June 2005

Regaining consciousness was like striking the ground after an interminable fall.

Hermione's head was throbbing; an agonising, bleeding pain, as though her mind had been ripped out and torn into pieces. She tried to get up from where she was lying, but her body couldn't move properly. The motions jerked, and her hands trembled.

She could barely see. She tried to push herself up, but her arm shook and wouldn't support her weight. She tried to breathe. Her heart was racing, a painful rapid thrum in her chest.

She reached out tremulously in the darkness trying to find her bearings.

Something touched her shoulder. She screamed and turned.

Draco was standing next to her, his pale hair visible in the dark. She jerked away but then froze and stared at him. Her heart was in her throat. She studied him with wide eyes.

He was older.

His face was the same, but his eyes were older, as though it had been decades since she'd seen him. His expression was closed, but his gaze was familiar and intent as he stood beside her bed.

"You're still alive," she said. Her throat was dry, and her voice broke with relief. "I thought you'd died."

She started to reach instinctively towards him. He was alive. He was still alive. She'd kept him alive.

His eyes widened.

"Ginny. She was the first body they brought back."

Her hand froze.

Everything hit her. Manacled. Imprisoned in Malfoy Manor to be bred.

He was the High Reeve.

Terror welled up inside her. Her blood ran ice cold. She felt as though she'd been struck so brutally she would die from it.

She gave a ragged gasp and snatched her hand back. Her jaw trembled, and she pushed herself away from him with shaking hands until she reached the far side of the bed. She slid off the mattress and knelt on the floor, staring across the bed at him as she struggled to breathe. Trying to reconcile everything.

It was Draco. He was still alive.

But he'd hurt her. He'd raped her. He'd told her he didn't want her; that he couldn't wait to kill her.

She felt like an injured animal struck on the motorway, bewildered and dying and trying helplessly to find a way to escape and hide. She wanted a dark corner to curl up in where things would stop hurting.

What happened?

As she tried to think, an agonising pain laced through her brain so abruptly her vision disappeared. An anguished moan escaped through her teeth. She buried her face in her hands as she struggled to keep conscious and tried to remember through the blinding pain in her head.

"Let's be clear, Mudblood. I don't want you. I never wanted you. I'm not your friend. There is nothing that will bring me more joy than being done with you."

He'd killed Ginny.

He'd killed everyone.

She looked up and started breathing faster and faster as she stared at him, trying to understand.

"Are you still a virgin, Mudblood? Is that something you even remember?"

The sensation of her skirts being pulled up, exposing her as she stood bent over a table, gripping it, trying not to shake or make any sound.

He'd dragged her before Voldemort and held her in place while her mind was torn to pieces and then left her lying on the floor in a pool of rotting unicorn blood.

Hermione kept staring at him. There was a tearing pain in her chest—in her heart—as though there were a blade slicing through her as she struggled to breathe. Her chest contracted sharply and a broken, gasping sob was torn from her as all the gaps and inconsistencies merged into a single horrifying narrative.

Her heart kept beating faster and faster. Hermione pressed her hands over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Her low sobs cut through silence. She kept shaking as she tried to think.

"I'm going to take care of you. I'm always going to take care of you."

The pain in her mind was growing blinding, as though the past and present where converging and tearing each other apart.

She gripped her head. Her brain felt as though it were on fire, her skull cut open, the pressure in her head intensifying and intensifying until she dropped her head down and screamed.

She screamed until she was gasping and then ground her teeth together and tried to keep from hyperventilating. She looked back across the bed again.

Draco was gone.

She sank onto the floor, pressing a hand against her chest. Maybe he hadn't even been there. She might have just hallucinated him.

Maybe she'd hallucinated it all.

Maybe he was dead, and she was still in her cell dreaming of him.

She was just hallucinating that she'd somehow found him in the darkness.

No. It was real. She was certain it was all real. Because it was worse than anything she would have dreamed.

Let's be clear, Mudblood. I don't want you. I never wanted you.

