A/N

Bit late but still a weekend update! Huge thanks to those of you who reminded me. Also, lately, Wattpad has been glitching a lot and I've had trouble posting this chapter. If you've received a notif and/or are able to read this chapter, please comment HERE so I won't have to re-fix this! Thanks very much and enjoy!

x Noelle

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

4 3

v u l n e r a   s a n e n t u r

Counter curse to Sectumsempra.

IT HAD TAKEN awhile for Theo to find Hermione, since she'd been under the Cloak. They finally met several streets away, where she was ushering a group of people towards the base, and he'd brought her back before the Death-Eaters could track them down.

Andromeda's house was nothing but pandemonium when Hermione apparated back with Theo. Teddy was crying in the background as Grus soothed him, while Neville, Pansy and Luna were in the kitchen searching through the shelves. There was a crowd surrounding the sofa, yells and shouts as a heated conversation ensued, Ginny's hysterical voice and Ron's aggravated one and Harry's calm one. Several members of the D.A. were also there, and they were all drowning each other out with their frantic input.

"What the hell – " Theo shook his head and pushed his way through, Hermione following closely behind.

When she caught a glimpse of the situation, she felt the air leave her lungs. Draco was lying there, blood soaked through his clothes, his shirt buttons left open to reveal large, slash wounds across his chest that were still bleeding freely, his face so startlingly white that he seemed dead.

Was he dead?

Hermione felt a sob leave her throat. No, he couldn't be.

"Shit," Theo swore. Andromeda and Blaise were mumbling incantations under their breath, their wands held out over Draco. "What happened?"

A babble of voices answered him all at once, but Hermione heard the words Sectumsempra somewhere in the mix.

"It's not working," Andromeda said at last, "I need more blood-replenishing potion!"

"We're all out!" came Pansy's yell from the kitchen.

And then there was another flood of noise as some of the D.A. members offered to get some potions from the other bases. Two of them apparated off, just as Seamus Finnigan raced over with a bottle of Dittany. "Does this help?"

"No, that's for scarring," Neville interjected, "it wouldn't work!"

"Harry, just think!" Ginny turned to her boyfriend, who looked completely distressed, "you've seen how Snape healed him the previous time, so try to remember!"

"I would if I could! But I tried it earlier and it didn't work. I can't even remember the incantation for it – vul-something!"

"That is bloody helpful," Theo fired back, shooting Harry a look of aggravation.

Cho Chang pushed through the group with a book in her hands. "There's no healing spell here that starts with a V."

And then something just clicked in Hermione's mind. Yes, there was a healing spell for this, and she had heard it loud and clear with her own ears before, because the healing spell was used on her.

"I know how to heal him," Hermoine said abruptly, prompting everyone to look at her. And then there was a babble of voices, several people offering their wands to her all at once, such an overwhelming chorus of noise. Her heart pounded with the influx of attention, and she felt herself shaking. Before she could spiral into another panic attack, she clapped her hand over her ears. "I want everyone out!"

"But Hermione – "

"I don't think – "

"No, wait – "

"Out!" She repeated, her voice calm amidst the chaos. "Now, every single one of you, please. Only Andromeda stays behind – and Grus, stay here with Teddy. But the rest of you, please!" She prodded Theo with her wand. The group trickled out of the front door into the porch, but Hermione stopped one of them. "Harry, you can stay."

Harry returned to her side. "Hermione, I'm so sorry – "

"Vulnera Sanentur," she stated quietly, looking up at him. "Is that the spell?"

His eyes widened. "It sounds familiar – "

"Good enough." She knelt down next to Andromeda, holding her wand over Draco's wounds, staring at his motionless body and willing herself not to cry. Healing magic had always been calming for her, and it calmed her now, just the thought of healing Draco. She took a deep breath. "Vulnera Sanentur."

To her greatest relief, the blood immediately stopped flowing from the slash wounds, but she held up a hand to stop Andromeda as the older witch started to fuss over Draco. Quietly, she repeated the spell two more times, watching as the deep gashes sealed themselves up and the remnant blood stains vanished from his pale skin.

Finally, she pulled back and nodded at Andromeda. "He's alright now."

"Thank you, Hermione." Andromeda swept away the tears on her cheeks and hugged the younger witch, before heading into the kitchen to create a new batch of potions.

"He's going to be alright, Hermione," Harry's voice was soft as he wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder. "He's going to be fine."

