Covered in Crimson

Revelations – Part 1

Previously:

“I honestly don’t have a lot of strong memories of my last two years in school,” he admitted.

“Why do you think that is, Draco?” she prompted.

“I have no idea. I’ve never given it any thought, to be honest. It feels like I’m just moving through life day by day. How can that be, Granger? What have I been doing with my life?”

“Do you remember how we came to be together three days ago?” she asked, peering closely at his clouded gray eyes.

“No, I have no idea, Granger. I swear on my magic,” he confessed.

Hermione released his hand and sighed deeply, closing her eyes as terrifying memories assaulted her. “We have a lot to talk about, Malfoy.”

And now...

“Do you remember the first time you tried to kill me?” she asked quietly, eyes downcast.

“What?!” he exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that I tried to kill you another time?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. What happened two days ago was actually your third attempt on my life. Fortunately for me, you apparently aren’t a very competent assassin, at least where I’m concerned.”

“You’re something else, Granger, sitting here talking so calmly with someone who’s supposedly hell-bent on seeing you dead,” Draco marveled.

“Well, that’s the thing, Malfoy. I’ve known you for nearly ten years, and I’ve watched your ‘career’ as a Death Eater for half that time. I’m happy to tell you that regardless of some of the horrible things you’ve done, in general, you really aren’t very good at it. I think there’s a reason for that, and whatever that is seems to be peeking through in the last couple of days.”

“Wait. Just hold on one damn minute. You’re saying that I’ve been a Death Eater for five years? How is that possible? There’s no way that much time has passed since I took the Mark.” His disbelief was palpable. “Maybe you should start at the beginning, wherever that is.” He shook his head, trying to process what Granger had told him.

“Fair enough. You seem quite confused about the whole thing, so let’s take this slowly and see what we can figure out. Is that okay?” Hermione proposed.

“Yeah, where do you want to start?” he prompted.

“You know how earlier I was telling you about how well you used to do in school? And that things, uh, changed somewhere during fifth year?” He nodded at her reminder. “Well, at the end of that year was when Harry, Ron and I think you took the Dark Mark, right after we left school. There were rumors that you’d done it, but none of us had any proof, at least not for a long while.”

He watched her facial expressions, shifting between the far-away look one has when recalling a distant memory and the intensity of concern she had over dredging up things that might set him off. He thought it might be a good idea to take the tension level down a notch, and interrupted her briefly. “Is it okay with you if I drag a chair over to get a little more comfortable? I have a feeling this may take awhile.”

He noted her nod and tiny smile, the cheeky girl recognizing his attempt at mollification. His mission accomplished, he indicated that she should continue with a vaguely imperious wave of his hand. “Go on, please.”

“From what we heard from some of your fellow Slytherins, no one really saw hide nor hair of you that summer. You were tucked away at your family’s home, everyone thought. There was even a rumor floating around that you weren’t coming back for sixth year. Frankly, that would have made me pretty happy if it had been true, because things got worse for us when you came back at the beginning of the term.”

Draco interrupted her, offering a detail or two that he recalled. “You were right about me getting my Mark at the end of fifth year. In fact it was just a week after we returned home, and only a few days after my sixteenth birthday. All I can really remember about it was a large gathering, a test of my skills, and blinding pain when the Dark Lord burned his Mark into my skin. I’m pretty sure I passed out from it. I don’t remember very much at all of the three or four weeks after that. I would assume that I was at my parents’ house, but I couldn’t swear a wizard’s oath to that. I wonder if they used some kind of charm or potion on me right afterwards, because the pain of the branding was so horrible. If I was potioned, then it would make sense that I wouldn’t remember much.”

“I suppose that is possible. But I wonder why you don’t remember much about fifth year either. You said yesterday that you couldn’t recall anything at all from the previous couple of days, but that a lot of your past felt like Swiss cheese – full of holes. Any idea why that might be?”

