hotel suite with Draco. A suite that he apparently occupied while wearing an Oxford hoodie.

If she were still composing a psychological sketch of him, the revelation would have required her to start a whole new notebook. Why was he there? Was it something he did often? Why on earth would he be spending the night in the Muggle world?

She turned her head to look at him.

He was asleep, wrapped possessively around her as though he were keeping her from being stolen. His body was so warm against hers it was almost searing.

As she studied him in bewilderment, the full events of the night came back to her.

She flinched.

She shouldn't have come.

She shouldn't have come, and she shouldn't have stayed.

It had been a mistake.

He was like a dragon. The jealous way he hoarded the things he cared about—there was no moderation in it. He was possessive and deadly. He held her in his arms like she was his.

The temptation to give into it, to let him have her and to love him for it—it terrified her.

Her need to love people and the desperate desire for them to love her back—she had locked it away. Acceded its place to the coldness of logic, realism, and strategic decisions for the sake of the war. She'd shoved it down into a hole where she wouldn't feel it. Wouldn't miss it.

But Draco had dragged it up from the well where she'd hidden it, uncovered it, and set himself to picking the lock. She could almost feel his fingers turning the dial, listening to the drop of every tumbler. Lying in wait for a way in.

His own grief and loneliness, his attention and unwavering constance, and that way he looked at her, the way he touched her; it was slipping through her defenses and coiling around her heart as surely as she had wound around his.

She tried to slide out of the bed before he woke, but his eyes snapped open the instant she shifted. His hold on her tightened, and he pulled her back toward himself for a moment before his expression flickered, and he let her go.

She stilled and looked up at him.

The sense of terror he had inspired in her a year ago had faded entirely. The danger of him—it was still there, cast in even sharper relief now that she had seen how ruthlessly he could kill. But despite realising just how merciless he could be, it made her feel less frightened of him.

Now she knew how much he was holding back. Despite the heights to which he had vaulted himself within Voldemort's army, he was holding himself back. Wiping out an entire squadron of Death Eaters had barely required effort. He had arrived and killed nearly a hundred people in a matter of minutes.

She studied his face, and he stared back at her. His expression was shuttered. Whatever he might be feeling was carefully concealed. But his eyes—

The way he looked at her was enough to stop her heart.

"I shouldn't have come," she finally said.

He didn't look hurt or surprised by the words.

"You needed someone. I just happened to be available. You don't need to worry, it's not going to complicate things for you," he said, looking away from her, his fingers playing lightly along her wrist. "I didn't expect it to change anything."

Hermione's breath caught and she swallowed nervously.

She couldn't tell him that that wasn't what she meant. He wasn't just someone. He was—to her he was—

That was the mistake of it.

It must have showed on her face because as he studied her, his eyes suddenly flashed with something that looked like triumph. Before she could draw away or bolt, he pulled her back to him, and his lips descended upon hers.

The moment his mouth was against hers, all her fears and guilt and resolution became lost to her.

All she could think of was how she wanted to be there, being touched by him. He was like fire. He wasn't lying in wait, he'd already burned his way in.

He had seen the cracks in her defenses, and in the same relentless manner he had driven through her occlumency walls, he was breaking his way into her heart.

He dragged her beneath himself. Searing her with his lips as his hands roamed over her body. She clung to him and kissed him back fiercely.

This wasn't like the previous night.

It wasn't comfort.

It was claiming.

His mouth was hot against her lips, along her jaw and her throat and over her shoulders. She tangled her fingers in his hair and held him as she tried not to cry from how desperately she wanted him and how grateful she was that he wasn't going to force her to ask.

His possessive hands trailed over her body, pulling her closer and closer until she was crushed against him. Then he aligned himself and sank inside her with a sharp thrust.

As he moved inside her, he memorised her body under his hands and kissed her until she was gasping for breath. He drove deep inside her.

His hold on her—his touch—she would never forget it.

He was exacting. Determined to prove what they were to her. Ensure she couldn't deny what he made her feel.

He made her come apart under his hands, under his body, twice before he let go. When he surged into her, his control slipped away leaving his expression open for a moment. There wasn't heartbreak on his face now, it was possession—

—and triumph.

"You're mine. You swore yourself to me," he said in her ear, as he slipped out of her and dragged her tightly against himself. "Now. And after the war. You promised it. I'm going to take care of you. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you. You don't have to be lonely. Because you're mine."

She should go.

But she had lost herself there. She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Draco Malfoy, and it felt like home.

