A Pound of Flesh

Chapter Fifteen: Confessions

All the air left Hermione’s lungs in a wheezing exhalation. Though she knew she was seated on Draco’s lap, she could not feel his legs beneath her, nor his cheek under her hand. Every nerve ending went dead as her brain shot into overdrive. She screamed and raged inside her head.

Damn Mundungus Fletcher! Damn him to hell!

Draco did not notice her reaction; he closed his eyes and shuddered.

Every minute detail of the scene caught her attention. She felt as though she’d left her body; she imagined she was looking down at the two of them as they sat frozen on the sofa. She saw the trickle of sweat on Draco’s neck, the goosebumps that sprang up on her arms.

Then she slammed back into her body. Suddenly she could feel everything – Draco trembling beneath her, his fast breath on her face, his hot cheek under her hand. He opened his eyes and looked at her, vulnerable.

“Crazy, right?” With a shaky laugh, he shrugged. “A dragon constellation of bad faith.”

An icy fist clamped around Hermione’s gut. “What?” The single word took a massive effort for her to utter; it sliced up her throat like a rusty blade.

Draco shifted under her and looked away.

“What?” she repeated.

“I looked it up on the Internet. To see if…” He trailed off, his eyes still fixed on some point off to his left.

“To see if…?” Hermione prompted.

“To see if I could find the name. Find me.” He looked back at her, and his eyes were full of challenge, as if he was daring her to laugh. “All that came up was the constellation, and a lot of French. Mal foi means bad faith in French. There was no Draco Malfoy. Stupid of me, right?”

“No,” Hermione managed. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“I do,” he ground out.

“Why?”

He slumped against the couch and brought his hands up to cover his face. “Because I got my hopes up. Because it felt right. As if some raving loony on the street would have the answer to who I am. He said that – that name and it felt right.”

Hermione had no response for this. Of course it felt right – it was his name, after all.

“But there was nothing on the Internet. Nothing about Draco Malfoy. No missing persons report, no death notice, nothing. Even if that is my crazy name, I never existed.”

Hermione reached up and pried his hands away from his face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She kissed each of his palms. “I know it must be hard not knowing who you are.”

Draco nodded mutely.

“If I could give it back to you, I would. I swear it.”

With a small smile, Draco nodded again. Then he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. He pressed his cheek to her chest and sighed. “I shouldn’t complain. Being me isn’t so bad when I have you with me.”

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew just what he meant.

***

The backstage area was shrouded in darkness. Hermione stood behind the Mylar curtain and twisted Draco’s dressing gown between her fingers. Multiple emotions surged through her simultaneously: rage at Mundungus Fletcher, anger at herself, worry for Draco, and another frightening emotion she didn’t want to put a name to yet.

The desire to track down Dung and throttle him was seconded only by the burning anger she directed at herself. Why was it taking so long for her to find the person who held the key to Draco’s locked memories? And anger because she knew she was dragging her feet now – now that she’d decided to help undo his Memory Charm. She was being selfish; she didn’t want her time with Draco to end.

The lights faded up on Draco’s silhouette. His eyes were closed to the glowing lights, and his lips moved. Hermione watched his mouth and tried to discern the words. It was something he did before every act. This time, she was able to make out the word ‘please’ because he said it several times.

Then the spotlight snapped on, and with one deep breath, Draco whirled and ran to the front of the stage.

Hermione tried to imagine telling Draco the truth about himself. She tried to picture his face – shocked, disbelieving, concerned for her mental health – as she told him that he was, in fact, Draco Malfoy, and that he was a wizard and could do magic.

Then she pictured the betrayal on his face – the hurt – as he came to the conclusion that she’d known all along and let him continue to flounder in the darkness.

When Draco ran off the stage at the end of his act, he tripped right into Hermione’s arms, and she clung to him. He chuckled and returned the embrace. He lifted her off her feet and planted a dozen feather-light kisses on her face.

“Ready to go?” he asked at last.