“That’s what’s driving me so nuts. I recall thinking yesterday that, between my headache and my memory issues, it almost felt like I’d been under some kind of spell or potion influence. I even wondered if I might have been obliviated, but that usually wipes your memory of an event completely clean, and I was getting little flashes of things, so I ruled that out. I just can’t see how that could happen though. Who would do that to me, and why? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Think about it, Malfoy. Who would benefit from you being forgetful, or malleable, or violent?”

“Oh Merlin. There is someone that comes to mind – someone who has wanted to ‘guide’ me for as long as I can remember,” he answered, his eyes going unfocused and distant as he thought.

“And who is that?”

“My Aunt Bella. But the thing that makes absolutely no sense about that is that I almost never see her, so how could she possibly cast spells or give me potions – especially things that have had such an apparent long-term effect. I can count on both hands the number of times we’ve been together in the last few years.”

“That you can remember, Malfoy.”

“Hmmm. You have a point there.”

Hermione stopped to think for a moment, then posed another question. “What’s the most prevalent memory you have about fifth year, something that really stands out?”

“That’s the thing. Nothing stands out. Everything feels just, I don’t know, blurred together. I guess if I had to pick out anything, it would be the feeling of constantly being watched, and lots of conversations with Snape.”

“Do you remember what happened on Halloween that year?” she pressed.

“Not really. I have a vague recollection of being in the Astronomy Tower watching a charmed fireworks display, and talking to Snape the next morning, but I don’t remember why. Did something important happen that night?”

“You could say that. Someone projected a message from the Astronomy Tower about Mudbloods and traitors dying, and then cast the Dark Mark over Hogwarts. Everyone was certain it was you who had done it, because you were the only person with both the skill and the opportunity, but there was no absolute proof. Do you remember anything about that?”

Draco bent at the waist, rested his elbows on his knees and stared at his feet, trying to recall memories of that night so long ago. His head was feeling very foggy as he struggled to remember what Hermione had described. He tried to picture himself in the Astronomy Tower, to watch himself move or speak in his mind’s eye. There was a sliver of recognition – something about a pouch in his waistband – and then a bright light exploded behind his eyes, causing him to howl against the brilliant pain. He toppled off the chair and onto his knees, wailing in agony, his hands tightly clutching his head.

“Draco! Draco! Oh Merlin, Draco – please. Can you hear me?” Hermione tried to wrest his attention away from his pain. She was not close enough to reach him, but she stretched out her hand in his direction. “Draco, please. Take my hand Draco. I want to help you.”

He was breathing in great heaves, sucking in air as if there weren’t enough in the universe, and tears were coursing down his cheeks. The only time Hermione had witnessed such a violent pain reaction was when she’d been forced to watch someone under the Cruciatus curse. She wondered if he might have had an aneurism. She felt so helpless; unable to move more than a few inches and wandless was not a position of power. Her only hope would be to attempt a wandless magic spell to see if she could put him in a sleep-like state. Her own physical weakness made her doubt the likelihood of success. As she pondered the possibilities, it was clear that his condition was not abating. He’d now curled himself into a tight fetal position and was screaming at the top of his lungs.

She had no choice. If she didn’t try, he might have a stroke or something otherwise as horrible and life-threatening. For all the terrible things he’d done to her, he had tried to help her in the last two days; she felt honor-bound to return the favor. She shifted over so that she was as much on her side as she could be, facing him as he continued to writhe on the floor. She closed her eyes and tried to mentally shut out the sounds of his cries so that she could focus her energies on casting the wandless spell. She gathered her magical energies to the degree that she was able, pointed her hand at the agonized man, and spoke, “Tranquilo somneo.”

Two things happened in rapid succession. First, Draco’s writhing and wailing calmed to stillness and soft whimpers, and Hermione, taxed well beyond her capacity, fainted dead away.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco came around first, recognizing that the searing pain he’d experienced was now just an everyday nasty, pounding headache. He was grateful for the relative respite. He hauled himself up from his position on the floor and in doing so, recognized Hermione’s limp form. It didn’t look like regular sleep. “Oh, no. What happened now?” he breathed.

He dropped back to his knees and crawled over to the sofa where she lay so still and quiet. He felt for a pulse in her wrist, and was greatly relieved to find it fairly strong. Touching her face gently, he whispered her name, “Granger. Are you okay? Wake up, please. I have to make sure you’re okay.”