She slept in his arms, nearly dead to the world. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept for more than four hours without Dreamless Sleep potion. She roused briefly to the sensation of his hand sliding along her shoulder. She looked up and found him studying her. She arched into his touch and pressed a kiss over his heart before falling asleep again.

When she woke next, it was nearly evening. Draco was sitting next to her, playing with her fingers.

"How are you here?" she asked, staring up at him bewildered.

He quirked an eyebrow. "This is my suite."

She rolled her eyes. "How are you in the Muggle world? And how are you able to spend a whole day in bed with me? Aren't you a General?"

He tangled a hand in her hair and pulled her mouth against his, rolling on top of her and kissing her for several minutes before drawing his head back and staring at her. "I'm usually in the Muggle world when I'm not working. Unless I'm polyjuiced, there's no—what I am, and what I've done—" he looked away, "—everyone knows who I am. So—when I'm not on duty, I come into the Muggle world. No one knows me. If anything requires my presence, the Dark Lord can summon me himself or send someone to the Manor. I know if anyone tries to enter the gates."

"You don't live at your manor?" she asked. His hand slid possessively down her throat, and she felt his thumb ghost across her collarbone.

"I don't. Not unless I'm required to host something. I—," he withdrew his hand and sat up abruptly. "—it—it—" his head dropped for a second, and he drew a sharp breath. "Everything is tainted there. Every time I'm there, I hear my mother—screaming. It's like the house is haunted. The cage she was kept in; it was built into the floor of the drawing room using magic from the estate's ley lines. I can't remove it."

The bitterness in his tone reminded Hermione of how private his grief was. How carefully he'd carried it. All alone. Year after year.

"I'm so sorry," she said, resting her hand on his cheek and catching strands of his hair with her fingertips. He dropped his head against her palm and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Anyway,"—his voice was tense and uncomfortable—"it would raise questions if I were seen living elsewhere. Somehow I ended up in the Muggle world." He gave a faint incredulous laugh. "I wandered around trying to figure out how it all works here. The concierge is useful; no matter how idiotic the questions I ask or bizarre the request, they find a way to accommodate it. And they never ask questions, no matter how much I bleed on their towels."

"What hotel is this?" she asked, sitting up and glancing around the room.

"Ah. What day of the month is it?" he said musingly. "Last week of March—this is the Savoy."

Hermione drew back slightly to stare at him. "You have multiple hotels you stay at?"

"Too much magical activity could eventually draw attention, even with all the wards. So I cycle between a few of them with an arithmantical randomisation equation. The staff are mildly Confunded; not anything detectable, just enough that if they were asked for my physical description, they'd all offer something different." He shrugged.

Hermione blinked and tried not to think about how much money Draco was spending by keeping multiple hotel suites constantly at his disposal. Rich wanker.

"So you live in posh Muggle hotel suites when you're not being a General in the Wizarding War," she said, shaking her head with disbelief.

"You knew I've studied Muggle history; where did you think I did it? I'm fairly good at blending in." His tone dripped with aristocratic smugness as he said it, and Hermione doubted there was anywhere in the world that he could be described as blending in.

He looked away from her again, twisting his left arm to hide the Dark Mark. "It seemed sensible to do things temporarily, and it was something to do when I had time off."

Hermione was silent. Of course, he'd spent almost a year waiting for the day when she would sell him out. Temporary. Uncommitted. It was sensible.

She rested her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. She could feel the scars of his runes under her fingers.

"When—when did you realise that I didn't know you were supposed to die in June?"

He gave a faint laugh. "When you said it. I thought when I pointed out that you should have anticipated my punishment that you'd realise Moody and Shacklebolt set me up. But you didn't. Then I assumed by the next day it would have been explained to you. But it apparently hadn't. So I concluded that Moody and Shacklebolt had decided that my survival was useful in the meanwhile. It was clear, based on how you behaved, they wouldn't inform you of that detail until they decided to make the move. Which made you both amusing and agonising to be around. Sometimes I wanted to just tell you, but—I suppose I enjoyed the way you wanted to save me."

Hermione pressed her lips together and rested her forehead against him. "I did wonder sometimes, at the beginning, if that was the plan. But I assumed it was years away. I tried not to think about it. And eventually I forgot. After I healed your runes and you stopped coming—I stopped thinking about it then. I was so preoccupied with wondering if I were ever going to see you again."

Draco was silent.

"When I came Thursday after Christmas—I had just found out. That it had been the plan."