Hermione nodded, eager to leave the strip club behind. Draco seemed eager as well, as he hoisted her in his arms and strode back to his dressing room. He deposited her on the couch, and with a distracted smile, he ducked into the loo to change. She felt like she’d barely taken two breaths before she was walking hand in hand with Draco out the back door of the club.

He started to go to the left at the mouth of the alley, but Hermione stopped and tugged to the right. “Let’s go to your place tonight,” she said.

Draco turned to her, his brow wrinkled. “Are you sure? You’ll have to get up earlier to make it to work. If we go back to your place, you’ll get to sleep in a little longer.”

“I know, but I like your flat better,” she excused.

“And I like yours better,” Draco protested. “I love how it feels.”

“Please?” Hermione batted her lashes at Draco and he sighed theatrically.

“Oh, fine. Since you asked so nicely. But tomorrow night – ”

“We’ll see,” she lied.

As they walked to Draco’s flat, the rain, which had tapered off in the afternoon, began to fall again. Hermione turned her face to the sky and blinked as rain drops splashed onto her forehead and cheeks.

Draco didn’t appear to notice. He stared straight ahead, his brows pulled together and his forehead wrinkled in deep thought. Only when the wind shifted and the rain blew sideways into his face did he blink and look around.

“When did it start raining?”

“Not too long ago,” Hermione answered. She squeezed his hand when he shot her a look of consternation.

“Sorry, I guess I’m a little distracted tonight.” He tried to pull her under the awning of a darkened Italian restaurant, but Hermione stood fast on the sidewalk, aware of faint music drifting through the night.

“Dance with me.”

His face broke out into a genuine smile, not like the ones he’d been giving her all evening, the ones where his eyes were still sad. “Right here? In the rain?”

“Right here, in the rain.”

“There’s no music!” he laughed.

Hermione shushed him and strained to hear. “No, there. Listen: music.”

Draco closed his eyes and lifted his face to the rain. He listened intently and then a small smile crossed his lips.

“Good song,” he commented. He took a step closer to her and held out his hand. “Shall we?”

Hermione, feeling as though she had somehow stepped into a romantic movie, placed her hand in his. He took her in his arms and they began to sway to the driving rock ballad.

As the cool rain fell onto them, she was only aware of the warmth of his body pressed against her, the feel of his hands on the small of her back, of his breath on her neck. Draco rested his forehead against hers and gazed down at her. She looked back into his stormy grey eyes, her heart in her throat.

“You are so lovely,” Draco whispered.

Hermione was grateful for the rain, which masked the tears his gentle compliment induced. With a shy smile, she closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder. She found herself singing quietly. Draco pulled her even closer and began to sing along as well.

But too soon, the song ended, and a faster song began to play. For a long moment, they held each other in the rain, on the sidewalk, and then Draco bent and kissed her tenderly. As her heart raced in her chest, she finally put a name to the emotion she had been too scared to recognize earlier.

She was falling in love with Draco.

***

“Start at the beginning,” Hermione muttered to herself. With sure fingers, she uncapped the vial that held Alecto Carrow’s memory. The beginning. The night Draco had died, but hadn’t.

The Ministry was all but empty at this time of night, and Hermione wasn’t worried about being discovered. The only other member of the MLE in the office at the moment was a new recruit who was currently snoring loudly. All the same, she had locked the door to the archives room.

Now that Hermione stared at the swirling silver memory, she wasn’t convinced that she could bring herself to watch it. She didn’t want to watch Draco being tortured, even if she knew he survived it. She didn’t want to see his glorious face contorted in pain or hear his smooth tenor screaming in agony.

With a fortifying breath, Hermione poured the memory into the waiting Pensieve. The surface of the bowl shimmered with iridescent colors and she prodded it with her wand. Voldemort’s hideous face swam to the surface, twisted in a frightening smile.

She jumped to her feet and sent her chair toppling backwards. “I can’t do this,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “I can’t. I can’t.”