She moaned in feeble protest, but managed to open her eyes in response to his summons. “Draco. So weak,” she mumbled.

“Let me get you some water, Granger,” he offered, and slowly rose to recover one of the glasses he’d left behind in the bedroom. A visit to the kitchen produced the beverage he’d promised her and he supported her back with one arm while helping her to drink with his free hand. She gulped the cool liquid greedily, and seemed to gain a tiny bit of energy from it.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I think so. Did some wandless magic to try to help you, and it took a lot out of me,” Hermione explained.

“No shit. Don’t do that again, not for me,” he scolded.

“Why not, Malfoy? Isn’t your life worth as much as anyone else?” she challenged.

“I’m not convinced of that right now, Granger,” he replied, turning his back to her momentarily. “Hey, look, the fire’s dying down. I’d better add some wood to this right quick.”

She watched him pile several more logs into the fireplace and add more kindling in the form of crumpled phonebook pages for just a moment before speaking again. “You can’t get away with that, you know.”

“Get away with what?”

“Changing the subject. I think we both know that something important happened a little while ago, Draco. That headache means something. You said you had one earlier, right?” she pressed.

“Yeah, actually a couple of times. They’ve been coming and going since we got here. That one was the worst, though. No question about it. Still hurts, too,” he admitted.

“What were you doing when the other ones happened?”

“I was in the shower for one, another was when I was trying to help you put on the sweats, and there was also the one when I first woke up and found the both of us all bloody.”

She thought for a moment, attempting to make connections between the things he’d been doing and the headaches. Nothing seemed obvious. “No, there’s no pattern that I can see,” she muttered aloud, talking mostly to herself. She looked up at Draco again and asked a different question. “What were you doing while you were in the shower?”

“That’s a pretty personal question, Granger. You mean besides washing your blood off my body?” he goaded.

“That’s not what I implied, and you know it, Malfoy. I meant, what were you thinking?”

“Well, that’s not what you said, Granger, so be more specific next time.” He paused for a moment, and looked her square in the face. “Shit, Granger, I was trying to remember. And that’s what I was doing every other time my head felt like it was going to explode. The harder I try to remember things, the worse the headache is.”

“Now that’s important information, Malfoy. It sounds like there’s some other kind of memory charm in place that’s making it uncomfortable for you to remember things you’ve done. It may even be subtly forcing you to forget things.”

“Uncomfortable is a vast understatement, Granger. I really thought my brains were going to blow out the top of my head, it hurt so badly.”

“I’m wondering if it works in degrees, like if you only try to remember something small or insignificant, it gives you no pain or only a little, but if you try to recall something important or pivotal, it gives you one of those migraine types.”

“You may have something there, too, Granger. If I did pull that stunt on Halloween, that would have been one of the first major leaps into dark activity. That would certainly be classified as a pivotal event, and look what happened when I tried to think about it.”

“So again the question is who would do that to you?”

“Yeah, who would hate me that much, besides you, Potty and Weaselbee?”

“Well, Malfoy, you have to admit we have a few good reasons to, uh, dislike you intensely, but there are no good reasons to make you forget what you’ve done – at least not from our viewpoint.”

“Actually, I don’t know that you have good reason to hate me. You say that I’ve tried to kill you three times, but I don’t remember any of them. If it weren’t for the rather obvious physical evidence from our recent, uh, encounter, I’d have no reason to believe what you say.”

“About that, Malfoy. I know what happened, unfortunately, but how did you come to the conclusion that you were at fault if you couldn’t remember what you did?”

“Now you’re just trying to humiliate the both of us, Granger. Do you really need to know?”

“It would help me to understand, so yes, I think I do.”

Draco sighed deeply and closed his eyes. He spoke quickly and softly. “Besides there being only the two of us here, when I woke up I was covered in blood, but I had no significant injuries. I found you two minutes later, lying in pools of it, most coming from your vagina. My groin was completely covered in blood, and my penis was sore and tender, especially the head. Oh, and the bruises around your neck are an exact match with my handprint. What other conclusion could I have reached? Do I need to be any more specific than that?” he spat menacingly. “Bloody hell, Granger.” His face was flushed with both embarrassment and anger, and he turned his back to her, pacing the floor to release his frantic energy.