Hermione didn't answer him. She stared at Draco's unconscious figure instead, her fingers reaching up to lock between his motionless once. Her eyes were tearless but her heart felt like it was cracking at the seams, with the fissures ripping apart as the brevity of what had happened to him dawned on her.

It almost felt like someone had used Sectumsempra on her own heart.

And Merlin, it hurt.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Hermione?"

The light from Andromeda's wand lit the room. Hermione climbed to her feet, pushing the stool back as she looked at the older witch standing by the doorway.

"Hermione, have you been sitting there all night?" She nodded and Andromeda shook her head. "You should get some rest. It's not good for you to keep worrying like that."

"I can't help it," Hermione murmured, gazing at Draco. "He hasn't woken up. He hasn't even moved. The only way I know he's alive is from his breathing, but even then, it's weak."

Andromeda sat down on the chair with a heavy sigh. "He's going to be fine, Hermione – "

"You don't know that," Hermione shook her head. "That's just what people say during a war. You're going to be fine. You're going to be safe. It's all going to be okay. They're all lies," she looked up, her gaze meeting Andromeda's squarely, "aren't they?"

She smiled gently. "I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be optimistic. I thought you had a little beacon of hope that never went out."

"That's the person I used to be. I've been through the worst of the war where all hope is extinguished and the only thing left is basic survival instincts. I'm not fighting a war, 'Dromeda, I'm surviving it. And he – " Hermione's voice broke off, and she swallowed painfully, " – he's the reason I'm still surviving."

Andromeda was silent for a long time, and then her arms slowly came around Hermione. "You know he's my only family left too, right?" The older witch said softly. "There's Teddy, but Teddy's too young to even know what family means. And, of course, there's that wretched sister of mine who's so far gone I can't even call her a sister anymore. So there's just Draco, and I was just as frightened as you were earlier today."

"I know." Hermione hugged Andromeda. "You have me too, by the way."

"I'm glad."

The two sat in silence for a long while. Then Andromeda left the room, with a gentle reminder to get some sleep, shutting the door behind her.

Hermione didn't move for several minutes. But then, with painstaking slowness, she got into bed, tucking herself in the small space next to him. Reaching for his limp hand, she slid her fingers through his, resting her cheek gently his shoulder. And then her eyes were no longer dry as tears seeped past her eyelids and stained his shirt.

She could practically hear his voice in her head, his tone of dry amusement as he'd say, "Granger, you'd better bloody Scourgify this shirt once you're done snivelling into it." Through her tears, she almost smiled at the thought of that, even as the fissures of her heart widened ever so painfully.

"Draco, are you awake?" She whispered, searching his pale face for any signs of movement, if he'd somehow managed to hear her in his deep stupor – a flutter of his eyelids, perhaps, or a flush in his cheeks. But there was none. She sighed. "Of course not."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Draco awoke with a stinging soreness in his chest and an uncomfortable dryness in his throat. He blinked, trying to recall what had happened to him. After a few seconds, it all came back in flashes. Fighting in the square. Coming face to face with that bloody Rowle on the street. Taking a Sectumsempra for saint Potter.

And Merlin, it wasn't fucking worth it. He felt like absolute shit.

Glancing down, he saw Hermione sleeping beside him, her tear-stained face taut with worry and an unconscious frown etched between her eyebrows. His fingers itched to smooth the frown away, but a more rational part of him knew that she probably hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few hours and he'd just wake her if he did that.

Instead, he shifted, pressing his lips briefly to the crown of her head before shutting his eyes again. The uninterrupted peace wasn't for long. Moments later, there came a soft creak as the door opened slowly and a small boy popped his head in.

Teddy stared at him for a moment, his eyes wide and frightened, but then his face lit up. Draco hastily pressed a finger to his lip and Teddy nodded vigorously. "Draco!" He whisper-yelled. "You awake?"

Draco silently summoned his wand over from the bedside table, casting a wordless Muffliato on Hermione's sleeping figure before beckoning Teddy over. The small boy scampered over, stepping up on the stool by the bed to get a better look at Draco.

"Hey, kid," Draco grinned, reaching out to grasp Teddy by the elbow firmly to steady him. "Don't wake Hermione, okay?"

"'Mione sick too?"

"No, just tired. Hand me that glass of water, Teddy."

Eagerly, with a fervent sort concentration only seen in a young child, Teddy grabbed the glass of water from the bedside table and gave it to Draco. Draco drank without hesitation, his parched throat easing up on the discomfort bit by bit.

"Draco sick?" Teddy asked anxiously, when Draco handed him the empty glass. "Gramma says I can't play with Draco."