But then she saw Draco’s face within the bowl – younger, gaunt, terrified – and knew she was the only one who could do it. And she had to do it, otherwise she might never be able to help him remember.

“For you,” she told his peaked face, and then she bent and placed her lips on the image’s forehead.

She fell forward with a startling lurch and found herself in a crowd of black-robed figures, next to the woman she vaguely recognized as Alecto Carrow. Silence filled Hermione’s ears; nobody moved, nobody coughed; for all she knew, nobody dared to breathe.

The room was unbearably crowded, and Hermione felt claustrophobic as she pressed through the intangible bodies around her. It was dimly lit; the majority of the light seemed to come from a large, roaring fire in a massive brick fireplace. Weak, flickering candles hung suspended in the air, but they did not give off enough light to illuminate the dark corners of the room. The only furniture was an oversized chair and a rickety table in front of the bright flames.

And there, standing between the chair and the fireplace, was Voldemort. Draco, visibly shaking, stood alone before him.

Hermione shuddered and closed her eyes. After a long moment where she breathed deeply and reminded herself she was in a memory and Voldemort was dead, she forced herself to watch again.

“I believe I was quite clear with my instructions.” Voldemort’s thin, venomous voice filled the air, and every Death Eater in the room except Bellatrix Lestrange and Severus Snape took a tiny step backward.

“You were to dispose of the Headmaster. You were to kill him. Tell me, were these not my instructions?”

Draco swallowed. “Yes – yes, my Lord.”

“And yet you disobeyed a direct order. And Severus had to step in to fulfill your mission.” Voldemort glided forward and Draco flinched. His shoulders rolled forward and he hunched in on himself.

“Because of you, Gibbon is dead.”

Draco exhaled shakily.

“Because of you,” Voldemort continued, his voice cold, “I’ve lost use of Severus, my most valuable spy.” He came to a halt in front of Draco, his face inches away from Draco’s bowed head.

“You had such promise.” Voldemort spoke quietly, and Draco shrank upon himself. “Such promise, but you’ve proven to be nothing but a disappointment, just like your father.”

Draco tensed. After a moment, Voldemort eased away.

“You remember, of course, the conditions I put upon your mission?”

At this, Draco’s head shot up. “No!” he gasped.

Voldemort’s lipless mouth curled up in a sinister smile. “No? You don’t remember the conditions?”

“I remember the conditions,” Draco choked out.

“And you disagree with them?”

Draco’s mouth worked wordlessly. His face was twisted in pain, and his chest rose and fell with sharp, rapid gasps of air. He swallowed. “Yes,” he breathed.

Voldemort hissed. “Yes?”

The collective group of Death Eaters took another step back.

“It isn’t their fault I failed to – failed to obey you. Punish me, not them. Not my parents.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You propose a trade?”

Draco hesitated; he closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. Then he raised his head and looked at Voldemort defiantly. “A trade,” he agreed.

Voldemort pointed his wand at Draco. “You, for them.”

Draco seemed to wilt as he nodded. “My life for theirs.”

With a predatory smile, Voldemort nodded. “I accept your trade.”

Hermione screamed with Draco as the first Cruciatus Curse knocked him to the ground.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried, and she darted forward. Her outstretched hands passed through Draco as he flailed on the ground, and she fell to her knees heavily. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “I can’t do this! I can’t!”

Voldemort lifted the curse and in the brief silence, the only sounds Hermione heard were her own frustrated sobs and Draco’s rasping breath. She pried her hands away from her face and gazed down at him.

His hands, clenched into fists on his chest, twitched spasmodically. His hair clung to his sweaty face; she caught glimpses of his wide, terrified grey eyes as they rolled in his head.

Voldemort’s voice, now smooth as silk, broke through her scrutiny. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

Draco’s lips parted. Hermione could not look away from the bite mark on his lower lip. It welled with blood.

“My life for theirs,” he gasped.