“No, Malfoy, that’s quite enough,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, but I had to understand how you came to the conclusion without the memory. It’s clear that your basic thought processes and reasoning capabilities have not been compromised, and that’s good.”

“Don’t be too sure about that, Granger.”

“Why not? Is there something else that happened?”

“Yeah, I just realized that there’s another time that I get the headaches, and it’s probably going to scare the shit out of you.”

“When? Please, just tell me and we can deal with it.”

“When the voices tell me to kill you, and I try to fight them back.”

“The what?!” she shrieked.

He sighed once more and tried to approach the topic calmly. “Every once in a while, usually when I’ve been tending to you, I’ll hear something that feels like a command or maybe a compulsion is a better description. It tells me to finish you off, to rape you again, or to kill you. Something like that. I’ve been fighting it off, because I really don’t want to do any of those things, but I get a massive headache every time I do.”

“Holy shit, Malfoy, are you schizophrenic?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a Muggle term for a psychiatric illness, characterized by hearing voices, violent impulses, and probably two or three more of the behaviors you’ve displayed in the last few years,” she explained. “This just gets more fucked up by the minute,” she mumbled to herself.

“Wizards generally don’t get psychiatric diseases, Granger. Seriously, it’s way beyond rare. That doesn’t mean that combinations of spells and potions can’t mimic or reproduce the same symptoms. I’d lay Galleons on that, frankly.”

“So we come back to the same question yet again. Who would do that to you?”

Draco sat heavily in the chair near the fireplace and dropped his head into his hands, tugging lightly at the hair he’d gathered in both fists. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

Both of them were quiet for several minutes, each absorbing what they’d learned in their last exchange. The silence was disturbed by an odd, low rumbling sound.

“What was that?” Draco asked.

“My stomach. Apparently I’m hungry,” Hermione complained, with only a tiny smidge of embarrassment.

“Oh, yeah. It’s been at least a day and a half since either one of us has eaten, so no small wonder. We do have food, you know. I just don’t know how to get it cooked,” he revealed.

“We have food? What kind of food?” she asked eagerly.

“Mostly tinned things. Corn, baked beans, peas, tomatoes, and something called SPAM, whatever that is. It looked like some kind of meat on the package. Oh, and ten jars of pickles,” he sniggered.

“Well, that’s good. We won’t starve,” she concluded happily.

“Don’t be so sure about that. I don’t know how to cook, or even how to get the tins open. How do Muggles get their food prepared, anyhow?” Draco asked, his bafflement evident.

“I’ll bet you Galleons to Knuts that there’s stuff in the kitchen that we can use to make a meal. Carry me in there, and I’ll help you figure it out,” she ordered.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he smirked, but went to lift her immediately. As he bent over her, his own stomach growled long and loud. Both reacted with a laugh, some of the earlier tension relieved by the very human, natural and mutual requirement for a nosh.

He deposited Hermione gently on one of the two mismatched wooden chairs that flanked either side of the small dining table. She eyed the small collection of utensils and tools that he’d salvaged from drawers and cabinets and quickly found what they needed.

“Voila! A tin opener,” she announced in triumph.

“Okay, I suppose that’s a good thing. I assume you know how to use this, uh, contraption?” he queried, eyeing the bizarre metal tool with suspicion.

He took her rolling eyes as an affirmative response. “What’s next?”

“Well, we’ll need a pot of some type to cook things in,” she observed.

“The only pot I found was the one that I used to get you cleaned up, Granger. It’s had blood in it, so I’m guessing that it’s not a good idea to use it for cooking now,” he told her.

“Hmmm. Yeah, that wouldn’t be the best choice. But if it’s the only thing we have, we’ll have to make do. We’ll just sterilize it with boiling water.”

“Fabulous, Granger,” he drawled. “How do you propose we get boiling water?”