She couldn't understand. Parts made sense, but other parts—

A hand grasped her by the shoulder, and she started violently. Draco had come around the bed and was kneeling beside her.

He studied her, and his eyes flickered as his expression tensed."You're remembering now, aren't you?"

She gave a small nod, and her hand reached up and gripped his wrist. He was really there. She could feel his bones under her fingertips.

"Grang—"

Hermione buried her face against the comforter of the bed and sobbed with relief. The pain in her head was so severe she felt as though her skull were fracturing. She ground her teeth together as she tried not to scream again.

"Oh god—" she forced the words out. Her whole body was trembling.

A thought struck her, and she stilled, her hold tightening.

"The horcrux—the one Umbridge was wearing—was that—was that you?"

There was a silence. "It was."

Her lips trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Was it—was that the last one?"

"It was."

She nodded, and her empty hand spasmed; she gripped the fabric of her robes and tried to make sense of everything.

If he was there, he wasn't dead.

But—if he wasn't dead, that meant he'd never come for her.

She'd waited. And waited. And waited.

And he never came.

"I don't want you. I never wanted you."

Ginny .

Her hold on his wrist slipped away, and her hand fell to the floor as the devastation drowned her relief.

"Why did you kill Ginny—?" Her voice broke.

"Ginny's alive."

She turned and stared at him. "Hannah saw her body. Everyone in Hogwarts saw it. Vold—Voldemort said you killed her. You—you told me you killed her."

"Ginny's alive." He met her eyes. "She was pregnant, remember? Her son was born on October 20th, 2003. I'm told he was an exceptionally difficult newborn. She named him James Sirius Potter. You're his godmother."

Hermione gave a low sob, and Draco continued.

"He's a year and half now. You're going to meet him soon. They're waiting for you. You promised Potter you'd take care of them. You have to hold on and get better so you can go."

Her heart rose, a flicker of hope in the darkness and the cold.

"You are aware of how precarious she is. I have gone to considerable expense and effort to maintain her environment."

She dropped her head, her mouth twisting as she trembled and looked away. "I don't believe you."

He made no reply.

"I don't understand—" She squeezed her eyes closed again as she tried to focus through the pain. "I don't understand what happened. I can't remember clearly." She opened her eyes and studied him in the darkness. "But—I remember you."

It was Draco. He was so close. He was looking at her the way he used to look at her.

She wanted to catch hold of him and bury herself in his arms, against his chest, to feel his heartbeat.

Her hands spasmed.

She couldn't.

He had killed everyone. He had murdered or executed them all. She felt herself crumbling under the renewed horror and devastation of it.

His expression wavered, and his mouth twitched before he spoke. "What—do you remember about me?"

"You—" she studied his face. He was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as though carved out of the likeness of the person she'd known.

Her fingers twitched as she fought an urge to reach out and at least touch him. To just know whether he still felt familiar under her fingertips.

He was alive. She'd been so sure he'd died, that he must have died. But he wasn't dead; she could see the pulse at the base of his throat.

"You spied for the Order. When you were hurt, I healed you. You—" she swallowed and looked down at her wrists and scarlet clothing as she tried to remember clearly, "—you used to call for me—and—"

There was a stabbing pain through her head, and she gave an agonised gasp and slumped down.

She blinked, trying to remember what she'd been saying. Her tongue felt fuzzy and wouldn't move properly, as though it had been numbed.

She jerked and tried to move her jaw, but it twitched so violently her teeth made a loud clacking sound. Her left arm and leg gave out, and she started to topple sideways.

Draco caught her.

"Dra—?" Her chest spasmed as she struggled to breathe, and he pulled her firmly against his chest.

He didn't say anything to her. Instead he gripped her jaw, pried her mouth open, and rapidly upended a potion into her mouth before clamping his hand over her mouth and nose.

She tried to wrench herself away. Panicking. She didn't know what was happening. Her lungs felt like they might burst as she struggled to breathe. Her body kept jerking of its own volition. Her numb tongue couldn't taste the potion he'd put in her mouth.

