Hermione waited.
Then Narcissa's blue eyes flickered, and her mouth twisted as her jaw trembled. She moved to the edge of her chair and extended her hand until her painted fingers rested on the canvas beneath Hermione's.
Hermione stood at the portrait until the screaming stopped.
Once the manor fell silent, Hermione's hand slipped away from the frame, and she turned away. Her stomach felt so twisted it was as though she were being strangled from the inside. She made her way dazedly over to her bed and stood beside it for several minutes. She could still hear the screams, as though they were tattooed into her eardrums.
She curled up tightly in the corner between the bed and the wall and stared blankly at the floor.
She blinked and found Draco kneeling in front of her. His expression was hesitant and worried, his eyebrows furrowed as he studied her, his mouth set in a thin, flat line.
He was wearing different clothes, and she could tell he'd showered. His hair was combed back and still damp.
She stared at him in silence. She didn't know what to say.
His expression grew more and more drawn as he met her eyes.
He didn't reach towards her. He didn't speak. They simply looked at each other and felt the weight of it all.
He seemed to be waiting for her to initiate something, to reach for him or look away.
“Did it say anything that could incriminate you?” Hermione finally asked.
Draco's eyes flickered, and she saw his knuckles whiten. “No. I covered my tracks already.”
Hermione's mouth twitched, and she gave a small nod.
“It's late. Will you eat tonight?” Draco asked, studying her.
Hermione looked over at the clock. It had been early afternoon when Draco had taken her outside, now it was seven o'clock.
She'd lost the whole day. She hadn't made any progress researching. She hadn't even brainstormed. She'd just stood in cold horror in front of a portrait and listened as a centaur was tortured to death.
She never managed to do anything. Not before her memory returned. Not after. She was a shadow of the person she'd been before. Like the portrait of Narcissa that hung on the wall, she was just a scarred shadow of someone Draco loved.
Her jaw trembled.
“Hermione…”
She looked back at Draco.
His expression was devastated as he watched her. He started to reach for her but then stopped and withdrew his hand. “Will you eat?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. His eyes flickered, but he looked unsurprised.
He stood up, glancing away from her. “I'll send Dreamless Sleep. My father is expecting me to go to dinner tonight. Let Topsy know if you need anything.”
That was all he said before he left.
She should research more. It was what she should do.
She didn't move.
Topsy appeared with a vial of Dreamless Sleep which she placed beside Hermione without a word.
Hermione was still sitting in the corner beside the bed when the clock down the hall struck midnight and Draco appeared silently in the room.
“You're still awake.”
“I wanted to know when you came back.” She stood up.
She stepped closer and buried her face in his robes. It was barely more than a week until the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.
He rested a tentative hand on her head.
She looked up at him, watching the way his silver eyes shone in the dim light.
She forced herself to manage a wan smile. “Come to bed. It's cold without you.”
“Severus is expected to arrive within the next six days,” Draco said while they were wandering through the hedge maze.
Hermione felt her stomach drop. “Oh.”
She didn't know what to say. She walked blindly until she hit a dead end and then stood staring at the wall of yew, swallowing and trying to think of something to say.
She finally turned and looked at Draco, standing behind her.
“Can I go to the library one more time? Just once. I just want to look one more time.”
Draco stared at her for a moment and nodded. “My father is gone for the day. I'll take you.”
She felt his eyes on her as she wandered from aisle to aisle, as though there was a weight to his gaze.
She glanced over at him as she was pulling an encyclopedia of fifteenth-century arithmancy formulas down from the shelf, and her fingers wavered against the spine as she caught sight of his expression.
Wistful.
To him, she was stealing time from them. If she didn't find anything, it was all just wasted. All that time she could have had with him.
Her jaw trembled. She looked down and bit her lip as she slipped the encyclopedia off the shelf, as well as the four books beside it, adding them to a stack.
“These too.”
“I found what I was missing to remove your Dark Mark,” Hermione said when Draco walked through the door to her room after lunch the next day. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, empty-handed, her meal untouched.
He stopped at the door. “Oh?”
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she looked down at her hands.