“As if your life is worth that much.” Voldemort laughed; the thin, reedy sound made the flesh on the back of Hermione’s neck crawl. “Crucio!”

Draco’s back arched and he screamed until he ran out of air. His fingers clawed at the floor, scrabbling across the rough wood planks, and he gagged as he tried to breathe in. Voldemort lifted the curse and Draco collapsed, facedown, in a limp pile of trembling limbs. He gasped raggedly.

Hermione wiped at the tears on her face and leaned over Draco as he tried to recover. “I’m here for you,” she whispered.

His body shook with breathless sobs, and his hands, stretched out before him, clenched and unclenched. Hermione stared in horror at the tips of his fingers, which left bloody marks on the floor. He’d torn off his fingernails.

The torture continued. Hermione rocked on the floor next to Draco and wept as his struggles grew weaker. Blood flowed, unchecked, from deep gashes all over his body, and his bloody lips began to turn blue. When he breathed, it sounded as if he was drawing in air through a clogged straw, and when he exhaled, something rattled in his throat.

Hermione couldn’t look anywhere but at his battered body. She couldn’t look at Voldemort, who laughed like a small child playing with a favorite toy, nor Bellatrix, who hovered just behind Snape off to the left. Her whole world narrowed to the dying boy in front of her. But he wouldn’t die, she reminded herself. Somehow, he survived.

Draco’s body gave a violent lurch, and then he hung upside down in the air. His robes, sliced to ribbons, fell away from his body. He didn’t struggle; he didn’t appear to be conscious any longer. His arms dangled above his head, feet from the ground.

Voldemort waved his wand, and a throbbing red light smashed into Draco’s side. Hermione thought she heard his ribs crack. His body spun like a wobbly top with the force of the impact, but he showed no sign of being capable of feeling pain any longer. Voldemort repeated his actions, his laughter loud and raucous, until Draco spun rapidly near the ceiling.

Then, without warning, Draco plummeted to the ground. His head smashed against the floor with a sickening crunch. The only sound in the room was Voldemort’s delighted laughter.

Draco wasn’t breathing.

Voldemort stepped around Draco’s unmoving, broken body. “I admit, I am surprised you survived long enough to return. No matter, though.” He prodded the air around Draco with his wand, and the battered boy flopped limply onto his back. “It appears the question of your mortality has been answered after all.”

Hermione’s eyes fixed on Draco’s chest and willed it to move, but there was nothing.

“Severus,” Voldemort barked, and pointed lazily at Draco’s crumpled form as he strode back to his chair.

Snape stepped forward quickly. He placed two fingers on Draco’s wrist, and then to his throat. He leaned forward over Draco – Hermione couldn’t quite see what he was doing – and placed a hand on his chest. He turned his dark eyes on Voldemort, who was looking the other way.

“He’s dead.”

The scene faded, and Hermione found herself sitting in the MLE archives. Her face was wet.

“He’s not dead,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “He’s not! He lived.”

And Snape must have known.

Snape, who was now dead.

Hermione crumpled over the desk and rested her forehead against its cool surface. She swallowed the heavy lump in her throat and concentrated on deep breathing.

If only Draco knew. If only he knew what waited for him in the memories he was so desperate to remember. For the first time, she felt gratitude to whoever had Obliviated him.

When she was sure she wasn’t going to be ill, she straightened and stared at the surface of the Pensieve, which was blessedly empty of images. A quick glance at her watch showed it was five minutes to midnight. It felt like it had been so much longer. She was sure that to Draco, that night had felt endless.

She swallowed the ache in her throat. If she hadn’t gotten to know Draco in the last month, she never would have imagined that he was capable of the love and bravery that he’d shown in that memory. She wondered if he’d known then that his death was what Voldemort had intended all along, that he’d simply been the means to punish Lucius for his own shortcomings as a Death Eater.

She hoped he hadn’t known.