She wasn't supposed to swallow things if she didn't know what they were.

"Granger," his voice was calm and close to her ear. "You need to swallow. You're having a seizure. The potion will stop it, but it takes longer to work if you can't swallow it."

Hermione's throat contracted repeatedly, and her arm spasmed, but Draco refused to ease his grip. After several tries, she managed to make herself swallow.

Her whole body went limp as though she were boneless.

Draco's hold relaxed, and her head lolled down and rested against his chest. She felt him sigh, and his hand stroke her hair back. He brushed his thumb against her cheek while his other arm supported her body. His hands were warm. He still smelled the same, and it made her want to start crying.

After a moment he shifted and picked her up. She could feel her bones, jutting through her skin as he lifted her and set her back onto the bed.

Her mouth wouldn't quite work. She stared at him, trying to take in every detail.

He slid a hand under her head and studied her carefully.

Up close, despite the low light, she could see he was visibly exhausted. His skin was pale to the point of being grey. His mouth and eyes were tense.

His pupils were sharply contracted, and his gaze kept flicking across her as though he were trying to make sure he wasn't overlooking anything. His expression was carefully closed.

"You've been unconscious for almost a week," he said after a minute. "You had a seizure and lost consciousness. The healers weren't sure—if you'd wake up. Seizures—" she saw his throat contract as he swallowed, and he stopped meeting her eyes, "are not uncommon when dealing with neurological damage caused by concentrated magical activity. You had—several while unconscious, but fortunately none caused any lasting damage to you—or your baby."

Hermione stopped breathing, and her eyes widened.

The baby. She'd forgotten that she was pregnant.

She was pregnant with his heir. For the breeding program. To force her memories to come back.

There was something she was missing, but the pain still overshadowed everything. She tried to think, but reaching towards her memories was mind shattering.

She couldn't remember—

Her chest started spasming.

"I don't understand," she forced the words out. "What happened? Why—why—"

She tried to breathe, and it made a gasping sound in the back of her throat. Her chest started jerking faster and faster.

Draco's fingers under her head tightened in her hair. His expression was open as he stared down at her, his face only inches from hers.

"Grang—Hermione, you need to breathe slowly. Hyperventilating when pregnant can increase your risk of having another seizure." His eyes were imploring. "Please breathe, Granger."

Hermione gave a low sob and nodded.

Inhale, to a count of four.

Exhale, slowly to a count of six.

She studied his face. She felt a ravenous desperation as she looked at him, but there was also growing well of hurt. She didn't know how to reconcile the person she knew with the person she'd spent six months imprisoned by.

As her breathing slowed, tears began sliding in cold trails down her temples.

Draco's gaze dropped away from her face, and he withdrew his hand and straightened.

He looked down at her, hesitating, his hand curled into a fist at his side. "I'm sorry. Severus and I thought we'd have you out before February. I didn't think you'd be here for so long."

She bit her lip and tried to think of what to ask him. What happened? Why didn't you come? Why did you hurt me? Why did you rape me?

Why did you become the High Reeve?

"Why—" she gave a low sob, "Why did you kill everyone?"

His eyes flickered, and his jaw twitched as he straightened and looked away from her. "I was trying to find you."

Her heart stalled with a mixture of horror and relief.

"You—looked for me?" Her voice was shaking.

He looked back at her. "Of course I looked for you. I looked everywhere for you. Did you think I left you there?"

She blinked and tried to remember clearly, reaching towards the back of her mind and grasping at the memories she could sense there.

"When you never came I thought maybe—" as she pushed into her recollection, the pain in her head suddenly sharpened, and her vision wavered. She bit down on her lip and tried not to black out.

"I thought you must have died." Her eyes burned, and her voice shook and faded away.

She lifted her arm and stared at the manacle locked around her wrist. "I—I lost my occlumency when my magic was suppressed. They said Voldemort was going to interrogate me. I was afraid if I thought about you—that he might find you in my mind. I was trying to protect you. But"—her voice grew smaller—"sometimes I thought if I held on, eventually you might come. Then, when you didn't, I thought you must have died."