"No, we can play. Just not outside, alright?"

"Okay!" The boy stood with his hands braced on the side of the bed, staring expectantly at Draco over Hermione's wild mop of curls.

Draco wracked his brains for a bit, before an idea suddenly struck him. He reached over, tapping the tip of his wand to Teddy's shirt. Instantly, Teddy's shirt turned a bright shade of orange and the young boy laughed in fascination. "Now what colour's your hair, Teddy?"

He frowned, eyes looking up as he tried to catch a glimpse of his hair. "I dunno."

Draco tapped his wand to the empty glass in Teddy's hands, swiftly transfiguring it into a mirror and bringing it up so that Teddy could see his own reflection. "Brown. Your hair's brown. Now try turning it to orange. Same colour as your shirt."

Teddy concentrated, staring hard at the mirror. The kid had done it several times before, even if it was unknowingly. Draco had seen Teddy sporting the same shade of white blonde that matched his own exactly, and the same mop of curls that was equally as unruly as Hermione's were. But more often than not, Teddy's hair was brown and straight like Andromeda's, which made sense because the two were almost inseparable.

So when Teddy's hair now turned a slow orange, Draco wasn't surprised. "I did, I did!" Teddy whispered excitedly.

Draco grinned. "Good job. Now try this."

Teddy's shirt turned a dark shade of green when Draco pointed his wand to it, and the boy promptly screwed up his features in blatant concentration as he stared into the mirror. He'd just successfully changed his hair colour when the door opened and Andromeda stepped in.

She blinked in evident surprise at Draco, who grinned lazily back at her, and then at her grandson. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Oh, sweet Merlin." She shook her head, quickly heading towards them. "Draco, I'm really glad you're awake now, but honestly, your Slytherin pride is taking itself to ridiculous, gravity-defying heights."

"Come on, 'Dromeda, look at him and tell me he doesn't look good in green."

"Draco, everyone and everything looks best in green to you. Don't think I haven't noticed the fact that you and Theo have been secretly changing all the bath towels and pillow-cases to green. You even turned the walls of my living room green!"

Draco simply smirked. Perhaps he and Theo weren't as surreptitious as they thought they were. Well, the green walls looked bloody fantastic with the green cushions in the living room anyway.

"Gramma, look at me!" Teddy chirped excitedly, pointing to his hair and waving the mirror at her. "I'm a Sl-Slythe-in!"

"So young, so wise," Draco said, with an evidently pleased expression on his face. "Potter-the-godfather, on the other hand, will probably have a heart attack."

"He will once he sees Teddy's hair. So will everyone else in the vicinity. And Grus will try to hang himself thinking that he wrecked Teddy." Andromeda shot him a flat look. "Change it back, please."

"Fine." Draco huffed, reaching over to take the mirror away from the boy. "Hey, Teddy, see this?" He pointed to his own head, picking a lock of his own blond hair between his fingertips. The boy nodded. "Change your hair. We can match."

Teddy was clearly delighted by the idea and promptly began to focus on Draco's hair, changing his own to the same shade. "We match now?"

"Like a pair of heart-stopping gorgeous twins."

Andromeda looked torn between amusement and annoyance, and she rolled her eyes. "Now this is really going to give Harry a heart attack." Picking Teddy up, she leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Draco's forehead. "Good to have you back," she said softly, sounding rather choked up now. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

"I'll try not to, 'Dromeda." Draco returned, quieter now, watching as Andromeda left the room with Teddy. The door shut with a click and he silently removed the muffling charm on Hermione before leaning over to set his wand down on the table.

But it rolled off the table, falling onto the ground with a sharp clatter, and Draco swore under his breath when Hermione began to stir. And then she was slowly pushing herself up, running a haphazard hand through her stubborn curls as she gazed down at him. He felt his heart clench, not because of the pain in his chest, but because she looked so damned beautiful, even with the tear-stained cheeks and dark circles under her eyes.

"Morning, Granger."

She blinked.

"Granger?"

She blinked again.

"No, this isn't a hallucination. You can kiss me if you want to find out."

The blank expression on her face immediately crumpled into one of utter relief and she passed her hands tentatively across his chest, looking at him with nothing but worry in her eyes. "Are you alright? Does it still hurt?"

"Been better," he replied honestly, reaching up to slide his palm up her cheek. He drew her down slowly, staring at her with the kind of focus that committed every inch of her beautiful features to memory – the tremble of her full lips, the fresh streak of tears racing down her freckled cheeks and the worried crease on her forehead.