With a fortifying breath, Hermione siphoned Carrow’s memory from the Pensieve and returned it to the shelves. Then, before she could change her mind or lose her nerve, she strode back to the desk, uncorked Bellatrix Lestrange’s memory, and poured it into the Pensieve. She took a deep breath and placed her face in the bowl.

Hermione found herself back in the same room, from a different angle. She stood behind Snape, next to Bellatrix, and she took a quick step away from the bedraggled woman.

Voldemort summoned Snape, who darted forward. From this angle, it was again impossible to see precisely what he was doing after he checked for a pulse. He leaned forward quickly, and his hair fell like a curtain around Draco’s face. After a moment, he turned back to Voldemort.

“He’s dead.”

Voldemort nodded, his back turned. His snake face stretched in a merciless sneer. With a vindictive gleam in his narrow eyes, he turned to Bellatrix. “You will, of course, be certain that Narcissa is informed that her son has paid for Lucius’s failure with his life.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

“Dispose of that,” Voldemort commanded with a lazy wave of his skeletal hand in Draco’s direction.

Snape raised his wand, but Voldemort held up a hand.

“No, allow Bellatrix to handle this. I’m certain this should be a private, family moment.” Voldemort’s lipless mouth turned down in a mocking frown.

“Yes, my Lord.” Snape stepped away, and Bellatrix raised her wand.

“Give Narcissa my regards,” Voldemort sneered as Bellatrix levitated Draco’s lifeless body from the ground.

Hermione followed as Bellatrix left the crowded room and descended a flight of worn wooden stairs. She could not take her eyes off Draco. He looked, for all appearances, dead.

Bellatrix directed Draco’s body out of the decrepit house. The moon shone down on his pale face, and he seemed to glow. For a brief moment, Bellatrix appeared to be indecisive. With a blank expression on her face, she looked down at her nephew. Her dark eyes were dry of tears, but then she reached out a hand and wiped at a bit of blood on his chin.

“It was a good death,” she whispered. Then she took a firm grip on his body and spun on her heel.

The blackness of Apparition was doubly startling without the sensation of being squeezed through a tube. Suddenly, it was just dark, soundless, airless, weightless.

Then Hermione found herself in the moonlight on the dark front lawn of Malfoy Manor. The house itself was ablaze with light. It shone like a beacon, every window lit up.

She looked around and spotted Bellatrix off to her left, Draco’s limp, bloodied body levitating in front of her. As Bellatrix started forward, a sliver of light cut across the drive, and Hermione turned to see the front doors of the manor flung open wide.

Narcissa Malfoy, clad in a flowing white dressing gown, her hair disheveled, stood in the doorway. Upon closer inspection, Hermione realized she was weeping.

“NO!” Narcissa screamed, and she darted forward. She met Bellatrix halfway across the front lawn.

Bellatrix lowered Draco to the spongy, damp grass. “Your son has paid for Lucius’s failure. I’ve brought him back to you, as you asked,” she said, her voice flat.

“I asked you to bring him back alive!” Narcissa wailed. She flung herself to the ground and brought Draco’s head to her breast. She rocked him against her, and his blood spread across her white gown like a sunburst.

She stiffened and held her breath for a long moment. Her eyes fluttered closed and then she lowered his head to the ground. She advanced on her sister.

“You brought him back. Now leave.”

Bellatrix stood her ground. “The Dark Lord sends his regards.”

“GO AWAY!” Narcissa shrieked.

Bellatrix took a step back and held up her hands in supplication. “Cissy, please.”

“My son is DEAD! My husband is in Azkaban! Haven’t you done enough to me?”

“Cissy,” Bellatrix began again. “It was a good death. He traded his life for yours. Yours and Lucius’s lives.”

“A good death?” Narcissa shrieked. She gestured down at the red blood stain on the front of her dressing gown. “What about this is good?”

“He paid Lucius’s debt. Lucius will be welcomed back.”

Narcissa withdrew her wand and pointed it at her sister. “Leave, now. Don’t make me force you.”