Draco looked as though she'd gutted him. His hand twitched and reached towards her.

"Fancy an outing, Mudblood?. . .The Dark Lord is eager to see you." He gripped her by the arm before she could back away.

The visceral terror of the memory swallowed her. Her breath caught in her throat, and she tensed as he got closer.

His hand closed and dropped to his side as he looked away. "I looked for you as soon as I returned and found you gone. The Warden—Umbridge didn't file you as a prisoner in Hogwarts. There were no records of you beyond the transfer paperwork when you were captured. Severus and I both submitted requests trying to locate you, but every time we did, we were told there was no file or record of a prisoner with that name or number. You'd just vanished. Everyone at the Hogwarts celebration was either drunk or shell-shocked, there were few clear memories of you being there. I volunteered to track down anyone missing in the hope of it giving me a chance to find you." The muscles in his jaw twitched. "I had to bring them all back. If I'd failed, the job would have been reassigned."

He stared up at the ceiling; his expression was drawn.

"I tried everything to find you. I searched the prisons. I went through all the existing cell blocks in Hogwarts. I went through every prisoner file. I made a genetic trace spell. It found your aunt and cousins. I followed it all the way to Australia and found your parents where you'd hidden them."

Hermione flinched and stared at him wide-eyed.

Draco looked down, and his lips thinned when he saw her expression. "They're all fine, I didn't harm them."

His head tilted slightly to the side, and his jaw clenched as he swallowed. "I even tried scrying you several times, but—" he flicked his hand dismissively, "—nothing. It didn't occur to me that it was because you were being kept imprisoned without any light or sound. I assumed it meant that wherever you were was entirely undetectable. I travelled all over Europe. Death Eaters and allies with certain—reputations. It had happened a few times before. When I couldn't find you anywhere, I assumed that was what had happened to you. I thought it must be why you'd vanished."

He looked away again. "Severus and I did everything we could think of but bring you up as a person of interest to the Dark Lord himself. I thought as long as the Dark Lord was preoccupied with his obsession with immortality, I'd have a better chance of finding you and getting you away. Then, when there was talk of using the prisoners as surrogates for a breeding program, Montague went to the Dark Lord and proposed that you be the face of the repopulation program, bait for any remaining Resistance allies, and a final mockery of Potter all in one. He'd been looking for you ever since he'd gotten his mark, and I'd—left him be; I thought at some point he might find something I was overlooking. However you still didn't exist within the prison system. It wasn't until the Dark Lord personally demanded you by name that Umbridge admitted she'd had you the whole time."

Hermione didn't know what there was to say.

"I—" Draco started to speak again. His jaw shook visibly and then locked, and he didn't say anything else.

There was a long silence.

"Why didn't you assume I was dead?" Hermione finally managed to ask.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and Draco raised his right hand into her line of sight. The onyx ring showed dimly in the low light.

Hermione stared for several seconds before looking in confusion at her own hands. There was nothing there, but she felt a sense of certainty that there somehow should be. As she stared, her index finger on her left hand distorted and shimmered, the black ring suddenly visible.

Her throat felt thick, and she swallowed several times before she could speak. "I—I forgot it was there."

"After you were cursed and nearly died going to Surrey, I added a life signature monitor to your ring. I'd wanted to add a trace, but they're detectable, and could have been intercepted. I thought, with a basic charm, at least I'd know if you died. So—I knew you were alive." He dropped his hand out of sight once again. "Although it did stop at one point, immediately after I'd sent a signal. I thought I may have caused whomever was keeping you to notice it. When it reactivated several days later, I didn't think I could risk signaling again. I wasn't certain whether it was still you wearing it, but I thought it meant you might still be alive. So I kept looking."

He looked away, and the movement drew Hermione's gaze from the ring on her hand.

He looked ground down, like a weapon that had been honed in excess. There was a deadly over-precision about him that she could suddenly see.