She was leaning down to kiss him before he could, and he was more than willing to let her take the reigns on this one. She met him at the perfect angle, lips gentle but fervent on his, like she was trying to prove to herself that he was real. He shut his eyes, breathed her in, resisting the urge to groan when she pulled back reluctantly.

"I was so scared," she whispered, sounding every bit as vulnerable and broken as when he first found her so many months ago. "I thought I'd lost you – "

He cut her off by leaning up, capturing her lips with his with a certain kind of determination to prove to her that he was real. No tongue, no teeth, just lips on lips, but it was a searing, desperate, almost bruising kind of kiss that dragged the oxygen from his lungs, but who needed oxygen when there was her, just her, and that alone was enough to suffice?

And when he finally let up, he didn't let her go far, instead keeping her firmly in place so that his lips were still brushing hers when he spoke.

"Never, Granger."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The house was still quiet when Draco and Hermione headed downstairs. It was only half-past seven, but it was apparent that everyone else was asleep; apart from Andromeda, who was in the kitchen, and Grus and Teddy, who were outside in the garden.

Andromeda greeted them brightly when they entered the kitchen, and they gave her a full account of the previous day's events over breakfast. She didn't look surprised to hear that Draco's Mark happened to be a tracker. "Well, it makes perfect sense," she said calmly. "The Mark reeks of Dark Magic."

"Yes, but I'm a little confused," Hermione interjected, with a puzzled frown. "Why doesn't You-Know-Who just track Draco down here?"

"It might have something to do with the charms on this house. Shacklebolt's laid up some basic charms, but I have made a couple of my own, and got Grus to perform some magic for added protection. House-elves have a different brand of magic altogether, as you know, and I believe it can be more powerful than ours are."

"So while I'm here, the Dark Lord can't track me down?" Draco reaffirmed, looking at Andromeda for clarification. She nodded, and a faint shade of relief flickered in his normally indifferent expression.

Hermione, on the other hand, was more than glad to know that Draco would be safe here. "House-elves are clever," she mused, "honestly, I think they should be given wands and treated like normal human beings – "

"Oh, this is S.P.E.W. all over again!" Came a familiar voice behind them. Luna breezed into the kitchen wearing a peculiar dress that seemed like it had been sewn together using different pieces of fabric. She grinned brightly at Draco, looking thoroughly pleased to see him awake now, and poured herself a mug of tea. "Hello, Draco, it's lovely to see that pink flush of health on your cheeks again – "

"Pink what of what on my fucking what?"

Hermione blinked, looking entirely confused. "And what in Merlin's name is SPEW?"

"It's S.P.E.W.," Luna corrected. "Short for The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, which campaigns for the rights of house-elves to be treated better and not like servants. You were the one who started it. Made a lot of badges and had an admission fee of two Sickles. But it didn't go very well, because a lot of people didn't want to join, and a lot of the elves actually liked serving their masters."

"Oh, yes, of course," Hermione said thoughtfully. "That makes sense. It would be an insult to the elves to undermine something they actually like doing."

Draco's eyebrows shot up. "Are you actually admitting that you were...wrong, Granger?"

"Not at all! I think it's a good campaign, but I might have been rather short-sighted about it."

"And where was this trait of self-introspection years ago when you called me a filthy-rich snob who cared for no one but himself?"

She simply smiled. "But you were a filthy-rich snob who cared for no one but himself."

He opened his mouth to reply, but the sudden cracks of apparition in the living room made them turn, only to see Harry rushing into the kitchen, with Ginny right behind him. He stopped short by the doorway, looking like he could hardly believe his eyes as he stared at Draco.

Draco rolled his eyes. "The words are 'good morning', Potter, and no, it's not a good morning when I have to see your face – " but his insult fell flat when Ginny threw her arms around him in a frantic, enthusiastic hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"If you want to thank me, Weaselette, kindly get your hands off me." Draco said flatly, shooting a desperate glance at Hermione, whose grin simply widened in evident amusement.

Ginny pulled back, a look of sheer gratitude on her face. Harry, on the other hand, was still fumbling around for the right words to say. "I really appreciate what you did, Malfoy," he said, at last, his voice choked with emotion, "I still remember how I hit you with that same spell years ago, and now you took that same spell for me. I can't thank you enough – "

But when he took two steps closer, Draco hastily dragged his chair closer to Hermione, sneering at him with mild disgust. "Potter, if you fucking hug me or anything I swear on Salazar's grave that I'll use a Sectumsempra on you."