Bellatrix shook her head and reached for Narcissa.

“I warned you, Bella.” There was a flash of light and Bellatrix cried out in pain, and then there was blackness again.

Hermione lurched out of the memory, startled. With a ragged gasp of air, she planted her hands on either side of the Pensieve and closed her eyes.

Narcissa had somehow known Draco was alive. Something about the way she’d reacted when she’d cradled his head to her breast made Hermione certain that Narcissa had known. Hermione wondered if she would see what had tipped off Draco’s mother if she watched the memory again. Then she shuddered. She didn’t want to see that ever again.

And she’d learned virtually nothing that would help her. Yes, Snape had known that Draco was alive; he’d lied to Voldemort about it. But she did not want to think that it was Snape who had placed Draco at the strip club. A dead man could not undo spells.

After she stopped shaking, Hermione fished Bellatrix’s memory from the Pensieve and replaced it on the shelf. She spared the archives room a quick glance to make sure she’d left no traces of her visit behind. Then she swept out of the office, past the sleeping recruit, and was at the lifts before she realized where she was going.

She checked her watch again. Draco would be off work soon, and she needed to see him.

***

At the strip club, Hermione discovered that Draco had just left for the night. She debated whether she should attempt to catch him on the street or be waiting on his front step when he got home. Daunted by the prospect of chasing him down, she Disapparated to an alley close to his flat.

Draco looked surprised to see her on his stoop when he came up the sidewalk. “Jane!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, obviously,” Hermione replied, breathless. Every time she looked at his face, she saw him as he’d been four years before: broken, bloody, dead. I wanted to make sure you were alive, she thought to herself.

Draco climbed to the top step and pulled her to her feet. “I thought you were busy tonight.” He brushed a kiss on her lips. Hermione melted against him.

“I will never be too busy for you,” Hermione murmured against his chest.

Draco gave her a gentle squeeze and kissed the top of her head. She filled her lungs with his unique scent, tasted it on her tongue. Everything about him seemed so alive – the rise and fall of his chest under her ear, the throbbing heartbeat with its reassuring, steady rhythm, the warmth of his skin, the feel of his arms holding her close – that she could not bear to imagine a world where he was dead.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” He opened the door for her and motioned her inside. She preceded him up the stairs to his flat, and waited patiently while he fitted the key into the lock.

Then as soon as Draco shut the door behind them, she turned and threw her arms around him.

“Oh!” he exclaimed in surprise before Hermione’s lips cut him off. He chuckled as she dragged him further into the room. As she pushed him down onto the couch, her hand lingered a moment on his chest, where she could feel his heart pounding. Then she kissed him again, and he responded eagerly.

His lips were a joy to her. The sensation of kissing Draco was unique from anything else she’d ever experienced. His lips were supple, soft and warm. As he brushed a feather-light kiss on her mouth, she shivered in delight. His kisses tickled, electrified, and thrilled her. Then his confident tongue began a tender plunder of her mouth, and she sighed against him.

He was alive.

At length, she pulled back and gazed at his face. The only light in the room bled through the front window and cast strange shadows across his features. It was very easy to forget, just for a moment, that he was the same person she’d known as a child. She’d never seen such an expression on his face before – he looked awed, like he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

“What was that for?” he asked somewhat breathlessly.

“For being you.”

“Wow.”

Draco sounded so gobsmacked that Hermione could not help but laugh a little.

“Being me is pretty good, then,” he mused.

Hermione made a noise of agreement and rested her forehead against his. She looked into his eyes and felt her heart start to flutter helplessly.

“You have one eye,” Draco announced after a long moment of companionable silence. “Right in the middle of your face.”

With a laugh, Hermione let her eyes slip out of focus until Draco’s eyes had blurred into one. Then she blinked until she could see both again. Draco mimicked her and then sighed in relief.

“Oh, that’s much better.”

“Don’t want a Cyclops for a girlfriend?” Hermione teased.