His fingers twitched, and he closed them. "I would have gotten you out sooner, but Severus was already in Romania when you were transferred to the manor. It was supposed to be only three months, but the Dark Lord keeps extending the assignation there. As long as you were being brought in to have your memories examined by the Dark Lord—there were—I couldn't do anything that would have indicated—anything."

Hermione's stomach dropped as though the bed had vanished beneath her. Of course. Voldemort had watched everything. Her every interaction with Draco. He'd been overtly, sadistically curious in his brutal bi-monthly examinations of her mind.

Draco had been performing for Voldemort through Hermione's eyes.

The realisation felt like her tenuous hold on reality was abruptly inverted, and she was free falling.

What was real then? Any of it? None of it.

She tried to think, but it was still difficult to focus through the pain in her mind. She could barely keep her eyes open. She was exhausted and so hungry. She couldn't remember when she'd last eaten. Her head hurt with such intense pressure she expected to find blood seeping from her eyes and nose.

She wanted to close her eyes, but she was terrified that if she lost consciousness, it would all slip away, and she'd forget. The past would vanish into the darkness, Draco would fade away, and when she woke, it would be Malfoy again.

But there weren't two people. There had only ever been the one. Draco was buried somewhere under all the layers of cold.

She didn't know what was supposed to happen. She didn't know what any of it meant. Even if he'd been acting, not everyone else had been. All the stories about him in The Daily Prophet, and from the other women in the breeding program before Hermione was sent to Malfoy Manor.

"Hannah said you hung Ginny's body in the Great Hall—"

"It wasn't Ginny." His voice was flat. "When I couldn't find you at Hogwarts—I initially thought there may have been a mistake and it wasn't you caught and transferred. I looked for you in the rubble at Sussex." He looked down. "There was witch who'd survived the explosion. She'd made it beyond the wards and into the Ashdown Forest, one of the only survivors. She was nearly dead from the experimentation and the explosion. But she had red hair. When I brought the body with me to Hogwarts, the prisoners assumed it was Ginny with Spattergroit. No one had seen her in months, they assumed the disfigurement was due to the disease."

Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt almost afraid to breathe. "McGonagall...Nev—"

Draco's expression tensed, his jaw twitched and then set. "I couldn't hide them, even if Severus had been willing to entertain the idea. After what the Crouches had done to smuggle Barty Jr out of Azkaban, the Dark Lord required that every body be extensively examined for interference. They were all verified." He looked away. "I made it quick for them."

An icy sense of despair washed over her. She curled into a ball on her side. She could feel herself fading with pained exhaustion.

"Go to sleep. I'll tell you whatever else you want to know tomorrow."

She forced her eyes open.

"But what if I forget again?" Her voice was small—childish and nearly trembling with fear.

He didn't say anything. She wanted to reach towards him and reassure herself once again that he really was there. Real. Warm. Touchable.

Her hand twitched, but the potion had left her almost paralyzed.

"Will—will you go back to being the way you were if I forget you?"

"As long as you're pregnant, you're safe. It doesn't matter if you remember, Severus and I will get you out."

"Then what?"

Draco said nothing. The room seemed darker. She could barely make out Draco's silhouette.

"Then what happens?" she forced out.

"Then you'll go take care of Ginny the way you promised Potter you would."

That wasn't the question she'd been asking, but she didn't have the strength to ask again.

When she woke again, Draco was gone.

The pain in her head had eased somewhat. Topsy appeared with broth and potions, which she entreated Hermione to try to keep down.

Hermione swallowed a foul smelling nutritional potion and held herself rigidly while her body convulsed and tried to force it back up.

When her throat stopped contracting, she stared at Topsy.

"I knew you." It felt like a nail was being driven into the base of her skull. She winced. "I saw you before—didn't I?"

Topsy gave a tentative nod. "The Master is saying yous shouldn't be forcing the memories."

Hermione tucked her chin down against her shoulder. His absence clawed at her. "When does he come back?"