“Fill up the pot and put it on the stove.” At his look of confusion, she pointed at the large metal box with the weird coil rings on the top.

“That’s a stove?”

“Yes, Malfoy, and it’s the electric kind, too. No worries about other types of fuel!” she beamed. “Come to think of it, did you open the oven when you were searching around?”

“What’s an oven?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” she snickered. “It’s the lower part of the stove. Pull that metal handle down and look inside.”

He did as she instructed, and bent to peer into the dark cavity. He turned his head back to her with an honest grin and announced his findings. “There are two small pots, and these things.” He held up a frying pan and a baking dish.

“Excellent! Now we don’t have to worry about sterilizing the pot. These will do nicely for our needs. Malfoy, you are about to get your first lesson in basic kitchen procedures,” she chirped happily.

“Oh, joy,” he mumbled. Putting his hands on his hips, Draco looked at the collection of utensils and cooking vessels warily. “Alright, where do I start?”

“Unfortunately we don’t have any hot water to wash things with, but I’d start with at least rinsing off the two pots and the frying pan. I don’t think either of us would care to eat dust.”

Draco picked up the long-handled fry pan and looked to Hermione for confirmation that he’d selected the correct item. “Fry pan, yes?”

She chuckled at his appalling lack of knowledge on anything to do with a kitchen. It was apparent that he’d never been in the kitchen in his own home. Wizarding food preparation honestly wasn’t that different from Muggle methods, as she’d learned during numerous meals at the Weasley home. Deciding that it was better to preserve the illusion that his ignorance was purely because of the Muggle factor, she confirmed his selection. “Good guess, Malfoy.”

He moved the three items to the white porcelain sink and turned on the faucet, rinsing each pot in turn then shaking them over the basin to get them as dry as possible without towels. He’d remembered that he had used all the linens he’d found either in tending to Granger’s needs or as extra warmth for their bed. Our bed? Draco thought. That’s just… bizarre. He shook his head to clear the thought.

“Okay, Granger, they’re as clean as they’re going to get. What next?”

“We have to decide what we want to eat. Where are the tins?”

“I put them in this cabinet. I don’t know if they’re safe to eat – there’s no way to know how long they’ve been here.”

“Let me see them, and I can probably tell if they’re okay.” She looked over the collection that he’d brought to the countertop and pronounced them safe. “You know, Malfoy, these tins don’t look as though they’re that old, particularly considering the condition of the rest of the house. It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?”

“I guess. I wouldn’t know an old tin from a new one if I fell on it, so I’ll defer to your judgment here, Granger.”

“Just for reference sake, as long as the tins don’t have any rust or dents and they aren’t bulging out, they will be fine. Just make sure to cook what’s in them until it bubbles for a few minutes, just like a potion.”

“What do you want to eat?” he offered.

“How about baked beans, SPAM and, um, peas?” she suggested.

“Fine by me,” he shrugged. “What is SPAM, anyway?” he ventured.

“It’s kind of like ham, but with some spices added in. ‘Spiced ham’ is shortened to SPAM.”

“Sounds revolting, but I guess it’s better than starvation,” he grumbled.

“Sorry, but prime rib of beef is not on the menu tonight, Malfoy. We’ll have to make do. You’ll want to cut the SPAM into slices and put in the frying pan, on a medium heat so it won’t burn. The beans and peas can go in each of the pots, and medium heat should be fine for those too.”

“What’s next? How do I use the tin opener?”

“Do you want me to do it, or do you want to learn how?”

“How about you demonstrate one and I’ll try after that?”

“That’s the generally accepted methodology for learning, Malfoy.”

“Um, yeah,” he acknowledged sheepishly. “Swot,” he needled.

“Give me the peas. See how there’s a lip at the top of the tin? You hook the little metal wheel on the tin opener over that and squeeze the two handles together. Then you turn the crank until it goes all the way around. Be careful when you lift the lid off, because the edges are really sharp,” she warned. After completing her demonstration, she looked back up at Draco. “See? Not too hard.”