Draco kissed her nose. “I’ll take you any way I can get you. I do prefer you with two proper eyes, though.”

“Any way you can get me?” Hermione echoed wistfully. If only he knew what he was saying.

“Any way,” Draco reassured her firmly. He placed another kiss on her nose. “With two heads.” He kissed her right cheek. “Or three arms.” He pressed his lips against her left cheek and whispered, “Or fourteen toes.” He trailed his lips down to her jaw and pressed a kiss there. “Or only one eye. So long as you are Jane, nothing else matters.”

Hermione swallowed her guilt and smiled. “How was your day?” she asked in an attempt to change the subject. It worked.

Draco leaned back in the couch, languid. “The usual.”

“No raving nutters chasing you down the street?”

“No.” A wry smile crossed his lips. “Not yet, at least. Just classes and revision and work. Oh!” he said suddenly. “And I had lunch with my mate, Tom. I don’t know if you remember him. He was here the night you came here after your friends’ wedding.”

“I remember,” Hermione told him. She remembered it clearly.

Draco shifted and graced her with a sheepish smirk. “Yeah, well, he wants to meet you. He’s my best mate, you see, and I told him you were busy, but – ”

“When?” Hermione interrupted, eager to meet Draco’s friends and see what insight they could grant her on his life.

Draco stopped and shot her a confused look. “When?” he echoed.

“When does he want to meet me?”

Draco blinked for a moment. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. I’d love to meet your friends properly.”

Looking elated, Draco nearly bounced in his seat. “How about brunch on Saturday? You’ll stay the night tomorrow, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Hermione told him wholeheartedly.

Draco looked supremely satisfied after that, and they drifted into a pleasant silence. He picked up her hand and began to trace her fingers.

“Tell me about your day,” he said at last.

Hermione thought about her day. It had been fairly average until just a short while ago. She and Susan had patrolled Diagon Alley after receiving a report that someone was peddling faulty potions on the street. Then she’d gone home, read more of Draco’s journal, studied her books on Memory Charms, and then snuck back into the Ministry for some late night memory viewing.

“It was the usual. My partner and I tried to find a man we were told was selling illegal… er… drugs, and then I had to do some research for a case I’m working on.”

“What kept you tonight?”

“Oh, I had a meeting. It was ghastly.”

“Late meeting.”

“It ran long.” And then Hermione yawned.

“Bedtime for Bonzo.” With a devious smile, Draco stood and swept Hermione into his arms.

“Are you comparing me to a primate?” she growled playfully.

“Never.” Draco carried her to his bedroom.

With another yawn, she protested, “I’m not tired!”

Draco smirked as he placed her on the bed and stretched out beside her. With a glint in his eyes, he told her, “Perfect.”

***

Hermione found herself running through the dark corridor once more, the sound of her feet slapping the floor muffled in her ears. She could see the sliver of light; this time it was closer.

Then the screams began. They were coming from behind her, and Hermione shot a fear-stricken glance over her shoulder. She stumbled to a stop. Draco writhed on the floor in a patch of silver moonlight, his face contorted in pain.

He screamed in torment again, and Voldemort stepped out of the shadows, his wand poised and rigid in his hand.

Hermione spun on her heel, unconcerned for her own welfare at the moment. All that mattered was getting to Draco and stopping his pain. She reached for her wand and pointed it at Voldemort as she ran back the way she’d come.

But nothing happened.

Her wand fizzled and then crumbled before her eyes. Aghast, she stared at her empty hand.

“Help me, Granger!” Draco screamed, his agonized grey eyes fixed on her face. “Please! Please!”

“I’m trying!” She flung herself between Draco and Voldemort. Excruciating pain coursed through her body –

And she bolted up in bed, a scream stuck in her throat. She looked over at Draco, who stirred in his sleep.

“Jane?” he mumbled as he cracked open one eye.