"He is been being in this room since you is having the first seizure. He is having many things he is needing to do now."

Hermione swallowed, and her fingers twitched repeatedly. She could feel her chest tightening. What if he didn't come back? What if he died? What would she do if he died?

She could feel her hands trembling. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on something else.

"Did he get behind on his executions?" she forced herself to ask in a dry voice.

The question was sarcastic, but Topsy nodded seriously.

Hermione released a low breath and curled into a tight ball around her stomach.

Topsy vanished a few seconds later.

Hermione spent the day replaying the past six months. Taking note of all the details she'd missed. The familiar traits and tells that she had forgotten about Draco.

He'd known her. He'd known her when she arrived. When she'd been scheming to kill him. When he'd raped her.

It wasn't surprising that he hadn't wanted her to look at him when it happened.

She was pregnant, with his heir. Her baby.

Their baby.

He'd raped her, and now she was pregnant.

When she thought about it, her stomach twisted, and her throat contracted, and she vomited violently off the side of the bed.

She slumped down and covered her face with her hands as she tried not to cry or hyperventilate. Topsy appeared to banish the mess and gave Hermione a glass of water.

Hermione tried to stop thinking about it. She tried to just focus on Draco and not think about the fact that she'd been raped, that she was pregnant, that Draco didn't refer to the baby as being his, and she didn't know what that meant.

He wasn't there to ask, even if she thought she could manage the conversation.

She just tried not to think about it.

Instead, she tried to untangle Draco. She knew that she knew him, as though he'd been branded into her. But she couldn't recall concrete memories, it was more a general sense of knowing him. Instinctively, she knew him. She remembered the way he looked, the ways he moved, how he restrained himself, how the colours in his eyes betrayed his carefully hidden emotions.

When she tried to reach further into the past, before her imprisonment, it caused an agonizing pain to start bleeding across the base of her skull until she was afraid she'd cause herself to have another seizure if she pushed.

She couldn't think about it.

She had to simply accept that it was there.

She lay in bed, trying to reconcile herself with the version of Hermione that had faded away in the darkness of Hogwarts.

Someone who had fought. Who'd levelled half a lab. Who had burned dementors and stabbed Graham Montague with a set of poisoned knives.

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?

It was all trivial.

Everything that mattered felt too devastating to put into words. She was afraid if she started, she'd hyperventilate and have a seizure. And if Draco thought he upset her, maybe he wouldn't come see her, and she'd just be all alone again.

She'd thought in her cell that she'd held on, but in the cold light of day she found that she hadn't.

She'd broken.

There were only pieces of her left.

She sat in bed and nervously watched him as he stood by the window staring at the hedge maze.

She kept parting her lips to speak and then hesitated. She looked down as her hands and tried again.

"How—have you been?" she asked.

It was an asinine question. She blushed and wanted to take it back the moment it was uttered.

He didn't even look at her. "I'm fine."

She swallowed and felt as though her heart was breaking. She straightened the flat sheet and brushed several wrinkles from the coverlet.

He was standing so far away, and she didn't know what to say to him.

"So..." she finally said, "you're married now."

His shoulders went rigid, but he didn't respond for several seconds. When he turned and looked at her, his expression was a mask.

"Two years this October."

She tried to meet his eyes, but after only a moment she looked down at her lap. She felt as though there was a chasm in her chest.

She didn't think there had ever been any kind of commitment on his end. Whatever they'd been had never been defined that she could recall.

It wasn't as though she'd ever thought he'd marry her.

But he was married, and it felt significant to her even if she couldn't articulate why. Why, in light of everything else, did it feel like it mattered at all?

He'd had to rape her thirty times. She was his prisoner. She was pregnant with his heir. But she was sitting in bed obsessing over the fact he was married, because everything else felt impossible to even begin trying come to terms with.

He'd gotten married three months after the Final Battle.

He had a wife.

Dainty, pretty, unfaithful, unstable Astoria.

"I was ordered to marry. If it hadn't been Astoria, it would have been someone else." He said it in a flat voice.

