She felt as though that Hermione had died along with all the rest of the Order of the Phoenix.
All that was left was a shadow.
It was late night and moonless when the air in her room shifted. She turned and stared carefully into the darkness, after a moment Draco emerged. He was wearing his Death Eater uniform. She could feel the Dark Magic almost dripping from him. The sight and sensation made her chest tighten.
His expression was intent. And cold.
“Are you angry at me about something?” she asked after several minutes.
He froze for a moment and then blinked. “No.”
He waved his wand, and a sconce on the wall emitted a soft yellow light. He tilted his head to the side until his neck cracked sharply and then pulled off his outer robes and hung them over the back of the chair. The body-armor strapped to his torso shimmered in the light.
Hermione studied him, trying to pinpoint what it was about him that was different. “You seem like you're angry at me. I feel like I know that you are, but — I can't remember why.”
He looked away from her, staring across the room. “It hardly matters. It's all in the past.”
His voice was familiar. Clipped.
“If the past doesn't matter, why did you look for me?”
He looked back at her. “Do you remember why you were captured?”
She nodded. “I blew up Sussex.”
“Do you remember why?”
She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to think of the answer without trying to reach her occluded memories. “It was because of you, wasn't it?”
He gave a short nod.
She closed her eyes. “When you'd sleep. I used to promise you I'd take care of you. That I'd always take care of you.”
He gave a low laugh; it was almost a scoff. “That's what I said, actually.”
The corner of her mouth quirked upwards, but the centre of her chest ached. “I always said it back to you. Maybe you just didn't know.”
She wanted to reach towards him, but when she opened her eyes, he'd turned away from her. He was staring at the portrait across the room.
He said nothing in reply.
“What's the plan?” she finally asked. “What's the strategy behind all this? Are you able to tell me now that I'm”—her tongue twisted as she forced out the next word—“pregnant?”
Draco shrugged and glanced around the room. “It's Severus' plan. When the Dark Lord realised he was several horcruxes short following the Final Battle, he handed a considerable amount of the political maneuvering over to Severus. He's been undermining and destabilizing the regime since the Order fell. The situation across the continent is precarious. The Dark Lord's poor health has caused him to break most of his promises and commitments made during the war to the dark beings and allied countries. He's barely maintaining his hold. MACUSA has begun pressuring the International Confederation, they're signaling their intention of stepping in if things in Europe continue to deteriorate. It's arranged now — the regime will collapse soon, and when it does, the International Confederation will step in to restore order.”
“You've found a way to defeat Voldemort?”
His mouth curved into a faint smirk. His eyes were pale silver as he stared at her and nodded. “We did. We're waiting for the ideal moment. It'll likely be after the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.”
There was a sense of certainty in his voice. Hermione felt herself brighten, as she tried to calculate how exactly they might go about it, reviewing everything she'd read in the papers, trying to guess.
“What—”
“You will be out of Europe before it starts,” he said in a hard voice, cutting her off. “You just need to be well enough to travel. So — eat. That would be more helpful than anything else.”
She shriveled internally with disappointment, but once he left, she furrowed her eyebrows and stared into the dark, trying to piece everything together; turning Draco over and over in her mind.
The next day the pain was worse; she couldn't bear having any light in the room. She couldn't keep anything down. Draco was gone again. She tried to be calm, but when Topsy wouldn't say when he'd come back or what he was doing, she started to panic.
If he never came back, she'd never get to talk to him again. Never touch him. There were things she needed to tell him, she just wasn't sure how to say them yet. What if he died? What if he got hurt and she couldn't heal him because she didn't have magic anymore?
She kept hyperventilating and had several small seizures. Topsy appeared instantly each time with a potion in hand.
After the sixth seizure, Hermione was in too much pain to do anything but lie limp in bed, barely conscious of anything but the grinding agony in her head. She lay curled on her side as the hours crawled past and wished she'd lose consciousness so she wouldn't have to feel it all.
The mattress dipped, and a cool hand brushed back the curls clinging to her feverish skin, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.