“Sorry.” She settled next to him once more and resisted the urge to wrap herself around him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Bad dream?” Draco snaked an arm around her and pulled her tight against him. “You’re shaking,” he said sleepily. “Are you cold?”

“Yeah,” Hermione lied through her chattering teeth.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he murmured, and he folded his body around her.

She closed her eyes and reminded herself to breathe. She was a bundle of raw nerves. She ached to just be out with it, and tell him everything. It would almost be a relief, if not for the fact that he would never gaze at her with that look of wonderment on his face again, nor brush his lips against her forehead and hum with contentment.

The image of Draco’s face, twisted in pain, filled her mind, and her eyes snapped open. She would not be able to live with herself much longer, knowing what she did, and what he didn’t. How hard would it be, after all, to tell him the truth? It would be over so fast.

It would all be over.

She swallowed painfully.

Soon, the quiet sound of Draco’s slow, sleep-filled breathing filled the room. Hermione carefully disentangled herself, her movements slow and deliberate so as to not wake Draco, and propped herself up on her elbow. She studied his profile, just barely visible in the faint light that bled through his curtains. His face was always so sharp, she mused, except for now, when he was asleep. All the sharpness fell away, and he looked boyish, all the hard angles gone. He slept with his lips parted ever so slightly, and a soft snore escaped his mouth.

Hermione brushed the hair away from his forehead with a tenderness that terrified her. She never would have imagined, when she’d first decided to reinsert herself in Draco’s life, the depth and quality of the emotions she would come to feel for him. It was terrible to watch him going about his daily life with hope that one day he would remember everything he’d lost. If he ever regained his memories, he’d have to flee the world he’d just remembered. If he ever regained his memories, he’d remember that he hated her.

There was a confession bubbling just beneath the last threads of her self-control. She opened her mouth twice to wake him and tell him everything, and then stopped herself. She would lose him if she told him.

But then a swell of love for him made her chest tight, and she knew she could not keep lying to him. She had to tell him, even if it meant the end of this stolen happiness.

Hermione took a deep breath.

“You asleep?” she whispered. Draco grunted and shifted positions. Hermione waited until he’d settled again and ran a hand down his cheek. “I have something to tell you.”

“Mhmm.”

“You listening?”

Draco didn’t respond.

Hermione took a deep, calming breath and then whispered, “You name is Draco Malfoy. You’re a wizard. You can do magic. We went to school together at Hogwarts.” She paused, waiting.

Draco snored softly.

She sagged against him, burying her face in his chest. The words, now unhindered, rushed from her mouth. “Everyone thinks you’re dead,” she continued. “Your parents are dead. There was a war. You were on the other side. You hated me.”

She swallowed the sob that built in her throat and concentrated on the smell of his smooth, warm skin. She pressed a kiss onto his breast over his heart.

“I don’t know who put you here or why, but I’m trying to find them. I’m trying to give it back to you, I swear. But please don’t be mad at me for not telling you sooner. I didn’t want to lose you. Please, please, don’t be mad at me.”

In his sleep, Draco made a quiet noise of agreement.

She raised her head and looked at his relaxed, sleeping face. “You’re so handsome. I always thought so, even when I hated you. I don’t hate you anymore.” She traced his lips with her finger, the end of her fingertip tingling with the contact. “Why couldn’t you have been like this back then? We could have had years. You never would have gotten into the mess with Voldemort.”

Draco’s body tensed and he shifted again. His arm went around her shoulders and pulled her close. She rested her head on his chest, over his heart. The steady, sure beat under her ear was reassuring.

A sense of relief filled her, now that she’d said the words that had been shredding her inside. The confessions were over, save for one, the most important one of all.

She whispered her final confession, and tested the weight of it on her lips. It felt right. Tears sprang to her eyes and she whispered it again, wishing she was brave enough to tell him everything when he was awake.

“I love you,” she whispered one last time.

---

Author's Notes: For the curious, the song that Hermione and Draco danced to was "Thank You For Loving Me" by Bon Jovi.

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