Draco gave a faint nod. "I thought as much."

He turned his head slowly and looked down at her. "Since we're talking, I've been meaning to ask, what did you do to me?"

Hermione froze guiltily.

The corner of his mouth twitched as he continued to study her.

"Granger, I had those runes for a month before you got your wand into them. I went to several healers for pain relief. Aside from the general obscurity of treating runic magic at all, whatever you did violated fundamental laws of Magic. So—I have my guesses, but I would appreciate it if you told me."

Hermione was quiet for a minute, tracing her fingers along the scars, her other hand still entwined with his.

"In Egypt, Isis is the goddess of Healing," she finally said in a low voice. "Some say she has power over Fate itself. In Egyptian mythology when a person dies, the heart is weighed and only those deemed virtuous are permitted into the afterlife. It's said that Isis gifted the Egyptian Healers with a pouch of stones capable of purifying the heart. The stones are called the Heart of Isis. According to the myths, someone whose heart was corrupted by darkness could be granted a chance at redemption if their actions had been borne from good intent." She swallowed. "What the stones do is absorb Dark Magic; they purify the poison of it."

"You have one."

Hermione studied the sheets on bed. "The Director of the hospital entrusted me with one. It was intended for Harry. He thought if Harry defeated You Know Who, he would need it. That Harry would deserve to be purified to have a chance at the life he wants afterward. But Harry would never—will never use Dark Magic. For him, the opposition to using it is based in a form of principle. It's not because he's afraid to die or be hurt by it. He won't use it because he doesn't want anyone else to use it. The runes—they were poisoning you. You knew they were poisoning you. I was so late I couldn't even slow it. You saved hundreds of people, and we needed you. So I used the stone to heal you. That's—when the Order found out what I had done—that's—that's why I was deemed compromised."

She abruptly drew away, pulling her knees up to her chest and drawing the coverlet tightly around herself.

Compromised. Unreliable.

Sitting naked in Draco Malfoy's bed.

If Moody and Kingsley knew she was there of her own volition—that she'd gone to him—would it make any difference? Or had they always operated under the assumption she'd end up there?

She stared down at all the scars on her wrist. They were still fresh and pink coloured; if she treated them they'd fade more.

Draco broke the silence after a minute. "So—how does a Heart of Isis work exactly?"

Hermione looked up at him. He was expressionless as he studied her. Her eyes dropped down to her hands again.

"It's not well understood. In some respects they're alchemically similar to a Philosopher's Stone. But—the Egyptian hospital doesn't publicise the fact that the stones are even real. They don't permit research. There isn't much verified information."

"How does it work?"

"It—well"—she shifted awkwardly—"for minor amounts of Dark Magic just temporary proximity is sufficient. But," she looked down, "the runes are permanent. Each of them is like a Dark curse, pulling constantly on your magic. You—you chose so many—in order to heal you, I—it's—it's inside your heart. I put it there when you were unconscious." Hermione glanced up nervously at his reaction.

Draco's eyebrows arched sharply upwards. "You put a stone inside my heart—when I was unconscious?"

"A magical stone," Hermione said, jutting her chin up, "to save you from being poisoned to death."

"You put a stone inside my heart without asking permission." He stared at her, his silver eyes wide with astonishment. "Is it even removable?"

Hermione flushed. "Not—really. I couldn't tell you, I still didn't know if you were planning to become the next Dark Lord at that point. I couldn't very well ask whether you wanted to be made immune to Dark Magic."

He snorted and sank back against the pillows. "I'm not immune to it. I would have noticed if the cruciatus had stopped working."

"Not immune to getting cursed. You're immune to the effects of using it. The runes still affect you the way they were intended to. They just can't poison you. You're immune to the corrosion and tainting. It's like—an ongoing purification ritual set inside your magic."

Draco was silent.

She studied him and hesitantly reached out, touching his chest over his heart. "Can you tell? I don't know what it's like—for you. Nothing shows in diagnostic spells. But you noticed, didn't you? That things were different."

He gave a slow nod, his expression closed. "It's like—getting sliced open and not bleeding. You know better than I do what happens when Dark Magic is channeled. It makes it simultaneously easier and harder to use the Dark Arts. There's none of the wrenching sensation that I'm pulling up something more powerful. Even the slicing sensation is growing dulled. I suspect—eventually—I won't feel it at all." He looked away from her.

"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.

His expression was cold and closed, but his eyes burned.

Hermione reached out and touched his face, tilting his head back. She pressed a kiss on his forehead.