At his words, Harry rolled his eyes, the emotional moment clearly gone in an instant. "Okay, okay, no need for violent threats," he muttered, stepping firmly away from Draco and lifting his hand instead. "But thanks nonetheless, Malfoy. Truce?"

Draco glared at Harry's hand like it was a particularly offensive object. "And end all our years of mutual hatred for each other? I don't think so. Granger, you shake his hand."

"Oh, this is ridiculous," Hermione gestured for Harry and Ginny to take a seat at the table. Luna quickly got up, helping Andromeda whip up a new batch of breakfast. "Let's just eat and Draco will try to pretend like he hates you all when he really doesn't."

"Actually, I really do – "

"Andromeda!" The sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs made the conversation in the kitchen cease abruptly. Moments later, Theo and Pansy burst into the kitchen with wide-eyes and horrified looks on their faces. They didn't notice the others sitting at the table as they swarmed round Andromeda, bombarding her with a flurry of questions.

"We can't find Draco!" Theo hollered in a panic.

Pansy nodded frantically. "He's not in his bed, he's not anywhere!"

"That's because he's sitting right here," Draco drawled calmly.

Theo and Pansy whirled round. There was a beat of astonished silence, and then Pansy burst into a flood of tears as she flung her arms around his neck. "I can't believe you almost died!" She cried, amidst a lengthy bout of sniffling, "do you know how scared we all were?"

"You prick!" Theo punched Draco on the shoulder, making him flinch in pain, before hugging him tightly as well. "I will kill you myself if you ever do that again!"

Ginny surveyed the scene before her with a wicked grin. "And you thought I was the melodramatic one," she said to Draco, who threw her a frosty glare.

"Guys, lay off him," Blaise strolled into the kitchen at a leisurely pace. He quickly extracted Theo and Pansy, before giving Draco a brief clap on the back, careful not to aggravate his injuries. "Good to have you back, mate. And they're right – don't ever do that again."

"It's an occupational hazard," Draco mumbled, before returning to his breakfast.

Hermione stared at him. She knew that he was more than stressing his chest and lungs by just being here, but he'd insisted on coming down to breakfast. But it was clear that his injuries were acting up again. The others at the table soon began to talk about the next mission, and Draco surreptitiously hid a cough behind a chorus of laughter. Hermione tapped her wand to his chest, silently mumbling an incantation for a soothing spell under his breath, and he shot her a grateful look.

He drowned out the rest of the conversation and was more than happy to excuse himself from the table after breakfast, heading upstairs to catch up on some sleep. Once he was in the bedroom, he threw himself down on the bed, feeling his head throb with fatigue.

"Tired?" Hermione slipped into the room, shutting the door gently behind her. She looked glad to leave the riotous conversation behind too.

"Exhausted."

"Okay," she faltered. He noticed the way she looked equally as tired as he was, but hung back unsurely, looking rather reluctant to climb into bed next to him. "Go to sleep then."

He paused. "Not without you."

"But your injuries – "

"Really, Hermione." His voice was quiet now, his silver-eyed gaze boring into hers. "Not without you."

A smile glossed her lips and she was next to him in the blink of an eye, her bare feet pressed up against his legs and her unruly curls tickling his chin. Her breaths were a steady rhythm that lulled him in, her fingers tracing an arbitrary pattern on his shoulder.

And this time, sleep no longer eluded him.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Draco was more than annoyed to learn from Andromeda that he was to be confined to bed-rest for the next two weeks, especially when Shacklebolt himself came over to assign the group with several new missions. Bed-rest seemed pointless and thoroughly constricting at a time like this, and Draco was more than ready to voice his complaints.

But if Andromeda and the rest of the group were more than adamant about him staying at home, Hermione was far more understanding. "You didn't stop me from being a part of 17-65. And back then, the only offensive spell I knew was the knockback jinx," she added calmly one morning, when she and Draco were in the inventory sorting through phials. "So now, I'm not going to stop you from fighting if you think you're up for it."

Draco felt a rush of relief that she at least understood, but a more rational part of him knew that it was risky to join the next few missions. As it was, he could barely last a few hours without his chest aching. He was a liability. And Draco had been on enough missions to know that liabilities were better off not being on the battlefield at all.

So instead of agreeing with her, he simply reached for a new box of phials and lined five new ones on the floor. With his wand and an intense concentration that made him momentarily forget about everything else, he cast a complicated Protean charm on the first phial, before handing it to Hermione.

