A minute later her left hand was picked up, and long fingers entwined with hers. She felt Draco's thumb brush across her knuckles and slide over the ring she was still wearing.
Her jaw trembled, and her eyes burned even though they were closed. She squeezed his hand in hers as tightly as she could.
He didn't say anything, but he stayed as long as she was conscious. When she woke again, he was still there, sitting in the darkened room, holding her hand.
His fingers spasmed occasionally.
Over the next several days, the pain in her head gradually lessened; enough to be manageable. She started eating, sitting up in bed, reviewing her Pregnancy Guide and reading the Daily Prophet.
As the pain faded, her memory improved. The overarching space was still vague and indistinct, but certain moments would suddenly return to her in stunning clarity as though she were reliving them.
As she recovered, Draco withdrew. At first she thought she was imagining it. As her recollection of him improved, she thought perhaps it was simply the contrast of their past that made him seem more distant. But as the days slipped by, she realised with a sinking heart that he was moving further and further away.
When she'd been nearly catatonic with pain, he'd sat beside her, smoothing her hair and holding her hands in his, trying to heal the tremors in her fingers. But as she grew more wakeful and started trying to talk to him, he touched her less. He moved further down the bed until he sat watching her from the foot of it. He stood by the window.
He clasped his hands behind his back when she spoke to him. He gave short answers when she asked him questions.
He was still there, but further and further away. When she looked up and found him watching her, he looked away, his expression resigned. And bitter.
She didn't know where to begin.
She tried to remember how she'd been before. She'd memorised him, but not herself. Did she speak differently before? She didn't quite remember what that person had been like.
She'd been talkative. People had always told her she talked too much.
She couldn't think of anything to say that she thought she could talk about. What could she say about anything?
Was she supposed to tell him what kinds of flowers bloomed on the estate? Or about how to build a card tower? Or ask him if he knew how to fold an origami crane because she couldn't remember anymore?
It was all trivial.
Everything that mattered felt too devastating to put into words. She was afraid if she started, she'd hyperventilate and have a seizure. And if Draco thought he upset her, maybe he wouldn't come see her, and she'd just be all alone again.
She'd thought in her cell that she'd held on, but in the cold light of day she found that she hadn't.
She'd broken.
There were only pieces of her left.
She sat in bed and nervously watched him as he stood by the window staring at the hedge maze.
She kept parting her lips to speak and then hesitated. She looked down as her hands and tried again.
“How — have you been?” she asked.
It was an asinine question. She blushed and wanted to take it back the moment it was uttered.
He didn't even look at her. “I'm fine.”
She swallowed and felt as though her heart was breaking. She straightened the flat sheet and brushed several wrinkles from the coverlet.
He was standing so far away, and she didn't know what to say to him.
“So…” she finally said, “you're married now.”
His shoulders went rigid, but he didn't respond for several seconds. When he turned and looked at her, his expression was a mask.
“Two years this October.”
She tried to meet his eyes, but after only a moment she looked down at her lap. She felt as though there was a chasm in her chest.
She didn't think there had ever been any kind of commitment on his end. Whatever they'd been had never been defined that she could recall.
It wasn't as though she'd ever thought he'd marry her.
But he was married, and it felt significant to her even if she couldn't articulate why. Why, in light of everything else, did it feel like it mattered at all?
He'd had to rape her thirty times. She was his prisoner. She was pregnant with his heir. But she was sitting in bed obsessing over the fact he was married, because everything else felt impossible to even begin trying come to terms with.
He'd gotten married three months after the Final Battle.
He had a wife.
Dainty, pretty, unfaithful, unstable Astoria.
“I was ordered to marry. If it hadn't been Astoria, it would have been someone else.” He said it in a flat voice.
It was a fact.