It was a fact.

"I was commanded to marry her therefore I married her."

Hermione bit down on the inside of her lower lip and nodded, still staring down at her lap.

A marriage arranged by Voldemort for the postwar repopulation effort. To make a spectacle of the Death Eaters and distract from Voldemort's fading health.

She understood the context.

She didn't know what to say about it. She didn't know what to say about anything. She wanted the past to vanish so she could reach out towards Draco without feeling that her heart was being mangled.

She wanted to touch him. Kiss him. To feel his hands caressing her. To remember what it felt like to be warm and wanted. To know if he'd still whisper "mine" against her skin.

But she felt broken. She wasn't the person he used to kiss. She was afraid if he touched her and it wasn't the same, it would poison all the past memories, and then there would be nothing left to hold on to.

He wasn't the same either. His eyes were filled with guilt and bitter rage.

He was angry at her.

He hid it, but she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. He didn't feel like he ever intended to forgive her for whatever it was.

After a minute she looked up. "Did you do something to her to make her barren?"

A cruel smirk twisted at the edge of his mouth. "I would have, but I didn't need to. The Greengrasses failed to disclose that they carry a blood curse. It would require considerable effort for her to conceive, and the manor had some unfortunate side effects. It didn't occur to her that some rooms are locked for a reason, or that she should restore the existing wards after she stripped the manor down to redecorate." Then the sneer faded, his expression grew reserved, and he looked away from her. "I didn't think she'd ever go so far as to attack you."

Hermione stared down at her wrists. The copper plating of the manacles was still as bright as it had been when they'd first been placed around her wrists. Property of the High Reeve.

She turned the metal so that the engraved words were no longer visible and then looked up again. "Will you be the one who takes me to Ginny?"

He shook his head. "Severus. There are restrictions on my ability to travel currently. Sentimentality is hardly a reason to endanger a safe house. He'll take you—or rather you'll take him with you—in order to assure he doesn't violate the terms of his Unbreakable Vow."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. "His Unbreakable Vow?"

Draco's eyes flickered, and his mouth pressed into a flat line.

"At the end of the war, he made one with me, vowing not to interfere in my protection of you or to take you anywhere that you might be endangered. It was intended to ensure you left Europe safely, but it didn't end up mattering. You went by yourself and were captured anyway." He glanced away. "The trip should be safe, but it's best to make contingency plans when possible."

She twisted the hem of the cotton flat sheet between her fingers. "Will I see you after that?"

Draco quirked an eyebrow, and his mouth slowly curved into a cat-like smile. "Ginny doesn't particularly care for me."

Hermione just kept studying him.

He shrugged. "It will depend on how things go. With luck I won't be in Europe for long afterwards."

"Oh."

Talking to him was exhausting. It felt as though there were countless details she needed to take note of, things that she should understand, that he was telling her, but she didn't know how to interpret them properly any longer.

We're supposed to run away together. You promised.

"You'll come—eventually?" Her voice was hopeful.

If they had time, they could pick up the pieces. She could find him under the mask of the High Reeve. Perhaps slowly she could find a way to become Hermione once more. For him, she would try to find that person again.

Then maybe he would stop standing so far away.

His quicksilver eyes glittered for a moment, and the corner of his mouth turned up; a shadow of a smirk. "If that's what you want."

It felt like a lie.

A little more than a week after she regained consciousness she got out of bed and went slowly down the hall to take a shower. Topsy and the portrait followed her every step of the way. Hermione sat on the floor of the shower, her head on her knees while the water flowed over her. Her hands and legs were trembling with exhaustion. When she got out of the shower, she just wrapped a towel around herself and then collapsed on the bed of the attached bedroom.

When she woke, Draco was seated in the chair nearby, reading. She looked at him for several minutes before he glanced up and noticed she was awake.

His expression was open for an instant as their eyes met, and she could feel the heat of it down her spine. Then it shuttered.

He snapped the book closed, and it vanished. "Do you want to change rooms?"