“No, not too hard at all. Let me try,” he requested. He took the opener from her and reached for the tin of beans. He struggled a little getting the mechanism to hook over the lip, but once that was done, he was off to the races. “Hey, this is not too stupid.” That was probably as much praise as she’d ever hear from him about anything Muggle.

He lifted the lid off and searched around for something to do with it. “How do you banish refuse without a wand?”

“We Muggles typically use a bin, not unlike many Wizarding homes, Draco,” she teased. “Unfortunately, I don’t see one around here. Maybe you could use an empty cardboard box or something like that,” she suggested.

“There were a couple down in the basement that I think we could use. I’ll go get one after we eat.” He piled the empty tins at the end of the counter for future disposal.

He poured the peas and the beans into their respective pots and set them on two of the stove’s four rings. He turned back to Hermione. “I’m assuming there is a way to activate the heat on this thing? How do I do that?”

“Of course. I would suggest moving one of the pots to a rear burner though, so that you can use the fry pan in the front. It will be easier when you have to flip the SPAM than to have to reach over a hot pot.”

He did as she advised, then looked at her, puzzled, “Flip the SPAM? What in Merlin’s name are you on about?”

She giggled. “When you cook the SPAM on one side, you’ll have to turn it over in the pan so that the other side cooks as well. May I assume you’ve never been in a kitchen before?”

“That assumption would be correct, Miss Granger. I’m a pureblood scion, why would I ever go in a kitchen? That’s house-elves’ work,” he sniffed imperiously.

“I’m not even going to go there with you, Malfoy. I’d prefer to stay alive for now, I think,” she stated. “And who uses words like ‘scion’ anyway?” she mumbled under her breath.

He just glared at her, but decided to let it go; no good could come from instigating an argument right now, especially one based on Granger’s perceived house-elf mistreatment crusade. “Whatever. How do I get this beast to heat up?”

Sighing with exasperation, Granger pointed to the front of the metal box. “See the round knobs at your finger tips? Each one corresponds to a burner on the stovetop. Just turn the dial half-way for medium heat.”

Draco turned the appropriate knobs and grunted with satisfaction as the round coils turned red. He turned to look at her expectantly, awaiting Granger’s next instruction.

“Now you just need to slice up the Spam. Probably four pieces should do it,” she suggested.

“That, I can handle.” He took one of the knives from the table and successfully portioned the chunk of mystery meat, then placed it into the pan she’d already told him to “pre-heat” on the burner. The little pieces of protein sizzled as they touched the hot surface.

“About two or three minutes on each side should be sufficient,” she instructed. “You might want to use this to turn the pieces over, and this to stir the peas and beans.” She selected a flat spatula and a large spoon from the implements on the table, and offered them to him.

He nodded and accepted the tools, turning to tend to the pots on the stove, one hand resting on the countertop and one ankle crossed over the other.

He appeared relaxed and almost domestic. Such an incongruous picture for such an aristocratic prat, Hermione thought. It brought a small, wry grin to her face. “You’re a natural. Malfoy,” she teased.

“I’m good at anything I put my mind to,” he sniffed. Draco turned back to the stovetop to watch the bubbling pots and sizzling SPAM. “I think everything’s about ready.” He cleared the unneeded tools and implements from the table and dropped them into one of the drawers, then grabbed the two small plates and served their modest meal.

“Dinner is served, madam,” he intoned as he placed the plate in front of Hermione. “Eat up.”

“Thank you,” she answered, and tucked in to the hot food. “Not the best meal I’ve ever had, Malfoy, but I’ll take what I can get right now.”

“Not what I’m accustomed to either, but not as bad as I thought it would be. You want a pickle with that?” he suggested. “I’m getting one for myself.” He rose from his seat at the table to unscrew the lid from one of the jars and pull a spear from the brine. He took a bite and proclaimed them “surprisingly tasty and crunchy.”

“No, thanks. Not much of a pickle lover,” she screwed up her nose with distaste.

They ate quietly for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts about the events of the last couple of hours. Draco was first to break their silence, with a perplexed look on his face and a question that Hermione was unsure how to answer. “Why have you been, um, so pleasant to me after what I did to you, Granger?”