"I'll take you up on that shower." She pulled the flat sheet off the bed and wrapped it around herself as she gathered her clothes off the floor. She could feel Draco's gaze as she crossed the room.

The bathroom had an enormous claw foot tub that Hermione gazed longingly at before stepping into the shower. The unmistakable scent of sex hung around her, and she still had traces of blood on her from the previous day. Not all of it was hers. She could feel it in her hair as she started to wash it.

She scrubbed herself rapidly from head to toe before stepping out and drying off. She glanced in the mirror. The bathroom was brightly, almost starkly lit. Designed for women who applied make-up meticulously and wanted to be able to inspect their every pore. Hermione stared at herself in the mirror, clutching the towel against herself.

Grimmauld Place's poor lighting was much kinder to her. She barely recognised the person in the reflection.

As she was staring, Draco came and stood at the door. He'd pulled a pair of trousers on.

"You're right, I do look like a corpse," she said after another moment.

The hollows of his cheeks flushed, and his eyes dropped to the floor. "You should eat more."

She shrugged. "It's stress. It's not like they don't feed me. I'll eat again when I can sleep again." She looked over at him with a critical eye. "You're not exactly sporting a healthy body weight yourself."

He looked down at himself and then back up at her, arching an eyebrow. "Who do you think causes my stress? You are a nightmare to worry about."

She glanced away, her throat tightening slightly as she started to scourgify her clothes. "I—do actually have a foraging partner now."

"The Patil who lost her foot. The one you trained."

Hermione looked up and stared at him in the mirror. "How did you know?"

He met her eyes coolly. "I pay attention to any reports regarding the Order's healers. You are remarkably invisible, but Patil is a familiar face in the Resistance. Friendly. And quite talkative. Small details here and there. They add up." He was expressionless. "I'm a legilimens. I'm often the one who pulls that information out."

Hermione's throat tightened. "Why did you train me then? If you knew?"

He gave a thin smile and tilted his head to the side. "When did that start, mid-October? You still went alone too, to maintain your cover. I wanted you to live. After I died, I wanted you to still be alive. I could have just demanded you have a partner. It wouldn't have been unreasonable, given my terms. But Shacklebolt or Moody won't meet my terms once I'm gone." His expression grew vicious. "As you said yourself: if they sold you once, what would stop them from doing it again? Who knows, maybe the second time around they'd have advertised it."

There was a tearing sensation in Hermione's stomach, and she looked away. "They're not—they're not monsters. They have so few options. They have to work with what they have. They're the ones keeping the Resistance alive. It's their calculated choices that have carried us this far. They can't prioritise me over everyone else. I don't want them to."

"I don't care about the Resistance," he said sneering.

"Well, I do." Hermione didn't waver. She met his eyes as she said it. "I care about all of them. I will always care about them."

"They don't even know who you are." His tone was venomous. "You're a faceless figure in their pain. They love their nurses, the hospice healers, Pomfrey, Patil. The ones who hover once they're out of danger. They don't even know that you're the one who's saved them again and again. Or anything else you've done."

Hermione shrugged and pulled her clothes on. She was not accustomed to being naked, not around anyone. Once her shirt and trousers were on, she began braiding her hair with practiced ease.

Draco remained standing in the doorway. She could almost feel the resentment radiating from him as he watched her prepare to leave.

"I didn't do anything I've done because I expected to be seen as heroic." She scoffed. "I don't require laurels. When this war is over—," she looked away as she caught new sections of hair and laced them into her braids, "—if the Order wins..." She swallowed. "If we win, there's a good chance that Kingsley, Moody and I could all eventually be convicted of war crimes."

She met Draco's eyes in the reflection of the mirror. "I will never be a hero. I knew that when I chose to train as a healer. That's never been the reason for any of my choices."

She finished one braid and started on the other.

"Potter is worth that much to you?"

The corner of her mouth quirked. "It's more than that. Harry is my best friend, but the war is bigger than Harry or anyone else."

Her hands stilled, and she stood silent for a moment.

"I want—," she started and then paused and drew a short breath. "I want the next Muggle-born witch with stars in her eyes to come into a world that welcomes her. A world where she doesn't have to constantly re-earn her right to be there and isn't treated like wanting to exist is stealing something from someone else. Where she'll get to grow up and graduate. Get any job she wants, get married and have children, and grow old with someone. I didn't—," her voice broke off briefly. "I—won't get to have any of those things. I want to make the world I wanted to live in."