She pulled the towel more tightly around herself. "I was just too tired to walk back."

He eyed her for a moment. "You can change rooms. I'll just need a few days to get the wards in place here."

"Astoria might notice."

His lip curled. "She's not permitted in this wing of the house any longer. Even if she were, she's in France for the next month, buying a new wardrobe."

Hearing that Astoria was not lurking in the manor unknotted an anxious tension in the pit of Hermione's stomach.

She stared up at the canopy overhead. "There's no need."

From the corner of her eye she saw Draco shift and his expression harden.

There was something he was trying to communicate to her, but she was too tired to try to guess what it was. Her head hurt too much, and her entire body was aching from the exertion of walking down the hallway.

She looked across the room at the portrait. The blonde witch was in frame picking flowers in an Impressionist style garden.

"Is that your mother?"

The portrait stilled and looked up.

"Why do you ask?" Draco's voice was suspiciously casual.

Hermione shrugged a shoulder. "You have her mouth. It's different from the Malfoy features that your father and most of the portraits have."

"She had it painted to keep my father company when he left Hogwarts. He graduated the year before she did," Draco said, staring across the room at the portrait. "Due to the circumstances of her death, none of the later portraits ever woke."

He looked away. "You should sleep in your room. It's safer there." He seemed to hesitate for a moment. "Can you walk?"

Hermione stared at him and wondered what he'd do if she said no. Levitate her? Carry her?

Tell her to sleep on the floor?

She blinked. No. That was before; when she'd first arrived.

"I can walk." She pushed herself up and realised she'd forgotten to bring new robes with her and only had a towel. She gripped it tightly around herself and avoided looking at Draco as she slipped off the bed.

When she glanced over, she found he was staring pointedly away from her and holding his cloak out towards her. She stared for only a moment before taking it and pulling it over her shoulders.

The towel dropped to the floor, but she didn't try to pick it up. The house-elves could banish it from the floor as easily as the bed. If she knelt down, she was afraid her muscle atrophy would result in her staying there.

She walked to the door without looking at Draco; the fabric dragging across the wood floor. Draco was only a few steps behind her, she could feel him, but his footsteps were silent, and that fact set her on edge.

"What kinds of wards do you have on my room?"

She could sense the way Draco grew colder at the question.

"Only a few."

Lie.

"You've got a lot of protective wards on this room, Malfoy."

She thought back to how he'd been outside her room immediately after the New Year's Party and sent her to bed.

"With all the wards Malfoy added to your wing in the manor, I was afraid I'd never reach you again."

The explosion necessary for Astoria to get through the door.

His haste to get her back to her room after she'd tried to throw herself over the balcony. How he'd insisted on coming to her room when she was fertile.

It was always an intense relief when she returned to it. She'd always been able to stay calm and clear-headed in her room, until she'd become pregnant and her anxiety had finally exceeded whatever enchantments he'd imbued it with.

"I have gone to considerable expense and effort to maintain her environment."

He'd probably been being honest with Stroud.

She tried to walk quickly. It was only four doors down the hall to her room, but she felt as though her legs were already on the verge of giving out as she passed the second door. She stumbled.

Draco instantly caught her left elbow, and she froze. Her stomach plummeted so sharply that she gasped and felt her chest contract until she couldn't breathe. She reached desperately for the wall until her fingertips brushed it. She pressed her body tightly against it and struggled to inhale.

Draco's hand withdrew as though burned, and her heart shattered. She suddenly felt the stark, cruel reality of everything, and it was like being crushed to death.

"I just—," her voice shook and then broke. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be alright with what happened. I don't know how to try to come to terms with it." Her shoulders were shaking, and she pressed her forehead against the wall.

"I don't know how we're supposed to fix this. Draco, why did this happen to us? How is it ever going to be alright now?" Her voice was trembling, and she gave a low sob and then burst into tears, sliding down the wall to the floor.

"I don't know how to do this." She kept saying it over and over as she pressed herself against the wall and cried.