She set her fork down on the edge of her plate and swallowed, more in delay than in consuming her dinner. She looked at the remaining morsels in her plate rather than meet his searching gray eyes. “Do you want the truth, or do you want the answer that I think you want to hear?”

“I’m a firm believer in the truth these days, Granger. There’s been way too much obfuscation and treachery going on around me lately, and I think that getting to the truth is the only thing that will help me to understand what’s been going on for the last five years of my life. Don’t you think?” he challenged.

“Fair enough, Malfoy. The truth is, I’ve been nice to you so that I didn’t do something to set you off so that you’d try to kill me again. I’d rather live for a while, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not exactly afraid of you, because I do think you’re trying to, um, behave yourself, but I’m being cautious – regardless of what you’ve done to help heal me in the last day or two. I hope that doesn’t offend you, but it’s what I’m thinking and feeling right now.”

He nodded, looking at his own empty plate, and asked another question after mulling over her response. “What did you think I wanted to hear?”

“My guess is that you want to hear that I trust you, that I’ve put aside what’s happened to me. I wish that were true. I wish I could trust you, but without knowing exactly what the nature of your, uh, condition is, I just can’t take that chance.”

Draco flushed red, but didn’t react with anger. “I can appreciate that, I guess. My history doesn’t exactly recommend me, does it?”

She took that as the rhetorical question it seemed to be, and bent her head to focus on finishing the remains of her meal.

Draco rose from his seat and rinsed his plate and the three cooking vessels under the cold running water. He then filled the larger of the two pots with cold water. “You said something about boiling water to sterilize things, right?”

“Yes. Just put the pot on the stove and turn the burner to high. It will take about ten minutes to get to a good boil. You can just pour the water over the other dishes and they’ll be as clean as we’re able to get them.”

He silently turned and completed the task she’d described, setting the sterilized implements on the counter to dry. “I’d guess you’re getting tired. Would you like me to take you back to the bed or do you want to hang out on the sofa for a while?”

“I think the sofa for now. I’m tired, but we have a few more things to discuss before I’ll be ready to get any sleep.”

Draco moved to her side to lift her, but Hermione decided it might be time to try to stand on her own. She’d had some rest and some food; maybe some of her strength had returned. She lifted a hand to stop him. “Let me try to get up on my own.” She planted her hands on the table, thinking to use it as leverage. It was a good idea, at least in theory. The flaw in her plan, however, was that while some of her vigor had returned, it was not nearly enough for her to move on her own. As she pushed up, her legs buckled under her and she tumbled to the floor with a pained groan.

“Granger, you dumb bint. We don’t need you injuring yourself more than I’ve already done to you. Now it’s going to be harder to pick you up from the floor,” he grumbled, dropping to one knee to try to give himself enough leverage to lift her. He put one arm under her knees and the other across her back. “Put your arms around my neck,” he ordered. With a grunt, he pushed up with enough force to get them both upright. He shifted and hitched, settling her in his arms more firmly before turning to take her back to the sofa in the sitting room.

“Did you hurt anything when you fell?”

“Just my pride,” she mumbled.

He had the nerve to snicker. “Serves you right.” He turned and took note of the state of the fire and decided it would be a good idea to stoke it with more wood. “I’m going to get some of the logs from outside on the porch so we can keep warmer tonight. They’re a little larger than the ones in the wood cabinet, so they’ll burn longer while we’re sleeping.”

“Okay, good idea,” she agreed.

He stepped outside to gather several of the larger logs, and settled them on the floor near the hearth, ready to stack when the fire started to wane.

His mission accomplished, Draco turned back to face Hermione, hands on his hips and gaze slightly challenging. “You know, you said earlier that you knew something about how we got here, but you haven’t told me much yet. Ready to talk?”

“Well, Malfoy, if my memory is correct, and I’m pretty sure it is, we got here by portkey, and I can’t be completely certain, but I think it was your mother who activated it.”

Draco was doing an amazing imitation of a goldfish out of water, sucking mightily for oxygen that would just not be found. “That’s not possible Granger. My mother died two years ago.”