A Safe Place

Draco paced the length of his tiny room and back, his long legs making short work of the distance from one wall to the other. He was all nervous energy - he could feel the anxiety as a physical substance coursing through his veins. This was ridiculous. What had he gotten himself into? Sleeping on a couch with Hermione Granger, wrapping his arms around Hermione Granger, kissing Hermione Granger! Admittedly, that last one had only happened once and they hadn’t mentioned it again - but still. It was there. It was part of this.

Merlin's balls. He sank heavily onto his bed and lowered his head into his hands. This was a disaster. It must be the stress. There was no other explanation, no other reason for needing her. If Draco couldn’t admit to anything else, he could admit to that. He needed her. Or his body did. The feel of her stretched out alongside him on that couch had soothed some terrible part of him, calmed something that hadn’t been calmed in a long, long time. He remembered her explanation; that they needed human contact after all of the death and injury, the pain and torture. It made sense. A physical need, not connected in any way to conscious, rational thought.

For a moment, he wondered why his body had chosen a Mudblood. Although he had renounced those views of his past quite a while ago, he expected some residual abhorrence to remain. He had believed it so strongly - that she was dirty, polluted, inhuman. It wasn’t an attitude that could be shrugged off like a cloak. But here he was, touching her with no sign of disgust.

But she had been one of the reasons he had given up those views. He had to admit that to himself. It had been her intelligence, her innate goodness at school which had first planted the seeds of doubt. And that doubt had grown, twining around the hatred inside him until it had disappeared. It had been the eyes of the murdered witches and wizards on the floor of his ancestral home, as they lay where they’d fallen after round and round of Unspeakables, which had blotted hate out completely. But she had planted doubt.

A scratching at the window caused Draco to start guiltily. With a rueful sigh, he rose and unlatched the window, letting the tawny owl alight on the sill. He took the parchment, gave the owl a treat which he kept near the window for just this purpose, and watched as it launched itself back into the brightening sky. Taking the parchment over to his one chair, he fell into it and sighed. He knew what this was. Another mission. And thank the Founders, it couldn’t have come soon enough. He needed to get out of here.

--

Hermione hadn’t dreamed. She had slept for the first time in almost two years, in a realm of blackness so silent and complete that she had woken gasping at the strangeness of it all. She was alone on the couch in the parlor, a worn wool blanket pulled up over her shoulders. She was warm and comfortable and, most importantly, calm. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spent a morning without the racing heartbeat and bone-tiring fear left over from her night-terrors.

She stretched languidly, hearing her jaw crack as she yawned. She had fallen asleep last night cuddled up against Draco Malfoy. She almost laughed aloud, it was so ridiculous. But Merlin, it had felt like the first real sleep she had ever had. Her mind was alert and rested this morning and her body, while still stiff in the places of old injuries, felt ready for anything. If this was the secret to fighting off her night-terrors, if Draco Malfoy was the solution - so be it. She was willing to make the sacrifice that extended time (in bed, oh Merlin) with that git to snatch restful nights of sleep. It was worth it.

She rose, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. It was late in the morning, she could tell by the sun slanting in through the cracks between the curtains. Dust motes glittered in the shafts of light as she made her way to the stairwell. On the first floor landing she paused, glancing towards the room Draco had been using. Should they talk about this? Work out some sort of arrangement? His words last night had made her feel as if he needed her beside him as much as she now knew she needed him. She straightened her back, clutching the blanket more tightly around her. Yes, they needed to discuss this rationally. Set out some ground rules.

She knocked lightly on the door to his room and waited. When no answer came, she knocked again. “Malfoy?”

She pushed lightly on the door and was somewhat surprised to find it wasn’t locked. She swung it inward, stepped cautiously into the room - and froze. The bedding had been taken off the bed and, neatly folded, sat stacked on the side table. There was no sign of any luggage or personal belongings. He was gone. Hermione felt the fear begin to rise slowly, inevitably within her.
--

Near Inverness, Scotland

Hermione threw her pack heavily onto the bed and scowled at it. She was in a terrible mood. She had been in a terrible mood since London, three missions back. She knew it was true, even felt a bit of remorse for the sullen expression and clipped speech which made her former classmates (and even some of the junior Aurors) scamper out of her way when they saw her. But she couldn’t help it. After that one night of blissfully silent slumber, her night-terrors had returned ten-fold. She woke sweating and shaking every morning, her hands clutching desperately at tangled sheets. It took ten minutes to calm her heart-rate and quiet the trembling in her limbs. A dull headache followed her wherever she went, only dissipating when on mission and her concentration would not allow the inconvenience pain would cause her.

