She lifted her head and held his face between her hands so that she could look into his eyes.
“Draco, I'm alright. Nothing is going to happen to me.”
He just stared at her with the same bitterly resigned expression he worn while training her. He was bracing himself, waiting for what he regarded as inevitable.
The war was twisted around them like a nest of thorns they couldn't escape from.
He subsided and rested his head against her chest, wrapping his arms around her while she tangled her fingers in his hair.
She could still feel him repeating the words.
She hesitated for several minutes before she spoke.
“Tell me about your mother, Draco. Tell me everything you could never tell anyone.”
He stiffened and was silent. She slid her fingers over his shoulders and traced along the scars from the runes. “Using Occlumency is just hiding it. You can tell me, I'll help you carry it. Tell me about your mother.”
He didn't speak or move for such a long time she wondered if he'd fallen asleep. Then he turned his head just enough that she could see his profile. His expression was carefully closed, but she could see him considering.
“I'd never seen anyone tortured before,” he said at last. “She was — the first person I ever saw tortured. He—,” Hermione felt his jaw roll as he hesitated, “—he experimented on her and let — a few other Death Eaters contribute ideas about what to do to her. To punish the Malfoys.”
As he spoke, his eyes gradually grew wider and his expression unmasked. He stared across the room, his eyes far away.
Hermione watched, and she could see him, just sixteen and home for the holidays.
Home. Walking unknowingly into a nightmare that he would never, never escape from.
“I thought—,” his voice was suddenly younger. Boyish. “For a while, I thought that if I killed Dumbledore soon enough that somehow she'd recover. That I could fix it — if I could succeed. But — she was a shadow of herself when I returned from school. I think — she had tried to hold on over the summer, when I was being trained. But when I was gone, she broke—”
He was quiet for a moment.
He started to speak again but then pressed his mouth shut. His lips twitched as though he kept choosing and then discarding what he was going to say next.
“It wasn't even a month. I wasn't even gone a month,” he finally said.
Hermione laced her fingers in his hair. He closed his eyes and drew his chin down.
“It was supposed to all be reversible, to motivate me, nothing to physically maim her. But he wrecked her mind. Using legilimency for torture is his favourite technique. She had seizures, mostly small ones, but occasionally they'd be severe. Especially later. She just — wasted away inside that cage. When she was startled, she'd close her eyes and start rocking and making these whimpering noises inside her mouth. She wouldn't stop for hours, and I couldn't — couldn't always stay with her — because I had to train.”
He wouldn't look at Hermione as he spoke. He kept staring across the room. His voice was low and it wavered.
“The day I killed Dumbledore, the Dark Lord demanded we have dinner with him. To celebrate — he said we were celebrating my success. She'd been released for only a few hours, and he wanted her play hostess. Her tremors were so severe she could barely hold the silverware. Her fork kept rattling against the plate, and then she'd drop it and panic when she tried to pick it up. Apparently the noise was distracting. So the Dark Lord took a steak knife and drove it through her left hand and into the table. Then he left her there, bleeding, until he retired. I was seated across from her, and she just looked at me the whole time, shaking her head to warn me not to do anything.”
He gripped Hermione's hand. “I couldn't — do anything. I tried to shield her. I kept her in her rooms as much as possible. I brought in healers to help her recover. The mind healers couldn't do a damn thing. I should have had her treated sooner. That's what they all told me. That I should have gotten her treated sooner.”
Hermione squeezed his hand and slid her fingers across his runes. Unhesitating, cunning, unfailing, ruthless, and unyielding; driven to succeed.
To avenge his mother. In penance for all the ways he felt he'd failed her.
“I'm so sorry, Draco.”
He was quiet. He closed his eyes and drew a sharp breath.
“Then—” his voice cut off. He tried again. “Then—” Draco's mouth twisted, and he went silent for several seconds.
“Then — she'd just started to recover a bit, and I hesitated at the Finch-Fletchleys. There was a little girl; she couldn't have been in primary school yet. Unforgivables — there's no cheating with them. You have to feel it. You have to mean it. I was ordered to use the cruciatus and I couldn't — I couldn't make it work. She was — so little.”