"Mark that with Potter's initials," he muttered, when she looked at him questioningly. "The other five are going to need these if they want to be a part of 17-65."

A huge smile spread across her face, wide and happy enough to make him feel like he'd done the whole damn world a favour. Tucking a piece of flyaway hair behind her ear, she quickly grabbed her wand to make a tiny indentation on the phial.

And that was that. The next day, Draco called for a meeting and surprised everyone else when he set the five phials down on the coffee table, along with a scribbled incantation on a piece of paper.

Luna, who had been with the Slytherins for a long time, was thoroughly pleased to finally have a phial of her own. She quickly took hers, staring at it with abject fascination. "This'll go lovely on my Butterbeer cork necklace," she told Hermione, with a satisfied smile.

"What're the phials for?" Neville asked, the confused expression on his face mirroring Harry's, Ginny's and Ron's perfectly.

Draco remained standing, bracing his hands on the back of the armchair that Luna and Hermione were sharing. "Protean charm," he explained blandly. "This is how we stay in contact with each other on missions. Whenever you need help, or need to pass on a message, you light your phial and the rest of us will see it."

"Oh, Hermione used to make coins for us with the same charm," Ron mused, much to her surprise. She looked at her old friends, who all nodded in affirmation.

"Except this is more complicated," Pansy interjected. "Because this charm can relay messages as well. Short ones, though."

Ginny, who had been studying the incantation on the piece of paper in silence for awhile now, looked up suddenly. "So – are you finally going to tell us what it is that 17-65 does, now that we're a part of it?"

Draco hesitated. His gaze locked on the three Slytherins sitting opposite. Pansy and Blaise were nodding at him in encouragement, while Theo made a face, but after a pointed nudge from Pansy, reluctantly gave a nod as well. Draco finally turned to Hermione, who simply shrugged. It's all up to you, was the answer in her eyes, and she smiled.

So, over the next fifteen minutes, Draco explained to the other five about 17-65. How it began with just the four Slytherins, how Legilimency and Obliviate had been their modus operandi for three years; how many people they had killed, directly or indirectly, during the war. How there was an entire inventory filled with phials of memories belonging to people they had met at some point or other during this war. How it started with keeping the Dark Lord's army to a sizable amount and preventing him from knowing about the Order. How it evolved from there when Hermione came into the picture, becoming a search for the Peverells instead. How it became what it was now; a group within the Order that went on one mission after another, surviving one and diving right into the next, ten different people that had finally found a common purpose – to end what seemed like an endless war.

It took Draco awhile, but when he was finally done, the other five seemed thoroughly enthralled by the revelation. They immediately launched into a tirade of questions that the other three Slytherins were more than happy to answer. It was clear that Hermione was delighted to see how enthusiastic her old friends were, and when she turned around briefly to smile at Draco, he thought that maybe things weren't so bad after all.

There were different ways to fight a war, and he was certain that he'd picked the best one.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Draco, are you awake?"

Hermione's voice was a whisper in the night, but he heard her anyway and opened his eyes, locking his gaze on hers. "Unfortunately," he mumbled, curling his lips in a brief smirk when she rolled her eyes. "What is it?"

She faltered, a look of hesitation slipping onto her face. "There's something that I've been wondering for awhile now. Why're you so adamant that Harry's the Chosen One?"

He didn't answer for a moment. But then he yawned, flipping onto his back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. "Longbottom's a git, there's no way he could be the Chosen One."

"Harry lost the first time. I have full faith in him and I believe that he can win if he tried again, but you're not the kind of person who would place your bets on the underdog. Draco," Hermione shifted now, leaning up on her elbow to stare at him intently. "What are you not telling me?"

The silence stretched long and empty between them. After what seemed like forever, he turned to face her, eyes opaque and mysterious in the dark, and slipped his hand up to brush delicately against her cheek. "Hermione," he breathed, her name a delicious drawl on the tip of his tongue, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "Listen."

He told her something that night, in hushed whispers and muffled words. She listened in silence, breath caught in her throat and lungs tight. She listened to him until he was done and she watched him until he fell back asleep, her mind was still spinning with the heady realisation that she now knew something no one else, no one else in this world, did.

"Draco?" She asked, at last, after a prolonged period of complete silence. "Are you awake?"

Silence greeted her. He wasn't. But even in his sleep, he was restless, and every now and then, his fingers would twitch or his eyebrows would knit in a troubling frown.

"I love you," she whispered, smoothing the frown away with her fingertips, before sliding her fingers through his. "Because, in spite of, and even with this revelation, still."