In fact, it had got to the point where she wanted to be in the field as much as possible. The nightly ordeals seemed muted when she was focused on a mission - or at least they didn’t seem to bother her as much. She was able to compartmentalize her emotions when out on the battlefield and she had no time for fear. But at the safe-houses it was a different story. At the safe-houses, it all came rushing back.

--

Sussex

Hermione swallowed down a sense of déjà vu along with her mouthful of Firewhisky. She was sitting in a warm kitchen, across the table from Seamus, Neville and Parvati, when Malfoy came stalking through the door. Neville stiffened and he and Seamus turned slowly towards Hermione, as if any sudden movements might set her off. She almost snorted, it was so obvious. Instead, she smirked at them and brought the tumblr back to her lips. Parvati, sensing something but unsure what it was, looked at each of them warily and laid her cards on the table.

Hermione glanced towards Malfoy, watching the planes of his back as he filled a glass from the sink faucet. He was thin and stooped, his normally proud posture now exuding exhaustion. His silver-white hair hung in his eyes, and Hermione felt her fingers twitch at the need to brush it aside. She remonstrated herself, clenching her fist at her side. She would fight this ridiculous need for him, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she still wondered if his body had been as warm and comforting as she remembered.

It was easier the further away they moved from that night. She was so numb most of the time that she didn’t feel the want for his warmth as she had those first few weeks. But every once in awhile, especially if he was near, she remembered. And in the mornings, as she fought with her racing heart and lay gasping in her sweat-soaked sheets, she remembered.


--

London

Draco couldn’t help it; his eyes just seemed to inevitably end up on that head of riotous curls. Every time he saw her, the feel of her against him came pouring back into his mind. When she was gone he could imagine that he dreamt it, that it had been a figment of his overly-stressed imagination. But when they were in the same room that was impossible. He would begin remembering the feel of her fingertips on his cheeks, the curve of her breasts where they pressed into his side and the weight of her arm flung across his waist. The steady rhythm of her breath.

Today was no different, as they sat across from each other at a conference table in one of the temporary headquarters for the Order. A heated discussion on bringing in foreign witches and wizards was happening at one end of the table. At the other, Potter was re-capping the last six months in the field, trying desperately to see some sort of pattern in the Death Eater’s behavior. Draco half listened, his eyes flitting between Potter and Granger.

There were dark smudges beneath her eyes and her hair was tangled even more than usual. She had tried to twist half of it back off her face, but curls had escaped and shot out to hallow her gaunt face. She was too thin; he had seen as she entered the room how her jeans slung low on her jutting hips and her t-shirt hung loose from her shoulders. There were scars and fresher cuts criss-crossing over her arms and the back of her hands. A particularly magnificent bruise bloomed out from beneath the collar of her shirt and spread halfway up her slender neck. Every so often she shifted in her seat and grimaced in pain, hinting at more bruises in other places on her body.

Their relationship, or lack of one, had reverted to it’s original state since he had gratefully fled into the morning after that fateful night. Now, when they met each other in hallways or across conference tables, Draco could feel the slowly simmering anger radiating off of her in waves. He guessed it was a combination of reasons which made her glare balefully at him whenever she was forced to make eye contact. She was embarrassed, confused, resentful and scared. He knew this because, truth be told, so was he.

--

Dover, South Hampton, Warwickshire, Aberdeenshire and Manchester

Hermione floated. She floated through the safe-houses like a wraith, unsure if her feet ever touched the ground. These moments between fighting were hazy and inconsequential, as if they were some strange limbo between flashes of reality. It was an endless succession of bare rooms, lumpy mattresses, cheap meals and weak tea. Bottomless tumblers of Firewhisky. Faces flashed in front of her consciousness, blending into one another until she couldn’t remember who was sharing a roof with her at what time, whose footsteps pounded on the stairs, whose voices were raised in panic as yet another summons for guerrilla work came via owl.

She sustained injuries at some point - another Vulnero across her shoulder blades from a Death Eater behind her position, a scrape (which made her right thigh resemble raw meat) from sliding down an embankment, a burnt palm from trying to shield her face from a hastily cast Incendio. All had been adequately healed and all still pained her with a dull ache.

She still wasn’t sleeping more than two or three hours a night. She still woke every morning with her throat raw from screaming. No one would meet her eye in the morning and this was how she knew that they could hear her. She didn’t even wonder why no one came to her - sometimes she heard them screaming too. They knew it would do no good.